Edward Borman, a lowly government office drone, finds himself trapped when the deadly Mercury Men seize his office building as a staging ground for their nefarious plot. Aided by a daring aerospace engineer from a mysterious organization known as The League, Edward must stop the invaders and their doomsday device, the Gravity Engine.The Mercury Men is an indie sci-fi web serial recently picked up and hosted by the SyFy network. Filmed in black and white, it combines elements of Dieselpunk, Raygun Gothic and atomic punk, with a feel reminiscent of the original Outer Limits.
Aliens Never Invented The Wheel: Apparently, the Mercury Men have sophisticated technology; they can transport between worlds and manipulate gravity. But going from planet to planet via chemical-propelled rockets is something new and threatening to them.
Hard Light: The Lumiére's bullets. And the Mercury Men themselves.
He Had a Name: Before killing the sniper that killed Glenn, Jack tells him, "You shot the wrong man. His name was Patrick Glenn. Apologize when you see him."
Hologram: Jack uses a hologram of a Mercury man to distract a sniper.
Humanoid Aliens: The Mercury Men, also called "the first men" in the series, are humanoid in appearance, but are taller, thinner and stoop (supposedly because of Earth's greater gravity). They are also composed of Hard Light and apparently have a Third Eye.
Infinite Ammo: Averted/subverted. Although The League’s zap-gun-of-choice - the Lumiére - resembles a modified six-shot revolver, so at first glance this trope appears to be played straight, the blueprints on The Mercury Men website reveal that each of the six glowing mercury pin bullets is good for 24 shots, for a total of 144 energy blasts per full reload! Finite yeah, but still — Gene Autry, eat your heart out! It does, however, seem to run out at the most inconvenient times.
Our Zombies Are Different: A construction worker electrocuted by the Mercury Men is reanimated to carry around one of the Batteries.
Phlebotinum Handling Equipment: Inverted - The Mercury Engineers wear special suits not because the Gravity Engine is dangerous to handle, but because they are made of light and can't handle it without wearing the suit.
Playing Possum: Edward and Grace pretend to be dead as a Mercury Man walks by.
Ray Gun: Jack's pistol, the Lumiére, fires "mercury pin" bullets, made of Hard Light. Apparently it is the only thing that can kill the Mercury Men.
Raygun Gothic: Much of the serial evokes this genre. The hero himself, Jack Yaeger, is dressed as a typical Raygun Gothic pilot: Bomber jacket, flight cap and goggles, jodhpurs and jackboots, and carrying a raygun.
Reverse Polarity: Jack has to do this to the Gravity Engine - with Edward's help - to put the moon back in its proper orbit.
Space Base: The abandoned Mercury Men's base on Mercury.
Took a Level in Badass: Well, more like half a level. While Edward does not achieve true bad-assitude, his ray-gun marksmanship skills improve somewhat during his twelve-hour ordeal (once he learns to keep his eyes open, anyway), as do both his willingness to put himself into harms way and his ability to think on his feet.
Weird Moon: The Mercury Men try to pull the Moon down to crash into the Earth, and almost succeed. Strangely, there are none of the resultant tidal quakes, flooding and other disasters that should have happened in such an event.
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