History Headscratchers / TheLastShip

** A behind-the-scenes video explains that the regional leaders aren't producing anything to sell. Instead, they're trading resources and producing just enough for the sole purpose of maintaining absolute personal power within their territories.

* Okay, so the regional leaders are grabbing political and economic power for themselves and are forcing people into power plants and factories. But who can they sell the surplus to? If they're purposely forcing down the average person's standard of living to near starvation levels, then the average citizens won't be able to ''afford'' the stuff that's being put back into production. The world's population has been drastically reduced and every country is still recovering - so who's gonna buy what they're making? The whole exercise seems to be shortsightedly foolish in the extreme motivated by greed.

* Okay, so the regional leaders are grabbing political and economic power for themselves and are forcing people into power plants and factories. But who can they sell the surplus to? If they're purposely forcing down the average person's standard of living to near starvation levels, then they won't be able to ''afford'' the stuff that's being put back into production. The world's population has been drastically reduced and every country is still recovering - so who's gonna buy what they're making? The whole exercise seems to be shortsightedly foolish in the extreme motivated by greed.

* What happened to Alaska? As of Season 3, with the [[spoiler:Senators' plot to divide the nation up into their own private countries]], Alaska seems to have ceased to exist as a part of the United States. It's implied, if not outright stated, that Hawaii is still under American control, so what about Alaska?

** Those examples were isolated incidents, and most of the people alive for them probably aren't alive after the plague. America as a whole doesn't have a culture of rationing, its not something most Americans ever dealt with.

* Some officials in the USA have pretty short memories, or didn't pay much attention in history class: rationing as an accepted economic strategy to deal with unforeseen imbalances in production vs. consumption was used during World War II and the Korean War, and to a lesser extent, attempted in the 1970s. Why have the writers not had Michener using this very line of argument?

* In "Uneasy Lies the Head", Niels and Rachel both agree that the only way Rachel can essentially make the cure contagious is to kill Niels and harvest his lungs/DNA/whatever. In the next episode "Friendly Fire", she claims that she could have done so ''without'' killing Niels. Obviously the writers did this to make her murder of Niels as controversial as possible (wasted effort in this troper's opinion), but it's still a rather glaring script error.

*** Gitmo was exposed to the virus, probably brought by a servicemember or contractor who didn't know they were sick. Tex explicitly says that his team and their prisoners were isolated with their own food, water, and power from the rest of the camp because of the prisoners' high value nature. They avoided going anywhere near the affected areas once it became clear what was happening.

** As of "Uneasy Lies The Head" it seems Rachel Scott took matters into her own hands.

* What on earth are they going to do with Niels Sorenson? He's a walking Typhoid Mary, so he either has to be permanently quarantined, or made very permanently dead. In addition, are they going to put him on trial? He has committed crimes against humanity by purposely exposing people to a highly dangerous disease, both through his own generation of the plague, and also by attempting to lure people to infected children's toys. That alone could be construed to carry the death penalty, especially if military law is deemed to apply.

* If Chandler is the highest-ranking member of the US military (or at least the US Navy) still alive, then the best place for him would be back at Norfolk, coordinating the entire relief and reconstruction effort. If he is not, then why didn't he seek out a higher command authority once he reached Norfolk?

** Then again, Ruskov isn't exactly in his right mind, as subsequent events would show.

* [[PoorCommunicationKills You know, the entire conflict between the Russians and the Nathan James could have been avoided if they were just forthright with what their situation was.]] They are both seeking a cure and possess information that is useful to the other, so if the Russians hadn't been so aggressive, the Nathan James probably would have just given the Russians what they wanted and received the Russian research in return.

* Ruskov knows that he has an armed party aboard his ship freeing Chandler, Tex, and Tophet's family. He's getting no response from the engine room. If the party is topside his watch standers will have spotted them, so they're still somewhere inside the ship. Why not just order all hatches sealed fore-and-aft? The escapees will be contained, and the ''Vrenya'' subjected to a compartment-by-compartment search until they are found.

*** That doesn't explain why everyone else on the base died.

** It's likely that he may have been tested and found to nt be immune and simply never was exposed due to the relative remoteness of Gitmo from more well-travelled areas of Cuba.

** It's likely that he may have been tested and found to have simply never been exposed due to the relative remoteness of Gitmo from more well-travelled areas of Cuba.

* Jamaican survivor Bertrice is immune, so now we know some people have a natural immunity to the virus, allowing a vaccine to be developed. But why didn't anyone test Tex, or the jihadis at Guantanamo--all of whom were exposed and all of whom survived the virus?

* Jamaican survivor Bertrice is immune, so now we know some people have a natural immunity to the virus, allowing a vaccine to be developed. But why didn't anyone test Tex, or the jihadis at Guantanamo--all of whom were exposed and all of whom survived the virus?

* Where was the helicopter the whole time the ship was experiencing a water shortage? It could have been used to scout ahead to the island where water was ultimately found and could have brought back water to the ship to help alleviate the shortage (maybe not ''all'' the water it needed, but enough to keep the crew functioning) and in a matter of hours rather than days. A couple of ferry-flights with an improvised water tank could have done the job, and avgas is available as close as the nearest intact airstrip should that be a concern (lots of these in Central America and the Caribbean).

** He could have been playing dumb about the halon controls, but it ''is'' true that his behavior was suspicious and he still should've been taken to the captain or the XO.

* Tophet's presence in the engineering space near the halon controls makes no sense at all. A civilian would not have that much access aboard ship. He's been aboard the ship for ''how long'' and doesn't know how to control the temperature of his cabin? His lie to the watch stander should have immediately sent him to the brig for some hard questioning. And there is ''absolutely no way'' a trained scientist would not know what halon is, or what it does--let alone mistake it for air conditioning controls!

* Chandler tells the Russians that he has control of 'all the food on the island' when they have him blockaded in Guantanamo Bay. No, Captain. You have all the food in ''one warehouse'' on a very big island. A Russian admiral probably knows of one or more Cuban bases where he could resupply without any pesky Americans in his way.

* Is there some valid reason they're not heading to and checking out isolated but populated islands the virus may not have gotten to yet, but still may have power, industry and laboratory facilities? There must be thousands of potential islands in the Caribbean they are passing.