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Fridge for the tv series:
Fridge Brilliance
- Kiera and pop culture:
- Kiera hasn't heard of Batman! Considering we're talking about a character whose corporate identity is basically a smokescreen for his vigilante activities, which he advertises by shining a giant signal in the sky, do you really think the vaguely fascistic North American Union would permit such a comic to be published? Batman is probably banned for being "politically subversive".
- Kiera misses an obvious Star Trek reference. While it's typically remembered more as one of the first popular sci-fi series, it also took place in a collectivist utopia, and the only capitalists were villains like the Ferengi. That's clearly something her corporate overlords would want to bury.
- The fact that reasonably well-off people in Kiera's time seem to be "left alone" is actually rather nicely foreshadowed by movies like Rollerball in which corporations effectively dominate political and economic life, and provide a very high standard of living for the relatively "minor" price of never seriously threatening the existing social order: a kaffee-klatsch like Kiera's husband's little social gathering is hardly going to worry the Corporate Congress. But a man like Kagame, who's conscious of the fundamental injustices of the 2070s, and who's willing to step well outside "acceptable" limits of dissension, is a threat. As Jonathan says in Rollerball, "them privileges just buy us off". Kiera's comfortable life is a pretty good example.
- Mr. Escher's named after MC Escher, who drew a picture of a hand drawing itself. The perfect metaphor for time travel!
- Where did the members of Liber8 get the energy to activate the time travel device for their escape? It appeared to be from the energy weapon used in the execution but its been established that time travel requires an abundance of power on the level of using anti-matter. It doesn't take that much energy presumably to kill someone. The Corporate Congress must have wanted them really dead for the trouble they caused. It later becomes clear that the amount of energy used for the execution is the first clue to the fact that Old Alec wanted them to time travel and made sure they had enough energy.
- Carlos Fonnegra has always embraced most staunchly the "public servant" aspect of being a police officer, even more so than Dillon when he was head of the VPD. This, ironically, makes Fonnegra one of the best people to embrace Liber8's underlying skepticism of the benevolence of corporations.
- Travis while wearing the Powered Armor Protector Suit displays several abilities of the suit which Kira's never displayed, and which would notably have proven useful to her on several occasions. Most importantly, his suit can project a forcefield around his head, protecting him from suffering any sort of Boom, Headshot!, and he can now project blasts of energy from his hands. While never said outright in the show, this has to do with Travis having a military version of the CMR, which Alec had recently reactivated, and which allows Travis to directly interface with the suit in the first place. Think about the military vs. police mentality of a future police state for a moment. Both police and soldiers are given versions of the suit, which is how Travis knew how to operate it with such ease. But the police are shown to have somewhat more freedom than the military footsoldiers, and are more likely to question the system as a result. Therefore, the suits are designed to give the soldiers more abilities, accessed through the CMR, in case of a police uprising. If the military ground troops can No-Sell automatic weapons fire AND continue to have weapons even when disarmed of their guns, they have a distinct advantage over any police trying to battle them. Kira survives purely through luck and quick thinking when fighting Travis, as she was massively outclassed by him even without his Super-Soldier abilities coming into play.
Fridge Horror
- Kiera's CMR chip and SadTech/Piron's HALO derivative of it looks an awful lot like the mind control chips turned out by the thousands in the labor camp in 2035.
- Kiera's CMR explicitly has the capability to allow a remote operator to take control of her.
