What do you mean? They were shown to have radios several times.
No, the cars have radios. And they've got block radios. They don't have the equivalent of cells/radios. We know they've got decent power capabilities because the doctors have them, and there's modern technology that can put portable rechargers in. It's just something I like to do with Sci-Fi in general, I check to see what kind of tech they've got, and whether or not they're making full use of it. It's standard "no cell phones, they break the plot points" schlock.
Other issues: lack of good, effective weapons. No earth movers of any kind (we know they can bring vehicles through). No refrigeration or cooling devices (however, if the climate is temperate enough, only half of that matters). The design of the city irks me, particularly the wide layout of houses without food growing trees in them. No solar cells, but hydro power. Hollywood Density on the meteoric iron (go to a home improvement store and pick up a bundle of re-bar if you don't believe me). The "fort" layout is terrible for providing any actual protection, and is optimal for sneaking in and out (this is probably plot caused though). No domesticated food animals, however I'm not a paleontologist, so this might be reasonable.
Things I like: there is only one metal mine, and they lucked out and got meteoric iron (this is actually a very fortuitous thing considering they were random), metal mines aren't something you're likely to run across, particularly heavy metal mines (which is why "meteoric iron" is the good stuff). Only two camps so far, the first thing secured was a food supply, the second being metals. The time portal appears to be relatively limited, which is why they don't have a long train moving through it.
edited 27th Sep '11 11:21:11 PM by Deboss
Fight smart, not fair.
Yup, pretty much.
So far, I like Taylor way more than the main family, but I suppose that's to be expected. I'd rather the show focus on him, but whatcha gonna do? Hopefully, the Idiot Ball moments will decrease and the teens get less annoying as time goes on.
Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!.... If there are no cell towers, or satellites, why would there be something equivalent to cell phones present? There are block radios, as you said. And most are probably assigned to the security details(or those who are supposed to leave the compound). I really don't understand why the teens not having a radio, other than the one in the vehicle, is such a big deal...
The fort doesn't provide protection from people. But the fort wasn't designed to protect against people. Yes there is that other faction. But they seem to be looked at as more of an annoyance, than an actual threat to the colony...
The fort does provide protection from every "aggressive" animal in the area, though... And until that's shown not to be the case(and it really shouldn't be since they've had years building/expanding it), I'm not seeing the problem here either...
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YES. Taylor sees it and rushes to save them but is fortunately tragically too late and takes out his frustration by beating the raptors to a pulp.
edited 28th Sep '11 1:20:05 PM by Firebert
Support Gravitaz on Kickstarter!The only thing that bothers me about the compound is they appear to place the housing around the outside of it. Why? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a centrally located habitation area that would be easier to contain and protect? It also makes sure to maximize the walking distance between you and anywhere you want to go.
"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit
With the overhead shots, the housing seemed, to me, to be on the borders. Not outside the fence, but inside just bordering it. And the center area seems to be 6 different plots for crops...
As to whether or not it's a good design is really dependent on what one feels is more important in the event of an emergency(something attacking/breaking through the fences)... Protecting the food or protecting the people...
That depends entirely on what crops they are growing, and how many people there are in the colony.
The aerial view does make the land available for crops look small... But if there are more than 500 people in the colony(and the houses are already built for those people), then the land set aside is much larger than it looks.* And if there are fewer than 500 people in the colony, the land available for crops is perfectly fine(again, depending on what is being planted, they did have pineapple in that "market" and that takes about 2 years to produce the fruit).
edited 28th Sep '11 2:38:52 PM by Swish
^Can't be sure its actually pineapple. Seems like a lot of their crops are local plants. Or as Skye put it "somewhere between a nut and a fruit".
As for the "why put the settlers' homes near the perimeter" thing goes...this is the same setup as a medieval castle. You put central command in the, well, CENTER, keep the market, foundry, hospital and wealthier townhouses along the perimeter of the wall, and put the farmland outside the walls. There are many reasons for this approach, the main one being that farmland and housing is tactically unimportant - you won't die immediately if some disaster takes out the farms, but you may die right away if your supply of medicine and leadership is compromised.
As for the "walls not being very effective" thing goes, I believe that the next episode will address that - previews are saying that a flock of flesh-eating "primitive birds" (why they didn't go with pterosaurs...) attack the colony, and the walls are of course useless.
Now that addressing those questions is out of the way, I read an interesting review and had to agree with it. It was a paleontologist, and he argued that its stupid to make up species of dinosaurs like the Slashers when, in fact, the REAL species that were around at the time are even more interesting. We are talking land-dwelling crocodiles that hunted in packs like wolves, t-rex cousins with sails on their backs, oviraptor relatives with mantis-like sickle-claws on their front legs (why THAT wasn't the design behind the Slashers...), and pterosaurs with jaws full of needle-sharp teeth that were probably the Jurassic's version of the vampire bat (and they go with "primitive birds"... ....). It's a shame that the show has already irked my inner dinosaur geek, when it just wasn't neccesary - you don't have to add features like "razor sharp tails" when you could have just as easily had "praying mantis sickle claws". Also, feathers are not the same thing as "fuzzy down"; why can't people make cool looking dinosaurs with their glorious plumage?
The aerial view does make the land available for crops look small... But if there are more than 500 people in the colony(and the houses are already built for those people),
Then again thinking about it they might have been thinking ahead, fencing in more land than they needed so they didn't have to move the fence each time more people come. However that still doesn't explain why they started on the perimeter and worked in.
It just seems to me that the logical way to set it up would be a central "keep" with a high and strong fence encompassing all the houses, shops, storehouses, command and communications buildings, and then encompass your fields in a lower (10-15ft wall) outside that.
Hell, we know they have farm land outside the fence because when the agriculture director was talking to Jim he was sending Jim outside the fences to go do the tests.
"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " SpiritI know most of the houses are already built for the people(that's why there was no "if"), and thus there are very few unoccupied houses... But that means that the more people are in the colony(to begin with) the larger the scale of the area shot(which means that what looks to be a "small" plot of land is actually huge). My entire point is that the more people there are in the colony, as of the tenth pilgrimage, the larger the coverage of the aerial shot(which would mean there likely is farmland enough farmland, inside the fence, to cover the colony)...
It should be pointed out, when looking at the aerial view(the 19:41 mark on Hulu, if anyone is interested), that there are only houses stacked to the outer gate along the left side of the front gate(and only for 90 degrees of the circle)... The remainder of the "outer ring" is mostly barren. Few trees, with a single-file ring of houses(probably for agricultural staff)...
It should also be pointed out that there is an inner-wall to the colony, separating the "planting area" from the buildings... Jim wasn't going outside the outer-gate, but going into the farmland area, inside the inner-gate.
Again, you think this is a horrible set-up... But the "medieval" setup, with the centralized location and everything branching out from it, was designed to protect the "most important" person in the land from outside invaders. The general idea amongst the colony planners seems to be that the most important thing in Terra Nova is the food supply...
edited 29th Sep '11 9:58:28 AM by Swish
What are they protecting the food supply from? Their main problem is predatory dinosaurs that won't care about the plants they're growing. They're after the people. The dinosaurs who would be interested in the plants could easily be kept out by a much smaller fence. You don't need a fence big enough to keep a Tyrannosaur out, you just need one to keep out the low level grazers. Hell you wouldn't even need a fence to do that, dig a ten foot deep moat and you're good to go.
Actually that brings up a good point, why doesn't this place have a moat? Really, dig a ten foot deep, thirty foot wide moat around this compound and you're golden.
"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit^Elephants aren't predators, but they can destroy farmland just by walking across it. Some sauropods got as big as TWENTY elephants, and when they whipped their tails they generated SONIC BOOMS. A herd of those things wouldn't just destroy your farmland, it would crush all of your buildings to splinters, and the only evidence that people ever lived on Terra Nova would be little human-shaped splatter marks. Ten foot moat wouldn't work that well either, because many dinosaurs were good swimmers, and the bigger ones had a ten foot STRIDE.
As for the "they should have a central keep"...they do. Half of the scenes with Quaritch involve him surveying the land with his 'nocs from his command center's main tower. Am I the only one who noticed the whole "military buildings in the center, agriculture near the outskirts" thing going on??
Yes, predatory dinos won't care about the crops. But they are more likely to crush and destroy the crops in their dash to get to their prey(people)... By keeping the crops in the center(and seperate from the general population), the likelihood of a carnivore crushing and killing the crops while chasing after its prey is minimal.
Also, the reason for the fence: People will think that they are safe inside the walls... And people who think they are safe are more likely to be productive(because they aren't worried that the creatures outside could get them at any time)... Plus, while it won't keep out a predator on its own, a fence will slow the predator down enough that those with guns may be able to protect people...
From the overhead shot(again, 19:41 on Hulu), the "central" point of the colony is the crops. The most concentrated structures are around the main gate(which is where the command post is located)... And the market seems to be around there as well...
edited 29th Sep '11 3:15:46 PM by Swish
FYI Queensland's Department of Environment just sent out a thing this morning to all their employees, bragging about the "natural beauty" shot mostly in South East Queensland.
Although looking at some google image searches for "Natural Bridge Springbrook National Park", it is very pretty.
As you may have guessed I haven't been able to actually watch the show yet though.
edited 30th Sep '11 12:22:32 AM by UltimatelySubjective
But that's not how the place is set up. The main cabin is right at the main entrance, when the dudes come through the gate, they hit the command structure. It should definitely be in the center of the camp, not off to one side. Unless they had an auto sprinkler, but I didn't see one. The houses annoy me. They're obvious "suburb" houses, which have been shown to be utter failures at being good housing choices for agriculture towns.
You don't need a massive network of towers or satellites for local communication. You just need a signal booster for the camp, since that's where most people are, and then make it reach the rest of the valley. One tower, it doesn't even have to be metal, and you've got fairly effective communication for people several miles outside the camp. Making it identical to a modern cell would be stupid, but making it work like a radio instead, with integrated repeaters, would make so much more sense.
My issue with the walls of the fort is that they're not well built for actually stopping large critters, but are sufficiently widely spaced that it's trivially easy for a human to sneak out (and as we all know, there are no small predators). Large dirt piles would make much better systems, and would be integral to building subterranean housing, which would be much more farming effective. With the earth movers.
Also the APC lack remote turrets, and aren't air tight. And appear to be made of aluminum foil. Then again, if that is explained as a deliberate sacrifice to boost battery range, I'll be impressed.
I'm not saying the series is bad, I'm just pointing out things that bug me.
Edit: I'll pirate and post screen shots in a bit.
edited 29th Sep '11 11:45:01 PM by Deboss
Fight smart, not fair.Exactly. That is not how it's set up. Terra Nova does not use the Medieval setup for the simple reason that the "command structure" is not viewed as important as the food. I fail to see the problem with this, because I agree with it. Keeping whoever is in charge of Terra Nova alive doesn't really matter if there is no food available for the rest of the colony.
Radios do work several miles outside of camp. Radio communication is possible where the rift is. And we have yet to see radio communication be "poor" or even non-existent in situations where people are supposed to be outside the camp... What I don't understand is why you think that people who aren't even supposed to be several miles out of camp are supposed to have radios?
... The wall is big enough to keep the long-neck* out of the colony. Yes, if the thing wanted to it probably could break the fence, but would it if it's not being chased(or if it's not trying to eat people)? Doubtful. Besides, the fort is not supposed to keep people out(or in for that matter). And there are security cameras lining the wall to see each point. Yes, whoever was manning the cameras didn't see them leave. But again, it's not to keep people in or out, it's to keep the animals out long enough for the security force to get there and do the job more effectively...
As for the "small predators." I'm sure there are some. But not enough to make Quarritch want the fences changed. Dude spent 100+ days alone in the area. I'm sure that if there were small predators, that would be a threat to humans, in the area, that the wall's set-up would be different. Dude doesn't portray "stupid" in the first episode to me... Perhaps he does to you?
Why do the APC's need to be airtight?... Also, I thought the Carno eating the guy on the Sixer APC with a turret was evidence that, sometimes, having such a turret may be more trouble than it's worth...
edited 30th Sep '11 4:55:04 AM by Swish
