Yeah, that was the biggest thing that bugged me about the pilot. Surely someone would have thought of diesel and/or steam engines in fifteen years?
Trump delenda estAnd what about bicycles?
"You can reply to this Message!"True although in the absence of maintained roads their usefulness would be limited. Except for mountain bikes.
Trump delenda estPresumably, they all died in the cities.
While lacking maintenance would suck for the roads, the lack of normal wear and tear would be fantastic. It's just standard post apocalyptic lack of thought.
Fight smart, not fair.So the Google Software Engineer got out of the cities put the more practical Engineers died there all?
I'm not saying the show is bad, I'm just saying the the Fridge Logic is huge.
"You can reply to this Message!"Elizabeth Mitchell's in the cast now! Elizabeth Mitchell's in the cast now!
This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.So the kids Mother is not dead. Conspiracy I hear thee sneaking...
"You can reply to this Message!"Which is pretty par for the course for post apocalyptic worlds. It's similar to various other issues like the lack of bikes and every other little bit that is done/not done to add drama or whatever.
Fight smart, not fair.So, the pilot aired. I thought it meh. The setting was interesting, but I don't see where they can go with the story. I liked some of the supporting characters, but I could care less about the main character and her love interest, and I can't remember any of their names.
And the magical USB is soooooo Abrams.
Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.Magical USB is very Abrams. As are flashbacks, dark hidden rooms with computers in them, and mysterious recurring groups, like this Militia having the same logo as the military tech firm rigamarole that the Matheson brothers apparently were a part of. If Revolution is the new LOST, then this Militia is probably the new DHARMA Initiative.
About the wackiness of the physics behind all electronics not working, I don't think it was an EMP burst. From the brief shots of screens I saw, I think it was a virus or something. And this is a future where every electronic device is connected to something somehow, and because of that the virus spread and it's keeping all of those things from working.
how does it spread into say 1940s era device powered by electricity. Or to get up on the old example: why won't a 1940 car work?
No computer hardware for the virus in either. And both could be build somewhat easily if there is nothing to block electricity from being created by such simple things as a diesel generator.
Again: not hating the show so far. Its just stressing my willing suspension a bit...lets see how they explain it.
However, extension of the above: Nanites, who suck out the electricity out of everything. Failed weapons experiment that went out of control and spread in the atmosphere. The "USB Stick" contains special anti-nanites which only work temporarily and for short range. What was downloaded into the USB was the programing for them.
edited 19th Sep '12 3:54:13 AM by 3of4
"You can reply to this Message!"Alien invasion. Or invasion by future people wielding environmental Aesops.
Abrahms and Abrahms-likes tend to pull from the same very limited grab bag — and fans tends to accurately predict what's going on fairly swiftly into the first seasons. See: Alias, Fringe, Lost.
This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.Alternatively it goes full on pseudospiritual and involves Gods of Nature vs Gods of technology/the Builders. Something like What happened in Thief only in reverse.
[Sorry, new accounts cannot post external links.]
I'm thinking it's some kind of near-future where EVERYTHING is connected. All things have computers in them.
Or maybe there's some spire somewhere that's sending out something LIKE an EMP burst, except it's constant, it's generating EMP bursts and it disables all electric devices.
But the way shows and stories like these work is, when all else fails, ask the experts.
EDIT: (I can't post external links but you know the one, the one on the Revolution page. I'll figure this out eventually/)
EDIT 2: (I apparently can't post INTERNAL links either. At least not unless they're inline links embedded in the text. There's no frustrated emoticon here, so I'll consign to the notion that It Just Bugs Me. )
Anyway, if you know that link, just like with Back To The Future before them, they don't have to know the science behind it, they asked some scientists if it could happen, and they said yes, and gave a scenario of how in some way it could.
That's often what sci-fi writers do when they wanna say "No! It could happen!". They make it so they can say "Well the physicists said yes." They... back up their findings with notability.
edited 19th Sep '12 12:37:26 PM by Kaljinyu
The "everything has electronics in it" would not apply to purpose built non electronic diesel generators or similar tech. Which in a world where your basic power supply fails would probably one of the first things you try to build (after getting the basics somewhat covered)
edited 19th Sep '12 2:04:49 PM by 3of4
"You can reply to this Message!"No, in a world where your basic power supply fails, where that basic power supply is a vital part of feeding most of the population and keeping houses warm, the first thing you do is find food and try to survive through the winter.
Yes, there are non-electronic alternatives to stuff like cars, and we did have an industrial infrastructure before we used electricity as a power source, but as of right now electricity is a vital component of every aspect of our infrastructure. The chaos that would ensue from it suddenly disappearing would make it basically impossible to just "switch over" to mechanical/pneumatic/steam powered systems. That's asking to convert our entire infrastructure to a different system that most people aren't personally familiar with without mass communication or high speed transportation, no preparations for it, and in the midst of a crisis of food shortages, disease, mass deaths, and riots, where pretty much everyone's immediate concern is finding enough food and shelter to stay alive.
It would make a lot of sense if, in the ensuing 15 years, some small pockets of the country managed to get back some level of industrial technology makes sense, but most of the country being rural and at a just-aboke-dark ages level of tech makes an enormous amount of sense. Industrializing a stretch of land the size of the US when you're basically brought back to square one with no high speed communication and transport would take years, if not decades, with plenty of stumbling blocks in the way due to miscommunication and things juts going wrong. And that's without the early chaos of just trying to survive in a world where electric power goes away overnight.
"After getting the basics somewhat covered". What did you think I meant with that?
My argument in the above post is primary about the "electronics in everything" theory. If its just the electronics failing, If people would figure out its a virus in the electronics, creating non electronic power sources to counteract it might be an idea.
And in the show its been fifteen years. That is what stretches my suspension of disbelief. As they said "those who stayed in the cities died there." Okay. Lets say 5 years after.
The population as been reduced massively, those who survived have already adapted to the new living circumstance. Food, water and all the other things to survive winter are available (else they'd be dead by now). That would be the point where people would try to rebuild infrastructure. Get steam engines back, maybe even basic diesel cars. If its a virus, start building telegraphs.
I'm not saying they should be already have steampunk tech. I'm saying we see nothing any form of replacing the infrastructure. Especially with some of the, lets call them arbitrary, examples of used tech. They have muskets, but unless they've raided an Civil War reenacters guild, have they build them? Why not build M1 Garands then? Wouldn't be that much more difficult? Or Springfield Rifles.
We have been shown a society which has basically accepted that the tech is gone, and will not return. Which, I admit, may be thing of the society (they all went and became luddites or so)
And what we have seen so far have is not "just above dark age level". Believe me. Dark ages would be a LOT worse. They are somewhere 18th to early 19th century-ish, minus basic electricity of that age. And probably somewhere in the 20th where scientific understanding is still concerned. Germ theory and all that.
edited 19th Sep '12 3:38:52 PM by 3of4
"You can reply to this Message!"I don't see this... I see a society in which the people with the weapons(the Militias) are forcing the people who are under them to accept that the tech is gone. Not that the tech is actually gone, or that it's accepted by everyone(It's certainly not accepted by those in charge in the militia, otherwise the premise for everything that happens in the last 35 minutes of the show wouldn't exist)...
"Why hasn't the world fixed itself over those 15 years" is the simplest question to answer: The people who took power after the blackout realized that such actions would diminish the hold they have over their "domain", and thus those people refused to allow those actions to happen on a large scale...
edited 19th Sep '12 4:19:49 PM by Swish
We're talking about rebuilding a nationwide industrial infrastructure basically from scratch. The idea that it could be done within ten years is just silly. Like, take steam engines for example. Before you have a steam engine train, you've got to have a factory that can make a steam engine train. Before you have a factory that can make a steam engine train with no electric power, you have to either build one from the ground up or completely gut and rebuild an electric powered factory. Before you do that, you have to rally up the skilled labor necessary and train them in the techniques to build such a thing (a process that will take a long-ass time either way). Before you do that, you need a population and an economy stable enough to support and supply that kind of work force. And in addition to all of that, you're going to need to find a way to remove the trains still stuck on the tracks since the blackout, make sure that the territories you'd be going through will allow you to pass, and you're going to need to secure enormous amounts of coal and iron in a time where resources are scattered and highly valuable, all of which without any kind of fast widespread communication system. And that's just trains. You're telling me you think people would be able to accomplish all of that, and pneumatic diesel cars, and factories, and a hundred other industrial works on a national scale in 10-15 years right after a massive chaotic crisis? 'Cause that sounds exceptionally unrealistic to me.
Also, "why hasn't the world fixed itself" is an even simpler question to answer than you imply. The world hasn't fixed itself because the world never fixes itself quickly after a crisis. When has it ever done that? You don't need the malice of dictators to explain why society hasn't risen back up to an industrial level, all you need is the countless complications that will inevitably arise from such a global clusterfuck and basic human error.
Like, having a few more well off areas being more industrial than others makes sense. But with the millions of things that would go wrong and be standing in the way of an endeavor like building a national steam powered railway or mass producing pneumatic diesel cars, the fact that that stuff hasn't happened yet seems much more realistic to me.
edited 19th Sep '12 7:59:13 PM by Lupus27
I'd honestly be more interested if they changed some basic premises of the show. Put it back until right after the event and then make it about trying to survive.
Fight smart, not fair.I'm assuming we will see at least some of that in the form of flashbacks. This is after all an Abrams production.
Trump delenda estI see what your saying, but honestly we've seen plenty of stories like that in recent years. The show isn't trying to be a survival show, it's trying to be a fantasy quest show with sword fights. There hasn't been a serious attempt of a TV show like that in a long long time. I find it refreshing.
I. "It's really quite simple: guns set off a miniature explosion by creating a spark through friction. Guns don't require electricity to work." may be mutually exclusive. A spark through friction is to my knowledge an electric spark.
what you probably means is that the spark is created by an explosive which reacts to kinetic impact or the like.
II. Two Words: Diesel Engine.
Diesel Engines use compression to ignite the fuel, not sparkplugs. Another thing the battery powers is the starter motor, which can also be pneumatic or hydraulic instead of electric. So, a diesel engine car would not need electricity.
Also, Rudolf Diesel designed it in 1893, so manufacturing new ones might not be that hard.
And hey, we have managed to create quite an infrastructure without electricity once upon a time, and this time we have BOOKS on how we done it around to help! You are telling me the hundred thousands of learned engineers and such would be unable to build a purely mechanical infrastructure.
Only America has gone rural, as luddites took over in the first wakes of panic and the christian right wings basically turned it up to Original Flavor Church of Humanity Unchained-Level of anti-technology. This is what killed the government.
Meanwhile, Europe is actually going through a non-electrical renaissance and tries to ignore those hardcore civil war re-enacters in north-america.
...*murmurs* note to self: get diesel car in case of electric apocalypse.
edited 11th Sep '12 4:21:46 AM by 3of4
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