DAWSON'S JURASSIC CREEK: It is very difficult to send people back in time. Indeed, it requires two particle accelerators the size of the Washington Beltway to rend the space-time continuum and put people through, a hundred or so at a time. It can also only be done about once a year. Given those constraints (and perhaps a bit more often to send the non-living), we realize this is a very large undertaking for a very crippled economy. So, in order to ensure the survival of humanity, what do we expect to be sent back in order for humanity to stand a chance?
* vehicles;
* weapons and ammunition in infinite supply;
* state of the art medical equipment (also, leeches);
* enough materials so every colonist can live in a four bedroom home with its own stainless steel kitchen;
* throw pillows;
* window treatments;
* posturepedic mattresses;
* people without a discernible skill set
Things that don't get sent (even though you can request stuff and "everything is provided for us"):
* iron (because while we will provide the colony with enough nylon backyard sunshields for a resort in Palm Springs, you will be expected to do your own smithing).
Look, colonization of the past is a perfectly reasonable trope. And the folks behind Terra Nova know enough about it to give a shout out to Bradbury's "The Sound of Thunder" and what I thought might be an allusion to the even cooler "Hawksbill Station" by Robert Silverberg (where the chrono-political exiles were all lame, crazy, and turned tricks for some extra trilobyte soup).
But for this sort of conceit to work, and for me to believe that the underlying conflicts are best solved by requesting more supplies from present-day Earth, the show is going to needs rules. And I don't see that the producers are going to supply them.
Great post. We're five days away from getting the first episode so I can't comment - except to say we all need a good moment of snark and picking the bones of reality television stars is not as fun as it used to be.
ReplyDeleteReminded me of Stargate Universe, which was not a good show. At all.
ReplyDeleteI actually thought SG:U worked pretty well, at least as a conceit, because it had some consistent rules about the economy of the ship.
ReplyDeleteSG:U wanted to be the DARK Stargate, and it succeeded, and it was sad. It's hard to enjoy a show where there's no one really worth rooting for. Except maybe the bad guys, if they manage to kill everyone, except maybe Eli. MAYBE.
ReplyDeleteI saw the first hour of the Terra Nova pilot a while back, so I'm curious to see how it's changed. But I had some questions about some stuff that were hopefully fanwanked in the second hour. Do they explain HOW they're communicating with the future? I'll have to watch.
They write messages the backs of trilobytes, then bury them in the sand. In the future, the fossils are found and the messages acted on.
ReplyDelete(No, I didn't watch, but that's how I'd have done it.)
So who found the fossil that said "send Lawyers, Guns and Money?"
ReplyDeleteDad, get me out of this.
ReplyDelete