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DavidG
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« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2009, 10:17:58 pm » |
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Gammas tends to litter the streets with little clusters of corpses with atypical causes of death, that seems like precisely the kind of stuff that should be pinging the attention of the epidemiology gurus at CDC even if they don't know what they're looking at.
Why? These are crimes, and the FBI says they're taken care of. Or else, like the victims in Lucky Day, they're so spread out as to not make a pattern. Not all of the anomalous deaths are necessarily obvious as crimes, there's the choking deaths in Breathe and the slimming disorder deaths in Sugar. My basic thinking (I'm admittedly extrapolating my understanding of how the UK system works to the US) is that the local coroners will be logging the data on deaths, and that the CDC will be datamining it for anything - erm -anomalous. In fact that seems to be at least one method the WTF use to locate their cases, c.f. Lucky Day. There was enough correlation in the deaths to ping Reyes' attention even if the data wouldn't fall into a pattern until Chaz was stuck with nothing else to do but look at it. So it's theoretically possible that CDC could find a pattern and be on scene even before WTF. |
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MadGastronomer
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« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2009, 11:07:54 pm » |
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Yeah, they might turn up if there's a cluster of deaths with similar symptoms, but most of the gamma-related deaths either don't, or can be classified as crimes. I just don't see that there's much there in most of the cases to catch the attention of the CDC, which is looking for totally different sorts of patterns.
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jeffy
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« Reply #17 on: July 20, 2009, 02:27:40 am » |
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I've begun to wonder whether the Anomaly is more like toxoplasmosis--a virus (therefore nonsentient) that nonetheless changes the host's behavior, so the virus has a better chance of survival.
Yah. And that whole seeks-maximum-pain thing seems pretty easily explained by brain damage if empathy were a localized property of the grey matter. Which sounds an awful lot like what was wrong with Tim Miner, but just a little different. So maybe the anomalizer simultaneously opens up access to latent paranormal abilities, and causes varying peripheral damage to the part of the brain that makes psychopaths. So a Beta would just be someone who didn't get the full dose of peripheral damage, or someone with a more widely developed or entrenched moral sense. (Makes me think of Eddie Cieslewicz...) Lots of unexamined assumptions in here, I think... |
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Andre Guirard
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« Reply #18 on: July 20, 2009, 07:23:54 am » |
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... it isn't unprecedented in any way, look at Bab-5 and how long it took to figure out the Vorlons were the bad guys just as much as the Shadows, and it took long enough to reveal the Shadows...
Yes, I found that annoying also.  |
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txanne
Laser Snark
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« Reply #19 on: July 20, 2009, 08:47:48 am » |
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Yah. And that whole seeks-maximum-pain thing seems pretty easily explained by brain damage if empathy were a localized property of the grey matter. Which sounds an awful lot like what was wrong with Tim Miner,
IJWTS that if we knew how to induce empathy, the world would be very different. the anomalizer
I really like this usage, and plan to steal it for my own. dose of peripheral damage, or someone with a more widely developed or entrenched moral sense. (Makes me think of Eddie Cieslewicz...) Lots of unexamined assumptions in here, I think.
And also Susannah Greenwood--it's been shown that teenagers feel immortal because their brains haven't finished developing, so they don't see consequences in the same way that adults do. Susannah's a good kid who can't see beyond the pain caused by the bullying. If she'd been anomalized just a few years later, she might have been another beta. Hafs was one of the good guys long before she came down with Gates Syndrome. Chaz, of course, is the outlier in this theory. But he always knew his mother loved him. |
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jimsmyth
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« Reply #20 on: July 20, 2009, 10:56:11 am » |
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I suspect part of the "slow" pacing is the central conceit -- this is a television show. Admittedly, that conceit is underplayed, as the fictional environment is rich and delicious enough to suck up our imaginations and creativity with exploring the show-level stuff. (It'll undoubtedly get more focus when Disney does the Jet Jackson-like treatment to The Beto Files, but that's still in contract negotiation.)
Traditionally, in a multi-season series, Season 1 is devoted to "setting things up", establishing the norm and the expectations so that the author(s) can mess with them later. Season 2 shows a little more 'behind the scenes' stuff, letting us know that things aren't as simple as they appeared. We might also mess with the format, getting a story arc across several episodes, or a threat returning from a previous episode. Open plot threads are now a little more open -- where in Season 1, we could convice ourselves it was settled, Season 2 can be a little more obvious that some things aren't handled.
Season 3 opens up the structure a little more. Maybe othernational gammas or gamma hunters, maybe a gamma organization, maybe we meet another Beta.
Season 4 gets serious. Gamma theories are tried (and fail), gamma infiltration of the mysterious force behind shadow until, maybe the miltary is looking for weaponized gammas. Hints to the purpose for gammas, be it evolution, alien invasion, latent potential, or the return of the Great Old Ones. Maybe lose a team member.
Anything like "solving" the gamma issue won't be until the final season. Season 5 will be the final battle. Team knows what it's up against, teams up with unlikely allies, goes all-out, pulls a few fast ones. I'm expecting Reyes to die in some pointless noble fashion, using himself as hard as he uses everyone else, and leaving us all with ambivalent strong feelings.
Now add to this the fact that our PTB are Particularly Tricksy Beings, and they'll probably even mess with the metastructure. Take all that rampant speculation with a huge grain of salt.
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"I wanted to tell you both. I've met someone."
"Danny, that's good," his mother said, sounding strange and strained and cautious. "What's--"
"His name's Grayson. He works for the State Department."
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txanne
Laser Snark
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« Reply #21 on: July 20, 2009, 11:08:10 am » |
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Indeed, I hope our ever-intelligent PTB ignore the real-world analogues, for as we all know, most cop shows jump the shark in Season 4.
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Edmund Schweppe
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« Reply #22 on: July 20, 2009, 02:16:23 pm » |
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Indeed, I hope our ever-intelligent PTB ignore the real-world analogues, for as we all know, most cop shows jump the shark in Season 4.
Not to mention how some stars (cough- Patinkin-cough) bail out of shows the day before shooting starts. |
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"Suddenly one of my great satisfactions in life is knowing I'm not a character in an Anne Rice novel." - Hafidha |
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txanne
Laser Snark
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« Reply #23 on: July 20, 2009, 02:23:44 pm » |
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Our cast members wouldn't ever pull a Mandy! They're far too professional. Plus they're all scared of the Executive Producer--they don't call her "Emma Peel" for nothing.
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DavidG
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« Reply #24 on: July 20, 2009, 07:16:28 pm » |
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... it isn't unprecedented in any way, look at Bab-5 and how long it took to figure out the Vorlons were the bad guys just as much as the Shadows, and it took long enough to reveal the Shadows...
Yes, I found that annoying also. I found it superb -- you can please some of the people, etc.... |
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DavidG
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« Reply #25 on: July 20, 2009, 07:23:27 pm » |
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weaponized gammas
Now that's a disturbing concept, kind of like recruiting Typhoid Mary to work for the military. |
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txanne
Laser Snark
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« Reply #26 on: July 20, 2009, 07:33:17 pm » |
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The Anomaly is mother, the Anomaly is father.
Woo-hoo, I have now found an idea that scares me more than Frost.
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DavidG
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« Reply #27 on: July 20, 2009, 07:46:18 pm » |
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The Anomaly is mother, the Anomaly is father.
That takes my 'disturbing' and raises it to a whole new level. So Patricia Tallman to play the weaponized gamma, then.... |
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saoba
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« Reply #28 on: July 20, 2009, 08:17:43 pm » |
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The Anomaly is mother, the Anomaly is father.
That takes my 'disturbing' and raises it to a whole new level. So Patricia Tallman to play the weaponized gamma, then.... I may never sleep again. Thanks. |
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ebony14
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« Reply #29 on: July 21, 2009, 01:36:39 pm » |
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The Anomaly is mother, the Anomaly is father.
That takes my 'disturbing' and raises it to a whole new level. So Patricia Tallman to play the weaponized gamma, then.... Only if we have Jerry Doyle as Pete Pauley. |
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