Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26198344-20150312235543/@comment-2.96.252.129-20150422232258

1. Population of the Ark; starts out as about 400, ends up at around 2500. Over a 97 year period, that needs a pretty decent 2% growth rate. This in the context of a group that was apparently short on supplies from the get go, exposed to life threatening solar radiation. Were their ancestors orbiting scientists marooned? Seems unlikely, as does the idea anyone would have enough notice in 4 minutes to jump into the space shuttles.

2. Population of Mount Weather; they looked a sickly lot, at around 350, suggesting an initial population of 100 or so; original emergency US government an hangers on. But they had tme to prepare their Cold War bunker, including ensuring the contents of the Smithsonian were retrieved and to set up an unusual fuming sulfuric acid CW defense system. How much notice did they have?

3. Why do you need machine guns in space? And if they were fleeing a nuclear war, why did the Ark ancestors find space for assault rifles aboard the shuttles? How come a good portion of the 100 are pretty hand with a 100 year old AR15 they had never seen before.

4. Why was a parking garage sealed up in 2052 full of gas guzzling 2010 Suburbans? Up there with Grounders having plucked eyebrows, and peoplle in space being about to make 2500 sets of clothes, including cool uniforms for security, but those on the ground being in rags.

5. Why did the suicidal Tony Stark wannabe have the nuclear weapon codes to lose in the first place? If he was so aghast, shocked, why was he in a rather nice bunker?

6. The ancestors of the Ark people saw the Earth devastated by a nuclear war. Why on earth did they hang on to the last remaining nuclear missile? A souvenir?

7. When did the Grounders forget how to shoot? There are plenty of guns about. Obviously the big knife shops survived.

8. Does Mount Weather have the internet; how else did the descendants of politicians figure out quite advanced pharmaceutical-narco production (the Red) and know how to modity existing plant into a nifty chemical weapon.

9. The enlightened Ark people have but one punishment; death. The Mount Weather people; if you disagree with the leadership, they give you a crap job. When did the Ark turn Nazi?

7. Theory; the show is a combination of hackneyed, but intriguing plots. "Tony Stark" is Hugo Drax; in 2050 or so; he manages to persuade a bunch of governments that his corporation is best placed to run space stations. Hence Uganda, rather than South Africa, suddenly has a space station. The 13th station is the corporate one. He starts secretly packing them with his people, including people who have been genetically engineered to survive long periods in  space. He does this because he thinks the world is doomed, and he wants to somehow preserve humanity in the face of evil government (in his view) after some environmental catastrophe. He secures defence contracts, and then somehow gets the "codes", and plays his ace, threatening to disarm the superpowers unless they stop hunting whales or whatever. ALIE ("A LIE") is  to "Drax" what JARVIS is to Stark.

The Superpowers batten down the hatches, and retreat to their Mount Weathers. Numerous emergency bunkers are restocked with supplies and guns. ALIE monitor's the status of the Space Stations, and is their link to Earth. One of the Earth governments, thinking the threat is from space, attacks and destroys the 13th station. ALIE is flawed, goes crazy, unleashes Armageddon to cleanse the Earth of humanity, in order to save the Earth. Unlike Ian Fleming's Drax, this Drax misses the shuttle, and shoots himself, after realising that far from saving the Earth, he has destroyed it. The Ark survivors, feeling the guilt, agree never to speak of this again, or maybe they are in a state of mass denial.

ALIE spends the next 97 years monitoring the space station, including monitoring its depleting O2 supplies. ALIE has a fair idea when the space station will cease to be life supporting. ALIE needs the last missile to complete its programming. It needs a controlled re-entry of the missile. This it does by putting into play, perhaps through subtle changes in the support systems on the space station, a means to influence an easily suggestable jaha; Alie knows the ground is survivable, and creates the conditions for the 100 to be sent, and survive. The the Ark society disintegrates, again through manipulation of the atmospheric controls. Without knowing the 100 are alive, people might have chosen mass suicide, but the chance of survival creates the possibility for the missile to be dafely delivered.

Next pilfered story line comes from Beneath the Planet of the Apes; nuke-worshipping psychic mutants have their inexplicably obtained missile to blow up, and finish off the "Norms", or the last vestiges of humanity. End series with a bang. Or a party. Or its one big dream, and it ends like Lost.