# Ascension



## Odds Bodkins (Jun 7, 2006)

Three night event on Syfy starting presently. Reviews are middling but, you know, Tricia Helfer. Anyone else in?


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

I'm watching it. I'm just wondering what year the ship launched. (If the screen showed a date, I've let my attention wander a few times and I've only listened so I might have missed it.)

I'm just wondering about the second-in-command being black. How early on would the American culture have "allowed" that? (After all, their culture is based on that of whatever year they left Earth.)

I know they left at some point during the 60s, but I'm not sure if Kennedy would have still been alive or not. Certainly that early, wouldn't there have been far too much bias, despite the "pleasantness" people would have striven for with regards to racial matters?

_EDIT:
Oh, why am I not surprised? 9:30...and we see Number Six doing pretty much what she was doing when we first saw her with Baltar on Galactica.

Obviously, the Captain's wife is not only unfaithful; she's a Cylon._


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

WOAH!!!

Did not see that coming.

I will admit I'm a little disappointed. Leave it to SyFy to pull a stunt like this. They promise one thing, then turn it into something like this. Bah!

A little curious, tho'. Right at the end, how did they manage the suction effect?


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

gastrof said:


> WOAH!!!
> 
> Did not see that coming.
> 
> ...


HUGELY disappointed with the twist at the end of episode one.. Up until then I was pretty psyched at the scope of what they were trying to pull off for their December miniseries, now, notsomuch.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

I feel cheated.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

Son of a...

Tivo recorded a second airing. Which included the end of the previous airing in it, and guess what information was revealed as soon as I hit play...

/Sigh...


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

We had a power outage. I was recording the first run, and the power went out about 45 minutes in.

The power came back on a while later, and I had to go around resetting a few things...

Got the TV and cable box up and running just in time to see the tail end.

Recorded the second showing from start to end, but not sure now if I want to get the rest. Getting a new recording of part one was sort of defiance against the power failure. Now, tho', the direction the story's gone, getting parts two and three... Not so appealing.

Watch. I won't record 2 and 3, and right at the end it'll turn out things really did go the way we thought at first, but the experiment is to give them an idea how it's likely to be going, and then we'll see the ship arrive at its destination.

Nah. SyFy is too dribbly at this point to give us all that.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Although I'm disappointed, I still plan to watch 2 and 3 (or at least 2... let's see how that goes). If only to see what they do with the psychic girl.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

Was blindsided by the reveal. But, can you imagine how pissed the people on the "ship" are gonna be?

Not sure how helpful the experiment is gonna be. If it fails, what do you do, start another 100 year test?


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

I guess it's all about expectations. I suspected throughout most of the episode that the ship was fake, and was not at all disappointed.

I'm thinking that this is some sort of eugenics program. The purpose of the "ship" is to keep people contained to allow for the controlled breeding.

"Ascension" could mean ascending to the next level of human evolution rather than into space.

The fire in 31 AA (After Ascension) must have either been to kill off any remaining "grandparents" who knew the truth or to give them an excuse to leave.

Although I suppose it's possible even the original crew thought they were really taking off from some secret base that "opened" its roof when they were ready to leave. It does seem kind of heartless for all those parents to deliberately lie to their kids like that. But maybe they believed in whatever end goal they were striving for, and thought their descendants would be better off in the long term.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

I'm definitely assuming that even the original crew was deceived, pending further info. Although simulating takeoff must have been difficult.

Back when I still assumed the mission was real, I was thinking -- they must be relying on continuous acceleration to simulate gravity, since it doesn't (based on the orientation of things) appear to be rotational gravity. So, they're about halfway, at which point they'll have to turn the ship around and start decelerating. That would mean a brief interval of zero G... which will be hard to impossible to duplicate in the simulator. So maybe the experiment is (and was always) going to stop at the halfway point (i.e., soon)?


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

It wouldn't have been difficult if they were all in "Stasis" during the launch. 

Hey maybe they told them something like this.

"The first year of your journey will be in stasis, we will put you to sleep and then you will wake up once you are already a year from earth"


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

There was enough foreshadowing that the twist wasn't a surprise for me.

You could slowly turn the ship while under power, no need turn it off to start decelerating.
For a 100 year year trip, pointing in the wrong direction for a day or two isn't going to make much difference.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

unless you were using the ships acceleration to provide artificial gravity


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

vertigo235 said:


> It wouldn't have been difficult if they were all in "Stasis" during the launch.


So far they've avoided exotic theoretical technologies like that. Not to mention, the existence of a stasis technology would seem to eliminate the need to build a generation ship in the first place.


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## quango (Sep 25, 2005)

vertigo235 said:


> unless you were using the ships acceleration to provide artificial gravity


The math doesn't work; I tried it, and the constant Newtonian acceleration that gets you halfway to Proxima Centauri in 50 years is nowhere close to constant Earth gravity (I figure it around 0.004 m/s^2). If you accelerate at g or something close to it, you get into seriously relativistic speeds within a few months.

I suppose you could get around this to some extent by continuously changing the orientation of the ship while accelerating at 1g to maintain a constant acceleration without affecting your net trajectory, but you'd waste obscene amounts of fuel to do so.

Four other big hints that it's all faked, assuming it's based on 1963 technology, are also physics-related:

* Nothing on the ship is designed to work right in the absence of gravity.
* Gil Bellows knows there's something wrong at work and is panicked as if he can actually do something about it. If Ascension is really halfway to Proxima, whatever crisis happened over two years ago and by the time he can fix it, everyone's dead or the crisis is averted anyway.
* Proxima (presumably the giant red cloud) should be dead-ahead, not off to the side.
* Assuming constant acceleration, they crossed the Rubicon decades ago. 50 years into the flight, even if they immediately flip around and constantly decelerate, it's going to take 50 years to stop... at Proxima... then, you'd have to accelerate another 50 years back followed by 50 years of deceleration. Isaac Newton is the deadliest SOB in space.

Now most of these things assume the absence of artificial gravity, or at least the absence of lying to the crew to tell them that they have invented artificial gravity. (After all, you don't really need to have invented artificial gravity, any more than you need to irradiate the ship to fake an ion storm or have built a working nuclear propulsion system if you're simulating the whole thing.)

The real interesting question is why some people on the ship haven't figured out that the math doesn't add up. Anyone with a knowledge of high school physics should be able to calculate 1/2*9.8*t^2 and figure out that either the timeframe or gravity is wrong (and could replicate Galileo to confirm g) or that the Rubicon date isn't right. At the very least, the astronomer (Lorelei's sister) should know these things and probably terraformer guy too, even assuming that most of the crew aren't that bright. That suggests to me that at least some people on the ship DO know what's happening and are in cahoots with Bellows.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

I watched about 50 minutes. I found myself not paying attention at all. Super bored by this show. I see people mention a twist, but I don't even care at this point.


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## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

Just confirms moon landing was faked...


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Hoffer said:


> I watched about 50 minutes. I found myself not paying attention at all. Super bored by this show. I see people mention a twist, but I don't even care at this point.


you only have 15 mins to go


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## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

I don't remember devices with ctl keys in the 60's.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

vertigo235 said:


> you only have 15 mins to go


It said it was 85 minutes long.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Weird my downloaded version was only 1 hour and 5 mins


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

1:05:55 ==> 65 min. long.

The gravity on board is now easily explainable by ... EARTH! And I'd like to see the size of the T-shirt cannon they used to eject that coffin into "space"!


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Maybe Hoffer was watching commercials too.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

desulliv said:


> I don't remember devices with ctl keys in the 60's.


They still have some communication with Earth... it's possible that they were able to update their technology with what they could fabricate on board?

Or else we're just supposed to think it was secret technology only available to the military in the 1960's.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

So did they orchestrate all that to get the actual killer off the ship? Surely they know who killed her if they are keeping such a close eye on them right?


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## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

vertigo235 said:


> So did they orchestrate all that to get the actual killer off the ship? Surely they know who killed her if they are keeping such a close eye on them right?


You're forgetting about the ol' "blind spot".


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## thewebgal (Aug 10, 2007)

Watched part one (delayed) last night ... another kinda boring SciFry film - 
got the Roamio set to record parts 2 & 3 - but I dunno ... its just not compelling ...


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Too many holes in the plot to make it even remotely believable. The number of black crew members would not have happened in the timeline they suggest (i.e., late 50's or early 60's). The technology to launch a ship of that size wasn't even on the drawing board yet. The idea of a video module is too far advanced for that time period. There is far too much open space within the spacecraft to make it believable as they would have to use every cubic inch to conserve space. And a swimming pool? Any water on board would have to be reserved for drinking and food preparation.

OTOH, I'm sucked in so I'll watch the last two episodes just to see how much farther they can stretch the truth. It's already passed well beyond the science part and entered the world of total fiction.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

But it's not the 50's or 60's, its present day, we have a black president today. Blacks just overcame adversity over the last 60 years on the ship just like they did here on earth. 

At least, that's what they are trying to communicate, the show writers and producers would be racist if they didn't.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Yes, and note that the black man in a position of power is depicted as working his way up from the "lower levels."


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## Fl_Gulfer (May 27, 2005)

I called it half way through that they were still on earth. The wife said no, but I told her there is no way that the ship could have been built in the 50's or 60's and got into space (With Gravity). I figured they were on a TV set though and were asleep for the first few years. But the little girl still has me wondering what is really going on.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

vertigo235 said:


> But it's not the 50's or 60's, its present day, we have a black president today. Blacks just overcame adversity over the last 60 years on the ship just like they did here on earth.
> 
> At least, that's what they are trying to communicate, the show writers and producers would be racist if they didn't.


Sure, but the ship supposedly launched back in that time frame. How many blacks were in a test pilot program or became astronauts back then, not to mention how many were unlikely to be in a position of power in the military? I'd wager the numbers were pretty low back then. It's not a question of being racist but rather realistic to the social climate at the time.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

how did they have the technology for the simulation stuff outside in the 50's or 60's is my question. If the simulation has been going for that long how could they have replaced or upgraded the "star field" simulation.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

mr.unnatural said:


> Sure, but the ship supposedly launched back in that time frame. How many blacks were in a test pilot program or became astronauts back then, not to mention how many were unlikely to be in a position of power in the military? I'd wager the numbers were pretty low back then. It's not a question of being racist but rather realistic to the social climate at the time.


The show takes place in present day, he is a second generation crew member. There is no indication that any of the first generation "people in power" were black. His mom and dad may have been in charge of cleaning all the toilets on the ship, who knows.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Also, I'm assuming they are not a complete time capsule from earth, surely over the last 60 years they have received word that Black people can be Military Leaders right?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

vertigo235 said:


> The show takes place in present day, he is a second generation crew member. There is no indication that any of the first generation "people in power" were black. His mom and dad may have been in charge of cleaning all the toilets on the ship, who knows.


Plus the kids who were chosen were apparently chosen for their genetic potential to become or spawn mutants like Christa. So I suspect race didn't play into their calculations.


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> Sure, but the ship supposedly launched back in that time frame. How many blacks were in a test pilot program or became astronauts back then, not to mention how many were unlikely to be in a position of power in the military? I'd wager the numbers were pretty low back then. It's not a question of being racist but rather realistic to the social climate at the time.


The military desegregated in 1948. Colin Powell was an army officer in 1958 and a Major by 1968.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

vman41 said:


> The military desegregated in 1948. Colin Powell was an army officer in 1958 and a Major by 1968.


I did not know that. It's good to learn that our military was more progressive in this regard than the rest of our society. It's a shame that it took so long for the rest of us to catch up.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

Well, Gil Bellows is fruitier than a nutcake. And has a God complex. Like his old man.

I did get a chuckle out of little Christa's 60s era iPad. 

Something that hit me when I noticed a big ring on a guy's hand. Who makes the jewelry? And some of the other puff stuff? With a 600 person crew, I'd think that those not busy with the daily tasks of feeding the crew or keeping a 50 year old rust bucket from falling apart in "space", wouldn't have the spare time to make rings. Or perfume. Yeah, I know that they reclaim and recycle, but still.

Wow, Gault's head wound sure healed quickly.

And what's the deal with the seahorse anyway?


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

RGM1138 said:


> And what's the deal with the seahorse anyway?


Harris has been portrayed as having an obsession on Andrea Roth's doctor, to me it looks like when they were all out cold with the radiation alert someone either came in from outside, or grabbed it and sent it outside, and now he's got his kink up a notch by having his wife wear it.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

dianebrat said:


> Harris has been portrayed as having an obsession on Andrea Roth's doctor, to me it looks like when they were all out cold with the radiation alert someone either came in from outside, or grabbed it and sent it outside, and now he's got his kink up a notch by having his wife wear it.


Yeah, I must have blinked and missed something, cuz the next thing I knew, it's in a box in the warehouse. Then on his wife.

The boy's definitely got some issues, but could there be something deeper going on? Some other significance to the necklace?

Or just a fetish?


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

RGM1138 said:


> Yeah, I must have blinked and missed something, cuz the next thing I knew, it's in a box in the warehouse. Then on his wife.
> 
> The boy's definitely got some issues, but could there be something deeper going on? Some other significance to the necklace?
> 
> Or just a fetish?


Remember that the guy in the hazmat suit took it from her cabin in the radiation event.

And he went on at length about how he was studying her when he was talking about he mission to the new hire/investigator, it was pretty obvious he had a thing for the Dr at that point which made having his wife wear the necklace was just uber creepy.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

dianebrat said:


> Remember that the guy in the hazmat suit took it from her cabin in the radiation event.
> 
> And he went on at length about how he was studying her when he was talking about he mission to the new hire/investigator, it was pretty obvious he had a thing for the Dr at that point which made having his wife wear the necklace was just uber creepy.


Yeah, it just seems superfluous to bring that out too, unless they really want to make a point out of what a whack job Harris is.

Also, it's funny to me that the captain, (who I'm still seeing as the goofy ex from Cougar Town), is watching John Wayne movies and talking about character, when he seems to be poking anything that moves.

Of course, that could be The New Morality, imposed upon a finite universe of only 600 people.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

dianebrat said:


> And he went on at length about how he was studying her when he was talking about he mission to the new hire/investigator, it was pretty obvious he had a thing for the Dr at that point which made having his wife wear the necklace was just uber creepy.


"You haven't kissed me like that in ages!"


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

RGM1138 said:


> Something that hit me when I noticed a big ring on a guy's hand. Who makes the jewelry? And some of the other puff stuff? With a 600 person crew, I'd think that those not busy with the daily tasks of feeding the crew or keeping a 50 year old rust bucket from falling apart in "space", wouldn't have the spare time to make rings. Or perfume. Yeah, I know that they reclaim and recycle, but still.


They must have some fun priorities... as they chose to bring little paper drink umbrellas and the equipment to manufacture them on a 100-year spaceflight. There's so many silly things it's really little more than another SyFy movie, just in 3-ish parts, though not good enough for a weekend showing.


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## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

RGM1138 said:


> Well, Gil Bellows is fruitier than a nutcake. And has a God complex. Like his old man.
> 
> I did get a chuckle out of little Christa's 60s era iPad.
> 
> ...


They clearly don't have time to move their music beyond the '40's, '50's or '60's...


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

dswallow said:


> They must have some fun priorities... as they chose to bring little paper drink umbrellas and the equipment to manufacture them on a 100-year spaceflight. There's so many silly things it's really little more than another SyFy movie, just in 3-ish parts, though not good enough for a weekend showing.


Oh, come on, it's MUCH better than a Syfy Original Movie!

It's downright borderline watchable!


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Oh, come on, it's MUCH better than a Syfy Original Movie!
> 
> It's downright borderline watchable!


very well described, sir.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

desulliv said:


> They clearly don't have time to move their music beyond the '40's, '50's or '60's...


Or their attire. Still stuck in 60s clothes and hair styles.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> The technology to launch a ship of that size wasn't even on the drawing board yet.


The ship is supposed to be based on (the original) Project Orion (kind of annoying that NASA has re-used that name now). They've mentioned it in the show, and it's not fictitious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Never built, but on the drawing board, yes.



> _The idea of a video module is too far advanced for that time period._


After night 2, my impression is that this tech was actually developed on the ship. (They probably had the movies with them on film already.)



> _There is far too much open space within the spacecraft to make it believable as they would have to use every cubic inch to conserve space._


Open space is psychologically essential. They feel pretty confined as it is. Your expectations seem too constrained by current spaceship/station designs. But this is a 100-year mission. The crew needs a place they can _live_ in, for generations.

Proposed designs for space colonies include massive amounts of open space:




























and these are the kind of terms in which we should be thinking, for a 100-year mission.



> _And a swimming pool? Any water on board would have to be reserved for drinking and food preparation._


Not to gross you out, but the swimming pool is _also_ described in the show as a "water reclamation" facility. We can assume it has something to do with the recycling of waste water back into drinking water.

And again, I'd cite this as the sort of thing that's not really a luxury at all on a 100-year mission.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

So I guess the whole point of keeping them in a ship on Earth for 51 years was so they'd genetically create a "StarChild" who, when witnessing a fight and getting uncontrollably angry, dissolves people and sends the good ones to some alien planet.

Oh, and if you spray the active ingredient of CO2 scrubbers through ventilation shafts, you'll make it rain.

Yep. SyFy Movie.


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## Beryl (Feb 22, 2009)

vman41 said:


> The military desegregated in 1948. Colin Powell was an army officer in 1958 and a Major by 1968.


Yep. That progression mirrors my father's (also black and college educated scientist back in the 40s). He stopped at Army Colonel and then ascended in civilian positions.

African American white collar professionals in the 60s were not rare. There were many high ranking blacks in the military, medicine and science. It is a pity that so many are unaware of this fact.

Tuskeegee Airmen
The National Medical Association (NMA)
Blacks in Science



vertigo235 said:


> The show takes place in present day, he is a second generation crew member. There is no indication that any of the first generation "people in power" were black. His mom and dad may have been in charge of cleaning all the toilets on the ship, who knows.


The premise of this show is that the inhabitants of the ship were selected from the educational elite so you should expect blacks -- to be of that ilk. His parents could have been rocket scientists.

The problem I have with the show is the role of women on the ship. Except for the doctor and Gault's mother (I forgot what she did), too many women are aspiring to be sex objects -- stewardesses.

Edit: Did anyone else get a "Serenity/Firefly" vibe?


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

Umm, what? I spent 5 1/2 hours on this? And it's open ended?

Blonde lady could have just gone to the press.

When they showed the ship from the outside with people, the scale was way off. It wasn't big enough to contain what was inside the ship.

What came up out of the water at the end?

Where the hell did Gault go? Apparently there was an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere.

How did living on the ship make Christa telekinetic?

I don't see how they don't try to make this into a series.

BTW, that piece of equipment they used to get "Full power to the ventilation system" was a Grass Valley 300 video production switcher. Like the one used in Star Wars.


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## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

Beryl said:


> Yep. That progression mirrors my father's (also black and college educated scientist back in the 40s). He stopped at Army Colonel and then ascended in civilian positions.
> 
> African American white collar professionals in the 60s were not rare. There were many high ranking blacks in the military, medicine and science. It is a pity that so many are unaware of this fact.
> 
> ...


Edit: No, not at all.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

RGM1138 said:


> I don't see how they don't try to make this into a series.


I'm pretty sure this was originally conceived of as a series, and filmed that way, until they got notified that they weren't being picked up, so they tried to cram some stuff in at the end, maybe. (I'm sure about it being intended as a series, less so that they attempted some resolution, but I suspect it would've taken longer for some of those events to play out in the original plan.)



> _Blonde lady could have just gone to the press._


That was her plan ("the world will know"), but she had to get safe first.



> _Where the hell did Gault go? Apparently there was an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere._


I'm guessing he went to that place that Christa saw as good ("there's life there"), in that scene where she was staring at the stars. So, _not_ in the Proxima system, but we don't know exactly where.



> _How did living on the ship make Christa telekinetic?_


I think that had more to do with the breeding program, but maybe the environment was also supposed to be a factor, I dunno. They probably would've explained it in the series.


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## desulliv (Aug 22, 2003)

RGM1138 said:


> How did living on the ship make Christa telekinetic?


They talked about that punctuated evolution thing.


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## DouglasPHill (Feb 10, 2005)

So far am about 30-45 minutes into ep 1. As long as "6" keeps taking off her clothes, I'm watching.


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## Linnemir (Apr 7, 2009)

Beryl said:


> Yep. That progression mirrors my father's (also black and college educated scientist back in the 40s). He stopped at Army Colonel and then ascended in civilian positions.
> 
> African American white collar professionals in the 60s were not rare. There were many high ranking blacks in the military, medicine and science. It is a pity that so many are unaware of this fact.
> 
> ...


Ummm ... NO way! Firefly/Serenity was GOOD! This was just frustrating. I found it slow, heavy, and then went nuts it just stopped rather than reaching a conclusion!


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

quango said:


> The math doesn't work; I tried it, and the constant Newtonian acceleration that gets you halfway to Proxima Centauri in 50 years is nowhere close to constant Earth gravity (I figure it around 0.004 m/s^2). If you accelerate at g or something close to it, you get into seriously relativistic speeds within a few months.
> 
> I suppose you could get around this to some extent by continuously changing the orientation of the ship while accelerating at 1g to maintain a constant acceleration without affecting your net trajectory, but you'd waste obscene amounts of fuel to do so.
> .


One Gee of acceleration is NOT 0.004 m/sec^2, it is 10 m/sec^2

Your calculations are Newtonian and disregard Relativistic physics. 
Changing the orientation of the ship is irrelevant as you're assuming an absolute reference frame which Relativity shows does not exist.
Also, as the ship approaches "relativistic" velocities, its mass increases exponentially requiring more and more thrust/energy. Approaching light speed its inertia mass approaches then exceeds the Earth's, then Jupiter's, the sun's, the galaxy's, the universe's...
I agree that the entire premise of the show is so ridiculous that even with a hot Cylon babe it's unwatchable.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

desulliv said:


> They talked about that punctuated evolution thing.


Did they expand on that? I don't know what that means.


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## Beryl (Feb 22, 2009)

Linnemir said:


> Ummm ... NO way! Firefly/Serenity was GOOD! This was just frustrating. I found it slow, heavy, and then went nuts it just stopped rather than reaching a conclusion!


I agree that the quality does compare -- AT ALL.

I'm just thinking about certain elements: girl with special powers sought out by those in power (who is also related to the doctor), woman who provides sexual favors also the love interest of the captain, constant references to an earlier time in American history.

If it wasn't for my TiVo and the ability to skip commercials, I would have never watched those 6 episodes.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

So, I listened to a TV podcast that just happened to spoil this show. That after I gave up on it. So, the big surprise did get me to go back and finish the first night and I also watched the second night. Liking the show more now.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

philw1776 said:


> One Gee of acceleration is NOT 0.004 m/sec^2, it is 10 m/sec^2


He knows that (it's 9.8, but who's counting). He was saying, it doesn't work at 1 G, so what _would_ it work at?



> _Your calculations are Newtonian and disregard Relativistic physics._


It's not really relevant, though -- if the ship gets up to relativistic speeds, the trip takes much less than 100 years. A century to Proxima Centauri means an average speed of less than 5% C. (Not coincidentally, the maximum speed for an Orion-style ship is said to be around 5% C.)

I have to admit, I did my own very rough calculation after I posted the continuous acceleration idea, but I got meters and kilometers mixed up in one step, so I was a bit off.  Glad I didn't post that.


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## quango (Sep 25, 2005)

philw1776 said:


> One Gee of acceleration is NOT 0.004 m/sec^2, it is 10 m/sec^2
> 
> Your calculations are Newtonian and disregard Relativistic physics.
> Changing the orientation of the ship is irrelevant as you're assuming an absolute reference frame which Relativity shows does not exist.
> ...


Correct, I was saying to get halfway to Proxima in 50 years, you'd have to accelerate at 0.004 m/sec^2, which is nowhere near enough to produce anything like Earth gravity. As I said, if they accelerated at g, they'd be in relativistic velocities quickly; if you could sustain g continuously, you'd be there well within a decade, although you'd eventually reach a point where the marginal travel time benefit of additional acceleration is outweighed by the cost of generating it.

Changing the orientation of the ship repeatedly would be essential to keep sufficient force to maintain Earth-like gravity while still staying on the same trajectory (since continuously vectoring in a single direction would alter your course) and not getting there more quickly than 100 years. This would be a really stupid thing to do (why take 100 years if you can get there in 10?) but that's what physics requires if you want to maintain that much downforce without using centripetal force.

Note that the real thought-experiments for Project Orion suggested an acceleration at g for approximately 7-8 weeks to reach around 0.1c, then coasting for ~43 years and decelerating at g for the same length of time. Obviously you'd need to find some other way to sustain gravity in the meantime, which would necessitate a completely different design.

Regardless, my main point was that the physics doesn't add up and if this ship is full of scientists (or even has a few), they should know it.


----------



## Big Deficit (Jul 8, 2003)

Almost as believable as Sharknado!

I'm left wondering how the XO is going to make out alone on that distant world with nothing but the clothes on his back? Then again, i remind myself that I don't care.


----------



## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Is this show going to become a series?


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

Kamakzie said:


> Is this show going to become a series?


Only if we've been bad people this past year.


----------



## Solver (Feb 17, 2005)

For some reason I thought the show would end with Ascension blasting off into space just before some cataclysmic earthly event was about to occur.

That seemingly pointless Farcasting trip was a complete surprise.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

Yeah so this is what SyFy is trying to win us back with?


----------



## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

No, it's what they're trying to further alienate us with.


----------



## DLiquid (Sep 17, 2001)

Weird show. Kind of entertaining, but frustrating too.

In three generations of selective breeding they were able to create a girl that could sense a distant planet that would sustain life and then accidentally teleport someone to it using her mind? And this was the plan all along? Whaaat?


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

I wonder when Robert (Nora's father) found out the truth. Presumably his father passed on the information to him at some point, but how could he be sure that his son would want to follow in his footsteps? What if his son wanted to rebel, and ruin the experiment?



DLiquid said:


> In three generations of selective breeding they were able to create a girl that could sense a distant planet that would sustain life and then accidentally teleport someone to it using her mind? And this was the plan all along? Whaaat?


If Eva (Faux Conspiracy Girl) was telling the truth about the kids, it appears that the original families were made up of scientists and kidnapped children. So it's possible they searched the world for children with specific genes, and abducted them. Although I'm not sure why none of those children wouldn't have ever told their children about their real parents.

Another possibility is that the original children were genetically engineered.



gastrof said:


> No, it's what they're trying to further alienate us with.


If that's the case, then the ending makes perfect sense.


----------



## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

vertigo235 said:


> Yeah so this is what SyFy is trying to win us back with?




gastrof said:


> No, it's what they're trying to further alienate us with.




BitbyBlit said:


> If that's the case, then the ending makes perfect sense.


----------



## tlc (May 30, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> That was her plan ("the world will know"), but she had to get safe first.


"We're going full Snowden." -- I liked that line.

I liked it. I got surprised a few times:

That they never left Earth. (Yeah, the physics were wrong, but they often are on SF TV.)
When the blond spook got shot in the face. (Not that Eva was a bad guy, but that it ended with a main character dead.)
The teleportation.

I'd watch more if it comes back.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

DLiquid said:


> Weird show. Kind of entertaining, but frustrating too.
> 
> In three generations of selective breeding they were able to create a girl that could sense a distant planet that would sustain life and then accidentally teleport someone to it using her mind? And this was the plan all along? Whaaat?


More than the genetic selection, the Ascension inhabitants were being dosed with some unique chemical compound over the generations.

Also, the girl didn't teleport anyone. She was in communication with whomever did the teleportation. She told them she didn't want to go, so she wasn't teleported.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Thom said:


> More than the genetic selection, the Ascension inhabitants were being dosed with some unique chemical compound over the generations.
> 
> Also, the girl didn't teleport anyone. She was in communication with whomever did the teleportation. She told them she didn't want to go, so she wasn't teleported.


Where are you getting this stuff?


----------



## DouglasPHill (Feb 10, 2005)

The third ep had the most going on. I enjoyed it. I mentioned to my 22 year old son that "6" was in it with nudity and he said "so what she's like in her 40s, not interested." His loss, she looked mighty fine to me.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

wmcbrine said:


> Where are you getting this stuff?


When I watched the beach scene where the two men were fighting and then disappeared, I heard Christa say "I told THEM I didn't want to go." I took this to mean that someone other than Christa performed the teleport, but left Christa because she didn't want to go.

I just replayed that scene, but with captioning on this time, and Christa actually said "I told HIM I didn't want to go." So I guess she was talking about the outsider kidnapper to whom she kept saying "No! Let me go!" while struggling against him. Which means she disappeared the men. Looking at the teleport scene again, the outsider kidnapper seemed to disintegrate into small pieces and then vanish, whereas the good guy (Galt?) seemed to just vanish as a whole.

Regarding the population being treated with chemicals to assist/force evolution, I am assuming that is what is in the injections everyone has been getting regularly for generations. The outsider project director said his father believed it would take three generations for "morphic resonance" to appear.


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## stinkbomb1020 (Jul 18, 2004)

Solver said:


> For some reason I thought the show would end with Ascension blasting off into space just before some cataclysmic earthly event was about to occur.
> 
> That seemingly pointless Farcasting trip was a complete surprise.


That's sort of what I was expecting. Christa uses her powers to transport/teleport the ship into deep space or something...close to her vision of utopia planet.
The ending was definitely left wide open...would have been easier to have the ship and warehouse obliterated if CryFy decides not to resume the story.


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## DouglasPHill (Feb 10, 2005)

Is this going to be a series or was it just 3 and out?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

DouglasPHill said:


> Is this going to be a series or was it just 3 and out?


It was a back-door pilot (or, if you prefer, the first six episodes of an ongoing series repackaged as a miniseries).


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

Like they did for _BSG_...


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## ellinj (Feb 26, 2002)

Man what a waste of 6hrs. Could have at least wrapped up the story


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

As was mentioned, they hope to make it into a series...


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Just watched it all today. Enjoyed it quite a bit. Don't give a damn about the scientific inaccuracies. Without those, we have no show. I thought the reveal at the end of Ep 1 made the show much more interesting than just your standard space journey story.

I was a little surprised at how imprecise they were with using modern tech language in a ship that was supposed to have left Earth in 1963. Did they use the word "upload" back then? Did they have "video files?" How about "servers?" Are we to assume the writers were just lazy, or did the population on board the ship develop technology and came up with the same words for it that we did here on earth?


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## GAViewer (Oct 18, 2007)

DevdogAZ said:


> Are we to assume the writers were just lazy, or did the population on board the ship develop technology and came up with the same words for it that we did here on earth?


During the show Harris mentions that MRI and other advances people on earth use were actually invented on Ascension. So I assumed they were implying that at least in the Ascension universe the people on earth copied the technology and names the people on Ascension used.


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## JoBeth66 (Feb 15, 2002)

I didn't think it was that bad, but yeah, we figured out the "twist" early on in the first episode. And Bobby Cobb is in there being all Bobby Cobb, sleeping with anything that moves. Did it have some issues? Sure, but it's SyFy. Would I watch more? Yep.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

GAViewer said:


> During the show Harris mentions that MRI and other advances people on earth use were actually invented on Ascension. So I assumed they were implying that at least in the Ascension universe the people on earth copied the technology and names the people on Ascension used.


I caught that line about the MRI but I wasn't sure when that was invented with regards to when the ship allegedly launched. If the people on the ship are doing research and creating technology and have manufacturing capabilities, I think it would be important for the show to point that out. They spent a lot of time on the upper-deckers vs. lower-deckers but they only showed the upper-deckers partying and living the high life, and they only showed the lower deckers taking care of the physical needs and maintenance. If they're truly trying to create a show that depicts a new society, they should show us more than just those extremes.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

JoBeth66 said:


> I didn't think it was that bad, but yeah, we figured out the "twist" early on in the first episode. And Bobby Cobb is in there being all Bobby Cobb, sleeping with anything that moves. Did it have some issues? Sure, but it's SyFy. Would I watch more? Yep.


It was interesting casting to have Bobby Cobb being the captain of a spaceship and being responsible for 600 people. I wonder where he was hiding Dog Travis.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

DevdogAZ said:


> It was interesting casting to have Bobby Cobb being the captain of a spaceship and being responsible for 600 people. I wonder where he was hiding Dog Travis.


I'm so used to him in that role that it was hard to take him seriously as captain of an interstellar ship. I half expected him to yell out "penny can!" at some point.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

DevdogAZ said:


> I caught that line about the MRI but I wasn't sure when that was invented with regards to when the ship allegedly launched. If the people on the ship are doing research and creating technology and have manufacturing capabilities, I think it would be important for the show to point that out. They spent a lot of time on the upper-deckers vs. lower-deckers but they only showed the upper-deckers partying and living the high life, and they only showed the lower deckers taking care of the physical needs and maintenance. If they're truly trying to create a show that depicts a new society, they should show us more than just those extremes.


It wasn't too long after the reveal of still being on Earth that the outsiders started talking about how tech was being developed inside. After that point the started throwing all kinds of stuff that didn't exist in the sixties, like video tablets, memory cards, MRI, and such. For someone like myself who experienced that era in person it was obvious that the ship wasn't stuck in sixties technology.

Changing the subject, I noticed that when they first listed the scientists taken for the mission, the names were all well-known science fiction authors. But during blondie's escape, the cenotaph with the listing of heroes outside the building only had one name I recognized, John Campbell. Does anyone recognize the other names on the list? Or know why Veronica was listed twice?


----------



## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

I was really expecting Penny Can to make an appearance at some time.


----------



## JoBeth66 (Feb 15, 2002)

RGM1138 said:


> I'm so used to him in that role that it was hard to take him seriously as captain of an interstellar ship. I half expected him to yell out "penny can!" at some point.


:up:

The hardest part for me and what honestly took me out of it was the idea that with 600 people on the ship they wouldn't know who everybody was. There are so few children born (because children are only for replacement) that any child born outside of what's allowable would be obvious, and impossible to hide.

And there's no way that anyone would be asking anyone else "what's your name" or expecting them to be introduced. If you lived in a small ship with 600 people and were in your 40's, you'd know everyone by sight immediately, you'd have watched the younger people grow up, and the older people would've watched you grow up, and you'd know everyone in your age group intimately. And it didn't seem like there was a very good spread of ages. An awful lot of people in their late 30's/early 40's, a few older, and a bunch in their late teens/early 20s. You would expect that there would be more people in their late 20s due to the launch day fire, but that didn't seem to be the case.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

JoBeth66 said:


> The hardest part for me and what honestly took me out of it was the idea that with 600 people on the ship they wouldn't know who everybody was. There are so few children born (because children are only for replacement) that any child born outside of what's allowable would be obvious, and impossible to hide.
> 
> And there's no way that anyone would be asking anyone else "what's your name" or expecting them to be introduced. If you lived in a small ship with 600 people and were in your 40's, you'd know everyone by sight immediately, you'd have watched the younger people grow up, and the older people would've watched you grow up, and you'd know everyone in your age group intimately. And it didn't seem like there was a very good spread of ages. An awful lot of people in their late 30's/early 40's, a few older, and a bunch in their late teens/early 20s. You would expect that there would be more people in their late 20s due to the launch day fire, but that didn't seem to be the case.


Agree with this, sort of. I don't have a problem with the ages of the people they followed in the show. We only got to know 10-15 of the people so there are 585 more that I'm sure range in ages across the spectrum. But I do agree that in a totally isolated population of that size, you'd know everyone by name.

And given how small the ship is (relatively) and how few people there are, I don't think the strict class system would really exist like that. This isn't like steerage on the Titanic where these rich people and poor people are only going to be on the same ship with each other for a couple weeks. They're stuck in this metal tube together for their entire lives, so treating the lower deckers as undesirables that you don't want to interact with just seemed really shortsighted by the writers. I know they're just creating conflict with the writing, but that seemed silly when there was plenty of inherent conflict already in the story, without the need to add the class warfare to it.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

dswallow said:


> Only if we've been bad people this past year.


Santa knows....


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

Bierboy said:


> Santa knows....


The Globus knows...


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## AeneaGames (May 2, 2009)

dswallow said:


> So I guess the whole point of keeping them in a ship on Earth for 51 years was so they'd genetically create a "StarChild" who, when witnessing a fight and getting uncontrollably angry, dissolves people and sends the good ones *to some alien planet*.


I've seen that mentioned somewhere else as well, but it could have been a place on earth could it not?


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## AeneaGames (May 2, 2009)

wmcbrine said:


> I'm pretty sure this was originally conceived of as a series, and filmed that way, until they got notified that they weren't being picked up, so they tried to cram some stuff in at the end, maybe. (I'm sure about it being intended as a series, less so that they attempted some resolution, but I suspect it would've taken longer for some of those events to play out in the original plan.)
> 
> That was her plan ("the world will know"), but she had to get safe first.
> 
> ...


I assumed it had to do with both the breeding program finding perfect matches AND the special medicine they were receiving.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

AeneaGames said:


> I've seen that mentioned somewhere else as well, but it could have been a place on earth could it not?


I could be wrong, but I thought as the camera pulled back, it showed more than one sun in the sky.


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## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

Yeah. And wasn't the "spaceship" supposedly going to a place with multiple suns?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Amnesia said:


> Yeah. And wasn't the "spaceship" supposedly going to a place with multiple suns?


Yes, Alpha Centauri. Although the little girl said they SHOULD be going somewhere else...


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Amnesia said:


> Yeah. And wasn't the "spaceship" supposedly going to a place with multiple suns?


Yes, the place they were going has three suns. I thought that final shot would make it more clear that there were three suns in the sky, but there were lots of clouds (and I don't get Syfy in HD), so it was tough to tell if there were more suns than the clear one low on the horizon and if so, how many.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> I could be wrong, but I thought as the camera pulled back, it showed more than one sun in the sky.


I was specifically looking for that - and it was unclear.

There was very clearly one sun on the horizon. And as they pulled back, there was a brighter spot in the clouds high in the sky. But it wasn't clearly a second sun.

And... I would assume if she sent him somewhere, it would have been to the nice place in the Blue cloud with an unknown number of suns, not the bad place in the Red cloud which was known to have three suns (the centauri system).


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

DevdogAZ said:


> I could be wrong, but I thought as the camera pulled back, it showed more than one sun in the sky.


I thought I saw just the one, but it was VERY low in the sky...


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## AeneaGames (May 2, 2009)

DevdogAZ said:


> I could be wrong, but I thought as the camera pulled back, it showed more than one sun in the sky.


Ahh, then I've missed that


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

JoBeth66 said:


> An awful lot of people in their late 30's/early 40's, a few older, and a bunch in their late teens/early 20s. You would expect that there would be more people in their late 20s due to the launch day fire, but that didn't seem to be the case.


I missed the details on The Fire. Is that supposed to account for the lack of 60/70/80 year olds? They're 51 years into the mission, there should be some originals left.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

tlc said:


> I missed the details on The Fire. Is that supposed to account for the lack of 60/70/80 year olds? They're 51 years into the mission, there should be some originals left.


Based on that conspiracy lady, I think we're to understand that they started with lots of accomplished scientists, so probably people already established in their careers, and therefore probably in the 35-55 age range. Then they kidnapped a bunch of ultra-bright six year-olds. So there should be lots of people in their late 50s that were kids at the start of the mission. And maybe a couple of original scientists, but they'd likely be at least 85. And then a good mix of people under 50, as theoretically they'd have as many babies each year as people who died.


----------



## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

that was pretty dumb.

i did not see it coming that they were not actually in space.

and them losing oxygen makes no sense - if Spokes went out a locker then I don't see why they couldn't just open the locker. I am sure i am missing some technical mumbo jumbo but...

and the guy that teleported to the planet at the end? he's frakked.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Cainebj said:


> and the guy that teleported to the planet at the end? he's frakked.


Why? she can bring him back or take a whole lot of people there. She didn't lose her powers, the show just ended


----------



## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

Anubys said:


> Why? she can bring him back or take a whole lot of people there. She didn't lose her powers, the show just ended


it didn't seem like she has enuf control over her powers to just transport him back and forth

and he landed on a planet with no food or water or shelter

and since he's been on that ship all his life he has never seen SURVIVOR so ...

he's frakked.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Cainebj said:


> and them losing oxygen makes no sense - if Spokes went out a locker then I don't see why they couldn't just open the locker. I am sure i am missing some technical mumbo jumbo but...


I'm not sure what part you're referring to. When were they losing oxygen and someone went out a "locker?"


----------



## Amnesia (Jan 30, 2005)

Cainebj said:


> (...) and he landed on a planet with no food or water or shelter


Says who?


----------



## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

DevdogAZ said:


> I'm not sure what part you're referring to. When were they losing oxygen and someone went out a "locker?"


I am not sure why I called it a locker but - when Spokes leaves the ship and he is falling through space he goes out through a door in the ship.

He falls onto a padded thing and that is the big reveal at the end of Part 1 that they are not in space.

I think it's Part 3 when the ship is running out of oxygen, the Cyclon is running the ship on deck and Gil Bellows says - "What are we supposed to do? Open a window?"

I thought yeah, why not?


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

The word you're looking for is "air-lock." 

The ship was built as if it were real...it's air-tight, no windows. And the whole point of an air-lock is that it prevents air from escaping, so it would be of almost no use for replenishing air, even if they knew there was air outside.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Cainebj said:


> I am not sure why I called it a locker but - when Spokes leaves the ship and he is falling through space he goes out through a door in the ship. He falls onto a padded thing and that is the big reveal at the end of Part 1 that they are not in space.
> 
> I think it's Part 3 when the ship is running out of oxygen, the Cyclon is running the ship on deck and Gil Bellows says - "What are we supposed to do? Open a window?"
> 
> I thought yeah, why not?


The primary reason is because that would be the end of the program that his father and he had worked their entire lives for.

But also because spaceships don't have windows. I'm sure that the mechanism that allowed the guy to be ejected from the ship was some kind of airlock that would only allow an outer door to open when an inner door is sealed.


----------



## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

I found it weird that they never got any updated from "Earth" after they left. Never saw a TV show that they hadn't brought with them (until the jammers went down)

And why jammers rather than just EM shielding the building with the spaceship? (of course the EM shielding wouldn't fail if the power went out or a circuit fried; so it's not as good as a "plot" point )

If they're suppose to be half way to proxima centauri then they're barely more than 2 lightyears from earth. They could be just a couple seasons behind on current TV, not 50 years. (OK, the Program would need a honking big antenna to blast that to them at that range, but you'd expect them to expect some some updates - not be cut off just after launch)


----------



## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

Jonathan_S said:


> I found it weird that they never got any updated from "Earth" after they left. Never saw a TV show that they hadn't brought with them (until the jammers went down)
> 
> And why jammers rather than just EM shielding the building with the spaceship? (of course the EM shielding wouldn't fail if the power went out or a circuit fried; so it's not as good as a "plot" point )
> 
> If they're suppose to be half way to proxima centauri then they're barely more than 2 lightyears from earth. They could be just a couple seasons behind on current TV, not 50 years. (OK, the Program would need a honking big antenna to blast that to them at that range, but you'd expect them to expect some some updates - not be cut off just after launch)


Because they are not really in space, remember? If they wanted to be in communication with the ship they could have put in a two-year delay line, but we might conclude they want the experiment isolated. Therefore they would have explained to the crew that providing a large enough antenna for communications was not practical. It might also be explained that communications would not be possible during the boost phase, because the Orion propulsion system would have been many thousands of small nuclear explosions whose EMP would have precluded any radio transmissions. Or some other convenient baffle-garb.

As far as the lack of EM shielding goes, you probably don't remember that there was a significant copper shortage in the sixties. Budget constraints would have made jamming the preferred design choice.


----------



## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

The nose of the ship did have windows which looked out on a fake star field.

They should have faked a last message from earth about nuclear war breaking out. The ship's inhabitants then would really feel they were humanities last hope.


----------



## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> The word you're looking for is "air-lock."
> 
> The ship was built as if it were real...it's air-tight, no windows. And the whole point of an air-lock is that it prevents air from escaping, so it would be of almost no use for replenishing air, even if they knew there was air outside.


Sorry still doesn't make any sense.

The first thing I thought when Stokes fell out the "air-lock" was: 
*Why is he still able to breath?*

I am not saying actually open a window (that was Gil's line) 
- but if Stokes fell from the "air-lock", he fell into a place that had oxygen. Open the "air-lock" and the oxygen should be able to go into the ship.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Cainebj said:


> Sorry still doesn't make any sense.
> 
> The first thing I thought when Stokes fell out the "air-lock" was: Why is he still able to breath?
> 
> I am not saying actually open a window (that was Gil's line) - but if Stokes fell from the "air-lock", he fell into a place that had oxygen. Open the "air-lock" and the oxygen should be able to go into the ship.


That's not how an airlock works. They couldn't have both an inner door and an outer door open at the same time to just let the air flow in. And if they opened the outer door and filled the air lock chamber with oxygen, the inner door probably won't open until the outer door is sealed and the airlock chamber is pressurized with air from inside the ship.


----------



## danterner (Mar 4, 2005)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> The word you're looking for is "air-lock."
> 
> The ship was built as if it were real...it's air-tight, no windows. And the whole point of an air-lock is that it prevents air from escaping, so it would be of almost no use for replenishing air, even if they knew there was air outside.


It wasn't clear to me (perhaps I just wasn't paying attention) - I got that the ship was built to function as though it were real, but were we ever given any definitive answer as to whether it is actually fully operational? In other words, if the show goes to series and the plot calls for it, might this "built as if it were real" ship actually take off at some point? Move the fake starfield out of the way, open the ceiling, and blast off?


----------



## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

Presumably the airlocks could be wedged open. (After all, we know they can 'fail' open). It still wouldn't help.

Take a ship full of air with minimal O2, and excessive CO2. Open up a relatively small (compared to the volume of the ship) breach between that environment and a environment containing ample 'fresh air'. What happens then? - almost nothing.

You'd need either massive ventilation for the air to circulation from the outside in naturally (ie, you'd need to riddle the ship with holes) - or a massive forced air system to circulate the air from the outside in, and vent the existing CO2 heavy air out.

Neither of which were feasible at the time.

Now, that said, both the problem and the solution weren't exactly well grounded in reality in the first place. No I'm not entirely sure we can use reality against other proposed solutions. Just because it never would have worked in real life, doesn't mean it couldn't have worked in this show.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

danterner said:


> It wasn't clear to me (perhaps I just wasn't paying attention) - I got that the ship was built to function as though it were real, but were we ever given any definitive answer as to whether it is actually fully operational? In other words, if the show goes to series and the plot calls for it, might this "built as if it were real" ship actually take off at some point? Move the fake starfield out of the way, open the ceiling, and blast off?


Obviously the show is science FICTION so anything is possible, but if they're trying to keep things at least semi-close to reality, then a ship that size would need an external fuel tank the size of the Empire State Building to get clear of Earth's gravitational pull. So I don't see how they'd pull it off.


----------



## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Jonathan_S said:


> I found it weird that they never got any updated from "Earth" after they left. Never saw a TV show that they hadn't brought with them (until the jammers went down)
> 
> And why jammers rather than just EM shielding the building with the spaceship? (of course the EM shielding wouldn't fail if the power went out or a circuit fried; so it's not as good as a "plot" point )
> 
> If they're suppose to be half way to proxima centauri then they're barely more than 2 lightyears from earth. They could be just a couple seasons behind on current TV, not 50 years. (OK, the Program would need a honking big antenna to blast that to them at that range, but you'd expect them to expect some some updates - not be cut off just after launch)


We had a hard time getting live TV from the moon in 1969. There's no way they had the technology to transmit or receive video a light year away.


----------



## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

vman41 said:


> They should have faked a last message from earth about nuclear war breaking out. The ship's inhabitants then would really feel they were humanities last hope.


That seems excessively cruel to me... the experiment is bad enough as it is.

But I'm sure they would've come up with an excuse for the lack of communication, given more episodes.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> ... a ship that size would need an external fuel tank the size of the Empire State Building to get clear of Earth's gravitational pull.


It's nuclear, not chemical.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

RGM1138 said:


> Also, it's funny to me that the captain, (who I'm still seeing as the goofy ex from Cougar Town), is watching John Wayne movies and talking about character, when he seems to be poking anything that moves.





JoBeth66 said:


> And Bobby Cobb is in there being all Bobby Cobb, sleeping with anything that moves.





DevdogAZ said:


> It was interesting casting to have Bobby Cobb being the captain of a spaceship and being responsible for 600 people. I wonder where he was hiding Dog Travis.





RGM1138 said:


> I'm so used to him in that role that it was hard to take him seriously as captain of an interstellar ship. I half expected him to yell out "penny can!" at some point.


The thing about Brian Van Holt is that before Cougar Town, he was known for playing hard nosed military types (see Threshold as an example).
So he's back to type after his stint on Cougar Town.;

I just finished this and I _thought_ that this was just a mini-series.
I honestly am not sure how they'd stretch this into a viable series even though I saw the seeds they planted.

And while I thought it had potential with the end of the first episode, it just went downhill from there.

Things like what's Kruger's motivation for blowing the whistle and why Lorelei was actually killed weren't explained at all.

It's quickly slipped in that Robert Bryce killed Lorelei because she found out (I assume) that they really weren't in space but there was no indication of how she found out.

And the "Star Child" bit, was I watching Ascension or V?

If this is an indication of how they'd handle things going to series, I think I'll pass.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I was very disappointed in the final two hours. What happens next, Krista teleports the rest of crew to a barren wasteland planet?


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## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> It's nuclear, not chemical.


Doesn't matter; you still need reaction mass to toss out the back end to move you forward. Most designs of the time also included a huge (and I mean *huge*) front scoop to gather interstellar medium so they could fire it out the back.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

ej42137 said:


> Because they are not really in space, remember? If they wanted to be in communication with the ship they could have put in a two-year delay line, but we might conclude they want the experiment isolated. Therefore they would have explained to the crew that providing a large enough antenna for communications was not practical. It might also be explained that communications would not be possible during the boost phase, because the Orion propulsion system would have been many thousands of small nuclear explosions whose EMP would have precluded any radio transmissions. Or some other convenient baffle-garb.
> 
> As far as the lack of EM shielding goes, you probably don't remember that there was a significant copper shortage in the sixties. Budget constraints would have made jamming the preferred design choice.


Should have phrased that better. "Program would need [to tell them it had] a honking big antenna to blast that to them at that range [and then build a relativistic delay simulator into the com computers]"

I meant, since the crewmen in the ship _thought_ they were in space why wouldn't they expect (time delayed) communication to/from Earth?
Why did the crew expect to be cut off from all communications after launching?

However I'm sure you're right, that the overriding reason was the Program wanted experimental isolation, and must have come up with some explanation to feed the crew for why they couldn't talk to (or hear anything from) Earth.


kdmorse said:


> Now, that said, both the problem and the solution weren't exactly well grounded in reality in the first place. No I'm not entirely sure we can use reality against other proposed solutions. Just because it never would have worked in real life, doesn't mean it couldn't have worked in this show.


Yep. With that much ship volume, even with 600 people, they should have had _way_ longer before CO2 buildup became an issue.

And, barring other things (like fire) using up the oxygen, in a sealed system humans will experience problems from CO2 buildup long before they consume too much oxygen. And CO2 buildup isn't pleasant - the human asphyxiation feeling is triggered by CO2 level (not actually by O2) - that's one reason CO is so dangerous; it blocks you from getting O2 but doesn't trigger feelings of asphyxiation - so you don't know you're running out of (breathable) air. People wouldn't just be lying down - they'd be hyperventilating and gasping for air, like if they'd held their breath for too long.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

Hunter Green said:


> Doesn't matter; you still need reaction mass to toss out the back end to move you forward. Most designs of the time also included a huge (and I mean *huge*) front scoop to gather interstellar medium so they could fire it out the back.


With Project Orion (which the Ascension ship appeared to reference) the (many) nuclear bombs set off behind the pusher plate were both the power source and the reaction mass.

Each bomb's plasma would slam into the plate accelerating it forward (then there were shock absorbers between the plate and the ship to even out the accel experienced by the main ship)

Of course even Project Orion wasn't planning on 50+ years of continuous acceleration.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> It's nuclear, not chemical.


The question was whether they could eventually launch the ship later in the show if it gets picked up to series. Given that the facility where Ascension is located appears to be in/near a metropolitan area, and given that Project Orion was abandoned due to the radioactive fallout that would result from trying to use nuclear pulse propulsion to lift a vehicle from Earth into space, I don't see how they could launch the craft unless they are essentially deciding that Earth and its inhabitants are doomed and so the fallout wouldn't matter.


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## GAViewer (Oct 18, 2007)

Jonathan_S said:


> With Project Orion (which the Ascension ship appeared to reference) the (many) nuclear bombs set off behind the pusher plate were both the power source and the reaction mass.
> 
> Each bomb's plasma would slam into the plate accelerating it forward (then there were shock absorbers between the plate and the ship to even out the accel experienced by the main ship)
> 
> Of course even Project Orion wasn't planning on 50+ years of continuous acceleration.


The items I read was that a starship built via Project Orion would accelerate for 10 days at 1g, then coast for 133 years, then decelerate for 10 days at 1 G.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

Jonathan_S said:


> And, barring other things (like fire) using up the oxygen, in a sealed system humans will experience problems from CO2 buildup long before they consume too much oxygen. And CO2 buildup isn't pleasant - the human asphyxiation feeling is triggered by CO2 level (not actually by O2) - that's one reason CO is so dangerous; it blocks you from getting O2 but doesn't trigger feelings of asphyxiation - so you don't know you're running out of (breathable) air. People wouldn't just be lying down - they'd be hyperventilating and gasping for air, like if they'd held their breath for too long.


You are forgetting the environmental factors. Namely that on television poison darts are instantly fatal, all crashed autos burst into flame, and anyone within an enclosed space runs out of oxygen as fast as dramatically required.


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## quango (Sep 25, 2005)

Jonathan_S said:


> Should have phrased that better. "Program would need [to tell them it had] a honking big antenna to blast that to them at that range [and then build a relativistic delay simulator into the com computers]"
> 
> I meant, since the crewmen in the ship _thought_ they were in space why wouldn't they expect (time delayed) communication to/from Earth?
> Why did the crew expect to be cut off from all communications after launching?


There was dialog on the bridge that they had sent a report to Earth in the first episode; I believe they mentioned in a different scene that they hadn't heard from Earth in quite some time, but there was no explanation given as to why.

Asymmetric deep space communication is not implausible; my understanding is that there's no way to send commands to the Voyager probes any more since their receive antennas are too small to receive any signals from Earth stations, but we still can get data from the probes since we have much more powerful receiving equipment despite the limited transmission power of those craft.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

They spent too much time showing Tricia Helfer's scrawny naked butt instead of Jackie's ample onion.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

JYoung said:


> The thing about Brian Van Holt is that before Cougar Town, he was known for playing hard nosed military types (see Threshold as an example).
> So he's back to type after his stint on Cougar Town.;


He also played a team member in S.W.A.T. But he has so buried himself in Bobby Cobb, it's hard to take him seriously in anything else.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

RGM1138 said:


> He also played a team member in S.W.A.T. But he has so buried himself in Bobby Cobb, it's hard to take him seriously in anything else.


Maybe not that buried.
Cougar Town spoiler.


Spoiler



Van Holt is exiting the show in it's final season.
http://deadline.com/2014/09/brian-van-holt-cougar-town-exit-835037/


.


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## AeneaGames (May 2, 2009)

JYoung said:


> Maybe not that buried.
> Cougar Town spoiler.
> 
> 
> ...





Spoiler



Aren't all actors exiting the show when it's the final season?


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

AeneaGames said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> Aren't all actors exiting the show when it's the final season?





Spoiler



Yes


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

I still vote they missed the boat on spelling of the name... it should have been:

_Ass_ension


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

lgnad said:


> I still vote they missed the boat on spelling of the name... it should have been: Assension


As Tim Goodman wrote in his review of the show.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/?mobile_redirect=false


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> As Tim Goodman wrote in his review of the show.
> 
> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/?mobile_redirect=false


better link...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ascension-tv-review-757612


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

astrohip said:


> better link...
> 
> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ascension-tv-review-757612


Thanks. I was on my phone and that's the link it gave me. It also wouldn't let me copy/paste the relevant quote from the review. But now that I'm on my desktop, here's the quote:



Tim Goodman at THR.com said:


> Theres a lot of soapy sex going on as well, as you might imagine. Once inhabitants realize theyll be paired up with someone not of their choosing, they tend to disrobe and have some fun while they can. (There are, in fact, so many naked butts parading around Ascension  including Helfers, in an attempt to break the internet  that Syfy could have called it Asscension instead.)


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

Well I guess I should try my hand at writing reviews, since I can apparently come up with puns as good as a professional


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

lgnad said:


> Well I guess I should try my hand at writing reviews, since I can apparently come up with puns as good as a professional


What makes him a professional isn't his ability to write puns. It's his ability to get paid for it.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Just another interesting note in how much Syfy is going through the motions with things, I was watching one of the Z-Nation episodes before deciding it was not worth my time and I get a promo saying "Coming up on December 15th, watch the Ascension 3 night event"

Umm yeah, you need to pay closer attention folks..


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Question about the conspiracy blogger. Do we know who she worked for? Was she working for the Gil Bellows character and the head honcho lady didn't know about her? Or was she working for the head honcho lady?


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

dianebrat said:


> Just another interesting note in how much Syfy is going through the motions with things, I was watching one of the Z-Nation episodes before deciding it was not worth my time and I get a promo saying "Coming up on December 15th, watch the Ascension 3 night event"
> 
> Umm yeah, you need to pay closer attention folks..


They're just looking ahead to Dec of this year...


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> Question about the conspiracy blogger. Do we know who she worked for? Was she working for the Gil Bellows character and the head honcho lady didn't know about her? Or was she working for the head honcho lady?


I hadn't considered that Gil Bellows hired her. I don't remember anything in the storyline that spells it out, but it makes more sense.

HHL hired LGBT investigator didn't she? So it wouldn't make much since for HHL to kill her.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

I just assumed she was a CIA (or such) honey-pot...some government man-in-black designed to suck in and eliminate people getting too close to the truth.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

teknikel said:


> HHL hired LGBT investigator didn't she? So it wouldn't make much since for HHL to kill her.


It did when you consider that she was going to blow the whistle.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

quango said:


> The math doesn't work; I tried it, and the constant Newtonian acceleration that gets you halfway to Proxima Centauri in 50 years is nowhere close to constant Earth gravity (I figure it around 0.004 m/s^2). If you accelerate at g or something close to it, you get into seriously relativistic speeds within a few months.
> 
> I suppose you could get around this to some extent by continuously changing the orientation of the ship while accelerating at 1g to maintain a constant acceleration without affecting your net trajectory, but you'd waste obscene amounts of fuel to do so.
> 
> ...


Couple of things I thought of. Throwing anything that spins like a frisbee or coin would veer off to one side. Also if anyone decided to set up a pendulum the charade would be immediately evident.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

JYoung said:


> It did when you consider that she was going to blow the whistle.


If HHL was worried about the whistle being blown, why hire the lady to do the investigation in the first place?


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Stormspace said:


> Couple of things I thought of. Throwing anything that spins like a frisbee or coin would veer off to one side. Also if anyone decided to set up a pendulum the charade would be immediately evident.


That's only if they were using rotation to generate artificial gravity. If they were under constant forward acceleration, then that stuff would work the same as here on Earth's surface.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> If HHL was worried about the whistle being blown, why hire the lady to do the investigation in the first place?


Well, obviously she didn't know that when she hired Kruger.
But once Kruger started working with the "conspiracy theorist", all bets were off.


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

JYoung said:


> Well, obviously she didn't know that when she hired Kruger.
> But once Kruger started working with the "conspiracy theorist", all bets were off.


To whom did the "Conspiracy Theorist" report?


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

teknikel said:


> To whom did the "Conspiracy Theorist" report?


Obviously, someone in power at evil corporation. She could have reported to the Director or someone else.

Quite honestly, the whole investigator storyline was very clumsily done and it's only real story purpose was to get the ship guy out into the real world.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

nataylor said:


> That's only if they were using rotation to generate artificial gravity. If they were under constant forward acceleration, then that stuff would work the same as here on Earth's surface.


Not really. If you set up a pendulum it will slowly rotate as the earth turns. The pendulum continues it's back and forth movement while the earth spins beneath it, effectively making it look like it's rotating. If you've ever seen one of the really big ones, you would have seen it knocking down small cones set up around it. At a constant acceleration the pendulum wouldn't rotate and a thrown disk wouldn't veer off to one side.


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## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

Thread bump alert! I binge watched this over the weekend. I already knew the twist about the "mission". I also knew that Crista was special, but I didn't know about her ability to randomly teleport people to barren planets.

For what it was (a miniseries that really had no hope of a future) it was pretty good. I liked how they included the conspiracy website in the story--too often stories go for face value, and forget that the best way for someone to keep control over a story is to keep control over the opposition to a story. The cast was good, the overall idea was good, and for a miniseries, the story held together somewhat. I can't imagine how they would have extended it into a series, though--if it became a regular thing, all of the obvious plotholes would have become really, really obvious. I wouldn't mind getting a few more answers, like if the original scientists knew the mission was staged.


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