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janestarzAlthough I find no special delight in watching horrendous TV-shows, sometimes it can be very satisfying to discuss the obvious gaping plot holes, inconsistencies, and scientific impossibilities or improbabilities with Eisirt.
Before I had a few fun evenings poking fun at Another Life (spoiler: it's not Another Life. Half the cast just go on a very long space trip.) and most if not all of my comments and maybe one or two more were summarised perfectly in the one hour long YouTube rant encompassing the entire first season of Another Life.
Rarely before this night had I even been DONE with a series within the first five minutes because of said scientific improbabilities. So, if you enjoy The 100, feel free to skip and [[not click the Read more]]
The show starts out with obvious main character narrating a bit of the backstory. And if you're anything like me, you'll start doing the math in your head based on what is told. According to Wikipedia (and as told in the narration) we are watching the story unfold:
"Ninety-seven years after a devastating nuclear apocalypse wipes out almost all life on Earth, thousands of people now live in a space station orbiting Earth, which they call the Ark. Three generations have been born in space, bringing the population of the Ark beyond carrying capacity."
We are told there were space stations in orbit from 12 (or 15, reports vary) different nations, meaning there were at least 12 space stations in orbit -- assuming everyone has their own space station and nobody felt like sharing. But hey, according to the Fandom Wiki even UGANDA had a space station. Way to go!
Meanwhile, on the surface of Earth, some kind or nuclear apocalypse has happened to the rest of the population, so whatever of humanity remains (and we're still in the first five minutes of the pilot episode here) is stuck in space.
Setting aside the cause of the apocalypse -- surely if fifteen nations are spacefaring and far enough advanced to actually build and launch space station components, why are we still fighting wars? Is someone's spacestation prettier and do we want dibs on the better solar panels or something? -- let's look at survival in these conditions.
Space is incredibly hostile. Not only does the vacuum of space do funky things to your body if you're not inside a space suit, there's no ozone layer to protect you from radiation from the sun, there's microscopic debris pelting you from all sides, it's horribly cold (space is cold) and terrifyingly hot (sun = radiation) at the same time and the smallest slip can be very fatal. The specifics are horrifying, everything from boiling blood, exploding lungs and frostbite. But that is only if you're without a suit. Mostly, the suit will protect you out in space, but it will still be uncomfortable.
Nothing will grow in space unless you protect it (with an ozone layer or a protective case) and there's no breathable air or water or any other molecules for that matter. There's also no bacteria or viruses unless they are frozen in a comets' ice. Guess what: we need bacteria and nutrients in the soil to make crops grow (from: the Martian). That makes it extremely difficult to start cultivating food in space. There's no water -- because space is surprisingly devoid of atoms unless you're near a large mass like a planet. If you're lucky, you can thaw a comet or condense the water in your breath, but you have to be really careful in recycling all your water to make sure you don't spill any (Yes, I'm talking drink the wee.)
Still, these 12 to 15 space stations seem to have survived. Let's sketch a bit of a timeline here.
Nuclear apocalypse happens. The scientists on board the space stations are flabbergasted. They realise all their families and friends are dead and they can never go home in their lifetime. I guess the best we can hope for is that they fall into a depression. Probably some will commit suicide because their situation is hopeless.
Then they decide to tie all the space stations together and build a single large space station so humanity can survive. The first challenge here is to actually move the stations into close proximity to one another. I bet their orbits are calculated so they would have the maximum safe distance between them so they could never accidentally collide. Yet now it's time to break that orbit and find a way to get closer. I am assuming there are some kind of thrusters to correct their orbit, so they can actually maneuver. I'm hoping they would have some kind of super computer on board to calculate this for them, or else they'll run out of pencils very fast.
In the movie Gravity, all the space stations orbiting Earth are surprisingly close to one another "[the director] stated in an interview that an early draft of the script did try to work with the fact the HST, ISS, and Tiangong were in different orbits in reality, but it ended up with half the movie being the characters explaining orbital mechanics, so the decision was made to put them all in the same orbit for plot convenience." (from: TVTropes) And I can totally live with that, because it's a good reason! But no way you can have 12 space stations in very close proximity to one another in orbit.
Fuel is finite too. There's no way they can mine an asteroid for dilithium because a) odds are it will collide with the station instead of getting into a fancy geosynchronous orbit some 500 meter of the port bow and b) dilitium is from the Star Trek universe. They can't go down to Earth to the nearest petrol station because there's no way to get the fuel back up there. And also, chances are Earth is undergoing nuclear winter by now.
Let's assume there's a modular Space Station Factory in China in this universe too. Otherwise we will be facing enormous difficulties trying to tie all the space stations together. Never mind different materials -- how about the difference between metric and imperial measurements? Trying to tie in a four inch fuel line into your ten centimeter fuel tank hole can cause massive leakage because that's a 0.16 centimeter difference right there. Solar panels will have different wattage and voltages for their components, and where are you going to get extra electrical parts to make sure nothing fries?
The lack of spare components, new resources and a reliable food source would really be most horrible. The movie Apollo 13 was wonderful in that regard. They locked scientists and problem solvers into a room with just the items that were on board the space ship to see if they could craft a new component using the materials on hand. Of course, that movie was based on an actual event.
Alright, great. So you built your ginormous 15-part lego modular space station. Let's talk population.
There's no actual mention about this, but I'm sure the crew on board space stations are a pretty smart bunch so I'm sure they'll ducktape something wonderful together. The Fandom wiki for the 100 says there were 400 crew alive. That's great! You actually need only about 160 people to re-populate the earth - none of whom can be related to one another or you'll get some funky mutations. And before the show actually starts, they have had 3 generations in which they apparantly have been doing the nasty quite often. Because nothing gets a couple riled up like those "reproduce for repopulation" posters in the cafeteria, I'm sure.
And then the show starts. Three generations after the original 400, We suddenly have plenty of space for a massive population. I'm sure we can clear some space for some extra gen-pop. We don't really need the science labs, the re-entry vessel, all these manuals of how to fly a Soyuz rocket or a space shuttle. We'll scrounge some panels off Hubble for a few additions to the space station. I mean, it's not like we will take up farming as a hobby. We'll live off the nutrients in plot holes! They are calorically dense, just like black holes!
How do I know their population is massive? Well, because they are sending 100 of their juvenile delinquents down to earth instead of just outright killing them (and eating them). Apparantly they can spare the resources to have 100 juvies locked up and not contributing to society until they are 18, just leeching off your sparse food. I have no clue how your population can actually increase that much if there's a finite amount of food to begin with. You'd need massive amounts of emergency rations just to create all that extra biomass.
You'd think that once they are safely away from the station, the characters would actually start utilising their newly found life. Instead, it's like watching a frat party during Spring Break. Let's throw our future away in a whole new place! My life is all about ME and who cares if I die from exposure, starvation, wild animals, mutated virueses or pollution during that time. I wanna build a fire just so I can dance next to it and screw you if you say I can't do that.
To be fair, I've probably watched too much sci fi since I was eight and started on Star Trek TNG to even fall for this kind of crap anymore. You know who did it right? Battlestar Galactica! If a ship lags behind, it's gone. They have a running tally of the number of survivors for the human race. And it was just so much more interesting to watch than a frat party -- even if the antagonists were all clones.
Before I had a few fun evenings poking fun at Another Life (spoiler: it's not Another Life. Half the cast just go on a very long space trip.) and most if not all of my comments and maybe one or two more were summarised perfectly in the one hour long YouTube rant encompassing the entire first season of Another Life.
Rarely before this night had I even been DONE with a series within the first five minutes because of said scientific improbabilities. So, if you enjoy The 100, feel free to skip and [[not click the Read more]]
The show starts out with obvious main character narrating a bit of the backstory. And if you're anything like me, you'll start doing the math in your head based on what is told. According to Wikipedia (and as told in the narration) we are watching the story unfold:
"Ninety-seven years after a devastating nuclear apocalypse wipes out almost all life on Earth, thousands of people now live in a space station orbiting Earth, which they call the Ark. Three generations have been born in space, bringing the population of the Ark beyond carrying capacity."
We are told there were space stations in orbit from 12 (or 15, reports vary) different nations, meaning there were at least 12 space stations in orbit -- assuming everyone has their own space station and nobody felt like sharing. But hey, according to the Fandom Wiki even UGANDA had a space station. Way to go!
Meanwhile, on the surface of Earth, some kind or nuclear apocalypse has happened to the rest of the population, so whatever of humanity remains (and we're still in the first five minutes of the pilot episode here) is stuck in space.
Setting aside the cause of the apocalypse -- surely if fifteen nations are spacefaring and far enough advanced to actually build and launch space station components, why are we still fighting wars? Is someone's spacestation prettier and do we want dibs on the better solar panels or something? -- let's look at survival in these conditions.
Space is incredibly hostile. Not only does the vacuum of space do funky things to your body if you're not inside a space suit, there's no ozone layer to protect you from radiation from the sun, there's microscopic debris pelting you from all sides, it's horribly cold (space is cold) and terrifyingly hot (sun = radiation) at the same time and the smallest slip can be very fatal. The specifics are horrifying, everything from boiling blood, exploding lungs and frostbite. But that is only if you're without a suit. Mostly, the suit will protect you out in space, but it will still be uncomfortable.
Nothing will grow in space unless you protect it (with an ozone layer or a protective case) and there's no breathable air or water or any other molecules for that matter. There's also no bacteria or viruses unless they are frozen in a comets' ice. Guess what: we need bacteria and nutrients in the soil to make crops grow (from: the Martian). That makes it extremely difficult to start cultivating food in space. There's no water -- because space is surprisingly devoid of atoms unless you're near a large mass like a planet. If you're lucky, you can thaw a comet or condense the water in your breath, but you have to be really careful in recycling all your water to make sure you don't spill any (Yes, I'm talking drink the wee.)
Still, these 12 to 15 space stations seem to have survived. Let's sketch a bit of a timeline here.
Nuclear apocalypse happens. The scientists on board the space stations are flabbergasted. They realise all their families and friends are dead and they can never go home in their lifetime. I guess the best we can hope for is that they fall into a depression. Probably some will commit suicide because their situation is hopeless.
Then they decide to tie all the space stations together and build a single large space station so humanity can survive. The first challenge here is to actually move the stations into close proximity to one another. I bet their orbits are calculated so they would have the maximum safe distance between them so they could never accidentally collide. Yet now it's time to break that orbit and find a way to get closer. I am assuming there are some kind of thrusters to correct their orbit, so they can actually maneuver. I'm hoping they would have some kind of super computer on board to calculate this for them, or else they'll run out of pencils very fast.
In the movie Gravity, all the space stations orbiting Earth are surprisingly close to one another "[the director] stated in an interview that an early draft of the script did try to work with the fact the HST, ISS, and Tiangong were in different orbits in reality, but it ended up with half the movie being the characters explaining orbital mechanics, so the decision was made to put them all in the same orbit for plot convenience." (from: TVTropes) And I can totally live with that, because it's a good reason! But no way you can have 12 space stations in very close proximity to one another in orbit.
Fuel is finite too. There's no way they can mine an asteroid for dilithium because a) odds are it will collide with the station instead of getting into a fancy geosynchronous orbit some 500 meter of the port bow and b) dilitium is from the Star Trek universe. They can't go down to Earth to the nearest petrol station because there's no way to get the fuel back up there. And also, chances are Earth is undergoing nuclear winter by now.
Let's assume there's a modular Space Station Factory in China in this universe too. Otherwise we will be facing enormous difficulties trying to tie all the space stations together. Never mind different materials -- how about the difference between metric and imperial measurements? Trying to tie in a four inch fuel line into your ten centimeter fuel tank hole can cause massive leakage because that's a 0.16 centimeter difference right there. Solar panels will have different wattage and voltages for their components, and where are you going to get extra electrical parts to make sure nothing fries?
The lack of spare components, new resources and a reliable food source would really be most horrible. The movie Apollo 13 was wonderful in that regard. They locked scientists and problem solvers into a room with just the items that were on board the space ship to see if they could craft a new component using the materials on hand. Of course, that movie was based on an actual event.
Alright, great. So you built your ginormous 15-part lego modular space station. Let's talk population.
There's no actual mention about this, but I'm sure the crew on board space stations are a pretty smart bunch so I'm sure they'll ducktape something wonderful together. The Fandom wiki for the 100 says there were 400 crew alive. That's great! You actually need only about 160 people to re-populate the earth - none of whom can be related to one another or you'll get some funky mutations. And before the show actually starts, they have had 3 generations in which they apparantly have been doing the nasty quite often. Because nothing gets a couple riled up like those "reproduce for repopulation" posters in the cafeteria, I'm sure.
And then the show starts. Three generations after the original 400, We suddenly have plenty of space for a massive population. I'm sure we can clear some space for some extra gen-pop. We don't really need the science labs, the re-entry vessel, all these manuals of how to fly a Soyuz rocket or a space shuttle. We'll scrounge some panels off Hubble for a few additions to the space station. I mean, it's not like we will take up farming as a hobby. We'll live off the nutrients in plot holes! They are calorically dense, just like black holes!
How do I know their population is massive? Well, because they are sending 100 of their juvenile delinquents down to earth instead of just outright killing them (and eating them). Apparantly they can spare the resources to have 100 juvies locked up and not contributing to society until they are 18, just leeching off your sparse food. I have no clue how your population can actually increase that much if there's a finite amount of food to begin with. You'd need massive amounts of emergency rations just to create all that extra biomass.
You'd think that once they are safely away from the station, the characters would actually start utilising their newly found life. Instead, it's like watching a frat party during Spring Break. Let's throw our future away in a whole new place! My life is all about ME and who cares if I die from exposure, starvation, wild animals, mutated virueses or pollution during that time. I wanna build a fire just so I can dance next to it and screw you if you say I can't do that.
To be fair, I've probably watched too much sci fi since I was eight and started on Star Trek TNG to even fall for this kind of crap anymore. You know who did it right? Battlestar Galactica! If a ship lags behind, it's gone. They have a running tally of the number of survivors for the human race. And it was just so much more interesting to watch than a frat party -- even if the antagonists were all clones.
