MovieChat Forums > Travelers (2016) Discussion > I have questions? -->Ep.6 Helios 685

I have questions? -->Ep.6 Helios 685

posted 8 years ago by insanebasura
11 replies | jump to latest

They're fully aware they'd need to abide by protocol 3, i.e. don't kill anyone. The aim is area denial, to suppress, deter, possibly incapacitate. So why did they not procure non-lethal weaponry for the shootout in Ep.6? Teargas, stun guns, rubber bullets, bean bags, directed energy weapons?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon
Surely the writers must've read that Wikipedia page?

Future
Currently, the technology is being considered for non-military use to protect Earth from asteroids.

Command in general seems to be somewhat incompetent, particularly in terms of communicating with its teams. Half the time they barely know their orders and have to wing it. Supposedly command knows the past, so why the Director can't provide them with sufficient and accurate intel is something I don't understand.

Command being inept is not an inherently unacceptable idea though. My problem is primarily that the other characters don't react to it. Their muddled orders make them confused and jeopardize whatever their mission is, but they never seem to question what a nincompoop the Director is for being such garbage at actually directing them.

Is the Director supposed to be less military strategist and more some kind of cult leader that they're blindly devoted to? Because I've gotten the opposite of that vibe.

Also, why does Marcy forget about clothes? No one else forgets their ABC's (Always Be Clothing.) Suppose when a traveler possesses a host that's developmentally challenged, specifically the part of your brain that retains information about clothes gets targeted?

Also, why do they try (and mostly do a bad job at) maintaining their covers and identities? It seems detrimental to their ability to perform their missions, and I don't see the benefit? Trevor is the only one who needs to stick around and keep up appearances really, until his parents are no longer his legal guardians. And MacLaren is the only one who needs to keep his job as it provides resources and access. Aside from that they could/should just bail on their old lives, get new identities, homes etc.?

[–] McQualude 8 years ago

Legit gripe about non-lethal defenses. Also, they released poisonous gas and set off an anti-matter explosion (megaton range they said multiple times) that combined were going to kill tens of millions (to save billions) yet were fussing over a few cops at ground zero guaranteed to die anyway. But afterward it's never mentioned that millions died, it's played off as some minor event, so that part confused me.

Not sure what you mean about incompetent command. The team's leader's host died and so MacLaren took over, he was originally 2nd in command. Might explain why he is less polished as a leader.

Your question about The Director suggests you haven't finished the series. The answer to your question is a spoiler although you might have figured it out already. The Director is advanced AI

Marcy forgetting clothes is funny but she can forget them all the time as far as I'm concerned. Sex goes with the genre.

It's one of their protocols, to blend in best they can and continue the host's life.

|Statistics show that 100% of people bitten by a snake were close to it.|

[–] wwoods-3 8 years ago

an anti-matter explosion (megaton range they said multiple times) that combined were going to kill tens of millions

The explosion was big, but not that big. The stated amount of antimatter -- 10.3 grams -- would produce a 440-kiloton explosion. Which is 0.44 megatons, so large enough to be called "megaton range", barely. About 30 times as much as the Hiroshima bomb. Or, coincidently, about as much as a standard US H-bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W88

The uncontrolled explosion of the antimatter that the team prevented back in Episode 2 would have killed about 11,000 people. Rural location? The Engineer's X-ray laser would somehow "translate most of that energy into the beam", so the collateral damage is presumably lessened. Still, the soldiers on site are going to die, so yeah, no real point in shooting to miss.

[–] McQualude 8 years ago

I was going by the dialog, at one point Marcy is startled they will kill tens of millions and someone says, yes, to save billions. The megaton range was also dialog. I have no idea how to calculate the size of an antimatter explosion and I doubt the writers do either. But it was strange they were concerned about saving the soldiers and were able to get far enough away within 90ish seconds. So I think you are right, the beam used most of the energy but if the laser failed to be initiated, the full force of the antimatter would kill millions. Maybe? The show was excellent but the writing got sloppy at times.

|Statistics show that 100% of people bitten by a snake were close to it.|

[–] gswan 8 years ago

Also, they released poisonous gas and set off an anti-matter explosion (megaton range they said multiple times) that combined were going to kill tens of millions (to save billions) yet were fussing over a few cops at ground zero guaranteed to die anyway. But afterward it's never mentioned that millions died, it's played off as some minor event, so that part confused me.

I remember one of the characters, maybe Bloom the Engineer, saying something like: The X-Ray laser will absorb most of the energy released by the antimatter-matter annihilation.

Bzzzt. The only x-ray lasers we have ever talked about were some that were to be one of the advanced layers of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- ie fry in the sky laser beam missile defense. And, in those weapons only a tiny fraction of the energy released was turned into xray laser light.

The plan was to have orbiting H-bombs, each surrounded by metal rods, so they looked like sea urchins.

Those of us old enough to remember when the first lasers were being shown off, they weren't gas lasers, they were ruby rod lasers. A single artificial crystal of pure ruby was polished into the shape of a rod. A powerful strobe light was wound around the ruby rod. When the powerful strobe flashed, it normal incoherent light would excite some of the atoms in the ruby crystal. And when the outer electrons in those excited atoms jumped back down to a lower energy state they would release coherent ruby-red light, which would be reflected by the polished ends of the rob, stimulated more and more atoms to release a red photon.

The orbiting xray laser weapons would work under the same principle as the ruby rod. When Soviet missiles were blasting off servomotors at the base of each metal rod would point each rod at where a Soviet missile would be in the next tiny fraction of a second. When all possible rods were pointing at a Soviet missile the H-bomb would be set off. The H-bomb would act like the strobe in the old ruby rod lasers. The metal rods would act like the ruby rods, except they would lase in the xray spectrum.

Wouldn't the blast and concussion disrupt the aiming motors? It would, but too late. The huge amount of high energy light and xrays released by the bomb travel at the speed of light, while the concussion merely travels at some multiple of the speed of sound. The rods have already done their job before the concussion disrupts where they are aimed at.

Anyhow, only the light directly intercepted by the rod has a chance of stimulating the rod to lase.

[–] wwoods-3 8 years ago

I remember one of the characters, maybe Bloom the Engineer, saying something like: The X-Ray laser will absorb most of the energy released by the antimatter-matter annihilation.

Bzzzt. The only x-ray lasers we have ever talked about were some that were to be one of the advanced layers of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- ie fry in the sky laser beam missile defense. And, in those weapons only a tiny fraction of the energy released was turned into xray laser light.
...
Anyhow, only the light directly intercepted by the rod has a chance of stimulating the rod to lase.

Oh, well. I thought that too, but you know, that's not a point to get fussy about. The builders have to use 21st-century tools and materials, but they've got a design from the 2xth-cen. Maybe what they're calling an x-ray laser is considerably more efficient than the 1980s version -- somehow focussing the energy of the explosion into the device.

[–] padre-brian 8 years ago

Employing protocol 3 when the laser was going to destroy the facility anyway seemed stupid. Considering the importance of the mission the snipers should've killed all those military guys.

The other stupid part...each military guy getting someone from the future and each getting killed. After the first one, instead of going straight for the key maybe he should've shot that stupid ginger major first.

[–] chrisjdel 8 years ago

Yes, it's hard to understand why they needed to go through every soldier one after another and leave Major Dickless for last. It did work out perfectly though. He was the last man standing just as he ran out of bullets. Who knows? Maybe every probability projection showed there was too great a risk of things getting out of hand and resulting in everyone's death in a free for all firefight between the soldiers. Perhaps that was the only scenario with high odds of success.

Remember that the Director seems more infallible than it is, with the advantage of historical records, but combat is a fluid situation and it can't predict the outcome with certainty any more than we can. If you're a hostage in a bank holdup and you decide to go for one of the robbers' guns, you may get it and become a hero or you may end up dead. No way to be sure unless you actually make a move. I think the Director tries to avoid scenarios that could result in failure, even if the plan becomes more convoluted.

As gswan described, the old SDI (a.k.a. Star Wars) X-ray lasers were basically orbiting hydrogen bombs bristling with laser rods. Only a fraction of the explosion's energy would end up in the beams. Still a lot of power obviously. But I think these people from the future have a way of specifically directing most of the energy to the laser. Maybe something along the lines of that stasis field they used on the airplane to rescue the Senator. Some type of spatial distortion field that directs the blast's energy preferentially into the device like a funnel.

[–] pauli_gomez 8 years ago

Or the director could have sent a conscience directly to the redheaded one.

[–] Sluggr-3 8 years ago

A ginger is always the last resort.

My Chimp DNA seems to have lost its password temporarily. Sluggr-2

[–] chrisjdel 8 years ago

If they took over Major Dickless first, his men would've stopped him. It was only because there was a single guy left and he couldn't shoot himself when he felt the headache coming on, that they were able to get the key turned. The other way to do it would've been to take them as a group like the church people on the pier. None of them would've known what was happening so no suicides. Either way would work, that approach or the one they actually used.

[–] Goliard (1433) 8 years ago

Um. . .no. His men had shown a TOTAL willingness to obey whatever orders he gave. So the complaint is valid: take over the ginger Major, issue solved. Actually, taking him over weeks beforehand would've been even easier. . .but this is hardly the only (or biggest) logic bomb in this show. The only way to watch it (as with every time-travel attempt by pop movies/TV) is to turn off your brain, and enjoy the soap opera.