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Anyone see this?

I like the premise, but the execution looks a bit too actiony for my tastes.

I also feel like having the plot point about finding out the truth/restoring the lights is a bad idea. Either you don't resolve it with an answer and leave everyone mad, or you do answer and any answer you could give is just mind numbingly stupid.

I'd honestly be far more interested in stories about the immediate aftermath of such an event and coping with the absolutely massive human tolls of losing all modern infrastructure.

Been a long time since I was excited to see something headed for the little screen.
This might be half waly decent. Nice find, thanks for the heads up.

Ehh, Terra Nova looked awesome too, but ended up sucking majorly.

As awesome as this looks, I will not be getting my hopes up.

I find the idea of a permanent world wide black out to be stupid. Why is there no more electricity? What stopped it? There is no logical reason for them not working, other than magic or extra-terrestial dickery...hold on, where's Eldrad?

And how did that one guy get electricity on his machine, but no one else did?

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I find the idea of a permanent world wide black out to be stupid. Why is there no more electricity? What stopped it? There is no logical reason for them not working, other than magic or extra-terrestial dickery...hold on, where's Eldrad?

And how did that one guy get electricity on his machine, but no one else did?

Indeed, why didn't they reveal all the answers to the mysteries in the promotional trailer?

Ahtman wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I find the idea of a permanent world wide black out to be stupid. Why is there no more electricity? What stopped it? There is no logical reason for them not working, other than magic or extra-terrestial dickery...hold on, where's Eldrad?

And how did that one guy get electricity on his machine, but no one else did?

Indeed, why didn't they reveal all the answers to the mysteries in the promotional trailer?

Well, I think the reason might be in the title actually. The word "Revolution" imposed over the planet earth (as seen in the video's thumbnail...or paused state? Whatever its called) implies that the loss of electricity is due to the stopping of the rotation of the earth...which is a horrible premise.

I am sure that when it is revealed what stole of the electricity, it will most likely be something really, really, dumb.

Woah that premise is stupid and Scientifically IMPOSSIBLE. No batteries, no Electro-chemical cells? Good luck Going on a Journey of discovery in a world that has been flung back to a simpler time..... When youre Fricking BRAINDEAD! Not to mention a diffuse cloud of atoms.

The Fx looks good and it certainly looks All nice and Glossy.

Let me clarify, EMP scenario? Fine with that. No batteries, I.e. a loss of the principle of Electrochemical Potential? Nae chance.

Perkustin wrote:Woah that premise is stupid and Scientifically IMPOSSIBLE. No batteries, no Electro-chemical cells? Good luck Going on a Journey of discovery in a world that has been flung back to a simpler time..... When youre Fricking BRAINDEAD! Not to mention a diffuse cloud of atoms.

The Fx looks good and it certainly looks All nice and Glossy.

Let me clarify, EMP scenario? Fine with that. No batteries, I.e. a loss of the principle of Electrochemical Potential? Nae chance.

I knew there was something off...I just couldn't put my finger on it.
Thanks for elaborating why this is so stupid.

rubiksnoob wrote:Ehh, Terra Nova looked awesome too, but ended up sucking majorly.

As awesome as this looks, I will not be getting my hopes up.

JJ Abrams hasn't laid a stinker down before like Mr. Spielberg has...this shows great promise.

I'm wondering why no-one had the good sense to pick up a modern rifle.

You really don't need electricity to make a Henry 88 or even a Springfield Rifle.

Chowderhead wrote:I'm wondering why no-one had the good sense to pick up a modern rifle.

You really don't need electricity to make a Henry 88 or even a Springfield Rifle.

Or to reload their ammo.....

Chongara wrote:I like the premise, but the execution looks a bit too actiony for my tastes.

I also feel like having the plot point about finding out the truth/restoring the lights is a bad idea. Either you don't resolve it with an answer and leave everyone mad, or you do answer and any answer you could give is just mind numbingly stupid.

I'd honestly be far more interested in stories about the immediate aftermath of such an event and coping with the absolutely massive human tolls of losing all modern infrastructure.

Check out the Walking Dead. Plus it has zombies.

I'd be interested to know what can stop any kind of electical/chemical activity, yet have no affect on living organisms!

Still, sounds like an interesting premise for a story (although the ending bits made it look a bit OTT action-orientated).

I also feel like having the plot point about finding out the truth/restoring the lights is a bad idea. Either you don't resolve it with an answer and leave everyone mad, or you do answer and any answer you could give is just mind numbingly stupid.

But the thing is, they don't have to even think of an ending. Like so many other shows this one will probably run for 2 or 3 seasons max, and then get cancelled prematurely so we won't ever get to find out anyway!

Looks interesting. I would have prefered they did this story though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_the_Fire

Hang on... We're on a site that largely revolves around a universe in which gods created by the horrible emotions of mankind exist, there are psychic powers, a race of fungus men, another race that were so hedonistic that they created a god of hedonism, there are star eating creatures etc... And there are complaints about realism?

Looks fun to me. And hey, if they can't turn the power back on you can still eventually get up to a 19th Century tech level. I wonder what happened to the ISS though...

See I can buy the whole "electricity stops working" side of things. Alright, fine. I'll suspend my disbelief, even for every battery on Earth dying at the same time. Fine, whatever. But why would that stop non-electric mechanical devices from working? Why are they using bows and arrows/crossbows? Why would a gun not work?

Suspension of disbelief relies somewhat on us letting go to the norms of what we see every day, but also that we can buy a central concept even if it seems outlandish (eg. I bought the concept of Inception - entering people's dreams - almost immediately), but when you take that central concept and make it internally inconsistent (electricity stops working... as does steam power? Firing pins in rifles?), then people stop believing and the whole situation seems contrived (or more contrived). This is one of those situations.

Will I still give it a go? Of course. I gave Alcatraz 6 weeks to impress me, and I'm even sticking with Falling Skies no matter how saccharine and sentimental it gets every 20 seconds, so I can give this a go.

H.B.M.C. wrote:See I can buy the whole "electricity stops working" side of things. Alright, fine. I'll suspend my disbelief, even for every battery on Earth dying at the same time. Fine, whatever. But why would that stop non-electric mechanical devices from working? Why are they using bows and arrows/crossbows? Why would a gun not work?

Suspension of disbelief relies somewhat on us letting go to the norms of what we see every day, but also that we can buy a central concept even if it seems outlandish (eg. I bought the concept of Inception - entering people's dreams - almost immediately), but when you take that central concept and make it internally inconsistent (electricity stops working... as does steam power? Firing pins in rifles?), then people stop believing and the whole situation seems contrived (or more contrived). This is one of those situations.

Will I still give it a go? Of course. I gave Alcatraz 6 weeks to impress me, and I'm even sticking with Falling Skies no matter how saccharine and sentimental it gets every 20 seconds, so I can give this a go.

There are guns. Quite a few of those guys have bolt action rifles. That guy's dad was killed by one.
I'd work on the assumption that 15 years after all the electricity went off most of the existing bullets were used in the wars and chaos that followed, and with none of the factories working then machining them, getting the materials etc. would take ages. So arrows make more sense until they get a proper industrialised society going again, since you can re-use them. I suspect that bullets are valuable there and then.
You could make use of muskets, musket balls being easy to manufacture, but you still need your saltpetre and to be able to machine the parts. Depends how far they've got.

Lux_Lucis wrote:There are guns. Quite a few of those guys have bolt action rifles. That guy's dad was killed by one.

That was a musket. A frakking musket!

I'd work on the assumption that 15 years after all the electricity went off most of the existing bullets were used in the wars and chaos that followed, and with none of the factories working then machining them, getting the materials etc. would take ages.

They made Henry 88 rounds without electricity and factories out in the West.

So arrows make more sense until they get a proper industrialised society going again, since you can re-use them. I suspect that bullets are valuable there and then.
You could make use of muskets, musket balls being easy to manufacture, but you still need your saltpetre and to be able to machine the parts. Depends how far they've got.

I would agree with what you say, but we've got so much of the stuff just lying around in bullet factories that it's highly unlikely we'd run out.

And anyway, people can still make their own bullets.

Lux_Lucis wrote:Hang on... We're on a site that largely revolves around a universe in which gods created by the horrible emotions of mankind exist, there are psychic powers, a race of fungus men, another race that were so hedonistic that they created a god of hedonism, there are star eating creatures etc... And there are complaints about realism?

Looks fun to me. And hey, if they can't turn the power back on you can still eventually get up to a 19th Century tech level. I wonder what happened to the ISS though...

My issue is we're supposing to buying that this takes place in our world and follows the same rules our world does. Nothing in the trailer hints at the story featuring supernatural/magical elements in any meaningful way. This would be fine except they already put forward that a plot point is going to be finding the explanation for the blackout. There is no explanation for this kind of event that can come remotely close to meshing with the rules of the real world, this means that whenever they do they reveal it's going to be stupid. Either because it's such horrid science fail that nobody with higher than a 3rd grade education can stomach it, or because it's last second ass pull of "Crazy Wizard did it bs" on the level of Mass Effect 3.

I would agree with what you say, but we've got so much of the stuff just lying around in bullet factories that it's highly unlikely we'd run out.

And anyway, people can still make their own bullets.

The US alone produces enough bullets to put slug in every man, woman and child on the planet every year. The world has enough ammo to shoot every human on earth 100 times over, at current population levels. Given the massive die-offs that would have occurred with this kind of event, the ratio of bullets to people would be so high they probably wouldn't even be that valuable. The supply is just too large.

Chowderhead wrote:

Lux_Lucis wrote:There are guns. Quite a few of those guys have bolt action rifles. That guy's dad was killed by one.

That was a musket. A frakking musket!

I'd work on the assumption that 15 years after all the electricity went off most of the existing bullets were used in the wars and chaos that followed, and with none of the factories working then machining them, getting the materials etc. would take ages.

They made Henry 88 rounds without electricity and factories out in the West.

So arrows make more sense until they get a proper industrialised society going again, since you can re-use them. I suspect that bullets are valuable there and then.
You could make use of muskets, musket balls being easy to manufacture, but you still need your saltpetre and to be able to machine the parts. Depends how far they've got.

I would agree with what you say, but we've got so much of the stuff just lying around in bullet factories that it's highly unlikely we'd run out.

And anyway, people can still make their own bullets.

You're quite right about the musket, apologies.
However, as for making bullets, how many people actually know how to? Or have the tools? Or the materials? I assume a few people do, but I doubt it's a widespread practice.

Chongara wrote:

Lux_Lucis wrote:Hang on... We're on a site that largely revolves around a universe in which gods created by the horrible emotions of mankind exist, there are psychic powers, a race of fungus men, another race that were so hedonistic that they created a god of hedonism, there are star eating creatures etc... And there are complaints about realism?

Looks fun to me. And hey, if they can't turn the power back on you can still eventually get up to a 19th Century tech level. I wonder what happened to the ISS though...

My issue is we're supposing to buying that this takes place in our world and follows the same rules our world does. Nothing in the trailer hints at the story featuring supernatural/magical elements in any meaningful way. This would be fine except they already put forward that a plot point is going to be finding the explanation for the blackout. There is no explanation for this kind of event that can come remotely close to meshing with the rules of the real world, this means that whenever they do they reveal it's going to be stupid. Either because it's such horrid science fail that nobody with higher than a 3rd grade education can stomach it, or because it's last second ass pull of "Crazy Wizard did it bs" on the level of Mass Effect 3.

I would agree with what you say, but we've got so much of the stuff just lying around in bullet factories that it's highly unlikely we'd run out.

And anyway, people can still make their own bullets.

The US alone produces enough bullets to put slug in every man, woman and child on the planet every year. The world has enough ammo to shoot every human on earth 100 times over, at current population levels. Given the massive die-offs that would have occurred with this kind of event, the ratio of bullets to people would be so high they probably wouldn't even be that valuable. The supply is just too large.

I will concede this point happily.

Lux_Lucis wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

Lux_Lucis wrote:There are guns. Quite a few of those guys have bolt action rifles. That guy's dad was killed by one.

That was a musket. A frakking musket!

I'd work on the assumption that 15 years after all the electricity went off most of the existing bullets were used in the wars and chaos that followed, and with none of the factories working then machining them, getting the materials etc. would take ages.

They made Henry 88 rounds without electricity and factories out in the West.

So arrows make more sense until they get a proper industrialised society going again, since you can re-use them. I suspect that bullets are valuable there and then.
You could make use of muskets, musket balls being easy to manufacture, but you still need your saltpetre and to be able to machine the parts. Depends how far they've got.

I would agree with what you say, but we've got so much of the stuff just lying around in bullet factories that it's highly unlikely we'd run out.

And anyway, people can still make their own bullets.

You're quite right about the musket, apologies.
However, as for making bullets, how many people actually know how to? Or have the tools? Or the materials? I assume a few people do, but I doubt it's a widespread practice.

Good point. Some Mercs may have them, but they would be far and few between.

I like the general picture, i.e. semi-post-nuclear society with people on horses and primitive weapons. Kind of reminds me of "Postman" if anyone else recalls seeing it. I think I will at least try it, even if I don't think too highly of Mister Lensflare.

That said, yeah, the basic idea about loss of electricity is dumb and impossible. Did the writers really have no better idea, or is everybody simply assuming the audience either doesn't care or has no understanding of basic physics and biology these days?

Got no problem with their choice of weapons, tho. As Lux Lucis pointed out, most modern firearms would require ammunition that is just too difficult to produce, essentially making them worthless. Certainly there are ways to manufacture bullets without electricity, but this would still require proper machinery and people with know-how. Try setting both up for an industrial production in a post-crisis society where half the world died in riots.

Musket balls, on the other hand? Hell, anyone can make these. The equipment to smelt tin and form it into a shape suitable to be fired from a rifle was actually standard issue for many nations' soldiers "back then", enabling them to restock their rounds in the field. Or even in the midst of battle, as I've read happened during the city fights in the French Revolution.
The only thing you still needed supply lines for was blackpowder and bars of tin - though the latter could be substituted by other household items if you were able to get a hold on them. For example, in the movie "The Patriot", Gibson's character smelts the tin miniatures of one of his sons to make ammunition.

I would expect that people are at least trying to replicate more advanced firearms than muskets, however, and that it would only be a matter of time until they succeed, allowing for limited production. Could well be that, in this TV series, the bad guy's elite or just their boss have one of those?

Anyhoo, thanks for the link. Colour me interested.

Lux_Lucis wrote:
You're quite right about the musket, apologies.
However, as for making bullets, how many people actually know how to? Or have the tools? Or the materials? I assume a few people do, but I doubt it's a widespread practice.

Then you have to consider making replacement parts for the guns themselves without the ability to mass produce steel. All those induction furnaces we currently use aren't going to work anymore.

dogma wrote:

Lux_Lucis wrote:
You're quite right about the musket, apologies.
However, as for making bullets, how many people actually know how to? Or have the tools? Or the materials? I assume a few people do, but I doubt it's a widespread practice.

Then you have to consider making replacement parts for the guns themselves without the ability to mass produce steel. All those induction furnaces we currently use aren't going to work anymore.

This is a more reasonable limitation on modern weapons than the supply of bullets, but I'm still not convinced. We've just produced so many arms and will have so many people die off the supply is likely to remain fairly massive, at least only 15 years in. A lot of our weapons of war were built to last, and we've made tons of parts for them. Even when guns break down and you run low on stocked parts, you'll probably still be able to find replacements on other guns of the same model. The new governments/militias at least would still have ready access to modern weapons.

Hell I'm sure a gun expert could comment more concretely but I'm willing to bet we've easily got at least a century worth of post-civilisation killing left in things like the AK-47.

Chongara wrote:We've just produced so many arms and will have so many people die off the supply is likely to remain fairly massive, at least only 15 years in.

Provided you can take those arms from the people that already have them and know how to use them: the military. There likely would be plenty of ammunition, but it would be tightly concentrated into groups like the militia mentioned in the trailer.

Additionally, there would be an incentive to arming new recruits with substandard arms. You don't want people signing up, and then running off with all the sweet stuff you've got after all. Or, worse yet, rebelling.

dogma wrote:

Chongara wrote:We've just produced so many arms and will have so many people die off the supply is likely to remain fairly massive, at least only 15 years in.

Provided you can take those arms from the people that already have them and know how to use them: the military. There likely would be plenty of ammunition, but it would be tightly concentrated into groups like the militia mentioned in the trailer.

Additionally, there would be an incentive to arming new recruits with substandard arms. You don't want people signing up, and then running off with all the sweet stuff you've got after all. Or, worse yet, rebelling.

I could see that. However we see do see the current reigning militia/government "Monroe Republic? I think they said, and nothing more advanced than what we saw in the civil war at best. Really the gun thing is minor for me. I just don't see how they can get away with trying to explain this, it's not something they should touch with a 20ft pole.

Perhaps muskets are for travelers, in case they are taken, and more modern weapons are for defense so as to limit their loss.

It just looks dumb, I just can't buy into it.

OK large EMP blast takes out all electronic devices, but that would not stop them from being repaired and working again. And large emp blasts will normally just blow a bunch of fuses, replace the fuses and you're good to go again.

If someone has some sort of device or knew how to fix it, why wait 15 years to do it?

Surely there are better apocalypses they could base the series on than "hey who turned out the lights"

sirlynchmob wrote:OK large EMP blast takes out all electronic devices

We don't know what caused it, but I doubt it was an EMP.

sirlynchmob wrote:If someone has some sort of device or knew how to fix it, why wait 15 years to do it?

That is assuming it was a device, that if it were a device that it was man made, or that we understand why they used it in the first place. To know why they hadn't fixed it you would have to know why they broke it.