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The problem remains that you are dedicating a section of the small populace to making something that isn't truly necessary for survival. When you have a larger population base to work from, with sufficient numbers dedicated to ensuring a reliable food supply, you can then branch out into other fields that allow for more specialization. Remember...everything in their society at those early stages, had to be made by another person. Every nail, every window pane, every piece of clothing, every door, every barrel, every cup, all were made by hand. There was no mass-production. They had it worse than the people who settled in the U.S., as they at least had the benefit of coming over with tools and some supplies. The Destinyites had (virtually) nothing but the knowledge in their heads. You can't just jump from that to mass production of tv sets, cars, and microwave ovens.|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
It is far easier to create something from a plan than to create it from scratch. The early colonists would not be able to create a modern fluorescent light bulb at the start. The first light bulbs didn't use tungsten and could have used numerous different filaments that are more available. Tungsten wasn't used until 1910 which is about a century before the first electric lamp was created. Apparently, Edison didn't discover the light bulb, but he did make it feasible. The early colonists would have used low tech principles to create "modern" equipment. Therefore, creating things like electric motors and light bulbs would be possible in a few years, but they wouldn't be as reliable as modern equipment.
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Some examples...
Someone who is making light bulbs isn't making glass planes for windows or creating containers to allow for medium to long term storage of foodstuffs.
Someone who is making copper wire for electric lines isn't using that copper (or their time) for the production of buttons, plows, nails, door hinges, arrow heads or tools for the creation of homes or the capability to clear/work more land to ensure food for the winter and lean times.
Someone who is mining metal for the filaments isn't mining metal for the things the smith needs. Or digging wells or ensuring that the water supply for the community isn't in danger.
Someone who is making the ceramics to hold the light bulbs isn't making pottery for storage or cookware.
They simply don't have the capability with such a small population base to dedicate towards maintaining those unnecessary luxuries. And yes, having light bulbs is an unnecessary luxury. It's a stupid argument. Simply put, they don't NEED electricity at that stage in their development.
The best thing that can be done (and apparently was done) is to have Eli and the other boffins make sure that a record is put in place of those technological advances so that once it becomes necessary and feasible, that the populace doesn't need to start from scratch and has a leg up on their development. They didn't even have a real school until all but Camille were in the ground. Figure 50-70 years after landfall.
You're forgetting that SGU is make believe television not reality, and common sense and facts only apply when it's convenient for the writers. Remember those same people suffered no genetic defects from inbreeding. They didn't even have the right ratio of male and females to start a successful colony. We're just supposed to ignore it.
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Because that would make sense.
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Originally Posted by NinjaPirate
Is there any particular reason they couldn't calculate the rough position of the refugee ships? Flying at sublight, they could at least get a ballpark idea of where they might be and start searching around from there.
If nothing else they could re-unite the colonists with their people. -k |
Remember those scenes with TJ's decline because of ALS? Well at the end of that little montage, we see Young and his two children at the table eating. On the table is a early oil lamp. By what we have heard in the episode, this is about 8-10 years after they get there.
When Young dies (about 30-40 years after the start of the colony, judging by the age of the young people at his side and the way Chloe looked), they still look like they are using oil lamps.
Even with the dedication of the "Eli Wallace Elementary School" and Chamille's speech, it's difficult to tell if the town had electricity. Doing a quick generational to time computation here (it was Eli's grandson who introduced Chamille), this is somewhere between 60-80 years A.C. (after colinization). So we can safely say within the lives of the colonists there was no electricity. But with all the geniuses in the colony, it can be postulated that they wrote a lot of stuff down.
The biggest thing that streches credulity within the confines of the show's universe is just how long the power in those six kinos lasted (years!), when we are shown earlier in the series that a kino's power only lasts 18 or so hours.
Shshshshshsh! We're supposed to ignore that just like the guns that never run out of ammo.
The Kino's could easily have been re-powered using the stargate seeing as they have shown that the guts of it are easily accessed via a handy door in the base.
There is a great TV show on discovery in the UK which may not be shown world wide, called Rough Science. A small group of scientists are dropped in a remote region with only basic tools and are given a new task every three days, they use their knowledge of their specialist areas to overcome the challenges including things like making radio's and lightbulbs and refining gold. Sure it's just a tv show and they openly make a point of giving them help from "the mystery chest" when it would take too much time to manufacture enough of a certain item.
But there are plenty of people in the real world with knowledge of the history of science and the capability of building up from scratch. The thing that really seemed out of place to me in the episode is why the future city looked so much like a "western" city, the timeline shows that the original colonists where long dead by time the city grew up, yet the feel of it was heavily influenced by current day earth.
You know... there are a lot of things that we use metals and such in their construction that isn't 100% needed... like electronics... sure the electronics would be hundreds of times bigger and less efficient if we use other materials but it can still be done.
I would bet that they did make a few low tech materials devices. I could see them having a computer by the stargate to give it easy access to a large amount of electricity
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There is the issue that the colony is only about 40 people. So all that is necessary is one person that is responsible for creating the various "luxuries" like plates, light, and others. The point is that it is possible to create various luxuries we take for granted in a more primitive and useful form a few years after landfall not decades. Most of the colonists are scientists so they would be busy developing stuff to improve their lives. People don't need to spend 16 hours each day on surviving so the other time can be used for "luxury" items.
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Originally Posted by Dark One
The problem remains that you are dedicating a section of the small populace to making something that isn't truly necessary for survival. When you have a larger population base to work from, with sufficient numbers dedicated to ensuring a reliable food supply, you can then branch out into other fields that allow for more specialization. Remember...everything in their society at those early stages, had to be made by another person. Every nail, every window pane, every piece of clothing, every door, every barrel, every cup, all were made by hand. There was no mass-production. They had it worse than the people who settled in the U.S., as they at least had the benefit of coming over with tools and some supplies. The Destinyites had (virtually) nothing but the knowledge in their heads. You can't just jump from that to mass production of tv sets, cars, and microwave ovens.
Some examples... Someone who is making light bulbs isn't making glass planes for windows or creating containers to allow for medium to long term storage of foodstuffs. Someone who is making copper wire for electric lines isn't using that copper (or their time) for the production of buttons, plows, nails, door hinges, arrow heads or tools for the creation of homes or the capability to clear/work more land to ensure food for the winter and lean times. Someone who is mining metal for the filaments isn't mining metal for the things the smith needs. Or digging wells or ensuring that the water supply for the community isn't in danger. Someone who is making the ceramics to hold the light bulbs isn't making pottery for storage or cookware. They simply don't have the capability with such a small population base to dedicate towards maintaining those unnecessary luxuries. And yes, having light bulbs is an unnecessary luxury. It's a stupid argument. Simply put, they don't NEED electricity at that stage in their development. The best thing that can be done (and apparently was done) is to have Eli and the other boffins make sure that a record is put in place of those technological advances so that once it becomes necessary and feasible, that the populace doesn't need to start from scratch and has a leg up on their development. They didn't even have a real school until all but Camille were in the ground. Figure 50-70 years after landfall. |
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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A good number of the colonists are scientists that deal in quantum mechanics and advanced scientific concepts that have little to do with making basic items or soldiers that are more adept at destroying than creating. It's one thing to know in the abstract how a washing machine works, it's quite another to be able to build one from scratch. Same way with a lightbulb.|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
There is the issue that the colony is only about 40 people. So all that is necessary is one person that is responsible for creating the various "luxuries" like plates, light, and others. The point is that it is possible to create various luxuries we take for granted in a more primitive and useful form a few years after landfall not decades. Most of the colonists are scientists so they would be busy developing stuff to improve their lives. People don't need to spend 16 hours each day on surviving so the other time can be used for "luxury" items.
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Do you have any idea how much time it actually takes to make a door hinge or nails by hand without the aid of a machine doing 90% of the work for you? And it's not JUST one person. It's many people required to make those luxuries. A light bulb requires glass, which in turn requires sand or other suitable material. But that's not all. You need the fuel source to melt the sand, the skill to shape the bulb. But oh wait, you also need metal for the filament and the conductor to the filament. You also need someone providing fuel for that filament/conductor to be smelted. Then you need (or should for the filament to last) provide an evacuated environment for the filament inside the bulb. What's the bulb going to sit in, in the home? Need someone to make that. Electricity delivery system. Need someone to make the wire, insulate the wire, string the wire, cut down trees for the power poles, dig the holes to set the poles. Then you still need generation facilities and the people to run that, the metal for the generators, the fuel for the generators (be it wind, water, fossil fuels).
All so that people can stay up into the darkness for a few hours when somone could just make a candle and wick and have transportable light. For far less effort, cost, and manpower.
There are some luxuries, like having glass windows, plates, and durable clothing that are more "necessary" than others. And if you have 40 people, are you REALLY willing to dedicate, let's say just 5 people, or 12.5% of your workforce, to making a light bulb so that you can stay up later? Nevermind that you won't actually have anything to do that late, but gosh darn, doesn't that light bulb look neat?
Dark beat me to it. Although I would like to add that we have already seen how capable the scientists are at surviving from the previous episode where 20 or so of the scientists stayed behind on that other planet and they were unable to build any type of basic shelter or store any food before winter came and they all froze to death.
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Didn't they have aliens supporting them, to some extent, on that planet? Can't recall the extent to which they had help.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Dark beat me to it. Although I would like to add that we have already seen how capable the scientists are at surviving from the previous episode where 20 or so of the scientists stayed behind on that other planet and they were unable to build any type of basic shelter or store any food before winter came and they all froze to death.
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No. There was a building of alien construction and the star and planet was supposed to be created by aliens but there was no contact with the aliens until they showed up after the scientists died. The aliens reanimated their corpses and returned them with a brand new shuttle to the Destiny.
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Originally Posted by Dark One
Didn't they have aliens supporting them, to some extent, on that planet? Can't recall the extent to which they had help.
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It was a decent episode...finally got to watch all of it today. Took 3 times to finally finish it because my brother decided to drop off his kids so that he can get a washer/dryer today (theirs broke 
)....
Anyways...yeah I like how Brody was the old crotchety one. 
Eli hooks up with....who....Lt. Barnes? Never seen her before heh. I was curious to see who he hooked up with because in the episode before this he said, "wish my mom could see this....and the kids..." In some way I was hoping to see Eli and Chloe together (or something like that) and then the "real" Chloe could be conflicted....but...probably better that they didn't do that
And before Eli said it, I was like, "why can't they just do a search for ALS?" but then Eli said why they couldn't a few minutes after I said/thought that. So that was good (even though it was kind of a cheesy answer).
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Is there any particular reason they couldn't calculate the rough position of the refugee ships? Flying at sublight, they could at least get a ballpark idea of where they might be and start searching around from there.
If nothing else they could re-unite the colonists with their people.
I will say that, while not having seen next final two episodes yet, so far this one (and the one before it) might have served well as the series finale.
-k
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