The Defiance Thread - News about the Show and Game

[Merlanthe]

I noticed when Datak told that lie that Alek seemed uncomfortable with it. Christie didnt seem to mind though. I can easily see this causing problems since Alek's culture seems to insist on men being dominant yet he froze up when confronted by monsters whilst his love came to his defence. The thing is i dont see a any problem with how things played out. Some people will panic and freeze up when confronted by monsters whilst others will retain a level of calm allowing them to think more clearly and take more proactive action like finding a way to fight back or a successful way to escape. Gender has nothing to do with how a person reacts to a monster or a monstrous situation.

And i like how, except for his fight with luke in the pilot, Alek seems to be a sweet nice guy with a personality that comes accross as more pacifist than aggressive. So far Christie seems to accept and like this about him. Its possibly what drew her to him in the first place since most of the guys in town seem to fit more into the gruff macho tough guy image with the exception of Christies brother Quentin who is a soft spoken hard working nice guy.

Christie doesnt seem to mind that she had to defend Alek or that Datak lied to her father. If they do go the route of Alek feeling the need to reassert his masculinity by acting like a dominant Castithan male toward his sweet girlfriend then i hope that it lasts no more than an episode and comes to a halt after she slaps some sense into him. I actually really like Alek and Christie. They do seem a little young to be marrying but what worries me more is how accepting Datak and Stahma are of Christie as a daughter in law. Granted their hoping to get control of the mines through her but Given how snooty they are and obssessed with caste and such im surprised their not more worried about having a human as a daughter in law and hybrid grandkids. I'm seriously wondering if their plan to off the McCawleys extends to Christie since they dont seem to have filled Alek in on the plan or maybe Castithans have a much longer life span than humans or allow for polygamous marriages and they figure Alek can always make find a respectable castithan bride later. Maybe previous attempts to interbreed between castithan males and human females usually end up with death in childbirth and their figuring that will happen.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

Dakar is it?

Datak Tarr.

Thanks, I'm not so good with remembering character names.

 

[Christopher]

The thing is i dont see a any problem with how things played out. Some people will panic and freeze up when confronted by monsters whilst others will retain a level of calm allowing them to think more clearly and take more proactive action like finding a way to fight back or a successful way to escape. Gender has nothing to do with how a person reacts to a monster or a monstrous situation.

This is based on your extensive personal experience with monster-fighting in real life?

 

[stj]

The thing is i dont see a any problem with how things played out. Some people will panic and freeze up when confronted by monsters whilst others will retain a level of calm allowing them to think more clearly and take more proactive action like finding a way to fight back or a successful way to escape. Gender has nothing to do with how a person reacts to a monster or a monstrous situation.

Given that "monstrous situation" also covers sudden attacks of all sorts, this is true. Indeed, most people, when confronted by a sudden, unprovoked verbal assault are taken aback, and do not respond effectively. Aggressive/psychopathic people rely on this widespread tendency.

That said, I don't think Alak wasn't even organized enough mentally to cower effectively. As I recall he more or less fell over when the girl reared back on him, then lay there in shock. Good cowering would have been trying to crawl backwards on his elbows I think. The scene may have just been executed badly by the director and actors though.

What almost invariably does make a difference is training and experience. In the girl's case, I think the dead older brother seems like the type to have given her some hand to hand combat time.

 

[Merlanthe]

Given that "monstrous situation" also covers sudden attacks of all sorts, this is true. Indeed, most people, when confronted by a sudden, unprovoked verbal assault are taken aback, and do not respond effectively. Aggressive/psychopathic people rely on this widespread tendency.

That said, I don't think Alak wasn't even organized enough mentally to cower effectively. As I recall he more or less fell over when the girl reared back on him, then lay there in shock. Good cowering would have been trying to crawl backwards on his elbows I think. The scene may have just been executed badly by the director and actors though.

What almost invariably does make a difference is training and experience. In the girl's case, I think the dead older brother seems like the type to have given her some hand to hand combat time.

I noticed that Alak (have i been spelling that wrong?) did try to crawl backwards on his elbows but was too freaked out to be successful at it. He kept losing his balance and falling back down couple times partly cause he couldnt seem to tear his frightened gaze away from Christie and the monsters.

I get the distinct impression that Alak has been given a nice easy childhood by his parents with little responsibility given how Datak doesnt seem to have involved him in any of his shady cutthroat buissiness practices whereas the McCauley kids seem to have been put to work by their father helping with the mine or with running the household. I definitely agree that the dead older brother seemed the type to have given his sister some self defence training.

 

[Merlanthe]

This is based on your extensive personal experience with monster-fighting in real life?

Yes! :P

 

[Scout101]

regardless of whether the game helps or not (no idea, haven't played it), I feel like we need more backstory/worldbuilding here. Spent like 2 minutes in the promo introducing this world, and now we're on to 'bad guy does plot of the week for some reason' episodes. Feel like there's a lot PLANNED here, but we're just not getting any of it. And not getting much in the tidbits week to week. I dunno, just feels lacking...

 

[Jolaris]

I thought it was actually quite ingenious that the Irathian superpower involves people seeing... the past...

Usually it's all "It is the future you see". I can live with people seeing the past, a lot easier to suspend my disbelief.

And my new favourite character is the big gruffy steampunk Irathian. He reminds of so much of Worf, but with a sense of humour, tough on the outside soft on the inside.

 

[Christopher]

I thought it was actually quite ingenious that the Irathian superpower involves people seeing... the past...

Usually it's all "It is the future you see". I can live with people seeing the past, a lot easier to suspend my disbelief.

On the website, there's a deleted scene from the start of episode 2 of Irisa having a vision of the future, specifically the end of the episode. I'm hoping they cut it because they decided not to let her see the future, but I won't be surprised if they do give her precognitive visions in later episodes.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I thought it was actually quite ingenious that the Irathian superpower involves people seeing... the past...

Usually it's all "It is the future you see". I can live with people seeing the past, a lot easier to suspend my disbelief.

On the website, there's a deleted scene from the start of episode 2 of Irisa having a vision of the future, specifically the end of the episode. I'm hoping they cut it because they decided not to let her see the future, but I won't be surprised if they do give her precognitive visions in later episodes.

Didn't the leader of the Spirit Riders kind of imply Irisa might be able to see the future?

 

[Jolaris]

Oh, that made me a bit wary then, I do hope they don't go that route in the future. :/

I did not get out from his talk about the Sight that it did have to involve the future, just that she was clairvoyant when it comes to the past and the present.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

So if we have a character with "the sight" does that tip this more into being a fantasy?

 

[sojourner]

^Nah, psychic abilities have a long tradition in sci-fi.

 

[Christopher]

So if we have a character with "the sight" does that tip this more into being a fantasy?

It certainly moves it further away from any kind of hard SF, but so do the impossibly huge arthropods, and the humanoid aliens, and the magic terraforming spheres. Basically the most plausible idea they've had so far was the Votan Arks traveling slower than light and their approach being detected years in advance. Otherwise it's all pretty fanciful.

As sojourner said, there's a long tradition in soft SF of treating psionic abilities as a form of science that humans haven't yet mastered. And there have long been people who have genuinely believed that psychic phenomena were provably real and were science fact rather than fantasy -- probably fewer people now than there once were, given that the experiments purporting to prove psychic abilities have been largely discredited as either fraudulent or badly enough designed to be unable to distinguish fraud from reality, but there are still some. Novelist Anne McCaffrey, for instance, believed that psionic powers were real and often featured them in her fiction even while insisting that she only wrote science fiction and never fantasy. (Her Pern novels often get shelved as fantasy because they have dragons, but the dragons are genetically engineered animals on an alien planet.)

 

[Merlanthe]

Novelist Anne McCaffrey, for instance, believed that psionic powers were real and often featured them in her fiction even while insisting that she only wrote science fiction and never fantasy. (Her Pern novels often get shelved as fantasy because they have dragons, but the dragons are genetically engineered animals on an alien planet.)

They were also genetically engineered form a lifeform native to the planet that happened to resemble miniature dragons

I would have found her ability to see past events, the apparent increase in these visions since coming to Defiance and her anger over Nolan having dismissed them in the past as post traumatic stress induced hallucinations more believable if we had seen her have one of these visions in a previous episode, a fleeting image of someones past that was irrelevant to teh main plot that Nolan explained away as a ptsd hallucination.

I did find it sad how the older irathient guy was obviously a beliver of this sight being a gift from the gods whilst the younger irathient woman who was behind the murders and had obviously been born after the Votans arrival on earth was completely dismissive and skeptical of both the sight and the gods and the older facial scar guy didnt seem to know how to handle that.

 

[Worf2DS9]

I really liked this week's episode. I was really immersed in Irisa's issues with the visions/memories, and was fascinated with the Irathient ceremony that allowed her to focus them to get at the truth. That had a very Klingony vibe.

 

[Caliburn24]

This show to me feels very much like Babylon 5 season one. A trading post keeping the peace between different groups, and having our characters deal with a new crisis each week, while dropping hints of world-building and larger issues here and there. Also, the acting(mostly) and the characters don't really jump out and make me emotionally invested in anyone yet. And I felt much the same way about early B5.

Babylon 5 however had a strong showrunner with a pre-planned story, and enough time to tell it. And it of course became much, much more gripping in later seasons. I hope that happens to Defiance, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[Kegg]

^
Yeah, but Defiance hasn't had any episodes as bad as were in Babylon 5's pilot plus first two episodes. I think there's room for growth.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That's exactly what I was thinking.

The first couple were awful.

The one with an old hand cannon that bonded onto people, rewriting their personalities into an ultimate warrior and then went on a rampage... Euugh.

 

[Kegg]

"Infection", yeah, that's absolutely dreadful, and both shows had pretty cumbersome pilots trying to juggle world-building and mystery elements.