Defiance (Syfy April 2013) TV Series and MMO

I don't get the vitriol for this, I thought it was decent and it entertained me with its sorta campy feel. It certainly wasn't nearly as bad as the pure garbage that was SGU and I'll take what watchable sci-fi I can get.

Some of you guys seem to project waaaaay too high hopes onto this that you shouldn't have had in the first place.

It's also best to hold off on alien tech nitpicks until we see what it can actually do. If a future episode shows folks flying in while the screen is up, then it would be a glaring plothole/indication of poor writing.

Could do without yet another wisecracking antihero who is a hit with the laydeez tbh. Apart from that it was nowhere near as bad as other SyFy offerings (eg Warehouse 13 .. ugggh).

mkopec_sl said:

Yeah, it wasnt bad, lets put it this way, it wasnt "Revolution bad". But then again it wasnt some sci-fi masterpiece either. Definitely worth checking out a few more times and seeing where it goes.

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Really? I thought it was worse than Revolution...The characters were just as cliche and superficial, but the dialogue was even worse. As someone else said, real people just don't do what these characters did (The mayor telling him to go work at the brothel just made my cringe...just so bad, even her body language looked artificial)....But then again, Revolution has weepy mcweep blonde, so yeah, Revolution is definitely the more annoying show. (At least spunky young heroine cliche in this show isn't crying all the time.)

Sean_sl said:

Some of you guys seem to project waaaaay too high hopes onto this that you shouldn't have had in the first place.

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I was hoping for more firefly--and I don't regard firefly in the god-like state a lot of people do. It was a kind of campy space western, and I was hoping for that here. This was far, far, far worse--their director and production crew just made some really terrible choices. Some of the scenes they obviously didn't have the budget to make look even halfway decent, like the biker charge, but they tossed it in anyway. Then the pacing felt rushed, and just off--it was just really poorly produced.

I'd kill for Deadwood Sci-Fi show, and I'd have absolutely loved it if that's what this was (Even if it had to be campy because the writers/producers were bad)...but I had the bar set, far, far, lower....and they managed to crater well below that.

You know, sometimes when I read forums, I'm just sad for some people.

Nowadays, it looks like all people do is endlessly nitpick about everything.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed the pilot, but that's just me. I tend to enjoy things without being overly negative about them.

Malkav_sl said:

You know, sometimes when I read forums, I'm just sad for some people.

Nowadays, it looks like all people do is endlessly nitpick about everything.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed the pilot, but that's just me. I tend to enjoy things without being overly negative about them.

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Nothing needed to be "nit picked"--the loose threads in this show could have moored the titanic.

mkopec_sl said:

YEah they definitely need more explanation and back story. There was like 4-5 alien
races there? How and why did they all get there?

One thing thats annoying right from the start is how did this entire war thing and terraforming all happen within 30 yrs?

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I posted the backstory a page ago. I'm sure it will make it's way into the show eventually. I have to check the chronology, but i think the war roughly starts 7-10 yrs after arrival, then the arks blow up roughly 10 yrs or so after the war starts, which ends the war because the terraformers fuck up the planet. So the show is taking place like 10-13 years after the arkfall/terraforming incident. Like the intro shows, we are 33 yrs post-first contact. That's over a generation or 2 later, so it's not surprising young people are used to it because they have known nothing different.

Just seemed like boring, campy, formulaic "made-for-sy-fy" fodder to me, like most of their stuff unfortunately. Had every clich? in the book imho. Almost changed the channel when he went hand to hand with the "Bio-man", then finally couldn't stand it anymore once it got to the point where the miner's kid got murdered. If they wanted any hope of sucking me in, they needed more sci-fi and less Soap Opera\ABC Afterschool special. If you want to interject gay sub-plots, do it after I at least know what the fuck is going on in the world.

It was fairly competent future-western sci-fi. On the other hand, that makes it better than anything else SyFy's done in the last few years so it's getting a three-episode test from me.

Yeah, it was alright. Nothing amazing, but I liked the main character and his girl. Some good humor here and there. Will continue to watch.

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/9343...gital-download
MMO and season pass on sale through GMC.

Have not tried it but looks like price is falling fast if people are looking into getting into that deal.

mkopec_sl said:

YEah they definitely need more explanation and back story. There was like 4-5 alien races there? How and why did they all get there?

One thing thats annoying right from the start is how did this entire war thing and terraforming all happen within 30 yrs?

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Well according tohttp://www.defiance.com/en/series/wo...aliens/sensoththey are all Votan races also the chain of events can be found here:http://www.defiance.com/en/series/wo...asion-timeline

That timeline reads like something a 7th grader would write, and the problems start in the first entry.

3502 BCE

Indogene scientists begin tracking a rogue star that is on a collision course with their own solar system. They theorize that the resulting collision will wipe out all life in the Votanis system. The Indogenes warn the other races that they need to begin planning an exodus. The other races don't believe them, and balk at the astronomical cost of the proposed Ark fleet

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A rogue star wouldn't "collide" with shit. It would certainly disrupt planetary orbits if it got close enough, but that wouldn't cause problems for an advance species. You just dig in and live underground. It would take hundreds of years for a planet to get tossed out of a system.

And there being multiple intelligent species living in a single solar system? The odds of that happening are literally astronomical. I mean, humanity once existed among other species, and you don't see many neanderthals around these days, do you? We either killed them off or bred them out of existence.

Here's another gem:

2025

Global war makes delivery of fossil fuel to America problematic. Nuclear energy gains prominence and many new power plants are constructed, including one along the Mississippi River in St. Louis. As food and energy become scarce, people become desperate, leading to a number of human/human and Votan/Votan side conflicts.

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It takes decades to build a nuclear power plant, and that's not counting all the regulations and shit. It's a massive undertaking, and they're building multiple plants in a matter of a few years,during a fucking war. Can you say "bullseye"? I mean, Israel and the US want to bomb the shit out of Iran for building a single nuclear plant because it could be used to build bombs, but apparently the Votans think these plants are just for power...


You know what? I know what my problem is: I'm a few years out of the 18-35 demographic that SyFy targets for all their shows. Combine that with a healthy science education, a love foractualscience fiction, and some critical thinking skills and it's no wonder why I can't enjoy any of the crap SyFy has to offer.

Jarnin_sl said:

You know what? I know what my problem is: I'm a few years out of the 18-35 demographic that SyFy targets for all their shows. Combine that with a healthy science education, a love foractualscience fiction, and some critical thinking skills and it's no wonder why I can't enjoy any of the crap SyFy has to offer.

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Unfortunately, you pretty much have to turn off your brain to watch Sci-Fi now a days. This shit is made for the retarded general public to consume. It should probably be called Sci-Fantasy or something.

You have to just not think about this shit and enjoy the campiness of it or don't bother, because it will drive you nuts.

I haven't watched the show yet (prob wait until all episodes air so I can marathon it) but imo those are way too nitpicky. Science fiction cannot work under the constraint of "it hasn't happened for humans, so thats impossible!" We literally have no idea whats out there in the stars, so shooting down any idea is imo anti-science. Who knows how life will evolve elsewhere, the vastness of space does really approach infinity and with those kind of numbers, anything you can imagine is entirely possible. Maybe there is a planet where magic is real, maybe there is a planet where dogs and cats run things and humanoids are pets, and I can most certainly believe a star system where multiple planets have evolved multiple species to space faring capabilities.

on the other hand yeah the closer you set ideas to our own timeline the sillier they can sound, the tons of nuclear-power-plants sound a bit dopey but not out of the bounds of possibility, maybe in a few years they can turn nuclear weapons into power plants really fast or something (yes I know the uranium in nukes is the output of power plants but maybe its reversible in the future?).

The thing that really annoys me most about scifi shows is how aliens always look humanoid (for casting/makeup/etc) reasons, our bodies are a pretty shitty construct with a lot of flaws, always love to see really crazy looking aliens. Also Dodge cars everywhere makes me laugh, everyone knows toyotas and hondas will be the real survivors (just look at any shithole in Africa or Asia, all running 80s toyotas).

It takes decades to build a nuclear power plant, and that's not counting all the regulations and shit. It's a massive undertaking, and they're building multiple plants in a matter of a few years, during a fucking war. Can you say "bullseye"? I mean, Israel and the US want to bomb the shit out of Iran for building a single nuclear plant because it could be used to build bombs, but apparently the Votans think these plants are just for power...

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Read the fake news articles that are sublinked at that site. They actually mention concerns regarding the super fast building of the nuclear powerplants and how it seems pretty suspect (safety issues aside). As for the rogue star, I guess it would depend on how large it is. If it were some type of super giant, then I imagine that could fuck things up pretty badly. Even if it didn't physically engulf any planets, the gravitational forces would probably cause all sorts of problems on the planets and any ship building facilities they had in orbit.

Besides, you don't wait for the flood to hit before building a boat. "No guys, it's cool. No rush on the boat...we can just build it later under much more difficult circumstances!". Also, bear in mind these races still can't travel FTL. It took them 5k years to reach Earth at sub-light speeds, so it makes sense to plan ahead ;P