Defiance looks great and the creators have obviously put a lot of effort into imagining the world of Defiance. And then, yes, there's the game, in which I have no interest whatsoever. And the story so far has some interest, although the plots do lack some originality. But (sigh) there are just some things I can't get past.
I mean, what science fiction doesn't require suspension of disbelief? But in Defiance we have the "eight races." Sorry, folks, but we know now that since life appeared on Earth – starting with the evolution of DNA itself – the planet has gone through 4 billion years of random, haphazard, chaotic, often catastrophic changes, and that every species that ever existed, including us, is the evolutionary product of Earth's unique and incredibly complex history. What's the likelihood that the same multibillion-year sequence of events would happen somewhere else and cause organisms to evolve just like us? Way less than vanishingly small. Even if faster-than-light travel is invented and we roam the Orion Arm à la Starfleet, we will NEVER find Vulcans or Klingons or Romulans or Ferengi, etc.; in other words, there are no humanoid races out there waiting to make contact whose differences from humans are mostly cosmetic, like skin color, or funny Bajoran nose ridges. It's a pretty safe bet that anatomically, physiologically, and chemically, we are unique in the universe, and that extraterrestrial life, if it exists, is not remotely like us. So right there, Defiance's premise collapses.
What's more, the creators appear to have given little or no thought to subtler differences of the terraformed Earth. If the planetary flora has changed, what has that done to the atmosphere? What is the mix of atmospheric gases? Is there more oxygen? If so, do fires burn more violently? Is there less oxygen? If so, is everyone always tired and short of breath? Do atmospheric toxins shorten life? Has the chemistry of the ocean changed? Because that would certainly affect life everywhere. Is the sea still salt? Have all the fish died? What replaced them, if anything? What are coastal survivors using for food if not fish? How has the terraformed soil affected the atmosphere and the water cycle? What's happened to the ozone layer? Do people have to be concerned about lethal sunburn? Have some prey species survived whose predators didn't, and so they've overrun some areas? Is the atmosphere still transparent to just the right wavelengths of red and blue light to support photosynthesis? Have soil microorganisms changed, and what has that done to plant life? The creators seem to have forgotten that the basis of civilization is agriculture, without which we're back in the good old Neolithic days of hunting and gathering, boys and girls. Who grows the crops? What are they? Where do they come from? Are they safe to eat? Do they provide adequate nutrition? Have any fungi in the soil undergone explosive growth and killed everything for miles, depopulating whole areas? Where are all the little creatures, the insects and other arthropods without which there is no ecosystem? What new diseases afflict plants, animals, humans and aliens? How has the human and animal intestinal flora, without which we could not survive, adapted to the new conditions? Does everybody now have chronic constipation, diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, or intestinal cancer? You can go on pretty much forever thinking up stuff like this. A lot of effort has obviously gone into how the world of Defiance LOOKS. But, it's still early in the series, maybe they'll put more thought into how the world of Defiance WORKS.
I mean, what science fiction doesn't require suspension of disbelief? But in Defiance we have the "eight races." Sorry, folks, but we know now that since life appeared on Earth – starting with the evolution of DNA itself – the planet has gone through 4 billion years of random, haphazard, chaotic, often catastrophic changes, and that every species that ever existed, including us, is the evolutionary product of Earth's unique and incredibly complex history. What's the likelihood that the same multibillion-year sequence of events would happen somewhere else and cause organisms to evolve just like us? Way less than vanishingly small. Even if faster-than-light travel is invented and we roam the Orion Arm à la Starfleet, we will NEVER find Vulcans or Klingons or Romulans or Ferengi, etc.; in other words, there are no humanoid races out there waiting to make contact whose differences from humans are mostly cosmetic, like skin color, or funny Bajoran nose ridges. It's a pretty safe bet that anatomically, physiologically, and chemically, we are unique in the universe, and that extraterrestrial life, if it exists, is not remotely like us. So right there, Defiance's premise collapses.
What's more, the creators appear to have given little or no thought to subtler differences of the terraformed Earth. If the planetary flora has changed, what has that done to the atmosphere? What is the mix of atmospheric gases? Is there more oxygen? If so, do fires burn more violently? Is there less oxygen? If so, is everyone always tired and short of breath? Do atmospheric toxins shorten life? Has the chemistry of the ocean changed? Because that would certainly affect life everywhere. Is the sea still salt? Have all the fish died? What replaced them, if anything? What are coastal survivors using for food if not fish? How has the terraformed soil affected the atmosphere and the water cycle? What's happened to the ozone layer? Do people have to be concerned about lethal sunburn? Have some prey species survived whose predators didn't, and so they've overrun some areas? Is the atmosphere still transparent to just the right wavelengths of red and blue light to support photosynthesis? Have soil microorganisms changed, and what has that done to plant life? The creators seem to have forgotten that the basis of civilization is agriculture, without which we're back in the good old Neolithic days of hunting and gathering, boys and girls. Who grows the crops? What are they? Where do they come from? Are they safe to eat? Do they provide adequate nutrition? Have any fungi in the soil undergone explosive growth and killed everything for miles, depopulating whole areas? Where are all the little creatures, the insects and other arthropods without which there is no ecosystem? What new diseases afflict plants, animals, humans and aliens? How has the human and animal intestinal flora, without which we could not survive, adapted to the new conditions? Does everybody now have chronic constipation, diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, or intestinal cancer? You can go on pretty much forever thinking up stuff like this. A lot of effort has obviously gone into how the world of Defiance LOOKS. But, it's still early in the series, maybe they'll put more thought into how the world of Defiance WORKS.
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