Let's discuss the AH elements in "Fringe"

[Petike]

One of the most ASB things is that planes haven't been invented and airlines are airship-only. Um... I don't buy into that. From where the hell would they get sattelite-dependent technologies then ?! Including those funky prematurely advanced mobile phones ? You can't have sattelite-launching vehicles if you can't even master basic heavier-than-air flight ! Sigh.

It feels like the writers of the show just read the Ill Bethisad Wiki, stole an idea or two and called it a day.

In all honesty, even in IB, planes at least exist, though they are more behind than in OTL and more coexisting with zeppelins !

 

[Hendryk]

One of the most ASB things is that planes haven't been invented and airlines are airship-only. Um... I don't buy into that.

No airplanes? seriously? now that would really be silly. If there are internal combustion engines, there's going to be experimentation with heavier-than-air transportation.

 

[The Professor]

One of the most ASB things is that planes haven't been invented and airlines are airship-only. Um... I don't buy into that. From where the hell would they get sattelite-dependent technologies then ?! Including those funky prematurely advanced mobile phones ? You can't have sattelite-launching vehicles if you can't even master basic heavier-than-air flight ! Sigh.

It feels like the writers of the show just read the Ill Bethisad Wiki, stole an idea or two and called it a day.

In all honesty, even in IB, planes at least exist, though they are more behind than in OTL and more coexisting with zeppelins !

No airplanes? seriously? now that would really be silly. If there are internal combustion engines, there's going to be experimentation with heavier-than-air transportation.

The little I have seen lead me to think they had planes but only for military purposes since the commercial side didn't succeed (OTL they had to initially pay airlines to carry the mail in order for commercial planes to be viable)

 

[B_Munro]

the rule of the multiverse is.......shit can, and has, happened, in every convievable way

Sure, but then there must be a TL where the Nazis won the Battle of Britain because all the British fighter planes had mid-air lethal collisions with migrating geese. If you open your magic doorway onto a random alternate TL, it's probably _not_ going to be one with great-powers-of-1940-all-ruled-by-a-Marx Brother level of improbability.

Edit: and even with a multiverse, if you keep the laws of physics constant, there are things which won't happen. Julius Ceasar can't both cross and not cross the Rubicon in the same universe, not being an elementary particle, and there probably aren't any universes where the Lincoln-Douglas debates are disrupted by Douglas suddenly turning into a hippopotamus.


Bruce

 

[jkarr]

Sure, but then there must be a TL where the Nazis won the Battle of Britain because all the British fighter planes had mid-air lethal collisions with migrating geese. If you open your magic doorway onto a random alternate TL, it's probably _not_ going to be one with great-powers-of-1940-all-ruled-by-a-Marx Brother level of improbability.

Edit: and even with a multiverse, if you keep the laws of physics constant, there are things which won't happen. Julius Ceasar can't both cross and not cross the Rubicon in the same universe, not being an elementary particle, and there probably aren't any universes where the Lincoln-Douglas debates are disrupted by Douglas suddenly turning into a hippopotamus.


Bruce

who says the laws of physics have to work the same in all parallell worlds?¿
noone can say what can or cant happen....cos its still impossible to prove they exsist fully, let alone tell what could happen in them

 

[B_Munro]

who says the laws of physics have to work the same in all parallell worlds?¿
noone can say what can or cant happen....cos its still impossible to prove they exsist fully, let alone tell what could happen in them

Round here, we call them ASB timelines, and we don't take 'em too seriously. (Of course, "Fringe" is full of ASB events. But I was talking about appealing to _numbers_ : if you are going to throw in alternate physics, you have abandoned the argument and are essentially saying "it's just a story, anything can happen" which kinda takes the notion of rigor in AH and runs a tank over it).

Bruce

 

[Mathuen]

Round here, we call them ASB timelines, and we don't take 'em too seriously. (Of course, "Fringe" is full of ASB events. But I was talking about appealing to _numbers_ : if you are going to throw in alternate physics, you have abandoned the argument and are essentially saying "it's just a story, anything can happen" which kinda takes the notion of rigor in AH and runs a tank over it).

Bruce

I can live with alternate physics if it is ordered well enough to be workable and explained and not just ZOMG-SUPAHSPACE ENERGIEZ!!!!!!111!!!!oneoneone or other general crazyness.

 

[B_Munro]

I can live with alternate physics if it is ordered well enough to be workable and explained and not just ZOMG-SUPAHSPACE ENERGIEZ!!!!!!111!!!!oneoneone or other general crazyness.

Well, sure, that's OK: I have no problem with alternate physics as a world-building gimmick, rather than a means of telling someone to shut up when they are complaining about plausibility.

( a possibly relevant quotation

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show,
I should really just relax"

)


Bruce

 

[B_Munro]

Suggestion: a new metric for whether something is too improbable or not.

If the inhabitants of the TL would find it utterly insane and unbelievable, (such as my proposal for a goose-powered Luftwaffe victory) then there is something seriously wrong. For instance, in a world where King Arthur is victorious and there is no Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain and no Norman French conquest, we can call a USA in 2012 whose inhabitants speak colloquial english implausible: linguists of that TL would be driven utterly batshit trying to figure out how the Celtic tongue of their ancestors somehow morphed into a Germanic language with Latin elements. They'll be twisting themselves in knots and coming up with wild Fomenko-ist notions about huge chunks of "hidden" or "missing" history.

Bruce

 

[jkarr]

something else just noticied...the grand hotel (gaudis hotel atraccion) was built in 1908...yet he was aproached by the american investors in 1908 and only finished the deisgn somewhere near the end of the year...so unless at the dawn of the 20th centuary the other side could erect a 300 ft+ hotel in less than a couple of months i doubt it wouldve being complted til at least the 1910-20s

 

[Flubber]

who says the laws of physics have to work the same in all parallell worlds?¿

The same physics that proposed the existence of parallel worlds to solve certain aspects of QED in the first place. Those theoretical parallel worlds are part of our universe.

Also, seeing are there are damn few ways to "combine" elementary particles and forces to create a universe in which life as we understand it can exist, with the alternate universe in Fringe peopled with people, the laws of physics there are the same as they are here.

Face it, the sleep deprived hacks in the Fringe writers' room are simply throwing together whatever shit pops into their collective minds in order to ram home the idea of there being an alternate universe. Do you seriously think anyone actually took some the time to work out the many implications in the map which has been posted here? Or the implications of there being no airplanes? Or a copper-colored Statue of Liberty? Or the existence of the Grand Hotel?

They've worked out none of the things mentioned here, of course, because they're just dropping whatever "cool" bits they can quickly think of into the show in order to signal to the trailer park inhabitants network television is aimed at that the alternate universe is "alternate". When Jimmy John Joe Bob and Krystal see a zeppelin they can remark to each other over the Kool Whip that the "Boy Howdy, that Otherside sure is different, huh?".

Trying to come up with plausible explanations for what essentially are throw away bits in the Fringe script is as fruitless as Trekkies trying to come with plausible reasons why Klingons grew horseshoe crabs on their heads between the 1960s and 1980s.

Remember, it's a TV show. We're lucky it make as much sense as it does.

 

[jkarr]

Trying to come up with plausible explanations for what essentially are throw away bits in the Fringe script is as fruitless as Trekkies trying to come with plausible reasons why Klingons grew horseshoe crabs on their heads between the 1960s and 1980s.

they explained that in the enterprise series (badly)

and no planes in the other side?...wtf...how can they be more technologically advanced without planes...i just though the zepllins were there for show

 

[Flubber]

they explained that in the enterprise series (badly)

Yeah, they "explained" it after nearly a quarter century of Trekkies had spun fantasy after fantasy of why the change occurred. Of course the reason the change occurred was because the new show had a higher production budget but that didn't stop the Trekkies for looking for a "reason" just as the people in this thread are casting about for "reasons" to explain the oddities in Fringe

and no planes in the other side?...wtf...how can they be more technologically advanced without planes...i just though the zepllins were there for show

No civilian aviation it seems and, you're right, the zeppelins are just there for show. The writers dropped them into the mix because zeppelins scream "alternate history" to Jimmy John Joe Bob and Krystal on their couch in the trailer park. As with most of the oddities being discussed in this thread, zeppelins exist in Fringe purely for show and not for any plausible reason inherent to the alternate universe.

Just as Trekkies engaged in a 25+ year circle jerk to "explain" Klingon foreheads and still gnash their teeth over the official "explanation" today, Fringe viewers are going to engage in futile speculation over bits and pieces the writers placed in the show after less thought than they spend selecting a breakfast cereal each morning.

 

[Hendryk]

Now watching the beginning of Season 3. The penny-farhings are a silly touch, there's a reason they were replaced by the bicycles as we know them in the late 19th century. But I'm wondering why Agent Francis sports that scar near his eyes, living as he does in a TL where reconstructive surgery can even deal with a body 90% covered with third-degree burns.

 

[Tprynn]

I disagree that there are no planes in Fringe-verse. The have (self flying) helicopters and the White House was attacked September 11th, implied to have been very similar to ours sans the different targets. It's never actually been said that there are no planes. For all we know, there could be commercial airliners that put the A380 and Concorde to shame

 

[jkarr]

I disagree that there are no planes in Fringe-verse. The have (self flying) helicopters and the White House was attacked September 11th, implied to have been very similar to ours sans the different targets. It's never actually been said that there are no planes. For all we know, there could be commercial airliners that put the A380 and Concorde to shame

its also never said that planes were used in 9/11....it couldve being the zeeplins, or bombs, or something we catn even think off...like kamikaze ducks

 

[Flubber]

its also never said that planes were used in 9/11...

You both are ignoring the real issue here: There are no plausible explanations for the many oddities shown in the alternate universe on Fringe because the writers did not bother to check those oddities for plausibility. All that matters is that they're "cool", plausibility can be damned.

Just like the Trekkies and their decades long circle jerk regarding Klingon foreheads, you cannot explain these oddities within the context of the show.

 

[Lord Insane]

Just like the Trekkies and their decades long circle jerk regarding Klingon foreheads, you cannot explain these oddities within the context of the show.

To be fair to the Trekkies, there was a subset accepting the official explanation (that Klingons had always had those foreheads, but TOS didn't have the budget or developed enough special effects to show it. Kind of like the Gorn really looking like a lizard-man rather than a man in a rubber lizard suit) until Deep Space Nine came and threw that out without presenting an alternate explanation.

 

[Marc Pasquin]

To be fair to the Trekkies, there was a subset accepting the official explanation (that Klingons had always had those foreheads, but TOS didn't have the budget or developed enough special effects to show it. Kind of like the Gorn really looking like a lizard-man rather than a man in a rubber lizard suit) until Deep Space Nine came and threw that out without presenting an alternate explanation.

I still prefer my own explanation that the Klingon Empire, just like the Federation, was made of different races and the ones seen in TOS just happened to be all from the same sector.

As for the 3 Klingons appearing in DS9, I had chosen to assume that they were different characters with the same name. For all we know, Kang, Kor and Koloth are the klingon equivalent of Tom, Dick and Harry

 

[jkarr]

To be fair to the Trekkies, there was a subset accepting the official explanation (that Klingons had always had those foreheads, but TOS didn't have the budget or developed enough special effects to show it. Kind of like the Gorn really looking like a lizard-man rather than a man in a rubber lizard suit) until Deep Space Nine came and threw that out without presenting an alternate explanation.

was enterprise, "A Mirror darkle, I&II"...ive always found the mirrorverse more interesting, cos its more realistic in the originas of a human dominated society in space