So, the prologue...
In 1964, a clever chap by the name of Peter Higgs had this idea that there must be some way to explain why some elementary particles had mass and some didn't, and after a lot of very difficult maths had been done, the idea of the "Higgs Boson" was bandied about. Unfortuneately for Mr Higgs though, the technology of the time wasnt able to validate his theory, so he went on to do some more very difficult sums and discovered some other stuff which got scientists all in a kerfuffle.
In 2008, construction on a very big piece of equipment called the "Large Hadron Collider" was completed, and the boffins collectively spunked in their trousers because now they had the equipment they needed in order to find out if Mr. Higgs was either a genius, or was simply talking out of his arse.
5 years after that, it turns out he is in fact, a genius, and he was awarded a nobel prize for his ability to do incredibly hard maths.
The film...
Annihilation Earth is a 2009 SyFy original movie, starring Luke Goss, Marina Sirtis (who for some reason seems to be under the impression she can do a convincing "southern drawl" accent) and Colin Salmon, as well as some other people who Ive never heard of.
Set in the year 2020, the film establishes that after the Higgs Boson was proved to exist, a related technology, called EVE (an acronym for "Electromagnetic Vacuum Energy") now provides cheap and limitless power to most of western Europe via a series of three linked super colliders.
The lead scientist in the EVE organisation (Goss), is worried that the EVE technology can easily be weaponised and turned into a "Total conversion" weapon (basically, a weapon that converts all matter into energy with near 100% efficiency). This paranoia isn't helped when his ambitious and politically savvy boss (Sirtis) , announces her intention to use the promise of foreign nations being allowed access to EVE in exchange for money and political favours, and it is compounded when his best mate, (Salmon) and fellow scientist seemingly becomes involved to Arab terrorists, shortly after giving him a chilling warning about how terrorists are known to be planning some sort of shennanigans with one of the three colliders in Europe.
These paranoid thoughts are soon confirmed when the collider facility in Orleans has a meltdown, seemingly caused by sabotage.
As the story rolls on, there's a lot of scientific talk about Higgs fields and "doomsday equations", a lot of posturing about the peaceful use of nuclear energy etc, and some healthy doses of paranoia, but, as it turns out, the network of colliders turns out to be a fantastically effective doomsday weapon...so it does.
So yeah, this film isn't too bad, although it does take some liberties with the science fact so as to make it more palatable to science fiction, and the film does take itself very, very seriously at times, but it is nonetheless a half decent bit of B-list sci-fi storytelling.
I give it 7 debasements of science out of 10.
Showing posts with label human extinction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human extinction. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
Monday, 7 October 2013
Dystopiarama:- Life After People (TV series 2009-2010)
"Life After People" is a History Channel documentary series produced between 2009 and 2010, and thus far has had two complete series plus its initial 90 minute "special" episode.
The series postulates what would happen to the Earth should mankind suddenly vanish, and also explores what would mankinds legacy to the universe be should this happen.
The series' tagline is "Welcome to Earth, population: Zero".
The initial 90 minute episode takes a look at various subjects, mostly concentrating on the subjects of how animals would cope without humans, and also the matter of urban decay.
The series version, which runs at approx 50 minutes per episode, expands on these concepts, with each episode having a particular theme, such as the fate of various building types, the long term effects of human mechanisation and technology, and the effect that pollution would have after we have gone and are not around to stop it.
The series makes no attempt to explain why humans have gone, they just have, and all the episodes show time from "today" (i.e, early 21st century) and extends forward, up to 1 million years into the future in the case of one episode.
The series can make for rather depressing viewing at times, for example, all those fluffy little pet animals would not fare so well without their owners to look after them, and many farm animals such as dairy cows would die from starvation, whereas other creatures, such as house cats, horses, raccoons and rats would do very well freed from the constraints of human intervention. A special mention also goes to head lice, who would become extinct within two weeks due to the complete loss of their only available food source.
One episode concentrates on the legacy of pollution left behind, showing how nuclear waste and hazardous chemicals would cause horrendous environmental damage after their containment systems begin to break down within the first 50 years or so, and the incredible amount of time it would take for nature to recover from the mass chemical or radioactive poisoning that would result.
Another bizarre twist is an episode which looks at what would happen to buried or preserved human corpses in the years that followed, where, due to lack of maintenance, human corpses would not only provide a feast for the animals that remain, but would also end up becoming something akin to the crude oil that we use by the gallon now.
On a plus note, the series takes a fairly in depth look at the way nature would quickly reassert its dominance over the Earth one we have gone, with cities quickly giving way to the regrowth of plants and trees and natural water flows sweeping away concrete dams.
Glimpses into the far future show cities such as London, Washington D.C and Seattle becoming marshlands or even being completely covered by water, and even show that in the far, far future, bacteria from Earth my spread life from Earth to other planets both in and outside of Earths solar system due to them stowing away on the various space probes launched during mans time on Earth.
The series itself is quite enjoyable, albeit very dry in some places, and should you wish to view it, you can do so, click HERE
The series postulates what would happen to the Earth should mankind suddenly vanish, and also explores what would mankinds legacy to the universe be should this happen.
The series' tagline is "Welcome to Earth, population: Zero".
The initial 90 minute episode takes a look at various subjects, mostly concentrating on the subjects of how animals would cope without humans, and also the matter of urban decay.
The series version, which runs at approx 50 minutes per episode, expands on these concepts, with each episode having a particular theme, such as the fate of various building types, the long term effects of human mechanisation and technology, and the effect that pollution would have after we have gone and are not around to stop it.
The series makes no attempt to explain why humans have gone, they just have, and all the episodes show time from "today" (i.e, early 21st century) and extends forward, up to 1 million years into the future in the case of one episode.
The series can make for rather depressing viewing at times, for example, all those fluffy little pet animals would not fare so well without their owners to look after them, and many farm animals such as dairy cows would die from starvation, whereas other creatures, such as house cats, horses, raccoons and rats would do very well freed from the constraints of human intervention. A special mention also goes to head lice, who would become extinct within two weeks due to the complete loss of their only available food source.
One episode concentrates on the legacy of pollution left behind, showing how nuclear waste and hazardous chemicals would cause horrendous environmental damage after their containment systems begin to break down within the first 50 years or so, and the incredible amount of time it would take for nature to recover from the mass chemical or radioactive poisoning that would result.
Another bizarre twist is an episode which looks at what would happen to buried or preserved human corpses in the years that followed, where, due to lack of maintenance, human corpses would not only provide a feast for the animals that remain, but would also end up becoming something akin to the crude oil that we use by the gallon now.
On a plus note, the series takes a fairly in depth look at the way nature would quickly reassert its dominance over the Earth one we have gone, with cities quickly giving way to the regrowth of plants and trees and natural water flows sweeping away concrete dams.
Glimpses into the far future show cities such as London, Washington D.C and Seattle becoming marshlands or even being completely covered by water, and even show that in the far, far future, bacteria from Earth my spread life from Earth to other planets both in and outside of Earths solar system due to them stowing away on the various space probes launched during mans time on Earth.
The series itself is quite enjoyable, albeit very dry in some places, and should you wish to view it, you can do so, click HERE
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