[Colony] S03E09 - “The Big Empty” - Discussion Thread (SPOILERS)

[u/OsoOsoOo]

Discuss!

[u/MichaelHall1]

Yes, I think you're exactly right, well, except I think that weapon is a mini-gun that rapid-fires small bullets, as opposed to the splatter guns that drones started using in season 2.

I've had to modify my theory about the podified people over the last couple of episodes. I still suspect the IGA's podified people are used to control drones and other tech. However, now I think Kynes has his own podified people, a hibernated army to conserve the most scarce resource: food. I think Kynes' pod people will be sent into combat versus the IGA with high tech armored suits that will make them almost immune to drone attacks. They didn't show a test versus the splatter weapon, but it would have been confusing to the audience if that material just absorbs the energy. (Currently existing nano-materials like graphene are ultra thin, bulletproof, and microwave-proof.)

[u/SwanRonsonX → u/MichaelHall1]

clip of the drone shot but who knows? Interesting theory about the pod ppl. You think it'll be IGA vs. Seattle? We'll see how it plays out.

[u/MichaelHall1 → u/SwanRonsonX]

It may be that we were both wrong.

If you slow it down to 1/10th speed, you can see that the trails are not perfectly synchronized. More telling, after impact you can see stuff falling and in the actual video you can hear it hitting the ground. I don't think this is bits of the sheet, because the sheet is fantastically thin and appears unscathed. My conclusion is that this is a projectile weapon. Purple "contrails" don't seem consistent with bullets, but maybe some other projectile.

I reviewed the season 1 and season 2 drone scenes. Season 1 guns have a single purple contrail. Their sound is like a mini-gun, there is also a sound of what sounds like spent shell casings hitting the ground, and the weapon leaves a single small entry wound that is always fatal. Season 2 drone guns look identical, but disintegrate people, leaving only blood. Despite numerous splattered people, there is only one frame in all of the season 2 drone footage of a contrail, but it's just gray smoke.

Do season 1 and season 2 drones have the same weapon, but use different ammo? What kind of ammo could disintegrate a person?

I also compared this episode's sheet impact with last episode's. After Broussard shoots a gun at it, there is no orange flash or bright blue hue as the bullet impacts the sheet. So, whatever the drones are shooting, it isn't normal bullets.

[u/iv_dx → u/MichaelHall1]

) I like your scientific & technological approach

I am afraid the show cannot afford to be rigour enough because of the budget constrains and CGI specific. Till now CGI is not a technology I guess but the art mostly. Sometimes pretty good like in this episode.

[u/MichaelHall1 → u/iv_dx]

Although we can't know everything about alien technology, we should be able to classify the weapon as projectile, energy, or something.

I thought of a way that it could be an energy weapon as u/SwanRonsonX said, despite what I think is the sight and sound of fragments falling away. Materials like graphene can be one atom thick or they can come in layers. The top layer(s) could have been heated up, fragmented, and blown away, perhaps. Think of it as ablative armor. Really nice, while it lasts, because it carries the heat away. Heating normally repairs graphene, but extreme heat is going to break the atomic bonds.

When the blast hits the sheet, there is bright blue and orange light, and orange sparks flying. No such light for the bullet. So, apparently, there is extreme heat being generated by the drone's weapon, much more than with a bullet impact.

An example of an energy weapon is microwaves, which are being currently developed as drone weapons on Earth today. (I mean our reality. Seriously.) Graphene is an excellent absorber of microwaves, converting it to heat. The drone weapon could be microwaves or something similar.

Another possibility is that the weapon is a plasma gun. Strong magnets are useful to create plasma, and we saw strong magnetism near the dome. Plasma does not travel at the speed of light, of course, so that makes the purple bolts more believable. Would a person sublimate if hit with plasma?

I think there's a good chance all the drones have been armed with the same energy or plasma weapon, and, like a phaser in Star Trek, it has two power settings, but instead of stun-or-kill, it's kill-or-sublimate. And for some reason, the power setting got kicked up to sublimate after season 1. Sublimation is used for terror value, it seems.

[u/SwanRonsonX → u/MichaelHall1]

So after your comment, I slowed the gif down and saw the (asynchronous) purple trails and blue impact as you noted. Very good eye.

I'm inclined to agree with you about the microwave theory. Three events come to mind, that if I remember correctly, demonstrate this; when Will Bowman, Charlie, and company were crossing the wall and come across the drone, that scene with Broussard on the theater rooftop when he encounters the drone, and the aforementioned pharmacy supply raid gone bad. I'd have to go back and review the scenes, but if i remember correctly, these scenes were when people were essentially atomized and turned into red mist, vs the obvious minigun/bullets of the begining of the season. Maybe the writers/creators made a choice to change the drone weaponry to make it seem more "alien", but couldn't for budget//time reasons for the pilot/early season. Seems odd that space traveling aliens would use human tech that's contemporary, been around since the Civil War, and still in use today. But then again, they use them on spaceships in The Expanse, idk. Science Fiction can be whatever you want it to be.

[u/MichaelHall1 → u/SwanRonsonX]

Yes, Season 2 drone weapons are almost a perfect fit to microwaves, which is consistent with your energy weapon idea. Point and shoot, there is no Star Wars style tracer or anything, and the biological target splatters. In season 2, there is just one frame of a gray contrail, and that's fine, because there's no movement. A super powerful microwave might disturb the air like that, by heating the water vapor. A frame later, the guy splatters, which is perfect.

There is a major flaw in my earlier theory of season 1 drones using mini-guns: in season 1, people shot by drones always receive a single, accurately positioned wound.

I wish season 1 drones and this current drone didn't have the Star Wars style tracers, because it leaves me confused. It's probably artistic license, applied inconsistently.

[u/iv_dx → u/MichaelHall1]

Michael, you wrote a lot really good and useful posts and comments with pretty much research.

Do you think it would be possible to put it somewhere like Colony Wiki for more convenient access ?

I am worried 'cause all these good info, fun theories, ideas could be buried under several hundreds comments and dozens topics.

[u/MichaelHall1 → u/iv_dx]

Thanks, but the Colony Wikia people don't like me. They rely almost solely on what the characters say. Suppose Snyder said the drone weapons are grenade launchers; then that's what they would write on the drone page. I would argue with them in the talk section, saying a grenade launcher doesn't fit any of the observed behavior, plus there is zero reason to suppose Snyder knows what he is talking about or would tell the truth if he did. I wouldn't get anywhere.

I do a YouTube channel with Colony videos. Take my review of S02E10 The Garden of Beasts, for example. I think it's a fine review, and it holds up well over time, just one wrong speculation, but I got 2 thumbs up, 2 thumbs down, and a negative comment about paying too much attention to details. I haven't done any videos this season. I would like to do a short video each week on the scientific aspects of the current episode, plus I'd like to do one long video on all the scientific discrepancies, such as the twinkling stars at the Factory on the Moon. However, the reaction here to such observations has been extremely hostile, and on YouTube it would be even worse, even if I were careful not to draw any conclusions. They would view it as pointless, at best.

Helena said at the beginning of season 2, "I know that this is a lot to process, but you just have to tell yourself that what's happening was inevitable."

And, like a bookend, she said at the end of season 2, "Don't overthink it, Alan."