been thinking about Guardian again

[marcicat]

Been thinking about Guardian again, because when real life makes no sense, why not instead try to make sense of a made-up tv show?

Maybe this is because I'm not a science person, but I just can't figure out why anyone thought the serum plan was a good idea. And not that I'm advocating an arms race, but, uh, probably guns would have been a more logical investment of time and money?

Consider:

*Even if the serum "worked" 100% of the time (people got powers and didn't die), the powers are all different. A certain percentage would be completely unhelpful, and while many could surely be adapted for some sort of offensive or defensive capability, it would take significant specialized training. And then they'd all have to learn to work together! (I guess Haixing doesn't have the X-Men comics???)

*But! The SID has a gun that shoots dark energy bullets. It is Super Effective against Dixingren, and harmless to Haixingren!

*Even if you handwave the magic gun as a unique and non-replicable object, the palace guards (who also roam the streets?) in Dixing are all armed with guns. Presumably, these guns are effective on Dixingren and not just for show? As there appears to be a certain level of underground trade between Haixing and Dixing, surely it would be possible to get at least one of these to study and/or reverse-engineer.

In conclusion: The enormous skull should probably have been my first clue that the lab plot wouldn't follow the rules of logic.

Comments

[rheasilvia]

The thing is, humans don't follow the rules of logic.

This is very ugly, but unfortunately true: In WW2, both sides were trying to develop a super soldier serum (and did develop performance-enhancing drugs that were extremely harmful); it may seem ridiculous today, but that is not a comic book invention. It didn't work, but a bunch of US soldiers died from being experimented on.

Even if the serum "worked" 100% of the time (people got powers and didn't die), the powers are all different. A certain percentage would be completely unhelpful

The traditional way of solving the problem that most subjects will die / not have useful mutations is to use subjects that are considered unimportant; you probably don't want to know which soldiers were chosen for this procedure in the US army projects in WW2, but basically the people running this project did not care if they died, and neither did the army.

Of course, at the same time everyone was also working on the atom bomb and other such conventional weapons.

In Guardian, Ouyang is a chemist, not a weapons engineer, so he is going the serum route. I'm sure engineers are working on guns at the same time, we just don't get to see them.

I'm sorry for the uncheerful comment, but I think this is - unfortunately - a rather realistic project in terms of human psychology.

[marcicat]

Those are good points! In the world of Guardian there are already 'super soldiers' in the form of Dixingren with special powers, though, and I feel like that at least had the potential to shift things in a different direction. Like, from a chemistry perspective, why 'give us special powers too' and not 'take their special powers away'? Why not 'recreate the massive creature this skull came from and set it loose in Dixing'? (Professor Ouyang in particular seemed to be the perfect embodiment of the whole JP "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" thing.) (Also, I totally assumed that's what the lab was doing for at least half the show, so I was extra confused by the serum when it was explained, I think.)

[starandrea]

I totally assumed that's what the lab was doing for at least half the show

Oh my gosh, that would have been awesome. WHY DIDN'T THAT HAPPEN.

[marcicat]

Professor Ouyang: "But consider this: DINOSAURS!"

[starandrea]

"I'll see your dinosaurs and raise you DINOSAURS WITH RANDOM SUPERPOWERS!"

[marcicat]

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!?!?!?!

[starandrea]

WAIT I KNOW THIS ONE

Chris Funaro describing what must have been Tommy's astonishingly poor choices in the lead up to Dino Thunder (but let's face it, he was a RACE CAR DRIVER not a SCIENTIST: "Tommy, let's go!" "No, I have to check the other dummy!") ~

"I love Tommy - it's clear he had very specific uses for the Tyrannodrones and Fossilador which were benevolent, likely to infiltrate and depose the vestigial Alliance of Evil stragglers out there, but his schemes are so fundamentally designed for abuse... 'I hope my MIND CONTROL DINOSAUR MONSTER never falls into evil hands.'"

[marcicat]

LOLOLOL! ("I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought out.")

[rheasilvia]

Maybe the lab was trying to do all of those things, and the serum was just the most successful project. So the others were put on the backburner because of limited funding and personnel...

Like, from a chemistry perspective, why 'give us special powers too' and not 'take their special powers away'? Why not 'recreate the massive creature this skull came from and set it loose in Dixing'?

Excellent questions! I feel like the first question can be at least partially answered with "because it lets us mundane Haixing people gain cool superpowers". ;-) I mean, Ouyang is very eager to test the serum out himself - I think there are some very un-scientific "damn it, I want to have superpowers too" things going on there.

But it would absolutely make sense for them to also be looking into taking away Dixing superpowers. I imagine that it's a related field of study, and the knowledge they gain from developing the serum will help this project along, too.