"The 4400" Discussion/Appreciation

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

Spoiler:

The writers may be trying to say that once you know the future you will not be able to avoid it, that your actions will in fact cause it to happen. This would mean that Colliers vision of the future will damn him to cause it to happen, perhaps in a different way then originally but it will happen no matter what.

It´s been a pet theory of mine that the 4400 were sent back by radicals who wanted to cause a catastrophy to change the future to suite them.

OT: Can we get our own 4400 sandbox complete with walls and toys, soon? We may not be big in number, but we do consistently come here week after week to discuss. I hate having to put everything in spoilers. Seems to me that the only ones who can follow such threads have to be up to date with the show....

Now, back to the ep.... what was it named, again?

Spoiler:

Which makes me wonder: what "future" did Collier see, one of his own making or one that would happen if the future folk had not tampered with the past? Or was it a drug-induced vision given to him to make him the tool of one of the factions?

Does last week's ep about

Spoiler:

Shawn's vision-inducing cigar

tie in with what happened to Collier? Did Collier see immutable history or potential history?

Oh, and, one other thing. Collier's statement that "the war for the future will be fought in the past" had me going, "Well, d'uh! When isn't it?"

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

Remember the 'room' in the future, and all those bodies that appear to still be in stasis? Who are those people? Why are they still there?

Spoiler:

What if Collier actually died and stayed dead, and what was sent back was another Collier taken from another branch of the timeline or from another reality?

Also, back in the ep where Maia and the other kids were abducted and reinserted into alternate timelines, the present was radically different - non-fossil fuels, moon bases, etc. But when the kids were brought back, everyone forgot that "present." So how do the future folk know that what they've done to the past is the source of their problems? How do they remember their present if they keep changing it?

Am I making any sense?

[Wyrminarrd]

Remember the 'room' in the future, and all those bodies that appear to still be in stasis? Who are those people? Why are they still there?

Spoiler:

What if Collier actually died and stayed dead, and what was sent back was another Collier taken from another branch of the timeline or from another reality?

Also, back in the ep where Maia and the other kids were abducted and reinserted into alternate timelines, the present was radically different - non-fossil fuels, moon bases, etc. But when the kids were brought back, everyone forgot that "present." So how do the future folk know that what they've done to the past is the source of their problems? How do they remember their present if they keep changing it?

Am I making any sense?

Have you read Isaac Asimov´s "The end of Eternity"? In it a kind of temporal police force had created a bastion that was outside of time and thus immune to any changes it made to the timeline. This allowed them to change things in anyway they wanted without being caught up in the changes.

This room we see the future people would then be something like that. It would almost certainly have to something like that or else you end up in a time paradox. Another option is that the future people are really aliens and are using something other then time travel to effect humanity

EDIT: p.s. totally agree with Tok´Ra hostess, this series deserves it´s own forum were we can talk about this series without using spoilers, at least when talking about stuff that´s aired in the US.

[Arative]

Remember the 'room' in the future, and all those bodies that appear to still be in stasis? Who are those people? Why are they still there?

Spoiler:

What if Collier actually died and stayed dead, and what was sent back was another Collier taken from another branch of the timeline or from another reality?

Also, back in the ep where Maia and the other kids were abducted and reinserted into alternate timelines, the present was radically different - non-fossil fuels, moon bases, etc. But when the kids were brought back, everyone forgot that "present." So how do the future folk know that what they've done to the past is the source of their problems? How do they remember their present if they keep changing it?

Am I making any sense?

Spoiler:

You would think that any civilization that is sufficently technologically advance to time travel would be able to see "time" for lack of a better term. Reminds me of that Voyager episode, Year of hell, where the guy changing the timeline could see the effects of the changes on the time line but his ship wasn't affected by the changes. We know from Gone that the reason they sent Maia and the others back was because the future people saw that their experiment was a failure and had not altered the time line as they had hoped. Why would they choose people they had already taken and altered? Why not take different people? From further back in time? or even the year 2010 and send them back to alter the time line like Maia and the other kids did?

[twiggy]

Spoiler:

if isabelle is good, i wonder if Tom is going to be really mad at the future people for trying to sucker him into killing her.

[Wyrminarrd]

Spoiler:

if isabelle is good, i wonder if Tom is going to be really mad at the future people for trying to sucker him into killing her.

Spoiler:

I´m actually still sure that Tom will try to kill her but in the end her father uses his telekinetic abilities to inject her with the stuff. This is one of the main reasons I think Isabel is evil, if she isn´t then it´s highly unlikely that her father will kill her.

The writers gave Richard this particular ability for a reason, and til proven other wise I´m sticking with this reason.

[twiggy]

spoiler on the season finale from Ask Ausiello. *hint* it's gonna be big!

Spoiler:

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Ausiello/AskAusiello/
Question: Do you have any scoop on The 4400 finale? — Chris

Ausiello: The show's spoilericious publicist sent me this exclusive-to-AA tease: "Jordan (Billy Campbell) places the biggest bet in the history of mankind when he devises a plan to distribute promicin — the serum found in the 4400s that gives them their powers — to the masses."

[Wyrminarrd]

I don´t read real spoilers, that is, spoilers about things that haven´t aired yet.

So thanks for the warning twiggy

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

I don´t read real spoilers, that is, spoilers about things that haven´t aired yet.

So thanks for the warning twiggy

Yes, thanks so much for the warning. This show is much more fun to figure out on our own.

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

Have you read Isaac Asimov´s "The end of Eternity"? In it a kind of temporal police force had created a bastion that was outside of time and thus immune to any changes it made to the timeline. This allowed them to change things in anyway they wanted without being caught up in the changes.

Doesn't sound familiar. I'll have to dig that one up. I was thinking of Asimov's Foundation series and Hari Seldon's second foundation who were constantly tweaking his calculations, though Seldon's approach seemed more natural and more difficult to manipulate than the methods of these future yahoos.

In the end I expect a Greek tragedy; no matter what they try the outcomes will be pretty much the same.

[Wyrminarrd]

Doesn't sound familiar. I'll have to dig that one up. I was thinking of Asimov's Foundation series and Hari Seldon's second foundation who were constantly tweaking his calculations, though Seldon's approach seemed more natural and more difficult to manipulate than the methods of these future yahoos.

In the end I expect a Greek tragedy; no matter what they try the outcomes will be pretty much the same.

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/books/classic/sfw13425.html

Scifi weekly did a review on it recently, that´s what made me think of it. This is a good book and well worth reading if you like Asimov´s style

And yeah, no matter what the outcome to the series is it´s going to be tragic for somebody or everybody.

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/books/classic/sfw13425.html

Hey, thanks!

[the fifth man]

And yeah, no matter what the outcome to the series is it´s going to be tragic for somebody or everybody.

I'd say that's a safe assumption to make. There's no way everyone can come out of this happy. There will be tragic losses one way or another IMO.

[Tok'Ra Hostess]

And yeah, no matter what the outcome to the series is it´s going to be tragic for somebody or everybody.

True enough, but I meant the for future, specifically.

[Wyrminarrd]

True enough, but I meant the for future, specifically.

A less terrible future would be a victory as such, though I think the writers will not go down this road. They will find someone way to make the future seem more promising or if not they will simply leave us in doubt as to what will actually happen.

It would be terrible if they ended the series with something like this:

Character A: What will happen now?

Character B: I don´t know, but I do know that both humans and 4400´s can now choose their own destiny and that the future is no longer set in stone!