Story Premises that Just Don't Make Much Sense if You Think About it.

[Spitfire]

This is gonna make me look like such a nerd..

Aliens

Ripley has been in hypersleep since the events of the first movie, until her shuttle is finally found by the guys from the company, Weyland-Yutani.
Ripley is woken up, and is told that she's been in hyspersleep for the past 60 years.

After recovering, Ripley is interviewed by a board of executives, and tells them what happened, but they dismiss her claims, thinking that she's crazy. Part of the reason for that, we later learn, is that LV-426 (the planet from the first movie) is now home to a colony that's working on terraforming the planet, and in all the time that they've been there, no one has ever encountered the xenomorphs, or the derelict alien ship that Ripley spoke of.

Now, it's suggested that the colony was established on the planet years, if not decades prior, and yet somehow, in all that time, nobody has ever picked up the distress call sent by the derelict ship, that the characters from the first movie managed to pick up without even being on the surface of the fucking planet.


Mass Effect

*takes deep breath*

Saren employs the help of Geth to attack the colony Eden Prime and access the Prothean beacon that the colonists have uncovered which contains the location of a lost mass relay that leads to the planet Ilos where Saren is looking to find the Conduit a sort of mass relay that leads back to the Citadel where the geth will lead a surprise assault that will allow Saren to access the Citadel Master Control and give control of the Citadel to Sovereign who will re-purpose it as a mass relay which will be used by the Reapers waiting in dark space in order to- JESUS CHRIST, HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS?

The point is that Saren goes through a lot in order to finally accomplish his goals.

But did I mention that the Master Control was located in the Council Chambers?

And did I mention that prior to Shepard exposing him, Saren used to be a highly respected veteran Spectre, and he could've just walked into the Council Chambers, and access the Master Control at any point in time, without doing anything else at all?

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Snip

This can all be easily handwaved by "Alien". Not that it is a satisfying or good explanation but i guess it was trying to point out that we can't judge alien life on Human understanding. And they got lazy and forced us to destroy it meaning no studying of the Thorian would have been possible. Hell for all we know it could have actually been some kind of bizarre animal. Since nobody was able to truly study it in depth (especially its insides) nobody would be able to tell if it even really was a plant.

Wish they had gone more in depth though, could've been very interesting.

 

[Warachia]

Lastly I want to make clear that I wish no offence by anything I say here. But your arguments as a whole, has shown a lack of basic understanding of Cell Biology. That's fine. Ignorance is bliss. But if you barely know what Organelle, Cytoplasm, Cell wall, and Lysosome means then will you stop? I wish no offense, but I don't think you do. I mean that in the most sincere way possible. Please don't take offence to this. I'm not trying to insult you, but you haven't shown any understanding on the difference between a plant cell and an animal cell. Witch is the argument.

I'm trying to say it's really ridiculous to expect an alien (which was only technically classified as a plant) to function the same way plants do on earth.
Granted I would love for them to go into how the Thorian works, I hate that their explanation was "we were in the middle of studying it and don't know yet". The main reason I've been ignoring plant cell structure is because it would be far worse (in terms of believability) if alien plants worked exactly like ours.

 

[Eddie the head]

Lastly I want to make clear that I wish no offence by anything I say here. But your arguments as a whole, has shown a lack of basic understanding of Cell Biology. That's fine. Ignorance is bliss. But if you barely know what Organelle, Cytoplasm, Cell wall, and Lysosome means then will you stop? I wish no offense, but I don't think you do. I mean that in the most sincere way possible. Please don't take offence to this. I'm not trying to insult you, but you haven't shown any understanding on the difference between a plant cell and an animal cell. Witch is the argument.

I'm trying to say it's really ridiculous to expect an alien (which was only technically classified as a plant) to function the same way plants do on earth.
Granted I would love for them to go into how the Thorian works, I hate that their explanation was "we were in the middle of studying it and don't know yet". The main reason I've been ignoring plant cell structure is because it would be far worse (in terms of believability) if alien plants worked exactly like ours.

And I said in my fist post that I don't find it to be a good excuse. It's alien so it's ok? No, they explain the Vorcha healing the Asari long life The Krogen back up organs. Why is this diffident then those? Why is ok that they don't explain it this time? They don't explain it so I can't ignore it.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

This is gonna make me look like such a nerd..

Don't worry. This is going to make me look like a bigger one

Aliens

Ripley has been in hypersleep since the events of the first movie, until her shuttle is finally found by the guys from the company, Weyland-Yutani.

I'm pretty sure it's never explicitly mentioned that the deep-space salvage team that found her were employed by Weyland-Yutani. Given the ridiculous size and resources of W/Y, it's not unreasonable to assume it since they seem to have a monopoly on pretty much everything... but it'd still be an assumption.

Ripley is woken up, and is told that she's been in hyspersleep for the past 60 years.

57, to be exact.

After recovering, Ripley is interviewed by a board of executives, and tells them what happened, but they dismiss her claims, thinking that she's crazy. Part of the reason for that, we later learn, is that LV-426 (the planet from the first movie) is now home to a colony that's working on terraforming the planet, and in all the time that they've been there, no one has ever encountered the xenomorphs, or the derelict alien ship that Ripley spoke of.

This one's kinda murky, as it depends on who you ask (both with regard to fans and with regard to those who made the film). One side tends to agree that the board of inquiry dismissed her claims and were only concerned with the loss of the USCSS Nostromo, a Lockmart CM-88B "Bison" M-Class starfreighter, and the ore refinery that it was towing. The other side contends that the board of executives did believe Ripley and were the ones who put Carter J. Burke up to the task of locating the derelict ship and bringing back samples for their bioweapons division.

Both are possible. The second one, however, is likely to be more plausible if you go by the events of the first movie. In Alien it's heavily implied that "the company" (it hadn't been formally established as Weyland/Yutani yet by the filmmakers, even though you can see the W/Y logo on several props in the film's background) had already known about the derelict on LV-426. The crew of the Nostromo was pulled out of hypersleep and told to investigate on company orders, and Science Officer Ash (a recent addition to the Nostromo's crew, as mentioned in the film and in the film's commentary track) was planted within their crew by "the company" to make sure the Nostromo actually investigated. It's heavily implied in both the movie and in the commentary track that Ash already had a good idea of what they'd find and was ordered to keep the company's intentions secret. So it's not like there isn't precedent for the Weyland/Yutani executives to be hunting down the contents of the derelict on LV-426 with a secret agenda. Additionally, if you go by Prometheus, then the Weyland Corporation (prior to the merger) could possibly have already been aware of the "Engineer" ships assuming the crew of the Prometheus was sending back reports, which adds a bit more credibility to the theory that Weyland/Yutani was actively hunting down the derelict on LV-426 as early as Alien (and possibly even earlier).

Now, it's suggested that the colony was established on the planet years, if not decades prior, and yet somehow, in all that time, nobody has ever picked up the distress call sent by the derelict ship, that the characters from the first movie managed to pick up without even being on the surface of the fucking planet.

The founding date of Hadley's Hope on Acheron LV-426 is never specifically mentioned, other than the vague line that there have been colonists living there for years. The status of the distress call is also up for debate. There are those who believe that it genuinely is a distress call from the derelict. It's possible. There are others who would argue that the distress call was faked, by Science Officer Ash (a planted agent for "the company"), in order to invoke a company protocol that required ships to respond to distress calls (convenient)... meaning that there's no actual distress call out there for the colonists to find. Going by what's said on the commentary track with Ridley Scott and Dan O'Bannon, this is likely to be what happened.

Anyway... for something of my own...

Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Why couldn't the aircraft have been rerouted to a different airport? No pilot is going to circle around until his fuel runs out, and I doubt nearby airports would let that happen anyway. There are at least two other airports in that area that they could have landed at.

 

[ICantBelieveItGoesBoom]

Lastly I want to make clear that I wish no offence by anything I say here. But your arguments as a whole, has shown a lack of basic understanding of Cell Biology. That's fine. Ignorance is bliss. But if you barely know what Organelle, Cytoplasm, Cell wall, and Lysosome means then will you stop? I wish no offense, but I don't think you do. I mean that in the most sincere way possible. Please don't take offence to this. I'm not trying to insult you, but you haven't shown any understanding on the difference between a plant cell and an animal cell. Witch is the argument.

I'm trying to say it's really ridiculous to expect an alien (which was only technically classified as a plant) to function the same way plants do on earth.
Granted I would love for them to go into how the Thorian works, I hate that their explanation was "we were in the middle of studying it and don't know yet". The main reason I've been ignoring plant cell structure is because it would be far worse (in terms of believability) if alien plants worked exactly like ours.

And I said in my fist post that I don't find it to be a good excuse. It's alien so it's ok? No, they explain the Vorcha healing the Asari long life The Krogen back up organs. Why is this diffident then those? Why is ok that they don't explain it this time? They don't explain it so I can't ignore it.

His point is that even In-Universe, it is a completely alien being that has not been properly studied so it is impossible to know about its anatomy whereas the krogan, asari and vorcha are all intelligent species that can communicate and have their own scientists so it is clear that we know about their anatomy.

 

[mysecondlife]

Bleach confuses the hell out of me.

Reapers exist to send stranded souls to some sort of heaven? OK, I'm fine with that.

But then what are those other species that shoots arrows? Are they supposed to be other kind of reapers?

Why do main character's friends have unexplained powers?

What happens when the reapers 'die'? Didn't they die already long time ago?

Why are reapers divided into 13 or so different groups? Some of the groups' specialties are defined but I still don't see its purpose.

What happens if the bad guys win? If bad guys' victory means annihilation of all reapers, why should that matter to the real world where people don't even know reapers, ghosts, etc. don't even exist?


As far as I know, the writer's explanation to everything seems to be "It just is".

Here's the answers:

No, they are humans with special abilities.

Because they were strong enough spiritually that it manifested when faced with a dangerous scenario (there's also a really shitty retcon later on but ignore that).

Soul society is another existence, anybody who dies here, goes there, and you don't need to eat, drink, or sleep, if you ever do, you can potentially become a soul reaper as you are now "alive" there, if you die there, you join the spirit king (from what I understand).

Each group has a different speciality and philosophy.

If the villains win, plenty of people won't be able to enter soul society, and will be food for hollows (corrupted souls), after a hollow feeds off of a soul that soul will either join the hollow (eventually creating a horrific hive mind before possibly going braindead), or become a new hollow, and hollows attack regular people, and aside from soul reapers, quincy's (the archers, with a population of 2 people), and really shitty filler arc characters, there isn't any way to hurt a hollow, leave hollows alone long enough they'll consume everything.

These aren't that hard to figure out, most of these they flat out tell you.

My response:

-Oh ok. So they're human but they're not human like those 2 of main character's friends.

-What really didn't sit right me with me is the girl's fairy powers. I'm ok with hispanic dude's black arm because I remember one character saying that the friends' powers resemble that of hollows. But fairy power seems bit arbitrary if not out of place.

-Soul king.. Didn't bother getting that far.

-Yeah I know each group has specialty. One's some special ops , one's research, medic, etc. But I don't remember all the specialties of every group being explained. For all I know, half of the groups are just there for no adequate reason.

-Oh yeah.. I remember now. That's what happened with protagonist's mom. Too bad the writer never stressed that consequence enough. But I guess when main character's friends get kidnapped for large portion of series...

Well, thanks for explaining!

 

[Vault101]

That's the reason you don't have to do anything. Sure, some dude tells you to fetch him something - you can just ignore that and go robbing people in the streets or whatever. If you do go doing what you were asked to do, then you did it yourself, if you decided to say "Fuck that" and just run off somewhere else, then you did it yourself, too - no one is forcing the story on you.

yeah I get that thats the apeal...but I personally need more motivation, after I wandered around..killed a few baddies, explored a few caves I was done, there was no motivation to so anything else, I've said a million times before my harachter can roleplay as anyone but the game doesnt ackowelge or really care, I dont lack imagination but I need some kind of feedback, even if its as inconsequntial as flavour text...everyone in the world has the personality of mud and "exploring shit for the sake of exploring shit" just doesnt cut it for me

thease games are the basics of a game with no substance

compared to say..Fallout NV everything I do is related to my main goals, the side quests actually seem connected, the charachters better...I have doalouge options so I can flesh out my charachter, and I know there is a real villan/payoff wating for me after I explore my surroundings, I level up and find the best weopons so I can kick the shit out of ceasar, so I can do that quest because I WANT to do that quest because I find this shit interesting..not "just because"

 

[DoPo]

That's the reason you don't have to do anything. Sure, some dude tells you to fetch him something - you can just ignore that and go robbing people in the streets or whatever. If you do go doing what you were asked to do, then you did it yourself, if you decided to say "Fuck that" and just run off somewhere else, then you did it yourself, too - no one is forcing the story on you.

yeah I get that thats the apeal...but I personally need more motivation, after I wandered around..killed a few baddies, explored a few caves I was done, there was no motivation to so anything else, I've said a million times before my harachter can roleplay as anyone but the game doesnt ackowelge or really care, I dont lack imagination but I need some kind of feedback, even if its as inconsequntial as flavour text...everyone in the world has the personality of mud and "exploring shit for the sake of exploring shit" just doesnt cut it for me

thease games are the basics of a game with no substance

compared to say..Fallout NV everything I do is related to my main goals, the side quests actually seem connected, the charachters better...I have doalouge options so I can flesh out my charachter, and I know there is a real villan/payoff wating for me after I explore my surroundings, I level up and find the best weopons so I can kick the shit out of ceasar, so I can do that quest because I WANT to do that quest because I find this shit interesting..not "just because"

But the thread is about stories that don't make sense. Whatever you do in a TES game is entirely internally consistent and makes sense however you look at it. It doesn't matter if you find the game appealing or not. I'm not really into Lord of the Rings for example - I watched the movies but I don't remember anything at all, yet I can acknowledge the story is sensible.

Well, on the other hand, I'm not really into Twilight, and I did watch the (first) movie and that left me baffled and confused at many points.

 

[Vault101]

But the thread is about stories that don't make sense. Whatever you do in a TES game is entirely internally consistent and makes sense however you look at it.

I don't deny that...my original comment was off topic, I was just trying to explain why I dont like thease games

 

[Warachia]

And I said in my fist post that I don't find it to be a good excuse. It's alien so it's ok? No, they explain the Vorcha healing the Asari long life The Krogen back up organs. Why is this diffident then those? Why is ok that they don't explain it this time? They don't explain it so I can't ignore it.

I never said that's a good explanation for the Thorian, I said the opposite, and I agree with you.
ICantBelieveItGoesBoom got my point pretty much right, and I was also saying it's ridiculous to base alien biology off of Earth's plants.

 

[Spitfire]

I'm pretty sure it's never explicitly mentioned that the deep-space salvage team that found her were employed by Weyland-Yutani. Given the ridiculous size and resources of W/Y, it's not unreasonable to assume it since they seem to have a monopoly on pretty much everything... but it'd still be an assumption.

Yeah, you're right, I was remembering it wrong.

The founding date of Hadley's Hope on Acheron LV-426 is never specifically mentioned, other than the vague line that there have been colonists living there for years.

I actually went and watched the beginning of the film again, and there's a line by one of the executives present at Ripley's interview, who states that there've been people living on LV-426 for 20 years.

The status of the distress call is also up for debate. There are those who believe that it genuinely is a distress call from the derelict. It's possible. There are others who would argue that the distress call was faked, by Science Officer Ash (a planted agent for "the company"), in order to invoke a company protocol that required ships to respond to distress calls (convenient)... meaning that there's no actual distress call out there for the colonists to find.

There's just one problem with that idea: if the company knew about the derelict on LV-426, then why haven't they ever attempted to investigate it again, in all the decades following the incident with the Nostromo?

 

[Vegosiux]

Everything that involves a self-fulfilling prophecy. Seriously, that's just a recursive loop that gives me migraines. Older than dirt, what with Oedipus Rex and all but every time there's a prophecy like that I cringe.

 

[Gatx]

My personal beef with the premise of Bleach is that Soul Society is heaven. It's not Japanese heaven, it's heaven. If that's the case, why the hell does it look exclusively Japanese, and every person up there has a Japanese name. Even the one black guy has a Japanese name. You'd think it'd be more, you know, universal.

Bleach confuses the hell out of me.

Reapers exist to send stranded souls to some sort of heaven? OK, I'm fine with that.

But then what are those other species that shoots arrows? Are they supposed to be other kind of reapers?

Why do main character's friends have unexplained powers?

What happens when the reapers 'die'? Didn't they die already long time ago?

Why are reapers divided into 13 or so different groups? Some of the groups' specialties are defined but I still don't see its purpose.

What happens if the bad guys win? If bad guys' victory means annihilation of all reapers, why should that matter to the real world where people don't even know reapers, ghosts, etc. don't even exist?


As far as I know, the writer's explanation to everything seems to be "It just is".

I know someone already did it but I feel like it wasn't as clear.

1. The other species, the Quincies, were formed to fight Hollows, the monster things, of their own accord (spiritual vigilantes if you will) which upsets the balance of things because they don't go about the proper channels and puts them at odds with the Soul Reapers. They're also just regular people.

2. Human beings are allowed to have varying levels of spiritual power, like how in real life there are some people who say they can see ghosts or are psychic, it's the same thing. At least for Chad, the big Mexican dude, his power is explained as one of his parents having been attacked by a Hollow, and the power is given to him through that (like Blade I guess?).

3. Some of the groups have specialties yeah, but overall it just makes sense to split up a huge military force into separate divisions. It's like how actual militaries are split into battalions, regiments, companies, etc.

4. While real people don't know all of this stuff exists, it's all behind the scenes stuff that governs how the world works. If the Hollows go unchecked for example, they'll eat all the "good" souls, the ones that are dead and the ones alive. If the Quincies win and they kill Hollows rather than "purifying" them as the Soul Reapers do, then that could threaten the balance of the universe or something like that.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I actually went and watched the beginning of the film again, and there's a line by one of the executives present at Ripley's interview, who states that there've been people living on LV-426 for 20 years.

Which can be taken at face value as meaning exactly that, the colony was established 20 years ago. Given the tone and inflection placed on the comment though, it's more likely that the character was frustrated with the conversation and used it as a ballpark estimate to get Ripley to put her case to rest. It could easily be read either way.

There's just one problem with that idea: if the company knew about the derelict on LV-426, then why haven't they ever attempted to investigate it again, in all the decades following the incident with the Nostromo?

We don't know that they haven't. It's been suggested from time to time (especially in one of the novelizations of the movie, granted these aren't really considered canon) that the derelict is pretty much the only reason Weyland/Yutani invested in putting an atmosphere processor on LV-426. The idea being that they could terraform Acheron, then bring in teams to study the derelict and its contents directly rather than deal with the risks of dismantling it and transporting it elsewhere.

Massive wall of text incoming on my personal understanding of the story thus far.

Spoiler

The way I interpret it, which is definitely opinion and not in any way canon, is that the Prometheus crew sent back data to the Weyland Corporation on the Engineer facility on LV-223 and its ships. LV-223 is depicted as being one of two moons orbiting an unnamed ringed gas giant planet in the Zeta II Reticuli system. This planet could possibly be Calpamos, the ringed gas giant in the same system that Acheron (LV-426) orbits. Weyland/Yutani (or possibly even Weyland Corporation prior to the merger), using the information sent back from the Prometheus, begin searching for the Engineers at an unknown date. "The company" plants 'artificial person' agents on their ships passing through the area to investigate what could potentially turn out to be the biggest scientific discovery of all time without drawing attention from potential competitors. One such agent, Science Officer Ash on the USCSS Nostromo, discovers an anomaly on the surface of Acheron similar to the data sent back to the company by the USCSS Prometheus. Ash falsifies a distress signal in order to force MU-TH-UR, the ship's computer system, to rouse the crew from hypersleep. Flight Captain Dallas is informed of company protocol to investigate the distress signal, and is told to forward special orders to Ash. These special orders detail Ash's objective to investigate the derelict and attempt to bring back a sample for study - crew expendable. The events of Alien play out. It's unknown whether or not the USCSS Nostromo ever reports back to "the company" with their findings. Given the comment in the Special Edition of Aliens regarding how long communications with the company take from that general area (not to mention that's with 57 years of tech evolution), it's possible that the USCSS Nostromo's crew never bothered to try since the threat needed to be dealt with immediately. The USCSS Nostromo goes missing and is presumed lost; it's unknown whether or not "the company" knows of Ash's findings (I always interpreted MU-TH-UR as storing a whole bunch of company orders to be followed under potential conditions that could arise, similar to what you'd see come up in submarine movies like Crimson Tide, rather than direct communication with "the company" itself).

Presumably, "the company" continues its search during the 57 years Ripley is floating around in the shuttle Narcissus. Whether they received information from the USCSS Nostromo about Acheron's anomaly or another ship managed to find the same anomaly is unknown, though the end result is the same - Weyland/Yutani knows about the derelict. Rather than risk losing their precious find again (USCSS Prometheus/USCSS Nostromo/potential other ships) they opt to terraform Acheron and study the derelict directly. Hadley's Hope is formed, and the atmosphere processor is constructed. Things are going according to plan - until Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley of the USCSS Nostromo shows up out of the blue one day. Because of the things she potentially witnessed, she's a possible threat. Unlike 'artificial people' who can be programmed to keep their mouths shut about their findings, Ripley can't be trusted to do the same and could potentially leak what Weyland/Yutani is looking for. Weyland/Yutani assigns Carter J. Burke to keep an eye on her, and speeds up their plans with LV-426 (throwing caution into the breeze), ordering a survey team to lay claim on the derelict before potential competitors. The board of inquiry intentionally belittles Ripley's story in order to call her sanity into question so that no one will believe her about the derelict should she talk. An unknown amount of time passes, presumably a month or two given the time it takes for communications between Earth and Acheron. Contact is lost with Hadley's Hope. Weyland/Yutani sends in a team of Colonial Marines (the relationship between "the company" and the Colonial Marines is unknown, though it's frequently suggested that the Colonial Marines get the majority of their equipment and funding from Weyland/Yutani and as a result are indebted to the company and unofficially required to act as mercenaries to the company). Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley is requested to accompany the Colonial Marines, since she's the only person the company knows of who actually has first-hand experience with the derelict and its contents. Burke is sent to keep an eye on Ripley and the company's interests. When it becomes clear that things on LV-426 are FUBAR and Burke is unable to stop the facility (and possibly the derelict) from being destroyed, he attempts to at least bring back a sample of the alien lifeform for the company's bioweapons division by having Ellen Ripley and Rebecca Jordan "impregnated" and put into stasis, while sabotaging the hypersleep chambers for the surviving Marines so that they are killed during transit. Burke's plan is discovered and stopped, Hadley's Hope (and possibly the derelict) are destroyed when the atmosphere processor melts down, and the last (known) specimens from the derelict are hiding aboard the Conestoga-Class transport ship U.S.S. Sulaco.

When Weyland/Yutani discovers that Hadley's Hope and the derelict were lost, it turns its attention to the U.S.S. Sulaco, hoping that Burke managed to bring something back (it's unlikely that Ripley, Rebecca, or Hicks would have reported back to the company; although it's possible that Bishop could have since one of the fan theories as to how the facehuggers got aboard the U.S.S. Sulaco is that Bishop - whose allegiance was to the company all along just like Ash - took the UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship to retrieve samples while Ripley was looking for Newt, and that's the real reason why he wasn't there and the line about the platform being unstable was a lie). One of the facehuggers "impregnates" Ripley while she's in hypersleep, one of the facehuggers attempts to "impregnate" Rebecca (but is wounded by a sharp edge, resulting in its acid blood breaching the hull of the Sulaco and having the hypersleep pods jettisoned in an EEV. The EEV crash lands on Fiorini "Fury" 161, and the third facehugger "impregnates" either a dog or a bull (depending on the version of the film). The staff of "Fury" 161 contact the company, who are already fairly close by (in space terms) searching for the Sulaco. The company search team beelines directly to the foundry when they learn of the xenomorph presence, but they arrive too late and lose their precious bioweapon once again.

By the events of Alien: Resurrection seem to imply that by that point in time Weyland/Yutani no longer exists. In the special edition version it's mentioned in a deleted scene that Weyland/Yutani was bought out by Wal-Mart. In the theatrical version, it's never explicitly stated what happened to Weyland/Yutani, just that the United Systems Military had more or less taken over experimental weapons R&D. I always read into the situation that Weyland/Yutani probably drove themselves into the ground funding expensive expeditions to hunt down relics from the Engineers, chasing their white whale, so to speak.

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

Any game or film in which the bad guy is "The Evil Empire!"

Because every game and film that does this (with the exception of some JRPG's) never really explain why the Empire is evil. And if it's a game where you spring up on the side of the rebels in the start (Cough-Bethesda-Cough) I can never tell if said empire really is evil, or if I'm just caught in the middle of a bunch of self-entitled dickbags who don't like having to follow rules (cough-Skyrim-cough),

Damn, ninjad.

I'm trying really hard to figure out why the "Empire" in 'Star Wars' was so bad. Anyone?

The prequels don't really help matters much considering the Empire was founded as a means to combat the evil Droid armies... who were evil because... they wanted a better trade agreement?

Sure the whole thing was one massive manipulation by a Sith Lord in his mad quest for power... but the only order that really lost out in that one was the Jedi order. It smacks of one religion overthrowing another religion that's been oppressing them for years. So the entire universe plunges into civil war because of a change of theocracy?

Well... maybe it does make sense. But it's still idiotic.

 

[Imthatguy]

Revolution.

For those who don't know, Revolution is a show where all electricity on planet Earth has stopped working. Well, nervous systems are still firing, but other than that nothing electrical works. It's your standard post-apocalyptic nightmare, human beings are really selfish and evil, the only thing keeping us from bashing each others' skulls open is modern society, blah blah blah bullshit. Anyways, there are three major unanswered mysteries in this show (keep in mind it starts fifteen years after the Blackout):

1. How did the power go out. Supposedly they talked to a physicist and he gave his seal of approval to whatever it is that did it. But even if they didn't, I'm sure I can suspend my disbelief for something like that, otherwise how could I enjoy sci-fi? Okay.

2. The government collapsed. Immediately. And with no explanation. Because organized government obviously didn't exist before electricity and it would be completely impossible for at least some places to stick together in a major disaster, right? But that pales in comparison to the fact that:

3. The military vanishes into thin air. Just... gone. Poof. According to one flashback, the first thing the collective military did after the Blackout was... sit in their bases. For at least two months. No disaster relief efforts, no national guard duties. No going out and trying to keep order or help the areas they were stationed in. Without access to the President of the United States, the entire military body ground to a shrieking halt, incapable of thinking for themselves. I guess the implication is supposed to be they joined up with the various 'Militias' (read: warlord gangs) that sprang up later, meaning all soldiers are cool with rape, murder, pillage, extortion, kidnapping and brainwashing kids, etc., etc. And if not, then they just sat quietly in their bases until they starved to death. I'm sorry, how does that make sense?

1. Suspension of disbelief is necessary for any story.

2. The old government (Ours) was highly reliant on electronics and couldn't exert their power without the communications and transportation infrastructure. New governments where founded (The warlords and militias) however they typically operate by 'might makes right' and 'my stick is bigger than yours' much like most governments throughout time (and indeed today) have operated.

3. The electricity died that means no modern vehicles what so ever so in any peacekeeping the soldiers would have to hoof it and carry supplies for an extended stay with manpower alone. They might not even know of whats going on outside of their bases! No radio! No Phone! No communication with the command structure. Finally if you were a national guardsman would you leave your family to the mercy of the mobs to go out and quite probably die futilely trying to keep order? Getting to a mustering point even 10-20 miles away would be an multiday odyssey avoiding the mobs on the roads!

Any game or film in which the bad guy is "The Evil Empire!"

Because every game and film that does this (with the exception of some JRPG's) never really explain why the Empire is evil. And if it's a game where you spring up on the side of the rebels in the start (Cough-Bethesda-Cough) I can never tell if said empire really is evil, or if I'm just caught in the middle of a bunch of self-entitled dickbags who don't like having to follow rules (cough-Skyrim-cough),

Damn, ninjad.

I'm trying really hard to figure out why the "Empire" in 'Star Wars' was so bad. Anyone?

The billions that died on Alderaan beg to differ. Omnicidal madness was the modus operandi for the Empire.