trolling for info

[greybeard]

I have been looking for information other than what is in the movie with no success. Not the general stuff that is passed about.

Any ideas?

[Crazy Pavarotti Man]

You can try the book(s?)

I'm pretty sure the movie adaptation has more info, and I *think* there's another book linked to it as well.

[greybeard]

I have read the books. The information I want are things like

"What is the blast radius of the city destroyer ships weapon?

"In the movie they said -'we're looking at the worldwide destruction of every major city within the next thirty-six hours.'" What makes a city major?

In silent zone at the beginning while clearing the downed alien ship they capture an alien. The question here is ; how would that effect our understanding of the alien technology?

The alien once captured seems to be manipulating the soldiers. Is my perception right?

[Crazy Pavarotti Man]

Blast radius: As big as the city they're attacking? :) Seriously, too much speculation, and I really doubt D&E set a "specific" quantity for it. I'm sure there are fan sites out there that have speculated on it, but no solid info.

Cities are defined by their population. 1 million+ citizens constitutes a major city.

Again, that's pure speculation. Many businesses (and I'm sure the government) engage in a nasty little thing called "reverse engineering". They basically look at the results/effects, then deconstruct the technology piece by piece and observing how it effects the results. This would be the most likely way they would handle alien technology.

You are. It was also shown in the movie that they have telepathic powers and were able to manipulate/talk through a human. In the movie, the alien used Okun in a threatening manner, but it stands to reason they could be more "subtle" if subterfuge was called for.

Hope this helps a little.

[greybeard]

What is a major city matters because there are over one thousand cities over 500k.

Blast radius matters because it would effect the aliens attack strategy.

All this matters to me because I am trying to write a book. Details matter when putting together a plot. That and I don't want to make any major mistakes when I do get down to writing. The fans will know if their are mistakes.

[Crazy Pavarotti Man]

Re: Blast radius, as I said, since no exact number was specified, can't help you there.

As for "Major City", I already explained that.

I *might* be able to guide you a bit on the blast radius though;

The alien blast ground zero was the empire state building. Jasmine and her son and dog were in the midtown tunnel. They had enough time to duck into the service access, and not only avoid the explosion rippling through the tunnel, but at that point the explosion wasn't powerful enough to simply destroy the tunnel. Meaning it was probably nearing the end of it's effectiveness (ie it's outmost blast radius). In fact, you could easily assume it was only a combination of the cars/buildings exploding (dominoe effect) and that it was bottleneck (the tunnel itself) that make the situation dangerous. Therefore, go to google earth or something, find out the distance from the Empire State building to the midtown tunnel, and one can fairly safely and accurately assume the blast radius is just a touch smaller than that.

[greybeard]

I think you are mixing things up a bit. Jasmin was in LA not NY. However, I did calculate the distance from the White House to the AF base at about twelve miles. At that point the destruction was still going strong. My origional estimate was between 20 and 25 miles.

[Crazy Pavarotti Man]

D'oh, you're right. They intermixed the ESB scene and Jasmine (I guess since the destruction was simultaneous). Still, if you can find out what tunnel she was in... wait... the building that was zapped in LA was kind of generic though, no? Makes things a little more difficult...

[greybeard]

There are a thousand little details other than this one thing that I would like to know. How I will do this without talking to Mr. D I don't know.

Are there any others on the BBS that might have some ideas.

[greybeard]

ever notice how inconsistant the timeline in ID4 is. The number of cities mentioned in the movie is so incomplete. The ship over over NY is still there the next morning, but not more than an hour later we are told that both Phily, Chicago, and Atlanta have been destroyed. The ship over LA is still there when the fighters go to attack it. I am starting to wonder if they had anyone making sure they didn't make major mistakes.

[Crazy Pavarotti Man]

Um... more than one ship? Who says the ship that destroyed NY was the same one that took out Philly, Chicago, et al.? In fact, I think the movie stated that ships are appearing over *every* major city.

[greybeard]

From the research that I have done there were only 36 of the city destroyer ships attached to the mothership. I have found drawings and have confirmed it elsewhere. So the one over NY and DC would have had to move on to have the other cities destroyed.

[trina]

hm, how could you confirm that there were not more than 36 city destroyer ships?

[greybeard]

I got this information from drawings I found on the internet. I think that these were from models.

[trina]

I still don't get the point how you conclude from drawings that were done for filming (?) on how many ships there were supposed to be in the movie/story?

[Crazy Pavarotti Man]

From the research that I have done there were only 36 of the city destroyer ships attached to the mothership. I have found drawings and have confirmed it elsewhere. So the one over NY and DC would have had to move on to have the other cities destroyed.


This is incorrect. I have the movie on right now, and they say, "it's broken off into more than three dozen other pieces". So it's at *least* 36 city destroyers. Technicality? Maybe, but at the rate they were going, even a couple of extra city destroyers makes a big difference.