Eureka - Could such a place exist ? Should it ? by AURaptor

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

Eureka - Could such a place exist ? Should it ?

POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 5, 2007 03:54
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Tuesday, September 4, 2007 2:51 PM

America loves a winner!

A secluded city where the top minds in a wide array of fields could do research on about any thing they wanted, made possible by a combo of Fed and private funding. Now, we already do have Area 51, but that's primarily concerned w/ aerodynamics, military craft. And universities do research, but they're pretty much out in the open, being public institutions.

But could such a city/ complex be possible? Would it resemble a Microsoft type campus? Kinda like Global Dynamics, which is the main source of employment for the city of Eureka.

And if such a city existed, how could it remain secret ? What about the 'rights' of its citizens and their ability to travel to and from the city ? And how could results be kept 'in house', with today's technology ?

Just a few thoughts as I'm watching the show, that's all.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself.

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Tuesday, September 4, 2007 3:07 PM

WYTCHCROFT

i'm intrigued - not seen the show... sounds good - wasn't that the OTHER show that had its episodes shown out of sequence due to exec pressure??

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Tuesday, September 4, 2007 3:30 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

The closest thing I can think of to anything like the town of Eureka would have been Oak Ridge, TN. That was a whole town, completely secret, built for the production of the first Nuclear bomb. There were a wide variety of discipline and scientists were encourage to be very open minded in their research, even though most of it was directly geared towards nuclear weapon's technology.

I'm not sure such a town could have remain secret indefinitely, even in the 40s, but today, it would be nearly impossible.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Tuesday, September 4, 2007 4:14 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by wytchcroft:
i'm intrigued - not seen the show... sounds good - wasn't that the OTHER show that had its episodes shown out of sequence due to exec pressure??

I think SciFi's done a decent job in showing the eps in order. The 2nd season is even better than the 1st, and there's tons of sub stories emerging below the main story each week.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Tuesday, September 4, 2007 4:21 PM

WYTCHCROFT

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:

I'm not sure such a town could have remain secret indefinitely, even in the 40s, but today, it would be nearly impossible.

-- Cicero

the village - in The Prisoner was based on a real place (no, not portmerion) set up during the war.

i think it's not impossible to have the set up you describe - ballard's descriptions of super-cannes come close. and there are corporations now where you live on site - buy their food and use their medical services using THEIR credit cards etc...

there was a show recently about a town set up supposedly to house witness protection people but actually with a covert purpose. unfortunately the show was crap.

anyway - witness protection programme? we just SHOOT EM right??

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Wednesday, September 5, 2007 3:54 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

The witness protection program is not a town. People are given new identities and sent to existing non-secret towns to live out their lives. And while fiction my imagine such towns exist, in reality it would show up on satellite images and appear on utilities bills and cell phone use. It just wouldn’t be possible to make the town secret. It’s pure fiction.

A more realistic alternative would be to not attempt to make the town secret and instead place that impetus on the people living there. There are lots of small, unremarkable towns that go completely unnoticed all the time. The town itself wouldn’t be secret, but the people living there would have secret identities. Even that, however, would be difficult, and the larger the town grows the more difficult this would become. All you need is one person to blab to the media, complain about worker condition or one experiment to leave traces that some loon decides is alien. No matter how hard you tried you couldn’t keep something like that secret (or at least unknown) indefinitely in this day and age.

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