Avengers out on DVD

[Terralthra]

Philosopher: You don't get EMP in hard vacuum as far as I know.

... You can't get pulses of electromagnetic radiation in a hard vacuum? How do you figure? Are you maybe thinking of something else? 'Cause... I can't think of any reason why you couldn't get an EMP in hard vacuum. It's Electromagnetism. Radiation. Afaik, a nuclear weapon's EMP would actually be stronger in a vacuum, as due to the lack of atmosphere, it outputs more radiation because it doesn't get converted to thermal radiation and or a blast. No shockwave, no heatwave, just a fuckton of electromagnetism frying everything for miles.

No just a fuckton of direct radiation subject to the inverse square law. Without a planetary magnetosphere to interact with there will be no EMP

A magnetosphere, and an atmosphere, more specifically. The nuclear HEMP is due to interactions with both. In deep space, you'd get a massive burst of hard gamma radiation and particle radiation, very little in the way of HEMP.

[Darth Nostril]

I know that dude, I was dumbing it down into bite sized nuggets for seraphs tiny inadequate brain.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

I make a mistake and apparently that means I have a "tiny, inadequate brain"? I made a mistake, I was wrong, go fuck yourself.

[Batman]

When you've seen that mistake often enough it does get a tad annoying (and given that I myself have I suspect it's not exactly uncommon in a community like this) and besides, by local standards 'tiny, inadequate brain' is pretty timid.

[PeZook]

God, there's people who seriously think it's stupid that Stark's armor shut down in space, when Jarvis told him it would happen? Maaaaan

As for him almost dying, ask yourself this: what's the air supply inside his suit like? Does he have a portable life support system in there somewhere alongside all his other goodies?

As for the fireball in space, I would remind people that the nuke HIT A HUGE SPACE STATION. Where would the gasses and debris to make a fireball come from, I wonder? No idea there!

A better question is why the Chitauri were unable to intercept a slow cruise missile, but maybe they're just not that good at fighting, and simply incredibly arrogant. In fact, they certainly are, and keep saying how weak and insignificant Earth is all the time, while doing no real recon before going all rah-rah invasion...things like these.

Sort of like a Somali militia that could easily beat up a Roman legion, but isn't actually a particularly impressive army.

[Simon_Jester]

God, there's people who seriously think it's stupid that Stark's armor shut down in space, when Jarvis told him it would happen? Maaaaan

As for him almost dying, ask yourself this: what's the air supply inside his suit like? Does he have a portable life support system in there somewhere alongside all his other goodies?

He can operate underwater, so a single high-pressure air tank that can at least keep him alive for a few minutes seems likely. Plus he flies at high altitude and supersonic speeds, which means not just breathing the freezing-cold windy air outside would be a good thing anyway.

A better question is why the Chitauri were unable to intercept a slow cruise missile, but maybe they're just not that good at fighting, and simply incredibly arrogant. In fact, they certainly are, and keep saying how weak and insignificant Earth is all the time, while doing no real recon before going all rah-rah invasion...things like these.

Sort of like a Somali militia that could easily beat up a Roman legion, but isn't actually a particularly impressive army.

Possibly. They may have been grossly unprepared for space-to-space combat. Shooting down enemy missiles means having targeting radar and guns pointed in the direction they're coming from; the Chitauri were probably not expecting that.

That's happened in real life; someone who doesn't expect to get shot by a missile may not get the benefit of warning systems and defenses, even if their craft has such defenses.

[Batman]

Well we're talking about guys whose idea of an invasion force is dudes on flying motorbikes and giant mechanical snakes so the Chitauri not being the greatest military minds in the universe isn't all that far fetched (always assuming the invasion was for real and not just something they pulled to get Loki out of their hair).

[Ahriman238]

Was it even space the portal went to? I know it was full of stars and such, but it also had strange floating rocks, and people could talk to each other there. I sort of assumed it was some bizarre dimension, as is seen all the time in the comic books.

In which case, the armor failing might not be all that surprising, even if it wasn't low on juice, which it was.

[Batman]

Personally I'd favour 'it failed because of space' (ignoring for the moment that it's been pretty firmly established that the suit simply ran out of power) over 'strange dimension so the suit failed...um, because of something.' At least there's plenty of realistic potential reasons why the suit would fail in space.

[Crossroads Inc.]

A better question is why the Chitauri were unable to intercept a slow cruise missile, but maybe they're just not that good at fighting, and simply incredibly arrogant. In fact, they certainly are, and keep saying how weak and insignificant Earth is all the time, while doing no real recon before going all rah-rah invasion...things like these.

Sort of like a Somali militia that could easily beat up a Roman legion, but isn't actually a particularly impressive army.

Ok I just recently thought of this, but let us consider the "Mighty Chitauri" for a moment...
As many other have pointed out, the "Invasion" force from them was a bit of a joke. Their great army consisting of giant flying Robo-Whales and thugs on flying bikes with guns. Sure, perhaps that was just the "Strike Force" designed to attack quick and take ground, who knows. But not exactly impressive.

Now then, there are a few lines in the movie to consider...
At one point Thor says something along the lines of Loki having a new Army that Asgard has never heard of before.
Really? The mighty Asgard have never heard of the Chitauri? l.. What sort of great and powerful badguys are those? If they are so big, why would the Asgardians not hear of them? ARE they really that big?
Of course at the end of the movie we get THIS silly line:

"The humans are unruly, and thus cannot be ruled!"

Again, what sort of big bad evil people run away after a bloody nose? Humans cannot be ruled? Just because we fought back a small invasion force?

With all of this in mind I am going to now assert my own personal Head Canon...
The Chitauri ARE Space Somali Pirates. Some band of arrogant over pumped up thugs, that Thanos grabbed and decided to play with for his own ends to get the Cosmic Cube. Why get some large scale galactic Empire to do your bidding, when some thugs will do? I mean it was clear the Chitauri (Or at least their leader) all but worshiped Thanos and was all prepared to hand over the Cub.. but someone else? Especially someone Competent ?

So YES, in my own head, they are just Random Thugs,

[Ahriman238]

Not a ton of guesswork needed, the Chitauri are in the comics. Granted, the Ultimate comics. Where they were basically the Skrulls. In fact, I think at one point they said the Chitauri are also called the Skrulls. Anyway, in the ocmics they brought a ton of starships, large and small, and were led by an SS officer Cap had tangled with back in the day and... something about a world-ending bomb? They clearly wanted to conquer the Earth so I'm not quite sure where the bomb comes into the plan. It was sort of a mess, in the way of Ultimate comics.

Thing is, comics-Chitauri were winning on pretty much all fronts until Nick and Cap decided they were desperate enough to induce Bruce to hulk out and sic him on the invaders. Heh, Cap told the Hulk that the guys in the spaceships called him a sissy and watched him go at it. A wounded Hawkeye's greatest contribution to the invasion was being the only one able to tranquilize Bruce after he was done.

[Scrib]

Meh, the Chitauri's real advantage is being able to pop up in places immediately. That's why the Avengers were needed. Otherwise I'm not sure they would fare well against an army, the ability to just jump into a city with a huge civilian population that the military can't bomb to shit even if they somehow mobilise fast enough is the main advantage I see.

[PeZook]

Meh, the Chitauri's real advantage is being able to pop up in places immediately. That's why the Avengers were needed. Otherwise I'm not sure they would fare well against an army, the ability to just jump into a city with a huge civilian population that the military can't bomb to shit even if they somehow mobilise fast enough is the main advantage I see.

I just figured they simply wanted to fuck Loki over, because why the hell would they even hold up their end of the bargain if the Tesseract was RIGHT THERE?

All they had to was secure a part of Manhattan, get the Tesseract, shoot Loki in the head and get out. Guys on hoverbikes seemed really well suited to a raid like these, although they did seem to enjoy murdering civilians en masse.

[PeZook]

He can operate underwater, so a single high-pressure air tank that can at least keep him alive for a few minutes seems likely. Plus he flies at high altitude and supersonic speeds, which means not just breathing the freezing-cold windy air outside would be a good thing anyway.

True, I forgot about the underwater scene. But I also rewatched the portal thing, and he doesn't actually die, just closes his eyes as the armor fails. So yeah, he might have a small supply of air onboard, or some sort of rebreather. system.

Anyways, the armor failing was clearly foreshadowed by Jarvis, so it's really a non-issue.

Possibly. They may have been grossly unprepared for space-to-space combat. Shooting down enemy missiles means having targeting radar and guns pointed in the direction they're coming from; the Chitauri were probably not expecting that.

That's happened in real life; someone who doesn't expect to get shot by a missile may not get the benefit of warning systems and defenses, even if their craft has such defenses.

Hmm. Well, a USS Stark scenario isn't that much of a stretch, true.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Not a ton of guesswork needed, the Chitauri are in the comics. Granted, the Ultimate comics. Where they were basically the Skrulls. In fact, I think at one point they said the Chitauri are also called the Skrulls.

As some one who never grew up reading the comics, it always makes me laugh when, by just watching a movie or such, I come to the correct conclusion of what is established inside the comic universe

On Stark in Space... Here are my own two bits.
I am fairly certain that it was him resigning himself to the fact that he was about to be Vaped by a nuclear blast. He seemed rather confident that he was NOT coming back, only did so by a hairs breath. My guess is he may have been hit by the [/i]Shockwave[/i] of the blast seconds before the blast itself got him. That would have knocked him out.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. Well, a USS Stark scenario isn't that much of a stretch, true.

Would seem thematically appropriate, heh.

On Stark in Space... Here are my own two bits.
I am fairly certain that it was him resigning himself to the fact that he was about to be Vaped by a nuclear blast. He seemed rather confident that he was NOT coming back, only did so by a hairs breath. My guess is he may have been hit by the [/i]Shockwave[/i] of the blast seconds before the blast itself got him. That would have knocked him out.

Nukes don't have shockwaves in space. I think "ran out of energy and resigned himself to dying in space" is more likely.

Maybe he didn't count on the wormhole gate having its own gravity or whatever sucked him back into the gate.

[Tsyroc]

On Stark in Space... Here are my own two bits.
I am fairly certain that it was him resigning himself to the fact that he was about to be Vaped by a nuclear blast. He seemed rather confident that he was NOT coming back, only did so by a hairs breath. My guess is he may have been hit by the [/i]Shockwave[/i] of the blast seconds before the blast itself got him. That would have knocked him out.

Nukes don't have shockwaves in space. I think "ran out of energy and resigned himself to dying in space" is more likely.

Maybe he didn't count on the wormhole gate having its own gravity or whatever sucked him back into the gate.

I also go with him running out of energy. His discussion with Jarvis seemed to set that up as the scenario IMO. I also got the impression that Earth's gravity was working on him more the closer he got to the opening of the gate.

[Simon_Jester]

Just from what snippets of knowledge I have about how gravity works, I'd expect the Earth's gravity not to propagate through the portal, or at least not to propagate in a simple, predictable way.

Whereas the wormhole itself is some sort of ungodly bizarro space warp; it can have whatever gravitational effects you care to dream up.

But that's just me talking, don't take it as any kind of authoritative.

[Batman]

Well if we go by SG physics wormholes can route gravity just dandy No need for the wormhole itself to create gravity due to technobabble (gravity that was either absent or so low as to be unnoticeable on the New York end) when the wormhole letting Earth's gravity through is just as likely (and physically possible-i.e., not particularly).
Kudos to the makers of the movie for actually making the nuke a rocket-on rewatching the scene I half expected the thing to turn out looking like an airbreather and me gleefully asking 'Nevermind Iron Man, how does the damn missile keep going in space'?

As for the fireball that shouldn't be there for a nuke in space-rewatch the scene. It's not from the nuke. There's a noticeable even to the naked eye delay between the initial explosion and the station (or whatever) going kablooey. Whatever that fireball resulted from, it's definitely secondaries.

And is it me or do the internal shots from the helmet (you know, the ones with all those nifty holograms in front of Tony's face) look like the thing's a lot bigger on the inside?

[Tsyroc]

A thought the Chitarri "space station" looked like a re-imagining of Thanos' Sanctuary ships from the comics. They are enough different that I might be reaching a bit though.

[lance]

Not a ton of guesswork needed, the Chitauri are in the comics. Granted, the Ultimate comics. Where they were basically the Skrulls. In fact, I think at one point they said the Chitauri are also called the Skrulls. Anyway, in the ocmics they brought a ton of starships, large and small, and were led by an SS officer Cap had tangled with back in the day and... something about a world-ending bomb? They clearly wanted to conquer the Earth so I'm not quite sure where the bomb comes into the plan. It was sort of a mess, in the way of Ultimate comics.

Its been a while, but in the FF comic they mentioned the Chitauri as being a fringe or splinter group. Its in the arc where somebody tries to fix grim with time travel.

[Ted C]

As for him almost dying, ask yourself this: what's the air supply inside his suit like? Does he have a portable life support system in there somewhere alongside all his other goodies?

Yes, as demonstrated by his use of it as a diving suit earlier in the movie.

A better question is why the Chitauri were unable to intercept a slow cruise missile, but maybe they're just not that good at fighting, and simply incredibly arrogant. In fact, they certainly are, and keep saying how weak and insignificant Earth is all the time, while doing no real recon before going all rah-rah invasion...things like these.

The Chitauri obviously had not prepared for a weapon to be launched through the portal at them, at least not that early in the conflict. A glaring oversight, perhaps, but it seems that Loki is their only real source of intelligence about the Earth, and he has lead them to believe that it will be a pushover.

[Ted C]

Just from what snippets of knowledge I have about how gravity works, I'd expect the Earth's gravity not to propagate through the portal, or at least not to propagate in a simple, predictable way.

Why not? Light was obviously propagating through the portal. Why wouldn't gravity do the same?

[Replicant]

A few items from Iron Man 2

In the end Stark WANTED Rhodes to take the armor so of course he was not going to go all out to stop him.

Also it is obvious that Vankos first whip outfit had some type of armor or forcefield aspect to it because otherwise Happy would have killed him when he crushed him against the side of the track.

Finally the briefcase suit must have much more limited capabilities. When Vanko took out both hand replusors Tony didnt just activate and fry Vanko with the chest repulsor, that it doesnt exist. The briefcase suit is basically Starks equivalent to a flak jacket with hand repulsors.

[Simon_Jester]

The Chitauri obviously had not prepared for a weapon to be launched through the portal at them, at least not that early in the conflict. A glaring oversight, perhaps, but it seems that Loki is their only real source of intelligence about the Earth, and he has lead them to believe that it will be a pushover.

They might not even have realized Earth has any weapons of real force (like nukes).

Why not? Light was obviously propagating through the portal. Why wouldn't gravity do the same?

Light is bitty little wave-particle-things. Gravity is curvature of spacetime.

The Earth's mass won't automatically create the same curving effect on the far side of a wormhole that it creates on our side. The wormhole itself might also have something to say about the shape of the surrounding space. So me, I choose to believe the portal has its own gravity, at least on the Earth side.