Skip to main content

dc - How can the Kandorians(Kryptonians) have their powers?


We see that in the 9th season of Smallville, both in the first and the ninth episode, the Kandorians - whose genes were laced with blue kryptonite - have powers (example, Alia).


How can they have their powers under a yellow sun? In the first episode Alia had all the powers of a Kryptonian under a yellow sun even after her cells were laced with blue kryptonite, and in the ninth episode she was seen using super speed under a yellow sun.


Also in the alternate timeline(where Lois went) Major Zod and his men had kryptonian abilities under RED sun but Kal- El did not. Why? How can this be possible?
How can they have their powers under a yellow sun and red sun?



Answer



tl;dr: None of this is ever really explained in the show.


Alia's powers in Savior and Pandora in the present time, in particular, are a huge plot hole (in particular, in Pandora she seems to keep her red-sun-given powers when she follows Lois back to a yellow-sun environment.)



How the red sun gave them their powers appears to be a side-effect of how Blue Krpytonite works; at least, Zod seems very convinced that it will work, enough to spend tons of time and money on the Solar Tower. Why this is true, again, is never explained.




The explanation for how Zod got his powers was very sketchy, but if I am remembering correctly, it's due to the way blue kryptonite affects Kryptonians. It appears to take away their yellow-sun-given powers by changing their biology to make them appear "native" under yellow radiation, but as a side effect, a red sun is no longer normal for them, and has the same effect.


In the comics, IIRC there have been a few different explanations for why Superman has special powers when exposed to a yellow sun. Smallville never explains how that works for their particular canon, but the basic idea is that yellow sunlight is absorbed by Kryptonians and is somehow converted into energy that gives them extra powers. This is somehow related to their biology, and their evolution on Krypton (which is heavier/denser than Earth and orbits a red star). Therefore, all Kryptonians would automatically have these powers as soon as they came within range of a yellow star.


If we assume that blue krptonite somehow interferes with this process, one possibility is that it changes whatever biochemical process responds to yellow wavelengths to make them do nothing. It's possible, then, that the change causes some other wavelength to replace yellow's function. Given that red is the furthest from blue in the actual spectrum, it makes as much sense as anything else that blue krpytonite would interefere with yellow radiation more than red. Beyond that, though, it's all basically hand-waved away as "how it's supposed to work."


None of that explains Alia, though. That's a pretty clear writing mistake that they were hoping we wouldn't notice.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.