![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Okay, so Resistance got me thinking about Tesla's new job and how exactly he got it. Because while it makes sense for Tesla to be chosen by the American government, I'm left wondering how they knew they could choose him.
Now, we know that the American government know of Tesla - they've worked with him before, and I imagine somewhere there's a very classified file complete with interesting details like "insufferable genius, vampire, more cooperative if plied with wine, current whereabouts unknown."
Current whereabouts unknown - because as far as the American government would know, Tesla disappeared some time in the 40's - probably around the time of his "death". Even Helen doesn't hear from or of him for sixty years. Now, depending on the circumstances surrounding his disappearances, they might well have been looking for him at the time - and seriously, Tesla would probably have been considered an asset during the space race, the cold war, etc. - but to still be actively searching after sixty years? That defies belief.
Of course, Nikola does surface in season one, but the thing is, he never surfaces beyond Sanctuary level - his schemes never really manage to make headline news or anything. And at this point, the Sanctuary network is still the only ones handling abnormal-related things. Furthermore, Helen Magnus has been shown as someone who is perfectly willing to decide who needs to know what, like in the case of Big Bertha, and somehow, I can't for the life of me imagine that she'd think the governments of the world would really need to know that "oh, by the way, my old friend Nikola is back in town, and he seems to have turned into a supervillain". Maybe if Nikola had been a serious threat, but as he never managed that, I just can't imagine Helen sending that memo.
What I'm trying to say is, that by the time of the Hollow Earth invasion, I can't see them knowing that he's even around - but in Resistance, he's working for them, having been specifically recruited to a program studying Hollow Earth abnormals. How?
Let's go back a couple of episodes, to Untouchable. Now, at the end of this, Helen has informed the government that the Sanctuary network is going to be an NGO from here on out. But something else happens before then. Henry says something, a throwaway remark to the woman investigator. He tells her "you'll have to ask Nikola Tesla". When that woman goes back to her office and is debriefed/writes a report, she'll have one bit of valuable information to offer: that Nikola Tesla is alive and active and at least peripherally associated with the Sanctuary and abnormals. Now, that information will wind its way through the system until it gets to someone with the necessary clearance to access the aforementioned file, and that someone might put two and two together, and get a bright idea.
Good job, Henry.
Of course, there's at least a couple of possible problems with my theory. First, there's at least one other person who might plausibly have told the powers that be that Tesla has resurfaced - I'm talking about Abby theannoying FBI agent. She met Tesla in Vigilante, and in Monsoon we learn that she has been promoted due to her knowledge of Sanctuary and abnormals. It's plausible. Except, well, we're never shown her actually knowing that the Nikola she met is the Tesla, and furthermore, Will's paranoia aside, her promotion seems less a matter of having bartered her knowledge and more a case of being one of the few non-Sanctuary people around with at least a little experience with abnormals. It's not like she made a list of all the people at Sanctuary and sold it to the highest bidder, and 1) Abby strikes me as too moral a person to do that in the first place, even if her superiors asked her, and 2) why would she feel the need to include that random guy she maybe never saw again?
In short, I don't think Abby was the source of the information - on the other hand, she might well have provided whoever the hypothetical someone was who got the information in Untouchable with something else: outside corroboration. Writing lists is one thing, but if specifically asked if she has ever encountered a guy by the name of Tesla hanging around Sanctuary, I doubt she'd have answered anything other than truthfully.
And somewhere, someone using the full powers of modern surveillance society would start actively looking for Tesla - and the thing is, Tesla's probably not actively hiding. Since the Cabal went down, he probably doesn't have anyone left to actively hide from - like I said, sixty years is an awful long time. And then someone shows up and offers him a job.
Of course, there's another possible issue with my theory, and that's the timing. Nikola specifically talks about six months of his life he'll never get back, so for my theory to work, one would have to be able to make the argument that about half a year separates Untouchable and Resistance - episode 3 and episode 5 of the season. Which, admittedly, seems like quite a long time. I mean, obviously more than a couple of weeks have elapsed since the Sanctuary network went rogue, but six months? Except earlier in the episode he talked about being approached several months ago, so maybe not exactly six months?
Now, even at the best of times it can be difficult to determine time in relation to tv series episodes. However, we're actually given a useful bit of information in these two specific episodes. In Untouchable, we're told that Erica's pregnancy might well take 22 months - two years, as Henry puts it. But in Resistance, Henry tells Nikola that she's due sometime in the next year and a half.
I admit it's flimsy and nothing even close to hard proof of the time elapsed, but it doesn't have to be proof. All I need for my theory to not be shot down is a little leeway - all I need is that it's possible that Nikola's "several months ago" covers about the same amount of time as the difference between Henry's "two years" and "a year and a half". Which I think it is.
So, to conclude, my theory is that Henry's throwaway remark is directly responsible for Tesla getting offered his shiny new job in the first place.
And now I am going to stop writing, since that's an awful lot of words spent on one random bit of fannishness, really...
Now, we know that the American government know of Tesla - they've worked with him before, and I imagine somewhere there's a very classified file complete with interesting details like "insufferable genius, vampire, more cooperative if plied with wine, current whereabouts unknown."
Current whereabouts unknown - because as far as the American government would know, Tesla disappeared some time in the 40's - probably around the time of his "death". Even Helen doesn't hear from or of him for sixty years. Now, depending on the circumstances surrounding his disappearances, they might well have been looking for him at the time - and seriously, Tesla would probably have been considered an asset during the space race, the cold war, etc. - but to still be actively searching after sixty years? That defies belief.
Of course, Nikola does surface in season one, but the thing is, he never surfaces beyond Sanctuary level - his schemes never really manage to make headline news or anything. And at this point, the Sanctuary network is still the only ones handling abnormal-related things. Furthermore, Helen Magnus has been shown as someone who is perfectly willing to decide who needs to know what, like in the case of Big Bertha, and somehow, I can't for the life of me imagine that she'd think the governments of the world would really need to know that "oh, by the way, my old friend Nikola is back in town, and he seems to have turned into a supervillain". Maybe if Nikola had been a serious threat, but as he never managed that, I just can't imagine Helen sending that memo.
What I'm trying to say is, that by the time of the Hollow Earth invasion, I can't see them knowing that he's even around - but in Resistance, he's working for them, having been specifically recruited to a program studying Hollow Earth abnormals. How?
Let's go back a couple of episodes, to Untouchable. Now, at the end of this, Helen has informed the government that the Sanctuary network is going to be an NGO from here on out. But something else happens before then. Henry says something, a throwaway remark to the woman investigator. He tells her "you'll have to ask Nikola Tesla". When that woman goes back to her office and is debriefed/writes a report, she'll have one bit of valuable information to offer: that Nikola Tesla is alive and active and at least peripherally associated with the Sanctuary and abnormals. Now, that information will wind its way through the system until it gets to someone with the necessary clearance to access the aforementioned file, and that someone might put two and two together, and get a bright idea.
Good job, Henry.
Of course, there's at least a couple of possible problems with my theory. First, there's at least one other person who might plausibly have told the powers that be that Tesla has resurfaced - I'm talking about Abby the
In short, I don't think Abby was the source of the information - on the other hand, she might well have provided whoever the hypothetical someone was who got the information in Untouchable with something else: outside corroboration. Writing lists is one thing, but if specifically asked if she has ever encountered a guy by the name of Tesla hanging around Sanctuary, I doubt she'd have answered anything other than truthfully.
And somewhere, someone using the full powers of modern surveillance society would start actively looking for Tesla - and the thing is, Tesla's probably not actively hiding. Since the Cabal went down, he probably doesn't have anyone left to actively hide from - like I said, sixty years is an awful long time. And then someone shows up and offers him a job.
Of course, there's another possible issue with my theory, and that's the timing. Nikola specifically talks about six months of his life he'll never get back, so for my theory to work, one would have to be able to make the argument that about half a year separates Untouchable and Resistance - episode 3 and episode 5 of the season. Which, admittedly, seems like quite a long time. I mean, obviously more than a couple of weeks have elapsed since the Sanctuary network went rogue, but six months? Except earlier in the episode he talked about being approached several months ago, so maybe not exactly six months?
Now, even at the best of times it can be difficult to determine time in relation to tv series episodes. However, we're actually given a useful bit of information in these two specific episodes. In Untouchable, we're told that Erica's pregnancy might well take 22 months - two years, as Henry puts it. But in Resistance, Henry tells Nikola that she's due sometime in the next year and a half.
I admit it's flimsy and nothing even close to hard proof of the time elapsed, but it doesn't have to be proof. All I need for my theory to not be shot down is a little leeway - all I need is that it's possible that Nikola's "several months ago" covers about the same amount of time as the difference between Henry's "two years" and "a year and a half". Which I think it is.
So, to conclude, my theory is that Henry's throwaway remark is directly responsible for Tesla getting offered his shiny new job in the first place.
And now I am going to stop writing, since that's an awful lot of words spent on one random bit of fannishness, really...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I wondered too.
From:
no subject