Why did they make it seem so easy for rifles to go in and wipe out every hero? I expected a little more of a fight? Didn't you? Or am I missing something?

How do you know how long it took to kill them all? They didn't show the whole fight, you're just assuming it took 5 minutes to take them all down.

yeah that was kinda nonsense.one kid overreacting then everyone gets gunned down? would not other powered individuals begin to flip out? then i would think army guys would even spread friendly fire in the panic.apparently claude got out, i assume he was there at that time too.

True.
Plus, these were scared people. Most probably just learned about their abilities and were either afraid of them or didn't know there full potential.
Also, the firing and such happened so quickly that I'm sure some of the "heroes" didn't even have time to respond. Everything was turned upside down in a matter of seconds/minutes. It was chaos.

Yeah, you're missing the rather obvious fact that these weren't, and were never suggested to be, heroes.

They were the average joes unlucky enough to have been rounded up by a paranoid government.

Most likely, only a few of them had powers that could even remotely be used in an offensive manner.

striking someone with lightning ,not someone random but targeting an antagonist with it clearly indicated an offensive manner to me as did hitting a target with some sorta replusor effect.these both seemed to be very offensive in manner and who knows what the reaction of other powered individuals would be when faced with death by gun fire?i would imagine quite a mess.

Yes, it would be a mess. But as was stated earlier, we didn't get to see that fight. Could have lasted a while. I'm sure lots of military died as well.
Plus, do we know the ratio of agents/military men that were there? The government probably secretly deemed these people as "dangerous" even if they had not done anything yet. I'm sure they had a good selection of their men there.

It seemed that most of the people had been told they were sick, and had come to C.S. to "get better." I'm thinking their first instinct wasn't to fight, especially amid sudden chaos.

Also, and I've noticed this before, almost all of the earlier generation's abilities are passive: precog dreaming, alchemy, healing, etc. I know there are a few exceptions, but most of them aren't offensive. Who knows what the "heroes" could have done to protect themselves.

I think you missed part of my comment. I went ahead and quoted it for you.

I'm fine believing the ones who were in charge of CSRC had someone like the Haitian, a power negator, or something else with which to control them.

And most of the ones with abilities probably were only kids.

Look up the Boston Massacre - it happens all the time and it's an event that started this country in a way.

i am not sure that i see the boston massacre analogy as it applies to one kid panicing. if you mean occupying troops often panic ,yeah that happens with a fair amount of regularity. in boston at the time the british were imposing british laws and the people of the region were contentious about this over a long period of time.at coral sands the people apparently went there in good faith,the girl was panicy because of angela's foreboding thoughts on suresh and she paniced and an apparent massacre occured but it seems a stretch that it would given that people with abilities was a new thing and there was no apparent aggitation between the people and the military up to that point like there was at the time of the townshend act in the 1700s.she was just one little paniced girl at the doctor's , not something all that unusual.

I'm still trying to figure out who said these people were supposed to be heroes- they had powers, but most of them were scared and clueless. from the sounds of it, a lot of them didn't even know they had powers until they got to the camp.

And, again, the majority of powers we've seen on the show are not good in a fight. Only a minority of the powers we've seen on the show would've been helpful in that slaughter.

Someone threw a brick or something at one of the British guards, one panicked and started shooting into the crowd. The guns we're there to protect the people who worked there, Mr Shaw protected his daughter out of instinct, he was killed and then everyone paniced, I don't see this as being not plausable.

oh, i totally see your point visitor27 but the boston massacre , ugly as it was only killed a handful of people, 5 dead a few more injured but down in the wop wops of coral sands the military went mad and killed everyone that they could. some of the military men had to have been as freaked out by the whole scene as were the coral sands people.

Coyote Sands

The point is, panic causes worse slaughters than any other response on the planet. The military weren't there protecting the HEBs. They were protecting the scientists.

When Alice went crazy- with, by the way, a power that was causing enough havoc that everyone was in danger- the people with guns reacted fairly predictably.

The military men were probably paniced, scared or some might have been prejudiced against the HEB's. I mean at a time when Racism was still very prevalent, even in law. I am sure some of the soldiers couldn't wait to gun down some HEB's.
You can't trust a gun in the hand of a man with fear or prejudice.

Just having a strong ability doesn't make the wielder powerful.Most people would see this as a sickness and stay away from their own powers,never learning how to use them effectively.Look at Brian Davis.He had one of the most powerful abilities and yet he was a scared,weak man.

Panic makes people do stupid things, it's just as likely the gifted people became dangerous to eachother and wiped eachother out in the chaos.

This episode showed how even a benign--Chandra's intentions were benign even if the outcome wasn't, as Angela predicted--rounding up of Specials turns into a panic slaughter. The same would've happened if these were so called "Communists" rounded up and a child was hurt by a person of authority.

BTW, I know I should put this in the "Coyote Sands" thread, but all we saw Chandra do is administer shots with a big, scary needle. For all we know he was giving them flu vaccinations since they were in close quarters.

As someone who still mourns JFK, the point was to show, even a government you trust with its awesome powers when it rounds up people by any group, non-criminal, definition will get out of hand. And only tragedy can result i.e. Manzanar.

I will be going to the Japanese-American exhibit this Saturday and I'm sure will find out in detail what that was like.

I agree, panic makes people do dumb things.

BTW, see any resemblance:





Here's the wiki and gov links:

http://www.nps.gov/manz/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzanar

http://www.manzanar.com/information.php

This post has been edited by Rebel: Today, 09:43 AM