What Jordan is doing seems awfully similar to what the NOVA group was doing to me..
anyone else see that?

Not at all. What types of things are you referring to?

well, for one they both wanted to show the world if they work with them, great things can be accomplished.
don't you remember when the Nova group turned a desert in the middle east into rich farmland?

and now Jordan turns a polluted river in fresh water.

Ah, OK. I thought you meant the terrorism and such. Most people don't even remember about the desert transformation. In that sense, yes you're right. The interesting dynamic to me about this is the fact that it's all going to be on TV and on the Web. People will litterally be able to watch Coller's followers living in this paradise, and it's going to be very tempting. I know that I'd consider it......

I remember the desert! Everybody thought NOVA was going to do something awful, and they transformed a desert. Now Jordan is cleaning up an area of Seattle and making it liveable again. Yup, definite similarities-good people doing good things.

Well one difference is that Jordan isn't killing people or harming them like Daniel did to Shawn.

I've always thought of the desert being converted to viable farm land as the sign of hope for the future. Have to admit that my current view on what the future holds is quite muddled and not so sure who is the source of hope.

This is true. I think the NOVA group had some members who were too radical and impatient, but then they were mostly young, weren't they? Jordan is old enough to have learned some restraint and the wisdom of patience. I think he's smart enough to know if he just cultivates this little piece of ground, people will want to get in on what he's doing.

i honestly can't remember if the Nova group killed anyone or not. they were definitely on the more radical side, but i believe their intent was very similar..

and didn't most of the remaining Nova group members join with Jordan anyway?

Well NOVA did try to kill Ryland via TJ Kim, and again with Gary Navarro even though he survived both times (he's like a cochroach! lol).

well, Jordan did kill government soldiers also.. and almost got Ryland at the same time

Yep. I thought the same thing! There are subtle differences, as other posters here have mentioned, but Jordan's group has the ability to have far greater control and with a charismatic leader, put more fear into the minds of people without powers.
I could just see the president (a rip off of Independence Day) saying "Nuke em!"

True, but when he expanded his territory last night with those garden lights (that's what they reminded me of. I wonder if Home Depot has em), the people rolling in pain were harmed, even if they were soldiers. Probably a homeless person or two somewhere in the vicinity also.

as i posted earlier.. Jordan did in fact kill people (the government super soldiers who came with Ryland to get the promicen)
he wasn't physically there but it was his people that blew everyone up, under his orders obviously.
and he probably has more blood on his hands than the Nova group ever would have by giving out the promicen.

it also seems like for every 1 step the gov takes towards him, he takes 2 more in return.
he is becoming very aggressive.
the more i think about it, the more it does seem like the Nova group re-invented..

All of the gov't officials in the Promicin Conspiracy where killed except Ryland---and he was damn close to death when he got saved. (by the Nova)

The NG kills people...Jordan gives the chance to be different telling them the risks of the shot. So, NG kills, Jordan kills, but people know they may die.

Jordan does not kill people, Pau. He offers them the opportunity to take promicin-if they choose to take that risk, that's on them. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and Jordan is not responsible for someone's decision to take promicin.

Excuse me. I didn't express myself well; on an understandable way, but I think the same that you.
Sorry!
My fault

Don't apologize, Pau, you're doing very well with your English!

who exactly did the Nova group kill?

That brings up an interesting moral question: the 4400 appear to be much better off because those officials were killed and, if subsequent events last season are any indication, would have been better off if Ryland had died, too. Now, sure, killing is bad and it's certainly a slippery slope because who gets to decide who dies? In a perfect world, all of the conspirators would have gone to prison for a long, long time. As it was, they were all on the verge of getting off (as Ryland eventually did) when NOVA killed them and would have continued their activities against the 4400 if they hadn't been killed. So, obviously, the world of this show isn't a perfect world.

In that context, can we really say that NOVA's actions were bad? Or were those actions more like Jordan's distribution of promicin--a scary decision but not entirely evil because it balanced the government's misuse of power against its citizens?

Well, I'll tell you, Snowleopard, I have changed my mind about the promicin distribution after seeing those promicin soldiers. The distribution is definitely the lesser of two evils, because you can't maintain freedom if the citizens are normal humans and the rulers are super humans. A balance of power is necessary to preserve both sides. Same goes for NOVA-I truly do think they were acting in self-defense, because those men were determined to kill all the 4400. If they didn't mean for them all to die, they would have come clean on their own about the inhibitor.

I like to keep in mind that this is the same group of writers that invented the Maquis on Star Trek. I never liked the Maquis. They were smug and self-righteous, stomping around in someone else's back yard and trying to claim it as their own. I felt differently about NOVA, specifically because we were introduced to them so strongly via Daniel Armand. Daniel, in person, was neither smug nor self-righteous. He was angry and desperate, definitely backed into a corner and acting on self-defense mode, but also smart and charismatic. His "demonstration" was peaceful, neatly showing that the government was in dangerous overreaction mode. He told Shawn point blank that he had the promicin conspirators taken out as "strategic" targets because they were a direct threat to the 4400. And so far, he hasn't been proven wrong. He tried to open negotiations with Richard. Even after Ryland escaped death, Daniel chose not to use his own power on him. If he'd truly been evil, he would have just made all of the conspirators mad.

I wish they had played out Daniel's attempted cultivation of Richard more, especially considering Shawn's cigar visions and Richard's disappearance between seasons. It seems as though Richard is now going down the same road. What I don't understand is why they tied him up with such weak storylines last season when they could have had him flirt with joining NOVA or be revealed as its founder. They could have bypassed having Daniel entirely. Not that I minded Ian Tracey showing up (or would mind him coming back), but I can't help being puzzled as to why they didn't just put Richard in that role when they were struggling to give him stuff to do last year. They could have set up the whole idea of him being on the run better if they'd started earlier. Now, it feels a bit like been there, done that, which is too bad. Richard deserves better.

Maybe he was part of the Nova and we will find out soon. . . .

I don't think Richard was part of NOVA. If he was, he sure didn't do much for them. On the other hand, he's Isabelle's father and he didn't do much for her. Richard-I don't know about him sometimes. He gets all decisive and heavy-handed at the wrong times and over the wrong issues. Maybe Shawn IS going to wind up killing him.

Another difference between the two (Nova and Jordan) seems to be their goals. Did the Nova group want to take over the world? I am pretty sure that they were a radicalized group with no limits on what they would do to protect the 4400. However, I don't think they wanted everyone to bow down before 4400's. Jordan, on the other hand, appears to be aiming for a P+ world. Now, it is possible that he is only letting P+'s help now while the movement is in its infancy, but I suspect (especially after what he said to Shawn this week and what Kyle says is in the book) that he wants a world where everyone is P+. Will he wait until that slowly happens over time, tolerating generations of people refusing to take the shot, or does he want everyone to take a shot now? Personally, I think he is willing to "sacrifice" half the human race to achieve his vision. I doubt that the Nova group had any such plans.

I think Jordan gets a bad rap on this issue. Yes, he wants a P-Positive world, but he has said repeatedly that he wants everyone to be free to make their own choices. He has backed up his words with his actions, like when he protected Tom against a promicin shot from Kyle, and freed the soldiers sent to kill him. His very dreams are of a peaceful world, and we were shown a nightmare where he suffers from guilt over people dying because they freely chose the promicin shot. A man who feels guilty about other people's choices turning out badly is not someone who wants to impose his beliefs on others. Yet Jordan continues to be unfairly judged in this area. A good clue that Jordan and NOVA have the same goals is that he has ex-NOVA people in his group, and Boyd went on a suicide mission to protect Jordan's goal. You don't die for a person who has different world views and goals than you.

Perhaps. However, that dream was before Kyle found him, and the actions last season against Ryland and the super soldiers were based on a different motivation. Ryland was creating super soldiers at least in part to battle the 4400. Defeating them serves Nova's purpose of protecting the 4400. Of course, it could be that the Nova people would believe that distributing promicin and creating thousands of new P+'s would help protect the 4400 too, as it is harder to stop tens of thousands of unknown people than 4400 specifically identified people.

I think Kyle's book says that everyone needs to take promicin. If Isabelle properly deciphered the coded text, it appears that 200 influential people will decide to take it and thus convince everyone else to do the same. I don't know how Jordan proposes to make that happen, and I really don't know if he will continue to be nothing more than a vending machine as things unfold. If he were all about peace, love, and harmony between the P+'s and the muggles, why did he tell Shawn that his efforts to heal and bring everyone together prevent them from working together? Sounds like Jordan does not want everyone working together and reaching some common understanding. He is shrewd enough to avoid getting Promise City crushed in its infancy by doing things like forcing people (like Tom) to take the shot, but what will his position be once he is more firmly entrenched and the number of P+s reaches 50-100,000 people?

Maybe the game changed him (who wants to hang up first?), but I think he would need to break from Kyle, Cassie, and the White Light Book to show that he sees a world in which P+'s and those who decide not to take the shot can live together.

Having said all of that, I still think that Jordan believes that his intentions are good and that, even if it means half the world will die, the P+ world he hopes to create is better than the world for which we are currently destined.

I think because Shawn has come out against handing out promicin. Jordan is willing to give it to people, and Shawn isn't. Simple as that, except it's not so simple when Shawn gave it to Danny.

I think Shawn would give it out, just when there are better odds.

What if there ARE no better odds? And what if the whole structure of society collapses, while Shawn is sitting around waiting for something better, because the government is too powerful with promicin soldiers and too repressive about letting people use their abilities? There don't seem to be ANY good choices here, but I'll go with people being able to make their own choices. At least with Jordan, people have a say in their own lives.

Shawn was against the distro, however, I do believe that he feels that it is a choice. That is why he gave Danny the shot. To let him decide if that is what he wants. He will have to take more action eventually, sooner rather than later I hope. I Love Shawn, he is a great character and has grown so much over the last 3 seasons, but he needs to take some action before he does end up "dead" because of his lack of inaction...and hey guys with him on the city council (if he gets elected), maybe he will be able to come up with some idea of how to help with the Promise City issue.

That's a good point, Phanta. I hope if Shawn gets elected he will want to help Promise City. It's not like Seattle would have been able to use that land anytime in the next hundred years, unless they wanted to set up a toxic waste dump.

Richard initially refused to meet with Daniel (after which, Daniel drove Shawn insane). When Isabelle found Daniel, it wasn't until she called Richard that he was able to find them. Later, when Jordan wanted to steal the promicin, Richard seriously waffled over it. So, if he's joined NOVA, I can't see how it could have occurred before the end of last season.

Concerning Boyd, we never did find out if he was an actual member of NOVA or just a wannabe. No one in NOVA ever confirmed it one way or the other. His shooting of Kim was so different from NOVA's rescue of Gary that Ockham's Razor makes me lean toward Boyd having been a wannabe as the simplest explanation. I'm not trying to claim that he was never a member of NOVA. Could be he was. I'm just saying that we should be cautious about using Boyd's actions as indicative of future NOVA actions when some of his past actions directly contradicted known actions of NOVA's founder. Further, any revival of NOVA, even under its original founder, would probably act differently than the previous incarnation simply because outside circumstances have changes so radically. And with a new leader, it would change even more because NOVA was Daniel's vision, those working for him all young people devoted to him personally. So, a new leader would imprint his or her own personality directly on the organizations' goals.




I agree. In their "manifesto" speech following the crop stunt, Daniel spells out NOVA's intent very clearly--"We can be mankind's greatest allies--or their greatest enemies." The message is, "Stop persecuting us and let us help as your equals" not "Get with the evolutionary program or get out of the way." There's absolutely no hint of wanting to dominate humanity. Let's face it, if Daniel had that goal, he'd have achieved it by now. His power is a WMD even greater than Graham's that only Isabelle could stop. And she can't do that anymore, so we better hope that if Daniel's still crazy, he *doesn't* get it together just enough to come back for revenge because nobody will be able to stop him. Jordan is very powerful in his own right, but it's not an aggressive power that he could use to take over the world and so far, it appears to work permanently only on extra-crispies and even then, only in person. Being able to drive anyone crazy from a distance, well, yeah, you could use that to take over the world. So, the fact that NOVA's leader didn't use his power that way would indicate that their goals didn't incline in that direction under their founder.

Whether a revived NOVA (under, say, Richard) would have the same goals, however, is a very different kettle of fish. Numb3rs had a rather interesting episode this past season where a terrorist cell was "hijacked" for a different purpose than its original intent after its founder was killed. It would be cool to see something similar with NOVA.

I think that at heart, Shawn has a good and important idea in trying to avoid casting the conflict between the 4400 and the government in black and white. He's right that there are more grays than either side wants to admit. I just hope he learns to improve his decision-making and follow-through before his actions completely discredit his position and possible future role as a mediator. The fact that he hasn't exactly been a moral paragon, himself, would be a lot less problematical if he'd just dial back on passing judgment on others.

I think he needs to be talking to both sides. Cutting himself off to Jordan is not good. I understand his feelings on the matter, but he is going to need Jordan and his followers I think in the future.

Snowleopard, I had forgotten about Daniel's manifesto. Spelled out like that, him and Jordan sound a lot alike-they both want to help mankind, they don't want to hurt anybody or force anybody to do anything, and they will both defend themselves if attacked. Interesting thought that Boyd could be a wannabe NOVA, but I don't think that's the case. I don't suppose there's any way to say for sure, but TJ Kim seemed to happy to see him, like he was one of her group. She didn't have a reaction like, "What are you doing here?" like she didn't know him or hadn't worked with him before. I do agree him killing her was strange-he could have just rescued her. Maybe Boyd was a member, but kind of a loose cannon. He went on an unecessary suicide mission and blew himself up-that's pretty loose.

As for Shawn, he shoud study that old saying-People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Even Jordan at the height of his power didn't cause a sex scandal, and Shawn is being all high and mighty about the promicin distribution, yet he gave some to his own brother. He really is going to wind up being trusted by neither side at the rate he's going.

yup, Jordan and the Nova were a lot alike in my eyes also, and the reason I started this thread comparing the two.
as for Boyd.. that was not a good decision to become a suicide bomber IMO , he was a valuable asset.. and should not of been sacrificed like that.
They should of come up with another way..

I agree. With all the technology we have and the abilities they have --some kind of remote detination isn't an impossibility.

I guess they didn't have someone who can shape-shift and cast a holographic image while holding a remote detonation device. Poor planning.

No, it isn't-there are plenty of remote detonation devices, timers, and trip wires to trigger bombs without anybody being anywhere near them. Suicide bombers kill themselves to send an additional message-that their cause is important enough to die for. Boyd was not sacrificed-he sacrificed himself. He must have wanted to do this for some compelling personal reason-nothing else makes sense, because it was not necessary for anybody to be in that warehouse. The fake promicin was enough of a draw. But what Boyd's reason was for doing this may never be revealed. I personally always thought that if he wanted to sacrifice himself in this fashion, it must be because of Isabelle's killing spree of NOVA members. I think he wanted some payback. I also think that he did believe Jordan's movement was worth dying for.

re read my post I said it isn't an IMPOSSIBILITY. meaning that it was possible.

I was agreeing with you, Phanta! I just had a little more to say about it, because people often point to Boyd like Jordan forced him into a suicide mission. Boyd was no fresh faced innocent-before he met Jordan he killed TJ Kim and he certainly claimed to be a part of NOVA, which was defying the government and had killed people. I just wanted to point out, in a general sort of way not directed at anybody in particular, that Boyd probably had his own reasons for what he did, and he wasn't forced to go to the warehouse.

It could have been a personal message to Isabelle (or Ryland). I want to see the look on her (his) face when she (he) finds out that it was a trap, and I want them to know that we will fight them on this to the death. It seems to have worked on Ryland, as he seemed utterly defeated. However, Isabelle appears to have said "Now it's personal. You think that was extreme? Watch me go Anakin the younglings!"

lol Oh hellz no you didnt

Yes, I think you're right about this, Bahmo. For some reason, Boyd was not content to stay with the others. He wanted to make it personal. I wonder if Ryland really is out of the picture for good?

Please don't use that five-letter word. It offends me. Please use "did not" instead.

I kid, I kid.

So, does that mean you approve or disapprove of making Anakin a verb that means to slaughter mercilessly? Not sure why I felt the need to compare her little school romp with Star Wars or why I have taken to calling the P-'s muggles.

Maybe you see Jordan as Dumbledore?

Trying to think of some way to insult Jordan as a way of sticking my finger in your side (good-naturedly, of course), but I can't come up with anything and need to run.

I will be away from a computer until Sunday night, so don't go solving anything while I am away (other than Maia's anagram).

Ciao.