Worldwar/Fridge

Fridge Horror

• The Jews had to ally themselves with the Lizards since the Nazis (and several other ethnic groups) want them dead. Flash forward to Homeward Bound where it is implied that the now technologically outdated Lizards will shortly lose their influence due to the tech gap. Then recall that Nazi Germany still exists, Britain was last seen becoming a mirror of Nazi Germany, and a lot of humanity views Jews as traitors to the human race. This cannot end well.
  • A more literal example: in Homeward Bound, The Doctor AKA Henry Kissinger fails to revive properly from cold sleep, and Dr. Blanchard says that he may well have died en route, describing it as "dying in slow motion", an idea which makes Glen Johnson shudder.

Fridge Brilliance

• The Race believes (based on previous conquests of the Rabotev and the Haliss) that all life in the universe is at least somewhat based on reptilian physiology. Thus, they are shocked when they discover our world full of mammals, and wonder what happened. However, if the dinosaurs had not gone extinct, and remained the dominant life-form of Earth, it's entirely possible that they would have evolved into something self-aware, like us.
  • That may be, but the surface of the Earth would still be mostly covered in water. The Race would likely still have to deal with multiple empire and/or not-empires.

Fridge Logic

• How did the Lizards ever evolve into a technologically advanced society at all?
  • The natural instinct of the hatchlings is to avoid adults, and the natural instinct of adults is not to give a shit. Seems like this would lead them to develop a very individualistic lifestyle, like tigers or great white sharks. The very casual approach to sex toward which their physiology predisposes them makes it even more likely. Only animals whose instincts are to socialize extensively would be likely to form complex societies.
  • Then you have the slow rate of technological development--which should be no rate of technological development. Someone said, somewhere along the way, that it's unnatural to have scientific advancement reach a level that's noticeable within a lifetime. Now since new hatchlings are hatched, and elderly Lizards die, every year, it's always within someone's lifetime. So even if every invention and discovery gets sealed in an envelope by the inventor or discoverer with "Do not open until my death," their next of kith--they don't have next of kin, of course--is liable to say "This has to be a blueprint for something that didn't exist when I was hatched so I'm going to ignore it." So they should remain at whatever constitutes Level One of scientific and technological achievement ad infinitum.
    • You're taking things too literally. What that actually means is that in forty or eighty years you go from a biplane to a slightly better biplane. You don't make the jump from biplanes to jets and then to spaceships within the same century.
    • The Race are implied to be perfectionists. They will improve their current technology until it's 99% safe and efficient before even considering something new.
• Why would a race that has never had to build warships have a word for "cruiser"? "Landcruiser" implies there are other kinds of cruisers. By the same token, they have no business refering to their spacecraft as "ships", as not having an Age of Sail means they'd never assume that Space Is an Ocean. While it would be acceptable to assume it's just the closest translation of the term, there's the part where Liu Han hears them call their planes-that-never-come-down "ships" and doesn't understand why.
  • IIRC Much of the Race's homeworld is desert, so it's possible that in their culture and lexicography the desert took on the same significance and meaning that the ocean has for the inhabitants of Earth, and that many of the same terms (or alien equivalents of the same terms at least) we use to describe concepts relating to the ocean were in the Race's culture applied to the desert instead.
• If lizard tech is so advanced, why do their landcruiser commanders still need to stick their snouts out of the turret to see what's going on? They have pretty advanced cameras and computers, as well as holo-projectors. They could very easily set up cameras in a 360-degree arc, kinda like modern M1 Abrams tanks.
  • And commanders in modern Abrams tanks still stick out their heads when they are able because unless most of the tank is covered in cameras, even a 360-degree array still has blind spots.
• In the Second Contact, the Race obliterate Germany when they break the ceasefire. Yet despite the repeated warnings that they will react similarly if they ever discover who blew up one of their colony ships (the USA), they retaliate by... dropping a single nuke (on Detroit, IIRC). Aside from Creator Provincialism, this is dumb strategically too - the USA was the biggest threat to the Race too!
  • The Race had been seriously weakened in the process of obliterating Germany and was still recovering when they found out: trying it would have weakened the Race on Earth to the point that the Soviets would have easily walked over them. Thus Atvar tried a Batman Gambit: first he threatened to obliterate the US, and when they tried to negotiate he let them choose between having a city obliterated or giving up the technology for attempting such an attack again (nuclear weapons and missiles, including the ones used in space travel) expecting they'd choose to give up that pesky technology that allowed the US to fight back in case the Race tried another conquest. Thus when President Warren told him to nuke a city but to please warn him with a minute to spare he had been caught by surprise, but had to act on it.