[Empyrean Ring]

Hi there-

I'm not thinking this is spoilerish, though it could be more of a speculative thing. If you notice any freely available trailers or promo spots for Heroes, you'll see the earth with light shining on it, and then with the sun behind it, it's as if we're in the earth's shadow and we see the eclipse. Pretty cool graphics and all, but what were we seeing?

Is it like the opening of "Serenity", where the Universal Studios logo blends to "Earth-That-Was", and after a few other smooth transitions in the first 9 minutes, you've gotten a decent introduction to the story? At first when I saw that globe, I thought it would be the 'versal logo transitioning to the eclipse. So is there some part artistic/ part relevant reason why we see that transition? Or is it purely just an artistic flair without much meaning to it?

Otherwise, if the scene was supposed to be pertinent to the story, then we're witnessing a solar eclipse only if we happened to be on the side of the earth opposite the sun and from the point of view of some other object in space, like the moon. I mean, the first (and maybe only) ones who have actually been privileged to record such an event (a solar eclipse made when the Earth passes in front of, say the moon) are the second group to land on the moon, from Apollo XII. Is that supposed to be the point of the solar eclipse from the moon's p.o.v.? That it is a rare experience? Otherwise, we would just be shown what a possible lunar eclipse on earth would look like from the moon's perspective, and that's not really part of the story. Unless it's supposed to be a lunar eclipse and I missed that detail...

Oh, and guess what?!? I noticed an annular eclipse will be happening on the 22nd of September this year, which is three days before the official NBC premiere of "Heroes". I'm thinking that's gotta be more than a coincidence! 8)

And one previous annular solar eclipse (which, by the way, is the kind that seems to be portrayed in the previews, since it doesn't look like a total eclipse) that was pretty quick to find happened on the 16 of February, 1999, and the continent of Australia was treated to that sight. And guess what was really close to the path of the shadow?

Do ya know? This time ya gotta guess!

Oh, alright... Why, Uluru, of course! Here's a pic of the path of that eclipse (and you can click here to get the enlarged photo):


I thought that was interesting! Well, the first thing I noticed, the solar eclipse (from the viewpoint of the moon caused by the Earth passing between) in the opening sequence of the previews, was just something I was curious about, and I was wondering if it had any significance or just an artist's touch, BUT the whole idea that there will be an annular eclipse 3 (yeah, that's right, THREE) days before the premiere of "Heroes" and that there was one over Uluru was really interesting! Do ya think that that is part of the plot at all?!?

So, is it just nothing, and I am finding things that aren't there, or do you think it's worth paying attention to?

I've also attached some pics taken from Apollo XII of the earth-caused solar eclipse, just 'cuz it looked similar to the opening eclipse scenes in the previews:
Apollo XII Eclipse Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 Pic 4


Compare with the screenshot found here:Heroes Eclipse screenshot


And I found one company, Finley-Holiday Stock, that has the Apollo XII eclipse video included with a bunch of space videos ( for $299!!!:shock: ), and the link in this sentence goes to a clip of the video. Does anyone know where else to find the solar eclipse recorded by Apollo XII?

Also, if TPTB wanted to add a more sci-fi element to the story, they can tie in the idea that Apollo XII captured video of an "unidentified 'flying' object" while near the moon! Google vids has it here!

And last, if they wanted to tie in some more current events, the space shuttle Atlantis may be in space during the next annular solar eclipse, too!

[Empyrean Ring]

Originally posted by Aron Coleite

Empyrean:

That is so impressive work there. .... impressive.

I can tell you that the eclipse does have meaning on the show and is not simply an artistic choice (although the amazing designers at Stargate, our computer graphics company, just CRUSHED that imagery.) As we always like to say, everything is connected.

Of course, I can't tell you what the eclipse means just yet, that would be giving too much away. But, I will tell you this...

Tim Kring wrote the pilot with the eclipse months and months and months before we knew our air date (or even if we'd make it onto NBC's schedule.) We found out about the Sept. 22 eclipse while we were in the middle of shooting the pilot.

A lot of elements about this show have felt like, they were meant to be. Call it coincidence. Call it fate. Call it whatever you like... but it does feel like stars are aligning. If you believe in that sort of thing.
-coleite

More details (maybe from CaptainNemo's research):

In addition, a number of people wrote it with the same 1962 thoughts, but Brian Summer had all the details. "During the new moon and solar eclipse of February 4-5, 1962, an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical planets occurred (it included all five of the naked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon), all of them within 16° of one another on the ecliptic. At the precise moment of the new moon/solar eclipse, five celestial bodies (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter) were clustered within 3° of each other, with the Earth in close conjunction with them. Taken in totality though, this grand conjunction included the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, with the Earth also in alignment with the Sun and Moon at the exact moment of the new moon/solar eclipse (eight celestial bodies in total)." Wow, that's pretty crazy. So, is the eclipse referred to in the logo actually referencing this event, versus the event in the first episode? And will we ever travel back to February, 1962 in an upcoming episode?

First of all, Brian – we love you. Seriously. We love you. Take that for what you will. And, we did an episode six months in the past. Time is not an issue for this show. Take from that what you will, too.

Source (caution: contains profanity)

More about that grand conjunction:

Friday, Jan. 19, 1962
Concatenation of Calamities
Just outside New Delhi, in low bamboo enclosures paved with dried cow dung, 400 Hindu pundits and priests have gathered this month to recite the Vedic prayer Gayatri Japan 10 million times. Night and day, squatting under TV lights beside shrines and ceremonial fires that they feed with the liquid butter called ghee, they raise their voices, powerfully amplified by loudspeakers, to the circling planets above. For according to India's astrologers, under the conjunction of the planets due early next month, the earth will be shattered by quakes, floods, air crashes, revolutions and wars, in what could be the worst concatenation of calamities in the last 5,000 years. At best, the prayers will only mitigate the situation.
Into Conjunction. In Hindu astrology there are nine planets: Saturn, Mars. Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, the sun, the moon, and the moon in its ascending and descending nodes. In their orbital paths, two or more of the planets occasionally conjoin, meaning that an imaginary line from earth into space would intersect them. But rarely are five planets conjoined; and a conjunction of five planets and the sun (which will simultaneously be eclipsed by the moon) will take place at 5:47 p.m. Indian time on Feb. 3 (7:17 a.m. E.S.T.). Moreover, astrologers note that this zodiacal rarity will happen in Capricorn, one of the "unfavorable" signs of the heavens.*
Indian Astrologer Acharya Keshav Dev predicts that Feb. 3 will be the beginning of an East-West nuclear test competition that should lead to war by 1970. The astrologers of Nepal foresee more immediate consequences. Mani Prasad Ti-wari predicts political changes in China, possibly a revolt in Nepal, natural disasters in Russia, and "civil disturbances" somewhere southwest of Washington, D.C. Nepalese Field Marshal Kaiser Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, an amateur astrologer, expects at least an earthquake near by, and foresees another disturbing possibility: "I would not be surprised if this heralds the coming of a new age in which women will have more rights."
"Makers of Destiny." Indian leaders have scoffed at all the talk of doom, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has twice said publicly that the conjunction of planets will not affect him. "Don't be panicky about these predictions," he said. "We are the makers of our own destiny." But the man in the street of Nepal and India is not so sure. Business on the New Delhi stock exchange has slowed down, as big investors who buy and sell according to the advice of their astrologers have been told to play it safe for a few weeks. The people of Katmandu have built straw huts on the city's parade ground, and propose to spend the night of Feb. 3 there to avoid being trapped in earthquake-toppled houses.
Indians know the stargazers have not always been wrong. In January 1934, there was a conjunction of seven planets just before the great Bihar earthquake destroyed 13 Indian and Nepalese cities and killed 10,000 people. Seven planets also came together in 3102 B.C.—the year of the Mahabharata war, which the old Hindu epics say brought bloody death to millions of Indians and, with their deaths, the end of an age.
*Astrology divides the zodiac (the central band of the heavens that contains the paths of the sun, moon and planets) longitudinally into twelve successive parts, each named, like Capricorn, for the most notable constellation in it.

[The_Heroic_Loser]

How'd you get Aron Coleite to read your stuff?

[Ikin]

Woah...all of that went way over my head!