1 Topic by intangirble (edited by intangirble 2015-12-13 21:41:25)

  • From: Triangle Island
  • Registered: 2015-07-22
  • Posts: 100

Topic: Those unusual names

So for all the info I've seen people dig up on Sliders over the years (and it really is impressive!), one thing I've never seen answered is the question of why the characters were named what they were.

First, they're all unusual names: Maximilian, Rembrandt, Quinn and Wade are hardly common. Then you have Wade and Quinn in particular whose names sound like they belong to the opposite gender. Even Quinn's female double Logan has a name that's usually used for men. (My wife was really struggling with keeping Quinn and Wade straight when I first showed her the series, and when she found out that Quinn's double's name was "Logan" she just lost it.)

Could this have something to do with Tracy Tormé? At least where I'm from, "Tracy" is universally considered to be a feminine name, and I wonder if he wanted to play on that with his characters.


Also, riding on the coattails of something from Cory and Tom: has anyone ever seen fanfic where the Sliders' doubles (other than Quinn) are of the opposite gender? Female Remmy or Arturo, male Wade, etc. I've read a lot of Sliders fanfic, but I've never come across that trope, and you'd think it'd be more popular. Any you'd recommend?

  • From: Where the action is
  • Registered: 2015-11-16
  • Posts: 595

Re: Those unusual names

If you ran across a double of another gender, would you recognize them as a double?  Quinn didn't at first.

  • From: The Floating City of Laputa
  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 229

Re: Those unusual names

The whole Heat Signature/Thermal Print thing was rather weak science really.

There is some truth to People having distinctive Thermal Patterns but an Opposite Gendered Genetic Identical would not work.

Greater Body Fat Index, Hips being Configured differently, Breasts, Height, Weight, Water Retention etc.... Too many Differences to get a Match.

It should have been a Retinal Scan as they would not Differ between Gender or maybe a DNA Test.

If they had gone into uncharted Tech like Bio-Electric Field Comparisons or Alternate Tech related to Kirlian Photography that could have been interesting but obviously less grounded in Current Tech compared to that of the Episode or Retinal and DNA etc.

Real Life Thermal Scans do differentiate between Twins interestingly.
I think the real reason that Tech has not gone more Mainstream though is it's mutability.

A Fingerprint does not change barring external causation and neither do Retinal Prints but Thermal Signatures Change based on Food, Exertion, Illness etc.

Voice Print Analysis was popular for a While too but that had issues too with Mutability and Fraud via Recordings and Modulation so is less respected nowadays.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-
  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 3,291

Re: Those unusual names

Well, identical doubles is something the show used.  It'd be *very* unlikely that you'd instantly recognize any of your doubles.  For there to be an identical double of you, the same sperm and the same egg that created you would've had to have created your double at the exact same time.  Anything else changes and you'd be a "fraternal double" like Mallory.  Or the opposite gender.  You'd be more like siblings than doubles 99.9999999% of the time.  And that's if exist at all.  Or if your parents exist, let alone if they found each other.  If your grandfather doesn't go into the right bar at the right time, maybe he never meets your grandmother.  So you don't exist and one of your parents doesn't exist.

Even if your double was identical, think of all the things that could've happened to make you look not identical.  Maybe you get really into bodybuilding and put on a hundred pounds of muscle.  Or you decide you don't care if you get fat and weigh 400 pounds.  Maybe you decide to grow your hair out.  Or shave it off entirely.  Maybe you decide you look better with a beard.  Or you live on a world with a smaller food supply and are skinny and weak.  Maybe you're born male but end up as a transgender woman.

Sliders seemed, most of the time, to work on the idea that certain things are similar to Earth Prime.  They stayed in the same block in the same city of the multiverse.  So even though the Russians took over America, Quinn's parents 1) still exist 2) still fell in love and got married 3) conceived Quinn the same exact time they did on Earth Prime and 4) Quinn's physical features stayed the same for him to be virtually identical.  Same with Wade and Arturo.  The odds of that are impossibly small, but they exist.  And that's just sorta the rules the show lived by.

  • Registered: 2015-06-29
  • Posts: 192

Re: Those unusual names

Good topic with the names. Never really thought about it that all 4 of their names are pretty uncommon. I do have to say that because of Sliders, whenever I meet a male Logan or female Quinn, it seems odd.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: Those unusual names

The first girl I ever kissed was named Quin(tessence). Which actually tells you all you need to know about her upbringing and her family's values, belief systems and philosophies.

  • From: The Floating City of Laputa
  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 229

Re: Those unusual names

Surf Dance Chris wrote:

Good topic with the names. Never really thought about it that all 4 of their names are pretty uncommon. I do have to say that because of Sliders, whenever I meet a male Logan or female Quinn, it seems odd.

Hmmmmm....... Damn You! Now the Plot Bunnies are on a Swarming Rampage! smile

Logan/James "Wolverine" Howlett from the X Men as a Slider....

On a Marvel verse Note maybe the unthinkable?
Wade VS Wade! Deadpool and his famous Teleporting Belt meets the Sliders!?

Logan Cale from Dark Angel.... He's kind of like a Male Wade Welles with all his hacking and Political Activism too so could be a fun Sliders Cross....

Logan from Logans Run? Kind of like a weird version of Lottery World maybe?

Quinn Morgandorffer from Daria meets Quinn Mallory?! Yikes!!

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-
  • From: The Floating City of Laputa
  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 229

Re: Those unusual names

ireactions wrote:

The first girl I ever kissed was named Quin(tessence). Which actually tells you all you need to know about her upbringing and her family's values, belief systems and philosophies.

The kind of People who if they turned out to be Hippie Sliders from Summer of Love wouldn't come as a shock?

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-
  • From: Triangle Island
  • Registered: 2015-07-22
  • Posts: 100

Re: Those unusual names

omnimercurial wrote:
ireactions wrote:

The first girl I ever kissed was named Quin(tessence). Which actually tells you all you need to know about her upbringing and her family's values, belief systems and philosophies.

The kind of People who if they turned out to be Hippie Sliders from Summer of Love wouldn't come as a shock?

Yeah, I was thinking, "you kissed Wade's nameswapped double?"

A superhero episode of Sliders would've been pretty fun. In a San Francisco where comic books have become the most popular form of media, and a rash of teenage vigilantes have decided to emulate their heroes and take crimefighting into their own hands, for better or worse... the Sliders must go literally undercover as costumed crusaders to get back the timer from a notorious supervillain... okay, that would actually have been pretty silly. But no sillier than "The Fire Within". And they would've got to make the Wade/Deadpool and Quinn/Wolverine quips.

  • From: Where the action is
  • Registered: 2015-11-16
  • Posts: 595

Re: Those unusual names

Perhaps if Sliders is remade they'll keep the same names but make Quinn a girl and Wade a boy.

  • Registered: 2015-06-29
  • Posts: 192

Re: Those unusual names

While thinking about this randomly earlier today, I realized that some other main/recurring characters also had odd names- Angus Rickman and Oberon Geiger - the 2 recurring villains (other than the kromaggs) are both very unusual names.... I would mention Kolitar (the Kromagg, not the Care Bear), but I give him a pass as a Kromagg.

  • From: A CB Basement
  • Registered: 2015-10-26
  • Posts: 33

Re: Those unusual names

I actually knew a girl named Logan. She was one crazy chick. So I see that name as a could-be-either name. XD

Author, artist, sci-fi nerd, rebel against the world, and self-proclaimed eccentric.

13 Reply by KerrAvon (edited by KerrAvon 2015-12-31 16:50:32)

  • Registered: 2015-10-28
  • Posts: 75

Re: Those unusual names

I would think that Logan and Quinn would have identical retina scans, fingerprints, blood type, everything would be identical an no I would not recognize a double who happened to be the opposite sex, nobody would. Fact that Quinn (and Logan) had not a clue is not surprising.  Logan was a very interesting and well thought out plot point. It offered so much promise as Season 3 was getting off with a bang and then after "The Guardian" the show lost its way....

But the heat signature does seem weak and I think fingerprints and DNA would have been more telling.

As far as a re make with changing sex of characters, would be interesting. Anyone recall the Battlestar Galectica re make of the early 2000's. Several male characters from the original series were changed to female; Starbuck and Boomer...