Thoughts about the character changes from S1 to S2 with reference to Connor's techie skills

[deinonychus_1]

Recently I've been having some quite intersting discussions with Munchkinofdoom re the change between S1 and S2 with Connor, and the sudden appearance of his techie computer and engineering skills. Leaving aside how much you take canon at face value for the use of these skills (which myself and Munchkin do entirely disagree about), I've been

Comments

[missyvortexdv]

I wouldn't call it a radical change myself. Tech skills may not have been at the forefront but by the existence of what looked like a potentially custom coded database application in S1 still speaks of vastly more computer skills than any other characters show. Not to mention if I recall correctly there were some videos on there too and whilst Connor may have collated info including the videos from other sources, but he may also have animated them himself possibly based on the other info he'd got...

I'd definitely concede that at the very least they have considerably emphasised his hardware tech skills. S1 was more about knowledge, both explicitly pointed out dino-geekery and more implicit software/coding and research skills.

[deinonychus_1]

I'd quite like to think that the computer skills were there all along in S1, and it is possible to argue that it was merely a case that they were never relevant to any plotlines, so were never obviously used. Certainly the database was impressive, and maybe hinted at more techie skills than we ever actually saw in S1, but to me it just felt like a big jump away from what we had previously seen of the character.

I suppose there isn't enough evidence in canon to be certain either way, but I defintiely feel that the writers deliberately went in a different direction with Connor in S2, and made far more of an effort to give him something that was 'his' area of expertise.

[joereaves]

But in S1 those computer skills were clearly *software* skills. Being able to program a complicated database is a completely different skill to being able to engineer the moon rover thing or the Anomaly Detector. Nothing in S1 suggested he spent his spare time building computers or such - nothing specifically said he didn't, but it's a skill that there was no evidence of before S1. I could probably, at a push, figure out the database, but I couldn't build a moon rover :D

[missyvortexdv]

It may be moot considering S2 changes, but personally I didn't have a problem thinking he could make for example the moon rover.

They *are* different skills, but based on the software geeks I know - who do not have any more experience than repairing or putting together pc's on occasion - they're quite happy to go with the school based electronic they did and figure out how with the help of the internet guides.

As for the ADD, we never have any evidence he made the hardware, do we? I can't believe he orchestrated it all himself - that's got to take a team, even if he was leader of it (which seems unlikely to my mind unless it's a title for sake of ego).

[deinonychus_1]

different skills, yes, but in a related area. I have to admit I'm not techie in the slightest, so I dont know just *how* different, but surely if he started with software as a precocious 14 year old with the database, then it isn't much of a stretch to say he branched out into interests in hardware and engineering at a later stage when he was a little older.