Warehouse 13/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In some episodes the characters work under the assumption that "if it has no other explanation, it's an artifact". However, now that Alphas is in the same universe, it could be that the warehouse agents would go to missions only to discover that there are no artifacts involved, only.. people with supernatural powers. And that can make really awkward situations for the agents. Someone got an idea, or it is just that Syfy screwed their own series' logic?
    • Already brought up on the Alphas page. Basically, it's been established that Artie has protocols for determining whether or not an Artifact is responsible for weirdness. Presumably, those protocols include determining whether or not an Alpha is involved. Maybe there's an Artifact that keeps track of every Alpha in the world.
  • Okay. We have the top secret warehouse filled with lots of dangerous stuff which separate may be more dangerous than all of the nuclear warheads combined. And apparently there are a few agents that keep this place (2 field agents, 1 local agent, 1 19-year-old girl which in theory has no clearance and 1 hotel manager). And there is an oversized bureaucracy (Ms. Frederic + her bodyguard + around 10 of superiors). Why there is no 5 more people just to keep this place in check - for example doing monitoring. It is not as if hiring 5 top-secret agents would damage the US budget.
    • Its probably just that the less people who know about it the better.
    • Except the Regents outnumber the actual staff. And considering how many artifacts abound, it wouldn't it be prudent to have multiple teams out and about looking for things? To have multiple Arties and Claudias to help with research and such? To have people training to be the next Artie? Considering how deadly or quirky some of the artifacts could be, it would be equally prudent to have more than one person with an encyclopedia brain in order to handle things.
    • This is standard for TV—see Oddly Small Organization. Torchwood and Sanctuary do the same thing.
    • The Regents justify this in their first appearance. If they let the government have any level of control, there'd be nothing left of the Warehouse. They recruit from the Secret Service, but otherwise normal people run the show in order to minimize the chance of abuse.
      • That's not really justification at all though since it's not like normal people are any better - most of the villains in the show are normal people with no government connections to begin with. Most of the people that have found them have been normal. In fact, the only government people involved have all been friendly and helpful. This isn't to say that it should be purely government run, but rather, trying to justify it with what comes across as a kneejerk "Government Baaaad/Evil" dismissive response doesn't work. Suffice to say, it's not government they worry about it's people - and they should recruit and cultivate connections (one way or another, whether as the warehouse or as some Non-Warehouse Organization) with anybody they can trust. However, the Eureka crossover episode and Artie episode perhaps suggests that it's perhaps more a line or at least, policy more than perhaps truth (Artie is ex-CIA). There's someone(s) high enough that they can get a secret non-existent group of scientists to help a secret non-existent warehouse with what amounts to tech support and arrange for the transfer of personnel. This means someone(s) has knowledge of both places and is in a position of power to work with both. Though to be fair to the show, the show isn't that kind of show so, Handwave I suppose.
        • Eureka is a case in point why the Regents don't allow government involvement. That place is turning out weapons left and right. Imagine if they got their fingers in the Warehouse cookie jar. Unimaginable horrors could be unleashed, arguably just as bad as what Eureka puts out, if not worse. Sure, what little government involvement there is now is with nice people, but only because they don't interact with anyone else. If they allowed government involvement on any other level than "we're renting this spot, thanks", it'd become like Eureka. Sure, evil people have been made through their contact with the Warehouse, but this is not something that would change with government involvement. It would actually be worse because a larger staff, with less work into careful selection, would breed more people like MacPhearson. The Regents are perfectly justified in their fears; Eureka is proof.
        • Eureka not proof. Eureka is funded by the military. The government is not the same entity. As well, Eureka does good things too and the majority of the people there are quite responsible; their 'weapons' are at worse less-than-lethal and we all know they could quite easily let the military use any one of their accidents as a weapon. As well, the majority of their projects are completely non-weapons. Let's not forget that NASA is also a government agency. MIT, Harvard, Stanford, all also receive grant money and funding from the government. As are many other services and agencies with very little malicious intent. While -some- bad might happen, it's a kneejerk reaction to say that it'd turn into 1984. It's not a black-and-white issue. This is not to say that it is not a valid fear but ultimately, bad people will do bad things whether or not they're part of the government; the government itself is just a concept not some evil corrupting force.
          • And what department do you think the Warehouse would be turned over to if it became a government-run operation? If the government gets involved, it would relegate the Warehouse to something, because it's a secret project. If you're going to hide spending, hiding it in military line items is the way to go. Yes, not all governmental administration is bad, but it would assuredly be placed under the discretion of the one that is liable to abuse it. That's why they can't trust the government to have control.
          • Who said it would be 'turned over to' any department as opposed to just being supported by another organization? And it'd be part of the IRS, Secret Service, and Treasury department - as it is now (in that they draw from there/use it as a cover) only without having to browbeat people just doing their job like Myka's old boss. There is, however, one good reason to be as divorced from a ruling body as they are - it makes it easier to create and change Warehouses as needed as being civilian and completely unrelated, they can ignore international law and such without causing (unofficial) incidents that would be bad for people as whole - nobody likes people from other nations coming in and bossing them around very much - and allow them to conduct business under faux covers. At worse, they'd be charged with art smuggling or what have you. Also, stop changing the goal posts.
            • What goal posts? I'm only trying to illustrate why the abuse would happen. It's highly unlikely that the Warehouse would be administered under the IRS, given the nature of its work. They may use the IRS as a cover, but then lots of secret professions no doubt set up covers in otherwise innocuous settings to deflect suspicion. Doesn't mean the cover job is who they answer to. Incidentally, the Secret Service is now part of Homeland Security, though to be fair it was part of the Treasury for the majority of Warehouse 13's operation. Your reason for the separation also fits.
            • Well, no one's managed to do any lasting damage, yet, so it seems they've found the ideal number of employees, no? Also, as an aside about the Government issue, I offer the following: As we saw with Warehouse 2, this organization existed long before any currently surviving government. Why should they change what's been working out splendidly for thousands of years?
    • Much of the mystery behind this is cleared up when it is revealed that the Regents do take an active role in containing artifacts - just not directly.
      • Also, regardng the amount of employees, in one of Artie's pictures w/ him and Mcpherson, there are about 20-30 agents in it. And when Myka and Pete go back in time, we see there're about 10-15 agents/researchers in the Warehouse. Maybe it's just that as time went by, the Warehouse agents got more and more efficient, thereby eliminating the need for larger numbers? Also, with the additions of season 3, we've got around six employees, (including Leena and not including Mrs. Fredericks) and by the finale we've got around 8-ish? (and then 5-ish again, in a horrifying burst of kill-em-all fury.)But beside the point, you have got to keep in mind that in the first episode, there was just Artie. Look how far we've come, guys!
  • Why can the entrance bomb be turned on from the outside? I mean - no one puts the gate control outside the castle - you want the people in to keep people from outside... out. As there are greater chances that your agents are inside. It wouldn't allow MacPherson to turn on the bomb and kill Artie.
    • By contrast, if things go to hell inside, you may want to have a way to seal the place off in case of emergency, and that includes blowing up the only viable exit.
    • However, this doesn't make any sense since in 2x1, they get out of the Warehouse just fine... by using the stairs!
      • It does if you consider that not every threat knows how to use the stairs.
        • Except robots from Doctor Who - which does not?
          • Some artifact running amok.
          • The greater threat though is people not artifacts. Most artifacts aren't going to wander off by themselves. Those that could probably aren't going to be stopped by an exploding bomb (Artie was vaporized and the Phoenix thingie put him and itself back together). The only explanation would be some sort of emergency stair internal to the warehouse erected for the sole purpose of exiting the warehouse after it's been sealed...
          • If you're referring to Daleks, they are not robots and have been able to climb stairs since 1988. Granted, it would protect against Mechanoids or Quarks.
            • I'm not quite sure. I have read about it in book which was not in english and intended for audience not familiar with Doctor Who (well - ok, the translation of book). I'm not familiar with all Dr. Whoverse so it might been Lost in Translation.
  • Why, in "Nevermore", does Myka just not say that her job is classified (which it is)? It is not like she could say all about her job before so her parents should not be too surprised.
    • In some cases, simply saying that something is classified is classified and illegal. For instance, the vast majority of the documents handled by US document archives are little more than mundane details and such. However, they're classified since the very act and source of such information is sensitive. Knowing that Terrorist A had a ham sandwich is unimportant... but knowing that you got that information from the secret agent posing as his best friend?
      • Well. I'm not an agent (or do I ;) ) so I don't know (sounds logical) but it should not be surprise for her parents that she does not talk much about job. Or she could just continue Maskarade against her parents if she does.
      • It could also be a policy similar to the CIA. Anyone that works for the CIA can be jailed and charged (legally) for revealing that they are an agent. Anyone that reveals that someone else is an agent can be jailed and charged. The reason being a matter of security; having people outside the agency know who agents are puts the agents and anyone else they're in contact with at risk. It's the whole superhero secret identity thing.
  • Why there is no backup circuit for the neutralizer? In case it gets blocked, like in "Breakdown". It's not as if it was not a standard procedure in such facilities.
    • I always thought that the Gooery was sort of an Artifact in and of itself. They don't make a second system for backup because they can't make a second system for backup.
      • Relevant to that, if the Gooery is as opaque as they make it out to be, why were the Eureka staff so easily able to make it better. Superscience aside, obviously.
  • Why did they give Mr. Frederick's necklace to MacPherson? it's not as if his life was more important then compromising Warehouse security. And even so, why they didn't take it off afterward? And how is bronzing people much better than killing them - especially since you can reverse the process?
    • It's especially annoying because they really don't want the process reversed. So they're not killing him, they're just stopping all brain and body activity for eternity, if they're lucky. Because that's a much smarter and more humane plan.
      • And as seen in S2, it doesn't even stop brain activity. And, as the debronzing goes, it doesn't age them at all so it's as helpful as it is harmful. And what's worse, being trapped in your body for eternity or an execution and sending them to heaven/hell (as also implied by S2)?
        • Both options are not quite good and I guess it is matter of discussion (I guess it have to be boring after 10 days).
          • If it wasn't boring, what would be the point of being stood in the corner to think about what they'd done?
            • Wells' coment about awakening in a different world sounds like an Author's Saving Throw to suggest that bronzing (contrary to what we were told) doesn't leave the person conscious.
              • Not at all. How exactly would she know about the modern world when the entirety of her time while bronze was spent in a box or on a shelf or something. She had zero company or interaction the entire time.
    • They didn't take it off because he'd die on the spot. As seen in season 2.
  • Why did Pete think announcing he was 'US Secret Service' would have any effect at all in Britain? Similarly how on earth did Myka manage to shut down the museum with no international jurisdiction?
    • As of Pete: "Americans..."
    • People assumed they were with the president?
  • Why was Claudia not arrested - she travels by plane and was issued a 'wanted' document (sorry I don't know the English name). And how does CERN have enough antimatter to fuel anything (no, Dan Brown is not a specialist)?
    • They never said Claudia had a warrant issued for her arrest, and this CERN obviously has an easier time making antimatter than its real-life counterpart.
      • My point is why they didn't issue a warrant issue. She might work for a Big Bad which is said the he could be worst then Hitler (thus qualifing for bronzing). She is known to go to CERN (which apparently have antimatter).
        • They didn't issue a warrant because they were rather busy chasing three different things at once. Also, she does not regularly go to CERN. Her brother works there, which means she'd be in the area, not in the building.
        • I mean she was known to go to Switzerland/France (last time I checked it was on Switzerland/France border in suburbs of Geneva. It means that she have to travel though at least one ocean (probably one - Atlantic). After 9/11 it should not be a problem to find person travelling on cross-atlantic flight which made no alteration to her look.
  • If the Escher Vault is so difficult and impossible to get through... why aren't the artifacts in the Dark Vault put -there- in addition to the procedures at the Dark Vault??
    • Because the artifacts in the Escher vault are personal effects, not dangerous items in and of themselves.
    • An artifact did it and they don't know how to combine artifacts.
    • Even though Dark Vault artifacts are dangerous, they still need to be accessible in case they start acting up. If something in the Escher Vault starting going crazy, it would take several minutes of careful walking before an agent could even get to it.
      • As far as they know, the personal effects aren't dangerous, or have powers, or else they'd be in regular storage or the Vault.
      • If the personal effects aren't dangerous or have powers... why the heavy security then? Warehouse personnel are certainly Genre Savvy enough to have ways to counter things like artifacts acting up. The Dark Vault has backup generators for instance. It's not that dangerous things need to be accessible, it's the security surrounding non-dangerous things with no powers at all.
        • They're kept secure in such a manner because they're not dangerous by themselves. They can't do any harm on their own, but if their original owners managed to get them back, they could potentially be very dangerous. The other artifacts need to be out in the open so any potential problems can be dealt with in a timely fashion. In the Escher Vault, it'd take five minutes just to find them, and you couldn't seriously set up a containment system in a place with constantly-changing architecture.
      • The effects of artifacts in the Dark Vault are neutralized by a constant flow of the purple goo. Running a pipe of the stuff into the Escher Vault would be impossible.
  • Why the furniture did not fall on ceiling when shielded from gravity?
    • Maybe it was like H. G. Wells electromagnetic shoes.
      • It does kinda make sense that she'd rig it up to only work on people not using the shoes, and leave everything else alone.
  • Why, WHY IN GOD'S NAME, would MacPherson tell H.G. Wells about the necklace around his neck? That was just asking to be betrayed. It just doesn't fit the James MacPherson we knew from the first season.
    • Loves makes you dumb perhaps. He obviously digs the girl.
  • What the hell is the deal with Artie's haxor skills? In the pre Claudia episodes he is a regular hacker, being able to, kinda, track the intruder on their network (sure, it was a lure, but the lure itself was based upon his ability to track it back), and is seen very comfortably using all the computational resources of the Warehouse. Then, after Claudia arrives he became almost a computer illiterate, dumb enough to simply click on an unprotected link and get a lecture from Claudia about it. But things get really weird around the first episode with Claudia as a regular when Artie himself asks Myka for pictures, a lot of them if I recall, of the corpse they found, jump to a few minutes later, with Artie stating those same pictures he demanded are pretty much useless, only to be shown by Claudia how wrong he is in thinking pixels are inferior. Sure, Claudia needed a niche of her own in the warehouse, but still it was pretty jarring to see Artie being stripped of his haxor skills like that.
    • Artie has shown a penchant for liking more conventional media. His dislike of digital photographs could come under that. As for his hacking skills, it kinda helps that he has access to every database on the planet. To the specific issue of clicking the link, Artie was obviously caught up in the moment and didn't think it through.
      • Not to mention Claudia has tinkered with everything in the Warehouse, including adding her own code programs to the computer - he mentions it in 'Trials'. She's more efficient and uses both her own physical inventions and computer programming and the system that they use was updated by Fargo. IIRC, Artie was using an artifact to hack the Internet and/or an older system enhanced by an Artifact, Claudia just using a straight up and down computer system. Considering that she's the one who circumvented Warehouse security from the outside, I'd say she generally made things safer.
  • Just what constitues an artifact? Some of the items appear to be genuinely magical, while others are "just" highly advanced technology, and yet they are all affected by the neutralizer. Would the neutralizer also affect, say, an iPod?
    • When has the neutralizer ever affected straight technology? Anyway, artifacts are classified as anything beyond the normal realm of human understanding, even advanced tech.
      • But "advanced tech" and "beyond the realm of normal understanding" are totally subjective (why does the Farnsworth/Tesla/Wells stuff count but the atom bomb doesn't?). I'd say an easier handwave is that the "technological" artifacts use magical parts.
        • The atom bomb is something they couldn't have hidden. Things like the record and the Farnsworth are way beyond their time.
        • What I'm trying to point out is that these are all subjective definitions, meaning that there's still no reason why something physical (like the neutralizer) would affect all and only things that aren't "understood". If X years from now stuff like the "turns-images-into-matter camera" is understood, it wouldn't make sense for a substance to stop affecting it just based on what people know.
          • As I said, has the neutralizer ever affected straight technology? I can't remember an instance where they used it on something like that.
          • In the first episode, Artie says of the neutralizer. "...and it doesn't, always. Work, that is." On a side note, the gooery (and hence the neutralizer) seems to be an artifact itself, and one of the "magic" ones at that. So there's that.
    • Though this troper agrees it's occasionally all over the place especially in the way that artifacts gain their power (half seem made, other seem to gain power by proxy of someone extraordinary), in most cases, there's suggested to be at least some sort of scientific explanation for it (silver nitrate, jade, radiation, whatever). The difference between things like the Farnsworth and other ones are probably more about the level of understanding of humanity; they just don't understand enough about, say, the Man Ray camera to explain it beyond a trivial level. There may not be any real distinction, just a matter of usage and understanding. Until something is fully understood, the warehouse keeps it locked up. After all, there really hasn't been any attempt to goo 'regular' technology so we can't say that it wouldn't neutralize it. For something like the Farnsworth and the Tesla, it's probably a matter of retaining an advantage as both are apparently well understood (both by warehouse science and regular science).
    • Of course with the recent Eureka/W13 crossover... that just makes things more confusing since Eureka-tech is often as 'magical' (if handwaved) as W13 artifacts are 'scientific' (if handwaved). I suppose the neutralizer has the power of plot.
    • I'm just guessing but I think artifacts work by affecting electricity in some way since artifacts are affected by lightning and when some are used or neutralized, there's some kind of discharge. So yes, I'd say they might work on technology
      • Though now it begs to ask why Myka classified the grappling gun as an artifact. Unlike most of the stuff they have or use, this one is actually much more feasible (if requiring more tech than would have actually existed in the time) than unlimited range video/radios or self-charging stun guns and doesn't involve magi-tech/techno-magic.
        • Myka probably did it to keep herself from being tempted to keep it.
    • Both the Wild Cards books and the Whateley Universe stories feature “inventor” characters whose inventions are actually just channeling their creator’s supernatural power. They shouldn’t work under the normal laws of physics, but the inventor believes they should work, so they do. What if certain people like Wells and Farnsworth in the Warehouse 13 universe have a similar ability? The resulting items might look vaguely scientific but under the hood they would be just like any other artifacts; powered by magic.
  • Claudia. Just... fucking Claudia. She's the most irritating character imaginable. She doesn't listen, to the point of almost getting herself killed more than once. She refuses to respect authority and experience. She has no clearance and no actual purpose in the Warehouse other than to "hippify" the cast for the younger generation. (Kids, just so you know, acting like that in your real job will get your snarky ass fired before your first break.) Worst of all, in the behind the scenes footage, the actress is EXACTLY THE SAME as her character. She needs that freckle slapped off her damn cheek! She Just Bugs Me.
    • To the job thing, the only alternative to hiring her was killing her (and firing her now would be the same thing, really), and she is good at what she does.
      • She spent most of her childhood in a mental institution, and it was kinda Artie's fault, so it's really no wonder he lets her get away with a lot.
    • Plus, it's not like working at the Warehouse is a normal job. The people who work there obviously have access to quite a lot of top secret information, and also have a tendency to be very, very good at whatever it is they do - Claudia's a tech genius, it was stated in "Breakdown," that Pete and Myka have an extremely high Artifact retrieval rate, ect. They basically all have a licence to be a Bunny Ears Lawyer, because when you think about it, there's no way the Warehouse can afford to fire anyone for something as trivial as being a Deadpan Snarker. Also, this troper got the impression they added the character to the show so Artie would have someone to play off of, and to open him up a bit... And perhaps because a regular cast of three is probably a little small.
  • On Bronzing: Artie said they do this to someone "who might become the next Hitler". Okay, so what do they do, keep them in that state forever? Seriously, based on what we later find out about the process, it seems to me it would be considerably less cruel to just execute them and get it over with.
    • In a word, yes. They keep them like that until the end of time. Maybe they just aren't willing to take the risk that some random artifact could bring them back to life.
    • H.G. Wells specifically stated she agreed to be bronzed because she wanted to wake up in a better world. Which indicates there is supposed to be some sort of time limit to how long people are bronzed for.
    • Perhaps but Artie has stated that ghosts do not exist and there seems precious few artifacts that can bring someone back from the dead. Even the Phoenix works at the time of death and not after the fact. Out-of-universe, it's probably just to avoid having to deal with the good guys performing executions/killing in a relatively light hearted show.
    • It's scarily reminiscent of Wolfram and Hart's prison facility on Angel ("Welcome to hell"). Except W&H are pure evil, so it makes sense that they'd treat their prisoners like that, but the ones in charge of the Warehouse are supposed to be the good guys. What the Hell, Hero??
      • On killing it's said that they do that so as to not stain the killer's soul.
  • How come Artie was so adamant that Hugo be put back in his human body rather than into the computer? Immortality and the completion of his life's work versus becoming an old man with thirty years of his life missing? I think Hugo would have chosen the latter, especially as this is presumably what he had planned when he initially designed the machine.
    • Hugo was trying to copy his brain, not download it, and Artie really can't have an AI running the Warehouse. He restored Hugo to his proper body, rather than a machine which stole half his brain and wanted the rest.
    • Simple. Artie knows Hugo, and doesn't want someone with his personality in control of the Warehouse.
    • The Laser-Guided Amnesia was a bit of a Deus Ex Machina, too. I mean, they established that the Artifact transfers memory (Claudia's "Your whole life just flashed in front of my eyes." to Fargo). Hugo should have been able to remember being Hugo One, and called Artie out for Reversing The Polarity and trapping him in an organic body that spent the last thirty years in a sanitarium and is nearing the end of its life.
    • True, but the left side was shut down in the computer and the right was essentially too screwed up to put anything in long term memory. Not even close to a Deus Ex Machina if you ask me.
    • "The human body fails eventually, computers are forever." Yeah right Hugo, tell that to my iMac, may God rest its central processor...
    • That, and if he really wanted to be the AI after they got Hugo back together, they could always just put him back in and make it stick this time.
  • Not really bugging me but after taking a swim in Boiling Point, does Claudia now have some form of Charles Atlas Superpower, or did the anti-amino acids take care of that?
    • The amino acids likely negated the steroidal effects of the drink, thereby making Claudia normal. She doesn't visibly gain much if any muscle mass during her short exposure.
  • In the episode where Pete and Myka engage in Mental Time Travel, how did the retired agent have a memory of her blackout before they had actually taken the trip back in time? (I watched it during the marathon yesterday and trying to figure that out made me dizzy.)
    • Because she already blacked out. See You Already Changed the Past. Time travel in this series is linked to cause and effect, except the effect is predating the cause. Rebecca told Wells about the effect: she blacked out. They find the video by Pete and Myka and learn more about the circumstances about the effect. Then they use the time machine, creating the cause of that effect. Causality cannot be broken. Using the time machine doesn't change history because history has already taken its use into account before it was ever used.
      • Okay, now I follow. Good explanation by the way. But following that logic, if history is accounting for the use of the time machine and as H.G. Wells puts it, "the ink in which our lives is written is indelible", then that means that, historically speaking, Pete and Myka already used the time machine to travel back and search for the artifact, which they later buried in the orchard. So shouldn't they have a memory of where they buried the knife before they even travel there?
        • No, because they didn't travel back until this episode. Their memory is linear, even if it doesn't exist in a linear state. Up until the moment they used the time machine, their minds had only experienced events from birth to that point. Upon using the time machine, their minds experience events in the past, until returning to their own bodies in the present. The memory of where the knife is buried doesn't exist until they use the time machine.
        • Okay, that makes sense. I think the next time I watch a time travel episode of something, I'm just going to adhere to Bellisario's Maxim.
      • Think of it like this. Imagine a rollercoaster (or a stripe of paper or a plane) that makes a loop in the air. This is their memory. It's always 'going forward' but until they get to the point in their memory where something happens, they don't remember it no matter 'when' it is.
      • Relevant to this, the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle
      • What's more bugging: W13 and Eureka share an universe. In Eureka mental time travel can change the past...
        • What happened in Eureka was physical time travel, not mental.
          • No, the first time was mental. The second was physical. Both were not stable time loops. W13 is a stable time loop.
            • Not only is the Eureka time machine built a century later than HG Wells' one, using the advanced technology available there, but it takes Henry about four years to actually build the thing. Presumably, he was able to overcome the problems that Helena found insuperable.
  • So we go from I want my daughter back to I want to bring up some volcanos and kill innocent people.... how?
    • After the time machine idea didn't pan out, she instead decided that Humans Are Bastards. It can be surmised that much of her sob stories about searching for a resurrection artifact were a cover for her true motives. Little extreme, but people with access to that kind of power would be more likely to see it as a solution to their problems.
  • This is a relatively minor thing, but after Mc Phearon has been bronzed, someone (I think Artie), says it would be catastrophic if anyone found a way to reverse the bronzing process, then when Mc Leana goes to debronze Mcphearson, there's a DEBRONZE button right next to the bronze button.
    • He may have been suggesting that someone finding out how to do it without the fancy equipment or otherwise replicating the facilities W13 has.
  • Why don't the agents have a different cover (outside Univille, of course), like an FBI badge? Secret service is highly suspicious as people know that their job is basically protecting the president. On the other hand, FBI does investigate homicide cases and burglaries so it might not cause so much suspicion.
    • The Secret Service has other jobs as well.
    • Namely, anti-counterfeiting and fraud investigation (which was the reason it was created in the first place). It was even under the Department of the Treasury (as is the IRS, and if you remember, Pete says he works at an IRS warehouse) until the Department of Homeland Security was formed.
  • So if it weren't for the artifacts would history greats still be great?
    • Artifacts usually exist because history's greats were great, so yes.
    • It's left deliberately unclear whether the famous owner was merely the most well-known user/victim of a particular artefact, or whether the artefact is imbued with the attributes of the famous owner. It may be a bit of both.
      • It canonically depends on the artifact, but overall, it is "a bit of both". Some are one, some are the other, some are bits of both.
  • Near the end of "Love Sick" Myka and Pete find Steve bronzed and then spend time just talking still trying to figure out what happened that they can't remember. We know from what happened to H.G.Wells that while bronzed, a person's mind is still active. Neither Pete nor Myka think "let's get him out of there quickly!". When they do release him they just act like nothing's wrong and laugh off him wondering what happened. THEY TRAPPED HIM WHERE HE COULDN'T MOVE FOR HOURS!!!!
    • HG might not have been honest about the part. Jinx clearly wasn't aware of what happened.
    • Perhaps one's perception of time is slowed while bronzed? HG would have logged enough days to get some time to think, but from Steve's perspective it would be nothing more than an odd sensation.
  • Okay, so in "Love Sick", apparently you need a DNA sample from a high-ranking worker, like Artie, to de-bronze somebody. However, you don't need one to actually bronze them in the first place. Why don't you need a DNA sample to bronze them, for exactly this sort of reason? And as far as I know, they didn't have Artie's toothbrush to bronze Steve, so as far as we know, you don't need to have a sample for bronzing somebody.
    • It's simple: a grunt can stuff someone in a cell, but only someone authorized can let them out. There's no harm in letting someone without clearance do the bronzing. It's implicitly assumed that whoever is being bronzed isn't a hapless rookie being tricked inside by his drunken coworkers. However, they cannot let him out because they are not in charge. If they could let Jinx out, they could let anyone out, including the dangerous ones. You can't trust that responsibility to field agents.
  • How exactly did McPherson know HG? He addresses her as "old friend" shortly after debronzing her, but she's apparently been stuck there since the 1890s. So when did they become acquainted?
    • Keyword: "apparently". How do we know McPherson didn't get wise to her plan at some point and debronzed her for a chat?
  • Why does no one question the fact that Charles Wells, who does not have the initials H.G., published his books under the name H.G. Wells? In "3... 2... 1" Helena, who does have the initials H.G., says that she gave him all the ideas, and they just laugh her off. I know women weren't considered smart enough or whatever to write books at the time, but wouldn't anyone wonder why Charles was publishing under his sister's name?
    • All he has to do is say it's a pen name. Really, not many people are going to go digging into it. They're just books, after all.
      • It's still odd for a man to be running around using his sister's initials for writing. Based on his personality as seen in the show it also seems odd that someone who likes fame not take the chance to put their actual name on their work.
  • Given how destructive Jericho's horn was shown to be, wouldn't using it to propel a rocket just blast an enormous hole in the ground beneath it? It vaporised what's-his-name, but the floor around and under him wasn't even scratched.
      • While he was made out to look like an idiot in the flashback Helena had already said that her brother was a good writter and she had given him her invention ideas so he could put them in his books. It's obvious that he was a bit drunk at the time anyway. And as we all know, people (even nice ones) act pretty cocky when they're drunk.
    • That difference is the purpose of all the machinery surrounding the horn.
      • The horn was described as working on sonic frequencies, they just seem to be set to human (notice how most victims leave clothes behine). The real question is why, when in the first place the horn was used to bring down walls, it seemed to be most effective on organic matter.
  • Why on Earth didn't HG put the bomb in the force field?
    • I was thinking that too, but then I figure that HG knew if you try to contain the bomb inside the small force field, the field would shatter.
    • That's quite plausible, but I just wish they'd just said that. Ah well, I guess we will have to wait until next season to find out.
    • The field wouldn't drop until the danger to the Warehouse would pass, the field should've held strong if the bomb was in it. Also the field was right next to the bomb, if she worried about the bomb destroying the field by proximity she probably would've thought it was useless putting the shield around the trio.
    • Having the bomb inside the bubble would've required absorbing many times more energy, since pretty much all of the explosion would hit the barrier; but they made it pretty clear that nothing can get through it, and that it works in both directions...
      • True, but that was clearly an exaggeration. When the artifact did detonate, it caused a shockwave that clearly rocked Leena's, which was several miles away. The people inside the Warehouse also felt and heard the effects of the cannon that was fired at it. The barrier was strong enough that the agents wouldn't have been able to break out, and that could mostly absorb the blast of a nuclear explosion, but a minuscule part of it probably would have just broken apart.
  • Why couldn't the bomb have been placed in the Escher Vault? The vault seems to have infinite space and at worst it would destroy the vault and its contents but not the entire warehouse.
    • Key word "seems". By no means Word of God, but as Escher's talent as an artist lay in making the impossible (i.e., infinite space in a finite enclosure) seem plausible by way of tricky perspectives and intersecting lines.
  • What happened to Jinks' inability to convincingly lie, even under emotional duress? Was he lying about not being able to lie early on, in case he needed to use his training as a Deep-Cover Agent?
  • Why Jinks had to return to Sykes? He already knew that Sykes would be at the airport, and that Marcus and hacker are his only allies. Steve could suddenly attack Marcus, disable him and go to the airport with Pit and Myka. This all the bad things would be averted. Sykes endgame? Who needs Fake Defector if you can have Big Bad himself?
    • From how quickly Marcus recovers from Leena hitting him over the head, it seems that disabling him might be trickier than that. The regents were afraid that Sykes would have things in place even in the eventuality of his own death or capture - as it turned out, after all, he had a bomb in his wheelchair - and were afraid that even if they could capture him he might still have something up his sleeve.
  • Why is there a row of Harrier Jump Jets (troper is usure if the jets are the RAF version or the USMC version) in the front of the warehouse? These can be seen in the opening title sequence during a camera pan where the camera's POV goes over the office's balcony and deeper into the warehouse. It may be necessary to do frame by frame to fully see the planes. Troper is interested to find out if these will eventually be incorporated into an episode.
    • The Hindenburg (or a similar zeppelin), an old-school windmill, and various other random things are in there. It would take forever to explain the purpose of every sight gag.
  • Sykes had a computer hacker working for him. It would have been trivial for the hacker to access a chess program and use that to try to solve the chess lock. They would have quickly seen that it required a trick solution. Instead Sykes uses the hacker as cannon fodder for the death trap. Sykes might be insane but he is not that stupid.
    • Well, Sykes was going to kill the hacker eventually anyway, and wanted to cause HG as much pain as possible (insane psychopath and whatnot). If Pete and Myka hadn't shown up, he probably would have done that when HG got in the chair.
    • Chess programs don't work the way you think they do. Generally, they store the known possible end games and work backwards far enough to have some idea of the a mid-game. The start game is basically attempting to get to a known mid-game. So depending on what program he used, he'd at best get a "Not possible to win" answer... which doesn't necessarily tell him much since it's possible the end game is not known or that it really is not possible to win. He wouldn't know. And even if he did know, he'd still not know what sort of trick answer is required.
  • When did Helena get the locket to leave for Myka in Hong Kong? Sykes kidnapped her as Emily Lake, who had no idea about the locket, and I don't think they would have made a pit stop at the Escher vault to pick it up between Skybrook and China.
    • HG had already gotten the locket out from the Escher Vault in "Time Will Tell", if I recall correctly. It isn't a stretch to have given the locket to Emily Lake.
      • But why would the Regents let her keep it? It seems like there's a risk of her regaining her memories, and even if the coin is infallible, I'm sure Emily would try to track down this mysterious girl, which would lead to lots of questions... It just seems simpler for them to confiscate the locket again.
  • Why, exactly, did Marcus bring the box containing the metronome with him to Leena's?
    • Probably because it needed to be kept close to him to work.
  • Pete and Myka have Sykes at gunpoint. Sykes's only weapon is HG and her gun. Why, why on Earth, didn't either of them just shoot Sykes dead? He couldn't have told HG to shoot either of them then. Episode solved.
    • Not that Pete and Myka could possibly have known, but it's probably a good thing that they didn't. If they had, they would probably not have found the bomb, and the 7 million people who live in Hong Kong would have been killed by the nuke.
  • Why didn't Helena use the second force-field to cover the bomb?
    • Because she wasn't even sure it could resist the force of the bomb exploding around it. Set off a quasi-nuke in a confined space like that and it is infinitely more likely to fail.
  • Just started watching this series and I'm enjoying it, silly as it is. One thing that bugged me, though. Harriet Tubman's thimble can bend an image, making someone appear as someone else. But how does it change their voice? Macpherson's goon pretending to be Artie, Myka pretending to be H.G. Wells, etc. It's all well and good if you just want to project a false image, but unless I'm missing something, they said nothing about the impostor's voice changing to match.
    • Basically... a wizard did it. :P If Alphas is super heroes, Eureka is sci fi, then W13 is magic.
  • Uh...Are the Christmas episodes canon?
    • This troper doubts it, as the Warehouse is clearly not a massive burning pile of rubble in The Greatest Gift, yet Trailer the dog is still there.
    • This troper figures that they're canon, but take place some unspecified time during the preceding season, rather than being in order chronologically.
  • What's the story behind the windmill? Is it Don Quixote's?
  • In one of the early episodes (1x03), they visit a town in Colorado where everyone is acting out their latent desires. An old lady lost her husband so he hates doctors. A kid hates music class so he smashes instruments. Etc. So the Sheriff gets affected and he... takes hostages and straps on a suicide vest? What does that represent? On top of that, everyone else's outbursts were short - often only a few seconds. He must have been in a trance for hours to build that thing and drive to the church, which is bizarre enough, or else he had a suicide vest lying around, which is worse.


  • Ok, just seen the last episode of season 2, and I have a question: when HG is about to use the trident, Artie says "I don't normally do this", pulls out a gun and shoots HG. At the end of the episode, he remarks "good thing my aim is not so good with a real gun", or something to that effect. And here's the question: *why* did he use a real gun? Surely he could have Tesla'd HG without using the revolver?
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Warehouse_13/Headscratchers?oldid=1430627"