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Jurassic World, the media, the Nublar Six, and telling Palatable stories — a deep dive analysis

Part 5

Trigger warnings — mentions of canon typical injury; discussions of media harassment; discussions of politics; mentions of trauma; discussions of media censorship, propaganda, abuse, and exploitation; sanism and ableism

To read this essay on AO3, click here

If it is not explicitly canon, it’s speculation. This is NOT hate on anyone IRL involved in the show. I love this show with all my heart.

<- Part 4

Word count: 2700+

To begin with, Brooklynn’s death was obviously painted to be a tragic “accident” rather than the intentional murder it was. The Handler’s atrociraptors almost killed her, but the DPW set the allosaurus on her, and the allosaurus was the dinosaur found at the crime scene. (My poor girl was targeted twice in one night, oh my.) Implicating the DPW — a trusted public body — in her murder, wouldn’t have gone down well. Not only is it not palatable to the public (imagine the panic it would cause to know the people supposed to protect everyone from dinosaurs almost got someone intentionally killed by a dinosaur) but whichever journalist would’ve even dared to suggest the DPW got, not only an innocent girl, but one of the Nublar Six killed would’ve been sued to bankruptcy. Or straight up targeted. Look at what almost happened to Davi in season 3, because he was a journalist threatening to expose the rich dinosaur traffickers. Look at the Palestinian journalists who have been killed for broadcasting the truth.

I’m critical of the media as a whole, but there’s a variety of reasons individual journalists aren’t always at fault (including but not limited to: risk to their job, reputation or safety if they speak out; being unable to (financially or otherwise) risk their job security as a journalist by going against their company’s narrative; or because they’ve been seriously influenced by propaganda and haven’t had the influence or tools to unlearn it yet).

I also think the others of the camp fam were hounded to death for interviews about Brooklynn’s death, but they would’ve refused. They were too shocked and heartbroken to say anything coherent for the first few weeks, and after that, they were extremely firm on keeping their privacy. Darius even stops his motivational speaking because he’s so heavily shellshocked.

But I still think Brooklynn was discussed to death (pun not intended) on talk shows, reality TV, and social media, by people who don’t even know her like the camp fam did. It makes them so angry to see people sensationalising her, when she died so horrifically and none of these people truly loved and cared about her in real life.

Amazing addition by alice1328 on AO3 [read the fic here]: “There are thousands of videos under #SoLongBrooklyn; my fans are crying, apologizing for their hate comments, making sad edits of me, and dyeing their hair pink to show their respect.”

Back to the main point, the DPW are a corporation doing shady stuff behind the scenes and are clearly the villains. Chaos Theory is a remarkably anti capitalist show if you think about it. You have all these corporations who have been snuggling dinosaurs, selling them illegally, and abusing them for profit and entertainment (the black market in season 3 for example). There’s a remarkably successful market for people dehumanising and abusing other living beings for their own greed and profit. Wow, I can’t believe Chaos Theory invented anti capitalism! (Okay, I’m done now I promise.) But the magnitude of his dinosaur snuggling thing is huge. It’s global.

And it all comes crashing down with the Nublar Six.

Here’s what I think happened afterwards.

Ben receives emergency treatment for his wound in a hospital in Italy, with Kenji and Gia both staying with him. Darius, Brooklynn, Yaz and Sammy offer to help out with Biosyn. They’ve all had the Trauma of their lives, and though they’re on good terms with each other, they’re angry at the world, newly traumatized, all pretty injured, and utterly drained; the complete opposite of their joyful return from Nublar.

Somehow the media got wind that the Nublar Six are alive — possibly a leaked Biosyn security photo, or a nosey fan who recognises them and sees them in Malta. Maybe people find out Brooklynn is alive (people including her dads, who now know she’s alive, missing an arm, in serious danger, and have no way of contacting her or the people she’s with).

The media is LOSING THEIR MINDS. Every journalist is heading to Biosyn to try to catch the exclusive on the Nublar Six. Theory and speculation videos are doing numbers. #nublar six is trending everywhere. There’s so much online debate over how Brooklynn survived the allosaurus attack, what she was doing with Soyona Santos, and other stuff. Dedicated content creators are doing hours-long breakdowns of everything to catch people up. At this point, Darius has not had his mandatory Crashout yet, and he’s just been concerned with, for goodness’ sake, getting out of this and home safe, please.

Then, a few hours after Sammy, Brooklynn, Darius, and Yaz start helping out in Biosyn, the police shop up and formally arrest them.

Not just that, but the media shows up too. One moment, Darius was treating an injured dinosaur, and the next, the next, there’s five cameras at once flashing in their faces.

I made a post about this with another person where we bounced around ideas for how this scene could go; here is the thread! But if you don’t want to read it all, I’ll summarise.

Reporters are hounding the four as they’re being arrested, trying to get anything out of them. But they’re so stunned and still reeling from the Biosyn incident, all they can do is walk dazedly forward, blink, and mumble, “Can you please get out of our way?”

One reporter asks Darius something like, “How does it feel to have brought down two corporations in your lifetime?”

Darius says, looking the reporter dead in the eye, “It feels like hell.” (not EXACTLY what he said but this essay is PG for language)

And he goes on the longest, most cathartic rant, where all of his repressed anger, pain, and trauma explode out of him, about how he’s still nineteen — a literal teenager — and he’s been through more horrific traumas than most people do in a lifetime. How the weight of saving the world twice is breaking the camp fam’s shoulders and hearts. How he and the others are painted as heroes, but they’re only survivors. How the media broke them down and made them into something they weren’t. How Biosyn is evil and the DPW is evil and the camp fam are sick to death of not having anyone they can trust. He finally tells the long awaited truth he’s been waiting to tell for years.

And someone in the reporter group (Davi. it’s Davi) is there, livestreaming this to social media. Where millions of people are watching.

Eventually, the Nublar Six (presume the Nublar Six in this section refers to Darius, Brooklynn, Yaz and Sammy) are dragged away from the reporter crowd by the police, and are taken to separate holding cells in a police station. They’re terrified. Reporters try to do solo interviews and the Nublar Six refuse to say a word. All they do say is something along the lines of: “Let me know the others are safe. Then we’ll talk.” (At some point, Kenji is also taken from the hospital and put under arrest.)

The authorities isolate the Nublar Six for two whole days. They try to get them to break and confess something (isolation is a torture method fyi), but the camp fam only care about making sure the others are safe. Eventually, the Nublar Six start swapping information on the others’ whereabouts/wellbeing in exchange for evidence, and a day later, the camp fam are allowed to reunite. This is kept private, because there’s no way to broadcast a heartwarming reunion of the Nublar Six without revealing the authorities forcibly kept them apart.

Medical personnel make sure the Nublar Six are physically okay, and the police interview them for the case against Biosyn. No one is actually sure what on Earth happened, so the authorities are having a field day trying to deal with this and keep the media away so rumours don’t start spreading. The authorities have to give the media something, or they’ll never leave them alone. Several police officers drop hints about this to the Nublar Six.

Meanwhile, social media and regular people are exploding. Everyone is talking about the Nublar Six, campaigning to get them home to their families before Christmas. People all across the globe are hounding their government representatives to advocate for their release and humane treatment, but they are technically criminals, so there’s not much a lot of governments can do.

And In comes our brave girl Gia, who gives intel by sneaking into the jail the camp fam are being held in, interviews Brooklynn, and makes an awareness post on social media about how the camp fam are kept in isolation under poor conditions. There’s even a hashtag for all of it: #FreeTheNublar6.

All throughout this, the camp fam have not slept, have barely eaten or drank anything, and haven’t seen their parents/relatives ONCE. They’re exhausted, scared, and just want to go home.

After a couple more days in a cell together, the camp fam are allowed to see their parents (who were flown in to Italy for this), and the police escort them into an open space. Something immediately feels wrong. They’re anxiously looking around, but can’t see the others long enough to communicate anything.

Then, they walk into the airport lobby to another crowd of reporters, and they realise their precious, intimate reunion is going to be broadcast worldwide by the media. Including Brooklynn’s dads seeing their daughter who they thought was dead for the first time in almost a year.

This is what the authorities promised the media. A good, wholesome moment people can take at face value, that lets the world forget about the horrifying things said by Darius only days before. Broadcasting a vulnerable, intimate moment for the world to see.

The camp fam are horrified once they work out what’s going on. Some of them refuse to give the media a reaction, and tell the reporters to get the hell away from them. Brooklynn is desperate to see her dads, but she holds herself back, to her and their agony.

Eventually, the parents’ resolves caves and they rush forward and embrace their children. Brooklynn’s dads get to see their baby girl for the first time since presuming her dead. Sammy’s parents aren’t there (which breaks her heart). Yaz’s mother hugs both Yaz and Sammy. Darius and Kenji’s mother of course hugs Darius, as well as Brooklynn, and Darius fills in Ben’s mother (who was there) about Ben’s injury, since that wasn’t really public knowledge. (She knew her son was badly injured but nothing else.)

Once the media is satisfied, and all start to leave, the Nublar Six (minus Ben) are allowed to go back to Gia’s for the night. The next day, they and Biosyn officials make a deal that they will help with restoration of the valley in exchange for Biosyn dropping all charges against them. So the Nublar Six (minus Ben) agree, and stay to help with the valley until late February, where they (minus Darius, who’s put in charge of a team) finally go home to Darius’s cabin. @darilynnzs suggested Henry Wu arranges to pay for their flights and a lot of Ben’s medical coverage out of guilt.

(It’s arranged that the camp fam will be allowed out of prison under police supervision to see Ben and Gia over Christmas. Cue joyful, untelevised reunion. The One Good Thing in all of this mess.)

Meanwhile, Biosyn and the mainstream media are trying desperately to get the livestream covered up, but millions saw it, and thousands recorded it. It’s circulating all over social media. Taking it back now would do more harm than good. They’ve lost complete control of the narrative. Remember what I said about needing a simple narrative? The Nublar Six’s simple narrative is gone now. This time, they can’t censor the truth because it’s been laid bare for the world to see. Their story is no longer palatable, so they have to find a desperate, last-ditch attempt to stop the public from seeing and acknowledging the truth.

So what can Biosyn and the mainstream media do now?

Paint the Nublar Six as crazy, traumatised, broken, unhinged and unreliable. That way, who would believe and trust their story?

You know Greta Thunberg? She was heralded as a hero for protesting climate change when she was a teenager. Everyone adored the fiery teen with a passion for fighting climate change, and she shocked the world with her speech at the UN climate summit in 2019. But now, the media slanders her, calling her “antisemite of the year,” and labeling her as “naive” and even violent. People send her hate comments and death threats on her social media. [An article by leftvoice] describes her as going from a “darling of liberal media to public enemy number 1.”

Why is that? She started uncovering the links between climate change and Western imperialism, and became vocal about her support for Palestine. As soon as her activism started to implicate the super rich and powerful, all her support went up in smoke.

The same leftvoice article said: she displayed an unusual unwillingness to pander to an audience eager to applaud empty phrases by a little girl. Unlike well-paid NGO pseudo-activists, Thunberg was naming names. Greta said: some people say that the climate crisis is something that we will have created, but that is not true, because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame. Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money.

In short, the moment she equated climate change to capitalism, people stopped liking her.

Now, let’s look at the Nublar Six. They were once “darlings” of the media, who shocked the world with their unusual and dramatic story of surviving on Nublar.

But now, they’re older, and more controversial. They’re not pandering anymore. They grew too big for the media to hold. They’re blaming Jurassic World and Biosyn — two trusted companies the world is supposed to feel protected by — for the damage wrought onto them, and the media completely screws them over.

The Nublar Six get details of their mental health struggles and diagnoses leaked, and they’re always mentioned in the media’s coverage. This happens a lot when the media wants to push a certain bias against people. Have you ever noticed how, when there is a criminal of colour, the media always mentions they’re a person of colour (Black, Latino, Arab, Muslim (I’m aware this isn’t a race but it’s treated in the same way as always being spotlighted by racist medias), etcetera), but when there’s a white criminal, they’re just... a criminal? Yeah. The Nublar Six would get the same treatment, possibly with their ethnicities, sexualities and genders too, but mostly with mental illnesses.

“Yaz Fadoula, who has been diagnosed with PTSD...” “Darius Bowman reportedly considered suicide when his friend Brooklynn was believed to be dead, and now claims her accident was intentional harm” “Brooklynn, who has been reported to suffer from clinical depression/PTSD after losing her arm” (that’s massively ableist phrasing, but I’ll elaborate later on). Ben’s injury is also mentioned as probably distorting his memory of the events. Those kinds of taglines are plastered all over the media.

Even more messed up, some people in the Nublar Six fandom “headcanon” them as having mental illnesses, or try to diagnose them with mental illnesses they think they have based on the limited footage they have of them (again, different from the actual Camp Cretaceous/Chaos Theory fandom because these characters are not real and we aren’t watching them through a news camera). Massive amounts of theories spread to the extent they occasionally have to explain to people in job interviews and in the general public that no, that is misinformation, I have not been diagnosed with [mental illness]. There’s a whole fight on social media about whether or not it’s ableist to mistrust the Nublar Six’s point of view, because everyone thinks they’re mentally unstable (which they ARE but not in the way the media and general public thinks they are).

And two different versions of the story arise: the camp fam’s truth, and a heavily censored half-truth that sensationalises the Nublar Six’s suffering. It would all but say directly: look at these poor, tragic heroes! The trauma of Nublar drove them over the brink, and now they’re lying about a trusted company!

Part 6 ->

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