Project Hail Mary

Dr.Retarded

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I forgot how much autism this forum had

carry on..
I mean didn't you know what would happen if the core of the Earth would stop spinning? I don't have tens of millions of dollars to throw out at people to show the dangers of messing with the Earth's core.

I can't remember if that's a Roland Emerick movie, but it probably is....
 

Wombat

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Yes, the book explains that Erid's atmosphere and magnetic field are thick / strong enough that no radiation, including light, gets to the surface, hence why his species is blind. Rocky's ship is basically the first extra-planetary vessel the Eridians made period.

Presumably (though the book doesn't go into it) the Eridians employed heavy telepresence robots for the construction of their ship (as they'd be blind in vacuum), but it doesn't particularly hold up that no one noticed all the ship construction crew dying once it was pressurized and Eridians were on it, nor that Rocky _exclusively_ stayed in engineering for decades once the rest of his crew died.

It's just a setup for how biology could severely alter which branches of physics a species concentrates on - don't worry about the details.
 

Wombat

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Oh yeah, since you mentioned magnetic fields, in case you didn't know, the Earth's magnetic field (which direction is magnetic north) has flipped hundreds of times - Geomagnetic reversal - Wikipedia - though the effect is probably caused by the outer liquid core, not the solid center. We're possibly 'overdue' for a flip - the Earth hasn't kept its magnetic polarity this long in 10 million years - though on the long term scale, there doesn't appear to be any regularity in how often that field flips.

It's very likely the Earth's magnetic field is highly variable during those flips (some areas get much stronger fields, some much weaker), though the correlation to mass species extinctions is very murky. It is safe to say a lot of current human tech will be fucked during the transition - a coronal mass ejection started (much fewer compared to current human wiring) telegraph lines on fire back in the 19th century with a stable magnetic field - Carrington Event - Wikipedia
 
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Cybsled

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Yes, the book explains that Erid's atmosphere and magnetic field are thick / strong enough that no radiation, including light, gets to the surface, hence why his species is blind. Rocky's ship is basically the first extra-planetary vessel the Eridians made period.

Presumably (though the book doesn't go into it) the Eridians employed heavy telepresence robots for the construction of their ship (as they'd be blind in vacuum), but it doesn't particularly hold up that no one noticed all the ship construction crew dying once it was pressurized and Eridians were on it, nor that Rocky _exclusively_ stayed in engineering for decades once the rest of his crew died.

It's just a setup for how biology could severely alter which branches of physics a species concentrates on - don't worry about the details.

A ship in low orbit =! interstellar travel in terms of radiation. Erid has an even stronger magnetic field than Earth, so we can presume that protective bubble extends out pretty far and would have mitigated most of the harmful radiation to Eridians working on the space elevator/ship.
 
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Cybsled

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If no light gets to the surface, why would the Eridians give a shit about the astrophage? How would they even know about it?

They would have still noticed changes to temperature and environment. Plus Eridians knew about light and radiation even though they can’t see them. Humans can’t innately see sound waves but we know sound waves exist because we can use technology to see them
 
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Hoss

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"Not a very good science fiction movie but a fun feel good movie." I never claimed it wasn't science fiction, I just said it wasn't very good science fiction.

I can add on, here's the story. Hey random guy that had an idea once, teach our astronauts that idea! Nevermind that people in the real world don't think that non carbon based life is impossible. Wait, your idea isn't relevant, they are carbon based. Oh no, the ship blew up! Looks like you, with no training and no relevance are our best option! Everyone dies in the space ship but him. Meets rock. Let's learn to communicate, because that's not a totally normal thing to attempt or whatever... and I'm awkward. Magical space communicating science happens! Maybe the only science fiction thing in the movie other than the particles. Etcetera. I liked the movie, it just happened to be in space instead of a uncontacted tribe on earth or something. That's fine. I wish they would have shown their essential differences more, both in belief and tech.

I figured you were talking about what most people call "hard sci fi", I've just always been curious about where people draw the line. Seems most people draw the line at whether they can understand the tech level. Any technology that is sufficiently advanced will look like magic, so when the tech is advanced enough to look like magic, it strays into fantasy.

BTW I would say most of your complaints didn't even have to do with sci fi, you just thought it was poor story telling.
 

Guurn

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I'd say that simply putting something in space doesn't make it sci-fi any more than putting a story on a boat makes it a pirate tale. .
 

Cybsled

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That isn't inaccurate, but I don't think you'd find anyone saying this movie wasn't Sci-fi besides yourself

Honestly your take comes across as those types of people who only accept a certain type of Fantasy novel. Like there are certain "purists" who only accept a LOTR style fantasy setting and reject any fantasy setting that deviates from that.
 
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Nester

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I'd say that simply putting something in space doesn't make it sci-fi any more than putting a story on a boat makes it a pirate tale. .
I would agree with you if the story was about office politics or family relationships where the setting was only a backdrop

This movie literally about stoping a sun from dying and meeting and interacting with alien life forms.

The entire movie is our hero using science to solve problems, physics and chemistry are crucial parts of the story 🤷‍♀️

Examples that might fit what your saying could be Apollo 13 or space cowboys, while they are in space I would agree they are not sci Fi
 

Nester

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Any movie with muppet aliens is going to be weak scifi.

oh ya ? Alien(s) was weak sci-fi? Mostly puppets !!


Me reading this thread
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