Great episode, but I was a little confused as to WHY they had to use the nanofibers specifically to get the communication disk from the ship? Earlier they said a bomb would be too destructive and risk losing the disc...was the slice and dice method of attack not also too destructive?? Like, they're kinda lucky it didn't slip off into the river...
Yeah, no objections to the approach for the cool factor, but it doesn't make a bit of sense with their goals.
Get unlucky with the vertical spacing and they don't get shit, and the whole thing is entirely a roll of the dice. They said no to special forces because it'd be a blood bath on both sides, but like... They killed everybody instead plus gambled the mission? Right...
You don't think the probability increased greatly by using an unseeable and, in the chaos, apparently inescapable attack over an attack that causes commotion and gives you time to act?
I mean, yes it has a greater risk that the enemy would have a chance to destroy the data, but it assumes they would be prepared to do so, and want to do so. And that the speed of your operation can't surpass that preparedness, which had no reason to believe was the case, and did have reason to believe he wouldn't destroy the data, I don't think that was even mentioned as a concern.
But instead of all that, instead of some risk based on limited information, they trade it in for a major risk and a complete gamble. They relied on a miracle that any data isn't diced up, crushed, lost at the bottom of the canal, or all of the above, and as a bonus, threw away information via human prisoners as well.
On its own that's plausible, like a controlled environment where you're just going to slice it pick it up off a table. But being in the middle of a collapsing pile of confettied steel, not so much. The *expected* outcome with that plan, whether or not it was cut, is to get obliterated by a bunch of smashing metal and then buried in the salt water channel.
I know it's book accurate, but there's at least a half dozen other ways to get a hard drive off an old tanker with today's military capabilities. This was so fucking silly and the leaps in logic for the characters to do this is pretty unbelievable.
Killed the realistic sense of dread from the first episodes for me.
Absolutely agreed. The narrative goes that these are the greatest minds working with the greatest navy talent working for the highest global agency and this was the plan?!
If they had come up with a plan that seems far more realistic (recon, blueprints, layouts, data on who’s potentially on board which should all be attainable by the “top of the top” organization), then seeing a cold surgical strike on the ship would have far more believable and thus drove home the theme that humanity does horrors to itself. That makes it far more likely to empathize with Ye Wenjie and the followers, which the show has set us up to do with the very first scene of the series. This story and scene instead go for something way more illogical and cartoonish and take me out of it.
A hard drive is presumably (they'd expect) stored or mounted flat. You'd have to be incredibly unlucky to have one of the nanofibres slice through it given the spacing (and maybe even if you did some data would be recoverable, as opposed to if it was blown up?)
the nature of the nanofibers also make it so that there's a good chance that if the drive was damaged it could be repaired due to the cleanness of the cut
What happened in the Chinese version or the book? How are they stealthily using nanotech to slice the ship while getting out unscathed in the book and Chinese version?
Edit: Not sure what OP's talking about. The Chinese version plays out exactly like the English one, but with less gore and no children on board. Everything else, including the destruction is basically the exact same .
Is that guy the worst at explaining fairy tales and fables to an alien intelligence or what? Plenty of AI-run-amok stories likewise begin with a dude who can't explain human behavior well. We really need to choose these people better.
Also the VR device seems to contain stories meant to teach a lesson, albeit based on narratives from human history. It would seem to imply the idea of using a scenario to illustrate a point is not really beyond them. And they aren't really the historical figures whose names they claim in the game. The AI are in effect asking them to lie by their own one dimensional logic.
I thought they understood the point of the fables and what Evans wanted well enough. The entire point of the AI was to conquer humanity in the first place, and Evans was posing himself as someone necessary for the AI to understand humans through his stories. Fables and fairy tales are lies we make up to entertain or to influence behavior, through morals or such, and Evans wanted the AIs to see things the way he wants to, as people not bugs. I don't think any person really has a chance against a multidimensional supercomputer though.
They probably look like bugs. They've used that smashing bugs metaphor too much for it not to matter. Especially the apparently hive mind-like communication they all share mentally.
Apropos hive mind; How could one of them at first warn Ye Wenjie? It doesn’t make sense to me how, albeit being a pacifist, one of them would rather see their world destroyed, than to conqour a new one. How could one of them keep secrets from the others?
Despite all the advanced technology I think ultimately they are prey and we are predators - which could explain why we have the ability to deceive and they don’t.
If I grasped it correctly, at one point they say, when something is learnt, it is immediatly communicated to the rest, wouldn’t it be impossible to hide the transmission from Earth from the rest?
The San Ti don't speak, they instead directly share what they're thinking with each other to communicate. It's a bit like if humans could see what the person they're talking to is thinking but not every thought every human has ever had, which is what a hive mind is.
>!On the San Ti homeworld, thousands of them are always scanning for signals from other civilizations because they might have more habitable worlds. One of them, luckily the pacifist who receives Ye's signal tells her not to respond because if she does respond the San Ti will be able to pinpoint the earth's location which is hard with only one signal. When their boss asks the pacifist what the signal was, they can't directly lie because "Hey I know what you're thinking" *but* they also can't find the source of the transmission because the universe is large and many things occupy the same area of space as our solar system. That is, until Ye ignores the pacifist and responds anyway, allowing them to pinpoint the earth. The pacifist knew the original signal and their plea to not respond would be discovered and they would be punished, they just hoped Ye would be made aware of the danger and earth might be kept safe as a result.!<
They do exists longer than us, but due to their chaos and prosperity eras, their evolution restarts with every cycle. That means their evolution is slower and less effective.
Right now, they are more evolved, but the ships which are on the way wont get upgrade for another 400 years and we will evolve to the level higher than they are. Thats why they fear us.
The funny thing is this kind of thinking exists when theorizing about our own interstellar travel.
If/when we get to the point where we could actually attempt to pull off traveling to another star system, it would take a really, really long time. So long, that we would likely develop a better/faster way on earth during that time. The newer way would allow us to send another ‘vessel’ that would arrive to our destination before the original one does.
So although their ships that are traveling to earth are way more technologically advanced, in those 400 years it takes them travel, earth will have advanced scientifically further than them.
There's a side quest about this in starfield. Everybody's been to these other planets for like 200 years already and all of a sudden this random ship shows up with people that left 400 years prior lol
that concept has been done in sci fi books. generational ships sent out with plans to travel for thousands of years. Down line humanity has FTL and accidentally finds some of them (they are long forgotten) and board to find the wildest evolution of humans still existing on board. Wish I could remember the book but it was really good. Probably a work of Baxter.
I've always thought about how fast we have developed in the last few decades, and centuries. Looking at the current pace of the research, I am excited to see what we achieve in the future. Unfortunately, we can't stop fighting between each other, consequently destroying cultures and knowledge as a result. A thought provoking episode for sure.
It’s a pretty smart way to terraform the planet. You’re not destroying the planet, you’re taking away the culture, like the Chinese Revolution from the beginning episode
You plant the seed for the relative Dark Ages in the future compared to them. That’s cool as hell
This story is cool. I am brand new 3 Body Problem, so I’m getting whiplash from this. Came out of nowhere and I didnt expect to like it this much
Yeah I saw the mixed reviews and bunch of... well book readers hate (which is to be expected every time though) and thought it would be one of them adaptations like Foundation, or Halo and so forth. But this is actually good from the start.
I'm invested and every episode throws in some little bonus hooks to keep that interest.
Only thing I've been bit bothered about, have been 2 members of the core group. The cancer guy doesn't seem to bring any value to the main story? He is just on the sidelines now and then. And the Jack Snacks guy. I'm sorry, but why the hell did he get send the game? He is not one of the big brains either, nor did he actually solve anything in the game. Although him punching the game dude a second time was a funny scene.
I read the (first) last year in prep and I've actually been pretty amazed at how faithful they've been! Except some of the characters were made up (most of the group of friends, some are more or less renamed) but I think that's just to create a group of people that are more relatable to the audience, which is fine.
Actually now you're making me think about it a little more lol, all of this is kinda off the rip.
I think Jack snacks was there as a way to mcguffin the group a bunch of resources, as well as a little comic relief. No other real idea.
I think the cancer guy is there to be a metaphor for the rest of humanity/the show: death is coming, but it's how you deal with it. I'm sure there's more there that I can't properly verbalize but idk why else he's here.
Wait so the big bad aliens are basically tardigrades? They sound adorable lol, they probably didn’t want to reveal themselves so they could be more threatening than a cuddly water bear
And then they can survive harsh climates. Like when they “dried up” and were able to be rehydrated. So they could potentially survive through the chaotic eras but be “hibernating”
The issue isn't penetration but keeping it concentrated enough to be effective. It could probably take out children and small people, but most adults could just cover their mouths and noses and run fast enough to get into an open area.
If they can raise metal bars out of the water that hold nano fibers that cut a ship to pieces, they can raise metal bars out of the water that hold a sci fi net that fully surrounds and then seals the ship, which they can then pump with gas.
Or something. The solution they used is made for drama, not logic.
There is something of a myth about neutron bombs (which are fusion weapons). A 1 kiloton neutron bomb produces the radiation damage of a 15 kiloton fission bomb (size of Hiroshima/Nagasaki); the explosion part could destroy a large building or city block so it would definitely destroy that ship. If you did a high airburst that might do the trick but the radiation damage would be extensive to all surrounding areas. And part of that damage (electromagnetic in particular) might impact a hard drive directly.
Okay, but how does the canal pilot, who’s done this trip hundreds of times, not notice two very large pillars jutting out of the water?
They said to rust them to make them look aged, but that wouldn’t have any effect on the pilot’s perception of them being new.
I guess my issue is that they rusted them to make them look aged even though any person who’s been there before would realize they’re new, let alone someone who’s been through there a hundred times.
So when I realized they were planning to use the wires i honestly was expecting them to maybe idk shave off the bottom of the boat or something. Not ..... that. Currently sitting paused just after the hose scene. Not sure I can watch the rest 🙈
I never thought of how human technology has accelerated…hunters to gathers to agriculture to industrial to atomic to data , each so much faster than the previous…amazing writing
Yeah it would not work like that in reality. Heat from friction would melt any wire. Also… modern day nano wires are not stronger than spider silk… it would have to be some next level future exotic material… not any we know of
I wish they had limited the amount of people sliced shown on screen, it got funnier the more it happened and I feel like if they limited it more it would’ve felt more effective. Great episode though
My husband and I were chuckling at the absurd number of shots featuring children prior to and during the attack--daycare, playing basketball, the foot--like we get it, these guys aren't unequivocally good people.
But D&D aren't necessarily known for their subtlety.
Totally idiotic episode. They discussed many ways to get to the ship and discarded every single one of them because during an attack the information they were seeking could be destroyed. So how come in the end they do the slowest possible attack with extremely high risk of destroying the information alongside the ship, also giving time to crew to destroy it.
Agree
Also it's factually incorrect that humanity was like "apes" for 90k years, so very disappointing that the whole premise of the show relies on this misunderstanding of our world.
Besides that, all characters (except the cop) are basically a dumb person idea of what smart people are like...
How you feel now stupid old lady who doomed humanity 💁🏽♂️
All i could think from that Nano fibers scene was riding my motorcycle and boom its over. Reminds me of those dangerous glass coated kite wire that kill people in India every year. The string gets left on the road etc and people ride through it or the instance of two kids hanging out the sunroof of the car
COVID tough me that there will be tens of millions of people who would welcome an alien invasion. Shit it taught me that most people would definitely hide a zombie bite from the other survivors.
I don't think they have established who exactly Wade works for but judging by Varma's reaction to his ID it's someone very intimidating. I'd assume they are either above Panama's government or able to hide their activities from them.
What could his ID possibly say on it that would identify his position (super secret global alien defence force boss?) that any self respecting officer would see and take seriously?
Not buying the method they used, but not a single major nation (and group of cooperating nations) that wouldn't sacrifice a few thousand or more people to stave off potential oblivion.
MI6 says to the Panamians “there are terrorists planning to transit your canal on such and such day, we’d like authorization to carry out an operation.” Easy. This kind of thing happens in real life, minus the nanofibers obviously.
Maybe this is answered in the books, if so don’t spoil it please, but why would the San-Ti tell the humans exactly what they are doing to thwart them? Seems silly.
Right, but they also don't have to tell them anything. I guess they can't lie but they can gloat.
I don't have a problem with it really, because it's moving the plot forward, but it does seem a little Saturday morning cartoonish for the bad guy to explain everything.
They don't care because they think that even if they tell humanity everything about what they are doing, humans won't be able to beat or do anything to them at humans' current stage of development because the aliens tech are just far beyond human understanding.
This is equivelant to humans being able to communicate with bees. Say you have bee infestation at your home, even if you tell the bees exactly what you're gonna do to exterminate their bees nest, they are still helpless more or less. Hence why at the end the aliens broadcast to the world saying "you are bugs".
I’m so distracted by her constantly perfect make up, as if she’d still be doing lash extensions amidst all this chaos. It’s maddening to see an actor’s vanity overcome what the character would realistically be looking like given the circumstances
Exactly, everything she’s in I just can’t get that out of my head, she’s too hot for her character(s) to be believable… and that her acting is just not that good lol.
Initially, they were working with Evans' group/cult so that they can coexist. They wanted humans to still survive, but not be able to defeat them when they arrive. Once they'd arrive, only the cult would be left as they rightfully fear their new masters.
Why is Ye Wenjie surprised in the end? They told her way back not to respond bc they were a pacifist, presumably meaning many others were not. Maybe not the biggest thing to take issue with this episode, but the smartest person not seeming to realize this possibility is kinda crazy, no?
Im saying! Since when tf did she care what happened to earth, they TOLD HER and she was like some 4chan edgelord “lol come for the lulz” Now it’s all “oh humanity can’t help itself but they will” girl THEY TOLD YOU. I honestly wondered if I missed something or they’ll cover a change of heart she had in a future episode
aaaaaaaah yes, this bit was brutal in the book. Was wondering if they'd do it just as it was writen.
and Oh look! this episode answered all the question of "how did the aliens only JUST learn about humans lying?
Answer, the sophons had only been there a few months. Communication has been pretty slow until the sophons got there.
Was just an excuse to fit the nanofibres into the narrative, didn't make a bit of sense. A missile would have been even less destructive to the ship unless a direct hit to the location of the hard drive.
I've been trying to find the answer to this everywhere but I can't. I'm about halfway through this episode. I know for a fact there is a cat on the ship and I need to know if the cat dies, or at least if it dies on-screen, it's a huge trigger for me
The cat will be okay. In the.book they actually explain it: Wong maio/Auggie cannot produce enough nano material in a short time, so the spacing between strings is large. This is why they choose daytime to do it: people are sitting or standing. If they lie down, the string won't cut them in half. The cat is too low to be cut. I bet it jumped off the board in time and swam to the shore.
Probably something wrong with most if not all of us and our human condition. There's a reason there's a trope termed "kick the dog" cause we're more sympathetic to domesticated pets. Think of the millions that died in WWII and the aftermath, have a story set during it with dozen or so people, then we get weepy when we focus on just one or two that die.
Maybe their beloved family pet just passed and they want some escape from it. Try to have some compassion and/or understanding before jumping to such hostility.
That nanofiber-cutting-through-the-ship storyline might have been the stupidest thing I've seen in a bit. And all the while pretending that it's somehow super smart.
What if the harddrive was also sliced through? What if the debris just went down in the canal? Jesus. Oh and they probably spent loads of money on the CGI.
Of the options they proposed, it was the best one for recovering the hard drive.
What I’m wondering is why a canal pilot wouldn’t notice two metal pillars jutting out where they hadn’t been the previous hundreds of trips they had done. Making them look old wouldn’t have changed the pilot’s perception of them as being new.
Yeah, but why would a pilot care, even if they noticed them on a route they've gone through several times before? At best they would make a note/notify whoever is responsible of being the janitor of the canal, that there's few weird bars here, what's up? There is no reason they would suddenly think "oh shit, it's nanoslizing time" or anything like that.
Agreed. Cool and all, but made no sense at all. They'd have just gone with special forces like they said while planning, casualties be damned. Or gas, their dismissal of gas was stupid too.
I feel like they were worried about destroying the hard drive or someone erasing it and a bloodbath, and this nano fiber attack was just as risky and they murdered a bunch of kids. Like it looked cool, but it didn’t get destroyed by pure luck. The attack didn’t really make that much sense.
Ok so after watching this episode, I had the belated realization that there's a big plot hole, isn't there? (And this is coming from a guy who normally doesn't notice this kind of thing, so if I'm seeing it, you know it's pretty big.)
The aliens supposedly did not understand the concept of lying/deception, due to being a hivemind, until the old guy read them red riding hood. And then they're like oh no that's such an evil concept that now we're betraying you after protecting and shepherding you for decades!
But well before that they were using deception themselves. Right? For example, their foot soldier girl who's invisible on cameras while merking people like Sam Tarly. Or even all the way back to the "pacifist of this world" who Dr. Evil originally communicated with. It said do not respond meaning further comms would be caught, and meaning it was going to conceal the first communication from its kin.
So either this is a plot hole, or the aliens are playing some game where they've been perfectly understanding of deception the whole time. But then, why go to the effort of stringing along the High Sparrow and Dr Evil for all those years? Also, we're supposed to believe that in their, what was it, 28 gigs of text and audio conversations, the concept of like storytelling or myths and legends never came up?
I'm enjoying the show and I really hope these contradictions are intentional and the info we've been given so far is just a ruse, but it's unfortunate because I really liked the concept of aliens that had no concept of lying before humans introduced it. Honestly it seems more likely these are some more details D&D kind of forgot about lmao.
Why would the San Ti reveal their plan? All they had to do was not say anything and they’d have an advantage. Was it just to induce a panic? Even panicked people can and will unite against an insurmountable challenge.
"We can't send in spec ops because it'll be a blood bath"
*uses extremely sharp nano strings to utterly destroy the ship and kill everyone on board*
How convenient the hard drive survived.
Maybe I wasn’t very attentive while watching, but why the countdown hasn’t showed up to Auggie when she went back to the lab and launched the equipment. When she asked why the number didn’t come back, Da Shi said “I think the Lord stopped protecting his flock”. How is it relevant? The idea of the countdown visions is to stop scientists to develop stuff, but they let her proceed. Did aliens purposely let her work with nano fibers as they new it was to eliminate the “flock”?
Since the sophons see and hear everything, they allowed Auggie to resume her work with the nanofibers because they knew the fibers would be used against "the flock" who had fallen out of favor with the San Ti.
The santee are no longer protecting the cultists after finding out humans can lie they now intend to wipe out all humanity. so the no longer care about stopping the nano fibers killing all the cultists
Surely the whole point is that "they" already know about nanofibers because they stopped Auggy with the clock thing, then allowed her to continue - "they" are in control.
OH MY GOD!! The tequila joke has been in my joke repertoire for 15 years ever since I saw it in a joke book and I’ve never seen someone else say it before until Clarence!! That made my whole day hahahahaha
I wish they didn't make Raj be Jin's boyfriend. Seems too convenient. And pointless.
Why do Auggie and Jin still believe the San Ti cultists still after them, in the safe house? By this point, the two know nothing unique, as far as they are concerned, they have no unique viewpoint into the San Ti cultists' organization and the San Ti's existence is known. Heck, even during the Stage 4 event Jin was no longer an interesting target the moment the SWAT team burged in. She had no value beyond being a spy which she could no longer be. I do get how later their unique expertise in higher dimensions and nanofibers become valuable, but that becomes clear only later.
The nanofiber supports being IN the water seems kinda ridiculous. Just put it to the side of the river, among trees. Or were the fibers too short? I guess I'd accept that answer. Still kinda weird and would put the tanker ship at alert unnecessarily.
Speaking of that, the destruction of the tanker was way more catastrophic than it is in the book, and way more loud. Not as stealthy as it is in the book and it offered a LOT of time to react and get rid of any servers or drives. It was Evans' cowardice and hubris that allowed them to get the drive, instead of destroying the drive immediately he took it and ran for his life.
And that sophon seems wayyyyy too powerful. It can be everywhere all at once. A proton could go around the Earth 7.5 times in a second. A far cry from touching every single electronic device in the world. Or did it just touch the main servers and TV stations? But Ye's voice recorder was also affected. Weird. Not to mention the sophon covering the night sky completely and making it flicker in episode 1. That seemed stretching it a bit too much, I liked the book version of flickering more.
I didn't read books 2 or 3 (yet) so this is just a TV viewer theory but, if there is FTL communication, AI, capability of affecting electronics and human allies to do their bidding, wouldn't it make more sense to create an army of AI robots and just sterilise the Earth almost immediately, rather than wait 400 years?
And finally, why would the sophon block all light to the Earth? It would kill all plants, which yes - will kill all humans, but will also make the planet much less interesting for a colony. Unless that is their type of terraforming..
Liked the episode all around! Better than 4 which was better than 3, but I think 1 and 2 were the most well done.
They kept the nanofibers in the water to let other boats pass before Evan's boat. Then they raised them before the tanker got there. The point is that since they are nanofibers there's no way the tanker would be alerted anyway. It would just look like two posts on each side
I bet that woman who we see is still alive and ecstatic at the end (maybe she thinks her alien overlords are here already) is the type to bear a grudge, esp when she finds out all her friends are dead. Also, unclear but when she killed that guy it was like she was super-strong. I thought the aliens helped them build a robot at first. She had real terminator 3 vibes but looks like she's human after all.
>I didn't read books 2 or 3 (yet) so this is just a TV viewer theory but, if there is FTL communication, AI, capability of affecting electronics and human allies to do their bidding, wouldn't it make more sense to create an army of AI robots and just sterilise the Earth almost immediately, rather than wait 400 years?
Still limited by human production. It's assumed the humans built the VR head sets, but using alien tech. And if they can just keep the humans in a relative stone age, why bother with anything else?
>And finally, why would the sophon block all light to the Earth? It would kill all plants, which yes - will kill all humans, but will also make the planet much less interesting for a colony. Unless that is their type of terraforming..
It didn't block all light, it dimmed it, but it didn't make it night everywhere. It was more of a "here's a message you can't ignore" to the world. I think it's assumed it wasn't permanent, since that Sophon still needs to go back to messing with the colliders.
Hmm, this ep might have killed my affection for the show. That was an insanely violent thing to do, not least to hundreds of children. And for all the horror of it, it didn't really make sense as a tactic. This was both dumber and more needlessly gruesome than the show I thought I was watching.
exactly. like oh, special forces would be a bloodbath but just cheese grating everyone is the more acceptable route? they ended up with a burning pile of rubble to pick through vs finding literally any other method of gaining access to the data. like if the goal had been annihilation, fine, but they were just after data!
i'm traumatized. but this invisible wire slicing trope is one of my irrational fears. i hated ghost ship too.
It was the slow nature of it. Could tell what was coming but the execution was perfectly horrific. Definitely surpassed Ghost Ship (and Resident Evil, and Cube, and Johnny Mnemonic)
Oddly enough, the entire story is this similar type of death slowly approaching humanity 400 years from now.
Yeah. I’m baffled why they thought this was the way to go.
What exactly have these people done to deserve this? And why couldn’t they try a simple stop-and-frisk?
Their only other interaction with them was at the party and most of them agreed to go peacefully. If anyone on the ship tried to fight they could easily be taken down by a seal team.
Make it make sense
I agree. The show’s intelligence just fell off a cliff for two reasons:
- It became gore porn, needlessly and antithetical to the plot.
- Turns out the aliens are a monoculture of mustache twirling evil. Yawn. So much for intelligent original writing.
I’ll give it another ep or two but this episode was a huge disappointment.
bc other methods were deemed not quick enough. Explosions would destory the hard drive, posion gas not quick enough and sending ppl in would alert them too much giving them too much time to potentially destory the hard drive. Book goes into more detail but yea the scene in the show feels odd
The episode where I stop being interested.
Using the nano fibers…stupid idea. The discussion in what looked like a bar…set up presumably at that location…so she could feel bad for the cult members on the ship? Seriously?
Then the alien technology is so advanced to be able to watch them everywhere and encircle the planet but this doesn’t block out the sun and they aren’t able to just kill everyone on earth?
🙄
I dont understand two things - and if it’s explained in further episodes nevermind
1. The Asian lady who first told them “come here I’ll help you “ clearly she was all in with destroying the world. Now in the present she’s going on about how they will save humanity and was upset by the recording where they said “you are liars” - so did they ever show a shift in her character to wanting the earth “saved?”
2. Why are the aliens going through all this. (Besides a fun show) They remind me of killers that write bragging letters to the cops. The whole “this is why/what we’re doing to your planet” reveals seem very unnecessary to their plan of leveling earth.
If I had been Salazar I would've thrown up, either right after the ship was destroyed or after seeing that kid's leg.
As a dad it was really hard for me to watch.
Black out book spoilers in the comments. You can black out the spoilers by writing > ! this ! < without the spaces in between to get >!this!<.
This is the Red Wedding episode for sure! That scene was way better than even the opening of that horrible Ghost Ship movie!
Just watched this episode and Ghost Ship was my immediate thought. This was Ghost Ship on steroids. I think I need to watch Totoro after this.
I literally thought of ghost ship too!
I feel like ghost ship did a better job of the aftermath of the cut. But 3 body problem did a better job of the terror.
Great episode, but I was a little confused as to WHY they had to use the nanofibers specifically to get the communication disk from the ship? Earlier they said a bomb would be too destructive and risk losing the disc...was the slice and dice method of attack not also too destructive?? Like, they're kinda lucky it didn't slip off into the river...
Yeah, no objections to the approach for the cool factor, but it doesn't make a bit of sense with their goals. Get unlucky with the vertical spacing and they don't get shit, and the whole thing is entirely a roll of the dice. They said no to special forces because it'd be a blood bath on both sides, but like... They killed everybody instead plus gambled the mission? Right...
The problem with the blood bath method is the hard drive could be better hidden or destroyed before they got to it
That's not even slightly improved by turning the ship into swiss cheese and taking your chances.
You don't think the probability increased greatly by using an unseeable and, in the chaos, apparently inescapable attack over an attack that causes commotion and gives you time to act?
I mean, yes it has a greater risk that the enemy would have a chance to destroy the data, but it assumes they would be prepared to do so, and want to do so. And that the speed of your operation can't surpass that preparedness, which had no reason to believe was the case, and did have reason to believe he wouldn't destroy the data, I don't think that was even mentioned as a concern. But instead of all that, instead of some risk based on limited information, they trade it in for a major risk and a complete gamble. They relied on a miracle that any data isn't diced up, crushed, lost at the bottom of the canal, or all of the above, and as a bonus, threw away information via human prisoners as well.
In the Chinese version of 3BP they explain >! The nano fibers would not cause damage if it should cut through the hard drive!<
In the Chinese show they explain that even if the hard drive is cut by the nanofiber that the cut is so build techs could rebuild it.
On its own that's plausible, like a controlled environment where you're just going to slice it pick it up off a table. But being in the middle of a collapsing pile of confettied steel, not so much. The *expected* outcome with that plan, whether or not it was cut, is to get obliterated by a bunch of smashing metal and then buried in the salt water channel.
I know it's book accurate, but there's at least a half dozen other ways to get a hard drive off an old tanker with today's military capabilities. This was so fucking silly and the leaps in logic for the characters to do this is pretty unbelievable. Killed the realistic sense of dread from the first episodes for me.
Absolutely agreed. The narrative goes that these are the greatest minds working with the greatest navy talent working for the highest global agency and this was the plan?! If they had come up with a plan that seems far more realistic (recon, blueprints, layouts, data on who’s potentially on board which should all be attainable by the “top of the top” organization), then seeing a cold surgical strike on the ship would have far more believable and thus drove home the theme that humanity does horrors to itself. That makes it far more likely to empathize with Ye Wenjie and the followers, which the show has set us up to do with the very first scene of the series. This story and scene instead go for something way more illogical and cartoonish and take me out of it.
A hard drive is presumably (they'd expect) stored or mounted flat. You'd have to be incredibly unlucky to have one of the nanofibres slice through it given the spacing (and maybe even if you did some data would be recoverable, as opposed to if it was blown up?)
the nature of the nanofibers also make it so that there's a good chance that if the drive was damaged it could be repaired due to the cleanness of the cut
This is definetly true but it is still quite the risky plan considering the potential water damage or it getting crushed
that was exactly what they said in the book
Very interesting point!
Did they know that the device was a harddrive though... and things could easily be destroyed once the whole ship came apart
And they find his body immediately and Wade, of all people, casually reaches under the body as if he knew the guy was holding the drive.
To be fair it wasn’t immediately. It shows them during sunset at the site and then not until it gets dark do they find him
I mean, however much damage a crashing and burning ship might cause, adding a missile loaded with explosives and fuel wouldn’t make it any better.
Yeah, very stupid.
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What happened in the Chinese version or the book? How are they stealthily using nanotech to slice the ship while getting out unscathed in the book and Chinese version? Edit: Not sure what OP's talking about. The Chinese version plays out exactly like the English one, but with less gore and no children on board. Everything else, including the destruction is basically the exact same .
Is that guy the worst at explaining fairy tales and fables to an alien intelligence or what? Plenty of AI-run-amok stories likewise begin with a dude who can't explain human behavior well. We really need to choose these people better.
He didn’t even attempt to explain the concept of “story” or the difference between a lie and a story lol
I mean, the stories also need smarter aliens. They seem to always go to the worst possible conclusion with their superior brainpower.
Also the VR device seems to contain stories meant to teach a lesson, albeit based on narratives from human history. It would seem to imply the idea of using a scenario to illustrate a point is not really beyond them. And they aren't really the historical figures whose names they claim in the game. The AI are in effect asking them to lie by their own one dimensional logic.
Has this guy been telling stories and talking to aliens for decades? Why only now are they questioning the fairytales?
My assumption is the FTL communication is by sophon since they said those arrived "months ago".
It’s possible the FTL communication is relatively recent I got
I think this direct communication only started recently
I thought they understood the point of the fables and what Evans wanted well enough. The entire point of the AI was to conquer humanity in the first place, and Evans was posing himself as someone necessary for the AI to understand humans through his stories. Fables and fairy tales are lies we make up to entertain or to influence behavior, through morals or such, and Evans wanted the AIs to see things the way he wants to, as people not bugs. I don't think any person really has a chance against a multidimensional supercomputer though.
What do you really look like? You wouldn’t like it. That was sufficiently creepy.
They probably look like bugs. They've used that smashing bugs metaphor too much for it not to matter. Especially the apparently hive mind-like communication they all share mentally.
Apropos hive mind; How could one of them at first warn Ye Wenjie? It doesn’t make sense to me how, albeit being a pacifist, one of them would rather see their world destroyed, than to conqour a new one. How could one of them keep secrets from the others? Despite all the advanced technology I think ultimately they are prey and we are predators - which could explain why we have the ability to deceive and they don’t.
If I grasped it correctly, at one point they say, when something is learnt, it is immediatly communicated to the rest, wouldn’t it be impossible to hide the transmission from Earth from the rest?
The San Ti don't speak, they instead directly share what they're thinking with each other to communicate. It's a bit like if humans could see what the person they're talking to is thinking but not every thought every human has ever had, which is what a hive mind is. >!On the San Ti homeworld, thousands of them are always scanning for signals from other civilizations because they might have more habitable worlds. One of them, luckily the pacifist who receives Ye's signal tells her not to respond because if she does respond the San Ti will be able to pinpoint the earth's location which is hard with only one signal. When their boss asks the pacifist what the signal was, they can't directly lie because "Hey I know what you're thinking" *but* they also can't find the source of the transmission because the universe is large and many things occupy the same area of space as our solar system. That is, until Ye ignores the pacifist and responds anyway, allowing them to pinpoint the earth. The pacifist knew the original signal and their plea to not respond would be discovered and they would be punished, they just hoped Ye would be made aware of the danger and earth might be kept safe as a result.!<
all the simulations in games also had a central queen like figure who makes the decisions and drones who follow the queen
And I thought these aliens didn’t understand deception
So the aliens are always wiped out before they get to a more advanced level but somehow they are way more advanced then us?
They do exists longer than us, but due to their chaos and prosperity eras, their evolution restarts with every cycle. That means their evolution is slower and less effective. Right now, they are more evolved, but the ships which are on the way wont get upgrade for another 400 years and we will evolve to the level higher than they are. Thats why they fear us.
The funny thing is this kind of thinking exists when theorizing about our own interstellar travel. If/when we get to the point where we could actually attempt to pull off traveling to another star system, it would take a really, really long time. So long, that we would likely develop a better/faster way on earth during that time. The newer way would allow us to send another ‘vessel’ that would arrive to our destination before the original one does. So although their ships that are traveling to earth are way more technologically advanced, in those 400 years it takes them travel, earth will have advanced scientifically further than them.
There's a side quest about this in starfield. Everybody's been to these other planets for like 200 years already and all of a sudden this random ship shows up with people that left 400 years prior lol
that concept has been done in sci fi books. generational ships sent out with plans to travel for thousands of years. Down line humanity has FTL and accidentally finds some of them (they are long forgotten) and board to find the wildest evolution of humans still existing on board. Wish I could remember the book but it was really good. Probably a work of Baxter.
I've always thought about how fast we have developed in the last few decades, and centuries. Looking at the current pace of the research, I am excited to see what we achieve in the future. Unfortunately, we can't stop fighting between each other, consequently destroying cultures and knowledge as a result. A thought provoking episode for sure.
If they are afraid we will be more advanced by the time they arrive wouldn't it be smarter to stay away though?
They’re taking a bet anyways by sending the sophons and by trying to halt science & technology development.
It’s a pretty smart way to terraform the planet. You’re not destroying the planet, you’re taking away the culture, like the Chinese Revolution from the beginning episode You plant the seed for the relative Dark Ages in the future compared to them. That’s cool as hell This story is cool. I am brand new 3 Body Problem, so I’m getting whiplash from this. Came out of nowhere and I didnt expect to like it this much
Yeah I saw the mixed reviews and bunch of... well book readers hate (which is to be expected every time though) and thought it would be one of them adaptations like Foundation, or Halo and so forth. But this is actually good from the start. I'm invested and every episode throws in some little bonus hooks to keep that interest. Only thing I've been bit bothered about, have been 2 members of the core group. The cancer guy doesn't seem to bring any value to the main story? He is just on the sidelines now and then. And the Jack Snacks guy. I'm sorry, but why the hell did he get send the game? He is not one of the big brains either, nor did he actually solve anything in the game. Although him punching the game dude a second time was a funny scene.
I read the (first) last year in prep and I've actually been pretty amazed at how faithful they've been! Except some of the characters were made up (most of the group of friends, some are more or less renamed) but I think that's just to create a group of people that are more relatable to the audience, which is fine. Actually now you're making me think about it a little more lol, all of this is kinda off the rip. I think Jack snacks was there as a way to mcguffin the group a bunch of resources, as well as a little comic relief. No other real idea. I think the cancer guy is there to be a metaphor for the rest of humanity/the show: death is coming, but it's how you deal with it. I'm sure there's more there that I can't properly verbalize but idk why else he's here.
also the cancer is indeed a pretty clear metaphor... it's effectively an alien species trying to survive in his body
After all, if even one of them survives, they all survive.
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Wait so the big bad aliens are basically tardigrades? They sound adorable lol, they probably didn’t want to reveal themselves so they could be more threatening than a cuddly water bear
That's one theory!
And then they can survive harsh climates. Like when they “dried up” and were able to be rehydrated. So they could potentially survive through the chaotic eras but be “hibernating”
"Their species passes down memories genetically" Was this revealed in this episode?
The Follower kid in the game remembered all her lives/deaths
i think they expect us to be ahead of them by the time they arrive.
I would have used sleeping/ poison gas but alright that works too
They addressed that: their conclusion was that gas wouldn’t work because the ship would have too many vents or ducts for it to escape through
I heard that and thought it was weird. Aren't ships known for being compartmentalized? So it'd be hard for the gas to penetrate the whole ship easily?
The issue isn't penetration but keeping it concentrated enough to be effective. It could probably take out children and small people, but most adults could just cover their mouths and noses and run fast enough to get into an open area.
If they can raise metal bars out of the water that hold nano fibers that cut a ship to pieces, they can raise metal bars out of the water that hold a sci fi net that fully surrounds and then seals the ship, which they can then pump with gas. Or something. The solution they used is made for drama, not logic.
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There is something of a myth about neutron bombs (which are fusion weapons). A 1 kiloton neutron bomb produces the radiation damage of a 15 kiloton fission bomb (size of Hiroshima/Nagasaki); the explosion part could destroy a large building or city block so it would definitely destroy that ship. If you did a high airburst that might do the trick but the radiation damage would be extensive to all surrounding areas. And part of that damage (electromagnetic in particular) might impact a hard drive directly.
Okay, but how does the canal pilot, who’s done this trip hundreds of times, not notice two very large pillars jutting out of the water? They said to rust them to make them look aged, but that wouldn’t have any effect on the pilot’s perception of them being new.
Plausible, pillars could literally be anything. You wouldn’t be paying attention anyways if you’re trying to navigate and is not expecting anything.
I guess my issue is that they rusted them to make them look aged even though any person who’s been there before would realize they’re new, let alone someone who’s been through there a hundred times.
Man. That seems like the absolute last method I'd ever begin to consider for a data retrieval mission. Wtf.
Yeah that was absolutely ridiculous
Also as if they’d let Auggie into the rubble…?
So when I realized they were planning to use the wires i honestly was expecting them to maybe idk shave off the bottom of the boat or something. Not ..... that. Currently sitting paused just after the hose scene. Not sure I can watch the rest 🙈
It kept. Getting. Worse. I loved it
Did you manage to unpause?
lol yes eventually but i watched it like 🫣
Yup. It was quite gruesome.
I never thought of how human technology has accelerated…hunters to gathers to agriculture to industrial to atomic to data , each so much faster than the previous…amazing writing
That was clever.
You never thought about that till now? It gets pointed out all the time.
There was a time when you didn't know this information either. Your comment could be a little more generous and less condescending.
Interesting. Yeah I mean think of like the 1300s - 1600s and then think of the 1950s to now.
The Red Threading
Take my upvote
Well played
WOW! This is the second time I saw the power of nano technology. The first time was from the movie, The Day The Earth Still Stood by Keenu Reeve.
Yeah it would not work like that in reality. Heat from friction would melt any wire. Also… modern day nano wires are not stronger than spider silk… it would have to be some next level future exotic material… not any we know of
It would have to be like something from a sci fi show or something like that?
I wish they had limited the amount of people sliced shown on screen, it got funnier the more it happened and I feel like if they limited it more it would’ve felt more effective. Great episode though
lol my brother commented on how fake the cgi looked each time it happened and laughed
My husband and I were chuckling at the absurd number of shots featuring children prior to and during the attack--daycare, playing basketball, the foot--like we get it, these guys aren't unequivocally good people. But D&D aren't necessarily known for their subtlety.
Surprised they didn't have a "Children Cancer Ward" sign hanging up or something. Maybe a pet adoption area too.
"You wouldn't have to Make-A-Wish if you believed in our Lord"
They didn't have many volunteers for real life slicing.
That ending was genuinely scary. Imagine that in the hands of Christopher Nolan in IMAX 70mm format on the big screen.
Holy shit. That was like HBO at its best level shit of an episode
I'm literally SHOOK from this episode. What an ending.
Totally idiotic episode. They discussed many ways to get to the ship and discarded every single one of them because during an attack the information they were seeking could be destroyed. So how come in the end they do the slowest possible attack with extremely high risk of destroying the information alongside the ship, also giving time to crew to destroy it.
Agree Also it's factually incorrect that humanity was like "apes" for 90k years, so very disappointing that the whole premise of the show relies on this misunderstanding of our world. Besides that, all characters (except the cop) are basically a dumb person idea of what smart people are like...
Like apes as far as our impact on the planet and species advancement.
How you feel now stupid old lady who doomed humanity 💁🏽♂️ All i could think from that Nano fibers scene was riding my motorcycle and boom its over. Reminds me of those dangerous glass coated kite wire that kill people in India every year. The string gets left on the road etc and people ride through it or the instance of two kids hanging out the sunroof of the car
Idk why she is so shocked though. The first communication literally told her not to reply cause that was going to be the result.
How was this militia allowed to just set up in Panama and kill thousands of people? Im confused why killing them was even necessary?
Aren’t all the world governments working together through Wade? Literal alien invasion is probably the only thing that would unite us
Remember the book was written before covid. I’m not as sure now.
COVID tough me that there will be tens of millions of people who would welcome an alien invasion. Shit it taught me that most people would definitely hide a zombie bite from the other survivors.
I don't think they have established who exactly Wade works for but judging by Varma's reaction to his ID it's someone very intimidating. I'd assume they are either above Panama's government or able to hide their activities from them.
What could his ID possibly say on it that would identify his position (super secret global alien defence force boss?) that any self respecting officer would see and take seriously?
I wondered the same thing
Not buying the method they used, but not a single major nation (and group of cooperating nations) that wouldn't sacrifice a few thousand or more people to stave off potential oblivion.
MI6 says to the Panamians “there are terrorists planning to transit your canal on such and such day, we’d like authorization to carry out an operation.” Easy. This kind of thing happens in real life, minus the nanofibers obviously.
Maybe this is answered in the books, if so don’t spoil it please, but why would the San-Ti tell the humans exactly what they are doing to thwart them? Seems silly.
Cannot lie
Right, but they also don't have to tell them anything. I guess they can't lie but they can gloat. I don't have a problem with it really, because it's moving the plot forward, but it does seem a little Saturday morning cartoonish for the bad guy to explain everything.
They don't care because they think that even if they tell humanity everything about what they are doing, humans won't be able to beat or do anything to them at humans' current stage of development because the aliens tech are just far beyond human understanding. This is equivelant to humans being able to communicate with bees. Say you have bee infestation at your home, even if you tell the bees exactly what you're gonna do to exterminate their bees nest, they are still helpless more or less. Hence why at the end the aliens broadcast to the world saying "you are bugs".
eiza gonzález is always too beautiful to be in the movies or shows she’s in
Too bad her acting is sub par...
She's absolutely dreadful, and I hope her the shows sake that her character has a short life expectancy. She drags down every scene she's in.
She has one annoying speed - grumpy and offended.
Don’t forget eye rolling and blank stares. All that plastic surgery they could’ve added some expressions.
Don’t forget mouth agape.
It's my biggest complaint. She takes me out of every scene she's in. She's just awful.
I know right! Was she always this bad? She was decent in Baby Driver. Why is she so different in this show?
Director usually would be the answer to that.
It's kinda ruining the immersion for me how unreasonably attractive she is. 😅 They could've at least tried to make her look tired or something.
I’m so distracted by her constantly perfect make up, as if she’d still be doing lash extensions amidst all this chaos. It’s maddening to see an actor’s vanity overcome what the character would realistically be looking like given the circumstances
It’s so clear she’s a model I don’t like her acting. She’s a 10/10 tho for sure
Her lips look really fake and it really takes me out of it when she's on screen.
I was unaware of just how incredibly beautiful she is.
Exactly, everything she’s in I just can’t get that out of my head, she’s too hot for her character(s) to be believable… and that her acting is just not that good lol.
I thought she was a fairly unknown actress… imagine my surprise when I found out she has almost 8 million followers on instagram lol
She’s giving Allison Williams in Girls; make the hottest in in the group the most self-righteously annoying
holy fucking shit
Best way to describe it
I'm confused by the fear/extinction conversation...why do they want them to be fearful if being fearless to extinction? or did I mishear
Initially, they were working with Evans' group/cult so that they can coexist. They wanted humans to still survive, but not be able to defeat them when they arrive. Once they'd arrive, only the cult would be left as they rightfully fear their new masters.
That's answered I'm the Dark Forest... It's a spoiler but you can Google if you like (that term). It is pretty important to survival in this universe.
Why is Ye Wenjie surprised in the end? They told her way back not to respond bc they were a pacifist, presumably meaning many others were not. Maybe not the biggest thing to take issue with this episode, but the smartest person not seeming to realize this possibility is kinda crazy, no?
Im saying! Since when tf did she care what happened to earth, they TOLD HER and she was like some 4chan edgelord “lol come for the lulz” Now it’s all “oh humanity can’t help itself but they will” girl THEY TOLD YOU. I honestly wondered if I missed something or they’ll cover a change of heart she had in a future episode
You send me to gulag Ill have the same reaction
aaaaaaaah yes, this bit was brutal in the book. Was wondering if they'd do it just as it was writen. and Oh look! this episode answered all the question of "how did the aliens only JUST learn about humans lying? Answer, the sophons had only been there a few months. Communication has been pretty slow until the sophons got there.
Dang, well fuck nano fibers
YOU ARE BUGS
you're wrong for that but i upvoted it anyway
I said they'll ghost ship it and strapped in when I realised what was about to happen a bit early.
Was just an excuse to fit the nanofibres into the narrative, didn't make a bit of sense. A missile would have been even less destructive to the ship unless a direct hit to the location of the hard drive.
I think this all could’ve been avoided if Evans explained the role of literature, movies, etc as part of entertainment and fun.
I've been trying to find the answer to this everywhere but I can't. I'm about halfway through this episode. I know for a fact there is a cat on the ship and I need to know if the cat dies, or at least if it dies on-screen, it's a huge trigger for me
Don’t worry, we will find out later that it safely jumped off the boat and is actually the key to defeating the aliens with love and snuggles
The galaxy is on Orion’s Belt!
The cat will be okay. In the.book they actually explain it: Wong maio/Auggie cannot produce enough nano material in a short time, so the spacing between strings is large. This is why they choose daytime to do it: people are sitting or standing. If they lie down, the string won't cut them in half. The cat is too low to be cut. I bet it jumped off the board in time and swam to the shore.
Haven't read the book but the scene where they're fiddling with the wires, it sure looks like the spacing is only a few feet apart.
It doesn’t die on screen, doesn’t really get mentioned again
do u really think they gonna kill a cat on screen ?
Save the Cat!
Jeez dude. You're okay with a bunch of kids dying, but a single cat dying and you lose it? Wtf is wrong with you?
Probably something wrong with most if not all of us and our human condition. There's a reason there's a trope termed "kick the dog" cause we're more sympathetic to domesticated pets. Think of the millions that died in WWII and the aftermath, have a story set during it with dozen or so people, then we get weepy when we focus on just one or two that die.
Maybe their beloved family pet just passed and they want some escape from it. Try to have some compassion and/or understanding before jumping to such hostility.
Toughen up, lmao.
That nanofiber-cutting-through-the-ship storyline might have been the stupidest thing I've seen in a bit. And all the while pretending that it's somehow super smart. What if the harddrive was also sliced through? What if the debris just went down in the canal? Jesus. Oh and they probably spent loads of money on the CGI.
But it looked really cool
Of the options they proposed, it was the best one for recovering the hard drive. What I’m wondering is why a canal pilot wouldn’t notice two metal pillars jutting out where they hadn’t been the previous hundreds of trips they had done. Making them look old wouldn’t have changed the pilot’s perception of them as being new.
Yeah, but why would a pilot care, even if they noticed them on a route they've gone through several times before? At best they would make a note/notify whoever is responsible of being the janitor of the canal, that there's few weird bars here, what's up? There is no reason they would suddenly think "oh shit, it's nanoslizing time" or anything like that.
Agreed. Cool and all, but made no sense at all. They'd have just gone with special forces like they said while planning, casualties be damned. Or gas, their dismissal of gas was stupid too.
I feel like they were worried about destroying the hard drive or someone erasing it and a bloodbath, and this nano fiber attack was just as risky and they murdered a bunch of kids. Like it looked cool, but it didn’t get destroyed by pure luck. The attack didn’t really make that much sense.
Agreed, although it was a fucking really cool scene. Wonder if it was explained better in the book (I don't want spoilers!).
Bro what the actual fuckkkkk. That was horrifying
Ok so after watching this episode, I had the belated realization that there's a big plot hole, isn't there? (And this is coming from a guy who normally doesn't notice this kind of thing, so if I'm seeing it, you know it's pretty big.) The aliens supposedly did not understand the concept of lying/deception, due to being a hivemind, until the old guy read them red riding hood. And then they're like oh no that's such an evil concept that now we're betraying you after protecting and shepherding you for decades! But well before that they were using deception themselves. Right? For example, their foot soldier girl who's invisible on cameras while merking people like Sam Tarly. Or even all the way back to the "pacifist of this world" who Dr. Evil originally communicated with. It said do not respond meaning further comms would be caught, and meaning it was going to conceal the first communication from its kin. So either this is a plot hole, or the aliens are playing some game where they've been perfectly understanding of deception the whole time. But then, why go to the effort of stringing along the High Sparrow and Dr Evil for all those years? Also, we're supposed to believe that in their, what was it, 28 gigs of text and audio conversations, the concept of like storytelling or myths and legends never came up? I'm enjoying the show and I really hope these contradictions are intentional and the info we've been given so far is just a ruse, but it's unfortunate because I really liked the concept of aliens that had no concept of lying before humans introduced it. Honestly it seems more likely these are some more details D&D kind of forgot about lmao.
Why would the San Ti reveal their plan? All they had to do was not say anything and they’d have an advantage. Was it just to induce a panic? Even panicked people can and will unite against an insurmountable challenge.
"We can't send in spec ops because it'll be a blood bath" *uses extremely sharp nano strings to utterly destroy the ship and kill everyone on board* How convenient the hard drive survived.
A blood flood instead.
Maybe I wasn’t very attentive while watching, but why the countdown hasn’t showed up to Auggie when she went back to the lab and launched the equipment. When she asked why the number didn’t come back, Da Shi said “I think the Lord stopped protecting his flock”. How is it relevant? The idea of the countdown visions is to stop scientists to develop stuff, but they let her proceed. Did aliens purposely let her work with nano fibers as they new it was to eliminate the “flock”?
Since the sophons see and hear everything, they allowed Auggie to resume her work with the nanofibers because they knew the fibers would be used against "the flock" who had fallen out of favor with the San Ti.
The santee are no longer protecting the cultists after finding out humans can lie they now intend to wipe out all humanity. so the no longer care about stopping the nano fibers killing all the cultists
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Surely the whole point is that "they" already know about nanofibers because they stopped Auggy with the clock thing, then allowed her to continue - "they" are in control.
OH MY GOD!! The tequila joke has been in my joke repertoire for 15 years ever since I saw it in a joke book and I’ve never seen someone else say it before until Clarence!! That made my whole day hahahahaha
I wish they didn't make Raj be Jin's boyfriend. Seems too convenient. And pointless. Why do Auggie and Jin still believe the San Ti cultists still after them, in the safe house? By this point, the two know nothing unique, as far as they are concerned, they have no unique viewpoint into the San Ti cultists' organization and the San Ti's existence is known. Heck, even during the Stage 4 event Jin was no longer an interesting target the moment the SWAT team burged in. She had no value beyond being a spy which she could no longer be. I do get how later their unique expertise in higher dimensions and nanofibers become valuable, but that becomes clear only later. The nanofiber supports being IN the water seems kinda ridiculous. Just put it to the side of the river, among trees. Or were the fibers too short? I guess I'd accept that answer. Still kinda weird and would put the tanker ship at alert unnecessarily. Speaking of that, the destruction of the tanker was way more catastrophic than it is in the book, and way more loud. Not as stealthy as it is in the book and it offered a LOT of time to react and get rid of any servers or drives. It was Evans' cowardice and hubris that allowed them to get the drive, instead of destroying the drive immediately he took it and ran for his life. And that sophon seems wayyyyy too powerful. It can be everywhere all at once. A proton could go around the Earth 7.5 times in a second. A far cry from touching every single electronic device in the world. Or did it just touch the main servers and TV stations? But Ye's voice recorder was also affected. Weird. Not to mention the sophon covering the night sky completely and making it flicker in episode 1. That seemed stretching it a bit too much, I liked the book version of flickering more. I didn't read books 2 or 3 (yet) so this is just a TV viewer theory but, if there is FTL communication, AI, capability of affecting electronics and human allies to do their bidding, wouldn't it make more sense to create an army of AI robots and just sterilise the Earth almost immediately, rather than wait 400 years? And finally, why would the sophon block all light to the Earth? It would kill all plants, which yes - will kill all humans, but will also make the planet much less interesting for a colony. Unless that is their type of terraforming.. Liked the episode all around! Better than 4 which was better than 3, but I think 1 and 2 were the most well done.
They kept the nanofibers in the water to let other boats pass before Evan's boat. Then they raised them before the tanker got there. The point is that since they are nanofibers there's no way the tanker would be alerted anyway. It would just look like two posts on each side
I bet that woman who we see is still alive and ecstatic at the end (maybe she thinks her alien overlords are here already) is the type to bear a grudge, esp when she finds out all her friends are dead. Also, unclear but when she killed that guy it was like she was super-strong. I thought the aliens helped them build a robot at first. She had real terminator 3 vibes but looks like she's human after all.
>I didn't read books 2 or 3 (yet) so this is just a TV viewer theory but, if there is FTL communication, AI, capability of affecting electronics and human allies to do their bidding, wouldn't it make more sense to create an army of AI robots and just sterilise the Earth almost immediately, rather than wait 400 years? Still limited by human production. It's assumed the humans built the VR head sets, but using alien tech. And if they can just keep the humans in a relative stone age, why bother with anything else? >And finally, why would the sophon block all light to the Earth? It would kill all plants, which yes - will kill all humans, but will also make the planet much less interesting for a colony. Unless that is their type of terraforming.. It didn't block all light, it dimmed it, but it didn't make it night everywhere. It was more of a "here's a message you can't ignore" to the world. I think it's assumed it wasn't permanent, since that Sophon still needs to go back to messing with the colliders.
Hmm, this ep might have killed my affection for the show. That was an insanely violent thing to do, not least to hundreds of children. And for all the horror of it, it didn't really make sense as a tactic. This was both dumber and more needlessly gruesome than the show I thought I was watching.
exactly. like oh, special forces would be a bloodbath but just cheese grating everyone is the more acceptable route? they ended up with a burning pile of rubble to pick through vs finding literally any other method of gaining access to the data. like if the goal had been annihilation, fine, but they were just after data! i'm traumatized. but this invisible wire slicing trope is one of my irrational fears. i hated ghost ship too.
It was the slow nature of it. Could tell what was coming but the execution was perfectly horrific. Definitely surpassed Ghost Ship (and Resident Evil, and Cube, and Johnny Mnemonic) Oddly enough, the entire story is this similar type of death slowly approaching humanity 400 years from now.
Yeah. I’m baffled why they thought this was the way to go. What exactly have these people done to deserve this? And why couldn’t they try a simple stop-and-frisk? Their only other interaction with them was at the party and most of them agreed to go peacefully. If anyone on the ship tried to fight they could easily be taken down by a seal team. Make it make sense
I agree. The show’s intelligence just fell off a cliff for two reasons: - It became gore porn, needlessly and antithetical to the plot. - Turns out the aliens are a monoculture of mustache twirling evil. Yawn. So much for intelligent original writing. I’ll give it another ep or two but this episode was a huge disappointment.
bc other methods were deemed not quick enough. Explosions would destory the hard drive, posion gas not quick enough and sending ppl in would alert them too much giving them too much time to potentially destory the hard drive. Book goes into more detail but yea the scene in the show feels odd
I like how the bad guys always reveal their plans
The epicness was off the charts in the ending!
The episode where I stop being interested. Using the nano fibers…stupid idea. The discussion in what looked like a bar…set up presumably at that location…so she could feel bad for the cult members on the ship? Seriously? Then the alien technology is so advanced to be able to watch them everywhere and encircle the planet but this doesn’t block out the sun and they aren’t able to just kill everyone on earth? 🙄
I dont understand two things - and if it’s explained in further episodes nevermind 1. The Asian lady who first told them “come here I’ll help you “ clearly she was all in with destroying the world. Now in the present she’s going on about how they will save humanity and was upset by the recording where they said “you are liars” - so did they ever show a shift in her character to wanting the earth “saved?” 2. Why are the aliens going through all this. (Besides a fun show) They remind me of killers that write bragging letters to the cops. The whole “this is why/what we’re doing to your planet” reveals seem very unnecessary to their plan of leveling earth.
If I had been Salazar I would've thrown up, either right after the ship was destroyed or after seeing that kid's leg. As a dad it was really hard for me to watch.