I'd read the books and thought they were generally very good (see the book thread). Not overly impressed by the first episode of the TV show. It was always going to be a difficult adaptation, but you can tell it's Netflix - there are some issues that are common to a lot of its shows.
If they're following the books closely, there will be pay-offs for both Lost Space Brain and the purchased star. This show should tell us if Benihoff and Weiss are just good at adapting, as opposed to being good at writing too. The quality of GoT varied depending upon if it was source material or not, and so far, this has too. So might be a case of in the future "here's a book to adapt. That's adapt. No veering of course, no new shit, you hear?"
The show seems a bit obvious in certain areas. The star thing and spoace brain are obvious set ups for something in the future. I will watch some more, but I really think the netflix series has missed a lot of the science.
Watched four episodes now. I enjoyed it more as the episodes went on. You do have to give them credit for retaining the high-concept scifi. Not easily adapted and there could have been a temptation to dumb things down. Didn't mind the changes. Introducing lady sophon earlier - even if she's virtual - makes sense in the context of having a more visible antagonist. The stuff about lying never really made much sense. What do they think they're doing when erasing camera footage for instance? That's a problem with the source material. (Another later on was quite a lot of mysogny, they'll probably remove that.)
I wanna add Both Blade Runner movies to my ever expanding list of cerebral shows/ movies that I didn’t have a problem with along with 2001: A Space Oddysey and Solaris.
Would you mind if I tried to get Will wheaton to say that in a cameo? I know it would be weird, but then everyone else could hear what is in my head.
"I enjoyed it more as the episodes went on." Same. Watching E6 now. In the first few episodes I enjoyed the VR bits as isolated vignettes more than the "real world" stuff but once they moved on from the "game" the real world plot has picked up quite a bit.
As someone who hasn't read the books, I could buy that the San-Ti were just doing stuff that their humans agents asked them to without fully appreciating that it involved lying/scamming, or that the human agents used the leap of technology that the San-Ti gave them to independently lie and scam. The countdowns for scientists, the stars blinking, the screwing up of data all involve deception that they enabled. I thought, well maybe the humans came up with these plans and the San-Ti just did them. But it seems to me that there are some things that are inherently lies by the San-Ti: their avatars not being true appearance, for instance.
I have not read the books, although I have a feeling that's going to change very soon. Based on season one... I don't think everything is as it appears. It's been implied that deception is a completely foreign concept to the aliens. That seems to be partially an assumption and in part, just not the case. They had a... very strong reaction upon learning that essentially all humans directly communicate falsehoods pretty much constantly. This indicates they have a different understanding of and relationship with deception than humans do, but not much else. It could be they're not capable of direct, blatant deception, it could also be that it's a huge taboo for them; that their society is so into subtle manipulation and obfuscation that mere lies are considered, to say the least, insultingly crude. The aliens definitely understand some forms of deception. Hell, the very first direct communication we received from them was one of them saying they intended to hide the fact they received a signal from us and that we should pretend we don't exist and stop sending signals. Let's say some aliens called up the White House and asked Biden to come to the phone. Joe talks to them and the alien says "Greetings, your eminence." Joe replies: "Oh, if you want to be formal, 'Mr. President' will suffice, but you can call me Joe, or Dark Brandon." There's a pause, and then a different alien voice is heard: "We apologize, Dark One. Communications Operative Gerblon Pooplorp will be executed for their insolence, and their children will be raped by 759 individuals before they are butchered and served at a feast in your honor." No doubt, Biden and anyone else listening would be horrified and would communicate such. If the aliens then assumed humans have no concept of things like murder, rape, and cannibalism and are not capable of such, well, when they get here, they're going to have a bad time.
As far as we can tell, Earth-like planets exist, and there's probably billions of them. Even if they were one-in-an-octillion, there are probably trillions of planets that could be terraformed or otherwise inhabited. Failing that, if they can build a thousand ships for a 400 year journey, they can probably build massive space stations or generation ships where they can live indefinitely. While the universe may not be teeming with life, its got several nonillion metric fuck-yottatons of resources if one is capable of interstellar travel. And yet, they were specifically searching for advanced civilizations, and when they found one, didn't wipe it out immediately so they could take it's shit without resistance. Then, when they found out said advanced civilization is a bunch of disgusting monsters who have the audacity to tell lies and they're afraid, they still didn't wipe it out. They're definitely capable of doing so. They need something from us, but it's probably not our planet.
I think it as yet to be revealed what the San-Ti can and can't do, and why they aren't just wiping us out. It seems from what we have been shown, they have the ability at a minimum to hack into just about any computer, listen to potentially every conversation, and impose optical illusions. That being the case, it seems like there are probably a half-dozen ways they could trigger apocalypses from which the planet would recover by 400 years, or ways to slow scientific progress for humans down in a more systematic way than telling a few dozen scientists to quit their work within a few days or they'll be sorry. From the old standby of nukes, to propagation of viruses and biological warfare to computer viruses, to manipulating world powers from the shadows, to more overtly developing a religion/cult. Can you imagine what would happen if instead of "You are bugs" the message was "Jesus loves you and wants your fait" and there was a big cross that appeared in the sky? I'm not sure the lack of imagination is the fault of the San-Ti, the original author or the showrunners, or if there are developments coming that will better explain the roundabout way that they have gone thus far.
This is where most sci-fi loses my intellectual side as every reason aside from knowledge of other species becomes irrelevant when you think of the technological means you need to travel such long distances. Your general survival needs are not a reason to come take over a planet full of a hostile threat that might cause you damage, even if that damage might be something like biological infection via war of the worlds. Why are these ultra advanced beings coming here over 400 years when they could easily just make a place that would do fo a time. I have gotten some signals that the author has a philosophy that the aliens believe that you have to kill opposing species because of survival of the fittest. Which really puts the killing on a very unsupported racist slant. With the heavy handed religious morality message the author has used, I find the conflict to be manufactured as more of a shitty parable than an actual understanding of evolved life. Given the authors use of scientific theories and idea without a functional understanding of how that science works the whole show tries to sound very sciency while having a trump like understanding of science. Maybe there is a good reason they will come up with, but when they blasted frozen brain into space I lost most hope for science in the plot. Who the fuck would assume they could make a physical body for him, and since they can beam enough info to have a real life video game why would they need the physical brain in space to begin with? You could just give anyone a golden brain scanner and talk to them. Why the fuck does god need a human brain on a rocket ship to do that?
I read the plot synopses of the books to get a better idea of what's going on. As near as I can tell, the books are highly allegorical in nature, and everything makes sense in that context, but may not in other contexts. The San-Ti need to find a new star system because theirs is unstable. Doing so is very risky. They're desperate, so they're willing to take some risks. Conquering us seems to be the least risky option available. We're knowable, and the unknown is scary. I think the books seem interesting and they're next on my list. If allegories about how racist paranoia makes everything suck for everyone is not something one would find interesting, probably not worth reading. Or is in an allegory about how racist paranoia is the only possible state of existence and we may as well accept it? That wasn't clear in the synopses, I guess I'll know when I read the books. If it's the latter I'll be disappointed. Anyway, I would imagine things like racism are one of the great filters. It's probably difficult to get from nuclear weapons to interstellar travel unless the percentage of paranoid dickheads in a given civilization is kept below a certain threshold. If a civilization manages to get out there roaming the galaxy, it's unlikely they see other civilizations merely existing as a threat.
Suspension of disbelief is weird. "Aliens are coming to conquer us. They control our computers and can make us hallucinate using a computer the size of a planet that's also the size of a basketball and the size of a proton." Me: "Okay." "What is known is communicated when communication takes place." "Oh, you're telepathic." Me: "What?! That could have meant a lot of things. That is not a rational assumption to make based on the words she spoke!"
There's also maybe a less dramatic plot point that they themselves were well versed in deception but initially thought they had found an easy target in beings that were simpletons who weren't. Finding out they had underestimated was the source of fear.
I guess it is the initial premise of the whole show that really showed me the authors idiocy and true intentions. Science is not the new religion. Scientists do not throw themselves into the abyss and kill themselves because their conclusions are turned on their ear. That is a religious thing that morons do. If all of a sudden the LHC goes weird scientists do not kill themselves because their faith was shattered. This is because scientists should not have faith. If scientific observation gives strange results a scientist tries to find out why. It is not god to them. Even if it were to be godlike beings that still ends up being an explanation. Scientists would move on to try and understand how they work. I think that original overwhelming lie that science is like a religion is so overwhelmingly ignorant and stupid that I cannot trust much of what comes next for godboy the author. Just go write your new age bible about why science is wrong and overwhelmingly immoral. That is really what these stories tend to be about. The scientists are overwhelmingly immoral, but the good cult people got chopped to little bits in the war with the earth scientists and the alien scientists because science bad, cult faith good. If everyone was more like the cult and was just nice good little sheep the aliens would have been nice, and everyone would be better off. However, the scientists and governments went super immoral and now the aliens are going to scare us all by making science not work. Even that should not be frightening science. Now you know that the reason your scientific observations are not working as predicted is the influence of beings through a technology. That knowledge alone should tell scientists they have more to learn and study. It just pisses me off when some dipshit author decides to tell us all how wrong we are to believe in science because they cannot understand it and god did it is so much easier and it is more moral to follow stories. I get scientists have made some things that have had horrible effects, but those things were always possible, and it is our use of them that makes the bad effects. Let us remember one of the fantasy inventions that has caused the most death, rape, stealing, war, and pain in the whole human race is faith. Faith is what guides science to drop nuclear bombs on others because they are evil. I do hope the author gets there later, but from the very opening the whole show has pissed me off with the way it has treated science and scientists.
After reading the plot synopses of the novels on Wikipedia, yeah, pretty much. Although the show could be different. Um, what? I mean, I'm not saying all this isn't in there, but I'm not seeing it. For one thing, scientists weren't self-unaliving because their science stopped working, they did it because their timers hit zero and the aliens started showing them horrible shit. I mean, what the hell is someone supposed to do when they're having a permanent bad trip?
IIRC they presented two causes for the suicides. One was the timer, but that seemed to be a stupid threat if stopping work. Even the show admitted that timer thing was not going to work when all aggie failed to do was turn on the machine and the corporate people were just going to take the nanofiber invention and turn it on. Yes, she had some skills, but other people could have taken over her science. What I am talking about was the beginning with the Hadron colliders showing science did not work anymore. That was a dumb as fuck concept to begin with, but there were people who were seeing timers, and others who were just offing themselves because they were so distraught that science was over and their life was a waste. Maybe this was a poor way of doing something the book said was all the timers. If the timers were the only case, why wasn't black guy offed? Right at the beginning he did not want to quit. Worse yet, these aliens who knew the future of aggie who they bullied into quitting didn't do anything to the guy who would eventually become the wallwatcher? That becomes another problem, why do they need other people to kill the wallwatchers? They cannot read minds? Sure they can because they have a two way neural communication which they can manipulate in any way they want. This is poorly convenient writing. On one hand you have people who can beam whatever they want you to see into your head, but they can't simulate a conversation with you and someone else where you divulge everything you are thinking? They should be questioning what is real and what isn't. Sort of like a matrix thing, but instead they are launching brains into space.
Reading between the lines, there's a couple possibilities re: the suicides: 1. The San-Ti gave the scientists horrific visions/mind-fucked them so much that they committed suicide 2. Some of the scientists already had mental problems before the San-Ti did anything so it wasn't much of a push. 3. Some of the suicides were actually murders carried out by Tatiana or other human agents and made to look like suicides. Yes, there's a number of big flaws in the "stop/slow down science by driving dozens of scientists mad plan." The first being that it doesn't work very well without secrecy. If it becomes known that there are people seeing this countdown and getting approached by someone telling them "Quit your sciencing or who knows what will happen?" eventually someone will catch the people trying to extort the scientists, no matter how much the San-Ti might try to scrub camera footage of them. Also, some scientists are just going to be stubborn cusses and be like fuck off. But most importantly, even if dozens of people agree to stop sciencing, there are still thousands more who are ready to pick up their work. The aliens presumably didn't know the future of Auggie. They know that nanofiber is apparently a very useful technology, and they know Auggie is on the verge of a breakthrough that would potentially allow humans to advance to and beyond their level of tech by the time they get to Earth. The Black guy wasn't targeted originally because he wasn't that good a scientist/in a position to be developing tech that the aliens believed a threat. They seemingly only wanted to kill Saul because he talked to Ye and Ye said something cryptic that worries them. As far as we know, they haven't made attempts on the lives of the other Wallfacers, just Saul. Again, why they haven't just taken him out is unclear from the in-world perspective. Obviously, Saul needs to live or there wouldn't be a book. But given that they apparently can control computers, they could have crashed any of the planes Saul was on (since they threatened to with Wade's plane, this is obvious), they could have had any one of the cars that almost hit Saul actually hit Saul, or take control of new computer-controlled cars, there's probably a dozen of other things that someone with absolute control of computers could do to kill a human. As far as we know, they need a device like the VR headset to initiate any sort of mind-reading. The San-Ti and heir human agents can't just put those on anyone. And even with those, it's unclear how much those "mind read" as oppose to project sensations and visions.
first, the headsets have to mind read. That is just how the tech would have to work. It has to read your mind so it knows what actions you would take in the game without a controller. When they say it is a direct neural interface that means it is exchanging data with the mind and interfacing with it. So either they can read minds and perhaps the guess the humans came up with is overwhelmingly stupid given the facts before them, or the author simply does not understand what they are talking about when they decided to throw this cool ass headset in there and fucked up their continuity. On top of that let us say plot armor keeps the headset from directly reading the mind. Again, you could place it on someone and then have a virtual conversation with them which could compell them to give the information. The headset has to know what impulses are being fed back and forth, so if it were to recreate my laboratory and my computer based on my mind's feedback that somehow it cannot see, then it couyld at least see what password I put in and the thoughts that I put in my diary. It could make it look like my commanding officer asking me to give my secret information and record the output. This is why throwing a whole bunch of sciency ideas you do not understand into your fiction is going to cause problems in your work.
Yeah. Science/technology in science fiction, from a writing standpoint, is really just fantasy with science-flavored magic. With magic, the more it's explained, the stupider it gets. It's best to explain it only as much as necessary. "The aliens figured out faster-than-light communication." That seems unlikely, tell me more? Wrong way: "Quantum entanglement." Nope, bullshit. Quantum entanglement doesn't work that way. Right way: "Well, we don't understand much at this point. As near as we can tell, they discovered a property of particles that's... like quantum entanglement, I guess? No, that's not accurate, but it's the best comparison I can make at this time." You can violate the laws of physics, but you can't violate the laws of logic.
Okay, finished. More thoughts. They've crossed significantly into Book 2. I wonder if they'll try to do the rest of the story in one more season, or two. There are things ahead, particularly toward the end which will be very difficult to render onscreen. Why aren't they issuing the term 'Trisolaris'? Thats better than 'San-Ti'. All the main characters being from the same small group of friends makes the world seem very small. That wasn't the case in the books.
Or better yet, 'Centauri' or "Proximans." Their planet orbits the smallest star in a trinairy star system a little over four light years away. That's Proxima Centari. Well, the stable and chaotic eras have the same cause: the planet gets too close to Alpha Centauri A and B and bounces around, causing extreme hot or cold weather, but definitely not tearing the planet to shreds, and the proton computers still use quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication, so, probably not. Also, there are currently ten spatial dimensions. There used to be more, and that meant the speed of light was faster. That sounds wrong, but I don't know enough to for sure say it is wrong. Based on my limited understanding of shit like this: it's plausible that there are more dimensions than we can perceive, and that distant objects might be a lot closer together in those extra dimensions than they are in the three we can see, but none of this has anything to do with the speed of light. Now that I think about it, some of the basic premise to Illegal Alien by Robert J. Sawyer is similar to this. It involves aliens with similar problems, but the science is better. Some of Sawyer's novels have odd and downright silly shit going on, but it's presented in a way that makes sense, and he puts effort into keeping the science plausible or better. For example, Illegal Alien is mostly about an alien being put on trial for murder. More on how it's similar to Three Body Problem in the spoiler:
I could be wrong but I don't remember the sophons messing with computers quite so much or so directly in the books. Things are done through their agents or their optical illusions. So on that score the science is better. The alien planet concept is problematic though. Apart from just being factually incorrect about how the Alpha/Proxima Centauri system works, in reality a planet in this situation would not have survived. The planet is considered doomed at any time. But if so, how has the situation persisted for so long?
Besides having lasted so long, how is it that life would have developed to be similar enough to earth top communicate and be able to use our planet for their needs? Our planet is pretty unique to be able to keep an atmosphere that we could develop in. A planet in that much chaos would lose it's atmosphere. Just a slight change in gravity, the core of the planet, or EM radiation would destroy life as we know it on this planet. So if this civilization existed it probably does not exist in a gaseous nitrogen/oxygen environment. Their gravity is probably radically different, and even if it wasn't 400 years of space travel is generally destructive to a physical beings adaptations to gravity. At least something like Star Trek tries to explain why so many humanoid races exist within such proximity to each other with the idea that humanoid aliens spread genetic seeds throughout planets. It still does not explain how beings who evolved on planets with different genetic systems ended up being so compatible in a couple hundred years to be able to eat and breathe on similar planets without massive genetic engineering on the current timeline. This series does not even pretend that shit is a problem. How do these aliens even know our planet can support their life? It seems like a pretty solid assumption that it wouldn't even be close. This goes to why I think most shows with invading aliens become stupid because our planet and life is probably not worth anything to them. Even the idea of predator seems a bit stupid when you see how overwhelmingly advanced the predators are. At least the predator vs aliens idea makes more sense as we are just food in the middle for a real fight.
