After watching the TV series yesterday, I immediately looked for the original novel to read. I felt that many of the settings were actually limited to the length of the TV series without clarification, so it triggered various discussions. This is probably the result that the producer wants. The more you don’t understand, the easier it is. Fascinated. The ending, plot development, and theme of the novel itself are relatively clear. Here I will summarize the settings in the novel. I haven’t watched the TV series with caution; if you want to read the novel by yourself (very short), you can buy it on the apple store. It’s called Beyond the Aquila Rift ("Beyond the Aquila Rift") ").
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1) Regarding the mechanism of super-light travel : something similar to a wormhole in the film is called aperture (aperture, light hole) in the novel, which was invented by a super-advanced alien civilization N long ago. Using an aperture to travel is fundamentally different from a wormhole. It does not instantly reach another space, but helps the spacecraft move at an average speed of 1,000 light. From this point of view, aperture is more like a "highway" entrance, and long-distance travel still takes a lot of time. But the problem is that this alien civilization has long since disappeared. No one knows exactly how aperture works. It took a few hundred years for human beings to only learn how to use it. Initiating an aperture to reach other apertures requires specific and very complex instructions, called rune (luone, incantation). Humans successfully decoded part of the symbols and used AI to write instructions. However, the accuracy of AI is not high. Using more than one aperture during the journey is prone to deviations. Therefore, some humans with extraordinary talents become "syntax runners", using an intuitive way to revise AI writing In order to save a lot of travel time. Suzy in the TV series takes on this job.
2) About the concept of Local Bubble : Most of the space in the Milky Way is occupied by interstellar matter (interstellar gas + interstellar dust), and the thrust caused by the supernova explosion blows up "bubbles" in the interstellar matter, and the solar system Being in such a bubble, humans call it the Local Bubble. Of course, there are other bubbles on the outside, and the bubbles will intersect and connect with each other. On the contrary, where the density of interstellar matter is too high, it is difficult for light to pass through and cannot be observed, forming a so-called "crack", and the Aquila Fissure is one of them. The complex network formed by Aperture only exists inside the bubble (in fact, it is not always the case, as will be mentioned below), so humans can travel in the Local Bubble, and even reach other bubbles through the connected part of the bubble, but if you want to drive out of the bubble directly It is a fantasy, because there is no "road", it is impossible to travel between the stars at all by the speed of the aircraft itself. In the Milky Way, there are groups of bubbles that are entangled by the "highway", and they do not touch each other. The Aquila rift is on the edge of our Local Bubble, the farthest place humans can reach. Then "outside the Aquila Rift" has become synonymous with "outside time and space" and "outside the world". Once there (theoretically impossible), there is no possibility of returning.
3) Regarding the reasons and consequences of the Blue Goose’s deviating course : the hero Thom’s spacecraft would “go the wrong way” on the one hand because of a bug in the Arkangel system, and on the other hand because of human understanding of the Aperture network insufficient. According to the explanation of the alien masquerading as Greta, the Aperture network was once all over the galaxy, and due to the disappearance of its creator, it was unmaintained, leaving only the inner part of the bubble. But this network is much larger than humans’ imagination, and it has continued to other galaxies, and the route between galaxies and the route construction mechanism within galaxies are different, and the degree of “sturdiness” is not the same, so these ultra-long routes It still exists. The male lead’s spacecraft embarked on this road by accident and arrived at the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is about 163,000 light-years away from the Milky Way. This distance is simply unimaginable. This journey took more than ten years for the male protagonist's subjective time, and it took about one hundred and fifty years relative to the time on earth, so all the people he knew are no longer alive.
4) Regarding the death of Suzy and Ray and the purpose of the spider aliens : Suzy and Ray are "death" in the book because they made some decorations on their dormant cabins (you can also see them in the TV series) Although these decorations are forbidden by order, they will not affect the human body during short-term dormancy, so Captain Thom did not interfere. But the journey from the Milky Way to the Large Magellanic Cloud took too long, so this change eventually slowly killed them. When they reached the Large Magellanic Cloud, both of them were dead, and only Thom survived. The spider aliens were the first fleet to accidentally hit the Large Magellanic Cloud from another bubble in the Milky Way. When they first arrived, they were very desperate and there was a shortage of food (so the place they arrived was a desolate asteroid). . Later, with the emergence of other fleets (various races), on the one hand, they received spiritual comfort in the process of helping the trek, and on the other hand they also received material support, because all the spacecraft, especially the transport ships, There are plenty of supplies. On these two points, the spider aliens did not lie, because the spiritual comfort male protagonist also realized it when he was helping the simulated Suzy, and the material supply does not need to rely on "sucking the male protagonist" to achieve, the male protagonist’s ship itself It is for the transportation of supplies, and the body of the hero is completely digested and can't produce much energy.
5) Three ways of understanding novels : Everyone will naturally have different feelings when they read it. My personal feeling is that there are three clues that can be unearthed: a. About facing the "different"; b. About the grandeur of time and space ; C. About the exchange between civilizations.
a. Regarding facing "differentness": The male protagonist faces emotional problems due to the long separation from his wife. He derailed subconsciously from the moment he saw Greta, and even made friends with her under Greta's teasing. Based on this, the alien believed that the male protagonist could accept the bad news that his wife was dead, and the male protagonist also accepted the fact that he would be exiled forever in the alien system step by step. However, when the male protagonist discovered that the space station was actually an intracranial simulation, except that he had no earthlings, especially after the alien showed his true body to the male protagonist, the male protagonist collapsed, and the alien had to recreate it for him. An illusion of returning to earth and home, so that he can maintain mental stability. "Cheating" here seems to be a metaphor, it is a way to leave the "familiar environment". Not only his wife, but also his own race and planet are "cheated" by the male protagonist. In the process, he even realized it. "A touch of pride." But when he really saw completely different, even "unspeakable" creatures and environments, his cognition collapsed. We probably always need a little bit of "sameness" to tolerate and understand "differences". In this article, the author has created a real "alien" and a real "foreign", which is an incomprehensible existence. Just as humans are destined to stay in the Local Bubble unless there is an accident, they seem to be destined not to face the complete difference. This is a pessimistic interpretation of this article.
b. Regarding the grandeur of time and space: the author did not choose the setting of "wormhole", but chose the setting of "superlight travel". The universe has not been folded into adjacent points by him, and space and time have not been compressed by the increase in the speed of the spacecraft's travel, but more magnificent. Faced with such a large span of time and space, the scale of "human beings" (but a life span of a hundred years and a speed of 1,000 times the speed of light) is extremely small. The theme of "time delay" appears many times in the article: because the fastest radio waves are not faster than the speed of light, the video recorded by the male protagonist must be carried by the spacecraft about to enter the aperture to the exit away from the wife's location before the wife can receive it. This process is costly. There are risks from time to time; the decoration in the dormant cabin is harmless to the human body in a short period of time, but the accumulation of more than ten years can kill people; the male protagonist spent more than ten years arriving in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and his wife has passed away more than one. century. Time has become a tangible and helpless existence. The humans in the article only conquered time and space on the surface. In fact, they are just walking along the sloppy "road" left by another civilization, feeling the dark. Facing time and space, human beings are powerless, just like facing gods. This is another pessimistic interpretation of this article.
c. Regarding the communication between civilizations: According to the male protagonist, the space outside the Local Bubble and the associated bubbles cannot be reached, and there is no need to reach it, because the Local Bubble is already big enough and there is enough business to do. Human beings have never reached "outside the rift in Aquila" and have no communication with other civilizations in the galaxy. Judging from the attitude of the male protagonist, they have no desire for such communication (because it is impossible to achieve). However, when the male protagonist really came to the "impossible place" "outside the Aquila Rift", he found that this was a meeting point where multiple races of the galaxy met. There are no demons who eat human brains and suck human blood, but there are only a group of lost people who warm each other. The intersection of civilizations takes place in an "interstellar grave", which is somewhat ironic; but in this tomb, mutual assistance is the only way to survive, and it has become the meaning of survival itself. The physical universe is cold and merciless, but the spirit is warm. In the worldview created by the author, civilizations do not need to compete for resources, and they do not need to meet each other. In fact, they can't even meet each other. But in the dark, they still meet. Their meeting is not enthusiastic, and there is no story of wind and snow, but it is warm, so warm that the light of life can faintly shine. This is an optimistic interpretation of this article.
Ps. If you finish reading the novel and still think that the spider aliens are the devil that sucks human blood, then you can think about it. They can't catch one or two people all year round, so they can eat clean in one day, why spend so much. Work hard and resources to take care of the male lead's psychological endurance and know everything about him. In the end, although the male protagonist entered the simulation again, he was happy, and it could be said that he had the best ending "outside the Aquila Rift".
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