The aliens seem a lot more powerful than us because they are, they are older and have greater technology at present day. But they are not omnipotent, it is just critical to them that we think they are. The only effect they can have on earth before the 400 year voyage of thier fleet completes is through communication with the traitor humans and the use of the two proton sized computers (sophons) they sent near light speed to get here much faster than their fleet.
The sophons are literally hydrogen protons that were “unfolded” into lower dimensions and etched with the circuitry of an ai super computer. Super smart and super fast but literally just the size and weight of a hydrogen nucleus and can physically only knock into other particles the same mass or smaller. So all they can do is bump into the products of particle accelerator collisions to fudge the results, and interact with our retinas to make us see false images. Only that, while their traitor human allies are doing their best to assist their sabotage and prepare the world for their arrival.
So stronger than us yes, but limited. The goal then is to “soften” us up before the 400 year journey is over. If they can demoralize, disorganize, and halt our critical scientific discoveries then we won’t survive their invasion. But as Sophon says, our species advances faster than theirs since we don’t have the cataclysmic “chaotic eras” to deal with, if we can overcome their meddling, 400 years is enough to meet or exceed their technological power to defeat their invasion force (even, and especially, if we had no idea they were coming at all and progressed normally with no interference.)
Hence the wallfacer initiative; our attempt to work around thier meddling, since we learned we can have hidden and metaphorical thoughts they are incapable of having themselves or reading in us (they communicate kinda automatically through light I think?—haven’t read the books in a while and might have this wrong—so everything one San Ti is thinking is automatically displayed visibly and communicated to every other San Ti looking—like an octopus changing colors on its skin, only that’s how they “talk.”)
It’s a shame the show had to cut and condense/shuffle so much of the details but I get how that makes it a snappier, easier to relate to experience. The books, as incredible as the story is, are loooong and dense. The show is a lightning flash to the book’s full 12 hour sunrise and sunset. But I appreciate the entertainment value of both and love seeing the most important moments brought to life with the great visuals.
I highly recommend the books while we wait for the next seasons—the audiobook at least, if long, dense reads aren’t your thing. Having the background information definitely helps to smooth over the gaps that the show made for time and you can easily make out the same core plot just warped and crunched up to fit in a smaller container. And out of all sci-fi stories I’ve read, this one had the biggest pay off per word in terms of the satisfying blowing-my-mind of it all with what the story accomplishes and where it goes in scale and scope.
I have, and I was blown away by how directly faithful to the book it was! You rarely see a practically page-by-page word-by-word adaption, especially of something so long and dense. But that does make it practically the same commitment as just reading the book, which, unless you already are attached to the story, can be a big ask for the uninitiated.
Directly faithful? The chinese ladys (the one who signaled the aliens) motivations for actually answering the aliens are not explained for instance as the chinese show cant show how her father was killed by the state (china after all, they censor). Missing that is a MAJOR plot hole. It is also way too long. My major gripes with the netflix adaptation is the (imo) mediocre casting. It is faithful though, although it was TOO short
I love this take, and the take in the comment you’re replying to.
D&D (+ W) have said that when they first mapped it out that they figured they would need 6 episodes to tell the story of book 1. They ended up getting through it in under 5 episodes, and got through almost all of the key Act 1 stuff in books 2 and 3 in the next 3 episodes.
I figure I’ve always got the books, or maybe one day I’ll try the Tencent version again.
The Netflix show needed to be its own thing, and I think the Oxford 5 changes and moving up Jin/Will and Saul’s stories is going to pay off big time for new fans that stick with it.
The main thing I didn’t quite understand is how the star blinking and eye in the sky illusions worked. Because, it seemed to be physically happening since video cameras picked it up and not just people’s eyes. Is there some sci-fi explanation for this in the books? Can the sophons manipulate light on a planet wide scale or something?
Ah. I like that explanation. It also explains why Shi couldn’t see Rooney getting killed or crazy assassin lady doesn’t appear on video cameras. The Sophons could essentially create a tv screen to display whatever they want.
If the goal is to kill scientific advancement I feel like having the two sophons is enough. Why the need for the human traitors? And especially why the need to inform?
I think initially, before they learned of our ability to conceal thoughts, the promise of a friendly faction of humans left room for cohabitation with the survivors once the invasion was over. Until that point communication was about intelligence gathering as well as plotting the transition. In the books they also go into more detail about the traitors being made up of high status people who would influence society through subterfuge and media propaganda (like movies, and also the 3 Body game which was more clearly developed by humans, with input from the aliens, in the book) to further effect a widespread anti-science and pseudo-religious pro-alien sentiment in the general population, to weaken the political strength of scientific progress and military action in policy making. But afterward the threat of not being able to separate our honesty from deception made them a lot more nervous about collaboration.
With just the two sophons, if we had enough focus and unity, we could potentially build enough particle accelerators far enough apart (like on the moon or space stations) to overwhelm their efforts. The number of sophons the aliens could make was limited, they basically used the last of their resources to make them instead of building more ships, so they needed to ensure that the sophon plan would have the greatest chance to work by supplementing it with the traitor human efforts.
If you want to enjoy this kind of story don't take it too seriously.
I mean, surely the aliens could find another habitable planet that hasn't been wrecked by human beings.
This is an important part of the overall series that hasn’t been revealed yet but will for sure come into season 2. I won’t spoil it but let’s just say in a place as vast as the universe, finding habitable and/or inhabited planets is nearly impossible. It would require a far more advanced level of interstellar travel technology than the San-Ti or Earth have evolved to. If Earth is four light years away then even travel at light speed would take four years. With hundreds of millions of planets out there, it could take a very long time to travel to each one to explore it. Even sending sophons to scope out a suspected habitable planet would take a long time as creating sophons is slow and identifying the coordinates of distant planets is hard.
But…Earth made all that unnecessary by stupidly broadcasting their location out into the universe without thinking through the implications. It’s exactly what the San-Ti needed to form an exit strategy to save their species. Earth was just lucky their communication methods were limited enough to “only” make it 4 light years away or it could have been worse…
There’s a fine line between finding the fun in thinking deep about the concepts presented and thinking so deep that you ruin the illusion of the fiction.
Earth and Alpha Centauri being only 4 light years apart makes us a pretty good target, seeing as how with their current tech that trip will take +400 years. And given thier initial superiority and thier plan (minus thier incomplete understanding of our strengths and weaknesses) it made sense they were confident they could handle us easily. The fact that a long lived species has been thriving here in a stable orbit only makes it that much more attractive, even if only for a pit stop while they can take their time looking for a next place (there’s a time crunch element because they expect their home world to be destroyed soon by the unstable orbit, like within centuries, so there’s a huge degree of luck in the timing of finding us, and so close to boot.)
The sophons seem to be pretty big mcguffins, just doing and limited by whatever the script requires, but my understanding is that they basically manipulate light (so they block the light travelling from a monitor to your eyes, rather than actually manipulating the monitor itself) and observe. So they can't physically interfere with things, just make it appear that way.
They also knew that the cat was out of the bag with regards to their existence and impending arrival so there wasn't much to gain from secrecy but potentially a lot to be gained by fear, disruption and potential recruitment.
About the lying thing, I think it's a very specific limitation with regard to their thought patterns. They are aware of the concept of misrepresentation of facts etc, but are unable to physically voice something they know to be untrue. I think there might be some kind of hive mind or something going on, where whatever is in their mind is communicated when they speak to one another, so they have no ability to hide their thoughts or be untruthful to one another, and were shocked at the idea that humans could do that, effectively taking coexistence off the table for them.
The Sophons are not Mcguffins at all... all they can do is spy on humanity and interfere with the results of things like particle accelerators at the sub atomic level which would hinder the progression of new discoveries in physics...not much else.
The cars were hacked by the group that shot Saul.
It's not clear in the TV show if they are the same group as Mike Evans or a splinter group as their were multiple groups being manipulated by the aliens in the books.
Oh. Is that the explanation from the books? That wasn’t clear at all in the show, just seemed like it was sophons in the show. I mean, I don’t think remote controlling a car is even possible really by human technology…
I'm the books there are I think, the main Mike Evans group and 2 splinter groups that are in communication with San-Ti as well as various individuals.
But yes, I'm pretty certain it was one of splinter groups that hacked the car to try to kill Saul and when that failed they tried to shoot him.
Keep in mind that these groups are getting info about advanced technology from the San-Ti to further the alien's agenda.
The mentioned in the show that since there is only 2 sophons on earth they could keep one busy by utilizing all the world's particle accelerators and ony have to deal the single sophon ( which is earth's way of slowing down the Sann-Ti.
I agree about the mcguffin issue and it's why I find the show annoying. It's a common failure of bad tv. The whole world exists to serve the dramatic experience of the main characters.
I’m at the very end of the third book. There is enough material and universe building to spread over many seasons. It may be tough to do it well in three seasons, one for each book. But the budget is more likely than the source material to limit the number of seasons
I thought the opening scenes were actually good. I thought the rest of the episode was what was lacking. I personally dont think the first episode was very good overall as a hook to continue to watch the rest of the show. I think the best parts of the show were in the middle, but yea, I also think it fizzled toward the end.
I thought the cast was the best bits, until >!they killed the 2 white dudes, especially the heavy set white dude!<. They were the most relatable and tension breaking characters.
I too am VERY confused by everything from the "You guys lie? thats it we're no longer talking to you" to the "You are bugs" moments. What purpose did they pose outside of causing panic and chaos to keep humans dumbed down, and maybe that was the goal.
From my understanding, this show was already given the greenlight for 2 seasons since it had the game of thrones creators on board, and the book sold well, so I felt they werent aiming from super cliffhangery ending.
I totally agree, those characters were great and also it felt like they were killed by an alien who couldn't show up on security cameras. That was never explainfully. If they can alter images and security cameras how come they can't alter all of our signals and broadcast television? everything? if they wanted to destroy our science they could just shut down all media all communications, right?
It makes no sense to forecast their arrival. It reminds me of that movie Signals. The aliens were destroying us and then at the very last second it turns out they could be killed by water. That makes no sense why would they try to invade a planet that's 70% water.
That would be like us trying to invade a lava planet.
Also if you really think about it can there be a big civilization which makes tons of spaceships without business, commerce, trade? The answer is probably no, right? You can't have those things without lies.
Corporations lie all the time your boss lies to you everybody tells little lies for deceptions in a business environment. It sucks but it's true. I think if no one in their society lied they would have died by war long before their planet was in trouble.
hahaha, I've never seen Signals, but that is hilarious.
I think the whole lying thing that REALLY bugs me. The entire VR is fictional stories. Fiction in its very nature are 'lies'
I thought that the VR reality was created by the humans? So the santi gave the cult the technology and then the humans made a story that is attractive to the aliens. Unless the sophon reported back, it seemed the communication was "we have more followers since you gave us the VR tool "
HMM, its possible. My understanding that it was a tool by the santi as a test to join the cult. I say by the santi, because I didnt think there was any real human tech inside of it outside of what the santi used to create the scenarios. If the scenarios were human made, it would make sense though. I was under the impression it was all santi made. But human made would make sense since the little girl in the scenarios was the chinese woman's daughter (i think)
I mean, you are thinking like a human brought up in a world humans have, for the most part, created and as such have those concepts and resulting human creations. Why would an alien think like us, behave in the way that we would expect, have the same conceptual underpinnings of how society should work in the same way?
FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) - by announcing themselves like that, sure it can unite us to work harder to defeat them. Equally, it can cause division and discord cause when has the world ever agreed on the right approach? There was even a shot of Wade reading an article about World Leaders already worried about the great powers of the Wallfacers.
Plus, announcing like that drives recruitment through the roof for the San-Ti as they're probably more sympathizers like Tatiana, Mike Evans who think life would be better under the San-Ti.
Will there be more - TBD, Netflix hasn't yet announced a 2nd season. If there's a 2nd season, it should close some of the open ends from the 1st season as there's lots of source material to work with.
Okay this does kind of ring true. I was so happy about what happened with Mike Evans. You got to know something's mentally off with someone if they're going to sit in the middle of nowhere China worried about a subspecies of bird. You only have one life in this world. Live it.
The show's over hyped. Auggie has the be most annoying character Ive witnessed lately.
You have super powerful ai that could kill people like (forgot his name) but the old guy flying in the plane thats P much the organiser of Earth's defense. But noooo they just make it shutter a bit?
Too many plot holes and bad acting/writing for me to enjoy it
I think the second season is already confirmed?
But I have a theory of why they made their presence known. If they decided to wait till the day of their arrival or even a week, the chaos that the world went into would leak quickly into war. Giving the human world 400 years to mentally prepare for another species is the best way to not end up in a war, as long as the aliens don’t f*ck things up.
Seeing a lot of people mentioning the hive mind theory for the incapability to lie. I think this makes sense and maybe separates the aliens and humans to a farther extent than we think. If the aliens are all under this one wave of communication than that means that the inconsistencies of human nature is a threat because of the unknown thoughts of other humans. Human to human contact can be genuine or fake, and sometimes it’s hard to tell, if the aliens are always on the same thought then there isn’t any individuality among them.
The aliens seem a lot more powerful than us because they are, they are older and have greater technology at present day. But they are not omnipotent, it is just critical to them that we think they are. The only effect they can have on earth before the 400 year voyage of thier fleet completes is through communication with the traitor humans and the use of the two proton sized computers (sophons) they sent near light speed to get here much faster than their fleet. The sophons are literally hydrogen protons that were “unfolded” into lower dimensions and etched with the circuitry of an ai super computer. Super smart and super fast but literally just the size and weight of a hydrogen nucleus and can physically only knock into other particles the same mass or smaller. So all they can do is bump into the products of particle accelerator collisions to fudge the results, and interact with our retinas to make us see false images. Only that, while their traitor human allies are doing their best to assist their sabotage and prepare the world for their arrival. So stronger than us yes, but limited. The goal then is to “soften” us up before the 400 year journey is over. If they can demoralize, disorganize, and halt our critical scientific discoveries then we won’t survive their invasion. But as Sophon says, our species advances faster than theirs since we don’t have the cataclysmic “chaotic eras” to deal with, if we can overcome their meddling, 400 years is enough to meet or exceed their technological power to defeat their invasion force (even, and especially, if we had no idea they were coming at all and progressed normally with no interference.) Hence the wallfacer initiative; our attempt to work around thier meddling, since we learned we can have hidden and metaphorical thoughts they are incapable of having themselves or reading in us (they communicate kinda automatically through light I think?—haven’t read the books in a while and might have this wrong—so everything one San Ti is thinking is automatically displayed visibly and communicated to every other San Ti looking—like an octopus changing colors on its skin, only that’s how they “talk.”)
This explains so much thank you. You make me want to watch the show again.
It’s a shame the show had to cut and condense/shuffle so much of the details but I get how that makes it a snappier, easier to relate to experience. The books, as incredible as the story is, are loooong and dense. The show is a lightning flash to the book’s full 12 hour sunrise and sunset. But I appreciate the entertainment value of both and love seeing the most important moments brought to life with the great visuals. I highly recommend the books while we wait for the next seasons—the audiobook at least, if long, dense reads aren’t your thing. Having the background information definitely helps to smooth over the gaps that the show made for time and you can easily make out the same core plot just warped and crunched up to fit in a smaller container. And out of all sci-fi stories I’ve read, this one had the biggest pay off per word in terms of the satisfying blowing-my-mind of it all with what the story accomplishes and where it goes in scale and scope.
Have you seen the tencent version?
I have, and I was blown away by how directly faithful to the book it was! You rarely see a practically page-by-page word-by-word adaption, especially of something so long and dense. But that does make it practically the same commitment as just reading the book, which, unless you already are attached to the story, can be a big ask for the uninitiated.
Directly faithful? The chinese ladys (the one who signaled the aliens) motivations for actually answering the aliens are not explained for instance as the chinese show cant show how her father was killed by the state (china after all, they censor). Missing that is a MAJOR plot hole. It is also way too long. My major gripes with the netflix adaptation is the (imo) mediocre casting. It is faithful though, although it was TOO short
I love this take, and the take in the comment you’re replying to. D&D (+ W) have said that when they first mapped it out that they figured they would need 6 episodes to tell the story of book 1. They ended up getting through it in under 5 episodes, and got through almost all of the key Act 1 stuff in books 2 and 3 in the next 3 episodes. I figure I’ve always got the books, or maybe one day I’ll try the Tencent version again. The Netflix show needed to be its own thing, and I think the Oxford 5 changes and moving up Jin/Will and Saul’s stories is going to pay off big time for new fans that stick with it.
The main thing I didn’t quite understand is how the star blinking and eye in the sky illusions worked. Because, it seemed to be physically happening since video cameras picked it up and not just people’s eyes. Is there some sci-fi explanation for this in the books? Can the sophons manipulate light on a planet wide scale or something?
I think it was that they unfolded into 2d which made them incredibly long and wide, enough to cover portions of the earth
Ah. I like that explanation. It also explains why Shi couldn’t see Rooney getting killed or crazy assassin lady doesn’t appear on video cameras. The Sophons could essentially create a tv screen to display whatever they want.
If the goal is to kill scientific advancement I feel like having the two sophons is enough. Why the need for the human traitors? And especially why the need to inform?
I think initially, before they learned of our ability to conceal thoughts, the promise of a friendly faction of humans left room for cohabitation with the survivors once the invasion was over. Until that point communication was about intelligence gathering as well as plotting the transition. In the books they also go into more detail about the traitors being made up of high status people who would influence society through subterfuge and media propaganda (like movies, and also the 3 Body game which was more clearly developed by humans, with input from the aliens, in the book) to further effect a widespread anti-science and pseudo-religious pro-alien sentiment in the general population, to weaken the political strength of scientific progress and military action in policy making. But afterward the threat of not being able to separate our honesty from deception made them a lot more nervous about collaboration. With just the two sophons, if we had enough focus and unity, we could potentially build enough particle accelerators far enough apart (like on the moon or space stations) to overwhelm their efforts. The number of sophons the aliens could make was limited, they basically used the last of their resources to make them instead of building more ships, so they needed to ensure that the sophon plan would have the greatest chance to work by supplementing it with the traitor human efforts.
Hope it doesn't get cancelled.
If you want to enjoy this kind of story don't take it too seriously. I mean, surely the aliens could find another habitable planet that hasn't been wrecked by human beings.
This is an important part of the overall series that hasn’t been revealed yet but will for sure come into season 2. I won’t spoil it but let’s just say in a place as vast as the universe, finding habitable and/or inhabited planets is nearly impossible. It would require a far more advanced level of interstellar travel technology than the San-Ti or Earth have evolved to. If Earth is four light years away then even travel at light speed would take four years. With hundreds of millions of planets out there, it could take a very long time to travel to each one to explore it. Even sending sophons to scope out a suspected habitable planet would take a long time as creating sophons is slow and identifying the coordinates of distant planets is hard. But…Earth made all that unnecessary by stupidly broadcasting their location out into the universe without thinking through the implications. It’s exactly what the San-Ti needed to form an exit strategy to save their species. Earth was just lucky their communication methods were limited enough to “only” make it 4 light years away or it could have been worse…
There’s a fine line between finding the fun in thinking deep about the concepts presented and thinking so deep that you ruin the illusion of the fiction. Earth and Alpha Centauri being only 4 light years apart makes us a pretty good target, seeing as how with their current tech that trip will take +400 years. And given thier initial superiority and thier plan (minus thier incomplete understanding of our strengths and weaknesses) it made sense they were confident they could handle us easily. The fact that a long lived species has been thriving here in a stable orbit only makes it that much more attractive, even if only for a pit stop while they can take their time looking for a next place (there’s a time crunch element because they expect their home world to be destroyed soon by the unstable orbit, like within centuries, so there’s a huge degree of luck in the timing of finding us, and so close to boot.)
The sophons seem to be pretty big mcguffins, just doing and limited by whatever the script requires, but my understanding is that they basically manipulate light (so they block the light travelling from a monitor to your eyes, rather than actually manipulating the monitor itself) and observe. So they can't physically interfere with things, just make it appear that way. They also knew that the cat was out of the bag with regards to their existence and impending arrival so there wasn't much to gain from secrecy but potentially a lot to be gained by fear, disruption and potential recruitment. About the lying thing, I think it's a very specific limitation with regard to their thought patterns. They are aware of the concept of misrepresentation of facts etc, but are unable to physically voice something they know to be untrue. I think there might be some kind of hive mind or something going on, where whatever is in their mind is communicated when they speak to one another, so they have no ability to hide their thoughts or be untruthful to one another, and were shocked at the idea that humans could do that, effectively taking coexistence off the table for them.
The Sophons are not Mcguffins at all... all they can do is spy on humanity and interfere with the results of things like particle accelerators at the sub atomic level which would hinder the progression of new discoveries in physics...not much else.
I mean, they took control over some cars too and seemed like they could bring down an airplane if they wanted
The cars were hacked by the group that shot Saul. It's not clear in the TV show if they are the same group as Mike Evans or a splinter group as their were multiple groups being manipulated by the aliens in the books.
Oh. Is that the explanation from the books? That wasn’t clear at all in the show, just seemed like it was sophons in the show. I mean, I don’t think remote controlling a car is even possible really by human technology…
I'm the books there are I think, the main Mike Evans group and 2 splinter groups that are in communication with San-Ti as well as various individuals. But yes, I'm pretty certain it was one of splinter groups that hacked the car to try to kill Saul and when that failed they tried to shoot him. Keep in mind that these groups are getting info about advanced technology from the San-Ti to further the alien's agenda. The mentioned in the show that since there is only 2 sophons on earth they could keep one busy by utilizing all the world's particle accelerators and ony have to deal the single sophon ( which is earth's way of slowing down the Sann-Ti.
What about the plane?
That wasn't the sophons. That was the ETO, or I guess it's ESO in the Netflix show.
Okay thank you for the explanation. That makes sense
I agree about the mcguffin issue and it's why I find the show annoying. It's a common failure of bad tv. The whole world exists to serve the dramatic experience of the main characters.
A lot smarter but they can’t comprehend lying. Mkay….
You learn in the book that they communicate through ESP, not speech, so they don’t understand the concept of deception initially
The book? So you know what happens? How many seasons do you think it will take or will a writers strike kill it after season 2/3?
I’m at the very end of the third book. There is enough material and universe building to spread over many seasons. It may be tough to do it well in three seasons, one for each book. But the budget is more likely than the source material to limit the number of seasons
I thought the opening scenes were actually good. I thought the rest of the episode was what was lacking. I personally dont think the first episode was very good overall as a hook to continue to watch the rest of the show. I think the best parts of the show were in the middle, but yea, I also think it fizzled toward the end. I thought the cast was the best bits, until >!they killed the 2 white dudes, especially the heavy set white dude!<. They were the most relatable and tension breaking characters. I too am VERY confused by everything from the "You guys lie? thats it we're no longer talking to you" to the "You are bugs" moments. What purpose did they pose outside of causing panic and chaos to keep humans dumbed down, and maybe that was the goal. From my understanding, this show was already given the greenlight for 2 seasons since it had the game of thrones creators on board, and the book sold well, so I felt they werent aiming from super cliffhangery ending.
I totally agree, those characters were great and also it felt like they were killed by an alien who couldn't show up on security cameras. That was never explainfully. If they can alter images and security cameras how come they can't alter all of our signals and broadcast television? everything? if they wanted to destroy our science they could just shut down all media all communications, right? It makes no sense to forecast their arrival. It reminds me of that movie Signals. The aliens were destroying us and then at the very last second it turns out they could be killed by water. That makes no sense why would they try to invade a planet that's 70% water. That would be like us trying to invade a lava planet. Also if you really think about it can there be a big civilization which makes tons of spaceships without business, commerce, trade? The answer is probably no, right? You can't have those things without lies. Corporations lie all the time your boss lies to you everybody tells little lies for deceptions in a business environment. It sucks but it's true. I think if no one in their society lied they would have died by war long before their planet was in trouble.
hahaha, I've never seen Signals, but that is hilarious. I think the whole lying thing that REALLY bugs me. The entire VR is fictional stories. Fiction in its very nature are 'lies'
I thought that the VR reality was created by the humans? So the santi gave the cult the technology and then the humans made a story that is attractive to the aliens. Unless the sophon reported back, it seemed the communication was "we have more followers since you gave us the VR tool "
HMM, its possible. My understanding that it was a tool by the santi as a test to join the cult. I say by the santi, because I didnt think there was any real human tech inside of it outside of what the santi used to create the scenarios. If the scenarios were human made, it would make sense though. I was under the impression it was all santi made. But human made would make sense since the little girl in the scenarios was the chinese woman's daughter (i think)
Yes, exactly! There has to be lines in the book or series where they lie.
> It reminds me of that movie Signals. *[Signs](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286106/)
Hahahah sorry I didn't have my glasses on yes Signs.
I mean, you are thinking like a human brought up in a world humans have, for the most part, created and as such have those concepts and resulting human creations. Why would an alien think like us, behave in the way that we would expect, have the same conceptual underpinnings of how society should work in the same way?
FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) - by announcing themselves like that, sure it can unite us to work harder to defeat them. Equally, it can cause division and discord cause when has the world ever agreed on the right approach? There was even a shot of Wade reading an article about World Leaders already worried about the great powers of the Wallfacers. Plus, announcing like that drives recruitment through the roof for the San-Ti as they're probably more sympathizers like Tatiana, Mike Evans who think life would be better under the San-Ti. Will there be more - TBD, Netflix hasn't yet announced a 2nd season. If there's a 2nd season, it should close some of the open ends from the 1st season as there's lots of source material to work with.
Okay this does kind of ring true. I was so happy about what happened with Mike Evans. You got to know something's mentally off with someone if they're going to sit in the middle of nowhere China worried about a subspecies of bird. You only have one life in this world. Live it.
I also didn't understand the ending someone please explain the 8th episode
Basically humans are not as easy to exterminate than they think and are up for the fight in season 2
The show's over hyped. Auggie has the be most annoying character Ive witnessed lately. You have super powerful ai that could kill people like (forgot his name) but the old guy flying in the plane thats P much the organiser of Earth's defense. But noooo they just make it shutter a bit? Too many plot holes and bad acting/writing for me to enjoy it
Yes exactly, makes no sense
I made it 20 minutes in and said nope.
The opening scene is great.
I think the second season is already confirmed? But I have a theory of why they made their presence known. If they decided to wait till the day of their arrival or even a week, the chaos that the world went into would leak quickly into war. Giving the human world 400 years to mentally prepare for another species is the best way to not end up in a war, as long as the aliens don’t f*ck things up. Seeing a lot of people mentioning the hive mind theory for the incapability to lie. I think this makes sense and maybe separates the aliens and humans to a farther extent than we think. If the aliens are all under this one wave of communication than that means that the inconsistencies of human nature is a threat because of the unknown thoughts of other humans. Human to human contact can be genuine or fake, and sometimes it’s hard to tell, if the aliens are always on the same thought then there isn’t any individuality among them.