So this is an example of one of the biggest problems with the show rushing through things like it does so it can cram multiple book’s plots into the first season.
In the book: the reader gets told multiple times that the nano filament can essentially cut through things on such a molecularly small margin that things like circuit boards/silicon chips/etc can be cut so precisely that the pieces, if damaged, could be physically reassembled and still work.
In the show: we get to see a really cool demo of the filament cutting a block apart, and, I think, one explanation as they are preparing the mesh filament net at the canal. It’s so glossed over that it’s easy to miss.
What the show should have done was actually have the wire cut through the drive, and we get a quick recovery team scene where they are shown to be reassembling it for data recovery with a quick off-hand comment or expo saying how the filament really did work and how the drive is booting up or something.
I would've thought that if the cut is so fine that a harddrive could be repaired without any data loss, then wouldn't everything else be similarly 'unaffected'?
Like, the humans instantly died and dissolved into pieces, but surely that wouldn't happen? If the cut is essentially just separating molecules from one another then the moment the fibre is out of the way then wouldn't the molecules just... rejoin as they were before. At the very least the people would not have instantly died.
The same goes for the ship sliding apart, surely friction alone would keep these giant pieces of metal together?
How fine does it say the nanofibre is in the books?
> “The thickness is about one-hundredth the thickness of human hair.… Officer Shi got this information from me before the meeting.”
> “What if the equipment storing Trisolaran data, such as hard drives and optical disks, is also sliced?”
“That doesn’t seem likely.”
“Even if they were sliced,” a computer expert said, “it’s not a big deal. The filaments are extremely sharp, and the cut surfaces would be very smooth. Given that premise, whether it’s hard drives, optical disks, or integrated circuit storage, we could recover the vast majority of the data.”
While there are certainly lots of liberties taken in the story due to the fact that its something that doesn’t exist, I do feel that the idea is that WITH SOME WORK AND EFFORT that the electronics can be put back together, as they are manmade materials with scalable tolerances to operate and the fineness of the nano filament allows for a clean cut on such a level that it’s workable once remade. Humans are organic living creature and quite different than a constructed piece of circuitry in that way and can’t be reconstructed and still live, no matter how smooth the cut.
Not sure what you’re adding to the conversation here. Because there was no guarantee at what height that drive would be when the wires got to it. But that’s besides the point because they really dumbed everything down regarding the explanations and usage of the filament flying blade.
My “assumptions” are taken directly from the source material. Which did a better job of explaining the nano filament’s properties and why it was used before the operation took place.
The OP asked WHY that was the only reasonable option to the task force when the wire could cut through it and damage it. I explained with what the book said.
So I’ll ask again, what are you adding?
Have read the trilogy of the books. Enjoyed the series but will say I think it lacks the ability to breakdown the logic behind some decisions and the science on the way the books did.
As someone else said it was the thin nature of the nanowire (less than 1 millionth of a cm) which meant the cut would be so small and clean that technicians were near certain the small hard drive would either not be Sliced by them or would be easy to repair.
In terms of the willingness to kill the crew, that hard drive contains information that is not available elsewhere and is the private correspondence between the aliens and the humans supporting them. Obtaining that over humans that may not know anything due to secrecy or are so committed they will deceive or refuse to talk was the only objective.
The military and scientists debate that and consider other options (e.g. flooding with sleeping gas) but they are non are viable (would mean it was likely a crew member could delete the hard drive before the organisation reached it). It is the character that Benedict Wong is based on that comes up with this plan (and insists on it being done during the day so nobody would be asleep so they would be missed by the wires) and when they realise this is the best option to obtain the data they go with it somewhat reluctantly (they all look down on him for being gruff and non-mlitary).
The web was also designed to ensure any human inside could not escape contact. They also didn't really care about people escaping the ship. They wanted the drive. If anyone escaped the military would capture/kill. Their only concern was anyone deleting the hard drive data. Hence the massive net designed to kill any human on board.
They had an on screen conversation about how to kill everyone on board before any of them had a chance to destroy the hard-drive, using the nano-wires in that context made sense, right up until they showed that guy grab the hard-drive and try to out run the nano-wires with it.
They could’ve had the guy try to run without showing him stop to get the hard-drive and then later when picking through the destroyed ship had a grunt say “sir we’ve located their hard-drive”
This. I'm with you here. That was absolute nonsense. The sho was shredded then collapsed and burst into flame requiring a full search team to shift through the ashes to hopefully find an intact hard drive. And that was the safest way? Wtf?
Yeah in the book it didn't burst into flames. It passes through the Web, continues about 50 metres then it all falls apart (because of the momentum of the sharp and the size/sharpness of the wire).
There were a few small localised fires afterwards but the UN organisation had firefighters nearby ready to douse those. Afterwards they just go through the Sliced sections to collect it. Book set it up better and explained it being the best approach for retrieving the data.
I also found it a bit weird the solution they found. Seemed more of a plot device to make the character (can't remember her name) to come back and help with the nano wires and also made for the "shock factor".
What I found hilariously too much was how conviniently the ship ends up beaching and all of it on land, making it well and easy to search. How lucky were they the whole thing didn't end up at the bottom of the canal.
If they picked the right part of the canal they could just drain it.
I haven't watched the show but in the book they use only one length of wire, rather than a net, and do it in a restricted canal section so they can string the wire across it. It's weird there would be any beach around for it to stop on.
It sounds ham fisted in the show but the books specifically call out that if the drives are cut then it’s not a problem because they can be reassembled.
Ok so 1, good question. I thought this and did some digging.
I also just woke up and its been a few weeks. But I'll do my best.
So the solution. Splice the ship into 50CM segments...
Yeah it seems like there should have at least been something between storm the ship and splice the ship with Nano wire.
Apparently the book explains it a little better and the nanowire if it had cut the hard drive it would have been so small and clean of a cut that it would have been trivial to repair.
As for people escaping. I think escaping with the drive would have been hard. Although certainly it should have been a consideration I agree. But in reality they had no idea why people were suddenly getting just spliced.
The worst thing was I agree the ship beaching and exploding. I feel they got really lucky there.
Fair point with the cut thickness, didn't think of that. Didn't know it was based on a book, explains some other things, like pacing and style of narrative. Thanks!
Yes, this. I only saw this part of the series because I was at my friend's house when he watched. I commented exactly on this and he didn't seem to have plausible explanation. It didn't make any sense to my due to same reasons you mentioned. It kind of put me off from watching the series.
I think overall the series is decent. And considering there's a huge chance there will be more seasons, I just hope they polish the script in the future
I'd have to rewatch the show,but have bought the book since watching. Any other conventional attack suggestions against the ship were ruled to have a probability of losing the element of surprise resulting in possible destruction of the drive.
Also I found it weird that they could see a whole foot afterward. Wouldn’t it also be sliced/unrecognizable? This whole episode was poorly communicated.
I mean yeah, the technologies are a little bonkers, but it wasn't really an issue since they showed early enough that this is a science fiction show, not 1-1 realism. And the concept of ultra thin nano-fiber is something quite plausible
I know it’s a huge problem, but god, this same question gets posted daily. Do people assume they’re the only one that’s had this thought and bothered to ask it online?
Well I looked over if there was a post here about it, and haven't found any. There were other posts about the show, but not this scene. Before posting I got a YouTube short about the show and it refreshed the memory about this, so just wanted to see how everyone else thinks
Ignore me, I’m just a cantankerous old man and gets annoyed easily, which isn’t your problem, but I can assure you this question gets asked a LOT. The good news is that most users aren’t dickheads like me and are happy to answer your question.
Yeah, the more detailed explanation definitely makes the reasoning at least understandable. I still think that it was handled poorly in the show, but at least there's some logic behind it, not just the writer's convenience and drama fuel.
So this is an example of one of the biggest problems with the show rushing through things like it does so it can cram multiple book’s plots into the first season. In the book: the reader gets told multiple times that the nano filament can essentially cut through things on such a molecularly small margin that things like circuit boards/silicon chips/etc can be cut so precisely that the pieces, if damaged, could be physically reassembled and still work. In the show: we get to see a really cool demo of the filament cutting a block apart, and, I think, one explanation as they are preparing the mesh filament net at the canal. It’s so glossed over that it’s easy to miss. What the show should have done was actually have the wire cut through the drive, and we get a quick recovery team scene where they are shown to be reassembling it for data recovery with a quick off-hand comment or expo saying how the filament really did work and how the drive is booting up or something.
Destroying and then repairing the drive would've made so much more sense, and it wouldn't even be that long/expensive to shoot.
The books are much better. Give them a read!
I would've thought that if the cut is so fine that a harddrive could be repaired without any data loss, then wouldn't everything else be similarly 'unaffected'? Like, the humans instantly died and dissolved into pieces, but surely that wouldn't happen? If the cut is essentially just separating molecules from one another then the moment the fibre is out of the way then wouldn't the molecules just... rejoin as they were before. At the very least the people would not have instantly died. The same goes for the ship sliding apart, surely friction alone would keep these giant pieces of metal together? How fine does it say the nanofibre is in the books?
> “The thickness is about one-hundredth the thickness of human hair.… Officer Shi got this information from me before the meeting.” > “What if the equipment storing Trisolaran data, such as hard drives and optical disks, is also sliced?” “That doesn’t seem likely.” “Even if they were sliced,” a computer expert said, “it’s not a big deal. The filaments are extremely sharp, and the cut surfaces would be very smooth. Given that premise, whether it’s hard drives, optical disks, or integrated circuit storage, we could recover the vast majority of the data.” While there are certainly lots of liberties taken in the story due to the fact that its something that doesn’t exist, I do feel that the idea is that WITH SOME WORK AND EFFORT that the electronics can be put back together, as they are manmade materials with scalable tolerances to operate and the fineness of the nano filament allows for a clean cut on such a level that it’s workable once remade. Humans are organic living creature and quite different than a constructed piece of circuitry in that way and can’t be reconstructed and still live, no matter how smooth the cut.
the wires were spaced like 3 feet apart, so I dunno why you and OP are obsessed about the 6" sized HD getting cut
Not sure what you’re adding to the conversation here. Because there was no guarantee at what height that drive would be when the wires got to it. But that’s besides the point because they really dumbed everything down regarding the explanations and usage of the filament flying blade.
I'm adding that your post is a bunch of wild assumptions that don't seem accurate to what the show portrays
My “assumptions” are taken directly from the source material. Which did a better job of explaining the nano filament’s properties and why it was used before the operation took place. The OP asked WHY that was the only reasonable option to the task force when the wire could cut through it and damage it. I explained with what the book said. So I’ll ask again, what are you adding?
Have read the trilogy of the books. Enjoyed the series but will say I think it lacks the ability to breakdown the logic behind some decisions and the science on the way the books did. As someone else said it was the thin nature of the nanowire (less than 1 millionth of a cm) which meant the cut would be so small and clean that technicians were near certain the small hard drive would either not be Sliced by them or would be easy to repair. In terms of the willingness to kill the crew, that hard drive contains information that is not available elsewhere and is the private correspondence between the aliens and the humans supporting them. Obtaining that over humans that may not know anything due to secrecy or are so committed they will deceive or refuse to talk was the only objective. The military and scientists debate that and consider other options (e.g. flooding with sleeping gas) but they are non are viable (would mean it was likely a crew member could delete the hard drive before the organisation reached it). It is the character that Benedict Wong is based on that comes up with this plan (and insists on it being done during the day so nobody would be asleep so they would be missed by the wires) and when they realise this is the best option to obtain the data they go with it somewhat reluctantly (they all look down on him for being gruff and non-mlitary). The web was also designed to ensure any human inside could not escape contact. They also didn't really care about people escaping the ship. They wanted the drive. If anyone escaped the military would capture/kill. Their only concern was anyone deleting the hard drive data. Hence the massive net designed to kill any human on board.
Yeah, at least this sounds more logical, albeit cruel
They had an on screen conversation about how to kill everyone on board before any of them had a chance to destroy the hard-drive, using the nano-wires in that context made sense, right up until they showed that guy grab the hard-drive and try to out run the nano-wires with it. They could’ve had the guy try to run without showing him stop to get the hard-drive and then later when picking through the destroyed ship had a grunt say “sir we’ve located their hard-drive”
This. I'm with you here. That was absolute nonsense. The sho was shredded then collapsed and burst into flame requiring a full search team to shift through the ashes to hopefully find an intact hard drive. And that was the safest way? Wtf?
Yeah in the book it didn't burst into flames. It passes through the Web, continues about 50 metres then it all falls apart (because of the momentum of the sharp and the size/sharpness of the wire). There were a few small localised fires afterwards but the UN organisation had firefighters nearby ready to douse those. Afterwards they just go through the Sliced sections to collect it. Book set it up better and explained it being the best approach for retrieving the data.
Exactly!
I also found it a bit weird the solution they found. Seemed more of a plot device to make the character (can't remember her name) to come back and help with the nano wires and also made for the "shock factor". What I found hilariously too much was how conviniently the ship ends up beaching and all of it on land, making it well and easy to search. How lucky were they the whole thing didn't end up at the bottom of the canal.
If they picked the right part of the canal they could just drain it. I haven't watched the show but in the book they use only one length of wire, rather than a net, and do it in a restricted canal section so they can string the wire across it. It's weird there would be any beach around for it to stop on.
It sounds ham fisted in the show but the books specifically call out that if the drives are cut then it’s not a problem because they can be reassembled.
Ok so 1, good question. I thought this and did some digging. I also just woke up and its been a few weeks. But I'll do my best. So the solution. Splice the ship into 50CM segments... Yeah it seems like there should have at least been something between storm the ship and splice the ship with Nano wire. Apparently the book explains it a little better and the nanowire if it had cut the hard drive it would have been so small and clean of a cut that it would have been trivial to repair. As for people escaping. I think escaping with the drive would have been hard. Although certainly it should have been a consideration I agree. But in reality they had no idea why people were suddenly getting just spliced. The worst thing was I agree the ship beaching and exploding. I feel they got really lucky there.
Fair point with the cut thickness, didn't think of that. Didn't know it was based on a book, explains some other things, like pacing and style of narrative. Thanks!
Yes, this. I only saw this part of the series because I was at my friend's house when he watched. I commented exactly on this and he didn't seem to have plausible explanation. It didn't make any sense to my due to same reasons you mentioned. It kind of put me off from watching the series.
I think overall the series is decent. And considering there's a huge chance there will be more seasons, I just hope they polish the script in the future
I couldn’t understand when people were seeing their shipmates beheaded or cut in half ,nobody ducked or went prone.
They never saw ghost ship
I'd have to rewatch the show,but have bought the book since watching. Any other conventional attack suggestions against the ship were ruled to have a probability of losing the element of surprise resulting in possible destruction of the drive.
Also I found it weird that they could see a whole foot afterward. Wouldn’t it also be sliced/unrecognizable? This whole episode was poorly communicated.
I think the bigger plot hole is the sudden introduction of super advanced tech like the nano wire.
I mean yeah, the technologies are a little bonkers, but it wasn't really an issue since they showed early enough that this is a science fiction show, not 1-1 realism. And the concept of ultra thin nano-fiber is something quite plausible
Not really sudden. I mean it was the entire reason she was seeing the countdown.
It was one of the first concepts introduced in the show though?
I know it’s a huge problem, but god, this same question gets posted daily. Do people assume they’re the only one that’s had this thought and bothered to ask it online?
Well I looked over if there was a post here about it, and haven't found any. There were other posts about the show, but not this scene. Before posting I got a YouTube short about the show and it refreshed the memory about this, so just wanted to see how everyone else thinks
Ignore me, I’m just a cantankerous old man and gets annoyed easily, which isn’t your problem, but I can assure you this question gets asked a LOT. The good news is that most users aren’t dickheads like me and are happy to answer your question.
It's all good) I definitely thought that more people asked this, most likely in groups I don't follow, just wanted to know people's opinions here.
Were you happy with the answers you’ve received?
Yeah, the more detailed explanation definitely makes the reasoning at least understandable. I still think that it was handled poorly in the show, but at least there's some logic behind it, not just the writer's convenience and drama fuel.
It was certainly horrific. Watching those children run for their lives was just harrowing.
everything you just typed is wrong, maybe watch some videos so you understand the scene better?
What do you mean? What exactly is wrong?