I can accept that as a worldview, but I think most people would consider 2001 and some other films hard sci-fi. I don’t think your definition is mainstream.
I have not seen Sunshine. I have no idea how the rest of the movie treats space travel, or any other feature where science fiction might be implicated. But the idea of nuking the Sun, or just of restarting it in general, is so laughably beyond the physics we know, that it might be as well treated as fantasy. (Which is fine: I think the Culture books from Iain Banks, or the Revelation Space universe from Alastair Reynolds, play better as fantasy than sci-fi, as the technology is often beyond comprehension. But they’re not what I would call hard sci-fi.)
I think it’s possible—the Charles Stross novel Iron Sunrise opens with a human-caused nova—but you need more meat on those story bones beyond, “We’re nuking the Sun.” For Iron Sunrise, a chunk of the core was removed via a super string to a pocket universe where it aged out until the core transmuted to cold iron, some trillions of years into the future, and then the iron core was swapped back into the star. Wherein a core collapse nova ensued. How the core was removed, aged, and swapped back, was sort of explained and sort of magical. This was a universe that had travel faster than light, provided causality wasn’t violated. The mechanism that enforced it was a quantum supercomputer that gleefully sent information flows backwards ad forwards through time, as well as having inflicted an involuntary diaspora on humanity over some hundreds of thousands of cubic light years, via wormholes, some seventy years in the past. A bit more complicated than merely dumping all of Earth’s fissionables into the sun, if from what I read from you, is the plot of Sunshine.
Just reword the MacGuffin, and how it’s to be handled, and I don’t think people would’ve reacted with such derision. Look at the energy requirements for the Sun, the mass balance, the radiated power, and compare that with our technology, or any technology talking about a planet’s fissionables. Off the top of my head, the Sun converts something like 657 million tons of hydrogen per second, into 652 million tons of helium. The remaining 5 million tons is energy, some 1/1 billionth (if I did the ratio right of radiated area compared to Earth’s area facing the Sun) which keeps the lights on here.
They’re not even comparable, and I think that’s what critics like Chronos and Darren are having a hard time accepting.
2001, with the magical squares?
With 2001, the only hard parts to accept are what the Monoliths do. And that’s basically magic. HALs an AI, Discovery thrusts by some sort of fusion ion drive, and doesn’t do it continuously, the hibernation basically never comes up, etc… Much easier to swallow for the reader.
I have to say, it is really refreshing, especially in this age of endless trolling criticizing, to read a love letter to a work of art, even with some admitted flaws. So bravo for that.
There’s definitely a lot to love about Sunshine. It might not be one hundred percent successful at everything it is trying to do, but I can’t help but appreciate that its ambition feels authentic. And even if it didn’t have some thought provoking veins running through it, it is really quite a thing just aesthetically.
So I too kind of feel like, while I didn’t really get the transition to what seemed like slasher in space…
I really want to? And while I don’t disagree that perhaps the film could have done a better job of making that part more accessible, it also kind of almost makes me feel like it is my fault, and if I just got what it what really trying to do, it would all make more sense and I would enjoy it better.
I suspect it could work with some sort of deeper symbolic understanding. Where the main scientific narrative bleeds into a metaphysical one as the sun as an idea ala American Gods kind of makes the guy his avatar.
This requires the sun to react defensively, as though it is interpreting the attempt to heal it as an attack. Which I can imagine could be a really rich narrative idea, except for the fact that I personally and perhaps most of the audience is not familiar enough with whatever cultural or mythological iconography that is supposed to resonate with.
I think perhaps the ideas in this film were just too deep to recognize properly yet, and it may be that it either needs more context to really work, or needs to create that context to be properly understood and embraced.
Whatever the case I’m really enjoying the conversation!
Woah, that was weird. Some sort of portal or wormhole just opened up next to my desk and this old-looking scrap of paper dropped out. I think it’s some kind of newspaper from the turn of the 20th Century. Anyhow it says:
"Give me a novel where an evil sorcerer calls on Satan to smite a city with fire and brimstone, and I can buy that. Try to dress it up as a practical application of physics and it doesn’t work.
How the heck are humans supposed to use atoms to build a single bomb that can destroy a city?"
Ooh, hang on, here’s another one. This one looks like it’s 13th century. (I think?) My medieval French is pretty rusty but I think it says something like:
"Give me a troubadour’s romance where an alchemist harnesses the Philosopher’s Stone to create a Perpetual Motion device which urges on/motivates/powers (?) a vessel across the broad ocean, and I will accept it into my heart. Howsoever, to pretend to the claim that mixing fire and water will do ought but destroy the craft is to mock the very laws of God.
How in the name of all that is holy would brutish Man prevent vapour going wheresoever it will?"
Wait, there’s one more. This one seems to be little more than pictograms. I think it says something like:
“Sky-god fire good. Man fire bad.”
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that humans have a good track record of developing both technical and theoretical knowledge that exceeds what earlier humans would have considered possible. Saying that it’s inconceivable that in the future science will be able to solve problems we cannot is tantamount to claiming that at some point quite soon progress in science is going to stop.
And maybe it will! But it is quite a claim. But if it’s not your claim, then I don’t see how your inability to conceive that people in the future will know and understand the universe in a way that you do not is any different from a wooden-navy sailor scoffing at the idea of a metal boat that sails underwater.
Did you see The Martian?
SenorBeef, thanks for the in-depth, well-considered essay. Someone else posted that it’s rare to see someone post a lengthy “love letter” to a cherished piece of culture. By doing so, you exposed yourself to a lot of risk for ridicule. That took some guts, so thanks for that.
I wanted to coment on the question of why the Icarus 2 was designed to return to Earth after completion of the mission. I wonder if the mission planners/designers thought that giving the crew the slightest chance of making it home alive was worth the investment - by boosting the mission’s chances of success. It’s one thing to be willing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of humanity, and to know your chances of surviving are likely very small. It’s another to know for sure that it’s a suicide mission, and the mission has no provision at all for possibly coming home. Perhaps they felt that humans need hope, the will to survive is strong, and the willingness to sacrifice oneself in reality (rather than hypothetically) is too unreliable. Thus, they built in a small chance of survival and return in order to improve the psychological conditions for the crew to perform their best.
I’m not saying that’s the right call in a situation like this. In fact, removing the crew’s chances of coming back might actually improve their focus. But it’s a call they might have made.
That’s a good point. We have talked a lot about the pressure on the crew, and if they figured the prospect of a return trip ensured a morale boost and a less fatalistic outlook, that might relieve enough pressure to make the crew function better under the pressure. That might be worth the extra cost of a return trip.
Never did. But from what I have read about it it would probably count.
My view is that a work of science fiction gets one big ask, free of charge.
Sun’s going out and we need to launch a macguffin to restart it! Great, that’s your big ask, don’t ask for any other ridiculous stuff. I want realistic characters, realistic scenarios within this macguffin landscape you’ve devised.
Me, I exited the movie when the calculations to re-direct the craft tasked with LITERALLY SAVING THE ENTIRETY OF THE HUMAN RACE were done by one tired guy without anyone re-checking his stuff for accuracy. “Oopsie, I didn’t carry the 2, guess the human race is doomed!”
That’s big ask #2, I’m out.
To me, “The Sun is going out” and “but humans are capable of restarting it” are two independent Big Asks.
To me, “The Sun is going out” and “but humans are capable of restarting it” are two independent Big Asks.
But it is realistic because somebody threw one of these at the sun! (Oh, a different q-ball.)
Are we mocking Brian Cox because we know physics better than him now?
Tried to edit in:
Supersymetry and qballs aren’t really any more fantastic than FTL. FTL isn’t very plausible to ever be practical and breaks all sorts of physics as we understand it but no one bats an eye when its a key component in a sci fi story
(From earlier link.)
The main issue is with you calling it “hard sf”, then berating Chronos for pointing out that it isn’t.
I totally don’t get this point of view: a movie where the sun is going out and man has figured out a way to restart is too much to take, but a movie where a magic half-human/half-witch boy rides a broom through the air and fights dragons with a bunch of wizards, goblins and elves … well, sure, why not?
Maybe you’d have liked *Sunshine *a little better if they snuck in quiddich match between acts 2 and 3.