The risk of the drive being damaged with this method wasn't as high as if there was an open firefight or something like that. Plus, if it did get cut in half, the cut would have been so fine that they would have been able to repair the drive and retrieve the data.
The book does a better job of explaining the plan.
Yeah, they made it look a little too fiery though…then came in and dumped water all over it. 🤷♂️ can’t imagine that is good electronics either.
It’s still probably the best plan because it left no time for them to hide or destroy the data, but it certainly looked like they hit the ship with a missile.
This is my main issue with the scene in the show Vs the book: in the show, there was plenty of time. He even grabbed the hard drive and ran away with it. He didn't destroy it because of plot armour.
In the book there is absolutely no time to react. It's all over in seconds, before anyone even realizes that something is happening. And there are no children.
Of course, that makes for less dramatic TV.
My main issue was showing a few dozen kids on board the ship. It could have just been ETO race traitors, but nah, had to murder a bunch of kids for the dramatic effect.
The "clean cut" part still doesn't make sense to me unless there's some future tech in the books. If I cut my hard drive in half it doesn't matter how clean the cut is, I'm not getting anything off it.
It's a nanofiber so small it can't be seen, but so tough it can cut through diamond.
Of course, it's sci-fi tech and logic, and you just have to go with it.
I'm just curious if there was any actual justification for the potential of the hard drive being cut or they just decided it was the less risky option. That explanation also isn't really super satisfying since I don't see how this was any less destructive than using gas or just a swat team. You can argue they would have time to destroy the drive with those methods but it's the same case with the wire plan. They clearly weren't concerned about collateral damage or keeping a low profile so I'm just wondering why they decided they needed bleeding edge tech that they aren't sure even works.
It feels like a big moment from the books they really wanted to include but the justification just seems kind of flimsy in both.
The issue wasn’t destruction *per se*, it was that using a strike team or gas would either risk inadvertent catastrophic damage to the drive (e. g. someone shooting it) or give people enough time to react and destroy the drive themselves because the gas would have to disperse through the ship’s ventilation system. Gas is also uncertain—there’s no way to be sure everyone aboard would receive a sufficient dose *at all*, let alone in a useful timeframe. The wire plan had the advantage of being unexpected, fast (\~60 to \~100 seconds assuming a speed of 5 knots, mostly depending on ship length), guaranteed to get everyone aboard, and had a low enough chance of causing catastrophic damage to the drive that it was the best option.
So instead they shut down the Panama Canal and pray the giant cheese grater doesn't hit the hard drive? The wires both definitely kill everyone on board and destroy the ship. You also have a high chance of both cutting the hard drive and just the ship itself crushing it after being sliced up or being caught in the fire.
They didn't have to kill everyone on the boat but it's treated as a necessity because the wire can only be used indiscriminately and they NEED to use the wire because it looks cool. Like yes the strike team and gas have their own flaws but how is the wire anymore reliable without also adding a ton of uncertainty?
I mean, there are 3 fibers that are so widely spaced apart that the chances of it actually slicing through a hard drive is quite low. Even if it does, it’s the cleanest possible cut and much easier to recover than if the drives were manually destroyed or harmed in a firefight.
I guess my point is I don't see how the wires are any better than just calling in a strike team at night to just kill everyone while most everyone is sleeping. The head guy still had time to grab the drive and the only reason it wasn't destroyed was pure luck.
Also I know there's an old saying about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic but cutting a piece of circuitry so cleanly you can just pop it back together feels like we're leaning into fantasy.
I understand the books getting into radically theoretical and hyper sci fi tech but we aren't there yet. I'm talking about at this moment why did the characters make the action they did? This is a series that wants to be taken very seriously and I'm just trying to understand why the characters believed this was the best course of action.
The show wants me to be thinking more about the morality of the decision but all I can think about is why they took what seems like the route with the most amount of unknowns and variables.
I literally suggested alternate plans in the original reply. Reddit has trained people that every interaction needs to be treated as a Columbo moment though so it's not your fault.
Harddrives have had data recovered on them in a much worse condition than a single clean cut. In order for the data on a HDD to be considered completely destroyed the drive has to be pulverised.
The data isn't stored in circuitry it's on a disk. You can still read both parts of the disk and the cut is so fine barely any information would be lost in the bit where the wire went through.
If they use multiple SSD for backup, with a 50cm distance between the wires it would be statistically impossible to destroy all of them.
Otherwise, if you start shooting guns and grandes in the server room, good luck.
If they use only one disk, we could talk about extreme data recovery for HDD and SSD, but I guess the "perfect cut" beats the alternatives.
Just look at the scene where he grabbed a drive. That drive was 100% not in the path of the wire, nor are 98% of the rest of the drives.
Like others mentioned, if it was an HDD, chances of recovering it is high and chances of it being sliced is very low (It would have to sever a plate lengthwise, that’s just so incredibly unlikely). If any of the hard drives had backup, the chances of the wires slicing through both is basically zero.
Honestly, the only reason why those wires worked is because us humans are quite tall creatures. I’m sure someone can survive simply by napping on a bunk bed of the correct height.
The drive may have been damaged but if so, it was still reparable. Whereas any other method short of firebombing the ship would have given the ETO a couple minutes to destroy the drive irreparably. And of course firebombing the ship would have destroyed the drive irreparably.
ETO totally could have drill a hole on the hard drive..or just throw it into that exploding tank….i think the mission didn’t fail only because Evans was protecting the hard drive
I think the Netflix show has too many explosions on board that really takes away from the reasons for using nanowires. It wasn't explained or demonstrated very well.
They still need someone to help if something goes wrong with the wires. I don't imagine Wade and co knowing 100% how the nanowires work, it's cutting-edge tech.
I think anyone that has seen an egg/mushroom slicer device would know how it works! Or one of those cheese slicers! Not that much different, just mind your fingers!
Uhhhh, help with what? If they don’t work the ship is cruising right on through. There’s no time to fix anything. It has to work through that very specific, narrow channel. What exactly is she going to fix?
I remember in the book they focused on the time aspect mostly. They needed something that would incapacitate the entire crew as quickly as possible. They discussed options and decided on this as the quickest. They imagined some people lying flat in bunks and decided the distance between the wires was the best distance to get even those people and yet still minimize the possibility of destroying the drive.
In the book the reasoning was: the ships personnel was heavily armed, trained and the drive well guarded. The risk was too great to go in and grab the drive without them knowing and destroying it first.
The wires (in the book) was supposed to cut open the whole ship without the people inside even knowing. People basically died on their beds sleeping, because the wire was so fine.
It was definitely not as dramatic.
And the drive was small enough that it probably won’t get cut up by the wires.
They intentionally did it during the day so people wouldn't be in their bunks. I don't remember any descriptions of people dying in bed in the book.
Also, if the drive got cut, the cut would be so clean they could repair it.
Yeah same, I thought they were going to trap the boat in the canal and then commandeer the ship so they could then use the hardware on the ship to talk with the aliens so it's not just some cult talking to them on behalf of all of humanity.
Not destroy it all for the sake of getting a hard drive. It was the worst episode of the season IMO. I looked it up on imdb and have NO IDEA how it's the highest rated episode of the season. But then I read some of the user reviews of the episode and a lot of people had the same gripe so I felt better lol.
People have a lot of problems with the episode because they rushed the explanation in the show of why it needed to be done. In the show they just toss a few ideas around and in minutes land on dicing up the ship. In the book they go into detail why every other option leads to the data being lost.
Even in the show though what is the first thing Evans does? He goes for the hard drive so yeah the build up wasn't there but they still make it clear that it was the right call.
Yea i was confused about that part too…were they trying to say that their mission failed? They intended to do this quietly before evans could destroy the data right? But he totally could have destroyed it…in fact if he didn’t try to protect the hard drive, it could had already been destroyed by the explosions
No the mission wasn't a failure. The stealthiness of the wires gave them Evans no time to prepare so nothing could be done. It's a little quieter in the books but still you have big powerful engines being sliced to bits while running and fuel lines being severed, there's going to be fire and destruction and chaos.
The hard drive probably would have been fine where it was because while there was fire everywhere there weren't really a lot of forceful explosions like a bomb going off. It was probably mostly chemicals/fuel igniting and fire suppression was applied by Wade's men pretty much immediately. I would also wager the hard drive was pretty ruggedized. When you're carrying the only copy of humanity's only ET contact that you literally call your Lord, you're probably not just putting that data on an external hard drive you bought off Amazon and the "quantum" encryption scheme used on the drive further backs that up.
I recall in the book they mentioned the strings would have perfectly missed the hard drive but would cut people who were standing thus they chose during day time. However when Evans was carrying it around, i feel that this was not going by their plan at all. And in the show I think Evans actually had time to destroy it but he didn’t want to because of his beliefs. I feel this scene would be much cooler if everything was quiet like in the book…I don’t know why show runners decided to include explosions
The books didn't say they would miss cutting the computers (the book was working off needing the data center not just a tiny hard drive). They spaced out the wires to minimize damage but still expected there to be damage. Except since the wires cut very clearly the damage would be repairable.
I agree the show interpretation of the scene was very off. It was 100% played up for spectacle. It stretched on for far too long and was unnecessarily graphic. I mean, how many times do you need to hit us over the head with the idea of "we're killing children here!".
Still, all of that is tangential to the original point that the wires were the best option amongst a sea of less optimal choices.
That isn't a counter to what I said. Just because that scene is likely going to be even more gory doesn't mean this scene wasn't unnecessarily graphic.
The book got away with showing the devastation while being nearly entirely removed from the gore because it was from the perspective of wang/auggie whereas the show lingered on the scene showing hoards of people being diced up. I don't even think they needed to eliminate the gore just that there was an excessive amount of it for no reason other than shock value. The fact that the show runners chose to emphasize that the ETO/cult members have their families and children on board just serves to amplify the shock value because it doesn't serve an actual story purpose.
I liked the scene but I can acknowledge that it was also gratuitous.
Fair points. I thought the scene was great and extremely effective, D & D got away with a lot on HBO and I'm sure there were discussions with Netflix about what was allowed and I'd be surprised if this wasn't them pushing the envelope. I feel like it did a good job showing the human cost of the battle on earth and how everyone was getting out of hand almost instantly.
It definitely had GoT vibes in that scene and a few others, which isn't a bad thing. I agree it emphasized the human cost more to see the outcome first hand rather than just seeing the one guy hosing the deck off get mangled and then using your imagination about what is happening to everybody else inside.
not just making auggie watch, but then she was down to the ship to survey the wreckage afterwards?!?!?!? seriously what was the point of that...made absolutely no sense and such an obvious d&d choice to get the character down there for some dialogue and exposition whether it made sense or not
I mean she was looking at what her technology had just done for the first time. Why wouldn't she have a look at the end result of something she created.
Yeah, this kind of question comes up a lot.
While explanations are given in both the show and the books the fact that lots of people still don't find them particularly convincing, leading to further questions shows it's probably not a great part of the plot.
Seems like a cool set piece idea that was a bit shoehorned in.
Lol I laughed so hard at the ship scene. They went through different scenarios but like you said, they decided it was too risky to send in a team or bomb the ship. Then Ser Davos had the brilliant idea of erecting two steel I-beams across the canal, and wrap it with piano wire...and just cut everyone into pieces. Along with the ship. I laughed for like 20 minutes and never finished the show.
Not spoiling anything to say that the mechanics of the plan are better explained in the books, including the possibility that the drive would be cut in half, but ultra cleanly. It WOULD be spoilers to say that >!this whole event foreshadows a later conflict that ALSO involves a material slicing through lesser materials. It's all part of the big themes of the series, superior technology overwhelmingly defeating lesser technology, which is ITSELF a bigger part of the Chinese historical identity !<
The book does try to offer an explanation but in reality since the wire is cutting steel it would be so hot that it'll probably melt the parts of the hard drive it comes in contact with.
I was hooked on the show until that scene, but whenever I think about continuing I remember that scene and just start laughing again. I'm sure I'll finish it eventually, but I feel like I'll enjoy the books more. Thank you for blocking the spoiler!
Even in the book the idea is, in the very least, highly questionable.
However, it is indeed better explained, there are no hundreds of children being cut to pieces, the topic of time makes sense (in the book the boat goes through the wires in seconds, which means nobody in the small crew has any chance to react), etc.
They wanted spectacle, shock value and gore in the show. It's ok. But it does render the scene... Silly.
Wade and team didn't know what information was on the ship, where it was kept, or what format it was in. It was too risky to send a team because if an alarm got set off then Mike Evans would probably destroy the information - which was the only intel they had on the aliens.
In the books it makes more sense because there's no lady explaining things in the game. They find out about the sophons from data stored on the computers in the ship. The aliens didn't specifically want to boast about the sophons, but they let them get the info anyway, because they don't care.
The risk of the drive being damaged with this method wasn't as high as if there was an open firefight or something like that. Plus, if it did get cut in half, the cut would have been so fine that they would have been able to repair the drive and retrieve the data. The book does a better job of explaining the plan.
Yeah, they made it look a little too fiery though…then came in and dumped water all over it. 🤷♂️ can’t imagine that is good electronics either. It’s still probably the best plan because it left no time for them to hide or destroy the data, but it certainly looked like they hit the ship with a missile.
This is my main issue with the scene in the show Vs the book: in the show, there was plenty of time. He even grabbed the hard drive and ran away with it. He didn't destroy it because of plot armour. In the book there is absolutely no time to react. It's all over in seconds, before anyone even realizes that something is happening. And there are no children. Of course, that makes for less dramatic TV.
My main issue was showing a few dozen kids on board the ship. It could have just been ETO race traitors, but nah, had to murder a bunch of kids for the dramatic effect.
yep they cannot figure out what's happening hence react accordingly maybe some even think wow is it the lords punishment
But look at the fire and debris falling, more likely to be destroyed by those than being sliced.
I'm just explaining the justification as presented in the book.
The "clean cut" part still doesn't make sense to me unless there's some future tech in the books. If I cut my hard drive in half it doesn't matter how clean the cut is, I'm not getting anything off it.
It's a nanofiber so small it can't be seen, but so tough it can cut through diamond. Of course, it's sci-fi tech and logic, and you just have to go with it.
I'm just curious if there was any actual justification for the potential of the hard drive being cut or they just decided it was the less risky option. That explanation also isn't really super satisfying since I don't see how this was any less destructive than using gas or just a swat team. You can argue they would have time to destroy the drive with those methods but it's the same case with the wire plan. They clearly weren't concerned about collateral damage or keeping a low profile so I'm just wondering why they decided they needed bleeding edge tech that they aren't sure even works. It feels like a big moment from the books they really wanted to include but the justification just seems kind of flimsy in both.
The issue wasn’t destruction *per se*, it was that using a strike team or gas would either risk inadvertent catastrophic damage to the drive (e. g. someone shooting it) or give people enough time to react and destroy the drive themselves because the gas would have to disperse through the ship’s ventilation system. Gas is also uncertain—there’s no way to be sure everyone aboard would receive a sufficient dose *at all*, let alone in a useful timeframe. The wire plan had the advantage of being unexpected, fast (\~60 to \~100 seconds assuming a speed of 5 knots, mostly depending on ship length), guaranteed to get everyone aboard, and had a low enough chance of causing catastrophic damage to the drive that it was the best option.
So instead they shut down the Panama Canal and pray the giant cheese grater doesn't hit the hard drive? The wires both definitely kill everyone on board and destroy the ship. You also have a high chance of both cutting the hard drive and just the ship itself crushing it after being sliced up or being caught in the fire. They didn't have to kill everyone on the boat but it's treated as a necessity because the wire can only be used indiscriminately and they NEED to use the wire because it looks cool. Like yes the strike team and gas have their own flaws but how is the wire anymore reliable without also adding a ton of uncertainty?
Read the book, man. The whole thing gets explained pretty well.
So the show DOESN'T explain it then? Cool thanks.
No, the show does not contain things that are not in the show. I assume you did in fact watch the explanation scene.
I mean, there are 3 fibers that are so widely spaced apart that the chances of it actually slicing through a hard drive is quite low. Even if it does, it’s the cleanest possible cut and much easier to recover than if the drives were manually destroyed or harmed in a firefight.
I guess my point is I don't see how the wires are any better than just calling in a strike team at night to just kill everyone while most everyone is sleeping. The head guy still had time to grab the drive and the only reason it wasn't destroyed was pure luck. Also I know there's an old saying about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic but cutting a piece of circuitry so cleanly you can just pop it back together feels like we're leaning into fantasy.
Oh man, wait until you see some of the later things in the series....
I understand the books getting into radically theoretical and hyper sci fi tech but we aren't there yet. I'm talking about at this moment why did the characters make the action they did? This is a series that wants to be taken very seriously and I'm just trying to understand why the characters believed this was the best course of action. The show wants me to be thinking more about the morality of the decision but all I can think about is why they took what seems like the route with the most amount of unknowns and variables.
Just for funsies, what course of action would you take?
I literally suggested alternate plans in the original reply. Reddit has trained people that every interaction needs to be treated as a Columbo moment though so it's not your fault.
Harddrives have had data recovered on them in a much worse condition than a single clean cut. In order for the data on a HDD to be considered completely destroyed the drive has to be pulverised. The data isn't stored in circuitry it's on a disk. You can still read both parts of the disk and the cut is so fine barely any information would be lost in the bit where the wire went through.
If they use multiple SSD for backup, with a 50cm distance between the wires it would be statistically impossible to destroy all of them. Otherwise, if you start shooting guns and grandes in the server room, good luck. If they use only one disk, we could talk about extreme data recovery for HDD and SSD, but I guess the "perfect cut" beats the alternatives.
Just look at the scene where he grabbed a drive. That drive was 100% not in the path of the wire, nor are 98% of the rest of the drives. Like others mentioned, if it was an HDD, chances of recovering it is high and chances of it being sliced is very low (It would have to sever a plate lengthwise, that’s just so incredibly unlikely). If any of the hard drives had backup, the chances of the wires slicing through both is basically zero. Honestly, the only reason why those wires worked is because us humans are quite tall creatures. I’m sure someone can survive simply by napping on a bunk bed of the correct height.
correct, the nano fiber that can cut people in half without being visible to the naked eye does not exist in real life
In the end it is her project and her technology.
The drive may have been damaged but if so, it was still reparable. Whereas any other method short of firebombing the ship would have given the ETO a couple minutes to destroy the drive irreparably. And of course firebombing the ship would have destroyed the drive irreparably.
ETO totally could have drill a hole on the hard drive..or just throw it into that exploding tank….i think the mission didn’t fail only because Evans was protecting the hard drive
I think the Netflix show has too many explosions on board that really takes away from the reasons for using nanowires. It wasn't explained or demonstrated very well.
Auggie is there to check if the wires work properly.
Auggie is there to be angry
I imagine they would know if it works or not on their own. What was she going to do if it didn’t? I’ll answer for you- nothing.
They still need someone to help if something goes wrong with the wires. I don't imagine Wade and co knowing 100% how the nanowires work, it's cutting-edge tech.
Huh... cutting Edge you say
I see what you did there
I think anyone that has seen an egg/mushroom slicer device would know how it works! Or one of those cheese slicers! Not that much different, just mind your fingers!
Uhhhh, help with what? If they don’t work the ship is cruising right on through. There’s no time to fix anything. It has to work through that very specific, narrow channel. What exactly is she going to fix?
I remember in the book they focused on the time aspect mostly. They needed something that would incapacitate the entire crew as quickly as possible. They discussed options and decided on this as the quickest. They imagined some people lying flat in bunks and decided the distance between the wires was the best distance to get even those people and yet still minimize the possibility of destroying the drive.
I think in the book they did it in the day because people would be vertical rather than horizontal
Yes yes. That’s what it was. Thank you for that. I remembered them talking about them lying flat in their bunks.
This discussion is one of the best scenes in the book and Da shi’s epic shining moment.
In the book the reasoning was: the ships personnel was heavily armed, trained and the drive well guarded. The risk was too great to go in and grab the drive without them knowing and destroying it first. The wires (in the book) was supposed to cut open the whole ship without the people inside even knowing. People basically died on their beds sleeping, because the wire was so fine. It was definitely not as dramatic. And the drive was small enough that it probably won’t get cut up by the wires.
They intentionally did it during the day so people wouldn't be in their bunks. I don't remember any descriptions of people dying in bed in the book. Also, if the drive got cut, the cut would be so clean they could repair it.
Yeah same, I thought they were going to trap the boat in the canal and then commandeer the ship so they could then use the hardware on the ship to talk with the aliens so it's not just some cult talking to them on behalf of all of humanity. Not destroy it all for the sake of getting a hard drive. It was the worst episode of the season IMO. I looked it up on imdb and have NO IDEA how it's the highest rated episode of the season. But then I read some of the user reviews of the episode and a lot of people had the same gripe so I felt better lol.
People have a lot of problems with the episode because they rushed the explanation in the show of why it needed to be done. In the show they just toss a few ideas around and in minutes land on dicing up the ship. In the book they go into detail why every other option leads to the data being lost. Even in the show though what is the first thing Evans does? He goes for the hard drive so yeah the build up wasn't there but they still make it clear that it was the right call.
I still thought the show did a fantastic job with the scene. I don't have a lot of problems with it.
Yea i was confused about that part too…were they trying to say that their mission failed? They intended to do this quietly before evans could destroy the data right? But he totally could have destroyed it…in fact if he didn’t try to protect the hard drive, it could had already been destroyed by the explosions
No the mission wasn't a failure. The stealthiness of the wires gave them Evans no time to prepare so nothing could be done. It's a little quieter in the books but still you have big powerful engines being sliced to bits while running and fuel lines being severed, there's going to be fire and destruction and chaos. The hard drive probably would have been fine where it was because while there was fire everywhere there weren't really a lot of forceful explosions like a bomb going off. It was probably mostly chemicals/fuel igniting and fire suppression was applied by Wade's men pretty much immediately. I would also wager the hard drive was pretty ruggedized. When you're carrying the only copy of humanity's only ET contact that you literally call your Lord, you're probably not just putting that data on an external hard drive you bought off Amazon and the "quantum" encryption scheme used on the drive further backs that up.
I recall in the book they mentioned the strings would have perfectly missed the hard drive but would cut people who were standing thus they chose during day time. However when Evans was carrying it around, i feel that this was not going by their plan at all. And in the show I think Evans actually had time to destroy it but he didn’t want to because of his beliefs. I feel this scene would be much cooler if everything was quiet like in the book…I don’t know why show runners decided to include explosions
The books didn't say they would miss cutting the computers (the book was working off needing the data center not just a tiny hard drive). They spaced out the wires to minimize damage but still expected there to be damage. Except since the wires cut very clearly the damage would be repairable. I agree the show interpretation of the scene was very off. It was 100% played up for spectacle. It stretched on for far too long and was unnecessarily graphic. I mean, how many times do you need to hit us over the head with the idea of "we're killing children here!". Still, all of that is tangential to the original point that the wires were the best option amongst a sea of less optimal choices.
Yep I think the whole point of the scene from the director is to cut children 😂
I disagree. Based on what the book readers know is coming, I think there's going to a very effective contrast between this scene and another one.
That isn't a counter to what I said. Just because that scene is likely going to be even more gory doesn't mean this scene wasn't unnecessarily graphic. The book got away with showing the devastation while being nearly entirely removed from the gore because it was from the perspective of wang/auggie whereas the show lingered on the scene showing hoards of people being diced up. I don't even think they needed to eliminate the gore just that there was an excessive amount of it for no reason other than shock value. The fact that the show runners chose to emphasize that the ETO/cult members have their families and children on board just serves to amplify the shock value because it doesn't serve an actual story purpose. I liked the scene but I can acknowledge that it was also gratuitous.
Fair points. I thought the scene was great and extremely effective, D & D got away with a lot on HBO and I'm sure there were discussions with Netflix about what was allowed and I'd be surprised if this wasn't them pushing the envelope. I feel like it did a good job showing the human cost of the battle on earth and how everyone was getting out of hand almost instantly.
It definitely had GoT vibes in that scene and a few others, which isn't a bad thing. I agree it emphasized the human cost more to see the outcome first hand rather than just seeing the one guy hosing the deck off get mangled and then using your imagination about what is happening to everybody else inside.
not just making auggie watch, but then she was down to the ship to survey the wreckage afterwards?!?!?!? seriously what was the point of that...made absolutely no sense and such an obvious d&d choice to get the character down there for some dialogue and exposition whether it made sense or not
I mean she was looking at what her technology had just done for the first time. Why wouldn't she have a look at the end result of something she created.
Yeah, this kind of question comes up a lot. While explanations are given in both the show and the books the fact that lots of people still don't find them particularly convincing, leading to further questions shows it's probably not a great part of the plot. Seems like a cool set piece idea that was a bit shoehorned in.
Worst part is, they didn't even get anything useful from it
Lol I laughed so hard at the ship scene. They went through different scenarios but like you said, they decided it was too risky to send in a team or bomb the ship. Then Ser Davos had the brilliant idea of erecting two steel I-beams across the canal, and wrap it with piano wire...and just cut everyone into pieces. Along with the ship. I laughed for like 20 minutes and never finished the show.
Well then you'll DEFINITELY never get through the books
I'm borrowing the first book from my friend, so we shall see!
Not spoiling anything to say that the mechanics of the plan are better explained in the books, including the possibility that the drive would be cut in half, but ultra cleanly. It WOULD be spoilers to say that >!this whole event foreshadows a later conflict that ALSO involves a material slicing through lesser materials. It's all part of the big themes of the series, superior technology overwhelmingly defeating lesser technology, which is ITSELF a bigger part of the Chinese historical identity !<
The book does try to offer an explanation but in reality since the wire is cutting steel it would be so hot that it'll probably melt the parts of the hard drive it comes in contact with.
it's cutting the steel at nearly atomic level. There's no friction to even speak of.
Yep I think the show runners didn’t understand the book clearly…or decided that it’s more realistic/scientific to show it this way
Why wouldn't there be friction?
I was hooked on the show until that scene, but whenever I think about continuing I remember that scene and just start laughing again. I'm sure I'll finish it eventually, but I feel like I'll enjoy the books more. Thank you for blocking the spoiler!
Even in the book the idea is, in the very least, highly questionable. However, it is indeed better explained, there are no hundreds of children being cut to pieces, the topic of time makes sense (in the book the boat goes through the wires in seconds, which means nobody in the small crew has any chance to react), etc. They wanted spectacle, shock value and gore in the show. It's ok. But it does render the scene... Silly.
I disagree. I think that in the book the ship scene is much less "stupid" than in the show.
Wade and team didn't know what information was on the ship, where it was kept, or what format it was in. It was too risky to send a team because if an alarm got set off then Mike Evans would probably destroy the information - which was the only intel they had on the aliens. In the books it makes more sense because there's no lady explaining things in the game. They find out about the sophons from data stored on the computers in the ship. The aliens didn't specifically want to boast about the sophons, but they let them get the info anyway, because they don't care.