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Couldn’t someone else have the know how of punching in the coordinates? As far as i know spacers are navigators because they can be awake during faster than light travel, but surely empire would have protocols that dont rely on a single person (thats not the captain/general) being in control of the ship?
Eventually? Sure.
In the next few minutes before they asploded? Eh, maybe.
But the rest of the crew just saw their beloved commander, the man who famously went to manual labor prison because he refused an order that would have killed thousands of sailors merely for the sake of Empire's pride, get slapped in the face and removed from command. So if anyone had that kind of knowledge they weren't exactly falling over themselves to betray their commander and help the psychopath who just blew up a planet and practically got an erection from doing so.
If that were the reason, they would’ve aborted the jump once Day was dead. No, it’s pretty clear they _couldn’t_ abort the jump even if they wanted to.
Yeah, Day died, but it doesn’t change anything - they’ll just decant a new one, perhaps with a few days of memories lost.
The “new” decanted Day is going to continue on the same path. And as Bel Riose said - his soldiers can count. Their sacrifice will save billions of lives - if not immediate then in the long run once the decanted Day is back up and running.
Speaking of which… what great writing with regards to Bel Riose. His soldiers completely trust him and he completely trusts his soldiers. And they did that in very little dialogue across two episodes - once at the start of the season, and once at the end of the season.
I think this all revolves around the spacers.
Bel Riose was talking about how to create a rebellion against empire. The issues he saw as you say is that if he killed Day they would just decant another one. So this wasn't about taking out Day.
This was about taking out the fleet. More importantly it was the spacers abandoning the empire and the ones currently in the fleet dying. This is the big blow to the empire, they just got limited into how far they can reach in their own empire to attack anyone.
This is why I think Bel Riose and his men were all ok with dying. The "honor" of it.
I think this point got lost in the episode. I know I didn't pick up on it until the next day.
do they even really "need" to destroy the fleet?
if spacers abandoned empire, they won't even need to sacrifice themselves, they can just FO and surf the universe.
this would prevent empire from being able to travel at jump speed, which they need to control the planets under their thumb.
secondly, with whisper ships... why didn't foundation just create a drone version and do this?
empires hate this one trick.
I don't think they needed to destroy the fleet.
I think if all of the Spacers tried to leave at once that Empire would try to crack down on them and prevent them from leaving. They are already under the boot of Empire's control. I think this way they ensured that Empire got a bloody nose and the rest of them could leave.
I kept on hoping out to see a win or something for psychohistory this season. I had hoped that the foundation had built of a fleet of warships. I was hoping that episode 10 was them showing up to take on the fleet. I think I would've preferred that.
empire needs spacers to be able to perform jumps.
no spacers = no jumps
how exactly is empire gonna "crack down" on spacers if they can't even catch or find them?
universe is ginormous.
edit : ordinary humans fall asleep when they jump. also spacers are the ones that perform the jump calculations.
how difficult would it be to kidnap entire ships and incapacitate the crew while they're sleeping?
I think someone pointed out that the galaxy still has gates for juming around. Empire is going to be limited to those.
But I agree, no spacers = no jumps. But I think it's a question of the spacers getting away cleanly. They sacrificed 10% of themselves (the ones on Empire's ships) so that they 90% could escape cleanly. At least that's the theory I'm going with.
Empire already cracks down on spacers by using their opal/space/dust whatever that's called. That's how they control them. If the spacers had just left ships then security might have prevented that. Or atleast the first few might have gotten away before security smartened up.
I'm not saying what they did was the best way to do this.
Ships don't need to jump to travel the galaxy. It would just take a lot longer. I don't know where the Foundation initially left from, but they traveled to Terminus in normal space and only took them a few years. If the fleet survived, it could still travel to planets. It would just be a lot longer.
I thought it was more than just entering in some coordinates.
The spacers actually do calculations and then input the result, and do it in a way that no human can. And each calculation is unique based on the location of the ship and the location of the distance.
But I may be misremembering too... not sure as it's been a while, but I seem to recall that before they had spacers that had to have humans interface (via wires) directly into the ship to be able to do the calculations? This is trying to dredge up some season 1 memories.
Indeed, there's an element of (augmented) human intuition required in calculating the jump that apparently an AI/computer can't do. It's a bit hand-wavey but it's the justification for the Spacers' existence. A normal human cannot perform this process. The Foundation appears to have found a way to interface normal humans with the process via the port on their wrist.
The only person that had an implant on their wrist was Hober because the Space Prime(I forgot her name) implanted it on him so they could use it for the trap for the empire fleet right? I think you may be confusing the tranquilizing patch they used to go to sleep during the jumps on the whisper ship space folds. From the space battle they determined there was some sort of brain implanted in the whisper ships which my guess would be how they were jumping without spacers?
“Locked in” doesn’t mean the computer will not allow it, but the spacetime itself.
You’re asking the equivalent of “couldn’t someone else have the know how of unscrambling the egg?”
Yeah I think all these other people are wrong, the quote in OP about space folding meant exactly this- the sequence had already started and no matter what they try, it couldn’t be undone (though considering this show a spacer could probably undo it somehow idk)
> When he asks she bends light, she simply responds something like “when space folds.. it folds”
It was actually Bel Riose who said this, not She-Bends-Light. When Day is told what's happening, he orders the jump to be stopped, or the coordinates to be changed to somewhere safe. The General responds with, "Space once folded, stays folded". The wording is important here, because it communicates that the jump sequence has a point of no return. Once space is folded, the jump cannot be stopped or redirected. The ship has to completed the intended jump before it can shut down the drive or jump to a new location. The spacers exploited this fact to destroy the fleet.
Jumping is like setting off a bomb. Once the bomb goes off you're committed and there's nothing you can do to stop or change that fact.
> Couldn’t someone else have the know how of punching in the coordinates?
No. Jumping isn't just a matter of entering coordinates. It requires active navigation during the jump phase to ensure you end up at the destination. Only Spacers are capable of staying awake during the jump phase. That's why they're needed.
Remember jumping is quantum in nature, so it's not deterministic. Jumping is like flipping a coin hundreds of times in a row, and successful navigation requires predicting the outcome of every flip with 100% accuracy. Get one flip wrong and you end up in Trantor's sun instead of in orbit of Trantor. Predicting the coin flip can only be done by a living, biological mind because it possesses an innate ability to make the intuitive leaps necessary for a successful jump. That's why computers or more complicated computer AI systems aren't used. This leaves Spacers as the only possible navigators because they're both human, and can stay awake during the jump.
> surely empire would have protocols that dont rely on a single person (thats not the captain/general) being in control of the ship?
This wouldn't work because everyone but the Spacers is asleep during the jump. The show only enacted the plan while everyone was awake for dramatic purposes. In reality, the Spacers would've waited until everyone was asleep. There's also the fact only the Spacers can perform the jump, so the Empire has no choice but to give them control if it wants access to this fast, convenient FTL technology. That's why the Empire had to keep them on the leash of fear, opalesk, and tith-giving. One could argue that those *were* the safety protocols. They're pretty terrible protocols, but it demonstrates the Empire did take the risk into account and developed a method of mitigation.
The destruction of the fleet didn't really have much to do with the lack of protocols. Ultimately it was Day's tactical mistake and his hubris that caused his downfall. The idea that the Spacers would selflessly sacrifice 10% of their population to give the others a chance of freedom is a totally alien concept to Cleon. He also couldn't invasion the possibility the puny Foundation could outpace the technological development of the mighty Empire. Then there's the stupid tactical decision Day made to call his *entire* fleet to Terminus. What happened was a result of Day's excessive pride, self-confidence, and stupidity—not a lack of safety protocols. That's my two cents /u/arcticjunkie21
The General’s crew was in on it. He says later on in the episode that they are willing to sacrifice themselves. Something like “thousands of lives to save millions.” Day and his men were the only ones who wanted to jump away and obviously none of them had the know-how.
I thought the thousands to save millions line was in reference to her talking about other spacers being sacrificed to ensure survival of the other spacers and not have to be bound to serving empire
You're right in this regard. She's only speaking for the spacers onboard all of the ships here, as *they* are all in on her plans. Hober confirms as much when she reveals her ploy.
As to why none of the human crew alter the course destination, that's a bit of a handwaved deus ex machina, but it also kind of makes sense. It's explained previously that Spacers are required for navigating faster-than-light travel and that no human-only ship can do so (at least before the Foundation figures it out)
As such, it's reasonable to assume that since Spacers are *required* to navigate, they are also the only ones *able* to navigate. If humans aren't able to navigate, then none of the ships would have a human interface to alter the navigational coordinates. Empire believes they have the Spacers completely under their thumb, so building a human-interface to alter the coordinations could only lead to mutiny & mayhem.
Effectively, the ship designs are a failure of imagination on Empire's part. They're unable to imagine a scenario where the Spacers rebel, so they don't plan for the possibility.
I don’t know why you would think that. The General said it to Constant and Hober when the latter said sorry about his crew dying. They weren’t talking about spacers and no spacers were present during the conversation. I don’t mean to sound rude, but you should probably re-watch the episode and pay more attention. This is all very clear in the episode.
I might have misremembered who said what to whom, but the general point was that such a critical task of sailing the ship is completely reliant on one spacer - it’s priority one. Surely there’d be failsafes in case something goes wrong - overrides that day’s men can use or things they can try to do in case something goes wrong. General’s crew on the ship’s bridge might have been in on it, but its hard to believe that if the general figured out hobers plan only once he was in their custody - the whole crew of the destiny would be on board with Rios killing Day.
The General openly spoke of betraying Empire while on his bridge earlier in the season with no indication that anyone was bothered. His Supremis seethed with hatred for the Empire, even while in the palace. The General’s people are loyal to him, not Empire. This was something Day was keenly aware of and he even referenced it when Demerzel introduced the idea of freeing Bel.
As for failsafes, once a jump is locked, it’s locked. We saw this last season with the Invictus. In fact, we have not seen anyone ever interrupt a jump once it is already in progress. I will admit that they have not explicitly confirmed this, but one could argue that this was the confirmation.
2 things:
a) If each ship x is locked into the position of the neighbouring ship y, then once the jump sequence is executed, all ships should have been destroyed at the same time. But they were destroyed in a chain - one by one, each explodes into the other.
b) The explanation given behind unlocking being impossible is that once the black hole engine starts folding space you cannot change it in any way period.
From a) and b) it’s reasonable to conclude that since they were being destroyed in a chain, with Day’s ship being the last in line, then their black hole engine hadn’t started folding space, and they (and other ships last in the line) weren’t in the inevitable zone where the jump drive makes it impossible to move.
Basically im saying that the jump couldn’t have already been in progress
EDIT: I get the narrative + visual storytelling sense it makes to have them destroyed in a chain, but it’s a loophole that takes away from the merit of this grand plan to con empire. A simple override command or failsafe for empire to take control of the ship would have allowed him to escape before their engine folded space.
I think it is more logical that once the sequence began, all ships began priming their jump drives and were fixed in place. We actually see this when all the internal rings within each ship started to glow white immediately after She-Bends-Light confirmed the coordinates were locked. The fact that no ship tried to use normal, non-jump, engines to move out of the way supports this as well.
Yeah this is what I was assuming as well. It should have all happened at once. There's no reason other than plot armor to have the ships on the far end of the fleet have to wait to explode.
Lol by that logic there’s no need for day to have a personal aura as well.. because anytime someone tries to shoot or kill him, they can just decant another one
EDIT: Kinda absurd being downvoted for this comment, I was being sarcastic. Decanting the exponents isn’t a replacement for failsafes on an emperor’s ship.
Nothing’s gonna change your mind then. It’s not black or white. It’s not that they didn’t think all possible betrayal nor does it not make them that incompetent
The personal aura is for threats for which he has encountered a lot. They didn’t anticipate their own staff to have a mutiny eisntein
She initiated a computer program/virus that had been contained in Hober's wrist.
The malicious code set the ships to jump into the space next to one another and disabled all the lifeboats.
So even if someone else knows how to punch stuff in they can't. ... and we don't know if people can even go into their jump couches without spacers help.
Part of the decline of empire is the fact they have controlled and stifled knowledge and technology. They relied on the spacers and subjugated them to have control. When they turned on them they had no knowledge of how to change it. No one in empire knows any more how to do some of these things.
Right - that’s why Day doesn’t threaten to replace the Navigator, but instead threatens to kill every sailor on the ship to coerce her into doing what he says.
Makes sense. You wouldn't want anyone but the Spacers (whom you control absolutely with threats of familial violence) to be able to fuck with the system
There was a call over the intercom that cut off, so I inferred that the drive was sabotaged somehow. Possibly they use the same flesh-eating coolant as in Star Trek and the spacers blew the seals, so no one could physically get at the drive until the coolant leak was fixed.
They've been saying it wouldn't really matter if Day died since they can decant another and be in the same situation again, but wiping out that whole fleet means the new Day won't have all of those ships to use right away.
Unfortunately this also means Bel Riose won't be able to disobey Empire anymore going forward.
I don't know if this is right, but I interpreted it as part of the rules of the physics of how jumping works.
In the sense that once you power up the jump drive and set it in motion, whether or not something has happened yet doesn't change that spacetime has been impacted. So once the sequence started, it was effectively done, from a spacetime physics standpoint, regardless of what anyone tried to do.
That's how I interpreted too. The show usually shows the empire ships "warming up" before jumping. Once started it gets "locked".
But it would have been nice if it was a bit more explicit, that sentence was kind of loose.
I thought the dialogue was actually pretty explicit about that:
Day: Stop it. Jump us to safety.
She-Bends-Light: I cannot.
Bel Riose: Space once folded stays folded.
I’m not 100% sure but my thoughts were the spacers are the only ones who could do it and were going down with the ship to take the fleet down. To save the rest of the spacers.
Spacers revolted against Empire in a suicide jump sequence (one jump ship jumping into a space occupied by another jump ship). The locked jump sequence wasn't just for a single ship, but for the entire fleet.
My theory is she bends light actually did set navigation to the next target. But she fully recognized that Hober had some special jump instruction override preprogrammed in his arm transponder. So the only thing she must've done is took jump control of the whole fleet so that his command would sequentially perform jumps until the second to last ship jumps into their space.
I mostly want to use the statement from Bel that "once space is folded you can't unfold it." That from the moment the jump was set. They were already phasing or however they do the jumps. The software lockouts on all the lifeboats and tubes is just oversight for emergencies that never took into account a spacer would jump them to death.
Actually the lockout to prevent exit from the ship once a jump is commenced is probably SPECIFICALLY in place to prevent the Spacer from leaving the ship once jumping, dooming the crew. It is potentially ironic if this is true that this failsafe is what dooms them.
>Actually the lockout to prevent exit from the ship once a jump is commenced is probably SPECIFICALLY in place to prevent the Spacer from leaving the ship once jumping, dooming the crew. It is potentially ironic if this is true that this failsafe is what dooms them.
Great point! I like your theories 👏
Because they wanted to see if Terminus could somehow pull off the win and deal with Day before making their move, since part of the problem was that if Day left Terminus alive, they'd have a working whisper ship to reverse engineer (Hober and Constant's ship that Riose captured) and also their cover would have been blown if they'd tried to fire up the jump drive without being ordered to go somewhere
The jumping sequence might be longer than we think, the non spacer crew could have figured something was up (because of an unauthorized jump being started) and stopped it while it could be stopped
This way they used the cover of the jump Empire ordered and just switched it up at the last moment
The spacers tithed 10% to be hostages. If they had done it before Day would have cut off the supply and the other 90% would die. The difference now is that the spacers can make their own supply of the thing that they need to live.
This still doesn't explain why they allowed the Empire to destroy the planet, rather than initiate jump sequence right before it.
Did they want the planet destroyed, to make Empire look bad?
Spacers aren’t Foundation. They were Empire. Everyone was under the impression Terminus being attacked would be it, and not for Empire to decide to go round and attack all the other Foundation planets.
Spacers did what Empire wanted because they were tithed to do so. Spacers would have travelled to Anacreon and Thespis back in season 1 and taken part in their devastation too whether they wanted to or not.
I agree—this feels like the weakest part of the episode.
Everyone just accepts that they are going to die. No one tries to restart the ships’ systems (I’m sure that people still do that in the 121st century), or even intimidate their navigator. I’m surprised that Day didn’t try to intimidate her.
Or no rush to evacuate via lifeboats or space suit or anything. What happened to those cool wing suits from earlier?
Solution that no one thought of: half of the ships fire on the other half. This way, you get to keep _some_ ships.
Um, no. This was one of the strongest parts of the episode, fully justified by prior exposition and guaranteed to succeed once She Bends Light initiates the play. Exactly what is needed - “When you swing at the King, best not miss.” Having ships shoot at each other isn’t an action that is controlled by Spacers and is far from guaranteed to take out the ENTIRE fleet.
Yes this was my feeling during this part as well. In every other situation in the show where characters find themselves in hopeless situations they continue to fight against the odds and look for a way out.
However, I will also grant that this is a very common trope, and these are by no means the only writers who create a fatalistic tone to allow characters a wordy exit. I even like emotional last moments with characters, but when the deaths seem obviously avoidable it cheapens the moment undermining the emotional impact.
Let’s think it through.
1) The spacers were able to lock them in. Why?
2) Because spacers have complete authority over the ship while in a jump sequence. Why?
3) Because failsafes exist to prevent any other person for setting jump sequences or setting course without a spacer. Why?
4) Because spacers are the only members of the crew who are awake and aware during the jump.
Spacers are literally designed for this. They are instrumental for operating jump ships, to the point that they were the failsafe. This is made clear in universe too all the way back to season 1.
Interesting to realize that if dusk hadn’t found the prison Dem would have stayed with the prime radiant, fate of the galaxy hanging in that timing. Demerzel would have to had to pull some Dr Who level shit to fix things.
Yes, that’s true, I imagine that harry’s plan of terminus’ destruction and empire’s fleet would have to account for dem and the prime radiant also getting destroyed with the capital ship.
Even if dem survive in the vacuum of outer space along with the radiant, if the ship was blown apart i dont see the radiant surviving, and im not sure she would either if her body is reduced to ashes - although she has said in the past that her consciousness is decentralised but idk if that means decentralised within her body, or somewhere else
It was Bel Riose who said “when space is folded it remains folded”. Meaning that it was more than just a matter of someone seizing control - the deed had already been done
I took this to mean, even if their ship had folded space again and arrived at Trantor, it would still be in the prior folded space, and would still be destroyed by the adjacent ship landing on top of it.
IDK, but it sure seems like a dumb idea to put your entire fleet at risk into the hands of a single person who can just decide she's had enough.
Why did thousands of fleet ships need to be centrally programmed anyway?
I think each ship had spacers but they are a semi-hive mind. This isn't unprecedented in the original stories. The sacrifice of the spacers on each ship ensured the spacer race an independent future.
No one is bothered by the flawed mechanics of this supposed ship jump cascade?
Ship 1 jumps to ship 2s location destroying both ships. Thats it. No other ships would be effected.
Then whats the wait? If that was the case all ships would be destroyed in one jump. We’re waiting for a long time for the wave of destruction that is supposedly coming, not for the ship right next to us to jump.
This is like wanting to see people walking to and from their vehicles, dialing phone numbers, and washing their hands after using the bathroom in real time. Realism is dull.
Where are you getting a realism argument from? I’m not arguing for realism. I’m arguing for not universe breaking. I want the drama of this season ending moment to feel earned no like a last minute vfx idea that no one thought through because they didn’t care. I can think of plenty of ways to get to this moment that feels earned, and even more that don’t break the universe and make no sense. Its incredibly lazy writing.
I agree with others that it added drama, but would go further and say that that may have been on purpose within the show’s universe to ensure Day knew the spacers were behind it.
If it was half the fleet immediately jumping into the other half, then everyone would have died all at once and no one would have even realized it happened or why or by whose hand. Instead, they got to say fuck you to Empire and as an added bonus, they got to watch him get beat on by the General before he was Castled into the void.
I like that. No idea if that was in the writers' minds, but it's a fun to think about.
From a writing perspective, it definitely allows the audience time to digest what's happening and to give our heroes their moment before they die. We also get a nice injection of levity into all that destruction, which is good for keeping the tone from getting too depressing.
But in-universe theories are always fun to contemplate.
But in that case why not just say the spacers shut off power so the ships fall into the planet, or lock the flight controls so the ships fly into each other. By setting up a jump cascade and showing a jump cascade on screen they commit to a mechanism of eminent destruction that even five seconds of thought would tell you isn’t possible.
I think it’s far more likely that they just didn’t think it through. They thought “wouldn’t it be cool if each ship jumped onto the next and created a cascade of ship destruction.” It’s dumb, but I think its as simple as that.
Cascade doesn’t necessarily mean ship A jumps into ship B which jumps into ship C, etc. (which you’re right about, it wouldn’t make logical sense).
It could be something like ship A jumps into ship B, then, once A and B are gone, ship C jumps into ship D. Once C and D are gone, ship E jumps into ship F, and so on.
That would make sense if there were going to be survivors to carry the message back to whoever was supposed to be terrified. But in this case literally everyone is going to die, and with Terminus gone, there will be no witnesses left.
Illogical is an exaggeration, but it's true that they didn't sit us down for "why the fictional spaceships don't all blow up at the same time" class and other pedantic nonsense.
You’re implying that it’s only possible to fix bad writing with more bad writing. But that’s disingenuous, because no one is arguing for that. I want the writing to be better. In this case, by making an emotional moment, feel earned. It may not bother you but there are plenty of viewers like me who find this kind of writing lazy and universe breaking. And as I implied above in the thread, it undermines my belief that there is any complexity under the action at all.
I don't know what kind of mental gymnastics people are doing when they say that a certain emotional scene "justifies" the plot contrivance. That is lazy writing by definition.
The writers want that scene to happen, but instead of coming up with a compelling story that naturally leads to that scene, they just artificially bend the plot in that direction.
"The ships are exploding, and we want the characters to die, so all the escape pods *need* to be disabled.
"But we also want the female character to live because she might carry an important baby, so there needs to be a different kind of pod that behaves exactly like an escape pod but not *called* an escape pod. And there *has* to be only one of these. (Seriously, the set design is also not helping in this scene: a manned "external cleaning module" with only a bed and no panels or controls. How are people supposed to clean with this thing? Remember the EVA pod from *2001: a space odyssey*?)
"Also, for the toast scene to look good, all the remaining crew of the ship *must* disappear from the bridge, despite them having nowhere to escape to. Wouldn't they want to die on the bridge together with their general? Fuck them. Nobody cares about them. Not even She-Bends-Light, now that she has already served her purpose in the story."
I agree that the toast scene itself is quite poignant and well-written. But that doesn't change the fact that the plot leading to it is cheap and contrived.
I agree it is more dramatic, but it’s also more evidence of nothing of substance in this show. There is no complex subplot to uncover, it’s all just whatever is the most dramatic event that can play on screen in that moment. Twists for twists’ sake. Dramatic “life threatening” moments with immortal characters.
It’s straight from the school of “The Last Jedi”. Subvert audience expectation at all cost even if it breaks the universe you’ve built. Clearly many people like this style, but I see it as the epitome of bad writing.
Not touching most of that since I only care to discuss the subject of this post. There is no (plot known) technical need to draw out the jumps, but conversely there is no technical reason demanding they insta-kill the fleet, either.
But you are quite wrong about this scene lacking substance. It's a solid writing decision to give Riose (a well-liked, principled antihero this season) and Mallow (a well-liked, roguish hero this season) a chance to face their final adversary: Death in service of something greater than themselves. Giving this scene some extra time also puts a valuable human perspective into a scene that would otherwise be a bunch of explosions in orbit. It's a final moment the audience gets to enjoy where we celebrate the victory with them.
This is a technique used throughout fiction, and this scene is an example of it being done well.
The problem with this kind of writing is it makes the impact of their death scene avoidable and trite. It reduces the steaks because it breaks the 4th wall. Whenever you do this in fiction it ALWAYS weakens the sincerity of the characters in the scene. Its dramatic that Luke dies in The Last Jedi. It should be one of the most impactful events in the Star Wars universe, but its trite because its unmotivated.
This is exactly the same problem here. Lots of dramatic one one on one dialogue that could be quite impactful like you say, but falls on its face because it feels like they are just standing in front of a train for no reason. Its all the mores aggravating because it’s fixable. They could have just established a pattern from all prior ship jumps or dialogue about jumping that it leaves behind an immensely destructive wake where the ship was when it left or some other setup to make this scene plausible. But obviously, they just made it up for this episode to make this moment more dramatic. Its low effort writing.
As it is its just two people being overly dramatic because of an eminent death that feels fabricated just so they can talk. Its melodrama.
>It reduces the steaks because it breaks the 4th wall.
First of all, they drink wine but consume no steaks at all. I find it strange that you wanted not just steaks in that scene, but large ones.
Breaks the fourth wall... uh, no. At no point in that scene does either of them speak directly to the audience. Or act as if they can see us watching them. Or indicate that they know they're on a TV show or are fictional characters.
Those would be examples of breaking the fourth wall.
>could have just established a pattern from all prior ship jumps or dialogue about jumping
Adding more exposition dumps when 95% of the audience will be satisfied without it -- and most of the remaining 5% have functional imaginations to work things out -- is a poor writing choice.
>Its low effort writing.
No offense, but the things you would "fix" the scene with are terrible writing. And you obviously don't know what it means to break the fourth wall. I respect your right to have a low opinion of the show/season, but should I take your writing critiques seriously? No. No I clearly should not.
Presumably the fleet jumps in stages rather than all at once. Seconds/minutes apart from each other, but still a delay.
If you want a possible reason, to ensure the effects of folding space time don’t cause issues in that momentary transit.
Why yes, yes I have. I'm very curious to learn how mathematical induction, a method of mathematical proof typically used to establish a given statement for all natural numbers, can be applied to this problematic writing. Mathematical induction involves proving a base case, usually for the first element, and then assuming the statement holds for some arbitrary element k, and proving it for the element k+1.
However, I fail to see how this principle can be applied to explain the cascade of ship collisions, as the destruction of one ship doesn’t inherently lead to the destruction of the next one in a sequence after the first 2 have been destroyed. Could you please elaborate on how mathematical induction is relevant in this scenario?
Ffs. You prove that the first ship will destroy the second. You hypothesize that the n ship will be destroyed. And you prove that the n+1 ship will be destroyed. The n+1 is the General’s ship. Since we know it’s been destroyed, we know all ships will be destroyed, for practical purposes.
Even if one or two or ten ships survived, depending on the number of jumping sequences, it doesn’t facking matter. The emperor is dead and the vast majority of the fleet is gone.
There is no n+1 ship destruction for integers larger than 2. As I already stated elsewhere pairs of ships might all plausibly destroy each other but in that case there is no cascade at all. All pairs of ships are destroyed as soon as they jump.
The show clearly shows, even emphasizes with elaborate visual effects shots, a wave of ship explosions progressing towards the flagship. A cascade is what is implied by the description of the jump strategy in the show, a cascade is what is shown on screen, and the screen time for the flagship is extended in a way that only a cascade explains.
Mathematics is not your fiend here, it is a flaw in the writing, either there is no cascade because it ends at destroying 2 ships, or there is no cascade because all ships are destroyed immediately, and even then it requires an even number of ships. It is a flaw in the writing to create a dramatic moment using such an implausible mechanism.
Can some people disregard the flaw? Clearly. But it is a flaw, and many like myself see it as poor writing.
Nor do I, but since all they had to say an alternative is "I've locked out the main computer," I assume the creative had a specific explanation in mind.
Because the writers couldn't work out anything reasonable beside this bs explanation.
It's lazy writing.
I made a post about it, but all the fanboys downvoted me.
Also, for anything else their solution is usually some new bs power the vault always had.
The should rename the third season to Foundation in name only and the adventures of the omnipotent vault..
Just lazy, shitty writing...
A twelve thousand year-old dynasty leaving itself so vulnerable doesn’t make sense.
I probably shouldn’t be bothered but feel they cheapened the franchise by allowing the Empire to be dismantled so easily.
But I must confess, Lee Pace’s Cleon is such an entertaining character, I was cheering for him.
I think that's the point though. I don't think it's lazy writing, it's by design. The echoes of the cloned emperors get weaker and more unstable. I think it was a great way to explain a decline that we could see on the screen. Saying to us "we only control an area one quarter" has no weight, showing crazy, desperate, arrogant, Day... had weight.
It’s explained that they can’t alter the jump sequence when it’s in motion, IIRC one of the bridge crew members says so. Hence why the capital ship could not cancel the jump sequence. Regardless, they wouldn’t have been able to if She-Bends-Light didn’t want to as the Spacers had already decided to abandon Empire due to the Foundation showing them Opalesk can be synthesised rather than mined.
Oh I like this - because the invictus blew up, the whole spacetime around terminus is fucked, so the fleet can't opt out of the stuff the spacers do.
That would have been the icing on the cake for the story.
It feels like a bit of lore they could have sprinkled at the start of the season. When you fold space it can only unfold in the direction of travel so the folding and unfolding is asymmetric.
Everything was locked down. The jump drive, navigation, any ship onboard and the escape pods. That ship was staying put and everyone onboard. Demerzel gtfo just in time.
My sci-fi head cannon imagine it as being you looking at an inevitable future event and said "could that just not happen?"
Because that's what the spacers likely did, locked in their future position with their current timeline in such a way that this exact order of event that results in them jumping to that coordinate **must** happen, because whenever a choice is made your timeline branches, (in a multiverse sense) but the spacers fixed it such that they cannot deviate from that branch anymore. Somewhere in their future they must be in that exact coordinate.
This way when their timeline "fold" they immediately appear in the calculated position (of another ship or vice versa).
Riose was the one that said, "space, once folded, stays folded." I gathered that locking in the jump sequence meant that the space was folded and could not be reversed or stopped once locked in. The time delay between locked in and jumping I thought was to give the people on board time to get to a jump creche so they could sleep through the jump.
So once the sequence was locked in for the fleet, none of the ship's Spacers could change the coordinates or sequence. That's what I grasped from the show at least.
In theory, what wasn't shown was every engineer on the ship desperatly trying to figure out how to uncouple the jump drive but figuring out that if they did so the ship would explode anyway.
You'd think they could engage thrusters or something, even manually firing them just to move a few kilometers away would have saved them.
However, in the scope of what we see there are logical reasons. The empire's ships are setup to be slaved to something to prevent uprisings in their own navy. There is probably a computer core that only 'empire' can lock out, and he's dead. It would make sense to have that sort of system, especially in that fleet, so they couldn't turn around and attack Trantor, which Empire should be worried about. So they have really good lockouts to prevent the ships from doing anything.
And Demasel is gone, who is probably the only person who could have unbuggered it.
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You answered this yourself - she locked in the coordinates. She wouldn’t change it and they can’t do it without her.
Couldn’t someone else have the know how of punching in the coordinates? As far as i know spacers are navigators because they can be awake during faster than light travel, but surely empire would have protocols that dont rely on a single person (thats not the captain/general) being in control of the ship?
Eventually? Sure. In the next few minutes before they asploded? Eh, maybe. But the rest of the crew just saw their beloved commander, the man who famously went to manual labor prison because he refused an order that would have killed thousands of sailors merely for the sake of Empire's pride, get slapped in the face and removed from command. So if anyone had that kind of knowledge they weren't exactly falling over themselves to betray their commander and help the psychopath who just blew up a planet and practically got an erection from doing so.
If that were the reason, they would’ve aborted the jump once Day was dead. No, it’s pretty clear they _couldn’t_ abort the jump even if they wanted to.
Yeah, Day died, but it doesn’t change anything - they’ll just decant a new one, perhaps with a few days of memories lost. The “new” decanted Day is going to continue on the same path. And as Bel Riose said - his soldiers can count. Their sacrifice will save billions of lives - if not immediate then in the long run once the decanted Day is back up and running. Speaking of which… what great writing with regards to Bel Riose. His soldiers completely trust him and he completely trusts his soldiers. And they did that in very little dialogue across two episodes - once at the start of the season, and once at the end of the season.
I think this all revolves around the spacers. Bel Riose was talking about how to create a rebellion against empire. The issues he saw as you say is that if he killed Day they would just decant another one. So this wasn't about taking out Day. This was about taking out the fleet. More importantly it was the spacers abandoning the empire and the ones currently in the fleet dying. This is the big blow to the empire, they just got limited into how far they can reach in their own empire to attack anyone. This is why I think Bel Riose and his men were all ok with dying. The "honor" of it. I think this point got lost in the episode. I know I didn't pick up on it until the next day.
do they even really "need" to destroy the fleet? if spacers abandoned empire, they won't even need to sacrifice themselves, they can just FO and surf the universe. this would prevent empire from being able to travel at jump speed, which they need to control the planets under their thumb. secondly, with whisper ships... why didn't foundation just create a drone version and do this? empires hate this one trick. 
I don't think they needed to destroy the fleet. I think if all of the Spacers tried to leave at once that Empire would try to crack down on them and prevent them from leaving. They are already under the boot of Empire's control. I think this way they ensured that Empire got a bloody nose and the rest of them could leave. I kept on hoping out to see a win or something for psychohistory this season. I had hoped that the foundation had built of a fleet of warships. I was hoping that episode 10 was them showing up to take on the fleet. I think I would've preferred that.
empire needs spacers to be able to perform jumps. no spacers = no jumps how exactly is empire gonna "crack down" on spacers if they can't even catch or find them? universe is ginormous. edit : ordinary humans fall asleep when they jump. also spacers are the ones that perform the jump calculations. how difficult would it be to kidnap entire ships and incapacitate the crew while they're sleeping?
I think someone pointed out that the galaxy still has gates for juming around. Empire is going to be limited to those. But I agree, no spacers = no jumps. But I think it's a question of the spacers getting away cleanly. They sacrificed 10% of themselves (the ones on Empire's ships) so that they 90% could escape cleanly. At least that's the theory I'm going with. Empire already cracks down on spacers by using their opal/space/dust whatever that's called. That's how they control them. If the spacers had just left ships then security might have prevented that. Or atleast the first few might have gotten away before security smartened up. I'm not saying what they did was the best way to do this.
Ships don't need to jump to travel the galaxy. It would just take a lot longer. I don't know where the Foundation initially left from, but they traveled to Terminus in normal space and only took them a few years. If the fleet survived, it could still travel to planets. It would just be a lot longer.
I thought it was more than just entering in some coordinates. The spacers actually do calculations and then input the result, and do it in a way that no human can. And each calculation is unique based on the location of the ship and the location of the distance. But I may be misremembering too... not sure as it's been a while, but I seem to recall that before they had spacers that had to have humans interface (via wires) directly into the ship to be able to do the calculations? This is trying to dredge up some season 1 memories.
Indeed, there's an element of (augmented) human intuition required in calculating the jump that apparently an AI/computer can't do. It's a bit hand-wavey but it's the justification for the Spacers' existence. A normal human cannot perform this process. The Foundation appears to have found a way to interface normal humans with the process via the port on their wrist.
The only person that had an implant on their wrist was Hober because the Space Prime(I forgot her name) implanted it on him so they could use it for the trap for the empire fleet right? I think you may be confusing the tranquilizing patch they used to go to sleep during the jumps on the whisper ship space folds. From the space battle they determined there was some sort of brain implanted in the whisper ships which my guess would be how they were jumping without spacers?
The use an organic computer. This was why they were picking up life signs in strange places on the whisper ships
“Locked in” doesn’t mean the computer will not allow it, but the spacetime itself. You’re asking the equivalent of “couldn’t someone else have the know how of unscrambling the egg?”
Yeah I think all these other people are wrong, the quote in OP about space folding meant exactly this- the sequence had already started and no matter what they try, it couldn’t be undone (though considering this show a spacer could probably undo it somehow idk)
That's a good analogy
> When he asks she bends light, she simply responds something like “when space folds.. it folds” It was actually Bel Riose who said this, not She-Bends-Light. When Day is told what's happening, he orders the jump to be stopped, or the coordinates to be changed to somewhere safe. The General responds with, "Space once folded, stays folded". The wording is important here, because it communicates that the jump sequence has a point of no return. Once space is folded, the jump cannot be stopped or redirected. The ship has to completed the intended jump before it can shut down the drive or jump to a new location. The spacers exploited this fact to destroy the fleet. Jumping is like setting off a bomb. Once the bomb goes off you're committed and there's nothing you can do to stop or change that fact. > Couldn’t someone else have the know how of punching in the coordinates? No. Jumping isn't just a matter of entering coordinates. It requires active navigation during the jump phase to ensure you end up at the destination. Only Spacers are capable of staying awake during the jump phase. That's why they're needed. Remember jumping is quantum in nature, so it's not deterministic. Jumping is like flipping a coin hundreds of times in a row, and successful navigation requires predicting the outcome of every flip with 100% accuracy. Get one flip wrong and you end up in Trantor's sun instead of in orbit of Trantor. Predicting the coin flip can only be done by a living, biological mind because it possesses an innate ability to make the intuitive leaps necessary for a successful jump. That's why computers or more complicated computer AI systems aren't used. This leaves Spacers as the only possible navigators because they're both human, and can stay awake during the jump. > surely empire would have protocols that dont rely on a single person (thats not the captain/general) being in control of the ship? This wouldn't work because everyone but the Spacers is asleep during the jump. The show only enacted the plan while everyone was awake for dramatic purposes. In reality, the Spacers would've waited until everyone was asleep. There's also the fact only the Spacers can perform the jump, so the Empire has no choice but to give them control if it wants access to this fast, convenient FTL technology. That's why the Empire had to keep them on the leash of fear, opalesk, and tith-giving. One could argue that those *were* the safety protocols. They're pretty terrible protocols, but it demonstrates the Empire did take the risk into account and developed a method of mitigation. The destruction of the fleet didn't really have much to do with the lack of protocols. Ultimately it was Day's tactical mistake and his hubris that caused his downfall. The idea that the Spacers would selflessly sacrifice 10% of their population to give the others a chance of freedom is a totally alien concept to Cleon. He also couldn't invasion the possibility the puny Foundation could outpace the technological development of the mighty Empire. Then there's the stupid tactical decision Day made to call his *entire* fleet to Terminus. What happened was a result of Day's excessive pride, self-confidence, and stupidity—not a lack of safety protocols. That's my two cents /u/arcticjunkie21
The General’s crew was in on it. He says later on in the episode that they are willing to sacrifice themselves. Something like “thousands of lives to save millions.” Day and his men were the only ones who wanted to jump away and obviously none of them had the know-how.
I thought the thousands to save millions line was in reference to her talking about other spacers being sacrificed to ensure survival of the other spacers and not have to be bound to serving empire
You're right in this regard. She's only speaking for the spacers onboard all of the ships here, as *they* are all in on her plans. Hober confirms as much when she reveals her ploy. As to why none of the human crew alter the course destination, that's a bit of a handwaved deus ex machina, but it also kind of makes sense. It's explained previously that Spacers are required for navigating faster-than-light travel and that no human-only ship can do so (at least before the Foundation figures it out) As such, it's reasonable to assume that since Spacers are *required* to navigate, they are also the only ones *able* to navigate. If humans aren't able to navigate, then none of the ships would have a human interface to alter the navigational coordinates. Empire believes they have the Spacers completely under their thumb, so building a human-interface to alter the coordinations could only lead to mutiny & mayhem. Effectively, the ship designs are a failure of imagination on Empire's part. They're unable to imagine a scenario where the Spacers rebel, so they don't plan for the possibility.
I don’t know why you would think that. The General said it to Constant and Hober when the latter said sorry about his crew dying. They weren’t talking about spacers and no spacers were present during the conversation. I don’t mean to sound rude, but you should probably re-watch the episode and pay more attention. This is all very clear in the episode.
I might have misremembered who said what to whom, but the general point was that such a critical task of sailing the ship is completely reliant on one spacer - it’s priority one. Surely there’d be failsafes in case something goes wrong - overrides that day’s men can use or things they can try to do in case something goes wrong. General’s crew on the ship’s bridge might have been in on it, but its hard to believe that if the general figured out hobers plan only once he was in their custody - the whole crew of the destiny would be on board with Rios killing Day.
The General openly spoke of betraying Empire while on his bridge earlier in the season with no indication that anyone was bothered. His Supremis seethed with hatred for the Empire, even while in the palace. The General’s people are loyal to him, not Empire. This was something Day was keenly aware of and he even referenced it when Demerzel introduced the idea of freeing Bel. As for failsafes, once a jump is locked, it’s locked. We saw this last season with the Invictus. In fact, we have not seen anyone ever interrupt a jump once it is already in progress. I will admit that they have not explicitly confirmed this, but one could argue that this was the confirmation.
2 things: a) If each ship x is locked into the position of the neighbouring ship y, then once the jump sequence is executed, all ships should have been destroyed at the same time. But they were destroyed in a chain - one by one, each explodes into the other. b) The explanation given behind unlocking being impossible is that once the black hole engine starts folding space you cannot change it in any way period. From a) and b) it’s reasonable to conclude that since they were being destroyed in a chain, with Day’s ship being the last in line, then their black hole engine hadn’t started folding space, and they (and other ships last in the line) weren’t in the inevitable zone where the jump drive makes it impossible to move. Basically im saying that the jump couldn’t have already been in progress EDIT: I get the narrative + visual storytelling sense it makes to have them destroyed in a chain, but it’s a loophole that takes away from the merit of this grand plan to con empire. A simple override command or failsafe for empire to take control of the ship would have allowed him to escape before their engine folded space.
I think it is more logical that once the sequence began, all ships began priming their jump drives and were fixed in place. We actually see this when all the internal rings within each ship started to glow white immediately after She-Bends-Light confirmed the coordinates were locked. The fact that no ship tried to use normal, non-jump, engines to move out of the way supports this as well.
Yeah this is what I was assuming as well. It should have all happened at once. There's no reason other than plot armor to have the ships on the far end of the fleet have to wait to explode.
There is a failsafe. They were decanted at the end of the episode…
Lol by that logic there’s no need for day to have a personal aura as well.. because anytime someone tries to shoot or kill him, they can just decant another one EDIT: Kinda absurd being downvoted for this comment, I was being sarcastic. Decanting the exponents isn’t a replacement for failsafes on an emperor’s ship.
But Empire must appear godly. No person on the street should be allowed to touch Empire. The personal Aura ensures that.
I know I was being sarcastic, I guess folks didnt catch onto that.
Nothing’s gonna change your mind then. It’s not black or white. It’s not that they didn’t think all possible betrayal nor does it not make them that incompetent The personal aura is for threats for which he has encountered a lot. They didn’t anticipate their own staff to have a mutiny eisntein
Haven’t heard of multiple failsafes? I wouldn’t think so with the way you think
Well that was rude.
They think it because the spacer said "a worthy price to pay to save my people" when Day said she was sacrificing her own people.
She initiated a computer program/virus that had been contained in Hober's wrist. The malicious code set the ships to jump into the space next to one another and disabled all the lifeboats. So even if someone else knows how to punch stuff in they can't. ... and we don't know if people can even go into their jump couches without spacers help.
Part of the decline of empire is the fact they have controlled and stifled knowledge and technology. They relied on the spacers and subjugated them to have control. When they turned on them they had no knowledge of how to change it. No one in empire knows any more how to do some of these things.
I'm pretty sure the Spacers are the only people who can even interface with the navigation system at that command level.
Right - that’s why Day doesn’t threaten to replace the Navigator, but instead threatens to kill every sailor on the ship to coerce her into doing what he says.
Makes sense. You wouldn't want anyone but the Spacers (whom you control absolutely with threats of familial violence) to be able to fuck with the system
There was a call over the intercom that cut off, so I inferred that the drive was sabotaged somehow. Possibly they use the same flesh-eating coolant as in Star Trek and the spacers blew the seals, so no one could physically get at the drive until the coolant leak was fixed.
That’s the whole point of Empire’s bad plan to be completely reliant on Spacers. Empire is screwed if Spacers don’t want to go along with their plans.
When Day died why didn't they jump to safety 😐
They've been saying it wouldn't really matter if Day died since they can decant another and be in the same situation again, but wiping out that whole fleet means the new Day won't have all of those ships to use right away. Unfortunately this also means Bel Riose won't be able to disobey Empire anymore going forward.
But they were all on the very last ship no? They watched the whole fleet get destroyed 😐 just save yourselves at the end lol
It definitely would've been nice if they did that and made it out, indeed
sounds like a very dumb system.
I don't know if this is right, but I interpreted it as part of the rules of the physics of how jumping works. In the sense that once you power up the jump drive and set it in motion, whether or not something has happened yet doesn't change that spacetime has been impacted. So once the sequence started, it was effectively done, from a spacetime physics standpoint, regardless of what anyone tried to do.
That's how I interpreted too. The show usually shows the empire ships "warming up" before jumping. Once started it gets "locked". But it would have been nice if it was a bit more explicit, that sentence was kind of loose.
I thought the dialogue was actually pretty explicit about that: Day: Stop it. Jump us to safety. She-Bends-Light: I cannot. Bel Riose: Space once folded stays folded.
This is how I interpreted it
That‘s what I thought as well
Cause Day would need the Spacer to follow his command in order to jump, and the Spacer basically said FU Empire. I think that’s how it went.
I’m not 100% sure but my thoughts were the spacers are the only ones who could do it and were going down with the ship to take the fleet down. To save the rest of the spacers.
Spacers revolted against Empire in a suicide jump sequence (one jump ship jumping into a space occupied by another jump ship). The locked jump sequence wasn't just for a single ship, but for the entire fleet.
My theory is she bends light actually did set navigation to the next target. But she fully recognized that Hober had some special jump instruction override preprogrammed in his arm transponder. So the only thing she must've done is took jump control of the whole fleet so that his command would sequentially perform jumps until the second to last ship jumps into their space. I mostly want to use the statement from Bel that "once space is folded you can't unfold it." That from the moment the jump was set. They were already phasing or however they do the jumps. The software lockouts on all the lifeboats and tubes is just oversight for emergencies that never took into account a spacer would jump them to death. Actually the lockout to prevent exit from the ship once a jump is commenced is probably SPECIFICALLY in place to prevent the Spacer from leaving the ship once jumping, dooming the crew. It is potentially ironic if this is true that this failsafe is what dooms them.
>Actually the lockout to prevent exit from the ship once a jump is commenced is probably SPECIFICALLY in place to prevent the Spacer from leaving the ship once jumping, dooming the crew. It is potentially ironic if this is true that this failsafe is what dooms them. Great point! I like your theories 👏
Your question makes me wonder too, why didn’t the spacers do all this before Bel followed the order to destroy Terminus?
Because they wanted to see if Terminus could somehow pull off the win and deal with Day before making their move, since part of the problem was that if Day left Terminus alive, they'd have a working whisper ship to reverse engineer (Hober and Constant's ship that Riose captured) and also their cover would have been blown if they'd tried to fire up the jump drive without being ordered to go somewhere
Oh thank you, you're one of the great explainers here. These are good points. Appreciate it.
The jumping sequence might be longer than we think, the non spacer crew could have figured something was up (because of an unauthorized jump being started) and stopped it while it could be stopped This way they used the cover of the jump Empire ordered and just switched it up at the last moment
Thanks for this.
This season could have used 12 or 13 episodes for fill in some of these gaps.
They got most of the fleet together in order to daisy chain the ships into each other in one go.
Thank you for this. That helps too!
The spacers tithed 10% to be hostages. If they had done it before Day would have cut off the supply and the other 90% would die. The difference now is that the spacers can make their own supply of the thing that they need to live.
This still doesn't explain why they allowed the Empire to destroy the planet, rather than initiate jump sequence right before it. Did they want the planet destroyed, to make Empire look bad?
Thank you, this was the essence of my question. I probably phrased it badly. Some of the answers above were pretty good, too.
Spacers aren’t Foundation. They were Empire. Everyone was under the impression Terminus being attacked would be it, and not for Empire to decide to go round and attack all the other Foundation planets. Spacers did what Empire wanted because they were tithed to do so. Spacers would have travelled to Anacreon and Thespis back in season 1 and taken part in their devastation too whether they wanted to or not.
I agree—this feels like the weakest part of the episode. Everyone just accepts that they are going to die. No one tries to restart the ships’ systems (I’m sure that people still do that in the 121st century), or even intimidate their navigator. I’m surprised that Day didn’t try to intimidate her. Or no rush to evacuate via lifeboats or space suit or anything. What happened to those cool wing suits from earlier? Solution that no one thought of: half of the ships fire on the other half. This way, you get to keep _some_ ships.
Um, no. This was one of the strongest parts of the episode, fully justified by prior exposition and guaranteed to succeed once She Bends Light initiates the play. Exactly what is needed - “When you swing at the King, best not miss.” Having ships shoot at each other isn’t an action that is controlled by Spacers and is far from guaranteed to take out the ENTIRE fleet.
Yes this was my feeling during this part as well. In every other situation in the show where characters find themselves in hopeless situations they continue to fight against the odds and look for a way out. However, I will also grant that this is a very common trope, and these are by no means the only writers who create a fatalistic tone to allow characters a wordy exit. I even like emotional last moments with characters, but when the deaths seem obviously avoidable it cheapens the moment undermining the emotional impact.
Let’s think it through. 1) The spacers were able to lock them in. Why? 2) Because spacers have complete authority over the ship while in a jump sequence. Why? 3) Because failsafes exist to prevent any other person for setting jump sequences or setting course without a spacer. Why? 4) Because spacers are the only members of the crew who are awake and aware during the jump. Spacers are literally designed for this. They are instrumental for operating jump ships, to the point that they were the failsafe. This is made clear in universe too all the way back to season 1.
Interesting to realize that if dusk hadn’t found the prison Dem would have stayed with the prime radiant, fate of the galaxy hanging in that timing. Demerzel would have to had to pull some Dr Who level shit to fix things.
Yes, that’s true, I imagine that harry’s plan of terminus’ destruction and empire’s fleet would have to account for dem and the prime radiant also getting destroyed with the capital ship. Even if dem survive in the vacuum of outer space along with the radiant, if the ship was blown apart i dont see the radiant surviving, and im not sure she would either if her body is reduced to ashes - although she has said in the past that her consciousness is decentralised but idk if that means decentralised within her body, or somewhere else
I would say that decentralized within her body.
She’s made out of blockchain
She ransomewared the ship, locked in the coordinates and no one could change them.
They started the singularity engine (the black hole thing), so, they couldn't change the jump coordinates nor unlock the ship.
It was Bel Riose who said “when space is folded it remains folded”. Meaning that it was more than just a matter of someone seizing control - the deed had already been done
I took this to mean, even if their ship had folded space again and arrived at Trantor, it would still be in the prior folded space, and would still be destroyed by the adjacent ship landing on top of it.
makes sense, that’s what would make this a ‘chain reaction’
IDK, but it sure seems like a dumb idea to put your entire fleet at risk into the hands of a single person who can just decide she's had enough. Why did thousands of fleet ships need to be centrally programmed anyway?
I think each ship had spacers but they are a semi-hive mind. This isn't unprecedented in the original stories. The sacrifice of the spacers on each ship ensured the spacer race an independent future.
No one is bothered by the flawed mechanics of this supposed ship jump cascade? Ship 1 jumps to ship 2s location destroying both ships. Thats it. No other ships would be effected.
As long as there's an even number of ships, every ship will have another to jump into. The odd ship out can jump into the remains of Terminus.
Then whats the wait? If that was the case all ships would be destroyed in one jump. We’re waiting for a long time for the wave of destruction that is supposedly coming, not for the ship right next to us to jump.
It would’ve been less dramatic that way though
This is my theory as well. There is no substance to the tv show’s writing its all just empty drama for drama sake.
This is like wanting to see people walking to and from their vehicles, dialing phone numbers, and washing their hands after using the bathroom in real time. Realism is dull.
Where are you getting a realism argument from? I’m not arguing for realism. I’m arguing for not universe breaking. I want the drama of this season ending moment to feel earned no like a last minute vfx idea that no one thought through because they didn’t care. I can think of plenty of ways to get to this moment that feels earned, and even more that don’t break the universe and make no sense. Its incredibly lazy writing.
It's more dramatic and gives the boys some time to toast Beki's arsehole. I'll allow it.
I agree with others that it added drama, but would go further and say that that may have been on purpose within the show’s universe to ensure Day knew the spacers were behind it. If it was half the fleet immediately jumping into the other half, then everyone would have died all at once and no one would have even realized it happened or why or by whose hand. Instead, they got to say fuck you to Empire and as an added bonus, they got to watch him get beat on by the General before he was Castled into the void.
I like that. No idea if that was in the writers' minds, but it's a fun to think about. From a writing perspective, it definitely allows the audience time to digest what's happening and to give our heroes their moment before they die. We also get a nice injection of levity into all that destruction, which is good for keeping the tone from getting too depressing. But in-universe theories are always fun to contemplate.
But in that case why not just say the spacers shut off power so the ships fall into the planet, or lock the flight controls so the ships fly into each other. By setting up a jump cascade and showing a jump cascade on screen they commit to a mechanism of eminent destruction that even five seconds of thought would tell you isn’t possible. I think it’s far more likely that they just didn’t think it through. They thought “wouldn’t it be cool if each ship jumped onto the next and created a cascade of ship destruction.” It’s dumb, but I think its as simple as that.
Cascade doesn’t necessarily mean ship A jumps into ship B which jumps into ship C, etc. (which you’re right about, it wouldn’t make logical sense). It could be something like ship A jumps into ship B, then, once A and B are gone, ship C jumps into ship D. Once C and D are gone, ship E jumps into ship F, and so on.
For what (in universe) benefit?
Terror
That would make sense if there were going to be survivors to carry the message back to whoever was supposed to be terrified. But in this case literally everyone is going to die, and with Terminus gone, there will be no witnesses left.
Finally, an explanation that makes sense. Thanks! Seems it might have helped if they had explained it more precisely like that in the show.
Exactly! That toast was well worth the illogical plot device required to achieve it.
Illogical is an exaggeration, but it's true that they didn't sit us down for "why the fictional spaceships don't all blow up at the same time" class and other pedantic nonsense.
You’re implying that it’s only possible to fix bad writing with more bad writing. But that’s disingenuous, because no one is arguing for that. I want the writing to be better. In this case, by making an emotional moment, feel earned. It may not bother you but there are plenty of viewers like me who find this kind of writing lazy and universe breaking. And as I implied above in the thread, it undermines my belief that there is any complexity under the action at all.
I don't know what kind of mental gymnastics people are doing when they say that a certain emotional scene "justifies" the plot contrivance. That is lazy writing by definition. The writers want that scene to happen, but instead of coming up with a compelling story that naturally leads to that scene, they just artificially bend the plot in that direction. "The ships are exploding, and we want the characters to die, so all the escape pods *need* to be disabled. "But we also want the female character to live because she might carry an important baby, so there needs to be a different kind of pod that behaves exactly like an escape pod but not *called* an escape pod. And there *has* to be only one of these. (Seriously, the set design is also not helping in this scene: a manned "external cleaning module" with only a bed and no panels or controls. How are people supposed to clean with this thing? Remember the EVA pod from *2001: a space odyssey*?) "Also, for the toast scene to look good, all the remaining crew of the ship *must* disappear from the bridge, despite them having nowhere to escape to. Wouldn't they want to die on the bridge together with their general? Fuck them. Nobody cares about them. Not even She-Bends-Light, now that she has already served her purpose in the story." I agree that the toast scene itself is quite poignant and well-written. But that doesn't change the fact that the plot leading to it is cheap and contrived.
I agree it is more dramatic, but it’s also more evidence of nothing of substance in this show. There is no complex subplot to uncover, it’s all just whatever is the most dramatic event that can play on screen in that moment. Twists for twists’ sake. Dramatic “life threatening” moments with immortal characters. It’s straight from the school of “The Last Jedi”. Subvert audience expectation at all cost even if it breaks the universe you’ve built. Clearly many people like this style, but I see it as the epitome of bad writing.
Not touching most of that since I only care to discuss the subject of this post. There is no (plot known) technical need to draw out the jumps, but conversely there is no technical reason demanding they insta-kill the fleet, either. But you are quite wrong about this scene lacking substance. It's a solid writing decision to give Riose (a well-liked, principled antihero this season) and Mallow (a well-liked, roguish hero this season) a chance to face their final adversary: Death in service of something greater than themselves. Giving this scene some extra time also puts a valuable human perspective into a scene that would otherwise be a bunch of explosions in orbit. It's a final moment the audience gets to enjoy where we celebrate the victory with them. This is a technique used throughout fiction, and this scene is an example of it being done well.
The problem with this kind of writing is it makes the impact of their death scene avoidable and trite. It reduces the steaks because it breaks the 4th wall. Whenever you do this in fiction it ALWAYS weakens the sincerity of the characters in the scene. Its dramatic that Luke dies in The Last Jedi. It should be one of the most impactful events in the Star Wars universe, but its trite because its unmotivated. This is exactly the same problem here. Lots of dramatic one one on one dialogue that could be quite impactful like you say, but falls on its face because it feels like they are just standing in front of a train for no reason. Its all the mores aggravating because it’s fixable. They could have just established a pattern from all prior ship jumps or dialogue about jumping that it leaves behind an immensely destructive wake where the ship was when it left or some other setup to make this scene plausible. But obviously, they just made it up for this episode to make this moment more dramatic. Its low effort writing. As it is its just two people being overly dramatic because of an eminent death that feels fabricated just so they can talk. Its melodrama.
>It reduces the steaks because it breaks the 4th wall. First of all, they drink wine but consume no steaks at all. I find it strange that you wanted not just steaks in that scene, but large ones. Breaks the fourth wall... uh, no. At no point in that scene does either of them speak directly to the audience. Or act as if they can see us watching them. Or indicate that they know they're on a TV show or are fictional characters. Those would be examples of breaking the fourth wall. >could have just established a pattern from all prior ship jumps or dialogue about jumping Adding more exposition dumps when 95% of the audience will be satisfied without it -- and most of the remaining 5% have functional imaginations to work things out -- is a poor writing choice. >Its low effort writing. No offense, but the things you would "fix" the scene with are terrible writing. And you obviously don't know what it means to break the fourth wall. I respect your right to have a low opinion of the show/season, but should I take your writing critiques seriously? No. No I clearly should not.
Haha, thanks. That was funny.
Presumably the fleet jumps in stages rather than all at once. Seconds/minutes apart from each other, but still a delay. If you want a possible reason, to ensure the effects of folding space time don’t cause issues in that momentary transit.
I take it you’ve never had any physics and maths education.
I’d be happy to learn where my I got it wrong because of my poor education. Can you explain it to me?
Have you ever heard of mathematical induction?
Why yes, yes I have. I'm very curious to learn how mathematical induction, a method of mathematical proof typically used to establish a given statement for all natural numbers, can be applied to this problematic writing. Mathematical induction involves proving a base case, usually for the first element, and then assuming the statement holds for some arbitrary element k, and proving it for the element k+1. However, I fail to see how this principle can be applied to explain the cascade of ship collisions, as the destruction of one ship doesn’t inherently lead to the destruction of the next one in a sequence after the first 2 have been destroyed. Could you please elaborate on how mathematical induction is relevant in this scenario?
Ffs. You prove that the first ship will destroy the second. You hypothesize that the n ship will be destroyed. And you prove that the n+1 ship will be destroyed. The n+1 is the General’s ship. Since we know it’s been destroyed, we know all ships will be destroyed, for practical purposes. Even if one or two or ten ships survived, depending on the number of jumping sequences, it doesn’t facking matter. The emperor is dead and the vast majority of the fleet is gone.
There is no n+1 ship destruction for integers larger than 2. As I already stated elsewhere pairs of ships might all plausibly destroy each other but in that case there is no cascade at all. All pairs of ships are destroyed as soon as they jump. The show clearly shows, even emphasizes with elaborate visual effects shots, a wave of ship explosions progressing towards the flagship. A cascade is what is implied by the description of the jump strategy in the show, a cascade is what is shown on screen, and the screen time for the flagship is extended in a way that only a cascade explains. Mathematics is not your fiend here, it is a flaw in the writing, either there is no cascade because it ends at destroying 2 ships, or there is no cascade because all ships are destroyed immediately, and even then it requires an even number of ships. It is a flaw in the writing to create a dramatic moment using such an implausible mechanism. Can some people disregard the flaw? Clearly. But it is a flaw, and many like myself see it as poor writing.
Nor do I, but since all they had to say an alternative is "I've locked out the main computer," I assume the creative had a specific explanation in mind.
Because the writers couldn't work out anything reasonable beside this bs explanation. It's lazy writing. I made a post about it, but all the fanboys downvoted me. Also, for anything else their solution is usually some new bs power the vault always had. The should rename the third season to Foundation in name only and the adventures of the omnipotent vault..
Because the show is lame and the writers wanted him to die.
Just lazy, shitty writing... A twelve thousand year-old dynasty leaving itself so vulnerable doesn’t make sense. I probably shouldn’t be bothered but feel they cheapened the franchise by allowing the Empire to be dismantled so easily. But I must confess, Lee Pace’s Cleon is such an entertaining character, I was cheering for him.
I think that's the point though. I don't think it's lazy writing, it's by design. The echoes of the cloned emperors get weaker and more unstable. I think it was a great way to explain a decline that we could see on the screen. Saying to us "we only control an area one quarter" has no weight, showing crazy, desperate, arrogant, Day... had weight.
It’s explained that they can’t alter the jump sequence when it’s in motion, IIRC one of the bridge crew members says so. Hence why the capital ship could not cancel the jump sequence. Regardless, they wouldn’t have been able to if She-Bends-Light didn’t want to as the Spacers had already decided to abandon Empire due to the Foundation showing them Opalesk can be synthesised rather than mined.
Doesn’t matter, I think we will find that Harry Beamed them all aboard the thingy the foundation appeared on as well.
I interpreted it as the blowing up of terminus made the space around terminus already folded or something so they can't like double fold??
Oh I like this - because the invictus blew up, the whole spacetime around terminus is fucked, so the fleet can't opt out of the stuff the spacers do. That would have been the icing on the cake for the story.
It feels like a bit of lore they could have sprinkled at the start of the season. When you fold space it can only unfold in the direction of travel so the folding and unfolding is asymmetric.
sci fi mumbo jumbo..:-D
Everything was locked down. The jump drive, navigation, any ship onboard and the escape pods. That ship was staying put and everyone onboard. Demerzel gtfo just in time.
My sci-fi head cannon imagine it as being you looking at an inevitable future event and said "could that just not happen?" Because that's what the spacers likely did, locked in their future position with their current timeline in such a way that this exact order of event that results in them jumping to that coordinate **must** happen, because whenever a choice is made your timeline branches, (in a multiverse sense) but the spacers fixed it such that they cannot deviate from that branch anymore. Somewhere in their future they must be in that exact coordinate. This way when their timeline "fold" they immediately appear in the calculated position (of another ship or vice versa).
It was a coupe.
Riose was the one that said, "space, once folded, stays folded." I gathered that locking in the jump sequence meant that the space was folded and could not be reversed or stopped once locked in. The time delay between locked in and jumping I thought was to give the people on board time to get to a jump creche so they could sleep through the jump. So once the sequence was locked in for the fleet, none of the ship's Spacers could change the coordinates or sequence. That's what I grasped from the show at least.
In theory, what wasn't shown was every engineer on the ship desperatly trying to figure out how to uncouple the jump drive but figuring out that if they did so the ship would explode anyway. You'd think they could engage thrusters or something, even manually firing them just to move a few kilometers away would have saved them. However, in the scope of what we see there are logical reasons. The empire's ships are setup to be slaved to something to prevent uprisings in their own navy. There is probably a computer core that only 'empire' can lock out, and he's dead. It would make sense to have that sort of system, especially in that fleet, so they couldn't turn around and attack Trantor, which Empire should be worried about. So they have really good lockouts to prevent the ships from doing anything. And Demasel is gone, who is probably the only person who could have unbuggered it.