Decipher Scifi : The Show About How And Why

Confetti breath Colorful monster breath. Aurora borealis or australis and how the solar wind interacts with our atmosphere at the poles. How “confetti breath” is a better name than “Taserface” and how Taserface looks like Mr Lordi: Skin Drax’s misunderstanding about “thickness,” and our approval of his intuition that the inside might be easier to pierce. Pick a meatus. And… it can be gold! How not to die from using bodypaint. The Sovereign The gold people with the gold parts. Grills? Genetic design of a whole civilization and levels of caution for personal safety graphed against length of life. Drones For once in space-scale scifi: drones! The levels of cost and complexity when designing craft to safely transport squishy humanoids. Galaga! Space jumps/wormholes Hexagons! And what they reveal about interstellar travel in this universe. Space straws. Brain Planet Escape velocity and atmosphere and centering your vulnerable mass. The life lost when a creature that lives for eternity is vanq

H.G. Wells The book, his prescience, and his coinage of the term “time machine.” His scientific literacy and the ideas in the physics and mathematics of his time. Other times he was on the show. Moving through time Dimensions and physics and moving through the invisible dimension of time. Humanity and war Time traveling between wars. The inevitability of global conflict in the late 19th century.  The inevitability of nuclear apocalypse in 1960. The inevitability of humanity overreaching in manipulation of the natural world in 2002. Really large explosions, nuclear and otherwise. Krakatoa vs Tsar Bomba. The year without a summer. Geological scales Time traveling across geological time scales. Tracking in relative space and over miles across the planet’s surface. “Time and space machine.” Staccato time travel. Eloi and Morlocks Human evolution and selective pressures. Humans as cattle. Inefficiency in turning sunlight into steak. Maintaining 19th-century English over millennia. Time travel p

The particular value of pilot episodes We did this once before and had a really good time. Covering pilot episodes specifically and exclusively to get at a high-concentration of scifi ideas and worldbuilding. And now we’re at it again with The 100! Free-floating constructed space settlements And their value versus planetary settlements or settlements otherwise on existing bodies in the solar system. Time to develop space settlements and what a dozen individual, national settlements suggest about the state of industry in space before the apocalypse in the show. Inflatables in space settlement. Space resources Both before and after earth enters nuclear winter. Water, air, hydrocarbons and where to find them. Rules and enforcement under extreme circumstances Freedom vs keeping everyone from dying. Reproduction policies. Simulations for generation ships - maintaining sufficient genetic diversity through selection and control of reproduction. Aging equipment in spaaaaaaace We hit on this once bef

How to watch Blade Runner About the different releases and how very bad voiceovers can be. But tl;dr: watch the “Final Cut” for sure always. Creators’ Intent Philip K Dick’s vision in the novel Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep vs Ridley Scott’s in the film. Dick’s use of scifi as a tool to explore humanity. Cyberpunk High tech, low life. Blade Runner and William Gibson’s Neuromancer. Many other examples in our episode history. Social stratification and the wealth gap. Cyborgy bits and noodle bars. Environmental destruction. Flying cars? VFX And cinematography. What a beautiful movie! Practical effects and things that age well from the 80s. Replicants Detection. Genetic design. Testing for replicants with bullets like testing a witch with drowning. Robotic Anthropomorphicization Why design your androids to be so human? Designing anthropomorphized androids to operate with human tools in a human environment. Robot Revelations A new theory for how replicants work. Terminological issues

Crew Selection Human pairing in space crews. Sex selection for different purposes, and in particular settlement. The Voices from L5 episode on Gender in Space. If humans still need to gestate the old-fashioned way, you’re gonna need a lot of human wombs. Colonizing The numbers game of space settlement. The possibility of gestating the next human generation on the target planet from frozen embryo: i.e. population bomb. Neutrinos Weakly interacting. How to detect a “neutrino burst” in space and not be vaporized by a supernova. Tools to grant perspective on the topic.  Neutrino detectors large and small. “World’s Smallest neutrino detector.” A model of the Japanese neutrino detector 日:Jnn Swole Jesus More details from Ridley Scott about the connection between Jesus and the engineers. The suggestion made in Prometheus made more explicit. Swole Korean Jesus. Swole white Jesus. Alien Evolution Parasitoid developments. Design vs natural selection.

Reality TV The Real World, reality TV, etc… and then The Truman Show. Thank the writers strikes and the economics of production sans writers. Seeing things from space Calculating the size of the Truman show dome from the satellite images in the film. Seeing man-made things from space. How the Great Wall is not visible from space but the pyramids are. And where does “space” begin, anyway? Looking from the ISS. The Dome! Weather systems inside man-made structures. The dome is plenty large enough to have its own weather systems. Hugeness and economic realities. Other scifi domed-city discussions. Product Placement/Advertising And our own plans for how to sell out. Thoughts on “Gorilla” marketing. Unrelated: send advertising inquiries to contact@deciphermedia.tv (｡◝‿◜｡) The Truman show Delusion Colbert’s mustache woes. Delusions of grandeur over time. This guy’s really interesting personal story of his experience with “the Truman Show Delusion.” Reality Testing How would you know if it were

Dinosaur extinction event Dinosaurs spotted in the Cretaceous period. The K-Pg (Cretaceous-Paleogene) aka K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) extinction event (the one with the comet). Hypothetical competition with the vulcanism explanation. Morgan Freeman, Brian Cranston, and Christopher’s favorite move, the “Zap Brannigan” Get off my lawn Damn teenagers being irresponsible, endangering others and themselves and whatnot. But then they get superpowers so I guess it’s cool. Life seeding and crystals and whatnot Origin of life on earth: crystals. Pro tip: it’s really hard searching online for science things about crystals because all the results are woo woo nonsense. The Prometheus problem. The sameness of all life (that we see). Bipedalism seems to be a generally useful adaptation, I guess. Yay us. Alien Language Christine Shreyer created the Eltarian conlang for the movie. Here is an interview where she discusses her work on both Man of Steel and Power Rangers. Erlang is a programming language, in case yo

Many Worlds The interpretations of quantum physics that gives Rick & Morty the “multiverse.” Probabilities and determinism. Shrödinger’s Cat Shringer’s thought experient, initially a criticism of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics cum go-to example. Universes Organizing and labeling universes. The “central finite curve.” AI Foibles Rules-lawyering with a genie, again. Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg. Kevin Kelly’s take. Keeping them in the box. Universes in Universes Energy efficiency in multiverse batteries. Creating universes. the Kardashev scale. Community also by Darn Harmon: iTunesAmazon Rick and Morty - Finding Meaning in Life by Will Shoder: YouTube Support the show!

Hiding islands Perpetual storms. Jupiter’s storm and other non-Kongish Jupiter appreciation. Spy Satellites Early spy satellites. Stability-spins and film-return techniques. Geological Imaging “Seismic charges” i.e. bombs to irritate aggressive megafauna. Earthquakes, real or otherwise, and using them to understand the inside of the earth. The “hollow earth theory” is dumb garbage. Kong King Kong size inconsistencies over time and even within films. Godzilla comparisons. Combat-ready herbivores Gorillas! When herbivores have sharp fangs. The economics of displays of aggression instead of fighting. Giant Creatures Evolution Pygmification of island species irl. Limitations on resources. Keystone species in ecosystems. The dangers of the tropics Venomous creatures and their prevalence in warmer climes. Why Do Venomous Animals Live In Warm Climates? Medieval weaponry… And how this relates to King Kong..? Was the flail a ‘real’ weapon? Why Do Venomous Animals Live In Wa

Mega Cities Big. Tall. How they can be good, and how this one is bad. Breaking the oxygen cycle The environmental calamity in the movie that broke the earth is not detailed, but we try to consider how long humanity has if it doesn’t fix it somehow. Recycled Food Reclaimed food waste? OR… reclaiming synthetic food from human waste. Unjustified psychological aversions. Ground Effect in aerodynamics “In fixed-wing aircraft, ground effect is the increased lift (force) and decreased aerodynamic drag that an aircraft’s wings generate when they are close to a fixed surface. When landing, ground effect can give the pilot the feeling that the aircraft is ‘floating’.” -Wikipedia Warbots Awesome bang-for-buck robot design. Chris adds “Warbot head model” to his list of things he needs even more than air. The Janus Project The practical impossibility of incubating neurologically-adult humans. Babies in sacks and the benefits thereof. LAWWWWWWW You Betrayed the Law: YouTube

Verhoven’s genius Over-the-top satire. Starship Troopers. Blood and guts in the late 80s/early 90s. Co-ed locker rooms and mocking commercial advertising interludes. Space Defense The “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative. Firing weapons from space, orbital platforms, and simulated gravity. Depictions of artificial gravity in media at the time. Cyborgification Availability of cyborg components and social stratification. Different kinds of artificial hearts. Robocop The economics of the brainwashed cyborg vs pure AI robot. Body transplants vs brain transplants. Brain-machine interfaces Opto-neural processing enhancement. Reading visual memories from brain activity. Machine learning and eyeballs The resolution of the eye. Simple computer-vision and inadequacy of 1980s VHS tapes. Robot vs Robot Cyborg body design type choices. Bipeds descending stairs. Dean Kamen’s stair-climbing gyroscopic wheelchair. (correction: I talked about “tri-wheeled” tread-based wheelchair on the show. The

Doom Doom was a really awesome important thing in 1993. History lessons because Dan is too young to understand but we are old. Nostalgia, for better or for worse. Modularity and the development of game modding. How to play a modern game without playing it. The true test of technology The true test of any technology: can it run Doom? Doom running on a Macbook Pro Touch Bar. Volumetric Projections “3D holograms.” As a narrative/historical record playback device. As seen in: Prometheus. Difficulties versus augmented reality. Health Measuring “life” as a life meter. Micromorts and actuarial considerations. Safety gear in health packs. Hell Universe Tapping into unlimited energy; who could resist? Vega the supercomputer Turing tests. Regrets. “Absolute zero” cooling systems and marketing speak. Backups analagous to DNA cloning. Samuel Hayden Body transplants vs brain transplants. Where does the self reside? Cyborg geniuses. Life goals. RIP AND TEAR Doom (The original game)

Dad jokes A fun guy lol ? New sorts of zombies Fungus zombies! Similarities to The Last of Us. Surprise that we’re not completely tired of zombies. Pandemic vs epidemic. Fungus Mycelium, hyphae, fruiting bodies. Spores! “All mushrooms are edible. Some only once.” Fungus Marionettes Fungi playing Surgeon Simulator with human bodies. Sense of smell Hunting by smell. Covering scents. Smelling slow and fast. The power of Axe Body spray. The power of chemical warfare. How “smells” work. IRL Ophiocordyceps unilateralis! The real fungus on which the zombie fungus is based. The rundown of its lifecycle. Biting the leaf. Chemical instructions controlling behaviour. Cordyceps moving to humans The difference in arthtropod and human circulatory and nervous systems. How to best spread fungal infections between humans. The end of homo sapiens Parasites forcing their hosts to act in their interests. Mushroom towers. The rise of homo boletus. Coming around on anthropocentrism. Goodbyes Do yo

Arrival/First Contact Aircraft shielding. Impressing upon humanity the futility of resistance. Selecting Diplomats Alien diplomatic moneyball. They Know Us Flawless colloquial earth languages. Cultural context. How to manipulate apes. Benevolent alien dictatorship. Curbing Scientific Inquiry Approaching utopia removing incentives for innovation. Alien limits on research. “The stars were not meant for man.” The Great Filter Maybe these aliens in the show are the great filter. Filling in some slots of the Drake Equation. Maybe we’re just terrible for the universe and they know it. :/ Butt Numbers Directed evolution at a scale of tens to thousands of years. Alien Appearance This part is too spoilery for this page Remember Us Not too much to ask, really. We could have had a worse run. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke: iTunesAmazon Support the show!

Gaia Hypothesis The idea that the biosphere self-regulates to support life. Does it hold up? Civilization Reboot Sim cards. Better ways to select the humans that will survive. Minimum populations. Oddjob with swordlegs Sword legs! Cleaving humans not just through but vertically. Prosthetic feet/legs Butts! And their utility for distance running. Hugh Herr and awesome climbing feet. Augmented Reality Versus virtual reality. Physical positioning and orientation fudging in virtual and augmented reality shared spaces. Rainbows End. HoloLens. Church Scene It’s so good! Also: long shots, real or otherwise. The Culling SIM card splodeyheads. Transcranial direct current stimulation. To cull, or not to cull. Kingsman: not so secret effects: FXGuide Arrival Science Fiction Film Podcast: LSG Media Support the show!

Falling into the sun Why not dump all of our nuclear waste there? Shedding orbital velocity. Eros the magic space potato. Martian Gravity Our lack of understanding irl of whether humans can conceive and gestate and grow in low or microgravity. Centrifugal artificial gravity. Epstein Drive Pulling Gs. Human limits. Exciting times Finally we’re in a place that we’re taking space settlement for granted. Developments in space travel like the Falcon Heavy et al. Recently, Stratolaunch: Settlement issues Fragility of interconnected systems at small scale. Radiation. Living inside a big rock. Venus Venus sucks. Mostly. On the surface, at least. Soviet Venus missions. Turning Venus into a spaceship. Solar Energy Harvesting and limiting solar exposure in different parts of the solar system. Relative solar intensity. Fraser's things: Universe TodayAstronomy CastFraser Cain @ YouTube The Expanse: Nick Farmer on conlanging and the intersection of language and scifi:

Superpowers? Energy usage and biclops lasereyes. Radio reception The old wive’s tale of dental fillings picking up terrestrial radio signals. Satellite military communications frequencies. Alternative Computing Quantum and DNA computing. Synesthesia. Recognizing that we are all synesthetes within the bounds of “normal” human brain operations. Dimensions Extra- super- ultra-dimensionality. Flatland again. Superdimensional Beings “Beings of light” and why this might be the most reasonable example of the trope. The world on the other side. Carl Sagan on Dimensions: YouTube Arrival Part 1: superdimensionality and alien physics w/ Jolene & Adrian: Decipher SciFi : Decipher SciFi Support the show!

Miyazaki recognition This is Miles’ favorite. Chris doesn’t generally love Miyazaki but really really loves Totoro. Environmentalism in Media Processing human-caused catastrophe. We previously explored this in our Godzilla episode with Miles. Miyazaki was inspired by Minamata disease. Aircraft irl Nausicaa glider! Rewilding The ways in which humanity is worse than poison. Thriving of wildlife in our absence. Predators. What is nature Colloquial definitions versus recognition that we are part of nature and not really separate from it. Technology Anxiety Nuclear power safety and the negative effects of fossil fuels. Recognizing the relative safeness and harm. Being responsible with our technology. Preservation Of knowledge and technology over epochal time. Infrastructure and production. The scientific method as essential technology. Espers - From Nothing, Something Comes by Miles Greb: Kickstarter Support the show!

Love and hate A story of love for Prometheus with recognition of its faults. Surprisingly high tomato ratings. So much stuff to think about? Seeding Earth Natural selection, evolution, and engineers seeding life on Earth. This would require seeding all life on earth, to explain our shared genetic heritage with everything else that lives here. Objective-based evolution In this movie, I guess Lamarck Was Right. Continued Egineer presence over the course of the history of life on earth, guiding things toward their goals in order to make us like them. The Engineers Yoked as hell. Albinos with allopecia. Cave Paintings List of cultures visited. Radiocarbon dating (carbon-14). Uranium dating. Informational density. Star Maps Constellations and hemispheres and directions to solar systems. Alien System FTL. Moons and ringed planets. How not to safely approach and explore a new planet/moon. “Eh, seems fine” as a modus operandi for your space exploration mission. Alien Pregnancy Parasites.

A bit of review Because we really enjoyed this movie. The team A human, a green humanoid, an enhanced raccoon, Drax, and a hypermobile hyperintelligent tree. Rocket Raccoon Cybernetic skeletons. Animal intelligence. Cognitive enhancement and different types of intelligence. Drax Kinda like a grey hulk. Putting our lack of comics expertise on display. Groot How plants work. Nitrogen from the air making 50% of tree biomass. Plant regeneration and communication. Language considerations! Yay! Possible layers of complexity under “I am Groot.” The different ways that could or could not represent language. The complexity of metaphors and similar linguistic mechanisms, and how Drax’s people could lack understanding. Thermians. Tamarians. Old Terran technology Chris Pratt’s cassette tapes. Batteries. Audio cassette technology. Wearing oxides and tape-stretching. Why Do Marvel's Movies Look Kind of Ugly? by Patrick Willems: YouTube Guardians of the Galaxy 2: iTune