Decipher SciFi

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Natural Sciences
**Decipher SciFi**

Decipher SciFi explores the how and why in science fiction with conversations about technology, humanity, and the future. This is not a review show, nor will you see much criticism or snark. It is a rationally optimistic look, through film, at where society and technology are and where they are headed. Also, butts.

Latest Episodes:

Independence Day Resurgence: Earth's center, gravity wells, and a hole in the bottom of the sea Feb 21, 2017

Show notes

Alien Reconnaissance

Distress calls. Radio broadcasts and other ways to watch the best.speech.ever.

Alien Arrival

Wormholes. Telefragging. In-system ship speeds and an incredible ability to slow down.

Human Reverse Engineering

Twenty years of reverse engineering alien tech has yielded great fruit. Propulsion! Anti-gravity.

Getting Stuff in Space

It’s hard! Gravity wells. Magic fusion antigravity obviates the main utility of Lagrange points.

Inertial Dampening

Fluid sack inertial dampening.Breathable oxygenated fluids. Vectors!

Data in a Coma

Muscular atrophy. Twenty years without moving. Communicating with locked-in patients.

City Destroyers

Gratiuitous city destruction. Tactics and strategy. Are the aliens just jerks?

They flew into my butthole! My only weakness, how did you know?!

Harvester Ships

Why do cities lift off of the ground?

Earth is just a ball of rock.

And metal. The creamy center is actually not creamy but rather solid iron. It’s like a Kinder Egg and a Cadbury Cream Egg had a baby. The sorts of doom we’d face by having our core disrupted/extracted. Magnetosphere and the molten core. The crust ranges from 3-25 miles thick, fwiw.

Drilling the Core

Massive energy to not only drill but keep the hole into the earth open. A hole in the bottom of the sea.

‘Baitin

Jeff Goldblum is the master baiter. Alien queen fight. Insectoid queen morphology. Sexual dimorphism. Putting stuff up their butts for victory. Original idea, original idea, original idea:

Final Answer

Why Earth Is A Prison and How To Escape It by Kurtzgesagt: YouTube

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Edge of Tomorrow (Live. Die. Repeat): alien tentacle morphology and biological Von Neumann probes Feb 14, 2017

Show notes

Names and Names and Names

The light novel (All You Need is Kill) -> the movie (Edge of Tomorrow) -> the marketing (Live. Die. Repeat.)

Tom Cruise in a Video Game

Save points. Back in my day. Old-school save system where you have to go back to the beginning every time.

Biological Von Neumann Probes

The possibility of the cosmos awash in aggressive noodly alien murder machines. What are the odds they’d wind up at our doorstep?

Mimic Morphology

Spaghetti Monster tumbleweeds! Bioluminescence. Alienness. Hybrid creatures. Hierarchy.

Starcraft

Zerg rush! Starcraft was almost Warhammer.

Exoskeletons!

Reminds us of Elysium! Exosuit interfaces. Neural interface versus gestural. Safety mechanisms.

Time Loop Superpowers

What are thresholds of alpha blood exposure to contract timeloopism? Best method: bathing? in the butt? in the mouth? All of the above? Will the effect ever “run out?” Blood-bathing, Sookie Stackhouse style.

Time Loops!

Control of time loops. Like a garage door opener? TV remote? Is it time travel? Many-worlds interpretation. Branching timelines! Terminator meatballs.

Who Wants to Live Forever, Sorta?

Chris does. Whatever it takes!

One-Minute Time Machine: YouTube
Groundhog Day: iTunes Amazon

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Wargames: computers in the 80s, weapons to end all wars, and dinosaurs w/ Joe Ruppel Feb 07, 2017

Show notes

Cold War

The 50s, the 60s, and the 80s and the climate at the time of the film. Star Wars (but not that Star Wars).

Weapons to End War

Gatling and the Gatling Gun, Alfred Nobel and dynamite, Tesla and his particle beams, and…. nuclear weapons?

Early-80s Computing Hardware

Text-To-Speech. Voder at the 1939 World’s Fair. Matthew Broderick’s computer. WarGames computer graphics and rendering radar screens.

Machine Learning

Teaching computers to teach themselves. The point where this movie steps into scifi territory.

Dinosaurs

Dinosaur extinction hypotheses at the time of the film. Falken is a psychopath.

Hardcore History 59 - The Destroyer of Worlds: Hardcore History
Silicon Cowboys: iTunes Amazon

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Black Mirror Season 3, Part 2: happy endings, brainwashing, and beeeeeeeeeees w/ Liam Ginty Jan 31, 2017

Show notes

Episodes 4-6

San Junipero, Men Against Fire, Hated in the Nation

San Junipero

Happy endings. Consciousness uploading. Children of the 80s, idealistic recollections and the English lens. Continuity of self. Crippling fear of death.

Men Against Fire

How we get people to do things for us and how technology can make that even more terrible. Hacking visual input. Creepy Watson sex dreams.

Hated in the Nation

Covered in beeeeeees. Drone swarms. Social media hate.

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The Expanse VFX: an interview with Cailin Munroe, VFX Producer Jan 27, 2017

Show notes

“Decipher SciFi is People”

We did an interview! Since it’s not the normal format, we’re releasing this as a bonus halfway between normal episodes.

We talk here with Cailin Munroe from The Expanse all about a bunch of stuff: the role of the producer, on-set work, diaper butts, ship designs, physics FX, device and environment UI, space hair, dogs barking, matte paintings, 3D animated sets, the next form of the blue goo ☠️

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Ender's Game: insectoid aliens, water in space, and lightspeed communications Jan 24, 2017

Show notes

Alien attacks

Alien attacks and death tolls. Independence Day and flying planes up the butt.

Water in spaaaaaaace

Liquid water and the Goldilocks Zone. Frozen water all over the galaxy. Water vapor too!

Dying Planets

Schiaparelli, Percival Lowell and the Martian “canals.”

Insectoid Aliens

Anatomy surprisingly like that of our tiny earth-based insects. Tool use? Telepathy? Queens controlling drones, but directly, apparently.

Alien Communication

Distance and lightspeed considerations in trying to communicate with aliens who may pose an existential threat to humanity.

Deciphering Speeds and Distances

28 days. Distances to other stars.

Space Combat Command

Action per minute. Starcraft and command delegation.

Doomsday Weapons

Very very expensive weapons and the meaning of a dollar.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: iTunes Amazon
Starship Stroopers on Decipher SciFi: Decipher SciFi

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Black Mirror Season 3, Part 1: meowmeow beans, neurological speed, and showing our butts w/ Liam Ginty Jan 17, 2017

Show notes

Episodes 1-3

Nosedive, Playtest, and Shut Up and Dance

Nosedive

Slow motion train wreck. Meow-meow beans. Chinese social credit system. Real life is this episode. Nuance and charity in judging other people.

Playtest

Backpacking fantasy. Christopher’s beard jealousy. Working while traveling via the internet. Hideo Kojima. Near-death experiences, dream experiences, and neurological speed. Death spike hallucinations. American Psycho Hideo Kojima.

Shut Up and Dance

Integrity. Liam’s butt. The worst of the worst. Anonymous.

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Passengers: helical ship designs, the real Arcturus star, and ethics w/ Adrian Falcone Jan 10, 2017

Show notes

Ship design

Segmented helix. Simulated/artificial gravity. Fusion reactors and constant acceleration. 0.5c after 30 years.

Arcturus

A red dwarf, 37 lightyears away from earth. Could the ship have made is to that point with the time and speed given? (no) This is the meat right here. Meaningless slingshots. Red Dwarves. Physics!

Stasis

Generation ships vs stasis pods. Stasis as a resource-saving measure. IRL research in “stasis” and muscle-mass conservation. Acceptable levels of brain deterioration. “Minor” brain damage.

Anti-collision measures

Kinda like magic. Atomizing rocks in space at 0.5c.

Gravity and the ceasing thereof

How simulated gravity works on a giant spinning torus (or, in this case, a segmented helix). How it ceases, and the physics necessary in order to create the effect seen in the film. Swimming out of floating water.

Seveneves: iTunes Amazon
"How did the Avalon (seemingly) get to Arcturus so quickly if they are only traveling at .5 of lightspeed?": Scifi & Fantasy Stack Exchange

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Labyrinth: Jim Henson, adolescence, and solving mazes w/ Jillian & Meredith Jan 03, 2017

Show notes

Labyrinth production

The Dark Crystal -> Labyrinth -> Mirrormask : a spiritual trilogy. Jim Henson. Beverly Crusher’s choreography.

Fantasy Rules and Dream Worlds

Our difficulty with fantasy again, and further difficulty specific to dreamland stories. Nothing makes sense, cause and effect cannot be counted on, and essentially nothing is on the line. Yet Labyrinth is still delightful (because nostalgia!).

Relating to adolescents

Identifying with adults now more, since we are adults.

Dreams

Dreaming. Animal models. Rats and humans and dreaming during non-REM sleep.

The Greek Myth of the Labyrinth

Minotaur, reverse-minotaur. Plus, a succinct and accurate retelling of the story.

#science Maze-solving and cognition

Humans are okay. Rats are okay. Dogs, not so much. “Ecocentric cognitive mapping.” FMRI and navigation in virtual reality.

The bog of eternal stench

Irreparable putrescence. Not something that is on you, but something that infuses your very flesh to continue to be stinky. Or, magic.

The Dark Crystal: iTunes Amazon
Brian Fraud's Art Books: Amazon
The Goblins of Labyrinth by Brian Froud: Amazon

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Conan the Barbarian: antedeluvian mythology, bloodsmithing, and the riddle of steel w/ Joe Ruppel Dec 27, 2016

Show notes

Conan the Bookbarian

Robert E. Howard and pulp fantasy. His life and death.

Arnold is amazing

Arnold Schwarzenegger appreciation hour. Training. Work ethic. Hustle. The American dream. Grizzled old beardy Conan the Conqueror. Arnold’s blooper with the wolves:

Conan’s world and mythology

“Antedeluvian” history. Chroniclers keeping record of the exploits of historical figures. Genghis Khan.

Swordmaking

Iron, steel, forge technology. How not to make or use a sword.

Steppe peoples

Horsemastery. Wind vs slave power. More Genghis Khan.

Doom

Cannibal cults. Human cookery.

The riddle of steel

Steel, flesh, swords made from the blood of one’s enemies. Our Warrior Dash video.