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Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, let's talk about aliens. It's a bit

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Speaker 1: early in the morning for that, isn't it not on

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Speaker 1: alien standard time? All right? What are we talking about?

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Speaker 1: All right, here's the situation. Say you are the first

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Speaker 1: human to meet the aliens. Then we're in trouble already.

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Speaker 1: Daniel from the ambassador for the entire human race. All right,

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Speaker 1: so you're about to meet the aliens. Here's my question.

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Speaker 1: What percentage of you is excited and what percentage of

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Speaker 1: you is terrified for your life? Oh? Man, I would

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Speaker 1: say it's pretty even. It's about a hundred percent excitement terrified.

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Speaker 1: That sounds are right on to me. Hi important. I'm

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Speaker 1: a cartoonists and the creator of PhD comments. I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and I definitely don't want to

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Speaker 1: be ambassador for planet Earth. Welcome to our podcast, Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of Our Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio in which we send our minds, not our bodies,

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Speaker 1: out into the universe to explore the far reaches of space.

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Speaker 1: Talk about all the crazy stuff that's out there. We

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Speaker 1: break down black holes, we crack open neutron stars, we

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Speaker 1: talk about the tiny particles that make up everything, and

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Speaker 1: we explain all of it to you. That's right. We

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Speaker 1: like to talk about all of the amazing things out

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Speaker 1: there in the cosmos, everything that's actually happening right now

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Speaker 1: as we speak. And we also like to talk about

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Speaker 1: all the things that might be in this universe because

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Speaker 1: a big part of exploring how the universe works is

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Speaker 1: thinking about all the various scenarios for how it might work.

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Speaker 1: And well, physicists like to be creative and imagine various scenarios,

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Speaker 1: and we're new kinds of particles. There's another community of

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Speaker 1: folks out there whose entire job is being creative about

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Speaker 1: speculative universes. Are you talking about cartoonists or I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about our podcast listeners, those creative geniuses. Yeah, there's an

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Speaker 1: amazing potential out there in the universe, and it's up

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Speaker 1: to science fiction authors to kind of think about it

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Speaker 1: and figure out what are the exciting possibilities of where

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Speaker 1: the human race can go. Yeah. Sometimes I think of

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Speaker 1: science fiction authors is like the most mature thinkers. They're

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Speaker 1: on the edge imagining other universes and the way things

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Speaker 1: might work. And sometimes I imagine that they've sort of

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Speaker 1: like returned to childhood, you know, the way kids don't

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Speaker 1: really understand the universe, and to them, the universe could

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Speaker 1: be basically anything. They're not so like nailed down to

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Speaker 1: the current orthodoxy and the current dogma for how the

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Speaker 1: universe works. If you told them the universe is made

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Speaker 1: of tiny, bouncing little oranges, they would be like, Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's cool. Can I see one? Can I make a

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Speaker 1: plot out of that? Can I get up? I get

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Speaker 1: a serious out of that? I'm not sure if you

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Speaker 1: just pray science fiction authors or maybe insulted there are

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Speaker 1: scientific knowledge that you know. I think it's difficult to

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Speaker 1: return that sort of like childlike openness and curiosity and

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Speaker 1: creativity and imagining the way the universe could be. It's

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Speaker 1: difficult to take yourself out of our current mindset and

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Speaker 1: think about other ideas that you would have accepted, other

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Speaker 1: ways the universe could be. So I'm totally impressed with

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Speaker 1: science fiction authors who are able to do that and

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Speaker 1: really imagine brand new, creative world. Do you feel like

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Speaker 1: having a physics degree somehow makes you jaded about that

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Speaker 1: about the possibilities out there? Like maybe it dampens you, know,

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Speaker 1: your sense of what could be. I think it must

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Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, there are these plots that

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Speaker 1: show that no mathematicians or theoretical physicists have deep breakthroughs

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Speaker 1: after the age of thirty, and that's just because they're

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Speaker 1: like so far into the orthodoxy and the establishment that

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Speaker 1: they're just like, you know, adding shingles to the theory

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Speaker 1: rather than like laying entire new foundations. When there's a

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Speaker 1: correlation with tenures in it's definitely a correlation with tenure

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Speaker 1: and the number of naps i'd take in my office. Well,

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Speaker 1: there you go. Both things are easy to fix if

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Speaker 1: you want it. To be a pioneer in physics, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: I do want to be a pioneer in physics. But also,

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Speaker 1: naps are pretty nice. Can you be a napping pioneer? Like,

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Speaker 1: can you take a nap on the ship that's out

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Speaker 1: there exploring? That would be a deal. Yeah. I think

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Speaker 1: the way I would explain it if my department chair

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Speaker 1: walked in is that I was marinating on an idea

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Speaker 1: and that I often wake up from naps with clever

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Speaker 1: new ideas for research for brands. And you say you

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Speaker 1: lost your childlike propensity for making up stories, Daniel, that's right,

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Speaker 1: that's definitely fiction. But anyways, um, yeah, we like to

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Speaker 1: talk about science fiction authors and they're amazing ideas and

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Speaker 1: the amazing stories that they've been together using some of

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Speaker 1: the interesting science ideas. And so today we'll be talking

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Speaker 1: to another big science fiction author about their science and

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Speaker 1: their fiction. That's right. I love these episodes. What we

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Speaker 1: talked to science fiction authors. We ask them how they

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Speaker 1: built their universe, how the science works in their universe.

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Speaker 1: This is not your typical literary science fiction podcast. We're

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Speaker 1: asking science questions to science fiction authors. So today on

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Speaker 1: the program, we'll be talking about the science fiction universe

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Speaker 1: of Max Barry. This is an Australian author, right, Daniel.

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Speaker 1: That's right. He's an Australian author, and so when you

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Speaker 1: read his book, you have to read all the characters

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Speaker 1: as having an Australian accent in your mind. It's very important.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean Australians have an accent? I thought

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Speaker 1: we had the accent. We do. Actually, when I first

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Speaker 1: read his books, I didn't know he's Australian, and then

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Speaker 1: when I interviewed him it was pretty obvious. And then

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Speaker 1: I'm reading another one of his books now and I

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Speaker 1: can't get his Australian accent out of my mind. So

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Speaker 1: like even all the narration I read in his voice

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Speaker 1: in my mom are the characters in Australia or or

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Speaker 1: are they Australian or does it take place uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: not even in this planet. Well, he's written lots of

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Speaker 1: different books. He writes speculative fiction. He wrote a book

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Speaker 1: called Lexicon about five years ago, which is really wonderful

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Speaker 1: and fantastical and I totally encourage everybody to read it,

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Speaker 1: and there are scenes there in Australia. The book we're

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Speaker 1: talking about today takes place mostly in deep space, which

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Speaker 1: is not Australia as far as I understand. But no,

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Speaker 1: he's not just an Australian writer. He's a writer who

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Speaker 1: happens to be Australian. Yeah, so today we'll be talking

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Speaker 1: about his book Prominence, which takes place in space. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. It takes place mostly in space, and it's

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Speaker 1: a sweeping space opera that happens all over the universe

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Speaker 1: and their grand battle between aliens and humans. It's a

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Speaker 1: bit of a departure for him. He writes speculative fiction,

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Speaker 1: so you know, like in alternative universes, but not always

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Speaker 1: science fiction. You know, speculative fiction is like the rules

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Speaker 1: of the universe are different, but it's not always technology

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Speaker 1: related or space related or something like that, but it's

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Speaker 1: in the same sort of category of stuff. I really

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Speaker 1: enjoy because it's a different universe where you have to

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Speaker 1: be a detective and like figure out what are the

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Speaker 1: rules of this universe. And for me, that's the fun

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Speaker 1: of being a physicist, that we're being detectives about this universe.

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Speaker 1: And so it's fun to play around in somebody else's

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Speaker 1: invented universe. Well, I wonder, Daniel, what makes something a

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Speaker 1: space opera and not like a space musical. They have

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Speaker 1: to be Viking hats, and they have to be really

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Speaker 1: really high notes and it has to go on for

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Speaker 1: hours and then it's an all see. But then in

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Speaker 1: space nobody can hear you. Then, so they was doing

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Speaker 1: the thing. Well, maybe that's good. Based on all the

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Speaker 1: operas I've attended, I wish they were in space. No.

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Speaker 1: I think a space opera is just, you know, something

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Speaker 1: with a grand scale. It takes place in multiple solar

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Speaker 1: systems or galaxies, are preferably over hundreds or thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: so it's operatic sort of in the scale of the story.

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Speaker 1: You're telling the drama. I guess you have the drama.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, this book sounds interesting. Let's talk about

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Speaker 1: what the book is about. I guess first of all,

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Speaker 1: how did you hear about it? I heard about this

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Speaker 1: book because I read his other book, Lexicon, and really

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Speaker 1: enjoyed it. No idea how I came across that one

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Speaker 1: and recommended to me by somebody who recommended something else

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Speaker 1: to me. Maybe so then I just picked up this

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Speaker 1: next book that he had just come out with, and

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Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was all

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Speaker 1: about aliens and human alien warfare and zooming around the

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Speaker 1: galaxy and all sorts of crazy stuff. I'm hooked Aliens opera?

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Speaker 1: Did they have accents at all? I wonder if, like

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Speaker 1: humans went out into space, they would develop a different accent.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, haven't you seen the Expanse. They have a

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Speaker 1: whole interesting accident for the belters, and like a little

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Speaker 1: dialect of English. It's really well done. I imagine they would.

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Speaker 1: You know, any geographically separated population is going to drift

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Speaker 1: off linguistically, so I imagine they would interesting. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about the book. What's the book about? You said, aliens?

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Speaker 1: It's aliens good aliens are bad alien? Well, you start

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Speaker 1: off and you don't know, right. All we know is

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Speaker 1: that there's this moment of first contact. We're gonna meet

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Speaker 1: the aliens. They found this weird rock essentially accelerating through

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Speaker 1: the Solar system, and it turns out it's an alien

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Speaker 1: spaceship and they go out and they meet it, and

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Speaker 1: there's this exciting scene where the aliens like come through

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Speaker 1: the hatch and you don't know as the reader, and

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Speaker 1: you can tell that the characters in the scene they

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Speaker 1: don't know, like are we about to die or we

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Speaker 1: about to meet friendly aliens? They're gonna unlock the secrets

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Speaker 1: of the universe. So it's a the moment of great

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Speaker 1: tension that really underpins a lot of what happens in

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Speaker 1: the book. Really, there was no texting contact or phone

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Speaker 1: call before meeting in person. No, and you know how

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Speaker 1: you know how to communicate with these aliens. You don't

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Speaker 1: have like electronic signals in common. I mean it's hard

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Speaker 1: enough to get another human being on Skype or Zoom

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Speaker 1: to get that to work. You know, getting your audio

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Speaker 1: to work on a Zoom call is hard enough, so

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Speaker 1: getting to chat with an alien before you meet with

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Speaker 1: them in person is pretty tricky. So the aliens sort

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Speaker 1: of climb aboard a human ship and what you discovered

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Speaker 1: this is not really a spoiler because it happens very

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Speaker 1: early on in the book, is that the aliens are

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Speaker 1: not friendly, not at all. Oh man, what do they do?

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Speaker 1: They come in, guns a blazing or brandishing their claws. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they come in, and it turns out they can do

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Speaker 1: something crazy, which is they can spit many black holes.

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Speaker 1: They can spit black holes. What they spit these little

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Speaker 1: black holes which passed through you and basically just like

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Speaker 1: tear you shreds. And that's not a very friendly thing

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Speaker 1: to do. And so the humans are basically torn apart

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Speaker 1: in the very first moment of contact, and that sets

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Speaker 1: the tone for the human alien interaction in the rest

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Speaker 1: of the book. Oh man, Well, there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: signs that are to talk about. But but then what

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Speaker 1: happens then the then the book is sort of about

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Speaker 1: what a war or cleaning up after this mess? Yes,

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Speaker 1: so then it launches a massive planetary war, and the

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Speaker 1: rest of the book is essentially an exploration for what

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Speaker 1: that war is like. And how it plays out, you know,

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Speaker 1: how does humanity respond to that? What kind of weapons

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Speaker 1: do we build to try to defend ourselves to try

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Speaker 1: to take it to the aliens? What has to happen

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Speaker 1: for that to work? And then what's it like for

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Speaker 1: those humans on board? And it's pretty fascinating because he

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Speaker 1: develops this technology, this almost self driving ship and these

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Speaker 1: massive warships that are so complicated they have to be

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Speaker 1: essentially driven by AI. Man, oh wait, so there's robots

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Speaker 1: to involved. Yeah, well, the whole ship is like a

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Speaker 1: robe odd and it's making decisions. The humans are on board,

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Speaker 1: but they're not really in charge. They're just sort of

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Speaker 1: like there. And it's not clear in the very beginning,

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Speaker 1: like well why are the humans even on the ship?

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Speaker 1: But what is the nature of this AI? And one

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Speaker 1: of the things I really like about this book is

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Speaker 1: that there's not a lot of just like explainer, You've

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Speaker 1: got to figure stuff out for yourself, which leaves mysteries.

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Speaker 1: Why are the aliens attacking us? Like why are they

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Speaker 1: still grumpy? Are the interested in having a conversation? Or

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Speaker 1: like what is the AI on this ship? What is

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Speaker 1: it doing? Why is it making these decisions? Why are

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Speaker 1: the humans even on the ship. It's pretty fascinating. Wait,

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Speaker 1: there's nobody like in charge of the ship, Like the

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Speaker 1: humans are just passengers. Yeah, the ship is in charge

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Speaker 1: of the ship. I mean, the humans have rules they

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Speaker 1: have to like do this and do that, but it

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Speaker 1: becomes pretty clear that they're not actually necessary. And I

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Speaker 1: think he's put the humans on board mostly to sell

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Speaker 1: the war back to people on Earth. So the humans

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Speaker 1: are they're like basically take pictures and like turn out

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Speaker 1: Instagram stories so that the folks back on Earth feel

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Speaker 1: invested in the war. Otherwise, the war is just sort

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Speaker 1: of like our AI versus these weird inscrutable aliens. Uh. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm all in favor of putting Instagram influencers on a

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Speaker 1: spaceship and shooting the above to fight aliens. That's I

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Speaker 1: think that would certainly improve our society. Here are you

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Speaker 1: saying you want to send Kim Kardashian out to aliens?

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Speaker 1: I won't deny that I do. Or maybe she is

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Speaker 1: an alien That would actually explain a lot, or a robot, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that would explain a lot. Yeah, So so humans are

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Speaker 1: just walking around the spaceship doing tasks. Now, is this

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Speaker 1: word that Game among Us came from like it's one

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Speaker 1: of them an impostor None of them are impostors. They're

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Speaker 1: all real people. But the story goes pretty deep into

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Speaker 1: like what it's like to be them, what it's like

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Speaker 1: to be on a tin can for six months far

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Speaker 1: away from humanity, and to be on this ship where

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Speaker 1: you might not even really be necessary, and also to

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Speaker 1: be fighting these aliens and like what do they want

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Speaker 1: and why are they attacking us? And it goes pretty

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Speaker 1: deep into that and what it means to be fighting

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Speaker 1: a war when the humans are not even the ones

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Speaker 1: making the decisions about who to kill and where to

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Speaker 1: go right as it may happen here on earth, Like

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Speaker 1: if you let AI, you know, drive the drones and stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's very clearly making a point about AI in weapons

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Speaker 1: and AI and warfare. You know, is it a good

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Speaker 1: idea to how the AI be doing these things because

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Speaker 1: it's more efficient. It's obviously better than the humans at

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Speaker 1: zapping the aliens. On the other hand, like you know,

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Speaker 1: who knows what it's doing and why why is it

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Speaker 1: making these decisions? Does it really have our interests at

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Speaker 1: heart or the massive corporations that have funded it, do

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Speaker 1: they have interests which don't exactly support what the public wants. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and do we get to find out later what the

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Speaker 1: aliens want? Or is that a spoiler alert? We come

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Speaker 1: close to there's sort of a moment of contact where

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Speaker 1: one of the characters gets to talk to one of

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Speaker 1: the aliens and sort of starts to maybe understand what

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Speaker 1: they're doing and what they want. And I think the

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Speaker 1: way that Barry has pitched it is that it's essentially

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Speaker 1: a confrontation between two forms of life. And the way

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Speaker 1: he looks at it, life is conflict. That everything on

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Speaker 1: Earth is constantly competing for resources. I mean two forms

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Speaker 1: of life that occupies sort of the same niche come

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Speaker 1: into contact, they will instantly be in conflict. They're sort

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Speaker 1: of like driven by their genes. So he sees like

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Speaker 1: humans as just like the implementation of our d NA

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Speaker 1: fighting to preserve and propagate our DNA, and the imagines

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Speaker 1: the aliens are just doing the same thing. Whatever they

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Speaker 1: use for code has created these bodies in order to

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Speaker 1: propagate and reproduce that code. I see. And then when

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Speaker 1: does Will Smith come in? Does he come in on

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Speaker 1: a spaceship riding a horse? Well, let's get into the

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Speaker 1: science of it. Sounds like there's some pretty interesting science

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Speaker 1: going on here AI for warfare and spitting many black

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Speaker 1: holes as as a bullet. So let's get into that.

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Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. Alright. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about the book Providence by the author Max Barry, who

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Speaker 1: writes speculative fiction and science fiction and has written book

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Speaker 1: about aliens coming to start some some beef humans. That's right,

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Speaker 1: it's not the sort of like interplanetary physics confidence that

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Speaker 1: I'm hoping for. If we do meet the alien you

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Speaker 1: probably I wonder if you guys pit black holes at

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Speaker 1: your confidence a little bit? Probably? Right, Hey, if somebody

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Speaker 1: could show up and make black holes at a conference,

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Speaker 1: they would be very popular. Make me one. I want

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Speaker 1: to study one. Depends on which direction he's he or

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Speaker 1: she is skidding these black holes. I'd like one so

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Speaker 1: I could power my black hole starship with it, right right, right,

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Speaker 1: all right, let's talk about the science of this book,

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Speaker 1: which sounds pretty interesting. So I guess, first of all,

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Speaker 1: we're fighting this war with the aliens here in our

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Speaker 1: solar system, or does it spread out into the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: It spreads out in the galaxy. We build these huge

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Speaker 1: ships are called Providence class ships. That's where the book

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Speaker 1: gets its name, and they go out, they do these

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Speaker 1: hard skips, these faster than light travel out to find

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Speaker 1: the aliens to hunt them down. Humanity has taken the

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Speaker 1: first beating in the first contact, but now it's on

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Speaker 1: the aggression. It wants to go out and to eradicate

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Speaker 1: these aliens. And you know, it's interesting it it poses

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Speaker 1: us as in conflict with these aliens. And as I

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Speaker 1: was reading it, I was wondering, like, why do we

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Speaker 1: have to eradicate those aliens? Or why those aliens want

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Speaker 1: to kill us? Like why would aliens even want to

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Speaker 1: kill them? And that's kind of part of the book,

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Speaker 1: I imagine, right, like you not knowing and you figuring

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Speaker 1: that out. Yeah, And also it's sort of an extension

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Speaker 1: of this question. It's natural for forms of life on

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Speaker 1: Earth to be in conflict because there are limited resources.

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Speaker 1: But then when you go out into space, like man,

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Speaker 1: there's plenty of room for everybody, and there are zillions

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Speaker 1: of planets and huge blobs of ice or any kind

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Speaker 1: of mineral you want. Do we really need to be

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Speaker 1: in complex? Isn't the alexy big enough for two civilizations?

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Speaker 1: But maybe we're just sort of like trapped into the

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Speaker 1: modes of survival that we've developed on a planet where

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Speaker 1: we're constantly in conflict and anybody who attacks us must

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Speaker 1: be eradicated. And so it's an interesting question of like

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Speaker 1: whether that really applies to a space civilization. I see,

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Speaker 1: so they came to us we were happily sitting around

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Speaker 1: in our planet, or did we already have like a

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Speaker 1: multi planet civilization Now we're basically just living on Earth.

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Speaker 1: We had a few spaceships, it was early days in

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Speaker 1: space faring, sort of the way we are now, but

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Speaker 1: we hadn't really like established a lot of colonies. But

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Speaker 1: then this really fires up the space military industrial complex

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Speaker 1: and we develop a whole new class of warships which

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Speaker 1: gobble up huge fractions of our economy. All of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: we developed AI and faster than light travels. Yeah. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: You know, when we are facing an existential threat, the

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Speaker 1: scientists can do some amazing stuff. They cut out their

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Speaker 1: naps and they really get to work. Man. But it

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Speaker 1: makes me wonder, like if aliens you come, would they

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Speaker 1: just sort of follow a biological drive to meet and

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Speaker 1: exterminate any competition, or is it possible for us to

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Speaker 1: sort of mentally and socially evolved to a point where

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Speaker 1: we're like, hey, it's playing a room in the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: Let's just have a nice coffee, right, Like, it's not

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Speaker 1: clear to me that if we meet aliens they will

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Speaker 1: naturally want to attack us. I imagine that a US

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Speaker 1: we want to build a wall. Yeah, it would probably

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Speaker 1: be partisan in the end. You know, are the aliens

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Speaker 1: Democrats or Republicans? Right? I guess maybe pro human or

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Speaker 1: anti alien? But I think there is something that he

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Speaker 1: gets right, which is that aliens, if they do come,

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Speaker 1: will be very alien. You know, I imagine some sort

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Speaker 1: of like interplanetary physics conversation, but that's really very unrealistic.

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Speaker 1: It's very likely that if they come, we won't understand

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Speaker 1: what they're doing or why they're doing it, and be

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Speaker 1: very hard to sort of drill down to understand their motivations.

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Speaker 1: It can be hard to understand other people, even other

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Speaker 1: people you've known for a long time. So the idea

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Speaker 1: of like understanding the motivations and the drives of a

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Speaker 1: completely alien, intelligent species seems pretty far out of our reach.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's very likely that if aliens do come,

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Speaker 1: they will be inscrutable in their motives, and you really

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Speaker 1: do get a good sense of that in this book.

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Speaker 1: You're like, never really understand why the aliens are doing

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Speaker 1: what they're doing, and nobody spends any time trying to

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Speaker 1: figure this out. Worthy sociologists and the cultural anthropologists or

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Speaker 1: alien trologists, Yeah, there are, and you hear internal debate

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Speaker 1: and some of the characters like, why are we trying

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Speaker 1: to essentially commit genocide against this intelligent species? Is that

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Speaker 1: the right thing to do? You know? But then again,

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Speaker 1: you're on this massive ship and that's the job of

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Speaker 1: the ship, and you're following orders, and so there's some

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Speaker 1: discussion about that, and you know, I think Barry races

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Speaker 1: some questions about whether that's the appropriate response. But in

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Speaker 1: the end, if it's kill or be killed, you know,

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Speaker 1: then humanity steps up and tries to do the killing.

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Speaker 1: All right. There's some science in the book Providence by

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Speaker 1: Max Barry, and some of it has to do with

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Speaker 1: spitting black holes. But there's also something called a violent

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Speaker 1: zone what what set? At some point in the book,

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Speaker 1: they lose contact with Earth because the ship goes into

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Speaker 1: the violid zone. The violet zone is a place where

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Speaker 1: you're just out of touch with Earth and there's no

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Speaker 1: communication possible. And I think he's done this to sort

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Speaker 1: of isolate the characters so they can't be supported and

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Speaker 1: instructed by, you know, smart folks back on Earth, and

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Speaker 1: it sort of felt like they're alone. They're there with

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Speaker 1: the AI, and at some point of course things break down.

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Speaker 1: The AI isn't doing what it's supposed to do, and

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Speaker 1: they're wondering like, how should we solve this problem? And

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Speaker 1: the characters come into conflict with each other. A lot

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Speaker 1: of interesting developments. I don't want to spoil for the

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Speaker 1: future readers. It's more of a plot device. You think

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Speaker 1: that any kind of meaningful science statement. Absolutely, And as

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Speaker 1: you hear my conversation with Max, he's very clear that

403
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Speaker 1: he wanted this part of the plot, and he was like,

404
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Speaker 1: I don't really care about the science of how this happens,

405
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Speaker 1: so I'll just make something up. He totally owned it, right, right.

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Speaker 1: I wonder how often physicist sated, well, I just needed

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Speaker 1: something to make the equation balance, so I just made

408
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Speaker 1: up this thing called the Higgs that is essentially theoretical physics. Yes, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: they're unconstrained by reality. They just invent new ideas to

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Speaker 1: fit what they need, and then we have to go

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Speaker 1: out and check like, well, that's cool idea, but is

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Speaker 1: it real? So absolutely, theoretical physicists are always creating stuff

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Speaker 1: that suits their plot devices, all right. So the other

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Speaker 1: piece of science here is that the aliens somehow spit

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Speaker 1: black holes and they use them as bullets. Like that's

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Speaker 1: how they kill you. They shoot black holes at you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they can shoot them at your ship and you know,

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Speaker 1: puncture your ship. And these little black holes they're not

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Speaker 1: just like bullets. They do pass through stuff and tear

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Speaker 1: stuff up, but they also have intensive gravitational fields and

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Speaker 1: so they know disorganized the ship and they pull stuff

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Speaker 1: into them, So they're pretty powerful. It's pretty cool idea

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Speaker 1: for a little weapon. It sounds like a bad idea,

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Speaker 1: like like if you shoot it, wouldn't you get sucked

425
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Speaker 1: into it too? Yeah, you have to shoot it away

426
00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: from you at some velocity. It's not the kind of

427
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Speaker 1: thing you can really think about too deeply scientifically because

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Speaker 1: it doesn't really hold water. What do you mean, Like,

429
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 1: how do you make a black hole inside you without

430
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:08,240
Speaker 1: having all that mass and energy already inside you? You

431
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:11,719
Speaker 1: need to be incredibly massive or have incredible energy stores

432
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:14,600
Speaker 1: to create the kind of energy density you need to

433
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:17,639
Speaker 1: make a black hole. Right. Yeah, it's like making a

434
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 1: plot in which people shoot bullets. Where did the bullets

435
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:22,480
Speaker 1: come from in the metal for them? Yeah, exactly, but

436
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,160
Speaker 1: here the bullets, you know, have to have like incredible

437
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:27,560
Speaker 1: amounts of mass. You could make a black hole. And

438
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:29,640
Speaker 1: you can make a black hole really really small. There's

439
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 1: no theoretical lower limit there. But the problem is to

440
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: have a black hole that's effective, you know, that has

441
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:39,400
Speaker 1: like powerful gravity, like the strength of Earth's gravity, right,

442
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:42,919
Speaker 1: even which is not that powerful but pretty effective. You

443
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: need to create these black holes to have significant mass.

444
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,600
Speaker 1: So I did the calculation, and like, for you to

445
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 1: have the power of Earth's gravity and be one meter

446
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 1: away from a black hole, that black hole would have

447
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:59,160
Speaker 1: to have the mass of a hundred and fifty billion kilograms.

448
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 1: So you have to compact a hundred and fifty billion

449
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: ms of mass into a tiny dot in order to

450
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: have the same power of Earth's gravity just a meter

451
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: away from the black hole. Wow, that would be a lot.

452
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 1: And these aliens can like shoot it like a machine

453
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:15,000
Speaker 1: gun or is it like a more like a death

454
00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 1: Star kind of takes a while for the engineers to

455
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:19,920
Speaker 1: pull the levers and they can shoot them out. It's

456
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 1: not like a machine gun. But I don't know how

457
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:24,040
Speaker 1: many they have inside them, But it's not like it

458
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 1: takes ten minutes to warm up, you know, in the

459
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: moment of first contact they open the last they come inside,

460
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:31,359
Speaker 1: and then they just sort of like start black holing people.

461
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,400
Speaker 1: What and so, okay, so you shoot a black hole?

462
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 1: And how big are these black holes? They're tiny, you know,

463
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: they're infinite testimal essentially, they're you know, less than a

464
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 1: millimeter across, less than amily, but they have about the

465
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: mass of a planet. Well, he doesn't specify the mass

466
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,040
Speaker 1: of these things, but I did that little calculation, and

467
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 1: in order to have the same gravity as a planet,

468
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: then they would have to be like a hundred and

469
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 1: fifty billion kilograms in mass. And so it doesn't seem

470
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:56,439
Speaker 1: to me at all feasible that these aliens that are

471
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 1: walking around are holding a hundred fifty billion kilograms of

472
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: mass inside them, all right, because if it's inside them before,

473
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: they would also be pretty heavy, exactly exactly. And the

474
00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:10,360
Speaker 1: thing about these black holes is that they come out

475
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: and they don't just pass through you, but they gravitationally

476
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,639
Speaker 1: attract you. So they have to be massive enough to

477
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:17,919
Speaker 1: have that gravity. And you know, if it's just like

478
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 1: a one millimeter blob that has you know, the same

479
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 1: amount of stuff as one millimeter sized rock, there's no

480
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:25,879
Speaker 1: gravity there. Like the gravity there is so negligible you

481
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: would never feel it. So you have to make it

482
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:32,120
Speaker 1: so compact and so dense that it's essentially physically impossible

483
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: for an alien of human skill to have that much

484
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: energy or stuff inside them to make that black hole.

485
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 1: So then you shoot the black hole and like fast

486
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 1: or is it like floating out away from me? Yeah,

487
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: it's pretty quick. I mean it's not like light speed

488
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: or anything. But it's also not a bullet speed. But

489
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:49,160
Speaker 1: it just sort of like drifts forward and passes through

490
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: stuff and it does a lot of damage. Now, would

491
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:54,479
Speaker 1: a black hole like that last very long or does

492
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: it evaporate or does it keep going forever? And then

493
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: basically you created a black hole only in the universe. Oh,

494
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,199
Speaker 1: that's a great question. The black holes do evaporate. We

495
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: think this is something called Hawking radiation, where a black

496
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: hole can give energy to quantum particles just outside of

497
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: it and lose some of its energy in doing so.

498
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: And if those particles then drift away, the black holes

499
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 1: effectively lost some of its mass. So this is black

500
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 1: hole evaporation. And it actually happens much more rapidly for

501
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: small black holes than for big black holes. So for

502
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: small black holes like these, they do evaporate, but these

503
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 1: would last a long time, Like a black hole the

504
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: size of the Empire State Building, for example, that would

505
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: last several years. And this is a hundred and forties

506
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: seven billion kilograms, so substantially bigger than the Empire State Building.

507
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: So these should last several years. Yeah, all right, Well,

508
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 1: and you talked to Max Berry, right, Daniel. You zoomed

509
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: or skyped him, reached out to Max, and he was

510
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: very happy to talk to us about the signs of

511
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: his novel. Cool, And did you tell him that it

512
00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 1: was totally implausible? I let him know we'd be talking

513
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: about the science of his novel, and he said that

514
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: sounds like something I'd be totally out of my depth. Four,

515
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:10,120
Speaker 1: But I'm totally up for it. He's I just don't

516
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 1: shoot any black holes in me. No, he was a

517
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 1: great sport. Cool. All right, Well, here is Daniel's interview

518
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 1: with science fiction author Max Barry, reader of the book Providence. Okay,

519
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,959
Speaker 1: then it's my pleasure to introduce to the podcast Max Barry,

520
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 1: author of Providence. Max, say hello to our listeners. Yeah,

521
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: hello listeners. Thank you for having me, and thanks very

522
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: much for being on the program. Tell us a little

523
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: bit about how you got into science fiction writing. It

524
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: seems like a small departure from some of your earlier novels,

525
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: like a Lexicon or Company. Yeah. Look, it's funny because

526
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 1: my first ever novel was, Um, it's called Syrup, and

527
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: it's a satire basically a comedy about a guy who

528
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 1: works in the marketing industry, and it doesn't really have

529
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 1: anything to do with science fiction at all, except for

530
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:03,959
Speaker 1: the fact I guess that the characters make a science

531
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: fiction movie at some point during the book. And then

532
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: the second one was Jennifer Government, which is probably the

533
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 1: book I'm best known for, and that is science fiction

534
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: without the aliens and spaceships and futuristic technologies. Right, So

535
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: it's it's an alternate present kind of science fiction novel

536
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: where you know, the social structures are different. Um, It's

537
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: set in a ultra capitalist society where Australia is a

538
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: part of the United States and there's basically no government

539
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: and everything is run by the free market, so it's

540
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's a science fiction of ideas rather than

541
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: of objects or things. So anyway, I was invited along

542
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: to a science fiction con um here in my hometown

543
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: of Melbourne, Australia, not too long after that was published,

544
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: and I felt like a bit of a fraud because

545
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 1: I had these two books and only one was even

546
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: sci fi, and I'm there on panels with all these

547
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: actual science fiction writers who have produced their thirteenth novel

548
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: in you know, the Ring Arc cycle, and um, the

549
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,479
Speaker 1: guy said no, no, it's it's fine because you know

550
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: this Jennifer Government. And then with Syrup, you know, even

551
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: though it's not science fiction, it feels like it was

552
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 1: written by a sci fi fan. And I was really

553
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: pleased to hear that, because yeah, I have been a

554
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: sci fi fan my whole life. It was basically all

555
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: I read in my teen years. That and horror. I

556
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: was really into that, into sci fi and horror with

557
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,440
Speaker 1: a bit of fantasy, probably when I was younger. But yeah,

558
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: I have this this real background in a lot of

559
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: classic sci fi especially the sort of Isaac Asimov and

560
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: Arthur C. Clark and Larry Niven. All these sort of

561
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: Golden age sci fi novels were part of my diet

562
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: growing up. So yeah, I just I've just always been

563
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: into that and it sort of leaks through in my books,

564
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: even when I don't really set out to write a

565
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: sci fi novel. So help us orient you a little

566
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: bit in the sort of space of science fiction writers

567
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: and answer a few questions about the science fiction genre.

568
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: Are you of the opinion that a Star Trek transporter

569
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: will actually kill you and then clone you on the

570
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: other side, or does it literally transport your atoms from

571
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: one place to another? Yeah, I mean it's gotta it's

572
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: got to transport information, right, There'll be no sense in

573
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: transporting atoms. And it would be kind of meaningless too,

574
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: wouldn't it, Because they're just atoms. It's not like they're

575
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: imbued with the soul of you in your your molecules.

576
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it surely has to be murdering you

577
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: and then rebuilding an identical you on the other side.

578
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: So then would you be willing to get into a

579
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: transporter or somebody built one? No, No, I wouldn't know.

580
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: I mean that that's a death sentence, so it's terrific

581
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: for my clone on the other side, but that that's

582
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: a different person alright. So then what technology that you

583
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: see in science fiction would you most like to see

584
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: come reality? Um? Yeah, I mean to completely contract what

585
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: I just said, Like, something that would actually take me

586
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: to long distances would be fantastic. If I could get

587
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: the teleportation without the murdering, that would be terrific. Yeah,

588
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: I mean it's a thing. The fast distance of the

589
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: universe is something I actually bumped up again against with

590
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: with Providence because it is my like classics sci fi

591
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: story where it's it's set on a spaceship, it involves

592
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: aliens and all of these these sort of really traditional

593
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: space opera elements um that I really loved as a kid.

594
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: But the thing, and I've tried to transport that into

595
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: a really plausible world and to make the technology work

596
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: like I think it really would, and the AI function

597
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 1: like I think an A I would function. But the

598
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: distance thing is a real problem at some point you,

599
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: I think, when you're writing a book like this, unless

600
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: you want to get into you unless you want to

601
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: write a story about the technology of um faster than

602
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: light space travel. You you have to hand wave at

603
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 1: some point and say, in this universe there is faster

604
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: than light travel. I'm not sure exactly how it works,

605
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: but people can get from here to there in a

606
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: short amount of time, like within a generation. Otherwise, you

607
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: know you have no story to tell. So then, what

608
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: is your personal answer to the Fermi paradox? If the

609
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: universe is so likely to host life, where is everybody?

610
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: The distances just too vast and the speed of light

611
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: too slow? Right? I have to believe that there's something

612
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: out there, I guess I tend to think that there

613
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: must be something out there, but maybe it doesn't fit

614
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:08,479
Speaker 1: neatly within our pretty narrow ideas of what life is.

615
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: Because we we tend to imagine everything experiencing the world

616
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: the same way we do. We tend to think that

617
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: unless something fits into our own idea of what a

618
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: person thinks like or what a life form should look like,

619
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: then it doesn't really count. And there's really no reason

620
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: to believe that there isn't a vast range of other

621
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: types of things out there that you know, it would

622
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: shock the hell out of us if we actually encountered them.

623
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: But wouldn't turn out to be you know, the kind

624
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,719
Speaker 1: of star Trek alien where it's like us, but with

625
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: bumpy ridges on the forehead, or you know, a different,

626
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 1: different shade color ear or something like that. So then

627
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: let's turn into the topic of your novel, Providence, which

628
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: I just read and thoroughly enjoyed. Two congratulations, aren't really wonderful,

629
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: Thank you, exciting space opera. Would love to really fascinating

630
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: themes in it. And something that I really liked about

631
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: the novel was that you have the excitement of meeting aliens,

632
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: but then basically everything goes wrong. Is that something that

633
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: you were trying to capture in the book, something that

634
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: you were trying to explore. Yeah, that that's certainly the

635
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: concept that first got me thinking that it might be

636
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: an interesting story to tell. I guess it sort of

637
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: stemmed from the idea that when we used to go

638
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: off to find wars, it used to be a very

639
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: personal experience. Used to be, you know, a man with

640
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: a gun or not even that in some cases up

641
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: against another man with a weapon, and it has evolved

642
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: because of technology to the point where it's nowadays it's

643
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: a lot more like a person in a dark room

644
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: with a screen guiding what's happening, and future wars maybe

645
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: fought with humans well back from the front lines. And

646
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: you know, this was really impressed upon me watching the

647
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: Gulf Wars and the way that that warfare seemed to operate.

648
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: Now where you have this sort of a symmetric warfare

649
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: between a force that was quite technologically advanced and one

650
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: that was less. So so yeah, it's and we and

651
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: we we value life differently in that sort of situation.

652
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: So the loss of a soldier nowadays is quite shocking

653
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: compared to what it would have been, you know, in

654
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: decades gone by. So yeah, I was thinking about how

655
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: this might work. And the situation that interested me was

656
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: the idea that you have, say, a crew on a

657
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 1: battleship as we as happens in Providence. So there is

658
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: an amazing warship that has sucked the resources of Earth

659
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: dry to build and it's it's fantastic. It it's got

660
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: these incredible weapons, it's run by this incredible AI. The

661
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: functions of the actual for humans on board are pretty

662
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: limited because you know, they can't do a whole lot

663
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: compared to the capabilities of this battleship. The interesting thing there,

664
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: of course, is that, Okay, so what happens when things

665
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: start to go wrong and these people who were maybe

666
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: there to basically to look good for the humans back

667
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: on Earth who are trying to fund this war effort

668
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: now actually have to do their jobs. But do you

669
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: think it's sort of inevitable that if we meet an

670
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 1: alien race that we will not understand them and essentially

671
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: be launched into war just because it's impossible to sympathize,

672
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: were too communicate or to understand each other if, as

673
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: you say, an alien race is very likely to be

674
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: extremely alien, right, Okay, I think there's a couple of

675
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 1: things there. First of all, I think any encounter with

676
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: an alien race is going to be super disappointing from

677
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 1: our point of view, just because we you know, we're

678
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: expecting something like us, and it will be something that

679
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:20,720
Speaker 1: is so different that we will think like, it won't

680
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: be cool in any of the metrics that we rate

681
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: as humans. Has been has been interesting, So you know,

682
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: it will be a type of life form that does things.

683
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: Maybe it grows by consuming a particular element um and

684
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem intelligent at all to us, but it's

685
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: extremely successful in terms of you know what it's doing

686
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: to survive and multiply. The second part is, and this

687
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 1: is a big theme of the book, the idea that

688
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 1: there is is conflict between life forms at every level.

689
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: And there is a conflict between I guess most obviously

690
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: we're in our own species humans fight each other, but

691
00:34:56,280 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: there is also conflict between the genes that make up

692
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: our DNA were there's been a battle for territory on

693
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:08,840
Speaker 1: our on our DNA that goes back however long. And

694
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: this is a battle that we're completely unaware of, except

695
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 1: it does really guide a lot of our behavior. We

696
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: do care for families and raise them and protect our

697
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: kin and try to defeat the others who have different

698
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: DNA and all that's kind of guided by these instructions

699
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 1: that we are only vaguely aware of. But we're basically

700
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,399
Speaker 1: programmed in a way. We're programs, but we have free

701
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:34,760
Speaker 1: will at the same time, which is another interesting concept.

702
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: So yeah, the idea that there is this inherent conflict

703
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: between all living things and that the universe is at

704
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 1: some level this pretty bleak battleground where nothing matters except survival.

705
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 1: I thought that was an interesting foundation for the story.

706
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: And on top of that, you have these these characters,

707
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: is for in particular, who spend most of the book

708
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: just the four of them, and they their people. So

709
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: we we go into this universe, this cold, uncaring universe

710
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: of physics and logic, and we actually bring stories to it,

711
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: and we bring value, and we create these really warm emotions,

712
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: and yeah, I guess value is the best way to

713
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: put it. We we sort of create things that have

714
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 1: nothing just buy our perceptions of what we care about.

715
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,239
Speaker 1: So I think it's just a lovely contrast where you

716
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: can have the pretty practical, brutal reality of the universe

717
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,720
Speaker 1: on one hand, and then you have a more personal

718
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,720
Speaker 1: set of personal journeys going through it. I don't disagree

719
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: with you, but I don't think that answer is going

720
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: to get you nominated to be among our contingent to

721
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 1: go meet the aliens if we ever do meet them, Right, Yeah, No,

722
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 1: I don't think i'd like to hear either, like I'd

723
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: love to see it, but maybe from a distance, a

724
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 1: safe distance. I'm actually more concerned about what we're going

725
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: to do to ourselves with AI than what aliens are

726
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:52,359
Speaker 1: going to do to us. All Right, we have lots

727
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: more to talk about But first, let's take a quick break,

728
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 1: and we're back and I'm talking to Max Barry, author

729
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: of the science fiction novel Providence. Well, something I thought

730
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: was fascinating in the book was that moment of first contact.

731
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: There's hope, the humans are not necessarily just pulling out

732
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: their weapons and blasting. They're wondering what these like, are

733
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: they going to be friendly? And then they sort of

734
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,880
Speaker 1: met with this immediate assault of this this deadly attack.

735
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,760
Speaker 1: And something that drove me through the book was wondering,

736
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: why are these aliens trying to kill us? And I

737
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: hear what you're saying that life is in conflict always,

738
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: But isn't that sort of on a planetary scale where

739
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 1: we're competing for resources, we're sort of trapped in makes

740
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: me wonder, like this alien species, why don't they just

741
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 1: go somewhere else and find some empty planet. Is it

742
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,280
Speaker 1: really necessary do you think for life forms to battle

743
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 1: it out on the scale of galaxies or the universe

744
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: where things are just so vast and so separated and

745
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: so rich. Yeah, that's that's a great question. I think, No,

746
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: there's not a need. There is a kind of bias

747
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 1: towards conflict. There is maybe the best way to work.

748
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't have to be resolved by conflict,

749
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 1: and with this story, it begins in a fairly traditional way,

750
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: I guess, where there is basically a war between humans

751
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 1: and aliens, and the aliens seem hostile and aggressive just

752
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 1: because they are. And throughout the book that question gets

753
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: explored a little bit and the different characters have different

754
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: opinions about it as well. So for one of them,

755
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: for Jackson, for example, it doesn't really matter why why

756
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: the aliens behave the way they do, or why they're aggressive,

757
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: or what their aims are. It's just the fact that

758
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: they attacked us. We need to wipe them out in

759
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: the story. For others, they can try to imagine what

760
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: the motivations of So the alien race is called the salamanders,

761
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: what the salamanders are actually you know, thinking, and what

762
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: motivates them and try to to tease out, you know,

763
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,240
Speaker 1: how did this conflict happen? Doesn't even need to happen.

764
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: Do we need to be at all with this race

765
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: or not? So, yeah, it is a question that gets

766
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: explored a little bit, and you know, without giving away

767
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 1: the answer to it, I hope that it's it's resolved

768
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 1: in a satisfying way. Um, but an unusual way too.

769
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: I hope my answer to that question is is a

770
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,359
Speaker 1: pretty practical one um and a pretty unsentimental one um.

771
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,279
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's it felt true to me. I

772
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: thought it was really well done. The way you have

773
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: sort of this unthinking or or understandable alien war that

774
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:32,359
Speaker 1: you're fighting, or this ununderstandable enemy you're fighting, and then

775
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 1: the humans have to build essentially an ununderstandable, undecipherable attack

776
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: AI to fight that war for them, until you end

777
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: up with this two sides neither would you understand even

778
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,399
Speaker 1: if you're on one of them. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

779
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: And when I was tackling the idea of a story,

780
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: it's a war story. Essentially, the question is how do

781
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: you do that? Because war is too big to understand.

782
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 1: You can this, it happens on many different levels. At

783
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: the top level, you can sort of understand maybe whether

784
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 1: the big forces are moving in which side is ascendant.

785
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: But you know, that's a really detached way of looking

786
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 1: at war. The way that it really matters to people

787
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:11,800
Speaker 1: is what's happening to the individuals. You know, what's the

788
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: individual's experience of war, but then their experience is only

789
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:17,919
Speaker 1: a tiny little slice of it. So I did hope

790
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: that the feeling that you get from this book is

791
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of different levels of conflict

792
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:25,959
Speaker 1: going on at once, and some are moving faster than others,

793
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: but there is a conflict that a very deep level.

794
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 1: There is also the individuals who are soldiers in a war,

795
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: who are fighting the most obvious form of it, but

796
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,840
Speaker 1: they are also really just tiny little players in in

797
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 1: the larger conflict because they are you know, as you say,

798
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: they're quite limited in what they can do, especially compared

799
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: to the capabilities of the battleship run by the AI

800
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: that they're inside. So yeah, and what is actually happening

801
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 1: with the AI, of course, is another whole area of

802
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 1: the book. And I love that you didn't just explain

803
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 1: it to us that he left at a mystery. We

804
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: have to try to decipher it ourselves. That's one of

805
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: my funnest elements in well written novels. But let me

806
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 1: ask you about the the science of this universe that

807
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: you've built. And so you have a few elements in

808
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 1: this universe you have fasten like travel, and you call

809
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: them skips you have this region where no communication is possible,

810
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: the violid zone. Did you have these ideas and then

811
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 1: sort of build the story in the universe you created,

812
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: or do you sort of like make up the physics

813
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: as you went along in order to enable the story

814
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 1: you wanted to tell. Yeah, probably closer to the second one. Whenever,

815
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: whenever a writer approaches a story, they have to decide

816
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,319
Speaker 1: which parts of it are the most interesting to them.

817
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:41,919
Speaker 1: So for some writers it's you know, they're more into

818
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: the actual technology, like the hardware and you know what

819
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: it does and how it works. Others are more into

820
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: you assume that this does exist and however it works.

821
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: You know, we don't really mind so much, but let's

822
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: look more at how it affects the choices people make,

823
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: and how it affects their behavior, how it affects society. So,

824
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's hard to do everything at once,

825
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 1: and at some point you've got to really decide where

826
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: your focus is. So for me, it was it was

827
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: the people. It was the characters, and you know, the

828
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: particular experience that they go through, the hardware and the

829
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: technology and the science of it. I'm a big fan

830
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:18,879
Speaker 1: and like I enjoy that stuff in the stuff I read,

831
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: but not quite as much as I enjoy a novel

832
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: with characters that I really fall in love with and

833
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,720
Speaker 1: and identify with that will carry me along in a story.

834
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: So so yeah, that was my focus. So there the skips.

835
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:33,760
Speaker 1: The faster than light travel, as I sort of mentioned earlier,

836
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: is is absolutely a you know, I did not want

837
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 1: to go into how that was possible, because yeah, it

838
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: becomes such a distraction unless your book is about that

839
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: and it's about the technology, then yeah, it doesn't. It

840
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: just slows everything down, so, you know, ironically, because I'm

841
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:53,359
Speaker 1: trying to speed things up so they can travel faster

842
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 1: than light, just so they can remove themselves from the

843
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 1: solar system without everybody growing old in the meantime. What

844
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: was the other one that you meant and the other

845
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: violet you have the yeah, yeah, well again it's just

846
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: you know, mainly because the idea is that you get

847
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 1: these four people on the battleship and then they are

848
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 1: they have to figure out what to do when the

849
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: technology begins to fail them, and you know, that is

850
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: the core premiss of the books. So there has to

851
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 1: be a way for that to happen. But there's a

852
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,880
Speaker 1: few other things about like exactly what the weapons are

853
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 1: and how the defenses work, where you know, a reference

854
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 1: a few things, But yeah, it is it's not a

855
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: book that describes how the technology works down to the

856
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: technical level. Like for me, it has to make sense.

857
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: It has to be plausible enough, and at some point,

858
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: you know, I assume you reach a certain qualification of

859
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: reader where no matter what I do, it's not going

860
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,840
Speaker 1: to be quite good enough because the maths and the

861
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: physics just don't quite add up. Although, like I my

862
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 1: my next book, which is about parallel dimensions and involves

863
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 1: a little bit of like multiverse thinking, I've turned out

864
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:00,040
Speaker 1: to be fantastic because there is such a why I

865
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 1: disagreement among experts that it seems like almost anything really

866
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 1: could be possible there. So I feel a bit more

867
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 1: confident with that one. But with but with faster than

868
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: light travel and stuff like that, it's a bit more limited.

869
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 1: So yeah, the technology I think is, you know, it's stuff.

870
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 1: I just love the sort of feeling that you have

871
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: a character inside a world where they're surrounded by technology

872
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: and it's like really appeals to me just on it

873
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: like a primal level. That's the sort of in a

874
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: geek inside me. But the idea of being on a

875
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: battleship where you know everything around you is designed for

876
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 1: a purpose and you know works in a certain way

877
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 1: because there is a purpose to it. I just find like,

878
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 1: I find that really cool, Like that appeals to me

879
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:41,720
Speaker 1: in the sense of being a kid, you know, thirteen

880
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 1: years old at home just hoping a spaceship would land

881
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: in my backyard one day and take me off to

882
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: the stars. So so yeah, that that environment I like, Um,

883
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 1: I enjoyed this little tidbit that the saldman who can

884
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: spit these cork gluon pellets. Tell me about how you

885
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: came up with that or where that comes from. Yeah,

886
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: it came fairly late. Like the the enemy in the book,

887
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:05,080
Speaker 1: I hadn't really figured out until yeah, probably later than

888
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: you would expect. I got the main plot and the characters,

889
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 1: and which was the main thing for me, like who

890
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: these people were, why they were there, and how they

891
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:17,760
Speaker 1: would interact. So it was after that that I decided, Okay,

892
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:20,840
Speaker 1: let's figure out who the enemy is and how they

893
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,399
Speaker 1: fight and so yeah, the idea of them being able

894
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: to manipulate gravity essentially, and that they can spit these

895
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 1: incredibly dense particles that act as many black holes in

896
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 1: that if they pass close by you, then you experience

897
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: very different forces on different parts of your body that

898
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: tear it apart. So yeah, that was like just sort

899
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: of a thing that I came up with fairly late,

900
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 1: and it turns out to be reasonably memorable part of

901
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:50,919
Speaker 1: the book, I think for people who read it. But yeah,

902
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:52,800
Speaker 1: it wasn't my I didn't set out to write a

903
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: story about black hole spitting aliens. That actually came kind

904
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: of late. Well it made it pretty fun awesome. Well,

905
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: thanks very much for answering all of our questions. Can

906
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit more about your next

907
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 1: project when we can expect to see it out right? Well,

908
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: I guess I can. And this is an exclusive because

909
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: I've I've told nobody this. I only just heard yesterday

910
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: from my publisher that it's okay to mention it, so

911
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 1: I haven't even put it on my website yet. But yes,

912
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 1: So the next book after Providence is The twenty two

913
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: Murders of Madison may Um. It is about a serial

914
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: killer who murders the same woman over and over in

915
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: parallel worlds, and it is out July next year, and

916
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:33,840
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping that we can have a COVID nineteen

917
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 1: vaccine before then so I can leave my own country

918
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,759
Speaker 1: and two rounds which I missed out on this time

919
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: with providence, my book tour is supposed to happen on

920
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 1: March thirty one this year, and the world shutdown before

921
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 1: I could leave the country. So yeah, with luck, I'll

922
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: get out there next year. Al Right, pretty fun conversation.

923
00:46:58,000 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 1: You guys talked about a lot of things. Yeah, we're

924
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 1: a really fun conversation. He's obviously a guy who's thought

925
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: about this stuff pretty deeply and has lots of interests,

926
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: and so we just sort of let the conversation take

927
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: us where it went. But one of the things that

928
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 1: he seems really interested in is this conflict between life

929
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 1: forms and how that plays out across planetary boundaries. So

930
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 1: that was a lot of fun. Yeah, it's interesting. He

931
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: has such a pessimistic view about aliens, you know, like

932
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: he said that aliens will be disappointing and unfriendly most likely. Yeah,

933
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:32,760
Speaker 1: well he's probably right. You know, our fantasies about aliens

934
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,959
Speaker 1: are just that fantasies, and most likely the universe won't

935
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: provide friendly aliens with lots of insights into the nature

936
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: of the universe and granting us technology. Most likely they'll

937
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: be weird and they'll be frustrating and disappointing. But I

938
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:48,440
Speaker 1: think in the long run, you know, the longer arc

939
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,839
Speaker 1: of this human alien interaction will eventually be positive because

940
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: we will learn from them what it's like to be

941
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:58,320
Speaker 1: an intelligent species that's not human. Right, Well, anything that

942
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:00,839
Speaker 1: causes us to send our influence us on a space

943
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: ship far away sounds like a net positive freakingmanity, even

944
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 1: if it costs trillions of dollars, That makes it worth it. Well,

945
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: I don't know what would be worse, Daniel, What do

946
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 1: you think would it be worth to meet aliens and

947
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: find them disappointing and unfriendly, or to meet aliens and

948
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 1: have them find us disappointing and open. What would be worse?

949
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:24,400
Speaker 1: That would be terrible. We're like desperate to hang out,

950
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: and they just keep ignoring our texts. We're gonna ghosts

951
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: like hello, oh never mind, see you never if they

952
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:36,839
Speaker 1: quickly discover that we have nothing to offer scientifically because

953
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: they're so far ahead of us, and they just sort

954
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 1: of leave us alone and ignore us forever, that would

955
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: be torture to know their answers out there that people

956
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: could give them to you and then did not have access,

957
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: So that would be tortured. I imagine if they met

958
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: us and they're like, oh, what a cute childlike fascination

959
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: with physics they have. That is pat us on the

960
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 1: head and the al right, well, if you're interested, the

961
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,800
Speaker 1: book is called Providence and the author is called Max Barry.

962
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 1: Check out his book and other works that he's done.

963
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it, and he's a nice guy, so

964
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: support his work. Great. Well, thanks for joining us. We

965
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed that. See you next time. Thanks for listening,

966
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:23,239
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is

967
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Or more podcast from

968
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: my heart Radio visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

969
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.