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Speaker 1: So thanks very much guys for coming on the show.

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Speaker 1: And before we dig in, I want to do my

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Speaker 1: due diligence and point out that I'm the only one

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Speaker 1: on this call to not have won a Hugo Award,

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Speaker 1: because Kelly also won a Hugo.

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Speaker 2: If you have fewer than three, it's like you don't

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Speaker 2: have one.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Diy. You know he did write us the night

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Speaker 3: we got our Hugo to tell us that.

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Speaker 1: Wow, he just rounded you down to zero Hugos. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: welcome to that less than three Hugo club. Kelly, thanks me,

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Speaker 1: you and most of the planet.

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Speaker 3: We'll drink after this.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's The Extraordinary Universe. I'm Daniel Watson.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, a huge sci fi reader, and

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Speaker 1: a big fan of the Expanse.

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Speaker 3: I'm Kelly Smith. I study parasites and write about space,

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Speaker 3: and I love the Expanse so much because it's got

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Speaker 3: like parasites and.

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Speaker 1: Space parasites in space space. So, do you only read

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Speaker 1: science fiction novels that contain weird, evil micro organisms?

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, No, there's just not that many to choose from.

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Speaker 3: But no, I love all sci fi. What's your favorite

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Speaker 3: sci fi story.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I'm a big fan of almost anything that is

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Speaker 1: hard science fiction that you know, picks a set of

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Speaker 1: rules and really follows it. I read a lot of

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Speaker 1: science fiction, though. I'm a big fan of Ian Banks,

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Speaker 1: Alistair Reynolds, Adrian Tchaikovski, and The Expanse. Of course, I

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Speaker 1: just can't get enough.

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Speaker 3: I love the Expanse. I also really like the Strugatsky Brothers.

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Speaker 3: They were writing during this like Soviet Union time, and

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Speaker 3: they've got this book called Roadside Picnic, which just like

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Speaker 3: guts me every time, and it's just such a interesting

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Speaker 3: world and like also kind of gets be sort of

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Speaker 3: teary eyed. Anyway, it's it's great. So I don't necessarily

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Speaker 3: love the hard stuff. I just love a world that

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Speaker 3: is created that is interesting, where they're consistent with the rules.

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Speaker 3: That's all I want is consistency in a world that's

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Speaker 3: been made that's interesting.

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Speaker 1: Another subcategory of sci fi that I love is science

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Speaker 1: fiction written by professors. For example, I love verner Vinge,

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Speaker 1: and he was a professor in San Diego until very recently,

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Speaker 1: And of course I love that because it makes me

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Speaker 1: feel like maybe one day I could also write science fiction,

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Speaker 1: but also because it's good.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I happen to know that you are a good

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Speaker 3: writer in a variety of different genres. Yes, you got this,

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Speaker 3: we'll see.

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Speaker 1: But today we're not talking about Daniel's science fiction preferences.

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Speaker 1: We're talking to actual, massively successful, very influential writers of

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Speaker 1: the Expanse.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we somehow manage to get the expans guys on

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Speaker 3: our show. We're super excited and let's just dig right

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Speaker 3: in so we can spend most of the time talking

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Speaker 3: to them exactly.

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Speaker 1: So, for those of you who aren't familiar with the series,

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Speaker 1: it's a set of books set in the near future

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Speaker 1: where humanity has colonized the Solar System but effectively split

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Speaker 1: into a few groups folks living on Earth, folks living

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Speaker 1: on Mars, folks living in the Belt. Then they each

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Speaker 1: end up with their own different culture, and there's lots

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Speaker 1: of fun space battles where they really take care of

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Speaker 1: the physics and the gravity, and then there's some unexpected

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Speaker 1: stuff that happens.

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Speaker 3: And they're just so good at character writing. All right,

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Speaker 3: let's do this. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 3: Today we have the authors of the Expanse, Ty Frank

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Speaker 3: and Daniel Abraham. And instead of like telling you about

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Speaker 3: how they got like a hugo and maybe more than

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Speaker 3: one Hugo, maybe four or something like that, I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: tell you the story about how we all met because

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Speaker 3: it explains how Daniel and Kelly managed to land the

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Speaker 3: Expanse guys on our show, which is a pretty lucky

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Speaker 3: catch for us. So many years ago, back when it

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Speaker 3: was possible for little nerds like Zach and I to

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Speaker 3: afford booths. At San Diego Comic Con, we had a

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Speaker 3: booth for our Sketch Comedy theater, our sketch comedy show,

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Speaker 3: SMBC Theater, and Ty came to our booth not to

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Speaker 3: tell us that we were funny, but to tell us

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Speaker 3: that our friend James was funny. But James wasn't there,

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Speaker 3: and so he got stuck talking to us. And it

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Speaker 3: turns out that Ty has a really brilliant, amazing wife,

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Speaker 3: and so we all got along pretty well. And then

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Speaker 3: when Zach and I moved across the country, we asked

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Speaker 3: if we could stop at their place on the way,

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Speaker 3: and they said yes, and we brought our cats with us,

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Speaker 3: and we made a big mistake because the cats were

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Speaker 3: in the guest room and I opened up the door

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Speaker 3: real quick and they both ran out and they hid

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Speaker 3: in their fireplace, and then I went to try to

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Speaker 3: get him out of there, and they ran across their

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Speaker 3: house and put little kiddy footprints all over the place.

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Speaker 3: We haven't been back to their place yet. Probably those

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Speaker 3: two pieces of information are not related, but maybe they are.

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Speaker 3: But Ti mentioned during that trip that he had like

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Speaker 3: a space upper thing that was going to come out soon,

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Speaker 3: and it turned out that was the expanse. So, you know,

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Speaker 3: after hanging out with us, he became a really big deal.

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Speaker 3: Maybe correlated, who knows, But importantly, he virtually introduced me

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Speaker 3: to Daniel, who has a book called Unclean Spirits, which

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Speaker 3: has a main character who's a parasitologist who is both

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Speaker 3: attractive and very smart. Parasitologists are not usually portrayed in

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Speaker 3: that light. If we're portrayed at all, we're kind of

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Speaker 3: like creepy. And when I mentioned this to my husband,

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Speaker 3: he pointed out that book also has vampires and is fiction.

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Speaker 3: You know, So if anybody needs someone to rain on

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Speaker 3: their parade, I can give you my husband's phone number.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, Daniel and Tye are both wonderful, amazing people.

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Speaker 3: It's so much fun to have them on the show.

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Speaker 3: They write together as James sa Corey for The Expanse

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Speaker 3: and other projects. They also do amazing work separately. Welcome

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Speaker 3: to the show.

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Speaker 4: Thank you very much, happy to be here.

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Speaker 3: Is that about how you remember it?

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Speaker 4: Ty?

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Speaker 3: Did you ever get to meet James?

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Speaker 2: Yeahs James. James is in many of your videos wearing

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Speaker 2: the Game of Thrones T shirt I gave him.

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Speaker 3: Oh nice, Oh fantastic. He's also on a lot of

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Speaker 3: our videos not wearing a shirt at all, so lots

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Speaker 3: of options there.

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Speaker 2: He's very brave. He's a very brave comediic actor.

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Speaker 3: Yes he is.

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Speaker 4: He is.

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Speaker 3: All right, So Daniel, how about you kick it off

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Speaker 3: with the first question.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to ask you lots of science questions

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Speaker 1: about the universe you created. But first I'm going to

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Speaker 1: calibrate where you are in the sort of science fiction

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Speaker 1: spectrum by asking you a classic science fiction philosophy science question,

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Speaker 1: which is about Star Trek transporters. In your opinion, does

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Speaker 1: a star Trek transporter actually relocate you or does it

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Speaker 1: kill you and re materialize you somewhere else?

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Speaker 2: I mean it clearly kills you because it disintegrates you,

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Speaker 2: so your dad, and then it makes and then it

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Speaker 2: makes a perfect copy of you. But there's an argument

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Speaker 2: to be made that that happens every time you fall

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Speaker 2: asleep too.

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Speaker 4: So this is like arguing canonicity. This is like saying,

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Speaker 4: is Luke really you know? There is a pattern, the

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Speaker 4: pattern is recreated elsewhere consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness can

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Speaker 4: be two illusions. Consciounces can be eight illusions. Consciousness can

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Speaker 4: be illusions in different places. You don't actually exist to

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Speaker 4: begin with, So what does that even mean?

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Speaker 3: WHOA, This got philosophical fast.

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Speaker 4: That's what I was saying.

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Speaker 2: The best and darkest transporter story ever written is by

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Speaker 2: James Patrick Kelly, fantastic one of the best short story

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Speaker 2: writers in side fiction. He wrote a story called Think

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Speaker 2: Like a Dinosaur, which was later adapted and turned into

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Speaker 2: an episode of The Outer Limits in the nineties, and

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Speaker 2: it is the best darkest transporter story ever written. So

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Speaker 2: you should definitely if you're into like does the Transporter

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Speaker 2: kill you should read that one.

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Speaker 3: Think Like a Dinosaur is on my list.

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Speaker 1: Now, Well, what I love about this question is that

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Speaker 1: the teleporter in Star Trek was, of course invented in

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Speaker 1: the sixties or conceived of much earlier. And now that

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Speaker 1: we know something more about quantum mechanics and quantum information

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Speaker 1: and the no cloning theorem, you know, science has actually

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Speaker 1: informed the philosophy of this question. So it's a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun.

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Speaker 2: Any process that begins with your own disintegration should be

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Speaker 2: should be questioned heavily.

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Speaker 4: You're as if there were as if there was a

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Speaker 4: standard you.

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Speaker 1: This is also an argument to be made from a

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Speaker 1: particle physics perspective, that all of your quantum objects are

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Speaker 1: interacting constantly and therefore transforming, and the process of being

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Speaker 1: de materialized and materialized somewhere else is equivalent to the

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Speaker 1: process of just moving forward through time as quantum fields

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Speaker 1: ripple with energy. So then I have to agree with

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Speaker 1: the other Daniel that like, maybe you don't even exist

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Speaker 1: in any sense.

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Speaker 4: This is a problem of narrative framing. The actual issue

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Speaker 4: here is that what's going on doesn't fit gracefully into

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Speaker 4: our language, and that's our language's fault.

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Speaker 2: When I first met Daniel, he was very powerfully on

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Speaker 2: the free will side. I think years of association with

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Speaker 2: beating him down to the mechanistic universe.

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Speaker 4: No no, no, no, that is not true. I am

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Speaker 4: still firmly in the free Will universe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's what the universe has programmed you to say.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to pull us back a little. So when

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Speaker 3: did you two meet, speaking of meeting each other, and

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Speaker 3: how did it transform into a writing partnership at.

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Speaker 4: That would have been two thousand and.

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Speaker 3: Six, Bubonica, Is this like a festival ce celebrating the

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Speaker 3: bubonic plague?

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Speaker 4: Where basically yes, it's the local science fiction convention in Albuquerque.

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Speaker 4: And because we still have the black plague in New Mexico,

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Speaker 4: we have Perry Rodent as our mascot and we just

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Speaker 4: kind of lean into the dark.

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Speaker 2: It's also the only state in the country where you

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Speaker 2: are likely to get a hemorrhagic fever.

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Speaker 4: Well not likely. We are, however, number two in the

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Speaker 4: world for necrotizing fasci itis.

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Speaker 1: This also a huntavirus. Are you a New Mexican, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: I didn't realize I am.

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Speaker 4: No, I was. I was born here. Tay actually came

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Speaker 4: through briefly and that's where we met and started the project,

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Speaker 4: and then he fled to someplace with water and greenery.

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Speaker 1: I grew up in Los Alamo, so I'm in New

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Speaker 1: Mexican as well.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Los Alamos. That actually explains a lot right there.

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Speaker 3: All right, so you met at the Bubonic Plague Festival, Yes,

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Speaker 3: And then how did that turn into a writing partnership.

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Speaker 4: Well, there were a couple of things. We had a

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Speaker 4: friend in common who was in the critique group that

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Speaker 4: I was part of at the time, and Ty had

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Speaker 4: sold a short story and was therefore eligible to come

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Speaker 4: play in the critique group and did so we knew

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Speaker 4: each other through that. And Tie also, I don't know,

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Speaker 4: out of the kindness of his heart, saw the sad,

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Speaker 4: lonely Daniel, new dad working too hard guy and said

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Speaker 4: one I had the greatest productivity and invited me over

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Speaker 4: to play video games at his place on Wednesdays.

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Speaker 3: And you said yes, yeah, no.

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Speaker 4: I love playing video games and he hooked me on

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Speaker 4: left for dead. So then I was screwed and I

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Speaker 4: had to go get my fix.

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Speaker 3: And then the Expanse was the Expanse, your first writing project, together.

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Speaker 4: With some other little stuff kind of along the way,

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Speaker 4: but the Expanse was definitely the big one.

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Speaker 1: And how does your process work writing together? Does one

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Speaker 1: of you outline the other one flesh it out. Do

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Speaker 1: you guys brainstorm together? You guys both editing the Google

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Speaker 1: doc at the same time.

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Speaker 2: Daniel's in charge of consonants and I am in charge

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Speaker 2: of vowels.

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Speaker 3: That's got to be a slow process.

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Speaker 2: Not compared to some Yeah, not when you're typing on

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Speaker 2: the same keyboard.

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Speaker 4: Generally, we outlined together than one of us to do

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Speaker 4: the first draft to a chapter and the other guy

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Speaker 4: will edit the first draft and we'll just kind of

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Speaker 4: iterate through that.

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Speaker 3: Who's the outline guy or does it alternate?

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Speaker 4: Oh no, there's no outlining is a group project.

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Speaker 3: And my collaboration was Zach, I'm the outline guy, So

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Speaker 3: we don't have but anyway, all right, So your books

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Speaker 3: are so well written that when I was researching for

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Speaker 3: my book on space settlement, I was blown away by

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Speaker 3: how many times they came across citations of the expanse

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Speaker 3: as though it were a documentary, and that kind of

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Speaker 3: blew my mind. And so was it important to you

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Speaker 3: that you created a world that followed the rules as

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Speaker 3: we know it or not? Really? What do you think

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Speaker 3: is it important to follow rules or make up your own?

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Speaker 2: We get a lot of credit for being hard sci

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Speaker 2: fi that isn't actually accurate. There's kind of there's only

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Speaker 2: two rules that Daniel and I never broke in the Expanse,

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Speaker 2: and because every other science fiction project breaks those tool

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Speaker 2: rules constantly, we seemed like weird and exotic. In the Expanse,

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Speaker 2: gravity works the way gravity really works. So spaceships in

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Speaker 2: the Expanse are not like ocean liners, where the deck

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Speaker 2: runs the length of the ship. Spaceships in the expans

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Speaker 2: are built like office towers, so that the deck is

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Speaker 2: below you in the direction that the thrust is coming from.

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Speaker 2: So when the engine fires, you are pushed into the

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Speaker 2: deck rather than being slid backwards the whole length of

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Speaker 2: the ship and into a wall. So that was one

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Speaker 2: way that one thing that we never broke, And the

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Speaker 2: other one we never broke is that light speed is

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Speaker 2: a rule, and so there's no faster than light communications.

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Speaker 2: So if you send a message to your buddy you're

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Speaker 2: on Earth and you send a message your buddy out

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Speaker 2: by Jupiter, it takes three hours to get there, and

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Speaker 2: by the time you get a reply, it's been six

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Speaker 2: hours of past. And because every other sci fi thing

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Speaker 2: just hand waves those two things away, there's gravity plating

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Speaker 2: or there's hyperwave communication. We seemed very exotic and hard

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Speaker 2: because of that, But the rest of it we just

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Speaker 2: kind of were you.

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Speaker 4: Know, a lot of the science in there came from

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Speaker 4: the stuff we were already kind of excited by too.

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Speaker 4: So I mean Ty got Ganymede right because he'd been

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Speaker 4: playing with astronomy and knew that Ganymede was the place

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Speaker 4: that had the magnetosphere and kind of knew what magnetosphere

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Speaker 4: were and did so we had that level of kind

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Speaker 4: of introductory knowledge, and that level of introductory knowledge has

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Speaker 4: a bunch of cool stuff in it, So we stole

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Speaker 4: all the cool stuff, and I think that also kind

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Speaker 4: of work toward benefit in plausibility.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we do sort of ignore the fact that

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Speaker 2: anybody living on Ketymiede would be massively irradiated by Jupiter's

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Speaker 2: enormous radiation belt. Yep, you know. So, I mean there's

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Speaker 2: plenty of stuff you just sort of ignore. And in

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Speaker 2: your book on Mars, you know, there's a ton of

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Speaker 2: reasons why you wouldn't want to live on Mars, but

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Speaker 2: it's cool if people live on Mars. So in the book,

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Speaker 2: people live on Mars, even though there's like no reason

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Speaker 2: to go there and it would be a.

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Speaker 3: Terrible I'm going to push back a little though, because

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Speaker 3: you know, Ty was like, oh, we only followed these

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Speaker 3: two rules. But I think it wasn't just that you

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Speaker 3: got all the physics right, is that you also thought

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Speaker 3: through people so well and governing so well, and how

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Speaker 3: the environment would impact the way that people interact with

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Speaker 3: each other and how they can be governed and stuff

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Speaker 3: like that, And so it wasn't just the physics. It

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Speaker 3: was you thought through all the different science fields, the biology,

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Speaker 3: the psychology, the sociology.

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Speaker 4: A lot of that's just you know, Ty had read

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Speaker 4: a lot of history, and a lot of the issues

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Speaker 4: that you see in the Expanse are things that are

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Speaker 4: science fiction reskinnings of how humans have been working since

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Speaker 4: we stopped being monkeys. We're a very consistent species. The

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Speaker 4: stupid shit we do we have been doing forever, and

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Speaker 4: we just projected that into the future.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I mean that people ask like, what is

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Speaker 2: the theme of the expanse, And you know, the serious

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Speaker 2: one is that tribalism is bad, But the joking one

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Speaker 2: is people do the same stupid shit over and over

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Speaker 2: and over and have done for the last two hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty thousand years that we've been in this shape, So.

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Speaker 1: You guys pick these two bits of physics to be

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Speaker 1: sort of strict about, and that really changed, like the

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Speaker 1: experience of the characters on the ship and what it's

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Speaker 1: like to live in low g and Hygi and the

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Speaker 1: societies that form there. But why did you decide, unlike

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Speaker 1: many science fiction writers to be hardcore about this is it?

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Speaker 1: Because you felt like these it changes the stories, and

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Speaker 1: those stories hadn't been told yet.

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Speaker 4: Because we had an alien weird that comes through pathway

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Speaker 4: through book one, and if you don't have things grounded

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Speaker 4: before that comes in, then it comes in without any impact.

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Speaker 4: The fact that we had something miraculous and strange happen

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Speaker 4: halfway through the book meant up until then you couldn't.

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Speaker 4: It's a necessity of the narrative that we approach it

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Speaker 4: that way.

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Speaker 2: The best example of that, I think in modern fiction

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Speaker 2: is Game of Thrones, Georgia R. Martin's first novel. Because

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Speaker 2: it's a fantasy book, but it's not like every other

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Speaker 2: fantasy book. There are no wizards, nobody's casting spells, there's

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Speaker 2: no elves or trolls. It's just people and he seduces

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Speaker 2: you into believing you are reading a medieval history. It's

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Speaker 2: kings and it's princes, and it's fighting families, and everybody

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Speaker 2: just uses medieval weapons and they live in castles and

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Speaker 2: they ride horses, and by about the midway point of

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Speaker 2: the book, you could be reading a history of medieval England,

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Speaker 2: and I mean, it would feel exactly the same. And

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Speaker 2: then just about the end, Danny Targerion walks into a

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Speaker 2: fire holding three rocks, and when the fire goes away,

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Speaker 2: she comes out and she's holding three baby dragons, and

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Speaker 2: it feels amazing. It feels like this miraculous moment. But

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Speaker 2: the only reason it feels like that is because everything

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Speaker 2: up till then has felt like medieval England, and so

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Speaker 2: it feels super weird. If you're writing a story in

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Speaker 2: which you know half the people are wizards and they

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Speaker 2: cast fireball spells and the people fly around on flying

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Speaker 2: carpets and three dragons show up at the end, it

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Speaker 2: just feels like a of course, that's what happens. That's

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Speaker 2: that's just like everything else that happens in the world.

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Speaker 2: To have that dragon moment matter, it has to be

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Speaker 2: weird compared to everything else, and so for us to

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Speaker 2: have the arrival of this weird alien technology feel strange,

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Speaker 2: nothing should feel strange up until that point, so that

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Speaker 2: that actually matters, because if everybody's zipping around with supporters

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Speaker 2: and teleporters and magic technologies, then another magic technology doesn't

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Speaker 2: feel strange, So.

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Speaker 3: Then why does Lost fail so badly? So like that,

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Speaker 3: I feel like that's another This is a series. I've

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Speaker 3: only watched the TV show. I don't even know if

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Speaker 3: it's a book, but like it's meant to be real

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Speaker 3: until the magic comes in. But instead of you feeling

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Speaker 3: like you bought it and now you're in this awesome,

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Speaker 3: magical world, it's just like, no, this isn't right. So

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Speaker 3: it seems like it's a hard thing to pull off.

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Speaker 2: And I'm not a fan of Loss, but I don't

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Speaker 2: want to just sit and bash on Loss. But but

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Speaker 2: the reality is it was not a well thought out universe.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't They wrote an amazing pilot and jj Abrams

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Speaker 2: is a fantastic director, shot an amazing pilot, and they

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Speaker 2: kind of had an idea what the first season was about,

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Speaker 2: and they kind of had an idea what the show

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Speaker 2: is about. But when it got picked up, they had

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Speaker 2: to write a bunch of scripts. They had put a

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Speaker 2: first season together. They were coming up with mysteries to

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Speaker 2: keep people interested, and then they got a second season

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Speaker 2: and they had no idea what that was going to be.

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Speaker 2: So now they're just making stuff up, and so you're

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Speaker 2: just at that point, they're just sort of throwing things

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Speaker 2: at the wall to see what sticks. And because there's

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Speaker 2: no consistency to it, it doesn't feel I mean, once

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Speaker 2: in our books, when the protomolecule shows up, which is

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Speaker 2: the weird alien technology, it always kind of behaves the

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Speaker 2: same way all the way through, and so each thing

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Speaker 2: it does, you go, yeah, that's what it would do.

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Speaker 2: That's you know, it feels very consistent. In The Lost

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Speaker 2: It's like there's polar bears, and then there's a black

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Speaker 2: smoke monster, and then there's this other thing, and then

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Speaker 2: there's the Hatch. But the hatch doesn't do what we

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Speaker 2: thought it did. And this need to relentlessly create mystery

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Speaker 2: but never solve any of them. It's like juggling a

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Speaker 2: thousand balls, but all you do is throw all a

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Speaker 2: thousand up in the air at one time. You don't

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Speaker 2: catch any Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: I feel like the contract between the science fiction writer

401
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Speaker 1: and the reader, is I'm going to present to you

402
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Speaker 1: a mystery for which there is a solution that eventually

403
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Speaker 1: this can all make sense in your mind. If you

404
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Speaker 1: get to the end of the book and you're like, oh,

405
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Speaker 1: you were just throwing dragons out every other page and

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Speaker 1: you have no idea what's going on, then I feel betrayed.

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Speaker 1: So that leads me to ask you, guys about your process.

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Speaker 1: How much of the whole series and the whole concept

409
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Speaker 1: had you mapped out before you started writing, you know,

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Speaker 1: word one of chapter one, did you outline the entire thing?

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Speaker 4: We didn't know that we were going to have a

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Speaker 4: whole series when we wrote the first book. I mean

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Speaker 4: we with the first book, we had I think a

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Speaker 4: pretty rigorous outline of what the first book would be,

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Speaker 4: and you know, we knew what the end of that

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Speaker 4: book was going to be. We knew what the uh,

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Speaker 4: the last scene of that book was going to be

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Speaker 4: before we went into the at the front. And then

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Speaker 4: for the whole series, actually that got mapped out during

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Speaker 4: the writing of book two, when it became clear that

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Speaker 4: the publisher was interested in doing a bunch more of

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Speaker 4: these and at that point we kind of broad stroke

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Speaker 4: the whole series to the point that we did know.

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Speaker 4: You know, Tie pitched the last scene of the last book,

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Speaker 4: the lasting of book nine, while we were about halfway

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Speaker 4: through book two, and that didn't change. So a lot

427
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Speaker 4: of a lot of the pathway along the way was

428
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Speaker 4: not cooked yet, was not identified, but where we were

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Speaker 4: going we knew early.

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Speaker 3: Did you have any moments where you were like, oh, crap,

431
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Speaker 3: how do we get there? Like we've we've we've built

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Speaker 3: and maybe now it's not a clear path back anymore,

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Speaker 3: or just knowing where you're ending up keeps you from

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Speaker 3: having moments like that.

435
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Speaker 2: That really, I mean, you you you talk through how

436
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Speaker 2: you're going to get there. But I don't think we

437
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:57,200
Speaker 2: ever painted ourselves in a corner, which can happen in

438
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Speaker 2: fiction writing. You can you can create plot points that

439
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 2: as you get to the end of the book, you realize, oh,

440
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,399
Speaker 2: I've screwed myself. The plot points that I have created

441
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:08,119
Speaker 2: do not allow me to have the ending that I wanted.

442
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:10,480
Speaker 2: I mean, I know people who do that. But because

443
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:14,879
Speaker 2: we always kind of firmly had an endpoint in mind,

444
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:18,280
Speaker 2: and we and we, you know, the two of us

445
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 2: plot pretty rigorously and talk through everything ever really wound

446
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:25,920
Speaker 2: up getting lost in the weeds. Yeah.

447
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 4: I mean it's kind of like, you know, the metaphor

448
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 4: we keep using is a road trip. You know you're

449
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:34,280
Speaker 4: going from New York to Los Angeles, you know where

450
00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:36,000
Speaker 4: you're going to end up, you know where you're starting from.

451
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:40,159
Speaker 4: You don't know exactly what restaurant you're going to stop at,

452
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:42,960
Speaker 4: where you're going to get gas, what little side detours

453
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,440
Speaker 4: you're going to do, but you know, generally speaking, you

454
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 4: should probably head west.

455
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 1: And what's your process? Scientifically? It sounds like you guys

456
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 1: do a lot of reading. You're smart guys. Do you

457
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:55,639
Speaker 1: also talk to scientists, you have consultants? Do you do

458
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: all your own reading and research?

459
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,520
Speaker 2: We had two people. No, there were three times in

460
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 2: the writing of nine books that we asked for outside expertise.

461
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 2: Daniel had somebody help him figure.

462
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:09,159
Speaker 4: Out a complex physics problem.

463
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:13,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, an acceleration issue with a ship doing something

464
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 2: strange and what that was the experience of being inside

465
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 2: the ship would you like? And then I had to

466
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,440
Speaker 2: I had a guy who you're talking about, you were

467
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 2: from Los Alamos. Had a guy from Los Alamos. I

468
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 2: asked him the question if the entire asteroid Aros went

469
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 2: up by two degrees? How much energy would that he

470
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 2: and he figured that out and he gave me the

471
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 2: answer in jewels and hand grenades. Apparently hand grenade is

472
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 2: a unit of measure in physics. And then the other one,

473
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 2: weirdly that you asked that is Kelly's husband. Zach helped

474
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 2: me with something I had to question, a math question,

475
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 2: which was, if you have a sphere a million kilometers across,

476
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 2: and on the inner face of this sphere you have

477
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 2: rings that are ten thousand kilometers across, and you have

478
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,480
Speaker 2: eleven hundred and seventy three of those rings, how far

479
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 2: apart are they from each other? Zach is smart, and

480
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:14,640
Speaker 2: Zach that was funny because you know, I mean, Zach

481
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 2: and I were friendly, but we weren't like good. I mean,

482
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 2: we had never stated each other's house at that point.

483
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 2: It was just, you know, we were sort of friendly.

484
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 2: We had met a couple of times, and we'd emailed

485
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:26,119
Speaker 2: back and forth periodically, and so I sent him this

486
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 2: question and his reply after like a day, I thought

487
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:31,239
Speaker 2: he was kind of ignoring the email, but a day

488
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 2: later he just wrote back and said, this is not

489
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 2: a trivial problem.

490
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,199
Speaker 1: Why did you say this to Zach? He's definitely a

491
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:38,880
Speaker 1: smart guy.

492
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 2: But why because we had talked about some math stuff

493
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 2: and I knew he was really into math and figuring

494
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 2: out math problems was a thing that he was into.

495
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 3: And so I don't remember. Did he get you an answer? Yeah,

496
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:55,199
Speaker 3: nice way to go.

497
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 4: We didn't check it. I mean, it might have been wrong.

498
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 4: We have no idea.

499
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 1: Pranking you absolutely, yeah, could be. What was the acceleration

500
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: problem you were wrestling with?

501
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 4: If you are in a ship that is accelerating at

502
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 4: two g's and you have an unbalanced firing of a

503
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 4: maneuvering thruster at the nose that puts it into a spin,

504
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 4: what does it feel like on the inside if you

505
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 4: are if you're on that ship it is spinning while

506
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 4: also accelerating at uh two g's. Are you thrown against

507
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 4: a wall? Are you what? What's? What does it feel like?

508
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 4: What is what is the lived experience of being in

509
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 4: that system?

510
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: Sounds like a great problem to put on my physics final.

511
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:44,880
Speaker 4: There there was a wide variety of opinion.

512
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: It sounds similar to the scenario of like a fighter

513
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: pilot doing a loop de loop where they feel very

514
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: different forces at the top of the loop and the

515
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 1: bottom of the loop, because at one point in the loop,

516
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: gravity is adding to their effective acceleration and the other

517
00:25:57,640 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: part of the loop it's.

518
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 4: Contrasting, except the you don't actually have that underlying gravity

519
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 4: to confuse things because you're not on a planet.

520
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 2: No, but that gravity is being replaced by the thrust

521
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 2: of this hip.

522
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 4: No that, yes, the gravity exists, but there's not like

523
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:17,640
Speaker 4: that the thing to make one part of the loop

524
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 4: feel different from the other part of the loop. Yeah,

525
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:21,719
Speaker 4: there's no directional nothing from a planet.

526
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: Well, I love the realism of your spece scenes because

527
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: it gets me thinking about the physics and actually reminds

528
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:28,880
Speaker 1: me of another book. I don't know if you've read

529
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 1: Alistair Reynolds's book, Revenger. He has all these scenes that

530
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: feel sort of like British naval battles because he's thinking

531
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 1: about the kinetics and his ships actually have like huge sales.

532
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 1: And I asked him the same question I asked you,

533
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: which is like, why did you go so hardcore about

534
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: the physics? His answer was totally different. His answer was like,

535
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: I actually wanted to write a British naval battle, but

536
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: my agent said it had to be science fiction, so

537
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: put it in this space.

538
00:26:57,840 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 4: We all get there through different paths.

539
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 3: What was the hardest part of writing and what was

540
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 3: the hardest part of writing together.

541
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 4: The hardest part.

542
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 2: Of writing, I think hardest part of writing is writing, Yeah,

543
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 2: parking your ass in a chair and typing.

544
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 4: The hardest part of writing together. I mean, I think

545
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 4: this is this is an an emotionally unsatisfying answer to

546
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 4: your questions because it's all about logistics. It's all about,

547
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,959
Speaker 4: you know, finding the time. You know, the hardest part

548
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 4: of writing is sitting your ass in the chair and

549
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,200
Speaker 4: actually writing. The hardest part of writing together is working

550
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 4: out your schedules so that you're in the same place

551
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 4: to have the conversation at the same time when you

552
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 4: both have full lives with distractions and event it's it

553
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 4: would be great if you know. The hardest part was,

554
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 4: you know, the having to fine tune your brains in

555
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 4: such a way that you can think as one. That's

556
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 4: not how it worked. It was much more.

557
00:27:59,359 --> 00:27:59,479
Speaker 2: Uh.

558
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 4: The process is much more like running a small landscape

559
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,400
Speaker 4: and company than it is like something high sci fi

560
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 4: and brilliant.

561
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 1: I think Shakespeare famously said that also, didn't you know

562
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 1: it was marked. It's always marked twenty marked Twain.

563
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,880
Speaker 2: Now, I mean, I think that the probably the only

564
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 2: frustration that we have is that I am very, very

565
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 2: very lazy, and I really want to procrastinate everything, and

566
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 2: Daniel actually wants to get things done, so periodically he

567
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 2: has to go, hey, so you're gonna get that thing

568
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 2: done that you said you were going to get done,

569
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 2: Maybe we should get something done. So you know, that's

570
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 2: I am the burden that Daniel's forced to carry.

571
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 3: But you all picked up a new set of books together, right,

572
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 3: so like you couldn't have been that bad of a burden.

573
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 3: What is the new series you're working on?

574
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 4: We also very much enjoy getting paid.

575
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 3: Some burdens are worth carrying.

576
00:28:56,280 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 4: And I'm just saying now the new series is it's

577
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 4: a very different part of this kind of space opera spectrum.

578
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 4: And it was Ty had this. You know, Ty had

579
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 4: the idea for the Expanse. He did all the world

580
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 4: building for the Expanse, he did all of the kind

581
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 4: of groundwork setting that up, and then he had this

582
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 4: other idea that he thought might also be a cool

583
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 4: idea for space opera. So now we're doing that one

584
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 4: and it's pretty fun, it's pretty good stuff. It's not

585
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 4: the same relationship to history that the expans had. The Expanse,

586
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 4: you could really see where it grew out of our

587
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 4: world and how we might plausibly have gotten there. This

588
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 4: is more like Dune or left handed Darkness or something

589
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 4: that's just like gazillions of years out and light years away,

590
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 4: and it lets you approach some very different things.

591
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 2: But because I'm me, the relationship as to history as

592
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 2: it's all based on ancient Babel.

593
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, why did you pick that time period.

594
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of pre classical history. And when

595
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 2: I was a kid, my parents drug me to church

596
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 2: a lot. My parents are very religious, and I am

597
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 2: the least religious person on the planet, so when I

598
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 2: was there, you know, the only thing you were allowed

599
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 2: to have is a Bible. And most of that book

600
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 2: is very I don't know if you've read it, but

601
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 2: most of it is very boring, very dry. But there's

602
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 2: a few books that have some interesting stuff, and one

603
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 2: of those is the Book of Daniel, which has like

604
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 2: empires conquering and people being drug off as slaves to

605
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 2: serve in the palace of kings, and I always found

606
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 2: that story interesting. Of like, what if you're just this

607
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 2: little agrarian society and the much more technologically advanced Babylonians

608
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 2: show up and go, oh, you guys all belong to

609
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 2: us now, and we're going to take a bunch of

610
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 2: you slaves back to Babylon, and some of those slaves

611
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 2: will wind up working for the king in port of

612
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 2: the king as bureaucrats. That just seemed interesting to me,

613
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 2: So I wanted to write the sci fi version.

614
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 4: And so now we're in the midst of having this

615
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 4: human in a very alien framework of very alien society

616
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 4: and figuring, you know, trying to understand and his own

617
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 4: context and keep himself human while on the one hand serving,

618
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 4: on the other hand, undermining the great nation that has

619
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 4: destroyed him and his friends.

620
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: I love that you guys go into history to find

621
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: these stories, and they say, effectively extrapolate them forward and

622
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: think about, you know, the economics of a solar system

623
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: wide society and this kind of stuff. But does doing

624
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 1: that change your opinion about it? You know, like, after

625
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: running the expanse, are you more or less bullish on

626
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: asteroid mining or colonies on Ganymede? Are you less likely

627
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: to invest in a startup that's actually going to do

628
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff.

629
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 2: There's no economic reason to go out into space. There's

630
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 2: just there isn't any I mean, there's other reasons to

631
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 2: go there. There's a you know, exploration, learning more about

632
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 2: the universe and our place in. All of those are

633
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 2: very good reasons to explore space, and I'm glad that

634
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:50,479
Speaker 2: we have a space program where we do that stuff.

635
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 2: But there is no reason for people to live on

636
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 2: any of those other bodies other than the all your

637
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 2: eggs and one basket argument, which is a valid argument

638
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 2: of you know what, if an esteroid hits Erith, then

639
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 2: there's no humans left. I would say though, that if

640
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 2: your answer to that is we'll build a city on

641
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 2: Mars and there'll be humans on Mars shortly after the

642
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 2: esteru redistriy is Earth, all the humans on Mars are

643
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 2: just gonna die. So so it's yeah, you have eggs

644
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 2: in another basket, but those eggs are going to expire

645
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 2: very quickly. So unless we get much much much more

646
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 2: advanced at like turning unlivable hunks of rock into livable

647
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 2: hunks of rock, which we are nowhere near right now,

648
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 2: there's just no reason to do that at that point

649
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 2: you might as well just be building really really advanced

650
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 2: space stations and putting people in those, because you're much

651
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 2: more likely to survive in one of those.

652
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 4: A generationship in orbit would be a better basket.

653
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a better answer than Mars.

654
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 4: And I think generally, the experience of having fictionalized these

655
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 4: things and talked about them in ways that are compelling

656
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 4: and plausible, but not actually ground that in anything has

657
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 4: I feel I could help me understand. Like Elon Musk,

658
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 4: I think, you know, he's got a lot of great

659
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 4: stories on how things are going to work, and I

660
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 4: recognize that they're not grounded in anything. And and there's

661
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 4: a there's a level of bullshit detection. I think that

662
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 4: comes with having spun up a bunch of your own bullshit.

663
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think anybody has spent any time really thinking

664
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 2: about what it would take to colonize Mars Caesar right

665
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,720
Speaker 2: through Elon Musk. I can't see you and Zach signing

666
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 2: up for the first rocket to Mars.

667
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 3: Kelly, No, No, But I also can't see us signing

668
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 3: up for the like one thousandth rocket to Mars. We're

669
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 3: just not very adventurous people.

670
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 2: Hey, when Mars has like strip malls and movie theaters

671
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 2: and all of that, then yeah, sure I'll got there

672
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:48,479
Speaker 2: for a vacation.

673
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 4: I will not. I barely want to go to New York. Yeah,

674
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 4: it's a it's a very long commute.

675
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 2: Daniel is a medieval peasant in that he will be born,

676
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 2: live his entire life, and die with than of one

677
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 2: mile radius and be happy.

678
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 4: It's not I'm sure I'm a mile and a half.

679
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,359
Speaker 3: Well, I wouldn't want to leave my bugs, So I

680
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 3: get it.

681
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: So you make a compelling argument that there's no economic reason.

682
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: But what's your prediction for the future. Do you think

683
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: a thousand years from now, five thousand years from now,

684
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: humanity has colonized the Solar system, or we're all effectively

685
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: Daniel and still just living in our own backyard.

686
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 2: I think it's very optimistic that we're all still around

687
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 2: in one thousand or five thousand years. But if we

688
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 2: are the one thing and Daniel, I'm sure we'll have

689
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 2: his own answer for this. But from my perspective, the

690
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 2: one thing that science fiction does really, really badly is

691
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:57,440
Speaker 2: predict the future. That's true, we're good at inspiring, but

692
00:34:57,520 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 2: we're terrible at predicting, and I think anybody who thinks

693
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 2: they know what the world's going to look like a

694
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 2: thousand years from now is laughably wrong and probably a

695
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 2: little to do.

696
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 3: You think fiction is usually trying to predict the future, though.

697
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, some people actually call themselves futurists who are science

698
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 2: fiction writers, and they believe that what they are doing,

699
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 2: or what they are attempting to do, is accurately predict

700
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 2: these changes in the near future. You can do some

701
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 2: stuff some even then, look how wrong cyberpunk was. You know,

702
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 2: we were all reading William Gibson and going, oh, this

703
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 2: is an amazing accurate prediction of the future, and then

704
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,720
Speaker 2: twenty years later it's laughably silly. And that is often

705
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 2: the case with sci fi, where we try to predict

706
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 2: what the future is going to look like and then

707
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 2: and just silly.

708
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 4: The actual world has a much more kind of florid

709
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 4: imagination than any one of us.

710
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: But individually, well, that brings me to a question I

711
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: wanted to ask about how you build your universe. You

712
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: guys are really careful about the gravity and you know,

713
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: the kinetic energy and what it's like to fight these battles,

714
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,839
Speaker 1: But something that would really change those battles are things

715
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: like you know, AI controlled drones. We don't have you know,

716
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: delicate meat sacks in every ship in these battles, but

717
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 1: you don't see a lot of that in your universe.

718
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:12,359
Speaker 1: Was that a conscious choice because it would really change

719
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: the story or was there some of the reason for

720
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: not including that.

721
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,919
Speaker 4: We like writing stories about humans because humans are going

722
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 4: to be reading and buying them. So yeah, No, One

723
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 4: of the choices that we made early on was not

724
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 4: to include the kind of automated space stuff because once

725
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 4: you include that, there is literally no reason to have

726
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 4: any people out there.

727
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 2: And we do and we do have smart drones for

728
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,879
Speaker 2: fighting words, they're called torpedoes because there's no reason to

729
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 2: build an automated little spaceship and mounted gun on it.

730
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 2: Just put a big bomb on the end of it

731
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 2: and run into the other guy, and then you just

732
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 2: have a torpedo. The idea that there will be like

733
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 2: little fighter planes driven by robots shooting at the other ships,

734
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 2: why just have it fly into the other ship, explode

735
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 2: really big, and then you win. And if you know,

736
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 2: if it's if it's a little robot driving a cheap ship,

737
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 2: why put a gun on it? Just have it blow up.

738
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:12,800
Speaker 4: The thing is we do have kind of unmentioned expert

739
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 4: systems and AI. We do have that kind of you know,

740
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 4: you flick on the light switch and the light comes

741
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 4: on level of normalized technology. The only weird that we

742
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 4: have is we also kept the meat sex.

743
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 3: So is it difficult when you start working on a

744
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 3: TV version of your work which you know maybe one

745
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 3: day will happen with me who knows, but like to

746
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 3: go in from like you're completely in control of the

747
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 3: narrative to now you're in a writer's room and it

748
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 3: might go into direction that you hadn't anticipated. What is

749
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:42,800
Speaker 3: that experience?

750
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 4: Like it's like having a partner that you're writing with,

751
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 4: only there's more people. I mean, we were, in a

752
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 4: sense kind of building a government lab to move into

753
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 4: a writer's room because we were already in an artistic

754
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 4: project where none of us totally owned it. Now we

755
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 4: just included Narraine and Dan Noak and Georgia Lee and

756
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 4: all of those other voices became other voices that were

757
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 4: also contributing or in you know, for Narraine in charge.

758
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 4: But that kind of divesting your ego from the the

759
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 4: project had happened for us on day one that's great.

760
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:29,879
Speaker 3: I feel like when I work with professors, the more

761
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,879
Speaker 3: professors that are in the room, the less we get done.

762
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,879
Speaker 3: And it's great that I know. I'm sorry, but it's

763
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 3: great that you all have managed to be so amazing.

764
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 3: With so many people working on a project together, sometimes

765
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 3: it makes it harder.

766
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 2: The thing that is true of a TV show is

767
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 2: that it has a showrunner and they have the final say.

768
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 2: If you have a room full of professors and one

769
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,319
Speaker 2: of them is the boss and gets to tell all

770
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,359
Speaker 2: the other ones what to do after the conversation is over,

771
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 2: that they make a decision, things will get done. It's

772
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 2: when nobody's the bass and everybody thinks that their version

773
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 2: should be the one that happens, that's when things done.

774
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,239
Speaker 4: And we got really lucky with our show runner. We've

775
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 4: got a guy who was really smart, really invested in

776
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,919
Speaker 4: the project, and probably the best manager that I've worked

777
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,439
Speaker 4: for in any industry. So you know, go us.

778
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 2: He only says that because he never worked for it

779
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 2: was awesome.

780
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,359
Speaker 1: What's something that you see in the TV show that's

781
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: visualized differently than how you imagined it as you were

782
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: writing it, but that you know you're happy about. I

783
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: don't want you to throw anybody under the bus. But

784
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 1: what's something new that came into the visual element of.

785
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 2: The show that you liked everything Daniel and I are

786
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 2: not We are not prop designers, we are not costumers,

787
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 2: we are not set builders. So you know our plan

788
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 2: in writing books, and this was how Daniel basically educated

789
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 2: me to do this is you describe enough that you

790
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 2: get the reader to do all the heavy lifting. You

791
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 2: get them to imagine the rest of it. You don't

792
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 2: give them detail instructions. You just kind of say, give

793
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,439
Speaker 2: them a little hint and then they go imagine the rest.

794
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 2: You can't do that in the TV show. You actually

795
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 2: have to build things, and so you hire very smart

796
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 2: people to do that. You hire prop designers, and you

797
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 2: hire costumers, and you hire set builders and production designers

798
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 2: and all those people. So everything they brought was something

799
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:21,359
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought of before, but in almost every case

800
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 2: it was better than the version I would have done,

801
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 2: because I'm not a professional at that. So there was

802
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 2: every day there was a new thing I hadn't thought of,

803
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 2: but I was like, oh, yeah, that's great, that's totally

804
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 2: what I would have put in the book if I

805
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 2: had thought of it.

806
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 3: I had that experience as a reader too, you know,

807
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 3: I read the books, I had everything in my head

808
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 3: about how it should look, and then when I watched

809
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 3: the TV show, you know, like so often you see

810
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 3: it and you're like, oh, that's not really how I

811
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 3: imagined it. I'm sort of disappointed. But almost every time

812
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, that's even cooler than I had

813
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,240
Speaker 3: imagined it. That was awesome. Like it just the team

814
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 3: was so so incredible.

815
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 1: I love how they really centered the physics. I really felt.

816
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: Of course, when you read the book you see that

817
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,439
Speaker 1: it's in there, but when you watch the show, you

818
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: like con that there's you know, parabolic motion and they're

819
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: really considering gravity and it really it feels almost like

820
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: you're in a British naval battle, you know.

821
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 3: I like how they really centered an alien being that

822
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 3: could sort of mind control. That's that's what I thought

823
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 3: was the cool thing. But I guess we come from

824
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:15,240
Speaker 3: different fields.

825
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: Bring it back to parasites. Everybody sees a part of

826
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: themselves in.

827
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 2: It, right, what. Daniel and I are big, big fans

828
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 2: of parasites.

829
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 3: So what's your favorite parasite toxin?

830
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 4: Plasma GANDHII. Yeah, yeah, I'd go for the classics.

831
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the best one for sure. I mean, I'm sure,

832
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 2: I'm sure that the reason that I'm a very aggressive

833
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 2: person is because I'm filled with cat poop.

834
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 4: It's at this point, it's not cat poop. It's just

835
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 4: a lot of little cysts in your brain.

836
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 3: I'm actually working on so one of our next episodes,

837
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 3: maybe the one after this one, is going to be

838
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 3: about that parasite and mind control and how actually the

839
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 3: evidence is really thin for a lot of this stuff,

840
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 3: and it's like really hard to pull apart. Like is

841
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 3: Tie infected because he's aggressive or did the parasite make

842
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 3: him aggressive? You don't know. Maybe his aggressive behavior has

843
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 3: caused him to encounter the parasite and there's like a correlation, Like.

844
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 2: I was aggressively owning cats, yeah sure.

845
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:16,359
Speaker 3: Or you were aggressive about not washing your hands after

846
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:17,399
Speaker 3: changing the little box.

847
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:19,839
Speaker 4: If you're just too manly to wash your hands, that's

848
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 4: that's how you get it, all right.

849
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:24,720
Speaker 2: No, I'm actually Daniel will attest to this. I'm actually

850
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 2: freaked out by people who don't watch them.

851
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 4: That's true.

852
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 2: The hell's wrong with you? Wash your damn hands? I know.

853
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 3: I am the kind of person who in a restroom.

854
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:34,880
Speaker 3: If somebody walks out without washing, I'll be like, oh gosh,

855
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 3: this happens to everyone. Sometimes you forgot to wash your hands,

856
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 3: and they'll be like.

857
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 4: Turn around, turn around, turn around. Yeah, I'm a parasitologist,

858
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 4: Go wash your hands.

859
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,919
Speaker 2: Now Do you ever do that? Do you ever say, like, look,

860
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 2: I'm a parasitologist. Don't make me catalog all the things

861
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 2: that are on your hands right now, you should wash those.

862
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 3: I don't say about washing your hands because that's like

863
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 3: more bacteria, which is not quite what I do. But

864
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:00,720
Speaker 3: I will say, like when we're, you know, eating sushi,

865
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 3: I'll be like, I'm a parasitologist, don't make me catalog

866
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 3: all the stuff that's in the raw food that you're eating.

867
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 3: Is good to see you.

868
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 2: You didn't know I was going to be talking to you.

869
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, I hope I get to see you against

870
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 3: soon Jenney for Yeah, for the for the folks who

871
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 3: aren't watching the.

872
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 2: Video, I hope she gets to see you against Oh good.

873
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:23,800
Speaker 3: All right, Tie's amazing wife just came by who I

874
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:25,360
Speaker 3: talked about at the beginning of the show.

875
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 2: That's doctor wife to you, Mabe, I'm sorry, put a

876
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 2: little respect in that.

877
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 3: Right from from Oxford, right, doctor from Oxford Cambridge.

878
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: I'm wearing my Cambridge sweater ring out which I did

879
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 2: not go to Cambridge, but my wife nice.

880
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 3: That's close enough. It's all in the family. It's all good.

881
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 2: So back to parisit, Yeah, I feel like I'm I

882
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 2: don't have a PhD, but I am PhD adjacent, So yeah,

883
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 2: I feel like I should get the same respect as

884
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:50,919
Speaker 2: if I doesn't work that way.

885
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 4: All but dissertation and classwork.

886
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all but doing any of the world back.

887
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: To parasites and the experience parasites in our actual world

888
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: inspire the protomolecule behavior at all in your story, like

889
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: the mind control aspects of it.

890
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.

891
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 4: It's anytime you start dealing with stuff that's messing with

892
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:18,359
Speaker 4: consciousness and repurposing somebody else's body to their own ends,

893
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 4: you're kind of in that in that playground.

894
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the proto molecule does, it goes through sort

895
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 2: of phases. In the early phase, it is very much

896
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 2: a parasite. It is very much a In my sort

897
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 2: of original creation of it, back before even Daniel showed up,

898
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 2: it was sort of this weird mix of like ebola

899
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 2: and what's the what's the mold that grows out of

900
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 2: ants heads?

901
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 4: Card recept Yeah, cordyceps.

902
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it's it was sort of a mix

903
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:53,399
Speaker 2: of the two. I had written a short story many

904
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 2: many years ago. One of the scenes takes place in

905
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 2: a health camp where they're treating people who have a bola,

906
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 2: And so I did a bunch of reading about a bola.

907
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 2: And there's a phase of a bullet that they call

908
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 2: the zombie phase, where it has basically melted your brain

909
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 2: and you're still ambulatory. So you're sort of wandering around

910
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 2: with a melted brain, but you can still walk, and

911
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 2: your and your stomach you're vomiting up, your stomach lining

912
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 2: because your internal organs are melting, and the stuff that

913
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,279
Speaker 2: you vomit up, the black bile that you vomit up,

914
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 2: is the single most infectious substance on earth. If you

915
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,360
Speaker 2: get that shit on you, you have a bola. So

916
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 2: that always fastened. The horror of that fascinated me. I'm

917
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 2: a horror writer at hard And then the idea of

918
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 2: if if there was something that infected you and took

919
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 2: you through that zombie phase like a bulla does, but

920
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:48,760
Speaker 2: it had a purpose. It had it had to design,

921
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:50,840
Speaker 2: there was an in It was a goal that it

922
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 2: was trying to get to in the way that cordyce

923
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 2: Ep says with the ants, it infects them, makes them

924
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 2: climb up the tree, makes them explode so that they

925
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 2: infect other ants. Right, But it has a design, and

926
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,439
Speaker 2: it has a thing that is trying to achieve by

927
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 2: taking over the end, so that combination of it's taking

928
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 2: over humans, it's making them very infectious so that other

929
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 2: humans get infected, and ultimately, when it has enough infected humans,

930
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 2: it's trying to achieve something. I just found that sort

931
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:18,319
Speaker 2: of cool and horrifying at the same time. So that

932
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:20,800
Speaker 2: was really ultimately where it sort of came from.

933
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 3: So you said this was from a short story.

934
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 2: The research I did on a bola, Yeah, what's the

935
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 2: name of the story? Scene? And I don't think that

936
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 2: one ever got published.

937
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:32,720
Speaker 3: There's an opportunity there. But your stories about parasite should

938
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 3: always be published.

939
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:39,359
Speaker 4: Have you read peeps, Scott Westerveld.

940
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:41,919
Speaker 1: I've eaten peeps. I don't think that counts them.

941
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 4: Scott Westervelt, who is a lovely writer, I've never met

942
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:47,359
Speaker 4: him as a human being. I can't speak to that,

943
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 4: but he knows his way around a book. Wrote a

944
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:57,919
Speaker 4: teenage romance vampire book that is also introductory parasitology. What

945
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 4: it is called peeps peeps eat, yeah, peaks just like

946
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:04,400
Speaker 4: just like the thing stands. Actually, I think in the

947
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 4: book for parasite positive.

948
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 3: All right, awesome, I can't wait to check that out.

949
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 4: It's like if Twilight was being secretly used to teach

950
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 4: people science, if only seriously great, it's a great little book.

951
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 4: I read it to my kid when she was of

952
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 4: the age, and it stuck.

953
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 3: Peeps are Twilight?

954
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 4: Peeps peeps? Twilight was not a thing for us.

955
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,759
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, my kids aren't old enough for that yet.

956
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:36,120
Speaker 4: I'm not sure I am all right, So I'll.

957
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 3: Give you this idea, and you know, do you just

958
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 3: cut me in a little bit when you write the

959
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 3: book about it. Parasites that manipulate host behavior. Very underrepresented

960
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 3: in the literature are the trophically transmitted parasites sort of

961
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 3: like Taxoplasma gandhiy. But like this fish that I study

962
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 3: that has the brain infecting parasites like I found a

963
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 3: bunch of like viruses where it it's transmitted from one

964
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 3: person another where you bite each other, but not a

965
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 3: lot of these trophically transmitted things. And I you know,

966
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 3: there's a real opportunity there. There's some of the best

967
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 3: zombie makers out there.

968
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 2: I don't know what trophic transfer, oh I should have.

969
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 3: Yes, sorry, that's good. So trophically transmitted means it goes

970
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 3: from like when one when a predator eats something else.

971
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 3: So for example, when those rodents that are attracted to

972
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 3: the smell of cat urine. I'm a science communicator, but

973
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:22,360
Speaker 3: I'm awful at identifying my own ecology jargon. But so

974
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 3: like when a mouse is attracted to the smell of

975
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 3: cat urine and the cat eats it and then gets infected,

976
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 3: that's trophic transmission. And I studied a fish with a

977
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 3: brain infecting parasite, and when a bird eats the fish,

978
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 3: that's how it gets transmitted up the trophic levels.

979
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 4: And this is when you stopped eating sushi. This is

980
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:39,439
Speaker 4: I'm guessing.

981
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 3: That was when I stopped eating sushi. That or when

982
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 3: I had this job where over the summer I had

983
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 3: to jump into dump trucks full of dead fish. That

984
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 3: put me off of fish. All I can see that

985
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:48,839
Speaker 3: it was my worst job.

986
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 4: That seems legit.

987
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: Can I ask one more physics question since we've been

988
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,320
Speaker 1: talking about cat piss and rats for a minute, Boop,

989
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: I was really interested in this Epstein drive. I love

990
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: that you guys invented a scientist who came up with

991
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: this new drive. How much did you think through the

992
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: physics of the Epstein drive, this fusion powered drive that

993
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: moves so many of your ships through the Solar System.

994
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:12,640
Speaker 2: It is based on a paper I read many years

995
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 2: ago about a way to maximize I mean, because you

996
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:18,879
Speaker 2: can't get around the Irocket equation. You have to throw

997
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 2: something out the back of the ship. You have to,

998
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 2: and that is the problem. And I had read a

999
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 2: paper many I might have been an Omni or similar

1000
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 2: magazine way back in the day, of a way to

1001
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:34,760
Speaker 2: take the exhaust and throw it almost at light speed,

1002
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 2: like throw it so hard at the back of the

1003
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 2: ship that even tiny amounts of matter are imparting a

1004
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:44,719
Speaker 2: lot of thrust. And I just sort of stole that idea. Physically,

1005
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 2: it doesn't actually work. It doesn't make any sense. Your

1006
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 2: ship would just melt from the heat. If you're generating

1007
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 2: that much energy and a fusion reactor in the middle

1008
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 2: of your ship. You have to have a way to

1009
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 2: get rid of that heat, and you know, we just

1010
00:49:56,800 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 2: sort of go the heat is fixed. There's a heat solution.

1011
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,919
Speaker 2: They invented it. Thank god we invented the heat machine.

1012
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 2: But other than that, I mean, the physics behind throwing

1013
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 2: stuff out the back of the ship really really hard.

1014
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:15,640
Speaker 4: Those make sense, and we're not ever gonna like say

1015
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:19,759
Speaker 4: what paper that was, so that when it was discredited,

1016
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 4: we're not we're not taking we're not taking down with it.

1017
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 2: But plus I probably misunderstood everything the guy's side, so

1018
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 2: it would probably be our heat or she would probably

1019
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 2: be very offended that I had used their paper to

1020
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 2: create my terrible fictional ship engine.

1021
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: Well before I was a particle physicist, I was actually

1022
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 1: a budding on plasma physicist, and I worked in a

1023
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:42,800
Speaker 1: plasma physics group in your backyard, Daniel, in Los Alamos.

1024
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:45,240
Speaker 1: And there's a guy there, Glenn Worden, who's a plasma

1025
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:48,239
Speaker 1: physicist who's been writing a series of papers about how

1026
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: plasma powered engines are the only way we could ever

1027
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 1: like intercept an asteroid or get around the Solar System.

1028
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:56,680
Speaker 1: So I think you guys were ahead of your time.

1029
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 1: The science is now catching up to you.

1030
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:01,399
Speaker 4: Well, this is this is one of those things where

1031
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:03,800
Speaker 4: when you're vague enough, you get to take credit for everything.

1032
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 3: All right, writing advice. On that note, we're going to

1033
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 3: wrap things up. You told us a little bit about

1034
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 3: the history behind your new book, but I don't think

1035
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:17,880
Speaker 3: you ever said the name of your new book.

1036
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 4: The new book is The Mercy of Gods. It's the

1037
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 4: first in a trilogy called The Captive's War.

1038
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:25,799
Speaker 3: And are they going to come out one year at

1039
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:27,240
Speaker 3: a time or something like that.

1040
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 4: If I can get tied to sit in the goddamn chair.

1041
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 3: Yes, podcasts, well, we hope you're successful with that, Daniel,

1042
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:40,759
Speaker 3: and good luck to both of you, and thank you

1043
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 3: so much for being on the show. I had a

1044
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:52,240
Speaker 3: lot of fun. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced

1045
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 3: by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you, We

1046
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 3: really would.

1047
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:58,880
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1048
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 1: extraordinary We.

1049
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 3: Want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions for

1050
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 3: future shows. If you contact us, we will get back

1051
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 3: to you.

1052
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1053
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:13,880
Speaker 1: at questions at Danielankelly dot.

1054
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 3: Org, or you can find us on social media. We

1055
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 3: have accounts on X, Instagram, Blue Sky and on all

1056
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,840
Speaker 3: of those platforms. You can find us at D and

1057
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:23,240
Speaker 3: K Universe.

1058
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 1: Don't be shy, write to us,