Difference between revisions of "618: Asteroid"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search
(Transcript: shall we try using the xkcd provided transcript? That sounds like a good idea.)
Line 15: Line 15:
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
:[News-anchor woman reporting a breaking news bulletin.]
+
:[The panel appears like a news report.]
:Anchorwoman: ''Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.''
+
:[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']
 +
:News-anchor: Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.
  
:Anchorwoman: ''NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.''
+
:News-anchor: NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.
 +
:[The picture of the rocket fills the panel.  In an inset picture is the rover.]
  
:[Comic switches to the mission control center for the rover.]
+
:[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it.  Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]
:Controller-Technician ([[Ponytail]]): ''The rover has landed successfully and planted the nukes! we're saved!''
+
:Woman with headset: The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!
:Second Controller ([[Cueball]]): ''Hooray!''
+
:Man with headset: Hooray!
:Off-Panel Controller: ''We're Heroes!''
+
:Voice: We're heroes!
  
:[On the asteroid the rover counts down, while a little ways a way a small human figure stares in confusion.]
+
:[Digital countdown.]
:Rover: ''0:05...0:04...0:03''
+
:0:05...
 +
:0:04...
 +
:0:03...
 +
:[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid.  Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}

Revision as of 22:23, 14 April 2013

Asteroid
My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.
Title text: My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.

Explanation

The end of the world has been envisioned in many ways. One of the most common is with a really big rock hitting Earth. There is an online calculator for asteroid impacts, but don't worry as any rock that does hit Earth isn't likely to kill everyone. And, as seen in a what-if article, speed counts too.

The joke here, though, is that, after sending up a robot to blow the asteroid to smithereens, said rock is actually the home of the Little Prince from the wildly famous tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. To save our world, we must destroy his. And probably the prince along with it. If the only way to save our species is by killing off another species, is the act still ethical? In none of the world-destroying asteroid stories were said rocks actually home to intelligent life. Or any life, for that matter. Also, in said movies the "heroic" mission always involves humans in some way imperiling themselves to save humanity, rather than, say, staying safely at home and using a robotic rover to do all the dangerous stuff.

The title text is a reference to the 1998 asteroid movie Deep Impact. Fanfic is short for Fan Fiction,e.g. a fictional story written by someone who loves a particular story/series/idea so much they wanted to write their own tale about it (or one who hated said story so much they felt compelled to fix it). It suggests that most people were either unwilling to play a game involving build asteroids that then hit the earth, or watch a movie of people nuking miniature kingdoms to save civilization. A tough entertainment call any day.

Transcript

[The panel appears like a news report.]
[There is a picture of a rocket, captioned 'Breaking news']
News-anchor: Astronomers have confirmed that the asteroid is headed for Earth.
News-anchor: NASA has launched a heroic mission to land a rover on the asteroid, drill into it, and destroy it with nuclear bombs.
[The picture of the rocket fills the panel. In an inset picture is the rover.]
[A woman is sitting at an interface. A man stands next to it. Both are wearing headsets with microphones.]
Woman with headset: The robot has landed successfully and planted the nukes! We're saved!
Man with headset: Hooray!
Voice: We're heroes!
[Digital countdown.]
0:05...
0:04...
0:03...
[The Little Prince is looking at the NASA rover, which has drilled into the asteroid. Beside him is the rose, and a small volcano.]


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

Could someone please help me with the picture, I don't know how to get it to display right...--7OO Tnega Terces (talk) 08:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Fix'd. Davidy²²[talk] 08:44, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
THANKS!--7OO Tnega Terces (talk) 07:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.

I think that is because nobody wants to believe NASA would design the spacecraft upside-down.

I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 08:22, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't the Little Prince be killed by the impact anyway? 108.162.238.187 00:30, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes if NASA did nothing he would also die. But would you be happy seeing a movie where we choose a solution that saves us and kills the little prince? Could they not have deflected the asteroid instead? ;-) --Kynde (talk) 09:46, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

That one question in What If 2 about the earth spinning like a basketball could be a reference to this comic. (asteroid with the little prince colliding with earth.) IJustWantToEditStuff (talk) 07:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

that rocket looks like the artemis sls TenGolf MathHacker (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

It also looks very like several other twin-boostered rockets, real and fictional, because it does the kind of job necessary. More likely convergent evolution than true prognostication of how SLS would actually ended up. Even with his NASA background and connections.
But interesting that he landed on a heavy-launch (or beyond-orbit, in this case) design that is still considered valid. There could easily have been a paradigm shift betwixt then and now, rendering that a strictly old-school design (even given the development lead-time at which a design gets all but frozen in). 172.71.242.173 01:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)