1504: Opportunity

|< < Prev Comic #1504 (March 27, 2015) Next > >|

Opportunity

Title text: We all remember those famous first words spoken by an astronaut on the surface of Mars: "That's one small step fo- HOLY SHIT LOOK OUT IT'S GOT SOME KIND OF DRILL! Get back to the ... [unintelligible] ... [signal lost]"

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Needs citations. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is talking about the robotic science platform Opportunity. On January 25, 2004, the Opportunity rover landed on the surface of Mars for the purpose of gathering data about the surface of Mars.

Also sent to Mars on the same date was another Martian rover, Spirit. Unfortunately, this became stuck and a sand storm covered its solar panels. On March 22, it is thought that Spirit's batteries finally ran out, marking the end of its mission. This was memorably covered in 695: Spirit, in which the Spirit rover is portrayed as sentient.

In 2015, the Opportunity rover is still alive and moving, amazing the scientists at ground control.

However, in 2023, Opportunity has apparently become so powerful that it has become dangerous, destroying the rover sent in 2020. To try and stop it, Cueball and Megan disconnected the battery but to no avail. This is similar to the stories of HAL 9000 (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and V'Ger (from Star Trek: The Motion Picture), both of which became sentient and dangerously unstable.

By 2450, humans have colonised and terraformed Mars. “Everything the light touches” is a reference to what Mufasa says in The Lion King. (Mufasa's son Simba then asks "What about that shadowy place?" and Mufasa tells him “That is Opportunity's half of the planet. We must never go there”.) What this all implies is the Opportunity has dominated half of the planet.

The title text refers to the first words of the first astronauts on the surface of Mars. At first, the astronaut copies the first words of Neil Armstrong on the Moon ("That's one small step for [this] man, one giant leap for mankind") but it is interrupted by the Opportunity rover. Onboard the rover uses a drill for sampling rocks, but here it uses it to murder the astronaut.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

2010: Ponytail (at a computer): After six years, Spirit is down, but Opportunity is still going strong.

Hair Bun: Tough little rover!

2015: Opportunity: Eleven years, wow! Wasn't the original mission 90 days? This is starting to get weird.

2023: Cueball: The battery is totally disconnected! How can it still be moving? Megan: Given what it did to the Mars 2020 rover, we may never know.

2450, Tereaformed Mars, Mars Imperial Capital: Cueball and Megan are standing on a Martian cliff near a sci-fi city.

Cueball: Everything the light touches is our kingdom. Megan (pointing to some distant mountains): What's that dark area? Cueball: That is Opportunity's half of the planet. We must never go there.

2010:

[Ponytail and Hair Bun sitting at a Computer.]

Ponytail: After six years, Spirit is down, but Opportunity is still going strong.

Hair Bun: Tough little rover!

2015:

[Opportunity driving on the Mars.]

Offscreen: Eleven years, wow.

Offscreen 2: Wasn't the original mission 90 days?

Offscreen: This is starting to get weird.

2023:

[Cueball and Megan sitting at a computer.]

Cueball: The battery is totally disconnected. How can it still be moving?

Megan: Given what it did to the Mars 2020 rover, we may never know.

2450, terraformed Mars, martian imperial capital:

[Some martian inhabits looking like Cueball and Megan pointing in the dark.]

Cueball-Martian: Everything the light touches is our kingdom.

Megan-Martian: What's that dark area?

Cueball-Martian: That is Opportunity's half of the planet. We must never go there

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

"Everything the light touches is our kingdom" are Mufasa words from 'The Lion King' (1994) --JakubNarebski (talk) 08:39, 27 March 2015 (UTC) - The "You must never go there" line is also from Lion King. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110357/quotes?item=qt0371437 Drmouse (talk) 11:40, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Wasn’t something similar said in 1608: Hoverboard about God and 2 people? 42.book.addict (talk) 22:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

May someone make this Transcritpt better? 141.101.104.10 08:58, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Hey, thanks to whoever tidied up my explanation 141.101.98.185 11:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the second line ("We must never go there") is from the same scene in The Lion King as the first line, not a reference to Space Odyssey . See [[1]] from 0:52 to 1:23. 108.162.216.55 11:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me to be common currency that the 'missing' word in "one small step" is "a", not "this" (whether as a fluffed line, in the moment, or a temporary radio drop-out over that bare syllable). Also, while it's highly suggested, there's no certainty in the title-text that the new Mars-landing quote necessarily ended in fatality. 141.101.98.192 14:31, 27 March 2015 (UTC) (Someone seems to have edited the text that inspired these comments, now... so you may now ignore me. 141.101.98.192 22:41, 27 March 2015 (UTC))

I just don't get how the rover could gain more power. It is after all, isolated on mars. All it could do is get weaker. Maybe it was already strong enough to control half of mars. The Goyim speaks (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

My take was that even without batteries, it was still getting enough power from the solar panels (and maybe it somehow became sentient enough to reconfigure to create additional solar power arrays sufficient for its needs, like some suggestions for 'builder' robots on the Moon, perhaps mixed in with Von Neumann machine ideas). Which makes the "dark part of Mars, don't go there!" even more intruiging. (Have we done to Opportunity what 'we' tried to do to the Matrix's machine-civilisation? Darken the environment? And thus how is it still dangerous? The same reason as the Matrix machines are still powered on that world? Or has it raised the cloud of darkness itself; Because It Can, to delineate its territory or as an actual terraforming effort of its own, more suited to its own current needs and 'desires'? And how many more questions can I raise?) 141.101.98.192 22:41, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

The reason is because this is a joke. A little light-hearted confusion generating narrative which hinges on the unlikelihood of the Opportunity rover not only surviving far beyond it's projected time-period, extrapolated into the absurdity of it somehow taking over half the planet. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.155 00:09, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm surely not the only person who read the title text and thought, "Well, that's more work for the Death of Being Ground by a Mars Rover Rock Abrasion Tool." 108.162.216.171 18:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I just wanted to say pretty much the same thing, so no, you're not the only. 173.245.53.168 09:12, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Did something happen to inspire this? Mikemk (talk) 19:28, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

On March 20 Opportunity completed a reformat of its flash memory and started accumulating more data. On March 24 it logged 26.219 miles (42.195 km) in the 11 years and 2 months since it landed, the length of a marathon.

NASA JPL press releases: http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/newsroom/pressreleases/20150323a.html http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/newsroom/pressreleases/20150324a.html The Dining Logician (talk) 22:59, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

What citations does this explanation require?--17jiangz1 (talk) 11:39, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

What does the transcript require for it to be complete? As far as I can tell, it is complete. --Zbee talk git (talk) 17:16, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the transcript is incorrect, rather than incomplete. In the 2450 panel Meghan-M and Cueball-M appear to be standing in daylight. In that case it would be wrong to say they are "pointing in the dark". It would be better to say they are "pointing towards a dark, mountainous region". Someone feel free to edit the transcript if you agree.These Are Not The Coments You Are Looking For (talk) 19:21, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I hadn't caught that before; I've changed it and think it is good now.--Zbee talk git 20:02, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

"[...] and will not allow humans to enter his dark reign." Shouldn't it be "it's dark reign."? 188.114.97.151 23:35, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

There, fixed. This is an open wiki, if you see an issue you think should be sorted out, do so. If you screw up and don't notice, someone else can fix it. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 01:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I got rid of the apostrophe in "it's dark reign". It should be "it's…".Saspic45 (talk) 03:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Wait, what? I thought it was "its" 162.158.146.208 17:32, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Kind of funny, Opportunity came within a year of being on Mars with the 2020 Rover. It should be glad it will never have to duel Opportunity. 162.158.78.232 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)