#sips tea

Hey, remember that part of the movie where they are Forcing a man to go on a Suicide Mission. Where they Know that the people on this mission will die in space, because there is a finite amount of food given to them and not enough fuel to get back to earth before they would starve if they tried?

Remember how there were scientists all over the world who had been studying astrophage? Why couldn't any of them have gone instead? One who Was Willing To Die to save the world? (The book actually had more reasons for why it had to be Grace that the movie left out: the fact that he had a gene that meant he had a better chance of surviving being in a long term coma, and that he had actually worked with most of the tools and space suits and low gravity testing that the crew would be using or also trained on)

Remember how they tracked down and forced this one man, who Did Not Want to Die, onto the ground and sedated him so that he could not have any kind of choice in the matter?

They ARE being passive, in the act that they stand by and let Grace be sedated and put on the mission. They make a choice to stand by and let this man die instead of them. They dont make a move to interfere and help Grace to get away.

But yeah, youre right it is a complex issue. Of course it is.

As you quoted, I said "they could help". They could have stepped in to help Grace, nothing was stopping them from doing so. They didn't have their hands tied behind their backs, or were locked behind a wall.

(And to be fair, most of the people/guards that chased him down probably didn't even know why exactly they were doing so. They were told to catch him and they did. The comments in my origianl post and this one are more referring to Carl and Stratt and the other people who actually Knew that Grace was being forced to go on the mission, very clearly against his will.)

I did not say that should or should not have helped.

Grace did need to go. He was their Best Chance (not necessarily their ONLY choice/chance tho) at finding a solution because being one of the leading members of the project meant he had the most information about the astrophage and mission.

Could some other scientist have gone instead and still figured out the solution?

Could they have (mentally) survived waking up alone on a suicide mission with the fate of earth on soles their shoulders?

Could they have made contact with an alien? Learned how to communicate? Worked together to solve their mutual problem?

Would they have gone back to save an alien and said alien's homework?

Would they have been friends with Rocky?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But none of the people on Earth had any idea that any of that would happen.

All they knew was they were sending a man, light-years away from earth, to die, on the chance ( the chance!! There was no guarantee that Tau Ceti would even have an answer to the problem that they could use!! This was a hope! A last ditch effort to do something, anything) that they could find a solution and save the earth.

Was it right for them to make that choice? Why did they get to live on (even if only for a few more years to "die miserably" as you so put it) hoping someone else can find the solution, but this man is forced to die for it?

Why do they get to say "yeah, let this man die instead of me".

I don't condemn them for making the decision they did. Like I said, Grace is their Best Chance at saving the Earth.

But it doesn't change the actual actions (or inactions) they took in Grace ending up on the Hail Mary for a suicide mission.