anyone out there any good at coding? like the type of computer science in tadc? i'm writing a fic about grant & co finding the server in the old c&a building and taking it back to his house to modernize the software and shit and everything i i don't know the first thing about all of that crap so someone to point me in the right direction would be helpful
just stumbled over your post in the tags, i'm a programmer (still an apprentice tho), i can give you some pointers
disclaimer that this does go into some things that i have not personally worked with so take everything with a grain of salt
this got a bit long, so readmore
so we've basically got 3 layers to a project like this, the hardware, the environment and the actual programm. nowadays this would actualy be 2 - 3 different jobs, though it was probably different in the 90s. (i personally have mostly only worked with the software side of things so far, specifically the actual programming)
on the hardware level, yeah you'd basically have to replace everything. it's not like it's impossible to get old components to work, people do it for fun all the time, but a server running for 18 years straight with no maintenance is really not that realistic. you'd also need some adapters to even get the data from an old harddrive to a new one. modern ai generally needs powerful gpus to run (that's why there are new datacenters being built for ai, servers in other datacenters are equipped differently, depending on their use case) but i don't really think caine would need extremely powerful hardware to run, considering he was running on 90s tech.
for the first part of the environment the operating system would need to be updated. we can see in episode 8 that the server the circus is running on uses unix as an os, which was afaik the most common for servers back then. there's two choices here, either using a newer version of unix or switching to linux (which is also a unix-like os). linux would be the more modern choice. linux itself is only the kernel, there's different distros to choose from, in my personal experience linux debian is a very common one for servers. either way, it's super important to keep the os updated for security reasons, otherwise you're an easy target for malware, and we obviously don't want that for the circus. it's actually not that uncommon to use outdated os, usually in cases of abandonware (software that isn't maintained anymore). the biology lab in my former uni had pc's running windows 95 bc the software needed for the microscopes simply wouldn't run on anything newer. in cases like that those pc's are never allowed to connect to the internet, bc of the massive security risk. (caine connecting to the internet in episode 9 would have been super risky in real life). i guess technically caine also is a programm that isn't maintained anymore, but considering kinger created him he can manage updating him too lol.
which brings us to the actual programm. you gotta get it actually running on the newer os. so, generally programming languages do get new versions, which introduce new features and remove old obsolete ones. how often they do really, really depends.
we do actually know which language caine and bubble are written in, from their file endings in episode 8, and it's lisp, more specifically common lisp. which makes sense, bc lisp was created in the late 50s specifically for ai research, and it was the language used for ai until at least ca. the 80s (the 90s were from what i could find when it was starting being used less. nowadays python is what's mainly used for ai, for much different reasons than lisp). there's different lisp dialects, and common lisp was created in 1994 so it fits perfectly to be the one used for caine. today, lisp is more niche, but it is still being used, especially in finance and aviation (and also in quantum computing now). i personally haven't worked with lisp yet, and its syntax is definitely very different from other commonly used languages.
so, i looked up for this post how much common lisp has changed since it's inception and the answer is actually not a lot apparently! it got new libraries, but the actual foundation of the language never really changed. which makes sense actually, considering it's use cases. most of these finance/critical infrastructure languages have extreme backwards compatibility (i've actually experienced that myself with abap). so, there's actually a chance that he wouldn't really need to change anything about caine's code!
however one thing that did change is another environment thing and that's the compiler and interpreter for lisp. compilers & interpreters are essentially what translates the higher programming languages into machine code, what the pc actually understands. compilers translate the entire programm at once before letting you execute it, interpreters translate at runtime. both have advantages & disadvantages, and there are languages that use either one or even both. lisp uses both. generally, lisp is a bit complicated here, bc its main quirk is that you can give a running lisp programm more code and get it to actually execute it as code (which is why it was used for ai - basically the concept of it being able to rewrite its own code). but this is getting way beyond what you asked for, lol, basically the gist of it is that there's a new compiler & interpreter that need to be installed and set up, and the programm would have to get compiled again.
generally, you'd probably want to set up a second server, for backups. something important like the circus/caine definitely needs a backup (and if we're looking at it realistically c&a definitely would have this set up too) and you can't exactly put the backup on the same server, that would defeat the purpose. for the code, what every dev uses for backup and version history is git. it's just the best technology for it and i have never seen a project or a company that doesn't use git (unless you are working in very, very specialized environments that have their own version history system built in and that's very rare (and even those often use git too now)). (a little cursed fact: kinger wouldn't know git, it was released after he entered the circus). and in this case, it would probably be done via a self-hosted gitlab instance on said second server.
and if you do want grant making edits to caine's code in your fic, there is of course the question of what ide (integrated development environment) he'd use. there's multiple choices. there are a couple of ides specifically made for lisp/common lisp (and it would make sense for grant to use one of those, considering he's worked with common lisp since the 90s). however, developers are lazy (that's kind of a job requirement), and most people today just use visual studio code for everything. though, this is probably going into too much detail again lol
but yeah, i hope this was helpful.and pls send me the link to your fic when you're done!
this is absolutely amazing!!! 🤩😍 my autistic heart is so happy at the infodump.
is there anything you could tell me about like uncorrupting files or like because if the players are brainscans, that means they're files in a computer so by modernizing the server, i was hoping that would give caine and grant enough like leeway or options to try and unabstract the others
the plan was to use a "specialized antivirus" or something by assuming the abstractions are like corrupted because of malware or something like that but i don't know if that will actually work.
you gave me the perfect amount of information last time like seriously i had so much fun reading that reblog!!
anyone out there any good at coding? like the type of computer science in tadc? i'm writing a fic about grant & co finding the server in the old c&a building and taking it back to his house to modernize the software and shit and everything i i don't know the first thing about all of that crap so someone to point me in the right direction would be helpful
okay so i do apologize for all the times i said i couldn't draw technically i wasn't lying considering i had not yet been made aware that i am in fact god's gift to art and i've come from the heavens to preach the gospel of USING REFERENCES HOW DID I GET SO GOOD SO FAST BY TRACING SHAPES
angel roberts could draw realistic horses from memory in middle school and i got FUCKED OVER BECAUSE OF IT
I COULD HAVE BEEN DOING THIS SHIT THE ENTIRE TIME????
project hail mary super specific headcanons that i have
Rocky loves dice, but it takes a while for Grace to actually be able to explain what dice look like and their uses. (He has so many different dice.) (Grace teaches him DnD, this does not go well.)
Erid's show affection by headbutting (top of head? butting, he doesn't really have a head?), but he couldn't do that in the orb. When Grace is settled in the sandy area on his planet and Rocky shows up in his more form fitting protection suit the first thing he does is fly-tackle Grace who is both awkward and excited about it.
Grace has bad dreams about how he ended up in space and the fears he had when he first woke up. And Rocky gets freaked out about the first time he wakes up yelling (he thinks it's someone attacking him).
The first time Grace gets sick on Rocky's planet and spends all his time sleeping, Rocky doesn't leave his side and Adrien comes to hang out too.
When Rocky gets sick, Grace freaks out because all he can think about is how bad off Rocky was after he saved Grace during the fishing trip.
Because Rocky can't "see" the films or tv shows as easily (or books), Grace takes it upon himself to retell all of the stories he grew up reading to Rocky. He does not remember all of them well and now Rocky is convinced that the world of Percy Jackson is real and there are random humans with magical powers. (He thinks it's boring that his human doesn't have powers).
Pet names! Grace explains them after calling Rocky buddy and Rocky misunderstands and starts calling Grace "squishy sack" in reply. It doesn't translate well (but Grace still loves it).
When Grace talks in his sleep Rocky flips out and thinks it's so cool which then leads to Grace explaining the fact that he also dreams and Rocky thinks this is the coolest thing that humans can do. (Everytime Grace wakes up Rocky demands he tells him all of his dreams, but Grace doesn't dream every night so he makes things up.)
Grace gives all his students nicknames that starting with Helium on the Periodic Table (when he names a kid Nobelium (the last element on the table) he cries).
His lectures to the Eridian students are half-science and half-Earth things, and they eat it up. Their favorite thing is hearing him talk about all of the different animals and plants and anything natural.
Grace leaves his bubble on Erid at least one a week and gets to experience meeting Erid's. It's overwhelming the first time, but he loves the curiousity of it all.
Grace is Audhd and Rocky is Autistic.
The first time Grace picks up Rocky it's when he's half-tired and a reflex. Eridian's aren't used to being picked up, but Rocky has grown accustomed to his human doing odd things. (He likes piggy-back rides.)
Grace's favorite band is Eagles. He is not good at singing but does it anyways. Rocky learns how to make nonsense sounds in his language that approximate the tune of each. Adrien catches him singing the "Life in the Fast Lane" riff and is confused why he is speaking random syllables (it takes a long time to explain, but then Adrien joins in when they can).
Rocky explains Eridian customs, it takes many, many, many days.
Okay that's all for now, but definetly more to come!!!
in a world where grace eventually goes back to earth when erid is ready to make full contact. he's officially an eridian and earth dual citizen and is a physically very old man. it's also been a lot of earth years since he was here, especially due to time dilation. he comes off the eridian lander in a hoverchair accompanied by rocky in his little xenonite suit and is like wow, fresh air. rocky isn't it so beautiful here. rocky this is the ground i used to walk on. rocky this is the food i used to eat. rocky these are the people you helped me save. amaze amaze amaze.
and his speech has taken on eridian habits from years of only really communicating in eridian: he drops and raises octaves to show emotion, he's speaks melodically and with a rythmn that pings as music when you first hear it. his creaky old man voice is that of somebody who has spent their whole life singing, somebody who speaks for a living, because he's both of those things. his syntax is strange and his sentences are structured oddly. he looks around at everything with the delight and wonder of somebody who thought he'd never see any of this again.
he watches a sunset. he watches the rain fall. he watches a spider spin a web. he watches a waterfall. he smells and tastes and feels and sees and hears all of the things he left behind. he misses his home on erid. he's never been happier to be anywhere in his life. it's strange. rocky, it's strange. this isn't home, anymore. but it's still part of me. rocky, it's strange.
there's a statue of him in every major city he visits. he stands in front of the school he used to teach at, which was named after a dead president when he was here. now it's called ryland grace memorial middle school. it was named for him as the sun got brighter and the earth mourned his sacrifice yet again, but praised him for saving them. the lab he used to teach in, on the days he got to lead practical experiments, is named after rocky. rocky, it's for you! they love you, too! rocky, this sign is for you, it says your name!
eva stratt is an old woman, now. she was pardoned, in the end, in the wave of relief that followed the beatles' arrival with the taumeba. she's lived out the rest of her life quietly, ambition tamped down in the wake of it all. she's still sharp. harsh. she greets grace with an, "I told you so," but even after so many years, grace can see that she's glad to see him. glad he survived. glad he doesn't seem angry with her.
and it's not that grace has forgive her. he explains this to her over a cup of strong, black coffee. rocky explores the forest to give them time to speak. it's not that he forgives her. what she did, the decision she made for him, it wasn't right. it wasn't good. it saved the world, yes, but it wasn't fair. but. but, he says. i have a good life. i have friends. i have a classroom. i know now that you were wrong about me, back then. i am not a coward, and i am not selfish. i was afraid. i was terrified. i was lost. and now i am none of those things. i do not forgive you, but i am not angry with you, either. it is what it is. rocky and i, we saved two worlds. i can live with that, even if i don't forgive you. and eva stratt nods and understands. and they finish their coffee.
a handful of grace's students, the last class he taught before being wrapped up in the end of the world, they ask to see him. not all of them. some of them didn't make it through the disasters that came with the years long dimming. some of them never really believed that grace was the one who saved the world, falling into the rhetoric of those who say the whole thing was a hoax, and the weather patterns fixing themselves is just proof of it. but the ones who do come are surprised when grace remembers each of their names. remembers where they sat in his classroom, and the jokes they thought were funny and the jokes they thought were lame. they talk to him and he remembers throwing them beanbags in the end of the world and trying to make them laugh. when grace laughs at something rocky sings into the world, he's laughing through more than a few tears. he tells his students, the kids he saved the world for, that they've just been called leaky blobs by the other savior of the world.
when his students leave, grace sits in the setting sun, strong and warm, and looks out over the ocean. rocky, isn't it beautiful? rocky, don't you see? we made this possible, rocky. we saved them. we saved this. rocky, we did it.
and for maybe the first time since it all started, grace believes it. rocky, we did it. we did it. we saved them. we did it.
I was listening to City Of Stars on repeat and kept thinking about aroace grace. I love grace who is happy without a relationship, who doesn't need any romantic relationship to be fulfilled, but... I also keep thinking about Grace being a hopeless romantic. Grace who keeps hearing about love love love and nothing else, Grace who keeps waiting for that one true love, Grace who was more in love with the idea of romance than his actual girlfriend. Grace who just doesn't understand why it doesn't come naturally to him, why he can't seem to have what everyone else wants, what he keeps dreaming of. Maybe he thought Stratt may be the one for him. Maybe the idea of a big swooping romance with Stratt makes him want to claw his eyes out. Grace doesn't know what he wants.
He wanted to experience romance so bad, to understand what it was like to fall in love, what everyone keeps talking about... and now he never will.
Grace mourning his one true love back on Earth, someone who doesn't exist and never will. Grace mourning something that was never his in the first place.
Idk something about how Eridians communicate through sound, through music, how a collection of them talking together is singing and thrumming and how they are another species among the stars that are completely intelligent and their way of communing is so different and beautiful and they sing instead of speaking. There's just something inherently heaven-like about that.
Okay, I saw a couple posts that triggered this theory. What if Simon is from the future? A future where the Hail Mary Project failed and astrophage consumed the sun and the rest of the stars, dooming the earth. As a result the remaining civilization, Eden, decided to explore deeper into space, abandoning the Petrova line theory in favor of exploring moons for potentially terraforming. Where they discover the moon with a blood ocean, leading to the events of Iron Lung.
Thus, when the Iron Lung is finally ripped apart and Simon sees the white light, its a wormhole that takes him back to the first juncture point, right before the Hail Mary Project fails. Aka some point between Grace waking up and them successfully breeding Taumoeba.
the thought that astrophage is what happened to the stars in the iron lung universe is actually making me go insane. it makes perfect sense. the movie even mentioned "dimming" stars and not just that they vanished...
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Got to do this amazing commission for @frogonaut based on his amazing fic!! Definitely go give it a read, 2 chapters in and I’m already obsessed with how he characterizes our disaster men :)
If you’d also like to commission me, keep an eye out for my comm sheet coming out, or check out my Kofi!
i was talking to my friend about this ship, and at one point during our convo she went "lol what if when they arrive back to erid, adrian gets jealous of rocky and grace's friendship so they adopt simon and is like 'this one is my human'"
this was already a wonderfully hilarious concept. and it got even better when i realized that simon is an engineer and adrian is a scientist. meaning they're grace and rocky BUT ROLESWAPPED. so in my bloodymary list of headcanons, adrian and simon become besties who are both way more serious and yet have have way more dry wit than grace and rocky and it fills me with much joy.
Sort of important question for my sanity, do we know if Simon(ironlung) is actually going into a planets sea or into a mutated portion of space? Because if he is going into the planet I nave no idea how that’s helping them fix the stars or space, and the whole thing with the creature that was responsible for the QR(I think?) and the cave system just confuses me if it’s inside some planet.
Because if it’s a mutated portion of space and a space version of a ship with a submarine port(or something similar to a gas giant but with blood and a core made of Swiss cheese) I can at least understand how Bloodymary works in terms of Rocky and Grace finding Simon in space. Simon gets thrown out of the planet, or the mutated part by the monster and then they find him. Monster is a mutation or a different evolutionary stage of astrophage, which would work in a mutated space because astrophage travels through space and stays alive, who says it can’t survive in a later evolutionary stage? It would make sense why their stars are “dead”, they are set in a further region compared to earth and cannot see Tau Ceti, the rest of stars are so dimmed that they can’t pick up their light with the equipment they have, and they clearly dont have the equipment to find the Petrova Line. If we assume the blood sea is a planet similar to Venus and has the same favorable climate, it would explain the monster being a further evolved astrophage, we’ve got no indication of it being actual blood so it could just be some weird gas form or something on the border of liquid and gas forms (xenon was a solid, there’s no reason why this planet can’t have an odd atmosphere on the border of states of substance). And the reason why Simon ends up in PHMs part of space is because he’s thrown out of whatever he was in and because he gets thrown into space he’s journey is dependent on Newton’s first law (object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force) so he won’t need any fuel to get there. We are shown that he has something that allows him to save his oxygen, so he could make it if the force of the initial impact created by the creature that threw him out of the blood sea was big enough to make him go the same speed as Hail Mary did.
I’m also conflicted on my feelings about Eva Stratt and Ava, not in a sense on their morals but more about what they are relative to each other. On one hand I think they should kiss and then get wasted while spilling their guts about their moral failures.
On the other hand, ironlung apparently has some time warping creature? What if Eva Stratt after being convicted escapes and sneaks on a ship that was supposed to be for a rescue mission for Grace, but instead she hides there until they are in space and then she hijacks the spaceship and makes them go in a different direction. If I was correct and ironlung does have a time creature then in this scenario the creature gets Eva and the spaceship, sends them slightly back in time to have them also fix the stars in that part of the universe. Eva Stratt is Ava, she’s trying to recreate project Hail Mary, and Ava’s attempt to save Simon is her guilt, over basically murdering Grace and then doing that a second time, spilling over and clouding her judgment
