#general conspiracies

[negative-pressure-ventilator]

Just how irradiated did Ava and David get?

(Been sitting on this one for about a week trying to find a solution with the variables available to me, and failing!)

At timestamp 00:31:49, the manual's radiation warning regarding the SM-13's x ray camera is on screen:

From the manual: "Upon activation, the camera discharges 7,400 millisieverts of radiation per ignition."

That's 7,400 millisieverts of radiation at the point of ignition. The fun thing about radiation is that it follows the inverse square law; double the distance from the source and the dosage received is quartered. So if Jack got the full 7,400 millisieverts (he didn't, there was at least some distance between him and the point of ignition so the dosage he received was probably slightly less than the full 7,400. But for now, I'm going to fudge it and say that he did to avoid the headache) then what dosage did Ava and David receive?

First have to figure out how far away Ava and David were from the camera. The only "definitive" point of reference that I have is David's/Troy Baker's height, which is 6'3"~ or 190.5 cm for my own sanity.

My first instinct would be to do a height/distance calculation by taking that 190.5 cm and dividing by the tangent of the angle from the camera to the top of David's head, however I don't have enough information to get that angle. I've been toying around with a few other ways to calculate the distance, but I'm usually missing at least one necessary variable.

Not giving up just yet, just taking a moment to bang my head against the wall.

Notably, if we establish that Jack was about 0.1 meters away from the camera and got hit with that full 7400 mSv, then if Ava and David were standing just 1 meter away from the camera, they'd only have gotten hit with about 74 mSv of radiation. That's about... 11-12 chest CT scans at once. For reference, your risk for cancer raises about 5.5% upon receiving a dosage of 1000 mSv.

So I guess for now the answer to the question of "just how irradiated did Ava and David get" is: not that much, actually?

[negative-pressure-ventilator]

SM-13's Top/Average Speed

@retrograde-raven a gift for you

Skimmed through the movie and found three decent close-ups of the coordinates while the SM-13 is in motion. Timed it out with a stopwatch and documented the coordinates so I could calculate the distance traveled. The shots are only about 2-3 seconds each, but it's enough to work with.

00:35:56

time: 1.71 seconds

coordinates: 453.30, 247.80 → 453.58, 247.75

distance traveled: 0.284 meters

velocity: 0.166 m/s or 0.598 km/h (0.372 mph)

01:00:51

time: 2.83 seconds

coordinates: 927.62, 802.36 → 925.58, 799.82

distance traveled: 3.258 meters

velocity: 1.151 m/s or 4.144 km/h (2.575 mph)

01:19:15

time: 1.8 seconds

coordinates: 383.88, 614.82 → 382.19, 614.93

distance traveled: 1.694 meters

velocity: 0.941 m/s or 3.388 km/h (2.105 mph)

I'm counting the velocity taken at 00:35:56 as an outlier considering that the SM-13 was going up a considerable incline and was likely struggling. So based on the latter two velocities, the SM-13's average speed is 3.766 km/h, or 2.34 mph, top documented speed is 4.144 km/h or 2.575 mph. About 2.03 and 2.24 knots in nautical terms.

May not seem too impressive, but the Deepsea Challenger (manned submersible that reached the deepest known point on Earth) has a top speed of 3 knots, or 5.56 km/h (3.45 mph).

It's possible that the SM-13 is capable of higher speeds; the movie just doesn't give us enough data to say for certain. I'll keep an eye out for any other usable shots of the coordinates and update this post with any other evidence I come across.

[negative-pressure-ventilator]

Tow Ship

Been gathering whatever data I can on the design of the COI tow ship the SM-13 launches from (spoiler: there isn't much)

Molly Brown/deadlymelodic's concept art includes a rendering of the SM-13's exterior with a sliver of the tow ship visible:

The opening sequence includes the iconic shot of the SM-13 being lowered into the Blood Ocean. The hatch, or at least the silhouette of the hatch, is visible:

Very brief exterior shot of the SM-13 being lowered out of the tow ship from the official trailer:

During the SM-13's second launch from the tow ship, one of the ship's engines is visible from the SM-13's porthole:

Inferences:

The COI's tow ship isn't actually floating on the surface of the ocean itself, it's hovering above the surface in all instances of the SM-13 interacting with the tow ship. The ship's engines are audible at timestamp 00:17:14 as the SM-13 is being reeled in as well. So, definitely a space-faring (or at least atmosphere... faring. Sky-faring???) vessel and not a sea-faring one.

Speculation:

I'm really curious about the airlock system they're using to separate the launch bay from the rest of the ship. Well, I'm curious about the ship as a whole, but for now, airlock. They're not just opening a hatch and exposing the entire ship/launch bay to AT-5's atmosphere. Breathable air is a limited resource, confirmed by David at timestamp 00:25:31:

"Things could be alive down there right now! Food! Air! We need this!"

That technically also confirms that AT-5 doesn't have a significant amount of oxygen in its atmospheric composition, at least not enough to collect and pressurize for later use. Add that to the list of data we have on AT-5's atmosphere I guess.

Based on that, they wouldn't be willing to just open the doors and waste oxygen every time they have to launch. So, airlock.

If anyone has seen BTS information on the tow ship's design, please share! I'm guessing production had at least a partial model of the ship, but I haven't seen anyone mention or share it.

[negative-pressure-ventilator]

The Map

Above is the map seen in game; from what I can tell, the map in the movie is similar enough that the game map can be used as a very rough reference.

The map covers one square kilometer of the ocean floor; Ava confirms that the map's units are indeed meters at timestamp 00:34:45.

My best assumptions is that the maps were made using either sonar or radar scans, most likely radar for the following reasons:

The map is very, very vague. There's some suggestion of depth, but there's a lot of noise. I haven't been able to locate a clear shot of the depth gauge yet, but based on what I could get from timestamp 00:35:12 I'd say the average depth in the trench is about 9,800-11,200 meters (I really need a clear shot, I do not believe the SM-13, Hunk of Junk™ could go deeper than the lowest point of the Mariana Trench but this is all I've got). The intercom's radio signal gets spotty at depths below 10,00-ish.

Even if they were using a higher powered radar to map the ocean floor, the radio waves just wouldn't be able to get through the liquid medium very reliably (at least, based on what I've read on radio waves vs water. Radio waves through blood? fuck knows). Unreliable radar penetration = shitty, vague map.

Okay, but why not sonar? We've been able to get decent sonar scans of the Challenger Deep (deepest point of the Mariana Trench, 10,935 meters or so below sea level), so wouldn't it make more sense to use sonar, even if it may interact unpredictably with the viscosity of the liquid medium?

We have to remember that what remains of humanity after the Quiet Rapture lives aboard space stations and sea-faring vessels. Sonar is completely useless in space; there is no reason why they would have readily available sonar technology, let alone sonar high powered enough to penetrate 10,000+ meters of a much thicker liquid medium than water. Hell, the fact that they have a functioning ship to launch the SMs from is impressive.

So, radar.

Tangential question:

The proximity alert, right? I'd wager a guess that it's some kind of primitive passive sonar that was simple enough to make and install in 14+ hemorovers. Maybe radar, but using a radar system for the proximity sensors could potentially affect communications via intercom. But... if we're spending the resources to build and install high-powered x-ray cameras and engines that can produce the voltage needed for said cameras... would it be that hard to build a better sonar system? The x-ray camera can only see maybe 10 or so meters ahead. A decent sonar system with a much, much lower voltage requirement could see up to 60 meters.

I'm asking not to poke holes in the movie, but to try and figure out potential explanations. Why would the COI jump to x-rays instead of sonar? What is the benefit? What is their reasoning?

[negative-pressure-ventilator]

Mapping the Caves

The sequence where Simon maps the caves and find the SM-8 starts at about 00:57:24. The SM-13's coordinates at the start are 702.07, 652.77. He's relying pretty heavily on the camera at the start, his process being: take a picture, mark his surroundings on the map, rotate the rover's direction by 90°, repeat.

Above is the condition of the map at 00:58:25 (hi Ellie), right at the start of Simon's mapping endeavors. At 00:59:35, we cut to Simon glaring at the aggressively taped down camera shutter as the tape slowly peels off.

(side note: Simon's stuck using medical tape, my guess is a micropore paper surgical tape, which 1. is intended to stick to skin/gauze/porous surfaces, not metal, and 2. doesn't even stick to its intended surfaces very well in my experience. Somebody please get Simon some duct tape.)

Based on how much used tape is seen lying on the floor at 01:00:35, this is just the most recent of many attempts to keep the camera going while he navigates and charts the caves.

This seems to have been a decently effective method, as we get a glimpse of the map at 01:00:13, and Simon's made significant progress in charting the caves:

Speculation:

My best guess as to what happens off screen leading up to 00:59:35 is as follows:

Simon tapes down the camera shutter and starts to navigate based on the resulting pictures, periodically getting up to take notes of his surroundings on the map. The constant stream of pictures also allows him to an eye out for any hazards (like Ellie). He makes significant progress with this method, but it has its drawbacks.

The tape doesn't last long, so Simon is constantly having to get up and either re-adhere or add more tape to the camera shutter to keep it going.

He gets increasingly frustrated with the limited time the shutter will stay taped down, building up to the interaction seen at 00:59:35, where Simon has layered tape over the button and is nervously watching it slowly betray him.

Having run out of tape, Simon abandons the camera and instead relies on the proximity sensor, leaving himself unaware of threats such as sudden drops, wildlife encounters, etc.

[negative-pressure-ventilator]

Gravity of AT-5 (non-scientific bullshit)

This is probably going to end up being total bullshit, but I'll bring you along for the ride.

The scene where the sub/Simon are in free fall isn't as helpful as I had hoped it would be; Simon's fall is only on screen for about a third of a second, and there aren't a lot of good potential references for distance. Fuck it, I'm doing the math anyway. If I get 9.81 m/s² I'm deleting this blog.

Time

Had to pull this clip up in a video editor and skim through frame by frame to get the exact times. There's a total of 15 frames between when the sub impacts the surface and Simon hits the deck. At 24 fps, that means Simon is falling for approximately 0.625 seconds. His fall is only on screen for 8 frames/0.333 seconds.

Distance

This is trickier. The only thing in frame that I can use as a measuring tool is Simon himself. So fuck it, Simon's a ruler now.

Measured out 64 units and compared it to Mark's height (178 cm), so one unit is about 2.78 cm. Used the distance from Simon's shoulder to the top of his belt as a reference since that's what's on screen during his fall, which ends up being 16 units or 44.48 cm.

And now we move over to the first frame of Simon's fall:

Scaled up my shitty ruler and used frames from later in his fall to gauge where the center of his chest would impact the deck to get the distance. All in all we witness Simon fall 28 units, or 77.84 cm.

Calculating...

So I've got part of the distance that he falls, the time it takes him to cover said part of the distance, the total time it takes Simon to fall, and his initial velocity (0 m/s). Fuck. There's probably a formula for this but it's been too long since I took physics.

I can only get his average velocity during the period of time that he's onscreen, which is 2.34 m/s. The thing about gravity is that it's just a constant acceleration towards the ground; Simon's been in the air for 0.292 seconds already at the start of the shot, so his velocity isn't going to be zero. His velocity when he hits the deck isn't going to be 2.34 m/s either, it'll be slightly faster than that because again, average velocity. If I just say fuck it and use 2.34 m/s as his final velocity, I can plug that into a speed difference equation using the total fall time of 0.625 seconds and get 3.74 m/s² as his acceleration, but as soon as I plug that result into a distance via constant acceleration equation, I get 0.73 meters, which is less than the distance we witnessed him cover, aka it is wrong.

So basically, all I can say for certain is that Simon was definitely going faster than 2.34 m/s when he hit the deck, and that the gravitational acceleration is faster than 3.74 m/s².

I'll sleep on it and revisit it tomorrow. I'm definitely missing something.

@retrograde-raven @ctrl-shift-alt-9 I have failed you both

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Crew Manifest

Molly Brown, concept artist and designer for Iron Lung, posted a shitload of the assets from the movie on her website (love you Molly)

Some of the assets under "Cam Pictures" include files from the SM-8's black box that are very very briefly seen on screen from 01:43:30–01:43:50. This post is specifically focusing on the Crew Manifest seen at 01:43:41.

Inferences:

All crew members are listed with their ID numbers, surnames, sexes, blood types, and role.

All ID numbers include a sequence of 4 digits, 4 characters, then 2 characters, aside from crew member Vaughan, who has 2 digits, 1 character, 1 digit, 4 char, 2 digits. Considering that it's the only outlier, I'd assume this is a typo or a glitched 8. There isn't any immediately obvious pattern, but I'll have to do some further analysis to say for certain.

The presence of surnames confirms that 300+ years in the future, humanity, or at least those within the C.O.I., has continued the use of surnames

Speculation:

There doesn't seem to be any order to how the crew is listed; not alphabetically, not by ID number, not grouped by crew role. This leaves us with the options of:

Sorted by hierarchy

Sorted by order of when they joined the crew

Sorted by a column that is not shown in this section of the file

My instinctual reaction is to say by hierarchy? Captain, Chief Officer, Head Engineer, etc etc. I have no confirmation of this obviously, it's just a working hypothesis that could easily be disproven.

Speaking of hypotheses, I doubt that this is the crew manifest of the SM-8 itself. The SM-8 and the SM-13 are similar enough to share the same manual, and the size looks to be about the same. There's no way they're fitting 33 people in there, so unless this is a complete list of everyone who has gone on a voyage in the SM-8 (doubtful), my hypothesis is that this is the crew manifest of the tow ship at the time of the SM-8's voyage.

Questions:

Is the crew really 18% medical staff or does the role of "Medic" encompass like... medical research staff?

Why do they have the crew's blood types on file?

What convention are the ID numbers following?

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A Collection of Unanswered Questions

In no particular order: things I've speculated on in the past with sign of any real answers

This post will be edited/added onto/redacted I find answers, encounter more questions, or deem questions unanswerable.

Timeline Questions

What year was AT-5 and/or the Blood Ocean discovered?

When was the SM-8's last voyage?

What year did Filament Station's destruction occur?

When did Simon surrender to the C.O.I.?

AT-5

What is the gravitational acceleration of AT-5? Size? Etc?

Does AT-5 have an atmosphere, and if so, what is its composition?

Why call it a moon?

Is it the only moon? Are Z-8 and the other two moons canon to the movie? Is this the only Blood Ocean?