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Epilogue: Atonement (8/8)
Zargon00

Well, I re-read it, and now neither ending seems so tragic anymore. I now think that there is utility in transforming the babyeaters that I didn't see before.

That said, the way they went about their supernova operation seems illogical, particularly the part about giving them 3 hours and 41 minutes. I would imagine they decided on that amount of time by estimating the chance of the superhappies showing up as more time passes times the disutility of them stopping the operation, vs the number of humans that will be killed by the supernova as more time passe... (read more)

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1Thinkchronous
Eliezer state elsewhere that he 3h 41m where the time the physical process needed - so they blew up the planet as fast as they could. (A hint is that ships are still evacuating when the process in the stars start and none pushes a button after the time limit ). But your analysis still holds, but the the decision in the story is not to blow up at half time, rather as early as possible.
Epilogue: Atonement (8/8)
Zargon30

This was terribly interesting, I'll be re-reading it in a few days to see what I can pick up that I missed the first time through.

I'm not so sure we can so easily label these two endings the good and bad endings. In one, humanity (or at least what humanity evolved into) goes along with the superhappies, and in the other, they do not. Certainly, going along with the superhappies is not a good solution. We give up much of what we consider to be vital to our identity, and in return, the superhappies make their spaceships look nice. Now, the superhappies a... (read more)

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