u/PieterSielie6

Im seeing comments like "Nolan's career is over" and stuff like that

Part III: The descension.

 

Everyone went back to their designated areas, in the early PRs of their mission while things were tense they all still looked forward to arriving at their destination, but now despite the fact that they were nearing closer and closer to their destination they felt nothing but dread, said dread was a combination of the uncertainty of where whether or not they would be turned to mush on impact, the ever present mistrust between their former comrades and the sinking feeling of not knowing if they would even survive to see the end of their trip.

 

The ship was eerily silent, the crew had never realised that the engines gave off a soft hum until the control panel was destroyed and said engines deactivated. Breeze sat in the Control room for a long while, in all their time alone in the room he and Holes did not say a word to each other. Nobody ever bothered to clean up the destroyed panel, so the chunks of computer and screen just sat there on the floor. Whenever Breeze heard the faintest noise, whether it was the muffled sounds of what was probably Stone working in the Tool room or footsteps coming from either adjacent room, he would subtly clutch his burner a bit harder. Breeze heard something again, probably just Stone again. Holes was facing the window so he had to at all times look out of the window, Breeze however was staring out of the window by choice much like his former Captain would, his eyes went from star to star not particularly focusing on anyone of them. 

 

Suddenly Lights hit Breeze over the head with a chunk of computer, Breeze fell to the floor; while painfully clutching his head he spun around to see Lights bending down right next to him, in his one hand Lights held the chuck of machinery and he was reaching for the burner Breeze had just dropped with his other. Breeze was too slow to grab the burner back, Lights picked it up and pointed at Breeze’s head “Get away!” Lights shouted, “Get away from me!” He shouted shaking the burner at Breeze. Breeze quickly crawled across the floor away from him, he looked to the kitchen door, it was open, Lights had somehow broken free from his rope and snuck into the room behind Breeze.

 

“Give me your gadget!” Lights demanded still shaking the burner madly, Breeze slid his gadget across the floor into his hands. Lights pressed the emergency button on the gadget, he then walked over to the nearest wall and without warning started banging the gadget against it. Maps and Sneaks were first to enter from opposing doors “What in the-“ Sneaks said before being cut off by Lights “Back away! BACK AWAY!” He shouted while switching between pointing the burner at Sneaks and Maps.

 

A crack appeared across the back of the gadget, since he was still pointing the burner randomly around the room, he put the gadget in his mouth and with his other hand tore it in half exposing several live wires. By now Gadget, Stone and Ice had also entered, “Hey!” Stone shouted, “Quiet!” Lights shouted, “He got out! He’s got a burner! We need to-“ Stone was cut off by Lights “QUIET!” He screeched. 

 

Lights took a deep breath “Alright everyone.” Lights said clutching one of the wires the gadget was dangling from right next to the small tank of the burner which contained its flammable liquid “If anyone tries anything then this wire touches the tank, and it goes boom.” Lights was slowly stepping towards the window “If it explodes a hole is blown in this window and everyone dies.” Everyone went silent and slowly stepped away, Lights continued “If I do that the Things die which would be good but I know some of you are still alright and in case you forgot we still have a mission to complete and we have to be alive to do it!”

 

Holes was trying desperately to escape from his ropes “Get me out of here! Please!” Holes accidently rocked in the chair too hard, and he and it fell to the ground. “What… what are you doing Light!?! How it you even get out of your rope!?” Ice asked, “Listen, listen everyone!” Lights said, “I was in the kitchen alone facing the wall, I couldn’t see anything, I heard Gadget had burned himself making something and walked off to I think the medical room, right!?” Gadget nodded so he continued “And then the door opened, I suddenly heard some muffled screaming, then strange noises, like some sort of wet gurgling sound. I started thrashing around trying to break free, it unexpectedly worked! I broke free!”

 

Lights was shaking the wire was holding against the burner as he spoke, it came dangerously close to contacting the tank. “I whipped around, and… an… I saw this mass of tentacles behind me, across one of the tentacles were these massive teeth, I think that Thing broke me free!” Maps was looking at the burner, “Just put that thing down Lights.” he said. “LET ME FINISH!” Lights shouted, “The Thing for some reason left me alone, I saw it leave the room but before it-“ Lights was cut off by Stone “Come on guys, we know it’s him! We can’t let him beat us like this!” Stone was still holding a wrench he was using earlier, he walked forward brandishing the wrench like a weapon. 

 

“Hold on! Wait!” Breeze screamed, “Listen Lights-“ He was cut off by Lights “No you listen! Before it left, I saw it transform back into one of us! I know who is a Thing here!” Breeze thought for a moment, “Don’t tell you believe him!” Ice cried. “Wait, Lights will you tell us who it is? Can you also drop the burner and gadget?” Breeze asked.

 

“How do I know you’ll believe me!? How do I know I’m not about to be thrown in the Airlock!? I’m not putting this down until I figure out how to prove I’m telling the truth!” Lights shouted, Breeze thought again “Please tell us who it is, just put the burner down.” Lights’ three eyes were darting between the crewmates, no eye focused on the same crewmember. Lights suddenly dropped the gadget loudly and started walking towards the group, Stone held his wrench high ready for attack, but Breeze blocked him from walking forward “Wait!” Breeze yelled.

 

“Maps.” Lights said unexpectedly calmly, he was standing right in front of Maps and pointing the burner at his face, “It’s Maps.” Lights said simply. “We’re not about to let him shoot Maps right in front of our eyes!” Stone screamed. “Oh no I’m not about to shoot him, not until I can prove what I already know.” Lights replied. Maps had nothing but terror in his eyes, his hands were in the air “Listen…” Maps said with a quaver in his voice, “I don’t know what you saw but it’s not me, I can promise that as certainly as space is dark.” Lights was attempting to hold the burner steady, but it was slowly shaking, “Please put that down, don’t do anything irrational” Maps continued.

 

“Please Lights.” Breeze said, “Come on!” Ice shouted, “Put it down!” Sneaks screamed. Everyone was pleading now, except Stone who remained quiet. The burner in Lights’ hand began shaking rapidly again, he seemed to begin getting overwhelmed by everyone’s pleas, he stared into Maps’ eyes, Maps stared back with fear and powerlessness. With his left most eye Lights looked to his side to see Stone holding the wrench tighter and tighter while subtly moving closer. Lights took a deep breath.

 

The usual white light emitted by the ship’s lights were suddenly replaced with a yellow one, along with the firing sound of a burner. Stone ran forward lifting the wrench up high, Lights quickly turned to aim at Stone but did not fire, when Stone reached him, he swung the wrench down hitting Lights in the head with it. Lights fell to the floor, Stone stared down at his body, Lights’ facial expression was frozen, and a putrid orange liquid was pouring out of his head. Maps’ flaming head right next to Lights’ body, Stone looked up to see Maps still standing, headless.

 

Maps’ arms melted away into an army of red tentacles, the tentacles moved to completely cover Stones head and neck and started pushing him back up against the wall. Everyone screamed but there was nothing they could do, Stone still had the wrench in his hand and blindly flailed it around randomly but he never hit his attacker, the Thing walked simply forward and the mass of tentacles that once were it’s arms seemingly grew shorter, as they wriggled into Stone further and further his desperate flails of the wrench grew weaker and weaker, after a couple of seconds he dropped it to the ground.

 

Breeze saw the burner was just behind the Thing on the floor, strange moving bulges appeared under the Thing’s pants above its feet (if it even still had feet). Breeze dived down to grab the burner, without warning the Thing’s pants tore and several more tentacles burst out, one longer one lunged towards Breeze’s arm, he quickly grabbed the Burner and shot the tentacle before it reached him.

 

The tentacle fell to the floor as it burned, the fire began spreading from it to the bottom of the Thing’s body, the Thing (seemingly sensing this) detached the tentacles digging deeper and deeper into Stone and turned around. By this point where Stone’s head usually was there was a sphere of wriggling tentacles, however Stone’s lower body remained untouched and eerily still. The Thing just stood there, now just a body with burning tentacles for legs, while it was slowly being more engulfed by flames, suddenly its chest burst open and a long thing creature that looked like a disformed and melted Voltive emerged.

 

The abomination quickly slivered across the floor in pursuit of Breeze, Breeze quickly shot at it and just before it reached him on the third shot in curled and roared in pain as the fire overwhelmed it, just before it turned to ash Breeze saw it had three eyes, just like them. Breeze looked up to see the ashen corpse of what was once Maps and behind its ‘Stone’ slowly walking away while covered in massive bulges and the tentacles on his ‘head’ still flailing around. Before Breeze could shoot it, the bulges burst with tentacles, all across its body the tentacles burrowed out each desperate to escape.

 

Breeze shot it right in its chest, it began wailing with that same distorted amalgamation of what it had previously consumed’s cries. It fell to the floor and burned with a bright fire; the tentacles tried one final time to slither away out of the fire, but they were unsuccessful. Breeze fell to the ground in anguish once the fire and danger truly dissipated.

 

Gadget stood over Lights’ body “He… he was right” he said. Ice walked over to the ash that once was what once was Stone “Are we all just dead?” He asked bluntly. “Stone brought our acceleration down by managing to activate one of the thrusters before.” Sneaks replied, “So… what? We have a chance?” Breeze asked. “Yes,” Sneaks responded, “I don’t know if it was effective.” He added. “Would someone please help me up!?” Holes asked who was still tied to his chair on the floor.

 

While Ice and Sneaks walked over to help Holes up, Gadget walked to Breeze “What happens now?” He asked. Breeze looked out of the window, a slowly expanding blue sphere which was there destination planet was growing across the black expanse, “We… hope,” he said, Breeze walked over to Stone’s body “We are powerless to control the fate of the ship,” he looked at the Thing’s bodies “We don’t know if any of us are hiding anything,” he looked back to Gadget “We can only hope we reach that planet safely.”

 

Subtle anger was growing on Sneaks’ face “Correct me if I’m wrong Ice” Sneaks began, “But isn’t this mission, the most important and essential event in our planet’s history?” Before Ice could reply Sneaks continued, “Aren’t we at the most dangerous point in said mission? More than half of our are crew dead, a Thing is potentially among us, we’re barrelling towards at the planet, and what does our ‘leader’ say, what is their-“ Sneaks was cut off by Ice “Now is not the time-“

 

“WHEN IS!?” Sneaks shouted back, “Hope!? You hope? Is that your plan!? To hope!?” Ice was caught off guard “What else can we do!?” Sneaks looked to Breeze “Make tests, think of ways to save the ship, anything!” Breeze looked around the room at everyone “I’ll… We’ll do that, let’s all just calm down for now, I know we’re all scared but… well… we haven’t eaten in a while right? Let’s all go for a meal; can you please make one Gadget?”

“One of you could have sabotaged the food, there is no way I’m eating anything, not yet.” Sneaks said in a calmer tone. The group walked out of the Control room dragging Holes by the chair to the kitchen as Sneaks also walked off in a different direction. Despite dragging Holes all the way to Kitchen, he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about being fed by hand, nobody seemed too keen to be the one to feed him either. Ice barely ate, just sort of playing with his food, cutting it up and shuffling it around his plate, Breeze and Gadget however ate their food quicker, with Breeze even almost choking at one point, when Breeze finished the others quickly dispersed, nobody wanted seemed to want to interact with anyone anymore.

 

Out of the various windows on the ship the crewmembers could see the ship was swaying from side to side (perhaps it was some sort of failure with the autopilot), the view from outside (depending on where you stood in the ship) quickly alternated between the void of space and their final destination hurling towards them, only a matter of time. A notification popped up on everyone’s gadgets, the source was Sneaks’ gadget, “I think I can make a test for us, I’m in the Computer room.” It read.

 

Everyone arrived within moments of each other, Gadget and Breeze entered from the side of the Observatory and Ice entered from the Incubator side. “How?” Breeze asked simply, “I’ve been researching how they made testing devices them back on Proxima,” Sneaks replied; indeed he was holding two larger gadgets which belonged to the Computer room, one had a page of the testing devices open and the other he was currently dismantling. “Can we help?” Breeze asked tiredly.

 

“No.” Sneaks responded, “Just make sure that thing is turned off.” Breeze added, Sneaks nodded while continuing to dismantle the gadget, the other three stood around Sneaks looking intently at him far from one another. Ice looked doubtful, “How do we know he isn’t just about to make a device that is going to-“ Ice was interrupted by the sudden sound of electricity screeching, Sneaks gave a painful jolt and his face fell on top of the disassembled device, the screeching grew louder and was joined by a sort of sizzling sound.

 

Gadget and Breeze ran forward, Gadget pulled the device out from under Sneaks’ face, and he threw it to one side, Breeze turned Sneaks around to reveal a burned disfigured face, his skin had turned a sickly brown colour and was giving off smoke, the image of the internal components and wires of the gadget looked like they were printed on his face. Breeze and Gadget looked shocked, saddened and disgusted by what they saw; Ice however had walked over to the gadget on the floor, he tried to switch it on, but its screen remained dark, but after rearranging a few wires in the back the screen lit up.

 

“Hey!” Ice suddenly said looking at its screen, “This thing turned on because it received a notification… it received a notification from…” his voice trailed off as he looked up, but it was too late. Gadget had run over to him, his stomach splitting open revealing misplaced teeth and large tendrils, once he reached Ice he bit into his torso while rapping its tendrils around him, Ice screamed but he could not with all his might pull away. With its now swelling hands the Thing grabbed the gadget out of Ice’s hand and threw it at Breeze with unnatural strength and accuracy before he could do anything.

 

The gadget hit Breeze right in his chest, and he fell to the ground in pain, Ice was still yelling in agony and seemingly to silence him the Thing opened its mouth to reveal a knife-like tongue which dug into Ice’s middle eye. Breeze looked up from the floor to see the two dropping behind one the tables which was one on its side. Breeze crawled on the ground to look for the burner while a disturbing slimy sound echoed around the room, when he found it, he stood up and walked to the table, Sneaks’ body lay into front of it, Breeze walked over to see what was behind it.

 

Behind the table lay a large blob of inexplicably red flesh, moving buldges appeared and disappeared across the blob, apparently something was moving underneath. Suddenly claws appeared from underneath the blob’s skin, once a hole was torn threw the skin a tiny creature crawled out, it looked just like the head of Ice, but it had a small leg with a claw protruding from each of its eyes, it turned around and once it seemingly spotted the room’s exit and started dragging itself towards it.

 

The creature was constantly extreeting a sickly yellow liquid out of its mouth to make dragging itself across the floor easier. Breeze looked down at what remained of Ice and shot it, with a high-pitched wail the creature burst into flames, the trail of yellow liquid it left behind also was set alite and started carrying the flame back to the blob. The ship was hitting the upper atmosphere of the planet, so the room was filled with the bright orange colour of the ship colliding with the air.

 

The blob had gained a new hole in its centre, the moment the flames hit it, the hole grew, and the entire blob unfolded into a flat sheet of flesh covered in teeth and tentacles. In the centre of the sheet there was something curled up into a ball, the ball itself unfurled into a massive monster that resembled a crewmember of the mission but twice in size and covered in reddish orange slime, there was no way something that large had fit in the blob and yet there it stood.

 

It took a slow step forward, Breeze shot it in the chest with the burner, it didn’t react and took another step forward, Breeze shot it again, it stepped ever closer, Breeze’s hand grew shaky as he shot at it desperately, it was giving a loud and ferocious roar while flames covered it’s body agonisingly slower and it inched ever closer to Breeze, Breeze hit the wall, he couldn’t retreat further back, in one last desperate plea he shot at it in several times and dropped to the floor covering his face. A moment later when Breeze was still untouched by the Thing and distorted screeches filled the room, he looked up to see the Thing covered in flames, yet still standing.

 

The Thing ran around the room blindly for a moment before finally falling to the floor, its distorted roar having evolved into a low-pitched growl. Breeze just stood there for a moment, still shaking with fear. Without warning Sneaks jumped up and looked around, “What happened?” He asked, without hesitation Breeze shot him, while he looked at Sneaks writhing on the floor, dying, he thought for a moment. Suddenly Breeze ran off to the control room which was drenched in orange light, when he entered, he walked over to Holes, pointed the burner at his head and pushed the button.

 

Nothing happened, Breeze looked at the burner’s tank and saw that it was finally empty, Breeze and Holes stared into each other’s eyes.

 

Part IV: The Thing.

 

As the ship drew ever closer to the ground, the Thing, the final Thing, revealed itself to the final crewmate, with victorious glee the Thing tore apart and consumed the defenceless Proximian, it had won. A moment later the ship finally hit the ground, the Thing barely felt and the impact, it was staring out of the window (much like its previous enemy had) seeing only white snow. The Thing considered all off shoots and assimilated beings as being of itself, though sometimes they inhabited different bodies it still considered all those unlucky enough to be consumed by it to be itself.

 

It had always been difficult for it to see its enemies kill members of its own species (more like members of itself) right in front of its eyes with nothing it could do but patiently wait to consume the rest of them, but that was always what it was like to be a Thing, to be The Thing. The Thing walked to the Airlock room, it decided arbitrarily to continue being in the form of the Proximian it previously was, it didn’t really matter, it could of course at anytime sprout tentacles and hastily make its way to the Airlock, but Things were nothing but patient.

 

When it finally reached the Airlock room it entered the airlock and opened the door to see nothing but more snow, while Things were patient it was not in the mood to dig, it was still on the high of its victory, a worthless piece of Kinnil meat had grown to be master of the ship and destroyer of its worthless futile mission to save its species. The mind of the Thing was a hivemind, a sort of platform where the memories and experiences of all it had previously assimilated could be united by the ‘general intelligence’, who had the common goal of replication and survival.

 

The Thing’s general intelligence summoned the knowledge of one of the crewmates of this ship, the one they called ‘Maps’, Maps had had a great knowledge of the ship, Maps told the Thing had it could via a hatch above its head. The Thing looked up and there it was, a hatch had led to the top of the ship. Using the knowledge left behind by the Villow’s it expertly used its tentacles to climb up and out of the hatch. The cold air of the Thing’s home hit its extensive senses, the sky was blue, much like the skin of the ship’s crewmates. The ship had carved a crater in the snow, just a bit of climbing and it would be free.

 

Once the Thing climbed out of the crater it walked on, growing ever slowly and slower as it did. It was going to have to sleep here in this snow, for who knows how long, but that’s alright. The Thing finally fell to the ground, it knew its kind had dominated the universe, so one day it would be discovered, even if its kind was successfully taken out as well it knew one day some naive civilisation would dig it up and then it would have more life to corrupt, to reform. The Thing fell asleep not to be disturbed for 100,000 years…

I just noticed this now:

After Blair is locked up in the shed, Mac, Childs, Fuchs, Copper and Gary discuss the blood test. It imeadiatly cuts to the blood having been sabotaged.

How much time passed between that conversation and the blood being sabotaged?

If Copper was going to imeadiatly "start working on it", the Thing's window to sabotage the blood would be small.

Would the rest of the crew know that they were planning this test? If the blood's saboteur overheard them talking about the test inside, their window would be even smaller.

Its more likely somone present at the conversation sabtaged the blood.

Fuchs, Copper and Gary were all human, while the film ends with it being ambiguous as to if Mac and Childs are human or thing.

I had always assumed that if Childs was a thing, he was assimilated after the others left to check on Blair at the end of the film. And i assumed that if Mac was a thing, he two would've been assimilated at a later stage (like after recording the message). If Childs or Mac sabotaged the blood, they would've had to have been assimilated much earlier.

On the successful blood test later, if Mac or Childs were already assimilated, this suggests either the blood test is imperfect or things can decide whether it works or not (so Palmer intentionally allowed his blood to react like that). If its the former, we might assume that if a person is 'partially assimilated' (like some have suggested for Norris) the test would've failed. This would be strange since Mac or Childs had already been assimilated at this point for a few days. If its the latter, its just as weird since it leads to the question of why would Palmer reveal himself?

Another thing to consider:

Only one person isn't seen drawing blood, that being Mac. Mac already had his beaker of blood ready. But if the blood in that beaker wasn't his, where would he have gotten it? The blood from earlier of course! Mac could've faked his blood test by a sleight of hand using the blood he had sabtoaged earlier. In that case, Palmer could've (intentionally or not) revealed himself to give Mac the total trust of the crew. Notice how Mac seemingly waits for Windows to get attacked before he burns Palmer.

The diagram compared the number of manuscripts and the earliest manuscript of the NT versus other acient writings. The NT had nearly 6,000 manuscripts while the other didnt have nearly as much. The date earliest copy of the NT was 125 AD

I know the 125 AD date is very disputed and its for the tiny p52 papyrus. But is it true that texual critics are more certain about the original words of the NT than other acient literature?

If this is the case, why was the NT particularly well preserved?

If God can't interact with the world, how is that different from Atheism?

How do you define objective greatness? How do you defend agaisnt accusations of circular logic?

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