Line #10 Headscratchers/Virus


1	* The virus is apparently an electricity-based lifeform able to sustain itself indefinitely, yet it is "killed" when [[spoiler: the ship it's in is turned off]], or when [[spoiler: the robot it's controlling is destroyed]].
2	** Power requirements. Running a "host" without external power is a CastFromHitPoints situation--the virus has a choice between going into hibernation or using itself up to keep the system going.
3	** Electricity has limits on what it can do. Take out a fuse or a breaker and the current is broken and nothing can happen. When the ship was shut down the currents for the entity to move were basically severed and it couldn't do anything about it.
4	** It also is no longer in it's native environment, perhaps in space it had much more ambient energy to absorb while down on Earth it is in an energy-starved situation.
5	* Also, why does the virus need us for [[spoiler: spare parts]] if the far superior machine it eventually builds was made without our "help"?
6	** Obviously, it [[spoiler: cannibalised the organic parts it needed from its other robots]].
7	** Assimilation perhaps? It's not painted as being the most intelligent of lifeforms. Perhaps it intended to integrate the dangerous potential of the virus known as man to make itself more suited for survival on Earth.
8	** There are some things human body parts might be able to do better than 1999 computer parts. Perhaps it wanted to be able to feel things it touches, or maybe our nerves are good for conducting impulses.
9	** It probably thought of organic body advantages, the human body runs on about 100 watts a day of bioelectricity, our nerves are pretty good wiring when you think about it, Human bone (the collagen and Calcium part, not the marrow) is actually stronger than steel, and organic muscle is more flexiable and pliable than the usual pistons and gears approach, remember it was only here a week, any longer and it might have worked out how to replicate and mould human bodies to be more effective.
10	*** Given from what we see of most of the cyborgs the human parts are being used mostly as structural components with servo motors providing the locomotion. The remaining flesh on the body parts may be the builder being lazy or not seeing a reason to clean the bones or seeing use in remaining connective tissues holding things together (at least until they start to rot but the cyborgs may not be meant to be used for long-term anyway.)
11	** It might have been trying to also waterproof itself, trying to figure out a way to get off the ship without harming itself.
12	** RuleOfScary.
13	* Why exactly is this movie considered a flop? Granted it's not a masterpiece but it seemed like a pretty good movie.
14	** A box-office-flop is a movie that performs badly and fails to regain at least its budget, let alone make a profit, regardless of its quality. The movie's not the most godawful in existence, but it's more of a guilty pleasure than good, so it didn't bring in the crowds.
15	** The cast hated it as well. One considers it her trump-card for "shit movies I've been in" discussions.
16	** Since when did The Public have good taste?
17	* From the arrival of the entity to the tugboat discovering the Russian ship eight days have passed. How did several hundred Russian crew members wind up getting entirely killed off or driven away when the initial assault was small, highly vulnerable robotic insects designed for gathering components?
18	** There was obviously a rich plethora of weapons on the ship, but the crew didn't just walk around with AK-47s. They were in storage. It's possible that the virus's first act was to arm its gatherers and defend the weapons. And prior to the arrival of the gatherers, the Russians would have had no reason to go get weapons first. All they knew was of some kind of intelligence in the computers. Despite what videogames have done to you and I, the typical response to this problem is not to grab a machinegun and shoot everything that's plugged in.
19	** Nadya was very vague in recounting the happenings of those eight days. For all we know, it was a matter of hours before the first gatherers were constructed. After all, it was on the ship for mere seconds before it had already cracked the access code for the mainframe computer. The bigger machines could have been under construction when the Russians were still busy with the electrical fires on the bridge.
20	** Not to mention, Nadya said that some of the crew was killed by the halon fire system (halon being a very toxic gas) that was triggered by the virus and whatever was left decided to take their chances with the ocean. One can also assume others died during the initial interactions with the alien, either between the equipment explosions, to fighting the machines and those not as fortunate enough to cut cabling in time.
21	* The virus wanted to pilot the ship to Lord Howe Island, due to the satellite uplinks the British have there to virtually everywhere in the southern hemisphere. However, early in the movie, Foster reads from a book of noteworthy vessels that the Volkov has three parabolic satellite dishes, so it can maintain simultaneous communication with several spacecraft. It's established that only one of the three dishes is broken. Why wouldn't the virus simply establish contact with another spacecraft, and beam itself to somewhere on land? Surely the Mir wasn't the only thing in space that the Volkov could contact.
22	** Nadya and the captain smashed the transmission systems in the communications room. This is mentioned when Richie opens up one of the panels for the transmitter, asking Nadya if she smashed it, only for her to respond, "We destroyed every transmitter on the ship." Kinda hard for the alien to use the satellite dishes without a communication system to send a transmission.
23	** Lord Howe Island was also in the direct path of one of the undersea cables that provides communications to the rest of the world. It could be that the alien wanted a direct hard link (with a more stable power source) instead of relying on the ship (which has limited fuel and resources).
24	*** Although with all the equipment, supplies and materials, why didn't the alien repair one of the transmitters or build a new one?
25	** It's possible that it's initial method of getting on the ship was accidental or desperation, and it can't do that to get itself off the ship, it needs some form of wired connection to move of it's own accord, and if it risked trying to wireless beam itself off the ship the surrounding storm, it being an electrical based being, could dissipate it.
26	* Why did the entity decide to remove Everton's head from his own body and mount it onto the chassis of an under construction droid made from robotic legs and the torso of a Russian crew member? Why didn't it instead modify Everton in a manner similar to what happened to Squeakie?
27	** Squeakie was a quick assimilation, and I believe that the torso used was actually Woods, not a Russian crew member. Before Everton gets assimilated, he makes a comment about him and Woods "working together for twenty years", and I think that the intelligence took that statement literally. "Oh you've been together? I'll just do that," and made the two of them into a single entity. The robot is an alien intelligence after all.
28	** Not to mention, Everton told it that he was the "superior organism." It may have took this as that by him as being in control of the other members of the crew. So, it may have believed that by incorporating his head, the crew would have followed orders from the integrated Everton, without knowing the previous problems that the crew had with the Captain.
29	* Does anyone know what the message written in blood means?
30	** It says "Помогай меня", which is just as wrong as "Helpings mine". They clearly wanted to say "Помоги(те) мне" for "Help me" but failed the same way they did with almost all the other cyrillic texts.
31	*** To be fair it was written in ''Blood'', unless you are a serial killer I doubt you are spell checking your' panicked writing.
32	*** True, but every other Russian label in the movie is some jumbled bullshit, so it's not that - it's that someone couldn't spare a hundread bucks for a proofreader. Wouldn't be the first.
33	* Nadya managed to be the sole survivor still on the ship, and her big idea to cut off the power source was to... unplug a few breakers right next to the engine, why didn't she, or if it was one of the others before they were killed/evacuated, just smash that specific panel to junk, meaning it couldn't be brought back on?
34	** Seven days of hell? Little food, no sleep? She was too scared and exhausted to think clearly. It's also faster and easier, not to mention safer, to pull the switching relays from the control panel (physically cutting the circuits) than smashing it to junk (risking short circuits and getting electrocuted). Once she did that, she hid and slept before taking any further action. Once she was fully rested, she'd likely take stock of her situation, search the ship for her husband, come up with a plan to sink the ship, and either escape or go down with the ship.

Context Headscratchers / Virus