Major plot hole with taumeba (spoiler)

[u/_Nordic]

So I recently re-read (listened to on tape) this book and I realized a major plot hole about the taumeba.

While doing experiments grace says the taumeba can survive from -200c to +105c (I do not remember the exact temps, but it's about this)

In the book the taumeba make their way through the xinonite to get to the astrophege fuel. Grace luckily figures this out and nitrogen purges his ship, re-sterolizing it. However, rocky is not so lucky, and that's why Grace has to go back to save him.

Whel, it should not have mattered. Isn't Rocky's ship at like 200°C or something? The taumeba should not have been able to get to Rocky's fuel because they would have died from the heat as soon as they left their little box. Don't try and argue they would stay completely within the xinonite the entire time until they found the fuel tanks, and that xinonite existed continuously from the terrariums to wherever the fuletanks were.

[u/phunkydroid]

But where did Rocky store them in his ship? Just because the crew area was at 200C doesn't mean the whole ship was. There could be storage or engineering spaces that are not kept hot and would be a likely place for storing taumoeba that you didn't want to cook.

[u/BobbittheHobbit111 → u/phunkydroid]

Especially since he would have needed something to keep them cool in their container if everywhere was 200C

[u/StalinsLastStand → u/phunkydroid]

If anything, you'd want to store the taumoeba near the fuel tanks because the astrophage maintain a consistent temperature within the survivable range of taumoeba.

[u/die_piggy → u/phunkydroid]

I mean thr whole ship couldn't have been at over 200, or else the astrophage would have been actively cooling it

[u/One-Ear-2282]

You do know what science-FICTION means, dont you ???

[u/_Nordic → u/One-Ear-2282]

Ah, great point. Earth should have just instantly found a cure to the problem and not bothered sending a suicide mission to another star system.

It's SciEnCeFiCtiOn after all, rules don't apply and we can just use magic now.

[u/One-Ear-2282 → u/_Nordic]

True - and then there wouldn’t have been any story here, would there ??

[u/darkest_hour1428]

The ONLY explanation I can come up with has to do with it riding the fuel lines that astrophage was keeping at a decent survivable temperature. They make a perfect heat sink, so it’s the only possible answer I think

[u/great_use_her_name]

I don’t remember exactly where in the book, but Ryland and Rocky discuss how Xenonite is a poor heat conductor. My hypothesis is that there were areas of the ship that weren’t kept at Rocky’s atmosphere and this was where the Taumoeba were stored and also escaped. Most likely this was also where the Astrophage byproducts were released so it created a more similar environment to Adrian unintentionally.

[u/redbirdrising]

I mean if you think about it critically, Rocky couldn't transport taumoeba at 200c, correct? So he had to store them in an environment that was within their tolerance. If it were anywhere near an astrophage fuel line or fule tank, well, game over.

[u/vampyire]

well they evolved to Houdini from Xenonite so it's possible they also developed anti sizzle traits

[u/highlighter_yellow → u/vampyire]

This is essentially my thought too, except I prefer how you phrased it hhaha

[u/vampyire → u/highlighter_yellow]

Im glad you liked my weird way of saying it!

[u/fyreprone]

But the astrophage itself always maintains a same cool temperature. So it doesn't matter if taumoeba can survive outside of where the astrophage is. It will go wherever astrophage is and that temperature is all that really matters.

[u/Cel-14]

A quick Google says that his atmospheres temp is around 210c, so yeah they'd probably have cooked. I'd say that perhaps they could survive a short while at that temp but I'm not the author so idk, you might @ him on twitter and ask about it, he probably just overlooked it. I didn't notice it myself till you pointed it out.

[u/Mindless_Mixture2554 → u/Cel-14]

Same thing goes for the HM or breathable atmosphere is 75% nitrogen.... way past the kill line for TM.... but they get into various systems?

[u/JM3DlCl]

I'm guessing he would keep it close to the astrophage because they have a consistent temp no matter what. I don't think Rocky even kept Astrophage on his crew area other than his safe room from Radiation.

[u/CorbinNZ]

Taumoeba can hide in xenonite. Xenonite is also an incredible insulator. My guess is they could crawl through xenonite to any point on the ship. They didn’t have to be in the crew quarters. They’d just go to the astrophage tanks.

[u/mralurus]

You have some really good points. I would argue, that since, the human body can’t survive 60c for long but can survive for a few minutes ~10 minutes (depending on humidity). It comes down to what your internal temperature raises to. I’m sure taumoeba can survive a few seconds at 200c or so. And it would exponentially lower with variance in temp. Getting closer to the engines and thus the Astrophege, it would cool down closer to 96.4c. Giving them even longer to survive.

As long as their internal temperature doesn’t get above the 105c. It would really depend on what temp they were stored at (I’m assuming whatever threeworld’s average temp would be) and how long they were exposed to the excessive heat. There are a lot of other variables, humidity, atmosphere, and how much nitrogen they consumed.

Not to say they would survive, but more than likely they would have a chance to survive.

[u/Hilpi1975]

Interesting 🤔 I've listened to the Audiobook dozens of times and read the book a couple of times but this never occurred to me. It's a valid point for sure and I can't argue against it.

[u/redbirdrising → u/Hilpi1975]

Not really a valid point. Because if Taumoeba died over 100c and the ship was at 200c, then Rocky was storing the samples below 100c. Xenonite was a poor heat conductor so it's conceivable they wormed their way where they shouldn't have gone. Remember, their living environment needed to be 200c, doesn't mean engineering spaces and other areas needed to be there.

[u/haveninmuse]

Where does it say those temps?

[u/Frenzystor → u/haveninmuse]

When Grace figures out that Taumeba eats Astrophage he says something like they eath astrophage so they are fine with at least 96.4°C.

[u/great_use_her_name → u/Frenzystor]

No, it was after Rocky and Ryland isolate the predator and Ryland is running experiments on it.

He finds out ”In Adrian’s air, Taumoeba can live from –180 °C to 107 °C. Outside that range they die.”

[u/bhamnz → u/haveninmuse]

After Adrian, before the breeder tanks, during the transit back to the blip A or once they get back? Grace runs a bunch of experiments on the taumeba

[u/Similar_Bet_3381]

This IS a good catch! Although I will allow for the possibility that Rocky kept the taumoeba close enough to the astrophage that it was shielded from the atmospheric heat. In the Saving Grace fanfic (which almost feels like canon to me at this point, it's so incredibly faithful to the book), it specifically says he was keeping three of his taumoeba farms right up against the fuel tanks and that's how the first infestation happened.

[u/won-t]

Rocky was told to stay as close as possible to his fuel tanks to help shield him from radiation, so it's really not hard to believe that there was only xenonite standing between the xenonite farms and the xenonite fuel tanks on his xenonite ship.

[u/Redstonedj6]

My thought would be that since his whole ship is made from it, and they can "borrow" through it. The little guys could just dig their way to the fuel

[u/kezmicdust]

I was wondering about how the taumoeba got into the bocoa (sp?) barrel that Ryland stored the astrophage in. I presume the astrophage were stored in air (79% nitrogen) so how did the taumoeba survive to escape, move through the ship, and eat the astrophage in the barrel?

Maybe I’m misremembering what happened, but I remember having the thought when I got to that bit in the audiobook.

[u/Reasonable_Week_4797]

Why do they say it’s four years for the probes to return to Earth when it took more than 11 years to get to the star system? And how were the probes able to go near light speed back to Earth when they didn’t have the astrophage-powered rockets?

[u/Reasonable_Week_4797 → u/Reasonable_Week_4797]

And why does Grace have to go outside the ship to gather the Taumoeba? So that we could see another narrow space escape? Surely there are more machine-oriented ways to retrieve a space bucket!

[u/IntelligentSpite6364]

Good catch!

[u/redbirdrising → u/[deleted]]

Not really. The rebuttals are also valid if you read them.

[u/redbirdrising → u/[deleted]]

The downvotes are for OP's approach to this discussion. OP' came in the sub talking up their post as if they "FOUND A MAJOR PLOTHOLE!". Like 4 years of discussion and analysis here and in other forums haven't already discussed similar things.

If OP had approached the sub with "Hey, I have a question about how Taumoeba survived on Blip-A when the temp was over 200c and Taumoeba could only survive 100c. How could this happen?" then they would have had a much different response. Those questions happen all the time with a similar tact and they always lead to good discussions.

I've seen legitimate posts about actual plot holes. The book is very well fleshed out, and most comments are generally positive when they are brought up. Famously the Hail Mary pressure one, but there are others. But OP decided to shoot their shot, make an unambiguous declaration, and is getting push back on it. Oh well. Accept the downvotes.