The obvious place?

[Spinward Scout]

Just finished reading again Arthur C. Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey and I came across a paragraph I thought was interesting. It was Frank Poole talking to a Captain of a ship about the Monoliths:

"It's also widely agreed that TMA-1 was planted on the Moon to keep track of the project - experiment - whatever it was - and to report to Jupiter - the obvious place for Solar System Mission Control. That's why another Monolith - Big Brother - was waiting there. Had been waiting four million years, when Discovery arrived."

Why would Jupiter be the obvious place for Solar System Mission Control?

:alpha: Because it's the biggest planet in the system?
:alpha: Because it's the center planet of nine (now eight)?
:alpha: Because the Monolith recharges by magnetic flux?
:alpha: Because that's where all of the SDBs hang out waiting to catch pirates attacking ships that are skimming for fuel?

 

[Whipsnade]

Spinward,

Jupiter is the most obvious for one reason on your list; it's the largest planet, and for many other reasons not on your list.

No matter what type of intelligent species arises on Earth, Jupiter is going to be of great interest. It's huge, it has a "planetary system" of it's own, it's exotic, it's has weather, it has bands, it has spots, it's nearly a star, it thousands of other things. An intelligent species arising on Earth is going to study Jupiter from the moment it begins to look at the night sky.

Any intelligent species visiting the Sol System is going to look at Jupiter too.

Jupiter is also distant and a monolith there is thus somewhat more protected. A species could very well stumble across, spot, or otherwise deduce the existence of TMA-1 without also having the ability to reach Jupiter and encountering TMA-2. That will allow the Monolith Builders to get some warning of the discovery of TMA-1 before TMA-2 can possibly be compromised in some manner.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Spinward Scout]

Very Interesting.

Thanks Bill

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Of course it's Saturn in the book of 2001...

 

[kafka47]

Jovians are likely to be interesting...however the environment around would be quite hostile to any sentient exploration notwithstanding Clarke's predictions.

If I were to pick where to go Uranus would be a bigger pull than either Saturn or Jupiter. The wild magnetic field, Triton's gysers, the strange tracks on Umbra. When I saw Event Horizon, I had such high hopes then it was dashed by making it a gore spatterfest. I wish there a fan edit that could then take the best of Alien, 2001 & 2010 and spilce it onto Event Horizon. Then it would be my kind of movie.

 

[aramis]

Tangential discussion on screenplay vs books and off topic posts moved to here

 

[jpster]

Bianary System?

My TA in AST 101 told me a long time ago that Jupiter emits much more radiation (IR?) than it gets from the sun. I guess (not to belabour an old Obi-Wan Quote) that we are a true bianary, "From a certain point of view..."
Didn't one of the old CT Azhanti High Lightning scenarios come with gas-gianty blobs like the ones proported to be in Jupiter before it bacame a star?