Poetic Licence and other things
Spoiler Alert
If you haven’t read the book yet, don’t read this either. Unless you’re a goldfish, in which case, you’ll probably be fine.
How much of that was real?
I know it’s not possible to beam someone up, dilithium crystals can’t power a warp drive, and despite my best efforts, the Jedi mind trick doesn’t seem to work; maybe I’m doing it wrong? That hasn’t stopped me from enjoying Sci-Fi, and hopefully it doesn’t put you off either.
Often after reading a book, or watching a film, I’m left wondering, “How much of that was real?” The inevitable truth is that authors embellish, ignore inconvenient facts, and flat out lie. I’m no exception.
I’m not an expert on space. My knowledge extends to Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, and various other works of science fiction. When I found that lacking, which was often, I Googled.
There are a few facts that I knowingly bent, so need to be straightened. Not that any of this story happened. Space exists, as do we, and so does Mars; a lot of other things I invented.
Xenonian Tech
This should be obvious, but just in case it isn’t, this book is fiction, which is incredibly convenient. If I didn’t know how something worked, or it didn’t exist, I made it up. Kirk has a lot of apps. If there are other planets with intelligent life, and one day they pop by for a kick-about or a Julie Andrews, the chances are that their tech will be superior to ours; it won’t be close.
Getting to Mars
SpaceX is planning to go to Mars. It’s a 300-million-mile trip and will take roughly seven months. Mummy Bear is considerably quicker. The only justification I have for this is that if Aliens do exist, they aren’t close by, so will need extremely fast spacecraft.
Martian Satellites
In the story, the James Web Space Telescope had to be repositioned to view the Xenonian spaceship. Shortly afterwards a probe was re-purposed to act as a satellite for continuous monitoring. This was a complete fib; not a white lie, but a big fat whopper to aid the flow of the storyline. We’ve been sending satellites to Mars since the early 1970’s. There are also satellites in lunar orbit. Moon landing conspiracy theorists can view photographs of NASA equipment left behind. Since flat-earthers exist – don’t get me started – there’s no guarantee that the moon-landing doubters will be convinced.
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mars_orbiters
Beagle 2
Beagle 2 really existed. It was an $80M project, jointly funded by the UK government and the private sector. It was released from its mother ship (yes, it was really called that) on the 19th of December 2003 and, rather romantically, was due to land on Christmas Day. Contact was lost, and all contemporary efforts to find it were fruitless. However, in 2015, it was spotted in high-resolution images on the Martian surface. It had landed, and as per this story, failed to fully deploy its solar panels.
It is nowhere near the Martian North Pole, yet another fib. Instead, Beagle 2 is located on the surface of Isidis Planitia; not that I know where that is, but it’s possible to look up. The bit that is true, is that if a friendly alien were passing by and untangled it, there’s a reasonable chance it would start working. Again, I’m not a space expert!
The Beagle 2 project was led by Professor Colin Pillinger, with significant contributions from Professors George Fraser and David Barnes, all of whom sadly died in 2014.
Further reading:
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Beagle-2_lander_found_on_Mars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_2
The Offside Rule
The offside rule is a law, but most people I know refer to it as a rule, so I went with that. It’s often thought to be confusing. It’s not. The short version is that you can’t goal hang. If someone passes the ball to you, there needs to be at least two opponents between you and the goal. Usually this is the other team’s goalkeeper and a defender. There are a few exceptions to this law, such as if you’re in your own half of the pitch, or the more frequent one, the referee goofed!
If you’re bored, and I mean really, really bored, you can read more here:
https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-11—offside
Earthling Space Songs
Elton doesn’t exist, he’s a fictional character. I made him up. Fortunately, I also created his playlist, Earthling Space Songs, links for Amazon Music, Spotify and YouTube are on the music page.