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[Xantalos]

Point is they never had a game of Asteroids where the asteroids grew back to full size after you shot them and they replicated.

[Loud Whispers]

Point is they never had a game of Asteroids where the asteroids grew back to full size after you shot them and they replicated.

The thing doesn't grow. It assimilates.

[Xantalos]

Point is they never had a game of Asteroids where the asteroids grew back to full size after you shot them and they replicated.

The thing doesn't grow. It assimilates.

No I meant as if you shot the Thing and it split into two parts, with sufficient nutrition each of the pieces are going to grow back to the size of whatever you shot.

[Fniff]

But it's only a matter of time before the asteroids eventually get you. You can hold out, but you aren't going to survive forever: you will eventually be destroyed, it's only a matter of how many you take out before you inevitably die.

Not quite. You can get a score so high you break the game. Victory by annihilation.

By breaking the game, you kill yourself. The only victory is that the asteroids stop coming.

[Xantalos]

The ultimate point is that if you shoot hypothetical asteroids anywhere else other than Antarctica, you're fucked.

[Loud Whispers]

By breaking the game, you kill yourself. The only victory is that the asteroids stop coming.

By breaking the game at the expense of killing yourself you save all of the triangles off screen. Victorly.

No I meant as if you shot the Thing and it split into two parts, with sufficient nutrition each of the pieces are going to grow back to the size of whatever you shot.

But if you shot the thing with enough force to split it into two parts a lot of that mass is now going to be very, very dead and useless.

[Fniff]

Spoiler: SPOILERS! (click to show/hide)

So, blowing up the base just to kill the Thing for once and for all is basically the same as getting a high enough score to break the game. Thus, you have now reached the mindset of Macready.

See, you can't derail this metaphor.

[Loud Whispers]

Actually, it was just as planned.

[Xantalos]

Spoiler: SPOILERS! (click to show/hide)

So, blowing up the base just to kill the Thing for once and for all is basically the same as getting a high enough score to break the game. Thus, you have now reached the mindset of Macready.

See, you can't derail this metaphor.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actually it's a metaphor for him willing to break TGE game rather than let the opponent win

[Descan]

Point is they never had a game of Asteroids where the asteroids grew back to full size after you shot them and they replicated.

Now I want to play that.

Also: Aren't the Replicators from Stargate basically a mechanical version of the Thing?

I wonder what'd happen if they fought. Or if they would fight, or team up. o-o

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Spoiler: SPOILERS! (click to show/hide)

So, blowing up the base just to kill the Thing for once and for all is basically the same as getting a high enough score to break the game. Thus, you have now reached the mindset of Macready.

See, you can't derail this metaphor.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actually it's a metaphor for him willing to break TGE game rather than let the opponent win

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's really more like an unconventional victory due to an unequal playing field. MacReady can't beat the computer's chess skills, so he destroys it. MacReady knows he can't win his "chess game" against the Thing conventionally, so he levels the playing field by literally leveling the base. Also, he destroys the computer with a drink....and what does he give to Childs(-Thing) as they are waiting in the snow?

Best Case Scenario, MacReady kills the Thing. Worst Case Scenario, MacReady does not kill the Thing and it once again freezes in the endless Antarctic cold. No matter what happens, MacReady wins. Or in other words, checkmate.

[Loud Whispers]

Or worse case scenario stalemate

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Until global warming and the thing hitches a ride with a whale

[Xantalos]

Spoiler: SPOILERS! (click to show/hide)

So, blowing up the base just to kill the Thing for once and for all is basically the same as getting a high enough score to break the game. Thus, you have now reached the mindset of Macready.

See, you can't derail this metaphor.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actually it's a metaphor for him willing to break TGE game rather than let the opponent win

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's really more like an unconventional victory due to an unequal playing field. MacReady can't beat the computer's chess skills, so he destroys it. MacReady knows he can't win his "chess game" against the Thing conventionally, so he levels the playing field by literally leveling the base.

Best Case Scenario, MacReady kills the Thing. Worst Case Scenario, MacReady does not kill the Thing and it once again freezes in the endless Antarctic cold. No matter what happens, MacReady wins. Or in other words, checkmate.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actual worst-case scenario is where Childs is the Thing, and by the time rescue arrives, Macready's frozen to death but Childs has 'miraculously' survived. They take him back home, he tells some story that leaves out any mention of the Thing, and humanity is now guaranteed assimillation fodder.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actual worst-case scenario is where Childs is the Thing, and by the time rescue arrives, Macready's frozen to death but Childs has 'miraculously' survived. They take him back home, he tells some story that leaves out any mention of the Thing, and humanity is now guaranteed assimillation fodder.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Things can't maintain themselves in the cold. They can reanimate after being frozen, but they wouldn't find Childs alive.

Anyway, MacReady's actor said that both MacReady and Childs have flamethrowers in the last scene, but MacReady's is under the admittedly odd-shaped blanket he's sitting under. Given his character, MacReady almost certainly roasts Childs-Thing once the credits roll.

One can make the argument that all this both compares and contrasts humanity with the Thing. On one hand, the Thing doesn't anticipate MacReady being willing to almost assuredly doom himself by blowing up the whole fucking base in order to save the rest of humanity, contrasting us with the Thing's desire to survive down to the cells. On the other hand, the Things maintain their cover even to the point of attacking other Things....so that the Thing as a whole may survive, which is exactly what MacReady is doing for humanity.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actual worst-case scenario is where Childs is the Thing, and by the time rescue arrives, Macready's frozen to death but Childs has 'miraculously' survived. They take him back home, he tells some story that leaves out any mention of the Thing, and humanity is now guaranteed assimillation fodder.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The thing would not be able to survive that long. With the radio dead (not an uncommon thing in the Antarctics back then either) it could be weeks or even months before someone notices something might be amiss and redirects a plane. Maybe.