3 ms·
The central mythical figure in the novel is John Galt, a great inventor. What more critical piece of machinery could Rand have him contribute than an engine, th
by delichon 11mo ago
The central mythical figure in the novel is John Galt, a great inventor. What more critical piece of machinery could Rand have him contribute than an engine, the driver of the industrial revolution? It doesn't work to simply remove it from the plot. It would need to be replaced by something else, like Taggart's railroads, Rearden's steel or Roark's buildings.
- CalChris 11mo agoA MacGuffin is just something that drives the narrative.
- aeternum 11mo agoIt didn't have to be a mythical engine that ignores the most basic laws of physics. Just like with Rearden's steel, a more optimized version is often sufficient to change the world. Both Elon and Bezos have significantly decreased cost to orbit and are very close to full reusability. This is alongside their other feats like a global logistic network that gets pretty much any product in the world to your doorstep in 1-2 days, self-driving cars, neural implants that enable mind-controlled computing. If that were in the novel, no one would believe it.
- delichon 11mo agoSee also Heinlein's Waldo (1942) where the hero invents a receiver for an inexhaustible ambient energy source. I wonder if Rand read Astounding. To me, a good hard scifi story is allowed up to one impossibility anyway, as long as taken seriously.