I am having a very difficult time understanding this. So they have bi-directional space travel, "slides," digital cameras, wireless transmission of videos, and who knows what else, but when they have the big collection of human tools, they can only identify the slings, bows, and spears, despite that the scouts (who were probably teens, in fairness) probably had hunting rifles and some equivalent to phones or walkie talkies (which were probably some of the "intricately engineered devices of unknown use"). Then, while being executed by a gun, it is described this way:

It held a device in its hands, probably the noisy weapon, and lifted it up to point it at me. I did not understand the strange sounds it made . . .

A bright flash.

This suggests not just not understanding what a modern assault rifle is, but even what a gunpowder weapon is.

And yet, before, they briefly mention:

Short clips of combat footage played. They seemed pierced together from different gun cams.

So they do have "guns". I cannot fathom how these pieces go together. My best guess is that they are using guns that they are basically using dart guns, but even then this level of abstract confusion is unwarranted. They should be able to tell that a gun is a gun, and if they have rockets there is no way they can't understand on at least a very basic level how bullets are shot.

It's amazing that this shit got 8k upvotes. What the fuck am I doing with my life when literally anyone can become so incredibly popular making something so worthless?

[+] Marxism_Sympathizer@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

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[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago

Agreed on your corrections, except that when I said dart gun I didn't mean the blowdart kind, I meant the modern kind that look like actual guns with triggers (like how zoologists sedate wild animals sometimes). Still silly to put a camera on one? I guess, but if that's what you have as a "gun" then it makes about as much sense as us putting them on our guns, maybe more because dart guns don't have muzzle flashes and smoke.

are modern assault rifles really that much louder than muskets?

Modern assault rifles are somewhat louder (and I think higher pitch?) than muskets, so they are more prone to causing hearing damage than muskets were and I could definitely see that being a shock, but again look at how abstract his confusion is. If that dude was intimately familiar with muskets like we'd expect an interplanetary invader to be if their army used muskets, then he might find the compactness or any of several other features about the gun shocking, but they don't even identify it as being a type of gun, which a musketeer would be able to do even if they could only fathom its operation as being a matter of magic, because it's still sort of the same shape, with a barrel and trigger and so on, making a bang, and shooting a bullet.