The Red One | Hacker News Reader

The Red One

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69 pointsprismatic23 comments

The "Red One" of the title refers to a giant red sphere, of apparently extraterrestrial origin, that the headhunting natives worship as their god and to which they perform human sacrifices. Bassett becomes obsessed with the Red One and in the end is sacrificed himself.

Sounds like a predecessor of the Michael Crichton book/film Sphere.

A spacecraft, presumed to be of alien origin, is discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, estimated to have been there for nearly 300 years...Soon after, Goodman and the others eventually stumble upon a large, yet perfect sphere hovering in the cargo bay. They cannot find any way to probe the inside of the sphere, as the fluidic surface seems to be impenetrable. Upon observation, Goodman ominously notes the sphere reflects everything in the room except them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(1998_film)

Also reminds me of the "The Priest's Tale" from Dan Simmons' "Hyperion," i.e. the jungle tribe worshipping and making scarifies to an alien artifact part.

Also reminds me of this classic tale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness

The book, on Gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/788

> A Court in Germany ordered that access to certain items in the Project Gutenberg collection are blocked from Germany. Project Gutenberg believes the Court has no jurisdiction over the matter, but until the issue is resolved, it will comply.

Pity. Do you have a mirror?

https://web.archive.org/web/20180718091512/https://gutenberg...

https://archive.is/MgQWL

Blocked from Germany... why?

We should look. But, my guess is that there are texts where there's a German copyright claim. That would make it a piracy site in Germany.

Rather ironic considering the name

yep, reminds that copyright fight 500 years ago that changed the world.

Reminds an idea from Tarkovsky's Stalker

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)

Despite the fact that the film is officially based on Strugatsky 1972 novel Roadside Picnic, the sphiere idea from resemblance 'the Room'.

It vaguely reminded me of SCP-3001: Red Reality. Then again, I'm sure you could find anything with a red object and make some kind of connection.

https://the-scp.foundation/object/SCP-3001

epic

Thought this was going to be about the RED One 4K camera:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Digital_Cinema

I thought this was going to be about the U.S. 1st Infantry Division: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Infantry_Division_(Unite...

I though it was going to be about the red pill in the matrix https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

Was that the inspiration for https://alias.fandom.com/wiki/Mueller_Device ?

>The "Red One" of the title refers to a giant red sphere, of apparently extraterrestrial origin..

Sounds like an inspiration from 2001: A space Odyssey.

Only that in 2001 it was a cuboid instead of a sphere and the color was black instead red

The other way around as C. Clarke's work is younger than this one.

Also reminds me of Barjavel's 'The ice people' which has a large golden sphere buried deep under the ice in Antarctica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_(Barjavel_novel...

From what I remember, the monolith part of 2001 came from Clarke’s earlier story The Sentinal, in which IIRC it was a transparent tetrahedron. Since the story and movie of 2001 were made simultaneously, I think Clarke/Kubrick ended up switching to black so it would look better on screen.

The books state that the monolith had the same proportions in more than three dimensions, making it impossible to understand from our limited perspective. A remaster with current CGI could make the monolith look even more otherworldly.

I think that sci-fi really doesn't get enough credit for inspiring the future. The ideas permeate other fictional universes years and years later, and they seep through to reality though scientists, many of whom are fans of the genre.

Amazing.

It doesn't? I think most popular culture already identifies sci-fi as synonymous with "the future".

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