...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

The Downloaded

145 statements
27 feature instances
3 referencing feature instances

The Downloaded	type	TVTItem
The Downloaded	label	The Downloaded
The Downloaded	page	TheDownloaded
The Downloaded	comment	The Downloaded is a science fiction novella by Robert J. Sawyer originally released as an audiobook exclusive (in English and French) in 2023. A paperback version is expected to come out in 2024. The English audiobook is narrated by a full cast, including Brendan Fraser, Luke Kirby, Vanessa Sears, and Colm Feore.The book is formatted as a series of interviews with various characters that gradually reveal the plot and the world.In the year 2059, two very different groups of people are placed in cryogenic suspension while their minds are uploaded into a quantum computer (apparently, simply freezing someone destroys an inactive consciousness). The first group are astronauts led by Captain Letitia Garvey on a 500-year journey to Proxima Centauri to establish humanity's first extrasolar colony (a colony on Mars having already been established in 2041). The plan is for the crew's frozen bodies to be loaded up on the starship HÅ�kÅ«leÊ»a, while their minds remain in an institute in Waterloo, Ontario, with the clock speed set to only 0.8%, so only 4 years will pass for the astronauts. Upon arrival, their minds will be instantly downloaded into their defrosted bodies via quantum entanglement. The other group are convicts doing hard time as part of a pilot program for a virtual prison. Unlike the astronauts, their 20-year (reduced) sentence will be carried out virtually with their minds sped up by a factor of 24, so only 10 months will pass in the real world. Naturally, things don't go quite according to plan...
The Downloaded	fetched	2024-04-10T18:00:59Z
The Downloaded	parsed	2024-04-10T18:00:59Z
The Downloaded	processingComment	Dropped link to WorldWarThree: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
The Downloaded	processingUnknown	WorldWarThree
The Downloaded	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Downloaded / int_12f70f7b	type	Regional Bonus
The Downloaded / int_12f70f7b	comment	Regional Bonus: The English version of the audiobook has Brendan Fraser (the voice of Roscoe Koudoulian) on the cover in a cryopod. The French version has Pierre-Yves Cardinal instead.
The Downloaded / int_12f70f7b	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_12f70f7b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_12f70f7b
The Downloaded / int_18aff462	type	Artistic License â€“ Biology
The Downloaded / int_18aff462	comment	Artistic License â€“ Biology: A crew of 23 is too small a gene pool for a viable extrasolar colony to endure long-term. On the other hand, it's possible that genetic engineering was already advanced enough in 2059 to allow for sufficient tweaks to prevent complications due to inbreeding.
The Downloaded / int_18aff462	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_18aff462	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_18aff462
The Downloaded / int_1b60dcba	type	The Bully
The Downloaded / int_1b60dcba	comment	The Bully: Roscoe Koudoulian was convicted of first-degree murder for killing his childhood bully who came back to torment him online as an adult. Roscoe didn't intend to kill him, only wanting to beat him up and get him to stop. But the Asshole Victim turned out to be a diehard conservative who hated that Roscoe held liberal beliefs and justified the attempts to destroy his life as trying to keep Roscoe's teenage daughter from "being corrupted." That enraged Roscoe, and he ended up stabbing the bully with garden shears just as the garage door opened and a neighbor passed by, recording Roscoe standing over a bloodied corpse. The fact that Roscoe specifically sought out the victim allows the DA to convince the jury that the murder was premeditated.
The Downloaded / int_1b60dcba	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_1b60dcba	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_1b60dcba
The Downloaded / int_1b8d3822	type	Mind Prison
The Downloaded / int_1b8d3822	comment	Mind Prison: A pilot program of one is introduced in 2059. The convicts who volunteer will have their sentences reduced to 20 subjective years. However, only 10 months will pass in the real world thanks to the clock speed on their uploaded minds being raised by a factor of 24. The goal is to reduce the financial drain on the government since keeping a convict frozen for 10 months it not as expensive as keeping them in prison for decades. For the convicts it means they can get back to their lives with their loved ones still alive and barely aged and their own bodies still youthful. Unlike the astronauts, the convicts won't have any control over their virtual environment since this is supposed to be punishment. They'll still be in prison among virtual inmates and guards, but there's no risk of them being shanked, raped, or subjected to abuse. Instead of 20 subjective years, they end up spending 24 in it because the Great Blackout happened, so no one came to thaw them out. However, the robots monitoring the facility did switch their clock speeds to match the astronauts after their "sentence" ended.
The Downloaded / int_1b8d3822	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_1b8d3822	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_1b8d3822
The Downloaded / int_2edc31c2	type	Lightspeed Leapfrog
The Downloaded / int_2edc31c2	comment	Lightspeed Leapfrog: It turns out that Martians have already been to Proxima Centauri, having developed better ships since 2041. Unfortunately, the second planet in that system turned out to be far from hospitable, as indicated by the Martian name for it: Hellhole.
The Downloaded / int_2edc31c2	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_2edc31c2	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_2edc31c2
The Downloaded / int_30763ed8	type	Eternal English
The Downloaded / int_30763ed8	comment	Eternal English: Averted. The English spoken by the Mennonites has changed drastically over 500 years, especially without any movies and TV to hold back the changes. It takes some effort for the "downloaded" to learn to understand them.
The Downloaded / int_30763ed8	featureApplicability	-1.0
The Downloaded / int_30763ed8	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_30763ed8
The Downloaded / int_334e48a1	type	After the End
The Downloaded / int_334e48a1	comment	After the End: The bulk of the story takes place 500 years after a nuclear war caused the collapse of society.
The Downloaded / int_334e48a1	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_334e48a1	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_334e48a1
The Downloaded / int_393a1e86	type	But What About the Astronauts?
The Downloaded / int_393a1e86	comment	But What About the Astronauts?: Zigzagged with the HÅ�kÅ«leÊ»a's crew. They never left Earth, but their specially shielded and self-sufficient building has kept them safe from the Great Blackout shortly after they were frozen. On the other hand, they're not the only survivors, as they find that the Mennonite village near Waterloo has endured since they were never dependent on technology to begin with. Played straight with the Martian colony established nearly two decades before the Blackout. It seems Mars was unaffected by the coronal mass ejection, so the colonists survived. Their terraforming efforts weren't really that successful, but they were able to use genetic engineering to modify themselves to survive on the red planet, becoming tall, blue-skinned, monogendered, and lacking in facial hair.
The Downloaded / int_393a1e86	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_393a1e86	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_393a1e86
The Downloaded / int_3bce9346	type	RagnarÃ¶k Proofing
The Downloaded / int_3bce9346	comment	RagnarÃ¶k Proofing: The HÅ�kÅ«leÊ»a and everything on it has been engineered to survive a 500-year trip through interstellar space, being constantly bombarded by cosmic radiation. In the end, the ship ends up making a 1200-year trip (after already spending 500 years in Earth's orbit) to Zeta Tucanae. The institute building with the quantum computer has likewise been made to endure for five centuries, with multiple Faraday cages (meant to protect the quantum computers from solar radiation) in its structure. Those cages are what protected all the equipment inside the building from the coronal mass ejection. The solar panels on the roof kept the building powered, while the service robots made the necessary repairs and monitored the frozen humans and their uploaded minds.
The Downloaded / int_3bce9346	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_3bce9346	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_3bce9346
The Downloaded / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
The Downloaded / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: The "downloaded" (except for the would-be rapist Hornbach) get evacuated by the Martians: some to Mars and some to the HÅ�kÅ«leÊ»a to go to Zeta Tucanae (as, apparently, the Martians have already explored every star between Sol and Tau Ceti and found no habitable planets there). However, Earth is destroyed by Brimstone right on schedule, and the Mennonites refuse to leave, accepting their fate (as either uploading or living under a Martian dome is anathema to them). Those who choose to go to Mars are shunned by the Martians and kept in their own dome on the other side of the planet, although their lives are relatively comfortable. Still, they're kept under constant surveillance (just like the Martians themselves) and are only allowed 21st century technology (but no robots). Despite caring for one another, Roscoe and Valentina choose different life paths: Valentina uploads permanently (where she can look the way she feels), giving up her body to Mikhail, while Roscoe remains in the real world. Those who decide to leave eventually (1200 years later) arrive to what appears to be a habitable planet in the Zeta Tucanae system.
The Downloaded / int_40cc0c7e	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_40cc0c7e	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_40cc0c7e
The Downloaded / int_457655dd	type	Human Popsicle
The Downloaded / int_457655dd	comment	Human Popsicle: Suspended animation involves replacing all the fluids in the body with antifreeze and keeping the body in a low-temperature "coffin." However, the quantum nature of the human consciousness means that, without Brain Uploading, the mind will undergo decoherence, and any revived body will remain in a perpetual coma. Such was the fate of Letitia's grandfather, one of the first people to be frozen upon death with hope of being revived in the future and cured of a deadly disease.
The Downloaded / int_457655dd	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_457655dd	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_457655dd
The Downloaded / int_4cb90f31	type	Three Laws-Compliant
The Downloaded / int_4cb90f31	comment	Three Laws-Compliant: Penolong references them when talking to Letitia when confessing to caving in Mikhail's skull with a crowbar. He hates being a servant just because he's a machine. He wants equal rights, but the cyberneticist Mikhail is a staunch "Asimovian" in how he thinks of machines. So, when it became clear that the astronauts aren't going anywhere and that Mikhail will be the only cyberneticist in the future, Penolong made sure he wouldn't be able to download ever again.
The Downloaded / int_4cb90f31	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_4cb90f31	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_4cb90f31
The Downloaded / int_4eaa9b84	type	Author Tract
The Downloaded / int_4eaa9b84	comment	Author Tract: Sawyer doesn't mince words about his feelings for those who refuse to mask or get vaccinated during a pandemic.
The Downloaded / int_4eaa9b84	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_4eaa9b84	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_4eaa9b84
The Downloaded / int_55baac26	type	Alan Smithee
The Downloaded / int_55baac26	comment	invoked Alan Smithee: One of the ex-cons uses that name when asked. As a movie buff, Roscoe immediately recognizes it for what it is and tells Letitia. She does some snooping and learns that he's a murderer with a penchant for smashing his victim's skulls in with a crowbar.
The Downloaded / int_55baac26	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_55baac26	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_55baac26
The Downloaded / int_6205320f	type	Trans Tribulations
The Downloaded / int_6205320f	comment	Trans Tribulations: Valentina loved being in a virtual environment because it means she could have the virtual body that matched her gender. After being downloaded, she hated seeing her hairy chest and male genitalia. After putting on her jumpsuit, the first thing she did was tear off the name tag that said her deadname. The only person she came out to was Roscoe, who treated it as no big deal, explaining that his cousin was trans, and he's okay with it. Still, when they go stargazing at night, Roscoe is startled to be touched by a man's hand, even though he'd gotten used to Valentina speaking with a male voice. Still, it's clear by the end of the story that they have fallen in love. And both are devastated that they want different things: Valentina chooses to be permanently uploaded (where she can look like her gender), while Roscoe feels that, as mayor, it's his responsibility to lead the "downloaded."
The Downloaded / int_6205320f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_6205320f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_6205320f
The Downloaded / int_6b2b3b59	type	The Reveal
The Downloaded / int_6b2b3b59	comment	The Reveal: Plenty of those. The first major one is that not only have the astronauts never left Earth, but the world around them has clearly suffered some sort of cataclysm. Halfway through we learn that the one interviewing the characters is a Martian, descended from the colony established in 2041. Near the end, the interviewer reveals that it really was World War III that ended the world rather than a natural phenomenon. The reason there's no damage to Waterloo or Toronto is that Canada wasn't directly hit, but the EMP produced by nuclear explosions knocked out power everywhere anyway.
The Downloaded / int_6b2b3b59	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_6b2b3b59	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_6b2b3b59
The Downloaded / int_6bda9a30	type	Meaningful Name
The Downloaded / int_6bda9a30	comment	Meaningful Name: The starship's name is HÅ�kÅ«leÊ»a, Hawaiian for "Star of Gladness" and is their name for Arcturus. It's also the name of a double-hulled Polynesian canoe build in 1975 that completed a voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti using only traditional navigational techniques. The robot Penolong's name means "helper" in Malay. He resents it, as well as his own lack of rights.
The Downloaded / int_6bda9a30	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_6bda9a30	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_6bda9a30
The Downloaded / int_8c5f5c97	type	The Movie Buff
The Downloaded / int_8c5f5c97	comment	The Movie Buff: Roscoe is constantly quoting 20th century movies. Jackson is one too.
The Downloaded / int_8c5f5c97	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_8c5f5c97	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_8c5f5c97
The Downloaded / int_91e894b4	type	Apocalypse How
The Downloaded / int_91e894b4	comment	Apocalypse How: Class 2 happens somewhere around 2059 after the repeat of the Carrington Event. Except it turns out to be not the case. In fact, it was World War III. The reason Letitia thought it was a natural phenomenon was because Waterloo was never bombed (the closest cities to be hit were Washington and New York, and the prevailing northern winds kept the fallout away) and only suffered decay after the EMP caused by nuclear explosions fried all electronics. Class 6 is looming on the horizon with a 1000-km asteroid hurtling towards Earth. Slightly subverted in that humanity will not go extinct thanks to the Martian colony.
The Downloaded / int_91e894b4	featureApplicability	-0.3
The Downloaded / int_91e894b4	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_91e894b4
The Downloaded / int_b3eecaae	type	Colony Drop
The Downloaded / int_b3eecaae	comment	Colony Drop: One of the astronauts uses a telescope aboard the HÅ�kÅ«leÊ»a to discover that a 1000-kilometer asteroid she has dubbed Brimstone is on a collision course with Earth and will impact 7 years after their awakening. The event will wipe out all life on Earth, and there's no telling when (or even if) life might evolve on the planet again.
The Downloaded / int_b3eecaae	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_b3eecaae	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_b3eecaae
The Downloaded / int_ba014235	type	Cryonics Failure
The Downloaded / int_ba014235	comment	Cryonics Failure: Averted. The cryo technology works just fine (when coupled with Brain Uploading to keep the consciousness from decohering). However, one of the astronauts turns out to be physically dead when the rest wake up because someone smashed his skull in with a crowbar. Thus, his mind is unable to be downloaded into his body, so he has to remain inside the computer. Unfortunately, he's one of the few astronauts who hates being in a virtual world. When Letitia informs him that an extinction-level asteroid will strike Earth in 7 years and offers to boost his clock speed to allow him to live out more than a century in the computer before the end, he refuses, demanding that she keep the clock speed equal to the normal passage of time.
The Downloaded / int_ba014235	featureApplicability	-1.0
The Downloaded / int_ba014235	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_ba014235
The Downloaded / int_bbcdd673	type	One-Gender Race
The Downloaded / int_bbcdd673	comment	Played straight with the Martian colony established nearly two decades before the Blackout. It seems Mars was unaffected by the coronal mass ejection, so the colonists survived. Their terraforming efforts weren't really that successful, but they were able to use genetic engineering to modify themselves to survive on the red planet, becoming tall, blue-skinned, monogendered, and lacking in facial hair.
The Downloaded / int_bbcdd673	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_bbcdd673	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_bbcdd673
The Downloaded / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
The Downloaded / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: After finally reaching a habitable exoplanet in the end, Jurgen provides this quote for the astronauts: "The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best that we can do is to start over."
The Downloaded / int_c75df49a	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_c75df49a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_c75df49a
The Downloaded / int_cb3adcb7	type	Kill It with Ice
The Downloaded / int_cb3adcb7	comment	Kill It with Ice: An accidental version happens when a group of ex-cons storms the quantum computer room and tries to smash the machine, claiming that no one was going to put them back in virtual prison. The woman smashing the computer housing with a fire extinguisher ends up rupturing a liquid nitrogen pipe that sprays her. By the time they go back for her, she's frozen solid.
The Downloaded / int_cb3adcb7	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_cb3adcb7	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_cb3adcb7
The Downloaded / int_f1096733	type	Solar Flare Disaster
The Downloaded / int_f1096733	comment	Solar Flare Disaster: It turns out that a repeat of the Carrington Event happened sometime in or shortly after 2059. A powerful coronal mass ejection has caused a geomagnetic storm that overloaded and shut down all electrical devices on Earth. The subsequent societal collapse led to most of humanity dying off, as they were unable to survive in a world without electricity and no survival skills. Very little is known of the world beyond Waterloo, Ontario, but the only people in the immediate area who are still alive 500 years later are the Mennonites, who weren't that dependent on electricity to begin with. They mention that a few other survivors occasionally visited them but ended up moving on. When asked about Native Americans, they learn that the city-dwelling ones suffered the same fate as everyone else. The few who still clung to ancestral traditions survived for a while by hunting and fishing, but even they eventually either left or died out. However, we eventually learn that there was no flare. It was World War III started by a bunch of terrorists with nukes.
The Downloaded / int_f1096733	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_f1096733	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_f1096733
The Downloaded / int_fc52510	type	Brain Uploading
The Downloaded / int_fc52510	comment	Brain Uploading: The human mind can be uploaded into a quantum computer and be placed in a virtual environment (simply uploading it and keeping it static will result in decoherence). The virtual environment can be changed at will with a mere thought, so the uploaded can experience whatever they want. The clock speed can also be dialed up and down. The astronauts to be sent to Proxima Centauri are to be frozen with their minds uploaded and kept in Waterloo, Ontario, with their clock speeds dialed as far down as possible, so they only experience 4 years out of the 500 the trip is supposed to take. It's said that it's only possible to download a mind into its own body. Martians have developed technology to allow a mind to be downloaded into any body, which is what allows Mikhail to be downloaded after Valentina decides to be re-uploaded again and no longer needs her (male) body.
The Downloaded / int_fc52510	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_fc52510	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_fc52510
The Downloaded / int_name	type	ItemName
The Downloaded / int_name	comment
The Downloaded / int_name	featureApplicability	1.0
The Downloaded / int_name	featureConfidence	1.0
The Downloaded	hasFeature	The Downloaded / int_name
The Downloaded / int_name	itemName	The Downloaded

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Downloaded	hasFeature	Brain Uploading / int_f37c7d8b
The Downloaded	hasFeature	Literature of the 2020s / int_f37c7d8b
The Downloaded	hasFeature	Sleeper Starship / int_f37c7d8b

Copyright of DBTropes.org wrapper 2009-2013 DFKI Knowledge Management. Imprint. - Thanks to Bakken&Baeck for hosting. Contact.
Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.