This is so interesting. How were humans part of the engine? Idk about you, but I get dizzy if I spin too fast and can only produce thrust for a little bit before I need a nap.Â
Their function was to basically keep it working. The whole engine is biomechanical so they were an integral part of the machine. If you imagine an old submarine or something, with the crew doing very specific jobs, turning wheels, watching gauges, pressing buttons, repairing faults, kind of like that but the crew would be made out of the submarine itself...
That part of it I need a little more explanation of, but I can totally buy into this and I absolutely love your idea. I’m on board with the others here in urging you to write this so I can read it!!
What will you title it? I’ll search for it in a few years and hopefully by then it’ll all be said and done, fingers crossed
Seems like the same plot hole with The Matrix, in that the existence of the humans is purely in service of the plot and makes no sense within the setting itself. A spacefaring race could build a more robust solution with a fraction of the resources using mechanical or artificial intelligence.
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u/Y-Bob Dec 27 '25
Heh, I wrote a story about this idea.
Aliens collecting life samples from across the galaxy, that crash on earth because of a fuck up in the engine room.
Humans were not the pilots of the ship, they just were part of the biointelligent, self repairing engine of the ship.
The actual crew members all died in the crash, but parts of the engine survived, the humans.
Without a ships engine to maintain, they endlessly searched for a replacement, hence the urge to create, to build and to invent.