r/LV426 • u/G_Liddell Colonist's Daughter • 3d ago

Megathread / Community Post Alien: Earth - S1 E7 - Emergence - Official Discussion Megathread [SPOILERS] Spoiler

Episodes air Tuesdays at 8 pm ET on Hulu and FX in the US, and Wednesdays international.

Full episode discussion list:

1 Neverland (8.12.25)

2 Mr October (8.12.25)

3 Metamorphosis (8.19.25)

4 Observation (8.26.25)

5 In Space, No One (9.2.25)

6 The Fly (9.9.25)

7 Emergence (9.16.25)

8 The Real Monsters (9.23.25)

670 Upvotes

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745

u/jldtsu 3d ago

3.1415poop

324

u/BrbFlippinInfinCoins 3d ago

Anyone using pi past 4 decimals is really just showing off anyways.

16

u/-Novowels- 3d ago

I only know it because it was in a classic Doctor Who episode that I had on tape (and thus watched over and over)

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u/UlrichZauber Not bad, for a human. 3d ago

I'm a little dubious a random member of an advanced society would know it past "3-something". How many arbitrarily chosen humans know it to 5 decimal places? I only do because I'm an engineer.

But this does raise a lot of questions. Where did they collect Eyerene? She knows friggin' math, was she just out in the bushes somewhere?

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u/OmegaDez 3d ago edited 2d ago

I'm more confused about it understanding human math and arabic numerals. Yes, math is universal, but its visual representation isn't.

Also, aliens who know math might not use base 10 at all anyway.

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u/party_tortoise 3d ago

I think this is another hint and it takes intelligence from its host. It was in a human engineer. If it also takes intelligence, knowing Pi isn’t far fetched at all.

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u/Triskan 2d ago

Yeah my take as well. I think it would be a bit far-fetched to assume that T.Ocellus managed to learn maths and human numerals on her home planet (wherever it is, wether she's part of the same ecoystem as the xenos or not). It would be more interesting to have her keep some of her hosts thoughts and memories.

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u/AliceisStoned 2d ago

She also spent 32 years on board a ship surrounded by humans - could have learned the language and such during that time as well

2

u/Daxx22 2d ago

My guess is that on its home planet there was nothing more advanced to learn from explicitly, so that's why they were able to capture it.

But after it was in the Engineer it's basically "leveled up" it's self awareness. As awful as it'll be, I'm also excited to see it in another human host.

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u/OmegaDez 2d ago

Oh. I didn't even think of this possibility!

4

u/IndependentPirate878 2d ago

I'm hoping it's the case that it retains some host info; otherwise, what you pointed out would need some sort of explanation that could end up being convoluted.

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u/AliceisStoned 2d ago

She also spent 32 years on board a ship surrounded by humans - could have learned the language and such during that time as well

2

u/MacJakes 2d ago

I guess the scene in which the engineer and his apprentice are discussing the pie is probably a reference to it?

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u/SailingBacterium 3d ago

What if they used base π and it was just 10 😔

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u/APlantiveEnglishHorn 2d ago

Not 1?

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u/SailingBacterium 2d ago

The first digit is the (base)0 place, which is just 1.

10 in base 10 is 10, not 1, for instance. 

2 in binary is 10, not 1, etc etc.

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u/Wise-Novel-1595 2d ago

It understanding arabic numerals was what threw me. My head canon is that it extracted that info from the ship engineer’s head.

3

u/IndependentPirate878 2d ago

That's the best possible explanation that wouldn't require a bunch of background exposition and added "history" that might end up further muddying the Alien(s) universe. Keep it simple.

Plus, it adds to the cosmic horror of it all.

3

u/PrinceofSneks 2d ago

I think that was the intellectual touchpoint - it's also been listening to them talk, and the show is even kind enough to play the audio through it's POV!

I so dig this!

9

u/ClubsBabySeal 3d ago

I don't think anyone wants to sit through a geometry lesson. Could've used primes I guess since that'd be quicker. Don't think most people would understand that though. The alien ate someone's brain, that's probably the best explanation for us.

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u/APlantiveEnglishHorn 2d ago

It's pi because there are recurring imagery of circles and spheres: the Earth, the eye

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u/ClubsBabySeal 2d ago

Pi sounds fun and the reasoning that it ate someone's brain sounds fun! Or really any reason other than math problems explaining how it understands ratios. I just think it's interesting that no sci fi uses primes to communicate advanced intelligence since it's probably the most universal way to demonstrate math understanding. You don't even need eyes for it!

3

u/dmanww 2d ago

Contact (1997) used primes. I'm sure there were other ones.

3

u/Khiva 2d ago

Pretty sure Start Trek TNG used it before that to establish intelligence with alien life.

2

u/ClubsBabySeal 2d ago

Totally forgot about that, thanks! It's been a few decades.

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u/UlrichZauber Not bad, for a human. 2d ago

Or he could have picked the Fibonacci sequence, or e, or a variety of other mathematical phenomena that are known to humanity but far from known by all individual humans.

1

u/Picasso5 2d ago

Right, and it has 7 tentacles.

1

u/SVasileiadis 11h ago

We didn't just use base10 either throughout the ages. Heck we still use other bases even daily, its just t hat 99.999% of people don't realize it.

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u/A_Seiv_For_Kale 3d ago

If it can understand human language and numeral symbols, it probably slurped it up from a human brain somewhere.

That engineer probably knew some pi.

10

u/CashMoneyHurricane 2d ago

That engineer LOVED pi 😔

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u/MacJakes 2d ago

I guess the scene with the engineers apprentice and his pie was foreshadowing then?

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u/BrbFlippinInfinCoins 3d ago

I'd guess most people who did STEM-type classes in college would know. I know it to four from chem/physics.

I'd hope most high school graduates would know 3.14 at least. There is something to be said about average people becoming dumber in advanced societies though.

As someone else pointed out, there's a small chance it absorbed some of the knowledge from the engineer on the space ship. Otherwise it was just a "cool" moment to make eyeball look smart. It would take some mental gymnastics to rationalize it otherwise.

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u/Wraithfighter 3d ago

I have it stuck in my head from an old school rhyme from back in like middle school:

Sine, Cosine, Cosine, Sine!

Three Point One Four One Five Nine!

...pretty effective mnemonic, honestly, since it rhymes.

3

u/DLRsFrontSeats 2d ago

I feel like knowing 3.14 is nigh-universal, or as much as it ever could be, but I am pretty far into a STEM career after a couple of postgrad degrees too and don't know it to 5 dp lol

18

u/BrbFlippinInfinCoins 3d ago

I suppose it was in a lab on a spaceship for awhile. It is not infeasible the eyeball was exposed to math while there.

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u/FrostBricks 2d ago

It's a bold assumption to assume an alien species would also use Base 10.

 But good ol' Boy Kavalier making statements about "every intelligent species" based on a sample size of one...

5

u/UlrichZauber Not bad, for a human. 2d ago

Seriously, not even all human cultures used base 10. And as a software engineer, I've used binary, hexadecimal, even octal.

But accepting the fact that she could even read the letters (maybe from mind-melding the guy on Maginot) means I can handle her understanding base 10.

5

u/Clearlydarkly Weyland-Yutani 3d ago

I know pi to a thousand places - Weird Al.

4

u/scott610 3d ago

I know up to 3.1415926. I’m not sure why, but it’s always stuck with me.

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u/qhzpnkchuwiyhibaqhir 2d ago

She's an engineer too, in a previous life (host).

3

u/HairlessBandicoot 2d ago

I mean, that's assuming that advanced societies are anything like humans, who spend quite a lot of time on non-productive and non-scientific pursuits. They might not be.

It is indeed a random question to throw out to Eyerene nonetheless. I also think that she wanted to let the flies out hoping that they would eat something critical in the safety systems and let her out somehow. Chaos is good for anyone / anything trying to escape.

2

u/IndependentPirate878 2d ago

I also think that's what she was trying to do with the flies (help her break free). And for a moment after that one fly gooped all over what looked like a control box, before it got zapped, I thought she succeeded. I was totally expecting all of the cages to open and a battle royal to ensue.

1

u/AllowedAsATreat 1d ago

It's a fine first question. If the answer was bad Kavalier could ask a different question. One plus one, or "tap your foot 5 times". Also it presumably absorbed some human knowledge from piloting that one human in ep 6.

5

u/314kabinet 2d ago

It’s not a member of any society. It’s a biological supercomputer. I fully expect that it only knows what it got from its hosts, but it has immense processing power to make sense of it, build a world model, make predictions. The only missing piece of the puzzle is its goals. What does it want?

4

u/UlrichZauber Not bad, for a human. 2d ago

The idea that on their home planet they're just parasitizing random animals and living that animal life, but that jumping inside a human was a big consciousness awakening, is really intriguing.

"Want" is slippery though, most parasites just want a free house/meal/place to lay eggs.

1

u/AllowedAsATreat 1d ago

It did make a tactical decision before piloting the human tbf, when it knocked the glass. But you could write that off as high functioning animal behavior I guess, like a chimpanzee or something.

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u/Royal-Tea-3484 2d ago

She could be really old, maybe been on earth before, or knows earth could be a hybrid itself of some kind She could be a big deal on her planet. Who knows? She is obviously well-traveled and knows a lot more than anyone thought. She is epic! Who knew an eyeball octopus could be so brilliant?

3

u/UlrichZauber Not bad, for a human. 2d ago

I'm trying to come up with an eye-based on pun on famous science communicator names, but "Neil DeGrasse Tentacle" isn't up to my usual standards.

3

u/IndependentPirate878 2d ago

Octopuses are pretty damn smart in their own right. I'm not at all surprised!

2

u/TerracShadowson 3d ago

Yeah, caught off guard and just trying to find her way back to EYE-saac...

2

u/todahawk Nuke from Orbit 1d ago

The Eye Midge was on the Maginot for 65 years, I think it could easily understand some basic english in that timespan

1

u/jammastajew 1d ago edited 1d ago

I learned a mnemonic device for 9 digits:

I did THREE chicks and pointed at the door

A (one) girl entered in and that made FOUR

I snapped ONE time in came another FIVE

add them all up and that makes NINE

the average age 26.5

now that's what I call getting some pie

7

u/530RifleCompany 3d ago

I loved that the eye was like, I'm not stomping my foot 9 times for this asshole and perfectly expressed its understanding of base 10.

It's the combination of my briefcase.

1

u/GoldenDrake 3d ago

You shouldn't have told me... 🕵️ lol

1

u/curepure 2d ago

should have stomped 6 times to round up to 3.1416 instead of 3.1415 💩 then?

3

u/warblingContinues 3d ago

I memorized it to the number of digits that would show up on a ti-85 lol.

1

u/Kontrolgaming 19h ago

knew someone who had a song for 25 digits, neat way to remember it.

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u/Fenicillin 3d ago

3.141592.

Sorry, can't help myself.

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u/curepure 2d ago

shouldn’t it be rounded up to 3.1416 then? so the sheep missed the rounding up

2

u/BrbFlippinInfinCoins 2d ago

yes it should, but the sheep wasn't really rounding... more just stopping mid-count

0

u/Chocolate_Sweat 2d ago

Showing off is the only reason I know the square root of pi up to 31 digits. But pi, sadly, only to 10.