independence day - How do the aliens use the Earth molten core to grow their technology?

The big sphere alien ship said that the Bad Guy aliens were trying to suck out Earth's molten core, to refuel their ship and "grow their technology".

I get how you can hand-wave using it to refuel.

But how can sucking out Earth's liquid core "grow their technology"?

_{I'm only looking for in-universe answers, preferably based in canon (the only rational explanation I myself can come up with is, you need more energy to upgrade your tech, not just better designs/science/engineering to come up with the upgrade ideas)}

Answer

The actual mechanism by which new ships are "grown" remains a mystery, but apparently it involves sucking up the liquid hot magma and turning it into baby motherships that can then be sent off to find new planetary systems to conquer.

“Correct,” it said. “A harvester ship conquered our planet and sucked out its molten core.” As it spoke it projected a hologram to illustrate. The massive vessel latched onto the planet and began to grow the same kinds of vine-like structures that were now enveloping the east coast of the United States. “They use planetary cores to refuel their ships and grow their technology. They have done this to thousands of species. They are Armageddon. The end of everything.” The hologram showed a smaller ship budding from the hull of the harvester, and detaching. It was an exact copy of the mother ship they had destroyed during the War of ’96.

So that was just a baby, David thought. One of probably thousands sent out into the universe to find the next feeding ground. He’d seen the growth of their technology on the level of individual organisms, but it was another thing to observe it at such a massive scale. The combination of biotechnology and advanced materials science was both intoxicating—because of the possibilities—and terrifying, because of the race that possessed it.

_{^{Independence Day: Resurgence - A Novel}}

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harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

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In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

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