Skip to main content

wall e - How can the people in the Axiom survive for 700 years?


In WALL•E, it's established that the 5-year spaceship has been keeping people alive for 700 years. Also, it's clear that (at least before they all left the Earth), the garbage problem was never solved. We even see the Axiom itself keeps throwing garbage to outer space with the help of the WALL•As.


So, if they keep constantly throwing and throwing garbage, how can they keep living? What's all their food made of?



Answer



The short answer is that the ship is quite literally cannibalising itself, along with the passengers.




We know from the "All Aboard the Axiom" special feature that the ship's population was originally around 600,000 however by the time of the Wall•E film, there appears to be dramatically fewer passengers on board the ship.


This is confirmed in a couple of graphics from the "History of BNL" featurette (from the Wall-E bluray) which show the before/after populations (in binary), starting at around 700,000 but declining to less than 10,000 in the second panel



enter image description here
enter image description here


This is also backed up by the 'Get to know the bots' featurette which refers to the ship's "thousands of passengers" (e.g. rather than "hundreds of thousands") and the image of the lido deck where all of the (approximately 8-10000) passengers have gathered when the alarm sounds.


enter image description here


As to what they're eating, the film's script mentions that one of the Captain's duties is to maintain the "regenerative food buffet". It seems likely that in the absence of the fresh food, Auto has tasked the ship with liquefying the dead and feeding them to each successive generation. This would also explain the fall in population since the nutritive value would decline each time a corpse is recycled.


The same applies to the machinery used to maintain the ship. With a heavily declining population, robots that are now surplus to requirement can be disassembled and dumped overboard. Note that all of the "non-recyclables" seen in the disposal bay are pieces of metal or pieces of broken robots rather than any organic or plastic waste


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

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.

game of thrones - Is Syrio Forel dead?

In the episode 'The Pointy End' (Season 1 Episode 8) when Arya runs from the Lannister guards you hear the sound of a sword being dropped (around 4:56): [embedded content] After that neither Syrio or Ser Meryn Trant is never mentioned or seen in the show again, except when Arya mentions to the Hound that Ser Meryn Trant killed Syrio. Is there any mention in the books that Syrio actually dies?

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...

tolkiens legendarium - Difference between elves and dwarves blacksmithing in the Lord of the Rings

Both the elves and the dwarves were famous for their metal work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but what is the difference between what they made, and which one had the better skill of making amours and swords? Answer James Christopher's answer sums up the second part of your question well, but as to the difference in what they made, a little more detail is needed. Once the Elves learned to forge with steel, the shape of the sword changed, now being able to take on the form of a great broadsword or a light and agile curved sword. Additionally, they took great pride in decorating their swords. As we see in the Lord of the Rings , some swords like Sting had magical properties such as glowing blue when orcs are near. As far as the use of Mithril, lotr.wikia has two contradictory passages: Thus, Elven blades became renowned as great weapons, capable of performing deeds beyond the skill of their handlers and were even more glorious when the use of Mithril was allowed to the Elves. ...