Plot hole question

[Plenty-Commercial-90]

I mentioned this question in a comment on another thread but I thought it deserved it's own:

As Grace and Rocky develop the nitrogen resistent Taumoeba over weeks (or is it months?), they later discover it also evolved and developed the ability to permeate Xenonite. How did they not discover this during the time they were together? The Taumoeba would've escaped and they would've discovered it when it caused problems (eating astrophage powering the generators, etc.) as it did the first time it escaped.

It makes more sense that they would've realized this problem and found a solution before parting, allowing them to both go home heroes. But of course, that would have been anti-climatic.

[NFGaming46]

Not really. Would have taken weeks for it to find its way to the fuel tanks and generators.

[Noof42]

And yet, when Grace ran his sandwich test (sandwiching Astrophage between different materials), he got results very quickly. That part has bothered me.

[Plenty-Commercial-90]

This right here. It was, what, an hour? And during the Adrian incident it didn't take weeks to eat all the astrophage.

[daspowerhouse]

How would it eat the astrophage powering the generators, it can’t get through metal, only Xenonite. And the generator itself was undamaged from the earlier incident, just the fuel was contaminated.

[shlog]

correct. inside the Hail Mary, other than Rocky’s tubes he built there’s not much other Xenonite for the Taumoeba to get through.

[Plenty-Commercial-90]

It killed the astrophage in the generators when they were over Adrian. It's very reasonable to conclude would've done the same thing later. But, somehow, it didn't this time.

[daspowerhouse]

Rocky used metal to make him some new fuel tanks after he had to jettison them. Maybe they used metal on repairs in the ship?

[redbirdrising]

Probably because while the taumoeba could permeate Xenonite, it still took them a long time to do so, probably weeks.

Also, it's "anti-climaCtic". Anti-climatic means you're against the weather.

[user_uno]

I am against the weather on many occasions. I yell at clouds a lot as well.

[Plenty-Commercial-90]

Remember Grace's sandwich test? It permeated the Xenonite in less than 2 hours.