He had a breach in his ship but fixed it and went back and saved Rocky and sent the samples of whatever it was that was eating the stuff that was destroying humans.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Spoilers:

spoiler

An interstellar microbe feeding on stars (astrophage) was the danger to humanity. They figured out it breeds on planets. But the distant planet they found had different alien microbial life that just happened to be very good at feeding on the interstellar star eaters that had chosen to breed there.

So they took samples, cultured the microbe-eating-microbes, and left to take them home. But the human guy figured out they broke containment and ate some fuel his starship uses, that Rocky’s starship happened to be made of, so he used his remaining fuel to change course and warn Rocky.

So… the CO2 eater analogy actually makes some sense. If we’re lucky this could lead to major geoengineering breakthrough, like the movie microbes did (though I wouldn’t get my hopes up).

In this case, the parasite is humanity. Or emissions-heavy industry. Or oil executives. Something like that.