An Open Letter to the Creators of Super Mario Galaxy 2

To Whom It May Concern,

I have been eagerly watching pre-release material for your game, and am excited to play it! Unfortunately, I feel that it is my responsibility to inform you that you seem to be confused about some of the basics of astronomy and, indeed, the very nature of space itself.

Let me sum up a few basics of the game. Mario is the captain of a truly awesome space vessel, capable of travelling between galaxies! In seconds! It needs no glass bubble, no walls, just a garden. I was going to complain about the fact that the ship has no visible means of maintaining an atmosphere, engines, life support, and it appears to be steered exclusively by a pirate-ship-style 18th century wheel. A two- dimensional steering mechanism seems hardly practical in three dimensional space. That aside, I can suspend my disbelief long enough to entertain the possibility that Starship Mario is a PLANET SIZED SPACESHIP! It is kind of spherical, after all.

The idea of a planet-sized ship has been around for a while (J.D. Bernal wrote about it first in 1929, and the idea has been pretty-much omnipresent in recent years). If it is big enough, it can hold its own atmosphere, produce theoretically unlimited resources to support life (if you can find a way to mimic sunlight or replace natural processes), and plus it’s a synch to ward off most radiation if you have a massive core of conducting liquid metal and a big-ass magnetic field. Most radiation. And then there is the problem of propulsion, which get more difficult the greater the mass is that’s being moved.

I’m willing to assume the following:

1: Spaceship Mario has sufficient mass to hold down an atmosphere.
2: StarMen provide the solar energy that warm the ship and provide light for the nicely arranged tulips (aka, oxygen gardens).
3: A liquid core of conducting metal (or artificial equivalent) creates a tremendous magnetic field that protects Mario from massive cellular and genetic damage from the cosmic radiation of deep space.
4: The ship relies on a futuristic propulsion system that a) somehow moves a planet-sized ship, and b) has managed to get around the problem that if you expel a reaction mass from a large enough body, the exhaust will eventually reverse course and fall back down, gently tugging the ship, and annulling any acceleration. So rockets are pretty much out of the question. Maybe it rides gravitational waves or something.
5: Said propulsion system can travel between neighbouring galaxies in roughly 1.5 seconds. You’d pretty much have to find a way around light speed and inertia for this one to work.

Exhibit A: not a galaxy

And about that galaxies thing. Did you really call that a galaxy? It looks like a level to me. Maybe at best a planetoid. Carefully aligned without a hint of orbital motion. For the record, galaxies are quite large. Trillions of Goombas could fit in a single galaxy. And ALL of them rotate. Stuff orbits! It is the way of the universe. Just wanted to point that out.

Finally. The goombas. They are everywhere. There are bumblebees everywhere. Bob-ombs, bullet bills… exactly how is it that Bowser managed to get the upper hand and populate the entire known universe with his cronies? Assuming that wicked fast spaceships are available, it’s not inconceivable. Even then, you wouldn’t expect every planet to harbour life. Remember the Drake Equation? Life is fragile! Unless of course you terraformed every planetoid (“galaxy”) in the universe beforehand. This is getting ridiculous. So add the following:

6: Bowser has terraformed the universe, and populated it with his cronies within Mario’s lifespan. Impressive work!
7: Somehow this massive empire is administered and coordinated by a single dude. I’m not even going to go into this one.
8: The whole time Bowser was playing Universe Napoleon and raging from conquest to conquest, Mario was slacking off completely. I mean, you would have to notice entire galaxies falling under Bowser’s armies, right?

All in all, the premise for this game requires such a monumental effort to cast aside disbelief that it is impossible to play. I humbly request a rewrite of the game that explains all of the technological assumptions, or at the very least includes an appendix.

Seriously and sincerely,

Paul