The Andromeda Strain Sparknotes

Human error and Technology failure are both possible things that occur frequently in life, yet the characters from Michael Crichton’s book “The Andromeda Strain” still depended on their state of the art technology with their lives. Andromeda Strain is a deadly virus that travels to Piedmont, Arizona by a satellite sent out of orbit and propelling back towards earth from space. After this occurrence, four male scientists that were previously selected for this specific occasion were gathered. Their names were Mark Hall, Jeremy Stone, Peter Leavitt and Charles Burton and they had a mission to accomplish. Their mission was to figure out what Andromeda Strain was and how to stop it from killing any more innocent people. The entire time while they

were trying to figure out how to stop Andromeda it continued to spread continuing to cause them problems throughout the five days it attacked human life on earth.

Throughout the book Michael Crichton progressed the four main characters, usually referring to them by their last names.

Mark Hall was a surgeon who was easily angered, Jeremy Stone was a well disciplined bacteriologist, Peter Leavitt was microbiologist and epidemiologist and also a little nerdy and finally Charles Burton was a pathologist and the complete opposite of Jeremy Stone. One of them was chosen to be the odd man that was pretty much the only alternative to life or death as soon as the super lab decided it had been contaminated. The lab had a nuclear bomb under it so if the lab had been contaminated with the virus it would blow up attempting to potentially destroy the virus. Hall was chosen to be the odd man. If the lab started to count down to self destruction he would have to put a key in a lock and turn it to shut it off, and only he had the key and he was the only one that could do it. He was chosen to be the odd man because he was an unmarried young man, and studies have shown that unmarried males are better at rational

decisions.

“ ‘Self-destruct has been canceled,’ the voice announced, as if it were quite normal. Hall slid to the floor, heavy, exhausted and watched as blackness closed in around him” (Crichton, 351) during this time in the book Hall had been running through the lab like a mad man so he could turn his key in the lock and cancel the countdown to self destruction in time and he eventually made it. The narrator said this quote. This quote is important because Michael Crichton shows how technology was the decider of life or death at that point in the novel, because Hall literally had seconds left until the entire lab would self destruct along with all the other scientists inside.

The lab was only about to self destruct because of technology failure. Technology failure because even the best of the best technology is not as promising as a live human making decisions. Technology malfunctions are more often to occur than human malfunctions because technology is not as aware of it’s surroundings. The technology failed the scientists by registering something as a contamination that wasn’t one. “So Burton is now exposed to a harmless organism. That’s why the rat is alive” (Crichton, 342) this quote was said by Stone while him and Hall were researching the virus and the way it killed. During the time of them performing their research the virus mutated causing a different outcome instead resulting in immediate death the organism started to deteriorate plastic items. “The pilot had his aircraft destroyed because the plastic was dissolved before his eyes.” (Crichton, 342) Hall said this while him and Stone were discussing the airplane and the reason why the pilot did not die but his aircraft was destroyed could have occurred because a mutation in the virus had occurred.

Flashing back to when Hall had to run around the lab like a chicken with his head cut off because of human error. Human error played a major part in life or death because whoever designed the lab caused the scientists to have more trouble than they should have had during the time the were trying to turn off the self destruct. The designer of the lab had multiple different floors but to get to each floor you had to go through a long process of cleansing any contaminants from their bodies and the exposed environment so as not to contaminate the floor the scientists were trying to gain access to. On top of the long decontamination process, there was the poor locations of the key slots that you could disengage the self destruct sequence once it had started. The locations of the key slots were in rooms that would seal themselves off in the case of a contaminant being released into the environment. Once closed, the doors would be hermetically sealed and therefore the key slot would be unaccessable by anyone not in that room. “‘Quick,’ he said, ‘get out of here. There’s no substation in this lab. You have to go to the next sector.’” (Crichton, 343) Stone says this to Hall right after the lights began to flash that notify about the countdown for self destruction and they realize what is going on and what they need to do to handle it.

Hall doesn’t completely realize what Stone is getting at when he exclaims for him to be quick, until it is already too late and the sector had been closed off. He realizes he is trapped as soon as he hears a thump from a massive steel plate sliding out of the wall to close off the corridor. “ ‘The level is closed. The level is closed. This is an emergency. The level is closed.’ “ (Crichton, 343) this was stated by the narrator, it was a signal to the scientists about the level being closed and them not being able to proceed through the corridor because self destruction was about to begin because of contamination. This was a form of human error because Halls brain didn’t respond quick enough for it to register that he needed to get up and began moving to turn his key to cancel self destruction before it was too late.

The brain as well as technology fails us sometimes.

It’s okay, because humans design technology therefor technology is not perfect because humans are not perfect either. Throughout Michael Crichton’s book he progressively makes his characters go through a lot of events in which technology failure and human error occur probably to induce a thrill, also to continue to be realistic with his novel, since it is science fiction. It is realistic because human error and technology failure occur every day in the real world. Not usually do they decide life or death, unlike in The Andromeda Strain. Where the errors that occurred were putting many lives at a high risk of danger. The scientists are working with an extremely dangerous contaminant at first before the organism mutates into a different organism. The lab was not foolproof for that type of organism since the world had not even been exposed to it before and knew nothing about it. Therefor the reader almost comes in reading the novel knowing that some type of mechanical or technology failure will occur as well as human error. It was a first time for those scientists so it was very obvious that the mission would be extremely sloppy, and readers can just assume that because they know how often errors occur in everyday life for humans and

technology.