The employment of the Sophon idea isn’t incoherent, but the slice of options which enable it to function as described, and yet not have the very tiny additional amount of capability necessary to completely control people through illusion — or causing catastrophic micro events in their body that would kill them (like making a prion), or for that matter, reading their mind, strains crudity.
The quantum entanglement thing is just a basic confusion about physics.
The idea that they don’t know “we are liars” but they know our stories, and can make a make-believe come for game, and select a familiar appearance, is incoherent.
The plot device that they tell us all the pertinent facts is stupid. They would come quietly.
Nuclear detonations can’t push a sail that way, of that size, of that proximity, and if they could, they would also irradiate the payload and perhaps damage the vehicle.
But there is already way we know how to do this correctly. Pack in the 1980s we are ready we’re talking about how to make nuclear pumped x-ray lasers. And we knew how to accelerate particles and rail gun matter to high speed with the detonation — which perhaps is what they’re trying to show in the movie, and why the craft isn’t damaged, because the matter is all on one side, but they never mentioned it and the device they show doesn’t seem to be doing that.
You don’t need 18g of seeds. You need micrograms of genetic material. But even that is stupid. All you need is genetic information, and the Sophons have that already. And the chemical composition of foods. No need to make food via biology.
It’s very obvious humans have an ally. It was the first message. It moved the skateboarder. Why is it not discussed and leveraged?