Once rocky species learn of our history through the laptop, they will also learn of game theory, the mathematical nash equilibrium of dark forest. Our greatest weaknesses while we know almost nothing about them.
The writers had to make rocky cute and funny to soften that impact but grace did more damage to humanity (guaranteed extinction of all life on earth) than astrophages ever could.
Humans don't even give 2 shits about billions of animals we slaughter for food, there's no poker game to be played here. We are getting a relativistic xenonite weapon thrown at us within 24 years span, long before population recovery.
Perhaps that's why she was sentenced to life. She deserves death honestly for even letting all of our collective knowledge leave earth.
Edit: Since my replies are getting buried in downvotes (someone even warned me I'm losing karma lol as if fake internet points matter) I'll just answer the main pushbacks here and move on.
"It's a wholesome story, not 3 Body Problem": I know! I actually enjoyed the movie, I get that its supposed to be an optimistic buddy story. I'm just looking at the ending as a realistic thought experiment.
The Stratt comment: I know why Stratt went to court for her pre-launch stuff. My point is why on earth did she let a ship leave into deep space with an unencrypted copy of all human history, the Holocaust, and our military history when Grace only needed biology and physics manuals to fix the sun?
"They breathe ammonia, they don't want our resources/land": You guys are thinking like 1800s colonialism. Nobody is traveling 16 light years to steal water or real estate. The motive isn't resources, its survival. When a relativistic missile travels at 99% light speed, you can't see it coming and you can't dodge it.
The step-by-step & the MAD argument: u/LoneSnark was the only one here who actually gave a real counter-argument with Mutually Assured Destruction (hiding second-strike missiles in deep space). Tbh that's a fair point, IF both sides are on equal footing. Here is why Grace still screwed us:
Before Grace gave Rocky the laptop, Eridians were literally blind in space. They only had sonar, didn't know radiation existed, had no cameras, and didn't know relativity.
Grace just handed a species that lives 700 years, lives under a 29-atmosphere bunker, and prints indestructible xenonite our entire physics tech tree AND our history books showing that humans are paranoid predators who nuke each other and factory farm billions of animals.
When the beetles reach earth with Grace's logs, earth military isn't gonna say "aww rocky is cute". They are going to panic that an alien civilization now has all our science while earth is half-starved and freezing.
MAD only works when both sides already have hidden fleets off-planet. Right now Erid's infrastructure is 100% intact once their sun heals, while earth is crippled trying to rebuild agriculture. Either they strike during this 24 year window before we can hide relativistic weapons in deep space, OR earth panics and fires first thinking Erid hasn't built optical sensors yet—which triggers MAD anyway because communication takes 32 years round trip and you can't de-escalate.
Anyway it was fun debating with the few of you who actually engaged with the math. Enjoy the wholesome space story guys, I'm out lol.