Explanation of The Novel's Title
The title refers to what could be called an "engineer's commandment": "fail safe", meaning to take account of the ways things can go wrong—fail—and ensure as far as possible that the machine, process, etc. will not make things worse in that event. The title's irony is that, in this case, it is assumed failure is caused by enemy attack, and that the "safe" response is to follow the last authenticated orders at all costs.
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