In C it would be like:

$ gcc hello.c -o hello.o -c
hello.c: In function ‘main’:
hello.c:3:1: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of built-in function ‘printf’ [enabled by default]
 printf("hello world!\n");
 ^

$ file hello.o
hello.o: ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), not stripped

$ gcc hello.o -r 
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lc
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

  But the actual problem user experienced was:

$ gfortran -v -r -o BIG.o a.o b.o c.o ...
Driving: gfortran -v -r -o BIG.o a.o b.o c.o -l gfortran -l m -shared-libgcc
...
OLLECT_GCC_OPTIONS='-v' '-r' '-o' 'BIG.o' '-shared-libgcc' '-mtune=generic' '-march=x86-64'
/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/collect2 -plugin /usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/liblto_plugin.so -plugin-opt=/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/lto-wrapper -plugin-opt=-fresolution=/tmp/ccEsZ4ao.res -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc_s -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lquadmath -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lm -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc_s -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lc -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc_s -plugin-opt=-pass-through=-lgcc --no-add-needed --eh-frame-hdr --hash-style=gnu -m elf_x86_64 -dynamic-linker /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 -o BIG.o -r /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/../../../../lib64/crt1.o /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/../../../../lib64/crti.o /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/crtbegin.o -L/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8 -L/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/../../../../lib64 -L/lib/../lib64 -L/usr/lib/../lib64 -L/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/../../.. a.o b.o c.o ... -lgfortran -lm -lgcc_s -lgcc -lquadmath -lm -lgcc_s -lgcc -lc -lgcc_s -lgcc /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/crtend.o /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/8/../../../../lib64/crtn.o
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgfortran
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lm
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lquadmath
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lm
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lc
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

  The driver should print some error message when '-r' is used like this. As well
as some explanation about the issue.

  The linker is attempting to statically link.