www.ditl.org

Graham Kennedy wrote:

McAvoy wrote:I think modern Science Fiction should or does try to be accurate with the current understandings of science

Some of it does, most of it doesn't.

For example it's difficult to name a sci fi movie that doesn't feature artificial gravity and FTL flight. I can think of two modern ones - Gravity and Apollo 13. There must be dozens that don't, though.

I'm not sure Apollo 13 is exactly "science fiction..."

Kind of blurs the lines...

McAvoy wrote:The most reliable piece of technology in Sci Fi is artificial gravity. You will run out of air but at least you will be on your feet.

Actually, in TOS there is constant talk on the background track about gravity being reduced to 0.9g. Listen for it in episodes and you will find it.

Graham Kennedy wrote:

McAvoy wrote:I think modern Science Fiction should or does try to be accurate with the current understandings of science

Some of it does, most of it doesn't.

For example it's difficult to name a sci fi movie that doesn't feature artificial gravity and FTL flight. I can think of two modern ones - Gravity and Apollo 13. There must be dozens that don't, though.

but it is fiction after all. Plenty of TV drama shows out there that depict the military way off.

Or police, or lawyers, or doctors, etc.

Or pretty much anything to do with computers. To watch a computer programmer would require house of typing, pretty dull if your not the one doing it.

IanKennedy wrote:

McAvoy wrote:The most reliable piece of technology in Sci Fi is artificial gravity. You will run out of air but at least you will be on your feet.

Actually, in TOS there is constant talk on the background track about gravity being reduced to 0.9g. Listen for it in episodes and you will find it.

Good point.

And of course there's ST VI, where the Klingon warship lost gravity when it got hit by (apparently) the Enterprise.

Against that, the Promellian battlecruiser had been stranded powerless in an asteroid field for a thousand years and it still had gravity. Of course I like to pretend that the Promellians lived under 50g, and the ship was down to the last dregs of gravity power - that just happened to be 1g!

I think some folks are missing the fact that so-called "hard SF" is only one of a number of sub-genres of science fiction. Yes, it's a valid one - but it's not nearly the ONLY valid one. What T_A (I believe) called "space fantasy magic" may in fact be so, but that in no way invalidates it as a form of fiction. To imply otherwise is a type of the worst form of elitist douchebag snobbery. One may as well say that George R. R. Martin is a mediocre hack, because dragons never really existed.

Mikey wrote:I think some folks are missing the fact that so-called "hard SF" is only one of a number of sub-genres of science fiction. Yes, it's a valid one - but it's not nearly the ONLY valid one. What T_A (I believe) called "space fantasy magic" may in fact be so, but that in no way invalidates it as a form of fiction. To imply otherwise is a type of the worst form of elitist douchebag snobbery. One may as well say that George R. R. Martin is a mediocre hack, because dragons never really existed.

Exactly so. It so happens that most people like "space fantasy magic". In deed they like it a good deal more than what he calls science fiction.

Thanks for the reponses, that clears it up a lot. I suppose I would have to study acceleration more to really understand it.

Griffin wrote:Does the author of that site have to sound like a condescending prick all the time? They seem to forget a key half of the term Science-Fiction. Namely, the FICTION part. Hard Sci-fi can be fun too, but you don't have to act so condescendingly to people that create and consume soft sci-fi like they seem to be doing.

Lol, yes, I realized the same thing. But like I said, the site is still a great resource, if you want to build a hard sci-fi universe.


I think his irritation is like someone was saying, people that are ignorant tend to get defensive about their ignorance, and Star Trek doesn't help things either by constantly using "tech-tech" magic to get out of situations.

A better story would have a little more thought than just technobable.

It should be pointed out that I think Star Trek would have been more hard sci-fi, a lot of these cliches come from the budget constraints and lack of technology they had to work with back then. For instance, if I recall, shuttles were supposed to be used more often but it was too expensive, hence, the transporter.

Its far too expensive designing unique races, cultures and environments for each episode, hence ridge heads.


It would be interesting to see a more hard sci-fi version of Star Trek, with the knowledge we have now that warp may indeed be possible.

LaughingCheese wrote:I think his irritation is like someone was saying, people that are ignorant tend to get defensive about their ignorance, and Star Trek doesn't help things either by constantly using "tech-tech" magic to get out of situations.

A better story would have a little more thought than just technobable.

If you watch TOS, it's notable just how little tech talk they did. It did happen, and it was usually pretty terrible when it did, but you rarely got the technobabble answer to a technobabble problem kind of thing you got in TNG and beyond.

Graham Kennedy wrote:

LaughingCheese wrote:I think his irritation is like someone was saying, people that are ignorant tend to get defensive about their ignorance, and Star Trek doesn't help things either by constantly using "tech-tech" magic to get out of situations.

A better story would have a little more thought than just technobable.

If you watch TOS, it's notable just how little tech talk they did. It did happen, and it was usually pretty terrible when it did, but you rarely got the technobabble answer to a technobabble problem kind of thing you got in TNG and beyond.

Which makes sense. I think they were trying to be more vague with technology so they didn't have to explain it. I think was part of Gene's idea of well established technology.  

It seems odd to say of a man who became one of the cornerstones of modern SF media, but Roddenberry was very wary of technology, philosophically speaking. His days in the military bent him in the other direction toward the peaceful end of the spectrum; likewise, as his service was in the Air Force, he learned to associate warmaking with technology. His conception of the Borg was one of using the personal and all-invasive asociation with technology in order to engender a feeling of alienity. All that said, it's hardly surprising that technology - while unavoidably present in the "scenery" - wouldn't have been the focus of his original series.

Graham Kennedy wrote:

LaughingCheese wrote:I think his irritation is like someone was saying, people that are ignorant tend to get defensive about their ignorance, and Star Trek doesn't help things either by constantly using "tech-tech" magic to get out of situations.

A better story would have a little more thought than just technobable.

If you watch TOS, it's notable just how little tech talk they did. It did happen, and it was usually pretty terrible when it did, but you rarely got the technobabble answer to a technobabble problem kind of thing you got in TNG and beyond.

Right, I was thinking TNG etc but I didn't specify. My bad.

The skyscraper thing only works for a very narrow range of science fiction. For movies and stuff near our actual level of technology you get airbus style seating because the craft rely on a high g burn followed by zero G cruising. And even if you go up to advanced fusion technology and long distance travel you'd be more likely to get a "spinning doughnut" looking design because you'll still be spending a lot of your trip not accelerating so quickly. And once you have FTL technology you'll have had to have come up with some way to screw around with spacetime, and once you have that it seems reasonable you'd screw around with spacetime in such a way so as to create a gravity well.

You only get skyscrapers when the exact degree of magic in your engines accellerates and deccellerates between maybe a quarter to two g and you're making short trips within a solar system where it's realistic to maintain that for the duration of the trip. That's a pretty narrow window, and one that I think would be hard to write for due to the limitations such a ship would have.

North is up...

In fairness, even with gravity control you can argue that skyscraper decks make more sense.

Think about what the Enterprise systems have to do. When the ship is stationary, they apply 1g towards the deck. But when accelerating, they have to nullify the acceleration to the side and apply one g downwards as well.

With a skyscraper design, when you're stationary you have to apply the downwards 1g as before. But when you're accelerating all you have to do is nullify the acceleration except for the last 1g. You both save a bit of power on nullifying that extra g, and you save the power you would need to create a g downwards. And if you're accelerating at less than 1g, you only need to generate a little bit of additional gravity to top it up.

You'd think that would be a slightly more efficient system.