Pseudo-Science In Some Sci-Fi Shows

[Cell]

Here is another question, we know that science fiction is based or projected on the science known at the time that it was created. inevitably time passes and our understanding of science grows, thus science fiction tends to have a shelf life, this includes science fiction in all the mediums from print , to tv to Movies. So the question is should we still even consider the stuff science fiction, given this reality Is it still still science fiction even though the science no longer supports it? I know that we tend to shoehorn old science fiction into the the category of Classic, its kind of like the old retirement home for this stuff. It also relates to the whole pseudo science thread of this topic.:thumbsup::vulcan:

It's most definitely still science fiction. When those shows were developed they were science fiction and outside of just the science aspect they had many of the classic sci-fi tenets included as well. Science isn't the only thing that defines science fiction.

But, as a better example, look at baseball for a second. The Padres new stadium is a much deeper park, so with that being the case should all of the home runs hit by the Padres in their old park be taken away because of how deep the new park is? It's not the best analogy, but it does show why judging the past on the future isn't always the best thing to do. Those shows were sci-fi then and they are still sci-fi now.

 

[hypatia]

How is it on trek ad other series that character when confronted with an alien piece of technology, with a an interface quickly are able to not only access it but interface with earth tech very quickly?

Because it's all made in China, by the same factory.

 

[GaribaldisHair]

The other obvious one (and even 2001 commits this one, having come closer than pretty much everyone else to date) is having the starfield moving in the background to show a moving spaceship. In reality the stars would be so far away as to not appear to move unless the ship was moving really, REALLY, REALLY fast.

Truth be told a shot of a spaceship moving through space as it really would look ... with no sound, no sign of movement behind it and no engines firing ... would be pretty unexciting, so I guess we can forgive them that much.

Star Trek just about gets away with the streaking stars thing because (let's face it) we don't know what it would look like if we really did have warp engines.

Got to love the way so many ships bank when turning as well. And don't even get me started on Star Wars Ep 3's approach to artificial gravity!!

 

[Garovorkin]

Cell the baseball analogy is actually pretty reasonable, Besides if they took back all the Home runs there would be some really Ticked off big league ball players, Fans and Stats people. I actually thought about doing this as a thread but , it did seem like it would not get much in the way of debate. Here's another one for you, Stargate Alantis The Wraith have super advanced technology, FTL capable ships, impressive understanding of things like genetic manipulations. But they can't come up with alternative to snacking humans for substance? that just doesn't make sense, and in any event thats quite a serious potential vulnerability to have, remember the Replicators started to exploit that weakness. My issue here is that given the nature of the wraith, they should not have this type of problem, we know that civilization tends to happen when peoples achieve agrarian lifestyle growing food ,crops. The wraith are technically hunter gatherers and usually those don't become advanced civilizations. In fact common sense say that the Wrath should have become extinct on their planet of origin because they should have eaten each other, they are not a viable species given their biology , It is unlikely should have achieved any level of technology. I know that the writers of the shaw came up with an explaination of how this took place, but to my mind it just doesn't work.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Another convention thats a no no but even Babylon 5 breaks this rule, There is no air in space therefore there can be no sound in space, all those cool space battles would be silent ones. {snip}

There is no air in space - unless we supply the air. Source of air = hole in the side of the spaceship.

Sound can also travel through solids, such as the hull of the spaceship. So microphones attached to the spaceships can hear the guns fire and the bullets arrive but nothing in-between.

 

[Garovorkin]

Battlefield Earrht one of the most godawful science fiction films of all time. This one has a few issues. How is it that Johnny Tyler and his freedom fighters were able take Jets that had been in storage for a thousand years and use them to battle the Psychlo's. In a thousand years even under the best possible storage conditions, this plains would still be unflyable. the Electronic components would have decayed and crumbles long ago and where would they get fuel? any that was in storage would have been either evaporated long ago or chemically rendered inert by time. Tires on the landing gear would have crumbled away a long time ago as woulds any replacements, also old weapons bullets and cartrages would not last 1000 years either. In the book they used Psychlo ships and weapons to battle them with.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

The other obvious one (and even 2001 commits this one, having come closer than pretty much everyone else to date) is having the starfield moving in the background to show a moving spaceship. In reality the stars would be so far away as to not appear to move unless the ship was moving really, REALLY, REALLY fast.

That's correct.I've watched it on Discovery Channel I think.If we were able to look at the stars from the Proxima Centauri System(4.2 lightyears away from us) the constellations would look almost the same as if we look at them from Earth.The only difference would be that our own sun would be there too.So the stars shouldn't be moving as if they are some kind of star dust around the ship.

 

[Garovorkin]

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson who brought us the great puppet scif series Supercar,Fireball XLT, Stingray,Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet Had rather less then stellar live action shows and i believe one live action theatrical film. In 1969 the produced a live action science fiction movie, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which starred Roy Thines of the show Invaders, the plot involved a trip to the other side of the sun where they find planet sharing a twin orbit with Earth, turns out that the planet is an exact mirror copy of Earth down to and including the people and the astronaut himself whose mirror self has gone to his earth, The astronaut can only read writing reflected in the mirror, This move is implausible beyond words. Then they did UFO which while the acting was wooden and the science was wonky, it was not a bad show. Space 1999 has huge problems the Moon gets blasted out of Orbit by a huge nuclear explosion, which should have turned the moon into an asteroid field. The moon traveling at Sublight somehow managed to occasionally visit planets, In the second season which was produced by Fred Friedberger, they had the moon drop through space warps to account for the vast distances that they covered. But the sad part is that the writing and acting on this show was not great to say the least, a lot of scientifically implausible stories. It is fun to watch and the effects even by todays standards still impress

 

[Garovorkin]

Here is one that really bugs me, now in Terminator,The Time traveler went through time naked and without an metal object on their person because metal will not displace, but a terminator can travel through time because the metal is covered in human tissue, there could be a possible problem with this because if metal cannot displace would that not mean that the terminators flesh would displace but not its metal chasis which would stay in the future? Then there is terminator 2 Judgement day which really contradicts the no metal displacement concept, the T 1000 unlike its T 800 series, has no human flesh at all, so the question is how could it have traveled in time? Somehow I don't think a think membrane of tissue would solve the problem and in the movie they never addressed this one, and if you want to take it a step further In Terminator rise of the Machines, the TX I believe was also all metal, even though it could mimic the touch and feel of flesh it was still metal, so therefore by the rules set up by terminator, TX should not have been able to travel in time either.

 

[KoshFan]

The science holes in the Terminator movies started with the machines trying to change the past. Just doesn't work, puppies.

 

[Garovorkin]

Yeah the main problem with Time Travel Stories of course being the Grandfather Paradox or some variation of it.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

I'm told (never saw it) that in the original Battlestar Galactica there was a moment when they say, "The fleet is completely, utterly out of fuel" and the next instruction is, "All right, bring the fleet to a complete halt." How? Space brakes?

That's right, KF.It's the same as "full stop" in Star Trek.

There is no friction in space.That's why a body travelling in space needs just a small push and it will theoretically keep drifting forever.The space probe "Voyager" is expected to come out of our galaxy in millions of years even if it travels at an incredibly low speed.

I think I've read this in one of those classic Arthur Clarke's books.In order to come to a full stop a space vessel needs even more fuel than to acceleate.It's doubtful that the fleet from BSG would be able to stop without any fuel.They would keep on drifting in space.

 

[GKarsEye]

Ok, fine, I'll geek out a bit:

"Full stop" in Trek makes complete sense- there would be some kind of force to pull the ship "backwards" until it stops moving.

 

[Garovorkin]

They never actually stated in trek whether they had any kind of breaking engines, when the captain wanted to halt he would say " All Stop", the ship would come to a stop. But they described the technical aspects of how that worked.

 

[darth_librarian]

Would the inertal dampners not be handling the whole stopping thing ?

 

[Garovorkin]

How do dampen Intetia space? How do you stop physical movement in frictionless space ? you would need some type of breaking engines

 

[KoshFan]

The inertial dampeners themselves were pseudoscience. Quite necessary for the story, in that they kept Kirk et. al from becoming raspberry jam every time they went to warp speed, but totally without scientific basis.

 

[Garovorkin]

The movie the Forbidden Planet had an interesting solution to protecting the crew form the effects of deceleration, th crew would suspend themselves in some type stasis chambers. This to would com under the heading of Pseudoscience. This may very be an issue which may make FTL interplanetary travel in the future difficult if not impossible, but who knows what science may came up with, of course they got to figure out a a practical way around Einsteins laws and they have to come up with power sourse that can do the job as well.

 

[Garovorkin]

One could also make an argument that the whole concept of the Positronic brain is Pseudo science, being able to create a sentient self aware machine may in the end be a pipe dream. there is so much to the conscience mind and un conscience mind that we do not understand and may never fully understand. It seems unlikely that we will come up with a any kind device that that can mimic the functions of the human brain or the nuiances of the mind itself.

 

[Garovorkin]

Lets talk about a movie which really stretches plausibility. Disney's the Black Hole. Okay you have a blackhole and orbiting it you have a spaceship the Cygus which has found some inexplicable way of hand above the blackhole, in other words its mad scientist commander Dr Reinhart has found a way to create a pocket of null gravity which enables hi to keep the ship out of the gravity, never explains how really. But even if that were possible the ship would have gotten destroyed by all the debris being sucked in to the blackhole, the ship would have to find a way to keep dodging the constant debris asterrods planets whole solar systems ect. no way to do this. Also how is that Reinhart and the the crew of the (flying oil platform in space) Palomino did not get fried by the radiation which I believe black holes emit. also how could the Palomino have been able to approach the Cygnus, based on what we know of Blackhole physics even in 1979 when the movie came out, this should not have been possible. In addition making a ship as transparent as the Cygnus also bad because that would let in radiation. Then when the Cygnus started sucumbing to the black hole that should have happened in nano seconds rather then the slow death the ship went through. Also Dantes inferno Hell where Reinhart ended up just doen't fit in a science fiction movie. then again the Blackhole was n't that good a science fiction movie.