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Actually... yeah, yes I do Isaac Send a noteboard - 14/10/2013 11:20:50 PM

View original postlaughs I am, by no means, as well versed on Space/Engineering as you are. All I have to go on is my vast wealth of Sci-Fi knowledge. And I agree with you. I taught some physics & P-Chem in school, and I always laughted about the type of scenerio that you described.

I normally engage my suspension of disbelief to just enjoy the show, noise in space doesn't bug me, and I can even ignore the 'exploding consoles' crap or space engagements occurring closer than WWII naval engagements did as visual stimulation for the audience but plots based on junk science or stuff that is just wrong bother me. It's like old action films where the guy gets shot with a pistol and flies backward through a plate-glass window in spite of bullets typically having about as much kinetic energy as a thrown baseball.


View original postAnd I am, by no means, going to defend my beloved Star Trek (and I loved me some Voyager, by the way). But there are a few episodes here and there where they get a bit...off. (like you decribed)

A few? Ha! It barely qualifies as science fiction most days. But yeah I love my Trek.


View original postHowever, there was one episode where I had to laugh, because it flew in the face of all the others. They said that life support (or some such...it may have just been the atmospheric processors) were down. And they weren't so much worried about "running out of oxygen", but were more concerned about the heat from the warp core. The environmental systems were more to keep the crew alive, despite the ship trying to kill them (not space). The warp core would put off huge amounts of radiant heat that they had to deal with. Without those systems on, the ship would be a flying saunna. Then other systems would go down, and the crew would die from that (or one of the other critical systems going down).

That's definitely reasonable, getting rid of heat is a serious problem... which one would attend to by plastering the hull with radiating fins. I always ignore the cooked alive aspect because unless they're stuff is all 99%+ efficient and dumping into space all the excess heat ought to fry them anytime they do anything. "We freeze really fast because the ship is designed to radiate heat and absurdly fast rate compared to its apparent surface area" is, to me, an acceptable excuse only if they 1) Say that is the case and 2) explain why it was not practical to have that option shut off, and 3) Why the ship doesn't have the massive heat reservoirs you'd expect someone to include on any ship that built up terajoules of energy inside every time it flipped the shields/weapons on and used them so a snot to fry the crew. And 4) Why none of the very obvious and simple extra measures wouldn't be built in to deal with this, even if it was a just the equivalent of caches of bubblewrap with Infrared reflective insides that you could spread over the damn hull.


View original postAnd if you remember the episode from ST: Next Generation, when they run into the Quantum Filliment....all major systems were down, for a while, and they didn't freeze to death. Or the other episode from ST: Next Generation where the Enterprise (and the Britania) are caught in the Tycon's Rift (which sucked out their energy)...no one was cold.

Consistency is also an issue, like continuity in general, this time we're freezing, this exactly parallel case we're not. At least if some super-tech from an enemy is sucking out the heat, like in B%'s showdown with the Vorlons and Shadows, there's a specific if BS reason for it.


View original postBut well yeah....I just always laugh and remember that we often don't let truth get in the way of a dramatic point.

Sure, and everyone gets some leeway for accidents, oops, and artistic license but that can only stretch so far before its just magic. It's like the pinprick leak from a bullet causing everyone to suck out into space when you could just stick your thumb over the thing and have a huge hickey and frostburn if it took someone a while to find some duct tape. Open an airlock or shuttlebay door and yeah you're going flying but there's SF where a fist size whole gets blown in the hull and some poor devil gets sucked onto it then sucked through like they were meat in a sausage maker.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein

King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
This message last edited by Isaac on 14/10/2013 at 11:24:03 PM
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Something irritating the hell out of me in Sci-Fi [geek rant] - 14/10/2013 09:58:17 PM 649 Views
Did it work better for you in Firefly? - 14/10/2013 10:40:49 PM 301 Views
Firefly is a much smaller ship, yes - 14/10/2013 10:57:46 PM 288 Views
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Actually... yeah, yes I do - 14/10/2013 11:20:50 PM 271 Views
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Oh, crap, if we're listing irritating things that make no sense: - 15/10/2013 04:54:23 AM 571 Views
That middle one seems a more general complaint - 15/10/2013 06:25:32 AM 774 Views

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