# SF Stuff that Really Annoys You!



## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

I was checking out a recent addition to Project Gutenberg and encountered this:

"We can't do anything else," I answered. "We're *ninety-three million light years away from the Earth*, and twenty-five outside the patrol area."

That is near the beginning of *To the Sons of Tomorrow* by Irving E. Cox

The Earth just coincidentally happens to be 93 million miles from the Sun but the Andromeda galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light years away. Of course there was no Wikipedia in 1953 but:






						List of nearest galaxies - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org
				




Hubble figured out that other galaxies are pretty far away in the 1920s.

Now I realize this can be regarded as rather silly and petty since this is science FICTION and we don't even know if any kind of FTL is possible but that distance is ridiculous. I am tempted to read it to see if the story could be accomplished inside this galaxy but just thinking about that may annoy me too much.

Yeah, go ahead, laugh at me. I can hear you already.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

I like that Wikipedia article explaining "Heliocentric Distance".

Like the difference between Heliocentric and Geocentric makes a difference when talking about distances over a lightyear.






An AU is what percentage of 2.5 million light years Data?

My positronic brain is not capable of handling that many zeros Captain.


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## Bick (Jul 20, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> An AU is what percentage of 2.5 million light years Data?


0.0006%


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## SilentRoamer (Jul 20, 2022)

I know it shouldn't but it annoys me when something is "2.5x faster than light" - but Captain the enemy ship is "10x faster than light" 

Would there even be a functional difference if both speeds allowed you to cross your own World Lines and travel into your own past.

I understand you cant do much else if you want multi stellar civilisations which aren't completely isolated due to relativistic effects, but it just bothers me.


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## Bick (Jul 20, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> I know it shouldn't but it annoys me when something is "2.5x faster than light" - but Captain the enemy ship is "10x faster than light"
> 
> Would there even be a functional difference if both speeds allowed you to cross your own World Lines and travel into your own past.
> 
> I understand you cant do much else if you want multi stellar civilisations which aren't completely isolated due to relativistic effects, but it just bothers me.


It doesn’t especially bother me that SF ships sometimes go several-fold faster than light in the sense you describe, but I do wonder why you would bother. It would cut the average interstellar travel time from many decades to fewer decades! To be able to skip around like in Star Trek you’d need to be doing hundreds or even thousands of times the speed of light, surely.


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## SilentRoamer (Jul 20, 2022)

Bick said:


> It doesn’t especially bother me that SF ships sometimes go several-fold faster than light in the sense you describe, but I do wonder why you would bother. It would cut the average interstellar travel time from many decades to fewer decades! To be able to skip around like in Star Trek you’d need to be doing hundreds or even thousands of times the speed of light, surely.


Yeah that's true. 

I had an idea for a novella about humans discovering a Wormhole Gateway on Jupiter, but when they Activate it it seals Jupiter away behind a black body. Around the same time (from the PoV of Earth) a star just disappears. As humans keep moving through the Gateway more stars keep disappearing. 

Some clever scientist figures out that the tech "seals" the target location as a way to protect the timeline and as we "see" the stars get sealed then we know the Gateway is FTL'ing people into the past. 

Anyway it was just the bare bones of an idea I had floating in my head. Feel free to rip it to pieces


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## Bick (Jul 20, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> Yeah that's true.
> 
> I had an idea for a novella about humans discovering a Wormhole Gateway on Jupiter, but when they Activate it it seals Jupiter away behind a black body. Around the same time (from the PoV of Earth) a star just disappears. As humans keep moving through the Gateway more stars keep disappearing.
> 
> ...


Sounds kind of intriguing actually.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

Bick said:


> 0.0006%


Really?

I get 2.5 million ly is 157,783,680,000 AU.

0.0000000006%

OK, Data can handle that but he is trying to be human so he has to practice sarcasm.

Sarcastic androids annoy me too.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

Bick said:


> ! To be able to skip around like in Star Trek you’d need to be doing hundreds or even thousands of times the speed of light, surely.



The FTL in Michael McCollum's Gibraltar Earth trilogy is about 7,000 times light speed.

They would drop out of FTL once a week to take navigational sightings. The story involved the Crab Nebula, 7000 ly away, and the trip took little over a year.


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## Vladd67 (Jul 20, 2022)




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## tinkerdan (Jul 20, 2022)

I think that it really resolves down to what a person is looking for in fiction.
There are some people--many that I know in my work--who are unsuited to most fiction and are better off sticking to reading history, biography, auto-biography or science journals. And some of those I know do exactly that because of this.

If you are more inclined to seek out imaginative thought, there are certain boundaries that you need some level of flexibility.
This could end up with a sliding scale depending on the reader.

Someone who is fixated on physics as we know it might want to restrict themselves to novels or screenplays that stay within our universe.
This could possibly lead to sticking within the basic sphere of the earth and the moon and possibly Mars or Venus.

Someone willing to expand into what if of slightly differing understanding of physics might be able to expand beyond the universe without too much suspension of disbelief.

Someone who has little trouble with suspending disbelief could possible believe that 93 million lightyears is no problem some time in the far future.

One warning though.  If you do throw your suspenders out, you have to face the possibility that you might some day lose your trousers.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

tinkerdan said:


> Someone who has little trouble with suspending disbelief could possible believe that 93 million lightyears is no problem some time in the far future.
> 
> One warning though.  If you do throw your suspenders out, you have to face the possibility that you might some day lose your trousers.



See!

I knew someone was going to laugh at me.

But the thing is, how many galaxies are in a 20 million ly radius, much less stars? What could there be in that story that needed such a distance?  That is what bugged me about it.

No, you can't write a good science fiction story limited to just this galaxy, it isn't possible.


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## Ursa major (Jul 20, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> What could there be in that story that needed such a distance?


Didn't the book say what it was/might be?


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## Fiberglass Cyborg (Jul 20, 2022)

I get annoyed that all my SF short story ideas have been satirised in advance by Kurt Vonnegut. I scribble the latest piece of brilliance down, then stop and think, "Hey, isn't that a Kilgore Trout story?"


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> Didn't the book say what it was/might be?


I would have to read the whole thing to find out.









						To the sons of tomorrow by Irving E. Cox
					

Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers.




					gutenberg.org
				




I started it to try to get an idea if it was any good and got to that point and quit.

OK, I have read 10%. It is about a starship crashing on an alien planet. The ship is badly damaged and some of the crew are killed. So far I see nothing that could not happen in this galaxy or a Star Trek episode.


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## tinkerdan (Jul 20, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> Didn't the book say what it was/might be?


I personally haven't read it through yet though I did start.
It is a short story-possible novella at best and was published in a magazine.

I gather from a quick scan that part of the story premise depends on their being out of explored space which was defined as possibly twenty five lighyears beyond explored space.(Though there might be an open possibility he meant 25 million light years beyond explored space), However it suggests for the plot that the survivors of the flight might not survive the possibility that explored space will expand and they might be located and saved.

From there that accesses the  potential twist at the end that leaves one wondering.

Once again that is from a quick scan of the bulk of the story.



psikeyhackr said:


> I knew someone was going to laugh at me.


We aim to please.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

I have read 10%. They are supposedly 25 million ly beyond human patroled space. So how many galaxies are between 68 and 93 million ly away? How many stars?

Oh yeah, 1953, no exoplanets found by then.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 20, 2022)

Fiberglass Cyborg said:


> I get annoyed that all my SF short story ideas have been satirised in advance by Kurt Vonnegut. I scribble the latest piece of brilliance down, then stop and think, "Hey, isn't that a Kilgore Trout story?"


You could try a story with a scientist trying to become an SF writer becoming pissed off at Kurt Vonnegut so he makes a time machine to make sure he is killed in WWII.


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## tinkerdan (Jul 20, 2022)

Having finished reading I think that the distance is only meant to be used to compare the difference between volume of the patrolled universe at 68 million light years and the 93 million light years. The unpatrolled volume of space is 1.5 times larger than the patrolled volume which could conceivable take more time to gather into as patrolled space as existing patrolled space took in time to explore making it understandable for the plot to assume the survivors of a crash would not be located if we disregard any possibility that the people in the patrolled area knew their entry point and trajectory of the craft. 

The author might have thought that such an imposing number would relieve any doubt that these people were lost and on their own.

On a separate note--since the observable universe is often calculated to be somewhere above 93 billion light years in diameter--it seems that 93 million light years is really not that excessive in comparison even though it could probably work as well at 9.3 million light years. However it stands to reason that it would take us more time to dispute that there is such a world to be found at 93 million than at 9.3 million. 

There's a lot more surfaces space in the sphere to work with to hide that world from prying telescopes.


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## Rodders (Jul 21, 2022)

I have a bit of an issue with single ecosphere planets.

Star Wars is full of them, so I’ve grown up with them but for some reason they bother me a bit. I understand that you want to give each planet its own aesthetic and feel, but lush forestry from pole to pole isn’t realistic. Okay, perhaps I just have an issue with Endor.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 21, 2022)

Rodders said:


> I have a bit of an issue with single ecosphere planets.



I don't know if I can express my annoyance with Star Wars in this thread since I do not regard it as SF.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 21, 2022)

Bick said:


> ! To be able to skip around like in Star Trek you’d need to be doing hundreds or even thousands of times the speed of light, surely.



There is so much of Star Trek that annoys me.  An episode of TNG I watched the other night had Jean-Luc's 'Filling in the audience on what happened before the commercial break log' telling us the Enterprise was en-route to "GreekName-GreekName LowNumber'  solar system - just over four point two light years away,"  while lots and lots of stars zoomed past the ship -  suggesting, to me at least, that stars in that 'quadrant' were very very close together and/or very very numerous and/or very very small.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 21, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> I don't know if I can express my annoyance with Star Wars in this thread since I do not regard it as SF.



Go on.  You know you want to...  

(It'll give me an excuse to join in!)


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## Brian G Turner (Jul 21, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> There is so much of Star Trek that annoys me.  An episode of TNG I watched the other night had Jean-Luc's 'Filling in the audience on what happened before the commercial break log' telling us the Enterprise was en-route to "GreekName-GreekName LowNumber'  solar system - just over four point two light years away,"  while lots and lots of stars zoomed past the ship -  suggesting, to me at least, that stars in that 'quadrant' were very very close together and/or very very numerous and/or very very small.


I figure those can't be stars you see moving by, but instead dust and rocks and anything else that happens to get illuminated. Otherwise Trek ships would be travelling at something like 5 light years/second, and that would be completely inconsistent with what they actually tell us!


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## Bick (Jul 21, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> Really?
> 
> I get 2.5 million ly is 157,783,680,000 AU.
> 
> ...


Ah, yes _million_ light years… I calculated light years


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## Bick (Jul 21, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> There is so much of Star Trek that annoys me.  An episode of TNG I watched the other night had Jean-Luc's 'Filling in the audience on what happened before the commercial break log' telling us the Enterprise was en-route to "GreekName-GreekName LowNumber'  solar system - just over four point two light years away,"  while lots and lots of stars zoomed past the ship -  suggesting, to me at least, that stars in that 'quadrant' were very very close together and/or very very numerous and/or very very small.


And all the stars are bright white in color. Surely the Doppler effect from relative motion exceeding light speed would affect the observable wavelength (or something similar, which a physicist could explain properly). Wouldn’t the stars that the ship rushes past be in the far ultraviolet (and be unobservable) ahead of the ship, and go into the far infra-red ( and be unobservable) as the ship whipped past them, with appearance in the visible spectrum only occurring for a very, very short time, as they were ‘level’ with the ship?


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## Bramandin (Jul 22, 2022)

Brian G Turner said:


> I figure those can't be stars you see moving by, but instead dust and rocks and anything else that happens to get illuminated. Otherwise Trek ships would be travelling at something like 5 light years/second, and that would be completely inconsistent with what they actually tell us!



And that effect was expensive, as in any excuse to bring them out of warp.

Nothing about Sci-Fi really annoys me because I can't tell what's realistic, however I think we're done a disservice with ships having to bank when they're not in an atmosphere.  Babylon 5 seemed to have ships turning in relation to their direction of travel and then fire thrusters to send them in a new direction.


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## Pyan (Jul 22, 2022)

Brian G Turner said:


> I figure those can't be stars you see moving by, but instead dust and rocks and anything else that happens to get illuminated. Otherwise Trek ships would be travelling at something like 5 light years/second, and that would be completely inconsistent with what they actually tell us!


I've always thought they were the bits of debris that the deflector dish has um... deflected.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 22, 2022)

Bick said:


> Ah, yes _million_ light years… I calculated light years


No no, Andromeda won't collide with the Milky Way for a couple of billion years.


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## Fiberglass Cyborg (Jul 22, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> There is so much of Star Trek that annoys me.  An episode of TNG I watched the other night had Jean-Luc's 'Filling in the audience on what happened before the commercial break log' telling us the Enterprise was en-route to "GreekName-GreekName LowNumber'  solar system - just over four point two light years away,"  while lots and lots of stars zoomed past the ship -  suggesting, to me at least, that stars in that 'quadrant' were very very close together and/or very very numerous and/or very very small.


I'm more tolerant of such things now, but as a teenager I saw most TV and film SF as garbage because of its scientific illiteracy.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 22, 2022)

Rodders said:


> I have a bit of an issue with single ecosphere planets.


Following on from this, one annoyance is alien planets that have a single government/emperor/president/whatever they call their supreme leader.  Have they really managed to unite a whole world under one ruler?  OK, sometimes there's rebels involved, but still...

And they all seem to have a single religion.  I suppose if they can have a single ruler, then maybe that ruler could decree a religion   

And for some reason, a lot of aliens/future humans wear robes and cloaks and not just for ceremonial purposes, but for everyday wear.
Even soldiers wear cloaks, which I imagine in the heat of battle are actually a serious encumbrance.
I'm sure any advanced civilisation would have their equivalent to jeans and t-shirts, or business suits.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 22, 2022)

I'm still trying to work out why the Enterprise needed a galley in the 6th movie when they've been happily eating food that comes out of 'replicators' for several decades. And why does the galley have a gun rack?  I told my kids phasers have three settings: Stun, Kill, and Crème brûlée.

And don't get me started on "The Holodeck".

One of my real bugbears though is the 'Prison Planet', 'Penal Colony' or just about any totally unimaginative 'futuristic' prison that is merely every American penal system movie cliche turned up to 11 on an 'unescapable' asteroid or in an 'unescapable' super-facility.  Alcatraz in space. It dooms whatever movie it is in to being sh*t; it's inevitable. 

The only interestingly different 'future prisons' I can think of are Robert Sheckley's _Status Civilization_ in which, basically, shiploads after shiploads of offenders are just dropped on the surface of a habitable planet and told to fend for themselves.  "Come back when your sentence is up - if you survive that long - and we'll take you off".

_Deadlock _(aka _Wedlock_) - a 1991 film starring Rutger Hauer in which the prison is just a perimeter line painted on the ground.  Prisoners are all fitted with that standard pulp device the exploding collar.  The gimmick here being that each of the collars is linked with another in pairs.  No one knows which collar is linked with which.  If the collars get too far away from each other BOTH explode. The perimeter line is the safe area.  Step outside and there is no guarantee your 'partner' is near enough to prevent you from instantly dying.  Stay inside and you are safe.  The prisoners are forced to become their own warders preventing their fellow inmates from escaping and possibly killing them in the process.


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## Ursa major (Jul 22, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> The only interestingly different 'future prisons' I can think of are Robert Sheckley's _Status Civilization_ in which, basically, shiploads after shiploads of offenders are just dropped on the surface of a habitable planet and told to fend for themselves. "Come back when your sentence is up - if you survive that long - and we'll take you off".


There was, in ST-DS9, that alien prison where the prisoners were kept for a very short period (a few hours) but felt that they had experienced a 20-year sentence (or something like that). Chief O'Brien was one of the prisoners.

The episode was called _Hard Time_.


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## Bramandin (Jul 22, 2022)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> And they all seem to have a single religion. I suppose if they can have a single ruler, then maybe that ruler could decree a religion



Alien Nation actually had a line about the human being surprised that the Newcomers had more than one religion.  Since it was a single slave ship like District 9, it wouldn't have been a stretch to have a monoculture.


JunkMonkey said:


> the Enterprise was en-route to "GreekName-GreekName LowNumber' solar system



I was under the impression that Federation designations were orbital bodies and the number was which one.  Like we'd be Sol-3


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## farntfar (Jul 22, 2022)

Bick said:


> And all the stars are bright white in color. Surely the Doppler effect from relative motion exceeding light speed would affect the observable wavelength (or something similar, which a physicist could explain properly). Wouldn’t the stars that the ship rushes past be in the far ultraviolet (and be unobservable) ahead of the ship, and go into the far infra-red ( and be unobservable) as the ship whipped past them, with appearance in the visible spectrum only occurring for a very, very short time, as they were ‘level’ with the ship?


There isn't any problem with a star still appearing white when you're travelling at such speeds.
We think of a star as being a Red Giant or a Blue Dwarf  or whatever, but only when we restrict ourselves to thinking purely of its visible emissions. Stars generally emit infra-red and ultra-violet and other bits of the EM spectrum as well.

So some of its infra-red or ultra-violet emissions (etc.) could be shifted into our visible spectrum (depending on our relative motion) at the same time that its normally visible emissions are shifted out of it.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 22, 2022)

Science fiction is almost as annoying as the universe. 









						How Many Stars Are Within 10,000 Light-Years of Earth?
					

We've counted how many stars are within 10,000 light-years of Earth in 100 light-year intervals. You'll be shocked how many you can see with the naked eye!




					lovethenightsky.com
				




Maybe we should just ban research outside of the galaxy.


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## Ursa major (Jul 22, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> Maybe we should just ban research outside of the galaxy.


Given that we haven't developed FTL travel (yet), that seems somewhat premature....


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 22, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> Given that we haven't developed FTL travel (yet), that seems somewhat premature....



It would be nice to have a regulatory framework ready for when we do though.  If we play it right it could keep an awful lot of lawyers safely busy doing something pointless and not screwing it for the rest of us for a few years.


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 23, 2022)

Isn't there already an international treaty which says that no single nation can claim to own the Moon, or Antarctica or... Hoboken or... I dunno?.... Magrathea?


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 23, 2022)

Pull US troops out of Hoboken!


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## Wayne Mack (Jul 23, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> It would be nice to have a regulatory framework ready for when we do though.  If we play it right it could keep an awful lot of lawyers safely busy doing something pointless and not screwing it for the rest of us for a few years.


I don't know if this has been done already, but if time dilates, whose timeframe is used in determining wages?


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 23, 2022)

Wayne Mack said:


> I don't know if this has been done already, but if time dilates, whose timeframe is used in determining wages?



That's where we get clever and involve the economists and politicians . By the time they have finished sorting it all out the rest of us will have discovered FLT  and secretly emigrated to some other, distant part of the galaxy and left the earth populated solely by the totally useless parts of our society.


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## Vladd67 (Jul 23, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> That's where we get clever and involve the economists and politicians . By the time they have finished sorting it all out the rest of us will have discovered FLT  and secretly emigrated to some other, distant part of the galaxy and left the earth populated solely by the totally useless parts of our society.


As opposed to sending them off in a B Ark?


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## MaxRelaxman (Jul 23, 2022)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Following on from this, one annoyance is alien planets that have a single government/emperor/president/whatever they call their supreme leader.  Have they really managed to unite a whole world under one ruler?  OK, sometimes there's rebels involved, but still...
> 
> And they all seem to have a single religion.  I suppose if they can have a single ruler, then maybe that ruler could decree a religion
> 
> ...


Oh, a member of the anti-cloak league I see...


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## Bramandin (Jul 23, 2022)

Vladd67 said:


> As opposed to sending them off in a B Ark?



The people who escape will probably lead rich and happy lives until they are all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 24, 2022)

Vladd67 said:


> As opposed to sending them off in a B Ark?



Yeah.  I figured that since Douglas Adams wasn't too bothered about where he lifted his ideas I lift one of his. 

Here's another thing that annoys me in Science Fiction films - written stories don't usually have this problem.  

Whenever the shapeshifting alien beasty finally reveals itself in it's 'true form', it's always twice as big, and three times as dense as the human form it had assumed.

Particularly noticeable in _The Faculty_, a film I watched last night, in which a slim, young woman transmogrified into a five meter tall, tentacled, betoothed _thingy_ which could whack people and heavy furniture round with impressive ease. (Though, credit where credit is due, when she transmogrified back to being human she was naked.  Her clothes, being real human clothes and not 'part of her', being destroyed and left lying somewhere.*)

Where does all that extra mass _come from_?  (Or go?)  

The only attempts I can think of to engage with this problem on screen are the  Slitheen from _Doctor Who_, who are very relieved to get out of their human suits because they are so constricted and squeezed into them (they fart a lot) and the aliens from _I Married a Monster from Outer Space_ - where it's implied that the human forms seen by the other townspeople (and the audience) are some kind of hypnotic mental projections.





* Utter pedant that I am I now realise these clothes should have been clearly in shot, lying on the ground in a later, scene and, utter geek that I am, I'm now off to IMDb to see if anyone else has added it to the 'Goofs' section for the film - I need to get out more.[/i][/i]


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 24, 2022)

Time travel. It's impossible in the way that it is portrayed in stories and on film. You simply can't go backwards to a point in time where something has happened and then affect it. Now in fantasy/scifi stories where this is the main element of the plot, I don't mind it so much. But what annoys me is when a well established series introduces time travel out of nowhere, such as Superman or Star Trek, especially when this is can be done intentionally. It negates most plot lines and makes any threats nonsensical.  Why can't the crew of the Enterprise go back in time and leave Khan and his followers on a different planet? When Zod and his friends appear on Earth, why doesn't Superman simply turn back time every time danger threatens? Why don't the bad guys do the same?


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## Brian G Turner (Jul 24, 2022)

paranoid marvin said:


> Time travel. It's impossible in the way that it is portrayed in stories and on film. You simply can't go backwards to a point in time where something has happened and then affect it.


Indeed, one area where Babylon 5 stands out - you can go back in time but you can't change it, just be part of what happened.


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## Fiberglass Cyborg (Jul 24, 2022)

On TV in particular, so many planets consist of 3 rooms, a corridor, and if you're lucky an old quarry. If two spacecraft crashland on the same planet, they will inevitably do so within walking distance of each other.

One of my favourite fictional planets is Gethen in "The Left Hand of Darkness." We see eough of two major countries and the polar ice cap to get a sense of just how vast a terretrial world really is. At the same time, LeGuin is at pains to say that this is a small, biologically impoverished place compared to Earth, with the habitable area a narrow band squeezed between two huge ice caps.


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## Bramandin (Jul 24, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> The only attempts I can think of to engage with this problem on screen are the Slitheen from _Doctor Who_, who are very relieved to get out of their human suits because they are so constricted and squeezed into them (they fart a lot)



They also favored _fat_ humans because it gave them a bit more room.  

I didn't watch the Animorphs series, but in the books Aximili has anxiety about turning into small animals because so much of their mass goes into the same hyperspace that their ships pass through.

Odo from DS9 makes no sense because people should be able to pick up his humanoid form almost as easily as a glass.



Fiberglass Cyborg said:


> On TV in particular, so many planets consist of 3 rooms, a corridor, and if you're lucky an old quarry.



At some point, you're just going to cause yourself pain if you don't accept the Doyalist answer about why that is.   That's what the MST3K Mantra was made for.


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## SilentRoamer (Jul 25, 2022)

Ok so this annoys me. 

In the Terminator franchise, efficient killing machines like to throw humans about instead of, you know, actually killing them. 

The Terminators should be calculating the probability of fatal injury from the actions they are performing. Its like when they grab a person, surely they would just purposefully crush whatever they grab because that would be efficient at reducing the effectiveness of the target. 

Likewise, as soon as close they would try to punch through a ribcage and/or skull to cause fatal injuries. Instead they throw the protagonist around for a little bit while walking menacingly. 

Also - the Terminators should probably just build some hunter/seeker drones the size of flies, instead of stupid bipedal Terminators. 

That being said I do love both of the Terminator movies.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> Ok so this annoys me.
> 
> In the Terminator franchise, efficient killing machines like to throw humans about instead of, you know, actually killing them.



So we should not allow you to design killing machines because they would be too effective. 

Calling Skynet: take out this guy first.


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## Ursa major (Jul 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> The Terminators should be calculating the probability of fatal injury from the actions they are performing.


That would (might) apply if terminators had purely machine intelligence, but perhaps, in order to understand how humans think (in order to understand what they might do and thus find them more easily), the ones sent back in time either contain

a simulation of a human mind, or
a whole or partial human mind that has been uploaded into them.


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## SilentRoamer (Jul 25, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> That would (might) apply if terminators had purely machine intelligence, but perhaps, in order to understand how humans think (in order to understand what they might do and thus find them more easily), the ones sent back in time either contain
> 
> a simulation of a human mind, or
> a whole or partial human mind that has been uploaded into them.



I am sorry I disagree. The earlier Terminator films show the internal Terminator HUD complete with tracking and statistical information.

Even if they do have some form of intelligence derived from human consciousness or thought patterns then to my mind that does not place the limitations of being a poor killing machine.
I understand the reasons from the point of view of a Director to build tension etc. but i would much prefer if every action was specific and calculated. It would make them seem more machine like as opposed to robot-human analogues.


----------



## Elckerlyc (Jul 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> Ok so this annoys me.
> 
> In the Terminator franchise, efficient killing machines like to throw humans about instead of, you know, actually killing them.



But the Terminator, despite its designation, it not a single-minded killing machine per se. It was sent back in time solely to terminate Sarah Conner. All those annoying humans that get in its way needn't be killed but can be thrown aside casually. Repeat, if necessary.
(Perhaps it is more fun than, you know, actually killing them.)


----------



## psikeyhackr (Jul 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> The earlier Terminator films show the internal Terminator HUD complete with tracking and statistical information.



I read a post somewhere that said the HUD also displayed assembly language code for the 6800 processor. I recognized it as assembly language but not the processor. I did some coding for the 8080 CPU because I bought a Heathkit H-8 computer.

Should I be annoyed because they used Motorola instead of Intel?


----------



## JunkMonkey (Jul 25, 2022)

Fiberglass Cyborg said:


> so many planets consist of 3 rooms, a corridor, and if you're lucky an old quarry.



A few years ago one of my daughters walked through the living room where I was watching an old SF film on the television.
"What you watching?" she said, and glanced at the the screen -  just as three characters walked into a cave. "Oh." she said. "A Bronson Canyon movie!" and wandered off again.


----------



## psikeyhackr (Jul 25, 2022)

No! I was wrong.  (I know, it's shocking)

It was 6502 not 6800.



			The 6502 in "The Terminator" – pagetable.com
		


The internet is really cool!

But this means that Apple must be responsible for destroying the world. I knew it!


----------



## Christine Wheelwright (Jul 25, 2022)

The biggest annoyance with SF is the overestimation of progress.  Too many movies set in the 'near future' with incredible technology; atrificial intelligences, androids and interplanetary travel.  In fact we are nowhere near achieving the advances that would be required.

This tendency also blights the real world (not just the fictional world).  It is the reason an idiot like Musk can make ridiculous claims (eg for self driving taxi cabs or manned Mars missions in a few short years) and be taken seriously by huge chunks of the population.


----------



## Fiberglass Cyborg (Jul 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> Ok so this annoys me.
> 
> In the Terminator franchise, efficient killing machines like to throw humans about instead of, you know, actually killing them.
> 
> ...



That's classic monster behaviour. Lurch around slowly and menacingly, make lots of noise, throw large objects about to demonstrate your strength. Never mind if doing this makes any sense.

It bugs me a bit when a monster that is basically an animal acts like this. Is it hunting the humans? Then it should be quiet, fast and stealthy. Is it angry at the humans for intruding on its territory? A noisy threat display makes a bit more sense, but it wouldn't bother pursuing once the humans have cleared the area.


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## Wayne Mack (Jul 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> stupid bipedal Terminators.


This always amuses me more than annoys me, but why create these killing machines that rely on legs to move? In Robocop, there is a robot with extensive weapons that is defeated by a simple set of stairs. In Star Wars, there are these various long legged and unstable robots despite them also having some mysterious floaty technology.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 25, 2022)

Christine Wheelwright said:


> It is the reason an idiot like Musk can make ridiculous claims (eg for self driving taxi cabs or manned Mars missions in a few short years) and be taken seriously by huge chunks of the population.




um?  Big chunks of the press desperate to fill pages maybe.  And investors looking to make a quick buck while knowing full well their money will be somewhere else when the bubble bursts.   I think most of the real world population takes most of that sort of thing with more than a pinch of salt.


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## Astro Pen (Jul 25, 2022)

That space is regarded as a military arena to wear spandex uniforms and fight everything that moves .
Ships must be blown up after ours 'takes hits on the port side,' (miraculously repaired perfectly for the next episode. )

Let space be populated with the full cultural richness of any society, ( and see how interesting your stories can get! )

The military industrial complex has no more right to space that a lone monastic sojourner on a spiritual quest or a colony of farmers and artists.


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## Bramandin (Jul 25, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> Ok so this annoys me.
> 
> In the Terminator franchise, efficient killing machines like to throw humans about instead of, you know, actually killing them.



I heard that actually killing them wasn't the point.  Granted, the rules might mean that they can't change the past and they're compelled to close the loop, but all that violence was somehow to make John Connor. 



Christine Wheelwright said:


> The biggest annoyance with SF is the overestimation of progress. Too many movies set in the 'near future' with incredible technology; atrificial intelligences, androids and interplanetary travel. In fact we are nowhere near achieving the advances that would be required.



How will we know it's the future if everything isn't made of chrome and holograms?  What, someone's going to notice that the PS6 controller isn't an off-brand PS4 controller?

Really a lot of technology is subtle improvements to stuff that was available before, excepting that we've had some incredible leaps.  The future isn't going to be unrecognizable unless something extraordinary happens, and I think we're headed for a stagnation were there will be a few cool new toys but nothing major.  We might even backslide.

Upload had food-printers much like we have microwaves, but I think that there's going to be food factories for centuries unless society collapses.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 25, 2022)

And setting films not TOO far into the future also saves a lot of money building futuristic sets and outlandish 'futuristic' costuming.  Throw a few shiny things and holo-whatsits into the mix and normal everyday locations  become _"The Future!!!!"_


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## Astro Pen (Jul 25, 2022)

The actual future, as being planned for us,  is a long way from the modernist utopia. 
In fact the foil hatters were closer predictors than the Asimovs 
Sharpen your dystopia pens.








						Edible insects in focus part II: Scale and automation… Aspire Food Group gears up to open world’s largest edible cricket processing facility
					

Aspire Food Group - which is on a mission to automate and professionalize edible insect farming – aims to start production at a CAD $90m 100,000sqft automated cricket processing facility near London, Ontario, in Q1/Q2 of next year that will produce 10,000 tons of crickets/year in phase one...




					www.foodnavigator-usa.com


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## Vladd67 (Jul 26, 2022)

Astro Pen said:


> The actual future, as being planned for us,  is a long way from the modernist utopia.
> In fact the foil hatters were closer predictors than the Asimovs
> Sharpen your dystopia pens.
> 
> ...


Minced up and covered in breadcrumbs insects could be the next fishfingers.


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## Wayne Mack (Jul 26, 2022)

Vladd67 said:


> Minced up and covered in breadcrumbs insects could be the next fishfingers.


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## Bramandin (Jul 26, 2022)

I'm not sure that I could eat a bug that looks like a bug.  Cricket flour is okay because I don't mind grain that's been infested with things too small to pick out.  I've accidentally drank an ant that was in my drink and they taste horrible, or maybe I was freaked out because it bit my tongue.


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## Wayne Mack (Jul 26, 2022)

Vladd67 said:


> Minced up and covered in breadcrumbs insects could be the next fishfingers.


Or you could just get a side order of French Flies.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 26, 2022)

Wayne Mack said:


> Or you could just get a side order of French Flies.



I am going to try REALLY hard to pretend I didn't read that.


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## Elckerlyc (Jul 26, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> I am going to try REALLY hard to pretend I didn't read that.


You prefer a Spanish fly?


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 26, 2022)

Here's another movie one:  VTOL spaceships that have to do a 180 degree rotation just above the pad _every_ time they land or take off.  A trend started, I think, in the Star Wars films which were, after the first, huge long toy commercials with a story bolted on.  Each time a new craft appeared on the screen it had to have a motorshow revolve to display its ooooh! coool!  selling points so everyone knew what they were to look out for when the next slew of Kenner toys hit the shops.


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## Bick (Jul 27, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> Here's another movie one:  VTOL spaceships that have to do a 180 degree rotation just above the pad _every_ time they land or take off.  A trend started, I think, in the Star Wars films which were, after the first, huge long toy commercials with a story bolted on.  Each time a new craft appeared on the screen it had to have a motorshow revolve to display its ooooh! coool!  selling points so everyone knew what they were to look out for when the next slew of Kenner toys his the shops.


It's funny when they do a 180 upon landing, and then again upon take-off. Now you're facing the same way, guys!


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 27, 2022)

Bick said:


> It's funny when they do a 180 upon landing, and then again upon take-off. Now you're facing the same way, guys!



I know and they do it EVERY time.  I had this theory for a while there was some sort of electromagnetic dohicky in the landing field and by doing this manoeuvrer they were winding up the elastic band that made the ship go.


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## msstice (Jul 27, 2022)

SilentRoamer said:


> I had an idea for a novella about humans discovering a Wormhole Gateway on Jupiter, but when they Activate it it seals Jupiter away behind a black body. Around the same time (from the PoV of Earth) a star just disappears. As humans keep moving through the Gateway more stars keep disappearing.
> 
> Some clever scientist figures out that the tech "seals" the target location as a way to protect the timeline and as we "see" the stars get sealed then we know the Gateway is FTL'ing people into the past.


That's a cool idea and I would read your story. Reminds me - somewhat - of Greg Egan's Quarantine, which I find to be a very creative book.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 27, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> There was, in ST-DS9, that alien prison where the prisoners were kept for a very short period (a few hours) but felt that they had experienced a 20-year sentence (or something like that). Chief O'Brien was one of the prisoners.
> 
> The episode was called _Hard Time_.



I suspect they may have got that idea from a Judge Dredd comic but in the comic the prisoner really aged.  Bit difficult to do with a recurring character on a TV show.


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## Fiberglass Cyborg (Jul 27, 2022)

One thing that has bugged me since I was about 12 is the sheer number of spaceship designs that are supposed to manoeuver in 3 dimensions using 2 engines, both pointed directly aft. I remember doing lots of crude sketches of craft that had 3 main engines and visible Vernier thrusters.


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## Bramandin (Jul 27, 2022)

Fiberglass Cyborg said:


> One thing that has bugged me since I was about 12 is the sheer number of spaceship designs that are supposed to manoeuver in 3 dimensions using 2 engines, both pointed directly aft. I remember doing lots of crude sketches of craft that had 3 main engines and visible Vernier thrusters.



I guess it depends on how maneuverable you want to be?  The Enterprise had it's main warp nacelles, but it also had maneuvering thrusters and I have no clue how their impulse drive worked.  I suppose it's like having a mainsail for speed in open waters, smaller sails for passages, and then they bring out the oars.  Modern ships are helped into the docks by tugs.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 27, 2022)

Fiberglass Cyborg said:


> One thing that has bugged me since I was about 12 is the sheer number of spaceship designs that are supposed to manoeuver in 3 dimensions using 2 engines, both pointed directly aft.



Both of which shown firing ALL THE TIME while in transit and always propelling the ship in the direction of travel.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 27, 2022)

Bramandin said:


> Modern ships are helped into the docks by tugs.



I don't know if you've ever watched a ferry going into port.  They're pretty big  ships and are hardly ever manoeuvred by tugs.


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## Bramandin (Jul 27, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> I don't know if you've ever watched a ferry going into port.  They're pretty big  ships and are hardly ever manoeuvred by tugs.



It was a Destroyer and TBF I don't actually remember watching it though I'm sure I did.


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## Ursa major (Jul 28, 2022)

IIRC the destroyer, HMS Troutbridge, always had problems with _any_ sort of manoeuvring....


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## Wayne Mack (Jul 28, 2022)

I always wonder about the mysterious gravity that spaceships usually have. Why isn't everything floating about freely?


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## Bramandin (Jul 28, 2022)

Galaxy Quest, and probably Star Trek for that matter... The Thermians have an excuse, but once the Star Trek universe has tractor beams, why would a ship undock under its own power?  For Babylon 5, having the ship's computer was probably the best that they could do with their tech.  Actually in canals, they have a canal employee in charge of navigation, so I imagine that even if a person has to pilot a ship out of the dock, it would be a specialist who then disembarks once the ship is clear.


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## Bramandin (Jul 28, 2022)

Wayne Mack said:


> I always wonder about the mysterious gravity that spaceships usually have. Why isn't everything floating about freely?



Okay, we need a serious animated space-saga so that we can have a ship without gravity-plating.  Or a live-action show where they do an episode in mo-cap so that they can have zero-G.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 28, 2022)

Bramandin said:


> even if a person has to pilot a ship out of the dock, it would be a specialist who then disembarks once the ship is clear.



A pilot.  I'd never thought of that before.   But ship pilots on earth are employed to take boats out of dock because they know the waters around the port, the shallows, the tides, reefs etc.  They take the boat out to a place where the ship is no danger of hitting anything.  Open water. Then they hand over to the captain who will, in turn, hand over to another pilot who knows local conditions at the next port.   None of that applies in space.  There are no local condition.  Space is just one big empty.


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 28, 2022)

Wayne Mack said:


> I always wonder about the mysterious gravity that spaceships usually have. Why isn't everything floating about freely?



There was a British TV show many years ago - 'Star Cops'? - which was set on a moon base.  To get round annoying twerps like me asking why is it everyone on this moon base was walking around in 1G just like on earth, someone specified the set design included a status board thingie with the words "Artificial Gravity = ON" screwed to the wall in a prominent position in episode one.  (Though this did snooker them into doing 'slow motion', 'I'm on the moon in a space suit' acting every time they went outside.)


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## Vladd67 (Jul 28, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> IIRC the destroyer, HMS Troutbridge, always had problems with any sort of manueovring....


Left hand down a bit.


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## Elckerlyc (Jul 28, 2022)

Fiberglass Cyborg said:


> One thing that has bugged me since I was about 12 is the sheer number of spaceship designs that are supposed to manoeuver in 3 dimensions using 2 engines, both pointed directly aft.


Spaceships almost always travel on a 2 dimensional plane, going from left to right or vice-versa. They might make a left or right turn to get in the 'right' direction, but *never* up or down. That might make sense within a solar-system, but not when aiming for another star.


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## Christine Wheelwright (Jul 28, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> I don't know if you've ever watched a ferry going into port.  They're pretty big  ships and are hardly ever manoeuvred by tugs.







Azimuth thruster.  They rotate the direction of thrust 360 degrees in a few seconds.  Vessels that maneuver frequently (like ferries or tugboats) have them.  Even larger vessels like cruise ships.  That way they don't have to pay a tugboat company twice a day.  Still need the services of a pilot though (that's mandatory in most ports).


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 28, 2022)

Elckerlyc said:


> But the Terminator, despite its designation, it not a single-minded killing machine per se. It was sent back in time solely to terminate Sarah Conner. All those annoying humans that get in its way needn't be killed but can be thrown aside casually. Repeat, if necessary.
> (Perhaps it is more fun than, you know, actually killing them.)


Taken to the logical extreme, why didn't Skynet send back a very BIG nuclear weapon, something Tsar bomb-strength (covered in living tissue of course) and just detonate when 'sorta close' to Sarah Conner.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 28, 2022)

I've been watching reruns of _Space 1999_ and there is just so much annoying stuff. 
However one thing struck me, and it's not just limited to S1999, but here are the scenarios...

1. The hero needs to get into a room, but it's locked, so he shoots the door control panel and the door opens.
2. The hero needs to get away from the villain/monster, so he closes the door and shoots the control panel so the door won't open.

I'd like to see a scene where it's scenario 2, but scenario 1 happens


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 28, 2022)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> I've been watching reruns of _Space 1999_ and there are is just so much annoying stuff.
> However one thing struck me, and it's not just limited to S1999, but here are the scenarios...
> 
> 1. The hero needs to get into a room, but it's locked, so he shoots the door control panel and the door opens.
> ...


 
A show full of stupidities.  I particularly liked the way they ducked down behind their desks when they have incoming missiles - as if flying debris is going to be their biggest problem if any of the huge windows between them and the airless moon's surface shatters.  

I love the idea of a door opening and closing as the hero and villain stand either side of the door taking it in turns shooting the lock.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 28, 2022)

I didn't watch Space 1999. The Moon leaving orbit because of explosions on the surface was beyond my limit.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 29, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> I didn't watch Space 1999. The Moon leaving orbit because of explosions on the surface was beyond my limit.



Premise wise, not possible  , no made explosion would be powerful enough to jolt  the moon out of its orbit . Also, The moon Traveling at sublight  velocity  wouldn't reach  any stars for hundreds  of thousands of years, if at all.  And there is the problem that such an explosion of that magnitude  would have likely irradiated and  roasted  the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha. This is jut the tip of the iceberg. 

But, if you suspend a certain amount of disbelief , it can be an enjoyable show to watch.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 29, 2022)

Venusian Broon said:


> Taken to the logical extreme, why didn't Skynet send back a very BIG nuclear weapon, something Tsar bomb-strength (covered in living tissue of course) and just detonate when 'sorta close' to Sarah Conner.



Because you'd have a film so short the opening and closing credits would both be longer than the film?


----------



## farntfar (Jul 29, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Because you'd have a film so short the opening and closing credits would both be longer than the film?


And because they're no brighter than Blofeld, Dr. No, Dick Dastardly or any other popular villain.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 29, 2022)

farntfar said:


> And because they're no brighter than Blofeld, Dr. No, Dick Dastardly or any other popular villain.



But you didn't include the most evil villain of then  all,  Dark Helmet .


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 29, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> But you didn't include the most evil villain of then  all,  Dark Helmet .



"and you must do that... or you will _die!_"


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## JunkMonkey (Jul 29, 2022)

BAYLOR said:


> Because you'd have a film so short the opening and closing credits would both be longer than the film?



I once attempted to write the world's shortest screenplay.  It was called _The Texas Chainsaw Suicide_ and basically it was over before the opening title cards had finished.


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## Ursa major (Jul 29, 2022)

If a possibly less gory (and rather longer) sequel was ever required, they could have made _The Texas Chainletter Suicide Note_.


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## psikeyhackr (Aug 11, 2022)

I am reading the Saiph series by P P Corcoran. 

The story is OK but he keeps writing Elliptical Plane when it is supposed to be Ecliptic Plane.

I wish I could reanimate Arthur C Clarke to kick his ass.


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## Bramandin (Aug 12, 2022)

Did we touch on single-biome planets where everyone wears the same hat?


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## Bick (Aug 12, 2022)

Bramandin said:


> Did we touch on single-biome planets where everyone wears the same hat?


I believe so.


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## psikeyhackr (Aug 12, 2022)

Bick said:


> I believe so.


I don't remember the hats being discussed.


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## Alex The G and T (Aug 12, 2022)

Bramandin said:


> Did we touch on single-biome planets where everyone wears the same hat?




*The Rebel Without a Hat. * 
The Thrilling Saga of a Planetary Society torn asunder by the one man who refused to put a lid on it.


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## JunkMonkey (Aug 12, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> I don't remember the hats being discussed.



I once filled a page of a notebook, carefully noting the moment when a particular hat would appear on one of the civilian background extras in _Babylon 5_.  It wasn't there in every episode but every time there was a scene in the Zócalo market place or Downbelow it would crop up.  It got to be something to watch out for like Siler's Really Big Spanner in SG1


----------



## Parson (Aug 12, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> I am reading the Saiph series by P P Corcoran.
> 
> The story is OK but he keeps writing Elliptical Plane when it is supposed to be Ecliptic Plane.
> 
> I wish I could reanimate Arthur C Clarke to kick his ass.


Have you thought of emailing or Twitter alerting the author. I would like to know that I'd made that kind of an error if it was my book out there. He might be even able to change it in digital versions.


----------



## Pyan (Aug 12, 2022)

In the post-race discussion in Ch4’s coverage of Formula 1, I always await with anticipation the two mechanics pushing the rack of tyres past behind the presenters.


----------



## psikeyhackr (Aug 13, 2022)

Parson said:


> Have you thought of emailing or Twitter alerting the author. I would like to know that I'd made that kind of an error if it was my book out there. He might be even able to change it in digital versions.


OK, you twisted my arm.

I left a comment on his YouTube video, Search for the Saiph. But that video is 7 years old.


----------



## Bramandin (Aug 13, 2022)

I don't think that instant transformation has been covered yet.  Someone's injected with a mutagenic virus or something and within a few days they're a monster.  Also instant cures where a person is given medicine and they're immediately in fighting-form again.


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## Dave (Aug 13, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> "Oh." she said. "A Bronson Canyon movie!"


If it was BBC (_Doctor Who_ or _Blakes Seven_) then it was usually one of two Purbeck quarries, or else Rhiwbach slate quarry. Hollywood likes to use Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park. That's where Kirk fights the Gorn, and more than a few Westerns ride around there. if it is _Stargate_, then it's Vancouver woodland.


Wayne Mack said:


> I always wonder about the mysterious gravity that spaceships usually have. Why isn't everything floating about freely?


I can accept artificial gravity created in some mysterious way, but when the power is cut off then it always continues to work! it ought to be the first thing that goes, even before the lights dim.


psikeyhackr said:


> Space 1999. The Moon leaving orbit because of explosions on the surface was beyond my limit.


If you watched it longer then you would see it reach a sufficient velocity to pass through a new star system on a weekly basis. Yet, they could still manage to launch Eagles, land them on planets, but catch up with the Moon again later. 

Has anyone mentioned why they keep fireworks on spaceships? There is a crash landing or someone deliberately destroys a computer with a hammer, and the ceiling tiles will collapse revealing high voltage cables and Tesla coils, while computer cabinets start launching fireworks.


----------



## Bramandin (Aug 13, 2022)

Dave said:


> Has anyone mentioned why they keep fireworks on spaceships? There is a crash landing or someone deliberately destroys a computer with a hammer, and the ceiling tiles will collapse revealing high voltage cables and Tesla coils, while computer cabinets start launching fireworks.



Maybe that's an extension of why cinematic cars tend to blow up in situations where a real car wouldn't.

I couldn't find the "must be bulletproof" clip where Schwarzenegger is confused about why shooting a cab doesn't cause it to explode.  Be careful with this clip if you don't like women in lingerie for titillation.


----------



## JunkMonkey (Aug 13, 2022)

Dave said:


> I can accept artificial gravity created in some mysterious way, but when the power is cut off then it always continues to work! it ought to be the first thing that goes, even before the lights dim.



Yes but if it did that our heroes wouldn't get the chance to lift the heavy beam off the trapped crew member just before the ship explodes.  Maybe artificial gravity has some _really _big capacitors involved that take time to discharge.

One of the few genuinely good moments of the dreadful Starhunter is the moment where the perky teenage engineer girl turns tables on the bad guy by suddenly raising the gravity up to eleven on the bit of floor he's standing on.


----------



## Fiberglass Cyborg (Aug 13, 2022)

Alex The G and T said:


> *The Rebel Without a Hat. *
> The Thrilling Saga of a Planetary Society torn asunder by the one man who refused to put a lid on it.



As the executioner said, "If you like it, then you shoulda put a lid on it."


----------



## Bramandin (Aug 14, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> Maybe artificial gravity has some _really _big capacitors involved that take time to discharge.



Artificial gravity is generated by quantum-locking the particles in the carpet to a carpet in an alternate dimension that's carpeting the floor of a centrifugal space-station.  They can't shut off the gravity without a hella-alot of effort of which spacing the carpet would be the easiest.


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## psikeyhackr (Aug 19, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> I once filled a page of a notebook, carefully noting the moment when a particular hat would appear on one of the civilian background extras in _Babylon 5_.  It wasn't there in every episode but every time there was a scene in the Zócalo market place or Downbelow it would crop up.  It got to be something to watch out for like Siler's Really Big Spanner in SG1


Damn! I am pretty crummy B5 fan. Can't recognize the interesting stuff.


----------



## Rufus Coppertop (Aug 19, 2022)

Brace for impact?

Excuse me Star Trek but SERIOUSLY?

They can go to Warp 9 in a few seconds and their inertial dampeners can handle that.

But going from moderately quickish sublight to an abrupt stop and we've got histrionic tumbling over consoles and people falling about.

That is witless banality on the part of the scriptwriters and producers. There is no excuse.


----------



## JunkMonkey (Aug 19, 2022)

Rufus Coppertop said:


> Brace for impact?
> 
> Excuse me Star Trek but SERIOUSLY?
> 
> ...


Here's a thing I think every time the Enterprise  is under attack. A photon torpedo hits. The ship lurches. Everyone on the bridge does what I always think of as 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' acting and throws themselves screen left, screen right, and back again. I wonder about what is happening in the rest of the ship. If the bridge, which we are told is in the centre of the saucer section, is rocking from side to side at an angle large enough to make people fall over, it follows that out at the edges (sides) of the disc, crew members are going to be in serious trouble as they are bounced off the ceiling and pounded to a pulp.


----------



## Pyan (Aug 19, 2022)

You would have thought that the designers of Federation starships would have heard of seat-belts…


----------



## farntfar (Aug 19, 2022)

And they all get thrown in different directions. Uhura gets thrown to the right of the screen, whilst Scotty, if he's on the bridge, usually at a station on the right gets thrown to the left. 
Bones gets thrown forward, from where he's standing by the turbolift. Sulu and Chekov get throw in opposite directions and Kirk does a pirouette.
Spock just raises an eyebrow. The lack of logic is all too much for him


----------



## Ursa major (Aug 19, 2022)

farntfar said:


> And they all get thrown in different directions. Uhura gets thrown to the right of the screen, whilst Scotty, if he's on the bridge, usually at a station on the right gets thrown to the left.
> Bones gets thrown forward, from where he's standing by the turbolift. Sulu and Chekov get throw in opposite directions and Kirk does a pirouette.
> Spock just raises an eyebrow. The lack of logic is all too much for him



Have you ever thought that it's all a Vulcan joke, i.e. that Spock has mind-melded with all of them (most without their knowledge) and has implanted the idea that this is what they have to do when the inertial dampeners are having to do extra work?

That they lurch in random directions shows that it isn't an _external_ force making them do it.


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## Ray Zdybrow (Aug 20, 2022)

"unless society collapses..."

Yeah what are the chances?  

[opens newspaper]


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## Rufus Coppertop (Aug 20, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> That they lurch in random directions shows that it isn't an _external_ force making them do it.


I think a Vulcan officer should put an empty drink bottle on a console top and balance a ball on the open top and calmly stand there gazing at it when he hears the words "brace for impact".

Everyone else lurches about flailing and some idiot throws himself over a console.

Neither the ball nor the bottle move.

Neither does the Vulcan.

When questioned, he calmly points out a few home truths to the captain and the rest of the bridge officers.

The next time a collision is pending, the captain says, "enjoy impact".


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## JunkMonkey (Aug 20, 2022)

Pyan said:


> You would have thought that the designers of Federation starships would have heard of seat-belts…


Reminds me. I was once very confused by why there were seatbelts on the chairs in an SF film. The film (the name of which eludes me but starred Christian Slater and was directed by Roger 'Battlefield Earth' Christian, and was sh*t) was set on a base on the Moon! Why would a moonbase need seatbelts? Maybe the NASA had become infected with a bout of Jerry Anderson inspired paranoia.

Turned out the film was shot on a generic standing SF set that was hired out to low budget movies. The week after the same set would be the interior of a interstellar war ship or a freighter or whatever.

At least the Enterprise crew got chairs. Apart from Worf. Which I always thought odd as he is obviously the most top heavy character they have. You would have thought they would want to lower his centre of gravity if only to stop him falling over and squashing some smaller member of the crew.


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## Foxbat (Aug 20, 2022)

With regards to photon torpedoes and lurching….

I once found myself on a ferry during some pretty stormy weather (crossing from Orkney to mainland Scotland in the middle of winter). One minute, I was sitting having breakfast, the next thing, my breakfast was flying through the air. Some people were getting quite upset and nobody was able to hold on to their flying food. I’d love to see the Enterprise canteen during a battle


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## JunkMonkey (Aug 20, 2022)

Foxbat said:


> With regards to photon torpedoes and lurching….
> 
> I once found myself on a ferry during some pretty stormy weather (crossing from Orkney to mainland Scotland in the middle of winter). One minute, I was sitting having breakfast, the next thing, my breakfast was flying through the air. Some people were getting quite upset and nobody was able to hold on to their flying food. I’d love to see the Enterprise canteen during a battle



Maybe that's what all those other members of the Enterprise DO all day when they're not aimlessly wandering the corridors.  They put things back on the shelves of the scrupulously (antiseptically)  tidy living quarters and mop up all the crap spilled in the canteen.


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## Foxbat (Aug 20, 2022)

I reckon cleaning the Enterprise toilets after a battle would be even worse.


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## farntfar (Aug 20, 2022)

The enterprise toilets are spotless.
They just beam the waste directly from your bowel into space. (Or alternatively where they beam the tribbles, if such a vessel is nearby.)


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## JunkMonkey (Aug 20, 2022)

farntfar said:


> The enterprise toilets are spotless.
> They just beam the waste directly from your bowel into space. (Or alternatively where they beam the tribbles, if such a vessel is nearby.)



I was watching an episode of Stargate Atlantis last night* with the commentary track on and the director maintained that all this 'deep space sensor' stuff was nonsense, all you had to do to track a ship in hyperspace was follow the trail of 'space poop'.

*Season 2 Ep 2 "Intruder"


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## Bramandin (Aug 20, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> all you had to do to track a ship in hyperspace was follow the trail of 'space poop



That assumes that their poop isn't considered a valuable resource.  What was that one planet that was concerned about erosion from the tourist industry?


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## farntfar (Aug 20, 2022)

Bramandin said:


> What was that one planet that was concerned about erosion from the tourist industry?



That was in the Hitchhikers guide. I forget the name of the planet.
They weighed you when you arrived and when you left and any net imbalance was surgically removed from your body on your departure.
He also said that when you used the toilets on the planet it was vitally important to get a receipt.


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## JunkMonkey (Aug 20, 2022)

Bramandin said:


> That assumes that their poop isn't considered a valuable resource.



Well they throw it away from the ISS.  Freeze dry it to extract the water then sling it in the general direction of the earth.  So the next time you see a shooting star...


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## Wayne Mack (Aug 20, 2022)

farntfar said:


> The enterprise toilets are spotless.
> They just beam the waste directly from your bowel into space. (Or alternatively where they beam the tribbles, if such a vessel is nearby.)


I would expect that any long-term biosphere would need to be self contained. Leaving matter and especially water behind would require a fairly constant replenishment of material. I would expect the sanitary system to direct all material to the agricultural decks (which I have yet to see) or to some sort of transporter-like gizmo that reconstitutes waste into appetizing meals.


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## farntfar (Aug 20, 2022)

It actually gets used as base material by the the replicators. (Didn't they suggest this in Below Decks at some point? Or was it in some sort of skit.
(That is definitely a K in the last word.) 
This reminds me of a bit in Julian May's Jack the Bodiless, when he's a very young, and living in an incubator. He makes Christmas presents for all the other children. "Just don't tell them what is the only raw material I have in here", he says to his brother.


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## Bramandin (Aug 20, 2022)

Wayne Mack said:


> I would expect that any long-term biosphere would need to be self contained. Leaving matter and especially water behind would require a fairly constant replenishment of material. I would expect the sanitary system to direct all material to the agricultural decks (which I have yet to see) or to some sort of transporter-like gizmo that reconstitutes waste into appetizing meals.



There's also whether flushing the toilet directly into space presents a navigation hazard by coating the fronts of ships in residue.  In Star Trek, I imagine the ram-scoops would clear the traffic lanes if they weren't molecularly disintegrating their waste.


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## Ray Zdybrow (Oct 16, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> Sarcastic androids annoy me too.


Bender and Marvin are REALLY SORRY to have annoyed you


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## psikeyhackr (Oct 16, 2022)

Ray Zdybrow said:


> Bender and Marvin are REALLY SORRY to have annoyed you


Yeah, just wait 'til I upload viruses into them.

I'll show them sorry. I'll call it the Sorry virus.


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## Vince W (Oct 16, 2022)

Jamming the word quantum everywhere.


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## psikeyhackr (Oct 16, 2022)

> ‘It has no impact to the primary strategy. Both you and Patti estimated a three Cruiser attack. They are in *a triangular formation bringing all three ships forward batteries to bear.* This is as described in the NeHaw tactical manuals we deciphered. They are going by the book’ ALICE finished.



AL:ICE by Charles Lamb 

Is it possible for three ships to be in space and not be in a triangular formation?


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## psikeyhackr (Oct 16, 2022)

Ray Zdybrow said:


> Bender and Marvin are REALLY SORRY to have annoyed you


Wait! Bender and Marvin weren't androids.


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## Pyan (Oct 16, 2022)

Zaphod Beeblebrox calls Marvin "the paranoid android" in the radio series. Bender, though, is definitely a robot.


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## reiver33 (Oct 16, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> AL:ICE by Charles Lamb
> 
> Is it possible for three ships to be in space and not be in a triangular formation?


Line ahead...


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## Dave (Oct 16, 2022)

reiver33 said:


> Line ahead...


But Space is curved


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## M. Robert Gibson (Oct 16, 2022)

Apparently 'reversing the polarity' solves everything!   









						Reverse Polarity - TV Tropes
					

When a major obstacle in a Science Fiction show is resolved purely through the judicious application of Techno Babble, the characters have successfully Reversed the Polarity. It seems that every futuristic gadget or space ship subsystem performs …




					tvtropes.org


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## reiver33 (Oct 16, 2022)

Any curvature would be relative to an external observer. To the ships themselves, their subjective formation would be linear.


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## psikeyhackr (Oct 16, 2022)

reiver33 said:


> Line ahead...


Damn! Going to have to retake high school geometry. LOL


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## psikeyhackr (Oct 16, 2022)

Pyan said:


> Zaphod Beeblebrox calls Marvin "the paranoid android" in the radio series. Bender, though, is definitely a robot.


SF characters using poetic license are even more annoying than sarcastic androids.


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## psikeyhackr (Oct 16, 2022)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Apparently 'reversing the polarity' solves everything!


They do that with "relays" on Star Trek though hysteresis was involved once.


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## Ray Zdybrow (Oct 17, 2022)

Pyan said:


> Zaphod Beeblebrox calls Marvin "the paranoid android" in the radio series. Bender, though, is definitely a robot.


Definitely a human-shaped robot with human characteristics - an ANDROID


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## Ray Zdybrow (Oct 17, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> Yeah, just wait 'til I upload viruses into them.
> 
> I'll show them sorry. I'll call it the Sorry virus.


Ooh! We're "SCARED"!


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## Ray Zdybrow (Oct 17, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> Wait! Bender and Marvin weren't androids.


Human body plans and human characteristics. Both were working class caricatures... one a superior, moaning drudge, the other an insolent, don't give a f*ck piss-taker. I like the contrast


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 17, 2022)

Rufus Coppertop said:


> Everyone else lurches about flailing and some idiot throws himself over a console


I always thought it was called the photon torpedo dance. 

Take out the mothership AND ALL THE AUTONOMOUS DRONES DIE INSTANTLY.

There's always an implication that humans are either the smartest of races or incredibly lucky.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 17, 2022)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Apparently 'reversing the polarity' solves everything!



I was so chuffed that I had an audience (one of my kids) when I was replacing the batteries in a torch... and it didn't work.  They were new batteries too.  Then I realised it had an LED bulb and I had put the batteries in the wrong way round.  
"I know," I said.  "I'll reverse the polarity!" and swapped the batteries end for end...


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 17, 2022)

Related to the posts about ship's thrusters always facing back: All of this flitting around (FTL or sub light) and they rarely show ships having to decelerate. (They do show deceleration in The Expanse for example).

I imagine that over half of these issues can be explained by the format.

2 1/2 hours or less to tell the story
Aliens speak english so we have more dialogue
Noisy explosions in space (entertainment value)
The star field flowing past you or psychedelic walls in wormholes - a visual for the non-scientific.

I told a joke somewhere in the Lounge I think, but is it a joke?
When you travel faster than light, you can't see where you're going.


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## farntfar (Oct 17, 2022)

Ray Zdybrow said:


> Definitely a human-shaped robot with human characteristics - an ANDROID


Exactly.
So Obi-Wan should really have said "These aren't the droids you're looking for. One of them isn't even a 'kin (*) droid, for crys sake."

* Short for Anakin, obviously.

What would you call robots of that shape; R2D2, Daleks etc? Pepper potroids. Potroids? Troids?
_These aren't the droid and troid you're looking for _doesn't have quite the same quotability.


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## Pyan (Oct 17, 2022)

Technically (  ), the Star Wars ones are called _Astromechs._

*Astromech droid**.*


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## reiver33 (Oct 17, 2022)

LordOfWizards said:


> Related to the posts about ship's thrusters always facing back: All of this flitting around (FTL or sub light) and they rarely show ships having to decelerate. (They do show deceleration in The Expanse for example).
> 
> I imagine that over half of these issues can be explained by the format.
> 
> ...


If you were travelling FTL, wouldn’t you be meeting oncoming light from your destination? It’s the light from behind, where you’re coming from, that can’t catch up.


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## reiver33 (Oct 17, 2022)

psikeyhackr said:


> SF characters using poetic license are even more annoying than sarcastic androids.


How much does a poetic licence cost? I’ve not noticed the application forms in the Post Office.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 17, 2022)

reiver33 said:


> How much does a poetic licence cost? I’ve not noticed the application forms in the Post Office.



I think you have to get an Artistic Licence which allows you to draw and print your own.


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## farntfar (Oct 17, 2022)

reiver33 said:


> How much does a poetic licence cost? I’ve not noticed the application forms in the Post Office.


A licence for your pet poet? Called Eric? Eric the Poet?


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 17, 2022)

farntfar said:


> A licence for your pet poet? Called Eric? Eric the Poet?



I really am sad man but when it was announced that dog licences were being scrapped all those years ago I went to the Post Office and bought one, I have never owned a dog, then scribbled out the word 'dog', and wrote the word 'cat' on it - in crayon.  I still have it somewhere.


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## pogopossum (Oct 17, 2022)

Pyan said:


> Zaphod Beeblebrox calls Marvin "the paranoid android" in the radio series. Bender, though, is definitely a robot.


Nope. That was a play with words. Poor perhaps, but not a mistake.

edit: I reviewed later posts which made better points.
But Adams stuff (even his Doc Who) is about language, so he gets a all purpose pass.


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## farntfar (Oct 17, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> I really am sad man but when it was announced that dog licences were being scrapped all those years ago I went to the Post Office and bought one, I have never owned a dog, then scribbled out the word 'dog', and wrote the word 'cat' on it - in crayon. I still have it somewhere.


Quite brilliant!
At least you didn't buy a van and write MINISTRY OF HOUSINGE on it.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 17, 2022)

I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but one-hat planets. Made famous by _Star Trek. _And the related, one-biome planets. Made famous by _Star Wars   _

I know most TV programmes don't have the time or money to give us all splendid multi-cultural, multi-biomed  worldbuilding delights, they have a plot to rip out in 50 minutes usually. Still., I like to see some degree of complexity. 

Perhaps I should just stick with novels.


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## Vince W (Oct 17, 2022)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Apparently 'reversing the polarity' solves everything!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The masterwork in physics, *Dick and Jane Go Faster Than Light*, clearly contradicts this principle.


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## JunkMonkey (Oct 17, 2022)

I drew a strip about this a while back:


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 17, 2022)

reiver33 said:


> If you were travelling FTL, wouldn’t you be meeting oncoming light from your destination? It’s the light from behind, where you’re coming from, that can’t catch up.



Hmm... You're kind of making sense. Stop it!

My response is: I don't know. Red and blue shift is a sub light speed effect. If you are going 10X the speed of light, would  the light coming at you appear higher in frequency? (gamma ray level)

I think we should test the theory. Oh wait, we can't.


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## psikeyhackr (Oct 17, 2022)

reiver33 said:


> How much does a poetic licence cost? I’ve not noticed the application forms in the Post Office.


You must get that from English literature teachers. They charge extra for science fiction writers. It is some kind of penalty.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 24, 2022)

Cancellation of a science fiction show that I like .


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## Ursa major (Oct 25, 2022)

JunkMonkey said:


> I still have it somewhere.


It will be out of habit, your cat having insisted that you had ready-to-hand proof of your minion credentials while it was alive.


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