the void as an ocean. Scientifically plausible?

[Piousflea84]

I have a suspicion that until recently all Comic Superheroes are either:
Aliens / Gods /Magic (Superman, Wonder woman, Thor, Shadow )
Created by Radiation accidents (Spiderman and irradiated spider, Hulk, Fantastic Four, )
People with unlikely gadgets due to HUGE wealth (Batman, Iron man)
Evolution Mutation (X-men)

Science is only in it in a 1930s handwavium popular science sense of either "Radiation can do anything" or "Enough money and you can make ANY gadget". The origins are in the 1930s after all. It's largely visual and action and translates badly to pure text. E.E. "Doc" Smith's 1928 to 1960s Space Opera is the closest decent text versions. Flash Gordon is like a poor copy of E.E. "Doc" Smith, made for Saturday morning 1930s cinema.

Edgar Rice Burroughs is arguably a more venerable archetype for comic-book science. Superman owes a lot more to John Carter super-jumping his way around Mars(Barsoom) than he does to the psionic-powered, planet-destroying Lensmen.

EE Smith's writing has more DNA in common with the 1970s-to-modern-era "BDO Stories" like the "Ringworld" and "Culture" series, or videogames like "Halo" and "Mass Effect".

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I've read I think all the E E "Doc" Smith, I don't think it's at all like Ringworld. There is an aspect of the "Culture" universe being Space Opera (Smith practically invented it) with fantasy A.I., Banks is soft Fantasy SF really and Niven attempted to be a little more realistic (though he wrote fantasy too), Niven's "Known Space" isn't exactly classic Space Opera. I don't see any attempt at hard SF or realism in Banks' "Culture" universe, it's pure fantasy in space.

But the Superhero comics translate best to Animation, not books and only recently live action due to dollops of CGI. They are VISUAL, they don't owe much to any books for their origin. I don't think superman is much like John Carter at all, Carter is pretty much the precursor to a lot of old soft SF "old solar system" genre, Leigh Bracket has some, "Captn" W.E. Johns of Biggles fame does some SF that's somewhere between Burroughs and Smith, closer to Burroghs and some more mainline 1940s & 1950s SF (it was in 1950s I think).

 

[Piousflea84]

Ray,

When I think "Superhero Narrative Style" I think of tales that include hyper-powerful characters, but focus their narrative arc on a very individual, personal scale. Carter may live on an outdated-sci-fi Mars, but the whole idea of being super-strong and saving princesses from evil beings is pure superheroism.

EE Smith is quite the opposite of a personal-scale narrative. His heroes and villains gleefully wreak destruction on a planetary-or-larger scale. IMO this is the main difference between Space Opera Narrative and Superhero Narrative. Superheroes fight a thousand battles on Earth for each battle that actually destroys the Earth (immediately leading to a universe reboot) while Space Opera glasses planets all day long.


Also: I'm not sure why you are referring to scientific realism as something that separates Smith from Banks. Even by 1930s standards there was nothing realistic about EE Smith science. Any time he needed to generate power, thrust, or explosions he would invent a machine or a psionic technique that "converts ABC amount of mass to energy." That's handwavium in its purest form, and is 100% identical to Iain C Banks's "we drew antimatter from The Grid and annihilated it into energy".

 

[Ray McCarthy]

scientific realism as something that separates Smith from Banks

I wasn't. Banks is obviously a latter day Smith.
I was contrasting Niven and Banks.

 

[Tim Murray]

Magic gets introduced later on in my book, as a sort of hidden thing… As such I want to keep it somewhat scientific till that point. This is integral to my plot.

My world is set in a very futuristic setting.
There are planets, and originally I had panned on calling them realms, and travel was quite simple. There are teleport stations, so you can simply go shopping down the block or across the galaxy in seconds.

Then I decided I wanted space travel, because it opens a lot of doors, to wars in the void as well as space pirates and all sort of fun things that are coming into my head. So I made it that the teleporting is short ranged and limited…

Because my story is truly magical later on, I wanted the void to be like the ocean... i found this:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceIsAnOcean

I got this because I like stories where the characters seem to be able to breath out in the void filled with colors and debris flying through their hair… ahhh! sailing among the stars…

The problem is, I need it to sound scientific in the beginning as magic is not yet introduced.
Can I possibly get away with saying, the debris and stars emit oxygen and allows people to breath?

Perhaps this is too fake…
Does this even sound plausible?

My other idea was to make pockets of air or streamers that you can breath in. So its not everywhere… Coincidentally these streamers perhaps can help with FTL travel…
I dunno I think I could use some help here…
Im looking for a way to have starships be able to attack each other by swinging across ships! definitely cooler than a tractor beam…

Very cool road you're traveling, I like your teleport stations. Be unique and true to your imagination, it will never let you down. The definition of "void" I use is a pocket of fifth dimensional space where time, space and dimension co-exist at the same moment.

 

[PartialMitch]

Ray,

When I think "Superhero Narrative Style" I think of tales that include hyper-powerful characters, but focus their narrative arc on a very individual, personal scale. Carter may live on an outdated-sci-fi Mars, but the whole idea of being super-strong and saving princesses from evil beings is pure superheroism.

My novel is a science fantasy saga disguised as a superhero story, so this type of thing is right up my alley. You're definitely correct they evolved from literature (my favorite early example is The Scarlet Pimpernel) and also folklore and myth. One could easily say that Robin Hood was a superhero, secret identity and all, at least as the legend congealed. Comic books and superheroes are strongly connected, but not inseparable. None of the tropes of the superhero genre are really original. In my story, an alien creature came to Earth in 1939 and was inspired by popular comic books to use superhero iconography as a way to earn the acceptance of humanity (since they were very popular back then). Consequently, many of the inheritors of his power (and some ordinary people) adopt the superhero lifestyle as it is a larger part of culture than in the real world.

Regarding the original topic: Can space be an ocean? Well, not with the laws of physics we have here, but fictional worlds are not beholden to our laws of physics. If you're aiming for realism, then the answer is no, not in our universe. But you can always write new laws of nature; you can make a new universe. Look up the old Aether theory for inspiration and further information; study why it cannot work in the real world, and adjust your universe to enable it to work, if that is what you desire. For example, light and the electromagnetic force would not behave in the same fashion. C, the speed of light, would vary, much how the speed of sound varies according to altitude due to the density of our atmosphere. This could lead to some interesting effects in a fictional world.