Warp or FTL travel

[noodlesdad]

I admire the researchers and writers of quality sci-fi programs but one thing always bugs me.
When a vessel is in FTL travel, the stars streak past, always white and still visible when behind the ship. This would not of course happen.
The stars in front would range from blue to invisible depending on speed, (due to the Doppler effect), and the stars behind invisible because their light wouldn't be able to catch up with something moving faster, so the rear view would always be black.
Don't get me wrong, I love these shows, but with the amount of work that goes into them, you'd think this basic oversight wouldn't be possible.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Welcome to the chrons forums @noodlesdad.

And, yes, you're completely right - and the way the stars whizz past I can't imagine what speeds some of those ships must be going - many, many times the speed of light for sure.

I posted a link to a video a couple of years ago showing what light speed would actually look like, as you travelled through the Solar system: Video: travel from the Sun to Jupiter at the speed of light

 

[CupofJoe]

Its not an oversight. It is a narrative necessity. Just like hearing them in deep space. It would seem to strange to us as a viewer if they did not. We need to see the stars gliding by and the Doppler sound effect change as the ship passes to know the ship is moving...

 

[farntfar]

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[Matteo]

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@farntfar did you type your reply at the speed of light?

 

[Lumens]

Even at a million times the speed of light, the stars wouldn't whizz by like that...

And there are countless other issues with scifi movies. Wasn't there a thread around here about it?

 

[Parson]

It's amazing how discussions like this suck some of the joy out of watching S.F. --- I actually don't mind so much the whizzing stars. As far as we know no one has ever exceeded light speed and who knows what, if anything, would be visible if it was even possible to see outside the "ship." It's also worth noting the not every FTL movie has this feature. --- Now, what never bothered me about the first Star Wars movies was the sound of the ships in space, now it makes me shudder. Like Duh! I knew when I saw my first one that sound didn't travel through space, but I was not looking for the wrong science, I was totally enthralled with the story.

 

[Astro Pen]

If fantasy writers can use 'magic' to avoid doing any hard research then why shouldn't us SF'ers.
The stars fly past like that because competent starship captains use spells for interstellar travel.
FIFY

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It's the same logic as robot lights flashing in time with their speaking.

 

[Star-child]

Now, what never bothered me about the first Star Wars movies was the sound of the ships in space, now it makes me shudder. Like Duh! I knew when I saw my first one that sound didn't travel through space, but I was not looking for the wrong science, I was totally enthralled with the story.

Have you considered that this is merely an omniscient POV rather than sound traveling through space? It isn't like Han Solo looks up when he hears a Tie-fighter wizz past, but that the audience can hear the internal noises of the ships it has in view - much like an author may provide the thoughts of more than one character in a room.

 

[farntfar]

@farntfar did you type your reply at the speed of light?

I merely (fairly quickly) deleted what I'd written, when I realised, in the light of entries I hadn't seen before I wrote it, that it was unhelpful.

However I would say that the star field effects used, whilst inaccurate, are at least as helpful as Steve Austin's slow motion running or jumping, for giving the right feel to it.

 

[Parson]

Have you considered that this is merely an omniscient POV rather than sound traveling through space? It isn't like Han Solo looks up when he hears a Tie-fighter wizz past, but that the audience can hear the internal noises of the ships it has in view - much like an author may provide the thoughts of more than one character in a room.

I had not. And while I think your insight is flat out brilliant, I somehow doubt that the director (or whomever would be responsible for such a decision) would have had that thought in mind. It's much easier to believe something like "poetic license."

 

[Star-child]

I had not. And while I think your insight is flat out brilliant, I somehow doubt that the director (or whomever would be responsible for such a decision) would have had that thought in mind. It's much easier to believe something like "poetic license."

I don't think anyone necessarily conceptualized it that way, but I think they did simply assign every object in view with the noise it makes - which doesn't necessarily mean that the noises are ones that exists in a vacuum.


I agree with your earlier sentiments about second-guessing SF draining the fun out. The physics of "seeing" during FTL to be entirely fictional - we have no idea how it could possibly look. Maybe whatever is visible isn't subject to red shift due to the modified nature of time required for FTL. But it is clearly the realm of fiction and artistic license.

 

[Lumens]

It's amazing how discussions like this suck some of the joy out of watching S.F.

I didn't mean to do that! Sorry.

I still enjoy scifi very much, but the stakes have been raised a lot since Star Trek (for example).

 

[Parson]

I didn't mean to do that! Sorry.

I still enjoy scifi very much, but the stakes have been raised a lot since Star Trek (for example).

No worries! I still enjoy SF movies a lot too, but I now look at them with a more jaundiced eye.

 

[IAmTR]

It can be exhausting to make sci-fi that ages well if you want to explain anything sciency. Attempts to do so in world building for my sci-fi story have taken me deep into reading about exoplanet exploration and quantum entanglement for hours! Lol

 

[Major Eazy]

I admire the researchers and writers of quality sci-fi programs but one thing always bugs me.
When a vessel is in FTL travel, the stars streak past, always white and still visible when behind the ship. This would not of course happen.
The stars in front would range from blue to invisible depending on speed, (due to the Doppler effect), and the stars behind invisible because their light wouldn't be able to catch up with something moving faster, so the rear view would always be black.
Don't get me wrong, I love these shows, but with the amount of work that goes into them, you'd think this basic oversight wouldn't be possible.

I prefer to ignore it, just use the suspension of disbelief to enjoy those sic-fi shows.

 

[Pyan]

You could have a lot of fun filming the Bloater Drive...

This enlarges the gaps between the atoms of the ship until it spans the distance to the destination, whereupon the atoms are moved back together again, reconstituting the ship at its previous size but in the new location. An occasional side-effect is that the occupants see a planet drifting, in miniature, through the hull.

Bow