Jump to content

Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame


peadar1987

Recommended Posts

20 minutes ago, razark said:

Neither the thread title or OP indicate this is only about sci-fi.  There's plenty of bad science in all kinds of fiction.

Ah whoops my bad. A little neuroflatulence there. In most fiction it’s forgivable, but one expects sci-fi to be more accurate.

Edited by StrandedonEarth
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, StrandedonEarth said:

In most fiction it’s forgivable, but one expects sci-fi to be more accurate.

Yes, the very nature of sci-fi tends to make it a very easy target for this thread.

But occasionally, you come across some bits of this in other genres.

I remember reading a fantasy novel, where the characters were in an underground mine using a bucket on a chain with a counterweight as an elevator.  During the daring escape sequence, the big guy is holding the bucket down so the rest of the party can get in.  Once they're all in, he jumps in the bucket with them, and since he's no longer holding it down, the bucket goes up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, razark said:

 

I remember reading a fantasy novel, where the characters were in an underground mine using a bucket on a chain with a counterweight as an elevator.  During the daring escape sequence, the big guy is holding the bucket down so the rest of the party can get in.  Once they're all in, he jumps in the bucket with them, and since he's no longer holding it down, the bucket goes up.

Maybe it was the magical magnetic boots he was wearing

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, razark said:

Yes, the very nature of sci-fi tends to make it a very easy target for this thread.

But occasionally, you come across some bits of this in other genres.

I remember reading a fantasy novel, where the characters were in an underground mine using a bucket on a chain with a counterweight as an elevator.  During the daring escape sequence, the big guy is holding the bucket down so the rest of the party can get in.  Once they're all in, he jumps in the bucket with them, and since he's no longer holding it down, the bucket goes up.

Double stupid as it would be an sort of lock down mechanism here like an bolt trough the chain to keep the bucket in down anyway. 
You could add drama in that the guy pulling the bolt would had to race to reach to bucket. 

However you could use an rope or something to tie the bucket down or tie the rope to the bolt and pull but if they was in an hurry it might not be time for it. 

This make me think of an add for an insurance company who was hilarious. 
Describe how the damage happened: 
Well I rebuild the chimney, I had plenty of old bricks and some leftover so I put them in an barrel at the edge of the roof, climbed down to the ground and pulled the rope to get the barrel off the roof, unfortunately the barrel was heavier than me so I was pulled up, on the way up I collided with the barrel hurting my left shoulder, I then hurt my hands then I hit the tackle at the top, then the barrel hit the ground its bottom fell out so I went down again, injuring right foot then it hit the barrel going up. 
I then hurt my back landing on an pile of bricks, this caused me to drop the rope so the barrel falling down hitting me in the head :)
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

For me it's breeding across species lines.

Since:

A: The likelihood of offspring has the odds heavily in the negative zone.

B: Even if you do manage offspring the likelihood of them being odd looking via size or some other way like a freakshow is high.

 

This happens across several jaunra's of scifi. There is even precedent for stuff like it in ancient literature. For example, in greek foklore the chief god Zeus had several illegitimate children without consent, and even biblical angels had offspring who were giants.

 

In a way, scifi aliens and superheroes both are substitutes for the gods of old literature.

 

Edited by Spacescifi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Except Star Wars never pretended to be sci-fi. It’s classified as space opera or space fantasy. You can talk about the logical or plot inconsistencies, but this thread is about bad science in sci-fi 

I would argue that space opera is a brand of sci-fi. However, SW (and much of soft sci-fi) is different in that it doesn't rely on science as a source for its drama, so we don't scrutinize it as much - at least until it starts to stick out too much, usually through inconsistency of depiction (see: hyperspace ramming).

For example, this is a jet fighter IN SPACE.

118e89a08e22e10ca6ce1e052a1c2ea1.jpg

OK? Any questions?

*muffled screams from hard sci-fi nerds*

OK.

Whereas Trek uses technobabble to generate drama every episode, which is difficult to do while maintaining concistency.

22 hours ago, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

Ok. I have a good one. Dunno if it’s been said but remember Armageddon?

In the scene with the shuttles, they go around in space like airplanes!

As I mentioned about thirty pages back, it's amusing to see the traces of NASA advice in that film.

Edited by DDE
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DDE said:

I would argue that space opera is a brand of sci-fi. However, SW (and much of soft sci-fi) is different in that it doesn't rely on science as a source for its drama, so we don't scrutinize it as much - at least until it starts to stick out too much, usually through inconsistency of depiction (see: hyperspace ramming).

For example, this is a jet fighter IN SPACE.

118e89a08e22e10ca6ce1e052a1c2ea1.jpg

OK? Any questions?

*muffled screams from hard sci-fi nerds*

OK.

Whereas Trek uses technobabble to generate drama every episode, which is difficult to do while maintaining concistency.

As I mentioned about thirty pages back, it's amusing to see the traces of NASA advice in that film.

More fun is that you should have propellers on the x-wing, they are doning WW2 air combat, remember seeing an TV program about WW2 in the pacific there US fighters attacked an Japanese capital ship, and my first thought was it looked like star wars, the fighter bombers was doing strafing runs to suppress the anti air guns, so the torpedo planes could come in low and slow. 
And yes its the most cinematic type of air combat as you want thing up close.
Only main difference is that air strikes and heavy guns was rarely combined in one strike as common in star wars. 
This was probably practical, either battleships was out ranged by the planes or you used an battleship too not risk pilots if it out ranged the enemy guns. Also range finding would be harder with all the planes. 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, DDE said:

For example, this is a jet fighter IN SPACE.

In the aethereal theory of the sci-fi universes, it's an absolutely proper masterpiece of a jet fighter, with four aethereal scoops, aethereal wings lateral fins, long sharp nose, etc.

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

x-wing, they are doning WW2 air combat, remember seeing an TV program about WW2 in the pacific there US fighters attacked an Japanese capital ship, and my first thought was it looked like star wars

Here was posted a by-second comparison between the Luke's Death Star attack and an older movie about the dam busters.

Spoiler

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

In the aethereal theory of the sci-fi universes, it's an absolutely proper masterpiece of a jet fighter, with four aethereal scoops, aethereal wings lateral fins, long sharp nose, etc.

Here was posted a by-second comparison between the Luke's Death Star attack and an older movie about the dam busters.

In the original Star Trek series (1960s), at least one of the episodes having a space battle with the Romulans was based on a US/Japanese submarine battle (from googling, I'm guessing "The Balance of Terror").  I don't think steering against a medium made much of a difference.  The main issue in the battle was using sensors to try to detect the enemy (presumably sound with submarines, Sci-Fi sensors [presumably resembling electromagnetic sensors] in Star Trek).

But yes, Star Wars was basically fairy tales with semi-modern fighter pilots.  Not science fiction at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, wumpus said:

one of the episodes having a space battle with the Romulans was based on a US/Japanese submarine battle (from googling, I'm guessing "The Balance of Terror")

Balance of Terror was more based on the film The Enemy Below, about a US Destroyer/German u-boat battle.  Very closely based on it.  (With a bit of Run Silent, Run Deep thrown in.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/1/2019 at 8:02 PM, magnemoe said:

And yes its the most cinematic type of air combat as you want thing up close.
Only main difference is that air strikes and heavy guns was rarely combined in one strike as common in star wars. 
This was probably practical, either battleships was out ranged by the planes or you used an battleship too not risk pilots if it out ranged the enemy guns. Also range finding would be harder with all the planes. 

Star Wars basically takes place in the 1930s, where it was quite the credible opinion that carriers would engage in the main battle-line, rather than hang back, and especially rather than rendering the battleship obsolete.

USS_Lexington_or_the_Saratoga_firing_its

The sinking of HMS Glorious could have become the rule rather than the exception.

3aa1b8dff7c88ff2f416a16085baad0f--battle

Why do you think the battleship construction resumed in the 1930s, that is, as soon as treaties gave it the opportunity? Here's some 18.1-inch packages coming in:

jqhgy85p6pu31.png

On 12/1/2019 at 8:02 PM, magnemoe said:

More fun is that you should have propellers on the x-wing

The Eleventh Doctor heard you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Star Wars basically takes place in the 1930s, where it was quite the credible opinion that carriers would engage in the main battle-line, rather than hang back, and especially rather than rendering the battleship obsolete.

USS_Lexington_or_the_Saratoga_firing_its

The sinking of HMS Glorious could have become the rule rather than the exception.

Why do you think the battleship construction resumed in the 1930s, that is, as soon as treaties gave it the opportunity? Here's some 18.1-inch packages coming in:

The Eleventh Doctor heard you.

You misunderstood me a bit, it was not an case of battleship versus carriers, here the battleship was the clear winner in early in the 1930s, while the carrier become stronger as planes became more capable. 
Having main gun on an carrier is still a bit weird as it will either have an escort or are escorting battleships. If your escort is light it makes some sense. 

My point was that as far as I know you rarely used artillery and planes against a target at the same time.  Exception might be Taffy 3 but here it was only destroyers and an desperate fight. 
Today in land warfare you don't do it because you risk hitting the plane or helicopter, as most shells tend to be triggered by distance to ground or other objects like planes this is more dangerous. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The one place I couldn't help but scrutinizing SW was the end of the first movie (first real movie, not the godawful prequels). The X-wings, etc, take off and fly to the Death Star. We know that the Death Star is behind another world (can't remember if it's the planet and the base is on a moon, or the other way around). Regardless, the Death Star is some planet-moon distance away for certain, and they announce before they even scramble how much time they have until it is able to shoot. They then get there in time, with time to spare dogfighting, attacking, etc.

This means their average velocity has to exceed 200 km/s. If an X-wing is 10 tons, that's 200,000,000 mJoules. That's ~47 kT of TNT. Seems like they could make good use of missiles (or ships controlled by droids as kamikazes).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/24/2019 at 1:08 PM, jimmymcgoochie said:

How did he keep floating away from the space station when they were already stationary to it

As mentioned before in this thread: Because they weren't stationary with respect to the space station.  They were rotating.  Here's are several frames overlaid on each other that clearly show that rotation.

AAgOQxV.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Nikolai said:

As mentioned before in this thread: Because they weren't stationary with respect to the space station.  They were rotating.  Here's are several frames overlaid on each other that clearly show that rotation.

AAgOQxV.png

Those parachute threads are clearly pulled very tight. With a relative velocity that low, they'd simply ping back towards the station, as indeed happens to Sandra Bullock when George Clooney detaches himself. There's no obvious reason why George continues to move away from the station and to somehow pull everything else he's attached to with him when the EVA pack is empty and he has no other form of propulsion; that parachute pulls Sandra back with a noticeable force of several metres per second but somehow doesn't do anything at all with George attached too. The angles don't add up either- both of them move in directly opposite directions when he decouples himself, which would mean there's no rotation going on at all.

 

 

2 hours ago, tater said:

The one place I couldn't help but scrutinizing SW was the end of the first movie (first real movie, not the godawful prequels). The X-wings, etc, take off and fly to the Death Star. We know that the Death Star is behind another world (can't remember if it's the planet and the base is on a moon, or the other way around). Regardless, the Death Star is some planet-moon distance away for certain, and they announce before they even scramble how much time they have until it is able to shoot. They then get there in time, with time to spare dogfighting, attacking, etc.

This means their average velocity has to exceed 200 km/s. If an X-wing is 10 tons, that's 200,000,000 mJoules. That's ~47 kT of TNT. Seems like they could make good use of missiles (or ships controlled by droids as kamikazes).

 

They have FTL drives in them. Even the Death Star does, and it a) is the size of a small moon and b) has no thrusters anywhere on its surface. Come to mention it, why does the Death Star manage to warp between star systems to find the rebel base, but then just sits and waits for orbital mechanics to carry it into line of sight? Just ping it a little bit further around, aim, pew pew, boom goes the rebellion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

They have FTL drives in them. Even the Death Star does, and it a) is the size of a small moon and b) has no thrusters anywhere on its surface. Come to mention it, why does the Death Star manage to warp between star systems to find the rebel base, but then just sits and waits for orbital mechanics to carry it into line of sight? Just ping it a little bit further around, aim, pew pew, boom goes the rebellion.

They show craft "making the jump to light speed." This does not happen in the final attack on the Death Star. They are in normal space, 100% of the time.

Right after they take off, there is a comment that the estimated time to firing range of death star is 15 minutes. The 2 planets are either fairly close in size, and simply fairly close, so the range could be lower than the 200,000km I guestimated. Regardless, small craft in SW have vast dv---which makes them extremely potent KE weapons.

EDIT: BTW, the entire death star combat sequence is about 10 minutes long, and it blows just as it could fire. That means I grossly overestimate the travel time, it's not 15 minutes, but FIVE. If the 2 planets are 200,000km apart, that means the fighters are moving at 666 km/s (average). That's about half a megaton of TNT in KE. If the spacecraft are presumably armored to deal with small particle (dust, etc) impacts at that velocity, they are incredibly nasty penetrators, too. They should also be pretty tough against lower grade directed energy weapons, too.

That's the problem with examining space fantasy at all, it quickly disintegrates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, tater said:

The one place I couldn't help but scrutinizing SW was the end of the first movie (first real movie, not the godawful prequels). The X-wings, etc, take off and fly to the Death Star. We know that the Death Star is behind another world (can't remember if it's the planet and the base is on a moon, or the other way around). Regardless, the Death Star is some planet-moon distance away for certain, and they announce before they even scramble how much time they have until it is able to shoot. They then get there in time, with time to spare dogfighting, attacking, etc.

This means their average velocity has to exceed 200 km/s. If an X-wing is 10 tons, that's 200,000,000 mJoules. That's ~47 kT of TNT. Seems like they could make good use of missiles (or ships controlled by droids as kamikazes).

 

As another pointed out, FTL also you drop transport stages.

The main weakness as I see it is the lack of close in weapon systems and escorts, yes this is an no brainer for an carrier but battleships also had escorts to deal with torpedo boats and later planes. 
And the battleship / aircraft carrier makes little sense here but with an kilometer long starship and no need for an flight deck putting the hangar inside the armor makes sense especially then the fighters are just an secondary weapon.  

So say 50 star destroyers and 5000 tie fighters would be an fitting escort, no you would not have all the tie fighters up all the time but inside an hostile system you would. 
Now penetrating that screen would be interesting. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

As another pointed out, FTL also you drop transport stages.

There's no talk of light speed, and plenty of other combats occur in SW where you see the spacecraft closing huge ranges in literally seconds. We could calculate the distance changed by counting the angular change of the Death Star, too. Pretty sure they make hyperspace near a planet not a normal thing---wasn't it a big deal, like it was never done---in one of the recent movies?

There's no way that spacecraft don't move at insane sublight speeds in SW.

Edited by tater
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Maybe...because it’s Star Wars and the accurate representation of physics stops at ‘an orbit is a circular path around a celestial body’?

Yeah, and you clearly understood the bit I left out in the quote (corrected), thx.

Quote

There's no way that spacecraft DON'T move at insane sublight speeds in SW.

Again, I don't normally pay close attention to fantasy like SW---unless they make me (like the prequels which ruin everything trying to explain stuff).

Where I do rip on fantasy is inconsistency, however. The jump to light speed ramming in whatever recent movie, for example. Same issue as fighters with the KE of thermonuclear weapons. If X-wings can jump, the solution to the Empire/etc is easy. Install droid. Have droid fly near ships. Jump to lightspeed. Profit.

If you keep the story moving, and character-focused, then it's not a huge deal, but if you encourage people to pay attention at a different level (possibly by a failure to spend more time on characterization), you better be consistent. SW has FTL (which interacts spectacularly with physical objects if initiated the right distance away). SW has high sublight speeds possible (making possibly planet-killing missiles a thing). SW has artificial gravity (what can one do with arbitrary control of gravity?). The have some sort of deflector shields. You can think about these technologies, and possibly really mess with story lines if you bother thinking.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...