Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[DAL59]

7 hours ago, Merlin The Cynic said:

s in a spaceship has so many minutes worth of delta v.

In the apollo lunar lander, they would measure fuel in terms of seconds at maximum throttle remaining, so it makes sense why one would make that mistake.  

[Gargamel]

8 hours ago, Merlin The Cynic said:

He mentions delta v a few times

Given how loosely we have used the term dV here on the forums, as a general replacement for amount of fuel left to burn or other such wrongnesses (wooo invented a word!), I can probably let that slide.  Although I haven't read it, and it would probably bother me too. 

[DDE]

@ARS Whoa, whoa, whoa. A Kosmos spacecraft at Mars? Somebody flunked their research quite badly.

...Or it’s a very valid reason to bring a battle rover to the Red-owned planet.

Edited November 13, 2018 by DDE

[kerbiloid]

Origin (series).

(maybe spoilers ahead, beware of them)
 

Spoiler

An epigraph is omitted in this series.

An immoral and naughty lady is crossing the ocean by ship.
Suddenly she hears a hit, a crack, and the ship starts sinking.
She starts praying: "My Lord, I know, I'm a sinner, I deserve this. But will you drown all those innocent people?!"
And hears a voice from the sky: "It took me three years to gather you here!"

 

Spoiler

Is it normal for a captain of an interstellar colonial transport to have the upper buttons unbuttonned? Can we take seriously the rest of the movie after that?

 

Spoiler

The movie is like a The Thing in the interiors from Dark Matter. _{(Though, I like such semi-dark empty labyrinths very much, it's cool for me personally).}

Kinda it's a Minecraft spaceship.
Tiny squares of all-yellow same-sized crops in glass cubes relentlessly watered and illuminated by ramps moving there and back.
If the passengers sleep, why these greenhouses?
Are they sure that a small cube can give you a loaf per day like in Minecraft?
Why move the ramps, why not just keep the lamps on the ceiling?
Are they sure the crops love the eternal rain?

***

How could they gather such crowd of criminals and psychos as colonists?
It's not a far island on Earth, it's a future space colony. They will kill each other before the destination planet will do this.

I'm not surprised that the xenomorph got agressive and crazy after visiting their brains.
It's not hostile, it just thinks that it's a normal human behavior and tries to look friendly.

***

How can such big interstellar ship be moved by such small solar sails?
And why does it have six engines ignited? Do they produce the light to push the sails?

***

A huge lift shaft in the very beginning.
Several scouts are crawling up by the technical stairways on the wall.
Others are staying below near a door. Suddenly something happens, they want to get away from the shaft.

A criminal a psycho a psycho criminal an ordinary guy from their group presses a button with highlighted "O" (a circle) to open the door near it.
I jokingly think: "And instead of opening the door it will retract the stairs and inject a toxic gas to sterilize the shaft."
Was I right? No.
No gas. It just retracted the stairs!
Along the wall. And the first expendable character falls down.

Why would anyone need to retract the stairs? Why place this button near a door? Probably, the plot writers just hate the heroes and like the jokes.

***

One of the several rotating habitats (wheels) is to be jettisonned from the ship.
That's nice to have a habitat jettison system (maybe not so much useful, but always funny), but what if you need to jettison not the outside one?
It's jettisonned as a whole. Should you also jettison all other habitats on its way?

Btw the wheels are counter-rotating in pairs. Why haven't they jettisonned another wheel?

***

The rim of the wheel is disconnecting from the spoke, and four engines ignite on the spoke end.
The rim begins floating away from the spoke.
In all diections at once? It extends?
Otherwise how can it float away at the opposite side?

***

The heroine is going to jump from the rim into the door in the top of the spoke where her companion stays to catch her.in doors.
(Not sure if they need that guy. If she misses, he won't catch her. If she gets into the empty door, she will just float inside. While she can just bounce from him. Such drama-drama).

But how is he staying on the floor perpendicular to the radial corridor of the rotating spoke? Why he doesn't radially fly out?

And why does she crawl to the hole along the floor instead of trying to jump up to the 3 m high ceiling?
Maybe the rim is jettisonned, but it's still rotating. The ceiling hasn't gotten lower.

***

The hero (that companion) stays in the door opening in a vacuum, without a suit.
Is it some secret ninja technics that he is doing this for a minute or two while she is crawling to the jump point?
Usually the reserve time is 15..18 s before he should fall float unconcscious.

And why is he staying in the vacuum at all? Let her finish crawling, then open the door right before jumps.

***

When the air fills the lock chamber, is it visible like jets of steam? Do they like -200°C cold oxygen?
I don't really know, but in lab videos I can't see any jets.

***

Flashbacks.
Why does the ship crew panic and ask each other what to do when they have instructions? Did they even read them?

Why is the crew armed with anti-elephant-looking pistols with flashlights? 
Are they going to shoot the passengers in dark corridors? _{They do, though.}

Why at all are they armed? 
With such crowd of psychocriminal colonists they should just equip every floor with a mounted burner. And with emergency vents.

Btw what's the idea of the on-gun flashlight at all (not just in the movie)?
To show the lurkers where to aim from there darkness?
And why are these flashlights always white? Didn't they watch Das Boot and other movies, where the emergency lights are red to protect the eyes?

***

Who had trained that psycho bodyguard?
Pulling out her pistol on every rustle, she would shoot down the client and his daughter before the villains could do that, and before she could screw her duties to make love not war.

***

(I have to do something with my nerves. When the crew guy suddenly moved, I've pressed the mouse button against him before they shot him from pistols. Freaking Fallout...)

***

A cool hacker. She's almost perfect, but not completely. A really intellectual face, but she doesn't know kung-fu, so she couldn't really crack some program. Neo and Johnny Mnemonic can confirm.

_{(Dark Matter's hacker also originally couldn't in kung-fu, but she's a former Alessa (and tens of other daemonic childs), so that's not a problem)}

***

Why do they keep the medicines in solid form? Don't they have some hi-tech injectors or applicators like those ones in their VR cinema?
And why do they not keep the drugroom locked? _{(Like the Don't Click thread.)}

***

Why have they waked up without boots but wearing sweatpants? Somebody had stolen their slippers?

***

Why do they cook food on the gas cookers? Why are these gas cookers in the interstellar ship?
Don't they have enough straw from the greenhouses to make a fire and cook on it?

(Btw why is the trademark label not visible? How can it do a product placement without a label?)

***

Their doctor (btw why he is still alive after making bioweapon in a secret lab and having a conflict with the employer?) is wise.
Nobody understood him when he had thrown away a contaminated guy with a random girl.
I did. The girl was the biggest between them, he was looking into the future when they will be out of air.

On another hand, why did he not stored the scout fallen from the retractable stairs no-stairs. They will need food as well.

***

Why is the doctor stroking the halves of the unlucky guy brain studying the disease, after cutting it in two parts?
Is he a maniac? Does he think he now has two friends instead of one?
Why isn't he cutting it in slices like he probably should?

***

Why does the operation room have usual red doors from a supermarket when all other doors a sci-fi sliding supah-doorz?
Did they film this scene in a supermarket?

***

Unexpectedly, the it's-time-to-love-a-jerk girl, though, is pretty realistic. 
Girls often love real jerks.

***

Why does their hackergirl try to fire and smoke the wires with a curling iron?
Doesn't she know that to restore a forgotten password with a curling iron you need the person who has forgotten it?
This doesn't work with wires. At all.

***

The door is slowly closing, the heroine will be late when this happens, the heroine's companion stays next to the door and taps it with hands.  
Kinda "Stupid! Stupid door! Don't close!"

But he has a super-pistol on the belt (like also she does). Why not put the pistol between the door and the wall to give some time for the heroine? Didn't he ever go by subway?
If he did so, she should not jump through the space.

***

A tankist helmet which the heroine wears inside the glass one is nice.
The brutal space is brutal.

Though a tankist jetpack would be better.

***

And about the nature of the disaster.

The slogan of the series would be: "Never flush a toilet when somebody flies behind you".

***

(3 episodes more to see.)

 

 

Edited November 20, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

13 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Why does their hackergirl try to fire and smoke the wires with a curling iron?
Doesn't she know that to restore a forgotten password with a curling iron you need the person who has forgotten it?
This doesn't work with wires. At all.

Bortnikov can relate.

[kerbiloid]

5 minutes ago, DDE said:

Bortnikov can relate.

Afaik, real political persons unlikely meet the forum rules.

[p1t1o]

16 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Origin (series).

(maybe spoilers ahead, beware of them)
 

  Reveal hidden contents

An epigraph is omitted in this series.

An immoral and naughty lady is crossing the ocean by ship.
Suddenly she hears a hit, a crack, and the ship starts sinking.
She starts praying: "My Lord, I know, I'm a sinner, I deserve this. But will you drown all those innocent people?!"
And hears a voice from the sky: "It took me three years to gather you here!"

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Is it normal for a captain of an interstellar colonial transport to have the upper buttons unbuttonned? Can we take seriously the rest of the movie after that?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The movie is like a The Thing in the interiors from Dark Matter. _{(Though, I like such semi-dark empty labyrinths very much, it's cool for me personally).}

Kinda it's a Minecraft spaceship.
Tiny squares of all-yellow same-sized crops in glass cubes relentlessly watered and illuminated by ramps moving there and back.
If the passengers sleep, why these greenhouses?
Are they sure that a small cube can give you a loaf per day like in Minecraft?
Why move the ramps, why not just keep the lamps on the ceiling?
Are they sure the crops love the eternal rain?

***

How could they gather such crowd of criminals and psychos as colonists?
It's not a far island on Earth, it's a future space colony. They will kill each other before the destination planet will do this.

I'm not surprised that the xenomorph got agressive and crazy after visiting their brains.
It's not hostile, it just thinks that it's a normal human behavior and tries to look friendly.

***

How can such big interstellar ship be moved by such small solar sails?
And why does it have six engines ignited? Do they produce the light to push the sails?

***

A huge lift shaft in the very beginning.
Several scouts are crawling up by the technical stairways on the wall.
Others are staying below near a door. Suddenly something happens, they want to get away from the shaft.

A criminal a psycho a psycho criminal an ordinary guy from their group presses a button with highlighted "O" (a circle) to open the door near it.
I jokingly think: "And instead of opening the door it will retract the stairs and inject a toxic gas to sterilize the shaft."
Was I right? No.
No gas. It just retracted the stairs!
Along the wall. And the first expendable character falls down.

Why would anyone need to retract the stairs? Why place this button near a door? Probably, the plot writers just hate the heroes and like the jokes.

***

One of the several rotating habitats (wheels) is to be jettisonned from the ship.
That's nice to have a habitat jettison system (maybe not so much useful, but always funny), but what if you need to jettison not the outside one?
It's jettisonned as a whole. Should you also jettison all other habitats on its way?

Btw the wheels are counter-rotating in pairs. Why haven't they jettisonned another wheel?

***

The rim of the wheel is disconnecting from the spoke, and four engines ignite on the spoke end.
The rim begins floating away from the spoke.
In all diections at once? It extends?
Otherwise how can it float away at the opposite side?

***

The heroine is going to jump from the rim into the door in the top of the spoke where her companion stays to catch her.in doors.
(Not sure if they need that guy. If she misses, he won't catch her. If she gets into the empty door, she will just float inside. While she can just bounce from him. Such drama-drama).

But how is he staying on the floor perpendicular to the radial corridor of the rotating spoke? Why he doesn't radially fly out?

And why does she crawl to the hole along the floor instead of trying to jump up to the 3 m high ceiling?
Maybe the rim is jettisonned, but it's still rotating. The ceiling hasn't gotten lower.

***

The hero (that companion) stays in the door opening in a vacuum, without a suit.
Is it some secret ninja technics that he is doing this for a minute or two while she is crawling to the jump point?
Usually the reserve time is 15..18 s before he should fall float unconcscious.

And why is he staying in the vacuum at all? Let her finish crawling, then open the door right before jumps.

***

When the air fills the lock chamber, is it visible like jets of steam? Do they like -200°C cold oxygen?
I don't really know, but in lab videos I can't see any jets.

***

Flashbacks.
Why does the ship crew panic and ask each other what to do when they have instructions? Did they even read them?

Why is the crew armed with anti-elephant-looking pistols with flashlights? 
Are they going to shoot the passengers in dark corridors? _{They do, though.}

Why at all are they armed? 
With such crowd of psychocriminal colonists they should just equip every floor with a mounted burner. And with emergency vents.

Btw what's the idea of the on-gun flashlight at all (not just in the movie)?
To show the lurkers where to aim from there darkness?
And why are these flashlights always white? Didn't they watch Das Boot and other movies, where the emergency lights are red to protect the eyes?

***

Who had trained that psycho bodyguard?
Pulling out her pistol on every rustle, she would shoot down the client and his daughter before the villains could do that, and before she could screw her duties to make love not war.

***

(I have to do something with my nerves. When the crew guy suddenly moved, I've pressed the mouse button against him before they shot him from pistols. Freaking Fallout...)

***

A cool hacker. She's almost perfect, but not completely. A really intellectual face, but she doesn't know kung-fu, so she couldn't really crack some program. Neo and Johnny Mnemonic can confirm.

_{(Dark Matter's hacker also originally couldn't in kung-fu, but she's a former Alessa (and tens of other daemonic childs), so that's not a problem)}

***

Why do they keep the medicines in solid form? Don't they have some hi-tech injectors or applicators like those ones in their VR cinema?
And why do they not keep the drugroom locked? _{(Like the Don't Click thread.)}

***

Why have they waked up without boots but wearing sweatpants? Somebody had stolen their slippers?

***

Why do they cook food on the gas cookers? Why are these gas cookers in the interstellar ship?
Don't they have enough straw from the greenhouses to make a fire and cook on it?

(Btw why is the trademark label not visible? How can it do a product placement without a label?)

***

Their doctor (btw why he is still alive after making bioweapon in a secret lab and having a conflict with the employer?) is wise.
Nobody understood him when he had thrown away a contaminated guy with a random girl.
I did. The girl was the biggest between them, he was looking into the future when they will be out of air.

On another hand, why did he not stored the scout fallen from the retractable stairs no-stairs. They will need food as well.

***

Why is the doctor stroking the halves of the unlucky guy brain studying the disease, after cutting it in two parts?
Is he a maniac? Does he think he now has two friends instead of one?
Why isn't he cutting it in slices like he probably should?

***

Why does the operation room have usual red doors from a supermarket when all other doors a sci-fi sliding supah-doorz?
Did they film this scene in a supermarket?

***

Unexpectedly, the it's-time-to-love-a-jerk girl, though, is pretty realistic. 
Girls often love real jerks.

***

Why does their hackergirl try to fire and smoke the wires with a curling iron?
Doesn't she know that to restore a forgotten password with a curling iron you need the person who has forgotten it?
This doesn't work with wires. At all.

***

The door is slowly closing, the heroine will be late when this happens, the heroine's companion stays next to the door and taps it with hands.  
Kinda "Stupid! Stupid door! Don't close!"

But he has a super-pistol on the belt (like also she does). Why not put the pistol between the door and the wall to give some time for the heroine? Didn't he ever go by subway?
If he did so, she should not jump through the space.

***

A tankist helmet which the heroine wears inside the glass one is nice.
The brutal space is brutal.

Though a tankist jetpack would be better.

***

And about the nature of the disaster.

The slogan of the series would be: "Never flush a toilet when somebody flies behind you".

***

(3 episodes more to see.)

 

 

I stopped reading because it started sounding cool and i didnt want the spoilers.

How bad is it? Is it worth a watch?

[kerbiloid]

40 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

How bad is it? Is it worth a watch?

For me it's a wannabe-drama turned into comedy due to the characters.

Though, a less cynical person can like it like a drama.

Sci-fi there is plushy, just a scenery.

(I started watching because it's visually like Dark Matter and Neil Johnson's movies, and I like this style)

Edited November 21, 2018 by kerbiloid

[kerbiloid]

Unexpectedly, Solis (2018) looks like a reasonable spacecraft movie.
And its IMDB rating is 4/10.

A damaged mining ship with a single survivor onboard is drifting towards the Sun.
The survivor is struggling for life and has a continuous conversation with a female voice from another ship which is going to save him.

Don't expect any eyecandies, the movie is obviously a one-actor show in a small industrial-looking room.
But it's nice if you have something to do and want a sci-fi background.

(1080p is unlikely needed, low-res is enough.)

P.S.
Though the wangst is growing while the movie is running.

Edited November 22, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Shpaget]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

A damaged mining ship with a single survivor onboard is drifting towards the Sun.

That dv budget could get you anywhere. Why crash into the Sun?

I consider anything blow 6 to be bad, and anything below 5 to be unwatchable.

[kerbiloid]

22 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

I consider anything blow 6 to be bad, and anything below 5 to be unwatchable.

watchability vs realism

This is for the 2nd.

22 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

That dv budget could get you anywhere. Why crash into the Sun?

Otherwise he would have infinite time to freeze instead of limited time to burn.

Edited November 22, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

That dv budget could get you anywhere. Why crash into the Sun?

The asteroid was flying close enough to it to burn up, and full of valuable minerals, so the escape pod just was going to crash no matter what.

No I don't know anything about the movie. Just thinking laterally.

[Shpaget]

Ok, I accept that, but that would put the mining mission on a very tight schedule in the first place.

Not to mention the need to play chicken with dropping Pe of the entirety of the industrial equipment deep into the Suns gravity well, only to pull out at the last moment (something that is even harder to do).

[Gargamel]

[DAL59]

I'm just going to leave this here:

I don't have time to watch it rn, but I skipped to a random section and there is... A SPACE SHUTTLE ON THE MOON?!  This is where the fun begins.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Dancing in spacesuits?!

 

[DAL59]

22 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Dancing in spacesuits?!

  

This is literally just the offbrand, somehow worse version of Armageddon.  

[magnemoe]

On 11/23/2018 at 7:33 AM, Gargamel said:

Yes, any KSP player know how hard it is to hit the sun or even coming close to it. 

Now its lots of more likely scenarios, the trivial one is getting ejected into deep space but boring and no fixed time limit. 
An impact trajectory with some moon or back on earth is more likely. An free return trajectory would be an Earth impact if you also want to keep your Moon Pe pretty low.
Ike is an nemesis, so could any large close in moon be an problem if you had problems. 

 

[Bill Phil]

On 11/23/2018 at 12:33 AM, Gargamel said:

Isn’t that what orbiting is?

[kerbiloid]

A sci-fi should have at least one assumption. Otherwise it is sci.

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Isn’t that what orbiting is?

Drifting INTO the Sun? Jeez I hope not. They don't sell that SPF at the local drug store.

[kerbiloid]

You don't need to be flying into the Sun directly t say "I'm flying towards the Sun". 
It's enough to get enough close to burn. They call it a hyberbola.

[NSEP]

On 11/30/2018 at 11:42 PM, DAL59 said:

I'm just going to leave this here:

I don't have time to watch it rn, but I skipped to a random section and there is... A SPACE SHUTTLE ON THE MOON?!  This is where the fun begins.

Crashing a Shuttle on the Moon on its vital heatshield is a great idea!

[kerbiloid]

Doomsday Prophecy. (2011)

When the Solar System is crossing the galactic equator, and the black planet approaches, eating the gas planets and disturbing the Earth gravity, and making the Black Sea disappear under ground,
and you are going to deflect it by digging out seven stone heads from the Easter Island, you can't just dig and activate them.

First you need to have the rite of self-purification which includes a nine day long fasting and a handful of blood from a black hen.
No need to add that it should be the 17th lunar day.

[Superfluous J]

40 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Doomsday Prophecy. (2011)

When the Solar System is crossing the galactic equator, and the black planet approaches, eating the gas planets and disturbing the Earth gravity, and making the Black Sea disappear under ground,
and you are going to deflect it by digging out seven stone heads from the Easter Island, you can't just dig and activate them.

First you need to have the rite of self-purification which includes a nine day long fasting and a handful of blood from a black hen.
No need to add that it should be the 17th lunar day.

Oh man I have to see this. If only they got the information from the Titanic and they had to blow up the Easter Island heads with exact precision using nuclear bombs.