Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[ARS]

2 Prevalent sci-fi aspects (in space):

Artificial gravity: In almost ANY space sci-fi, articial gravity generation is almost always depicted as if it's a generator inside a ship, which "somehow" decided that there's a "down" direction, as if the starship's floor becomes magnetized to just about anything above it (not just metal). In real life, there's a design for artificial gravity ring for spaceships. However, the common mistake is it's often depicted that, as long as it spins, WHOLE ship is affeted, which, in reality,  only the outermost ring will have a gravity. Also, a single ring usually does not produce an optimal gravity in regards to the ship's stability. An optimal solution would be a second ring that'll counter-rotate against the first ring to cancel the first ring's torque, which could roll the spaceship and compromising it's stability. Virtually all Sci-Fi space ships have some form of artificial gravity. The technology behind this is never quite explained. In Space Opera, artificial gravity is the last thing that breaks when a ship is damaged. You might have lost shields, weapons, drive systems, and half the hull, but things will still fall when dropped. This makes a certain degree of sense (of plot), as fixing a ship while floating around helplessly would probably take much longer. Artificial gravity is also essential for long-term flights, for if you spend too long in Zero G, then your muscles will become a painful, squishy mush once you get back to regular gravity. One major reason for this in live action is that the only reasonable way to simulate zero gravity without leaving Earth entirely involves something called parabolic flying in cargo aircraft (such as NASA's "Vomit Comet"), which costs a lot of money, only gives you about thirty seconds of zero G at a time, and isn't the world's best thing to build a set in (although that's exactly what they did for the film Apollo 13 and the series Space Odyssey. The biggest obstacle to this technology in Real Life is our sense of motion. Your ears are very good at sensing motion and gravity (it's how you balance) and while you're being centrifuged, you're subject to the Coriolis Effect, and so if you happen to turn your head to look left or right, you'd be so overcome with motion sickness you'd throw up. The benefits of gravity simply didn't justify the extravagant cost that designing a spinning space station would require. Especially considering they'd have to design it to handle emergency situations that would necessitate the station to stop moving; in other words, everything would have to be designed to operate in two modes. This would have made the project several hundreds to several thousands of times more expensive than it already would be. NASA and other space programs simply weren't willing to design what would essentially be a multi-billion dollar failure-prone space puke bucket. According to general relativity, it might be possible to induce, through Einstein's general relativity, a spacetime metric that allows for gravity inside a bounded volume, with little effect outside. Evidence points, however, to it taking a ludicrously large amount of negative energy (similar to the quantities required for wormholes and warp drives, which is several Jupiter masses for most useful purposes). Fortunately there's actually some wiggle room, since the particulars of the relations between gravity and quantum theory are not perfectly understood. A writer can simply say "figuring out how M/Superstring/Hologram/blahblahblah worked, revealed an easier way to get artificial gravity (and warp, since they're related)". We can, however, in a trivial sense, perfectly simulate Earth's gravity with as little as one Earth mass... just look at Earth. This also means that smaller, denser things could have the same gravitational pull as Earth. Compared to the alternative, this is actually more plausible at this time. Some hypothetical designs for interplanetary vessels would use steady acceleration to simulate gravity. Such vessels would rotate 180 degrees halfway through their journey, flipping the engines to decelerate and the floors to correspond with simulated "down". This also has the advantage of allowing relatively rapid interplanetary travel, taking only days or maybe weeks (if you're traveling out to Pluto or someplace really far), instead of years as it does now. The downside is that the power output from the engine would be gargantuan (meaning that if the engine has any sort of heat leakage, it will likely vaporize from the sheer heat). Real-life engines are generally either high-thrust/low-exhaust-velocity (like the Space Shuttle) or low-thrust/high-exhaust-velocity (like with ion drives). Such a ship would need to be high-thrust (in order for there to be a decent sense of acceleration), and high-exhaust-velocity (in order to get to such high speeds. Accelerating at 1 g for a week equals out to about six thousand kilometers per second, which is ridiculous).

Large space: In science fiction media, both smaller spacecraft and larger starships or interstellar spacecraft revel in their unnecessary use of on-board space. Passageways will be broad with high ceilings. The bridge will be an expansive multilevel complex paneled with floating viewscreens and control panels. Crew quarters will be as spacious as a suite at the Plaza. Compare this to Real Life military and commercial ships, where efficient use of space is a major engineering priority. Every cubic meter of volume should be dedicated to storing and sustaining as many finite resources and support systems as possible. This will be especially critical in spacecraft, which will be extremely isolated systems, and the only resources available will be those carried on board. The nearest port may be months or years away. Therefore, sustaining a space the size of a gymnasium that's manned by only five people and only stores one day's worth of snacks(!) is a major waste of resources on a military vessel. Airships are a notable exception in that they actually need seemingly large, wasteful interiors in order to facilitate weight distribution to the hull. The original designs for Project Orion were intended to be quite roomy. The nature of the Orion Drive meant that larger vessels were more efficient: a "nuclear pulse drive" operates by detonating two nuclear bombs per second behind the ship. Saving mass and wasted space wasn't really a concern. Saturn by '69! Some of the designers notes even included a list of ways that they could possibly increase the mass of the ship (to better withstand the nuclear shockwaves it would be riding. If the ship's mass is too light, it cannot withstand the explosion behind it and could be destroyed) Some of the ideas were things like "two-ton barber chair" and "arbitrarily large communication system". On the other hand... After two decades of cramped capsules, the Space Shuttle might have seemed like this. Mind you, it wasn't all that roomy: most of the Shuttle's space (hahaha, pun intended) was given over to cargo; the actual crew compartment was, in effect, a very large capsule, one which was very quickly filled to capacity (seven), substantially reducing the roominess (although still much-improved over Apollo and Gemini). Meanwhile... The International Space Station has 837 cubic metres of pressurized volume. Or 139.5 per person, when fully staffed with a crew of 6. Especially when you compare it with everything else launched before: Mir and Skylab for example were each just about a third the size of the ISS. A purely mathematically efficient use of space might have a detrimental effect on the mental health and well-being of the crew (Hello Kerbalism), especially if spaceships are out of port for a very extended period of time. To give a more interesting real life case, the Soviet/Russian Akula/"Typhoon" class submarines (all but one has now retired) had a swimming pool, sports facilities, a sauna and a smoking room, since the subs could spend at least 180 days submerged at a time. Ballistic missile-carrying submarines are noted for their attention to crew comfort. If you want cramped, look at modern hunter/killer submarines or go back to World War II subs (watching Das Boot will give you an idea of how ridiculously claustrophobic these are). The Akula/Typhoon sub mentioned above is actually an exception. It is, in fact, a very inefficient design, nicknamed "water tanker", due to most of its size being just empty space: its outer hull is a thin shell covering an awkward assembly of pressure hulls and capsules, forced by truly enormous size of its missiles. And then its designers thought: "Hey, if we have to make the damn sub so huge anyway, why don't we spend some of this space on crew amenities?". This ended up being perfect for the Typhoon's main mission. It was meant to stay hidden beneath the arctic for weeks or even months in case of a nuclear war. It would surface afterwards, and if the Soviet Union had lost, would launch a retaliatory strike against the U.S.. It was discovered that submarine crew could not handle regular cramped quarters that long and would suffer psychological and physical health problems. It may also be worth noting that in most world navies (including that of the US), nuclear ballistic missile submarines are notable for having the best food in the entire fleet. According to sailors of American Ohio class subs, meals are regularly served that wouldn't seem out of place in gourmet restaurants, prepared by expert chefs from high-quality ingredients (there's a joke that a submarine is the only position in the Armed Forces where one can come back from the battlefield fatter than they'd left). The reason for that is life on a submarine is otherwise so bleak and horrible that if the crew didn't at least get really good food, their morale would plummet...

Edited April 6, 2018 by ARS

[mikegarrison]

5 hours ago, ARS said:

Artificial gravity: Virtually all Sci-Fi space ships have some form of artificial gravity. The technology behind this is never quite explained.

Not always in books, but yes, almost always in TV or movies ... because simulating microgravity is difficult and expensive. But just saying "the ship has artificial gravity" means you can film right here on Earth and just have people walk around normally.

[Gargamel]

On 4/6/2018 at 4:13 AM, mikegarrison said:

But just saying "the ship has artificial gravity" means you can film right here on Earth and just have people walk around normally.

Which is completely believable if they explain it sufficiently, and if the tech they are describing is believable for the rest of the world setting.   Ie, The Expanse, gravity is because of the Epstein drive and mag boots. 

Or if they completely ignore the lack of lack of gravity, and it doesn't come into play in the story, then I can get behind that too.  Something like Alien, where IIRC (and it's been a while, so I might be wrong here, but pick a story where this applies), the existence of or lack of gravity is never an issue in the movie. 

But if you look at something like Moon, where they switch between earth gravity, and lunar gravity, it breaks the continuity of the movie. 

If the entire movie is shot in normal gravity, and it doesn't break the story by not explaining it, I can usually let it go and not be bothered by it.  As long as it doesn't become a plot point somewhere in the story. 

[DDE]

On ‎06‎.‎04‎.‎2018 at 5:59 AM, ARS said:

Large space

*snip*

A significant limitation on how small spacecraft sets can be is that you have to put the camera crew somewhere.

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, DDE said:

A significant limitation on how small spacecraft sets can be is that you have to put the camera crew somewhere.

I'm pretty sure that plenty of people were shocked after watching 'Apollo 13' and then looking at an actual Apollo spacecraft* in a museum.  Astronauts have said that the only way they were tolerable at all was the zero gravity.

* Micheal Collins insists that capsules are ingested, spacecraft are flown, and that while that name was used for the Mercury program, it was a mistake.

[DAL59]

On 4/5/2018 at 10:59 PM, ARS said:

In science fiction media, both smaller spacecraft and larger starships or interstellar spacecraft revel in their unnecessary use of on-board space.

Also, never have a cruise ship that is also a military ship.  The Enterprise D is basically the Oasis of the Seas and the Zumwalt at the same time.  This is a bad idea.  

6 hours ago, DDE said:

ou have to put the camera crew somewhere.

To get around this, you could put fixed cameras, like in Europa Report.  

6 hours ago, Gargamel said:

If the entire movie is shot in normal gravity, and it doesn't break the story by not explaining it, I can usually let it go and not be bothered by it.  As long as it doesn't become a plot point somewhere in the story. 

Whenever they are boarded in Star Trek, they should just crush the aliens by increasing the plating.  They did that in one episode of enterprise.  

[StrandedonEarth]

19 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Whenever they are boarded in Star Trek, they should just crush the aliens by increasing the plating. 

Or just transporter them out to deep space. Or just seal that area and vent to space.

[Gargamel]

6 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Or just seal that area and vent to space.

But any boarding team worth their salt (in any Universe) should be wearing some sort of pressure suit.  These guys are usually ripping a hole in the side of a ship, and making a docking port out of it, duct tape style.   They should fully expect any beachhead on a boarded ship to be in vacuum. 

[YNM]

On 4/6/2018 at 3:13 PM, mikegarrison said:

But just saying "the ship has artificial gravity" means you can film right here on Earth and just have people walk around normally.

If you see the sequences in Moonraker you can see clearly when they have tried to make real Zero-G (I presume on a set in a plane) and where they just walk fiddly around to simulate lack of gravity.

But dang that looks great for 70s tech !

 

22 hours ago, DDE said:

A significant limitation on how small spacecraft sets can be is that you have to put the camera crew somewhere.

Or they want something to look lavish.

[p1t1o]

16 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Whenever they are boarded in Star Trek, they should just crush the aliens by increasing the plating.  They did that in one episode of enterprise.  

The boarding sequence in Startrek VI - not only do the boarders wear pressure suits but they disabled the onboard gravity first as well.

This movie was also notable for the globules of blood floating around in freefall during this scene - which hilariously splashes to the floor when gravity is restored. A pretty nice example of good science in sci-fi.

[ARS]

On the other hand... The boarding sequence on spaceship is based from boarding party from naval warfae in the past (I've already explained this in my previous post about space=ocean). Hell, most of the "standard spaceship battle sequence" in most movies is basically almost similar with age of sail naval tactics: both ships trying to get into each other's broadside range before unleashing barrage against each other and exchanging boarding parties then see who'll last. Rinse and repeat until one of them subverted under the other's control or just plain blown up

[p1t1o]

51 minutes ago, ARS said:

On the other hand... The boarding sequence on spaceship is based from boarding party from naval warfae in the past (I've already explained this in my previous post about space=ocean). Hell, most of the "standard spaceship battle sequence" in most movies is basically almost similar with age of sail naval tactics: both ships trying to get into each other's broadside range before unleashing barrage against each other and exchanging boarding parties then see who'll last. Rinse and repeat until one of them subverted under the other's control or just plain blown up

For real. In space war, being within 10,000km of an enemy ship is dangerous, coming alongside one is unthinkable.

Capturing one remotely via sophisticated computer attack is more reasonable but still somewhat out-there since the vital components can easily be air-gapped, as I assume is done in present-day ships.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

For real. In space war, being within 10,000km of an enemy ship is dangerous, coming alongside one is unthinkable.

Capturing one remotely via sophisticated computer attack is more reasonable but still somewhat out-there since the vital components can easily be air-gapped, as I assume is done in present-day ships.

True, and you can not board an modern warship, modern here is 100 year old, the firepower is way to high to have any chance of getting close. 
You can not even realistic board any ship if the other side has automatic weapons and moving at cruise speed. You could take them by surprise it they had no guards, even easier if not moving. This does not work in space as everything is moving and an approaching ship is easy to spot 

Now you can board by aiming your guns at them and force them to surrender. 
This is how the coast guards do it. You still want to go armed and be cautious as it might be some who resist. 
Same will work just as well in space. 

[DAL59]

If you disable the weapons, you'd probably want to board, not destroy. Spaceships are expensive.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

If you disable the weapons, you'd probably want to board, not destroy. Spaceships are expensive.

It's costly in terms of personnel, risky, and difficult to integrate into your own fleet.

On ‎08‎.‎04‎.‎2018 at 9:29 PM, DAL59 said:

The Enterprise D is basically the Oasis of the Seas and the Zumwalt at the same time.  This is a bad idea.  

Anything Zumwalt is a bad idea.

*ba-dum-tss*

I'll see myself out.

[DAL59]

3 minutes ago, DDE said:

risky,

They're probably going to surrender so they don't get blown into space.  

4 minutes ago, DDE said:

personnel

Just send drones.

(Like in the game Duskers)

5 minutes ago, DDE said:

difficult to integrate into your own fleet.

A railgun is a railgun.  

[DDE]

1 minute ago, DAL59 said:

They're probably going to surrender so they don't get blown into space.

Then they are unworthy of the MCRN.

https://youtu.be/aaOuUP3i_J4?t=1597

 

[p1t1o]

12 hours ago, DAL59 said:

If you disable the weapons, you'd probably want to board, not destroy. Spaceships are expensive.

Id imagine disabling his weapons without destroying him to be as difficult as coming alongside an uncooperating spaceship whilst his teammates blast you apart.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Just watched A Quiet Place.

Leaving aside science, a poster for this movie should be:
 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

and

Spoiler

also

... and at last

Spoiler

 +  + 

while

Spoiler

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by kerbiloid

[insert_name]

In a chase scene in arrow, the hero is chasing the villain, both are holding guns, the villan jumps off a three story building, runs down the middle of an illuminated street, and the hero responds by holstering his gun and calling to say the villain got away instead of shooting at him

[p1t1o]

14 hours ago, insert_name said:

In a chase scene in arrow, the hero is chasing the villain, both are holding guns, the villan jumps off a three story building, runs down the middle of an illuminated street, and the hero responds by holstering his gun and calling to say the villain got away instead of shooting at him

In a way that is more realistic than usual. Handguns do not have huge accurate ranges and hitting a running target beyond say 10-20m would be an extremely good shot (plus the elevation angle from the 3-story height difference) - and you dont want to start sending rounds down a populated street on the off-chance you hit him.

[Gargamel]

14 hours ago, insert_name said:

In a chase scene in arrow, the hero is chasing the villain, both are holding guns, the villan jumps off a three story building, runs down the middle of an illuminated street, and the hero responds by holstering his gun and calling to say the villain got away instead of shooting at him

Well, if the hero can't make the same jump, then he's stuck.  And firing at a moving target at that distance has a low probability of actually hitting him.  Ricochet's and over shoots in a populated area are a bad thing (trust me, I know, I used to work in an urban trauma center).  And if they want him alive, the chances of killing him if he does hit him is too great.     Realism wise, I'm ok with this, but plot wise I guess it could be a bit jarring.  

 

Dangit, Ninja'd by @p1t1o!

Edited April 11, 2018 by Gargamel

[p1t1o]

2 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

In a way that is more realistic than usual. Handguns do not have huge accurate ranges and hitting a running target beyond say 10-20m would be an extremely good shot (plus the elevation angle from the 3-story height difference) - and you dont want to start sending rounds down a populated street on the off-chance you hit him.

waiddasecond isnt he supposed to be like a god with a bow and arrow? Whats he doing with a gun? And surely impossible shots from the rooftops are his whole deal?

Maybe I get it, a bit of an internal consistency thing.

I mean really though, the show should be called "bullet" and he should have a rifle or a carbine.

 

[Gargamel]

3 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

waiddasecond isnt he supposed to be like a god with a bow and arrow? Whats he doing with a gun? And surely impossible shots from the rooftops are his whole deal?

That was  my first thought too. but since he specifically said gun, I shrugged and ran with it. 

[DAL59]

2 hours ago, p1t1o said:

mean really though, the show should be called "bullet" and he should have a rifle or a carbine.

Bows are quieter though.  Still, why you would have an archer on an alien and robot fighting team is questionable.