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I wouldn't say that Star Trek's technobabble is particularly robust.

Sure their FTL is well explained (as long as you don't try to make sense of their speed), but their super-tech of the week? it got very silly.

I forget what it was the other day that was on the tv in the background as I wasnt watching it. Something like Stargate or maybe something else. There was some planet scale disaster going to happen and the numbers someone came out with was "Hundreds of thousands will die". Must have been a pretty small planet.

 Dropbear Victim wrote:
I forget what it was the other day that was on the tv in the background as I wasnt watching it. Something like Stargate or maybe something else. There was some planet scale disaster going to happen and the numbers someone came out with was "Hundreds of thousands will die". Must have been a pretty small planet.

Might make some sense in Stargate. Lots of planets there don't have planetary populations, just single civilizations located near the gate for plot convenience.

The real number problem in that series is time. Societies can change massively in a mere 100 years. The idea that there are Norse peoples off in space, completely unchanged from 1500 years ago is kind of absurd. Those people would have died out or developed new cultual ideas in 1500 years. Ain't no society going to be locked in a picture perfect replica of the iron age for that long. Of course, if I'm going to critique that I might as well critique the series' entire 'ancient aliens' nonsense but w/e it was a good show!

Has anyone mentioned Karen Travis infamous claim that the Galactic Republic fought a galaxy wide war with a mere 2,000,000 troops? I can complain about Travis all day, but that's the one aspect of her work everyone seems to agree is absolutely silly. No one is fighting a galactic war with 2,000,000 men. A nation state on modern Earth can muster more manpower than that in peace times.

The one thing that unites the Star Wars fandom with the Halo fandom, their hate of Karen Travis.

2 million might make sense in a setting where, for logistical reasons, it was difficult to mobilize more troops across a galactic front. Maybe because space ships are expensive so you have very limited shipping capacity. But that results in the problem that any established planet is going to easily outnumber any attacking army with their local forces, meaning offensive wars would be largely impossible. And of course, Star Wars has extremely fast and convenient FTL so logistical concerns aren't much of an issue.

If you have any type of galaxy spanning government with populations in the quadrillions, you're going to need trillions of soldiers and millions of ships just to garrison your military bases, let alone conduct offensive operations.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Captain Joystick wrote:
The interdictor is still canon: it has to work somehow!

Gravity Well Projectors, which allow it the mass shadow of a planet.

As to how they work? Pass.

How do they generate the mass shadow, or how does the mass shadow keep hyperdrives from working?

I'd always assumed a ship traveling in SW lightspeed would hit a mass shadow and, due to it's speed, experience the gravity of that mass shadow in a similar way to a normal-space ship experiences the gravity well of a black hole. In short, spaghettification (and somehow, that word actually IS in the spell-checker!) and destruction on a molecular level.

In terms of the effect, every time I've seen them used within books, the mass shadow is described as forcing ships back into realspace - as MDG suggested, I believe this is due to some form of safety system, so you don't plow into unexpected celestial bodies.

Said shadow is also enough to stop you jumping into hyperspace, too, as you (apparently) can't jump from too close to a planet - assuming some hack isn't writing your script, anyway.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Dropbear Victim wrote:
I forget what it was the other day that was on the tv in the background as I wasnt watching it. Something like Stargate or maybe something else. There was some planet scale disaster going to happen and the numbers someone came out with was "Hundreds of thousands will die". Must have been a pretty small planet.

Might make some sense in Stargate. Lots of planets there don't have planetary populations, just single civilizations located near the gate for plot convenience.

The real number problem in that series is time. Societies can change massively in a mere 100 years. The idea that there are Norse peoples off in space, completely unchanged from 1500 years ago is kind of absurd. Those people would have died out or developed new cultual ideas in 1500 years. Ain't no society going to be locked in a picture perfect replica of the iron age for that long. Of course, if I'm going to critique that I might as well critique the series' entire 'ancient aliens' nonsense but w/e it was a good show!

Aye, but don't forget the Goul'd had kept control over most of those human settlements and had deliberately kept them primitive and from developing. They only wanted them to survive to act as a source of hosts and for basic resource production. Though I do agree most should have had extensive populations over the world. I think this is again one of those things that is casually mentioned in the earlier series - ergo they are dealing with one settlement of many; and which by the latter series is "assumed" or just totally ignored.

The real anomaly is why the Goul'd didn't just nuke Earth from orbit which is only covered when the Asguard at least appear on scene as Earth's protectors.

In general Stargate's main issue is that its a small format show designed around a small format team and it suffers a lack of budget, scope and story building early on to let them extrapolate easily out toward a bigger setting. They do do this a few times near the end, but its still tricky to keep things going as they are. Honestly by the time you're fending off alien fleets in Earth's orbit and have multiple world governments involved it should have been near impossible to keep it all hush hush. But we accept it for the charm of the series itself. It sort of outgrew its roots.

One small number cock-up that always bothered me was in Halo Reach, as the Covenant are beginning to glass the planet.

"Radiation flare, big! 40 million Roentgens!"

They've just thrown out a big number to sound impressive without knowing how much that is. Regardless of the fact that the Roentgen is considered an outdated unit even today with the Sievert or Gray more commonly used, 500 Roentgens over 5 hours is usually a lethal dose, anything over 1000 and you're 100% guaranteed dead within a couple of days, even with treatment. That's it. To receive 40 million in a single flare, well I can't actually imagine how that would affect someone.

Halo is full of numbers that don't make sense.

Arguably the best example was the original mass numbers for ships in Fall of Reach, which were so absurdly light the ships were literally lighter than air.

Thankfully that was changed to more realistic numbers with Warfleet.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Captain Joystick wrote:
The interdictor is still canon: it has to work somehow!

Gravity Well Projectors, which allow it the mass shadow of a planet.

As to how they work? Pass.

How do they generate the mass shadow, or how does the mass shadow keep hyperdrives from working?

I'd always assumed a ship traveling in SW lightspeed would hit a mass shadow and, due to it's speed, experience the gravity of that mass shadow in a similar way to a normal-space ship experiences the gravity well of a black hole. In short, spaghettification (and somehow, that word actually IS in the spell-checker!) and destruction on a molecular level.

In terms of the effect, every time I've seen them used within books, the mass shadow is described as forcing ships back into realspace - as MDG suggested, I believe this is due to some form of safety system, so you don't plow into unexpected celestial bodies.

Said shadow is also enough to stop you jumping into hyperspace, too, as you (apparently) can't jump from too close to a planet - assuming some hack isn't writing your script, anyway.

Actually, having the safety overrides drop the ship out of hyperspace and refuse to take it back into hyperspace in a gravity well makes that bit make sense. Only a truly magnificent and yet utterly reckless pilot with complete trust in his skills and his ship would dare override those safety features to make that jump even possible.

It's basically a final tribute to just how skilled, confident, and lucky Han Solo actually was, that he was one of the few people in the galaxy who not only coud do it, but actually would do it.

(Of course, this is just rationalizing how something that should not have been possible in universe managed to occur anyway.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Valkyrie wrote:
One small number cock-up that always bothered me was in Halo Reach, as the Covenant are beginning to glass the planet.

"Radiation flare, big! 40 million Roentgens!"

They've just thrown out a big number to sound impressive without knowing how much that is. Regardless of the fact that the Roentgen is considered an outdated unit even today with the Sievert or Gray more commonly used, 500 Roentgens over 5 hours is usually a lethal dose, anything over 1000 and you're 100% guaranteed dead within a couple of days, even with treatment. That's it. To receive 40 million in a single flare, well I can't actually imagine how that would affect someone.

I think it would give new meaning to someone getting half-baked....

 Valkyrie wrote:
One small number cock-up that always bothered me was in Halo Reach, as the Covenant are beginning to glass the planet.

"Radiation flare, big! 40 million Roentgens!"

They've just thrown out a big number to sound impressive without knowing how much that is. Regardless of the fact that the Roentgen is considered an outdated unit even today with the Sievert or Gray more commonly used, 500 Roentgens over 5 hours is usually a lethal dose, anything over 1000 and you're 100% guaranteed dead within a couple of days, even with treatment. That's it. To receive 40 million in a single flare, well I can't actually imagine how that would affect someone.

Maybe people went back to Roentgen as a respect to the guy who pioneered radiation research.

Speaking of alternative names to radiation, the us military tried to lable it sunshine units to make ti less scary. This was flatly rejected, scientists outside the military flatly refused to use this unit, as did some members of the military, they just could not swallow that much BS. It died out quickly under a sustained fire of ridicule and rejection.

 Valkyrie wrote:
One small number cock-up that always bothered me was in Halo Reach, as the Covenant are beginning to glass the planet.

"Radiation flare, big! 40 million Roentgens!"

They've just thrown out a big number to sound impressive without knowing how much that is. Regardless of the fact that the Roentgen is considered an outdated unit even today with the Sievert or Gray more commonly used, 500 Roentgens over 5 hours is usually a lethal dose, anything over 1000 and you're 100% guaranteed dead within a couple of days, even with treatment. That's it. To receive 40 million in a single flare, well I can't actually imagine how that would affect someone.

I mean... there's dosages of radiation that are lethal with medical attention, then there are dosages that will kill you before you notice symptoms, then there are dosages that essentially mean your cells have been converted instantly into an ionized gass and none of them even approach 40,000,000 roentgens.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
One small number cock-up that always bothered me was in Halo Reach, as the Covenant are beginning to glass the planet.

"Radiation flare, big! 40 million Roentgens!"

They've just thrown out a big number to sound impressive without knowing how much that is. Regardless of the fact that the Roentgen is considered an outdated unit even today with the Sievert or Gray more commonly used, 500 Roentgens over 5 hours is usually a lethal dose, anything over 1000 and you're 100% guaranteed dead within a couple of days, even with treatment. That's it. To receive 40 million in a single flare, well I can't actually imagine how that would affect someone.

I mean... there's dosages of radiation that are lethal with medical attention, then there are dosages that will kill you before you notice symptoms, then there are dosages that essentially mean your cells have been converted instantly into an ionized gass and none of them even approach 40,000,000 roentgens.

So... totally baked, then.

To be fair, they were wearing shielded power armor.

 Tyran wrote:
To be fair, they were wearing shielded power armor.

It sounds like 40 million roentgens would convert the shielded power armor into plasma as well as the wearer.

Like bullet proof, radiation proof is relative.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
To be fair, they were wearing shielded power armor.

It sounds like 40 million roentgens would convert the shielded power armor into plasma as well as the wearer.

Like bullet proof, radiation proof is relative.

Another way to interpret it is that Kat was referring to the ionization at the source of the radiation, not what they were receiving in that moment.

I dont think its just limited to "problem with numbers", its problems with real-life complexity of systems altogether. Like what happens within a certain timespan and how diverse a signle planet can be in terms of ethnicities, cultures, flora & fauna, and on and on.

Scifi is largely ridiculous when it comes to "realism", and until we use computer models and machine learning to model the backstories, this will be unlikely to change.

I think we are all forgetting that Sci-Fi is a medium for story telling. If it is not relevant to the story, it is kind of irrelevant to the author or creator to write about.

It is the fans who demand the minutia so therefore it is the Fans who have a problem with numbers. They let them get in the way of the story.

 Tyran wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
To be fair, they were wearing shielded power armor.

It sounds like 40 million roentgens would convert the shielded power armor into plasma as well as the wearer.

Like bullet proof, radiation proof is relative.

Another way to interpret it is that Kat was referring to the ionization at the source of the radiation, not what they were receiving in that moment.

Fair point.

Yeah, the radiation thing, if it were measures at the source then yeah, 40 million roentgens is not impossible, but the inverse square law come into play.

 Easy E wrote:
I think we are all forgetting that Sci-Fi is a medium for story telling. If it is not relevant to the story, it is kind of irrelevant to the author or creator to write about.

It is the fans who demand the minutia so therefore it is the Fans who have a problem with numbers. They let them get in the way of the story.

Of course, any writer needs to realize that they are writing to please their audience. If you are making a sci-fi product, you have to accept that people will want at least somewhat realistic numbers. The more grounded a story, the better it does generally.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I think we are all forgetting that Sci-Fi is a medium for story telling. If it is not relevant to the story, it is kind of irrelevant to the author or creator to write about.

It is the fans who demand the minutia so therefore it is the Fans who have a problem with numbers. They let them get in the way of the story.

Of course, any writer needs to realize that they are writing to please their audience. If you are making a sci-fi product, you have to accept that people will want at least somewhat realistic numbers. The more grounded a story, the better it does generally.

Are you sure about that?

Is a writer writing to please the audience or are they writing to please themselves, and the pleasure of the audience is a happy by-product? Many writers I know write because they have to write. Even if there was no audience, they would still be writing.

Hopefully, there is some synergy between the audience desires and the writer's needs, but does there have to be? No. That is for publishers and editors to worry about. Maybe we should be mad at them for not knowing their target audience enough? IDK.... maybe it is all semantics and doesn't even matter?

Writers write for various reasons - though its a tough market to make head way in and thus most writers do so as a side job unless they are lucky enough to either land a landmark series or do contract work for others.

Eg many of the BL writers often write for BL, but also other firms as well.

In general they are thus a market dominated by people who enjoy their craft, however they will run the gauntlet from those who write purely for themselves and any fans are a happy byproduct; through to those who are writing "for the audience" and have a firm grasp over theories and concepts relating to their specific chosen target audience.

And most authors will be dancing somewhere in the middle of those two extreme stances; often with variation between publications - some will be more personal projects others being far more "formula" for the market etc...

 Easy E wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I think we are all forgetting that Sci-Fi is a medium for story telling. If it is not relevant to the story, it is kind of irrelevant to the author or creator to write about.

It is the fans who demand the minutia so therefore it is the Fans who have a problem with numbers. They let them get in the way of the story.

Of course, any writer needs to realize that they are writing to please their audience. If you are making a sci-fi product, you have to accept that people will want at least somewhat realistic numbers. The more grounded a story, the better it does generally.

Are you sure about that?

Is a writer writing to please the audience or are they writing to please themselves, and the pleasure of the audience is a happy by-product? Many writers I know write because they have to write. Even if there was no audience, they would still be writing.

Hopefully, there is some synergy between the audience desires and the writer's needs, but does there have to be? No. That is for publishers and editors to worry about. Maybe we should be mad at them for not knowing their target audience enough? IDK.... maybe it is all semantics and doesn't even matter?

Writing is ultimately no different than any other consumer good. You are producing a good that a consumer may want to purchase. If you fail to make your product in a way that appeals to the consumer than you have not succeeded.

Now maybe the writer feels that he is writing for himself, so he is his own consumer. And that fine, but such an author should not be annoyed if he chooses to publish his work and has it critiqued by other people. By offering it to other people you are changing the dynamic of who is the consumer.

Any writer who is writing a book with the intention of publishing it should never expect the audience to simply accept all of his creative decisions without question. And if you are intending to seriously produce a specific genre of content than you should at least attempt to fully understand the genre and who your audience is, because at this point you aren't just writing for fun, you have a real job with expectations of performance. And that demands a little more professional attitude towards it.

For sci-fi specifically, I think this means that authors at least have a responsibility to competently build their setting. Establish rules for the various fantastic elements to their setting and mesh them as much as possible with reality. Because the best books are those that make you feel like you are there, and the best way to do that is to ground the book so the reader can visualize what is going on. The more reality you have in you book, the easier the fantastic elements are to visualize and engage with.

However there are different audiences, even within sci-fi. The super analytical geek/nerd audience that demands realistic numbers is a very niche audience even in this context.

Space Operas like Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo and even 40k are not really meant for that audience and focusing to much on numbers and technical details will bore the larger but more casual audience.