I like a little more science in my science fiction

[Chain Lightning]

It really depends on the type of tv show or movie I'm watching.

The "style" determines the level of realism that the subject matter has to follow. Star Wars is (as an earlier post pointed out) a Space fantasy. Like Flash Gordon and such. The exaggeration and fantasy elements are way higher than hard sci-fi like 2001 maybe. It goes double for the cartoon.

As long as the level of realism is appropriate with the style, I'm okay with it. Its okay to forgive Star Wars for having a ship with a broken hyperdrive make it all the way to Bespin, but its unforgivable for us to accept that the research space station in Alien:Resurrection to go from Pluto to Earth in 8 hours on normal engines.

Same with even other genres. Not just sci-fi. I'm okay with people flying and jumping long distances in Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, but I'm not okay with it if they did that in Braveheart. See what I mean?

Certain types of storytelling styles have an established set of realism laws within their genres. Its when you break them that makes me disapprove.

 

[Rackhir]

Maybe the gun just can't handle the cold of space, and he used the space suit to keep it from totally freezing up.

You can try to rationalize this sort of thing if you wish and I can poke holes in your explanations, but the basic fact is that the writer tried to be "clever" and provide a "scientific" explanation for why a plot device was necessary and got it completely wrong.

I'm suddenly seeing an adventure in which we find out

Sorry, Poul Anderson's High Crusade clearly establishes that bows work in outer space and are in fact better than blaster weapons, because they don't give away your position.

In fact, maybe the one we're currently in. It seems fitting that a priest of the god of madness and outer space should have spells that not only drive people mad, but, in fact, hurl them into outer space...

Are you sure we are dealing with the god of madness and outer space? So far it seems more like the god of druggies, transvestites and dog festishism.

 

[Welverin]

The title of this thread is a quote from a friend of mine. She said it after seeing someone do something (I don't remember what it was exactly) in the Star Wars "Clone Wars" cartoon DVD.

It's funny that a SW cartoon is what made her do it, seeing as how cartoons tend to be more over the top and SW not being scifi to begin with (when did it ever show anything but disregard for science?).

To me, science fiction (which is different from sci-fi which is more like just a setting) is the fantastic or the extraordinary used to explore some aspect of humanity. In whatever form that may be in, as long as it makes internal sense, it works for me.

Um, you have me baffled that you can consider the abbreviation of a term to be different from the term itself.

 

[Fenlock]

Jayne was propably worried about Vera getting vacuum welded together, or the cold - as pointed out - reshaping the barrel. the chemistry of a proppelant would work in a vacuum, but not the mechanics of a riffle in the cold of space.

But ofcourse, the odds of jayne knowing this is quite iffy...

/F

 

[sniffles]

I don't really care if the science is accurate or not, as long as it isn't glaringly obvious that it's inaccurate. I prefer the author to keep it in the background. I don't want to read long passages explaining how hyperdrive works. For me, the setting is secondary to the characters and story.

 

[Rackhir]

Jayne was propably worried about Vera getting vacuum welded together, or the cold - as pointed out - reshaping the barrel. the chemistry of a proppelant would work in a vacuum, but not the mechanics of a riffle in the cold of space.

But ofcourse, the odds of jayne knowing this is quite iffy...

/F

The thing is, that space isn't actually "cold" per se. In space the only way that objects loose energy is through radiating it. Most energy loss in an atmosphere is actually from convective energy transfer, in other words slower moving molecules bumping up against the higher energy molecules of a "hot" object. This is why you loose heat faster in water than air, water will absorb more energy and transfer that away from you than does the air. Its also the reason why it is more important to insulate yourself from the ground than the air.

In a vacuum the only way to lose energy it to radiate it away, generally in the form of IR radiation. This is a very inefficent process compared to convective energy transfer. If you add an energy source into the situation like say the sun, you might well need to worry much more about being able to shed enough energy, rather than loosing it. Since the sun is more than capable of adding more heat to an object than it will radiate. This is one of the reasons why satelites tend to be wrapped in reflective gold foil and space craft like the shuttle are painted white, to minimize the amount of energy they have to radiate to keep them cool.

So if you take a room temperature object like a gun into space, it is not necessarily going to drop to the near absolute zero of space or even cool off rapidly. Eventually the temperature loss could be a problem, but more likely you would have to worry about overheating from the thermal energy generated by firing the gun.

Vacuum wielding is not something that occures in a short period of time either. If he stored the gun outside of the ship for a substantial period of time it might be a danger, but I think we are talking weeks or months, more likely years. From what I understand as well it would only occur in situations where there was inadiquate lubrication.

The long and the short of it is that there are some very good reasons not to use a kinetic energy weapon (ie. a gun) in space, but it has nothing to do with an inability to function and everything to do with how it would move you around if you weren't properly braced.

 

[TanisFrey]

I seem to remember having talked (or discussed) about this before, but that might have been on a different board...

Remember that F = m * a (F: Force; m: mass, a: acceleration). A bullet has a very low mass, thus the force of the chemical explosion causes a great acceleration: But a human has a high mass (compared to that of the bullet), so he experiences a low acceleration. It is not that you wouldn´t notice it (that´s the recoil you feel when firing a gun), but it is not that you would suddenly fly around uncontrollably fast. Though if you give up a lot of shots - preferably with a automatic weapon - the effect would certainly become noticable.
But in the scene mentioned here, Jayne was actually attached to the ship (a ship with artifical gravity, by the way), so it wouldn´t matter anyway.

I wonder how well the typical automatic firing mechanismn works in space, though - is the gas created during firing sufficient for that mechanismn?

I did say that a person would dirft, ie slowly move. Yes, an automatic would have more effect. And of corse a rocket launcher would have even more push. I would execpt a show to play up how much movment there would be, for effect.

I missed a lot of FireFly and did not see this one, did not know Jayne's total sitution.

I do think that most automatic gas driven fire mechanismn are mainly sealed and should work just fine in space. As in they reset the mechanismn then vent to the air. If ours don't I am shure that this would be solved in 500 years time. Hover a recoil mechanismn may not unless you were on something with enouth mass to push back. The biggest problem to firearms in the void of space would be contraction of the barrel due to the temp. vs how much the bullet contracts. An army of FireFly would likely develop a heated gun for special forces. Ship to Ship deployment would not be something attempted much when a powered breaching pod will due. Execpt for the crazy/desperet like the Firefly crew.