Most Misused Word in Science Fiction

[mojo1701]

Yeah, it is interesting to think how those scenes would feel if it sounded right. In my opinion at least it'd lose a good bit of the spine tingling feel, but who can really say?

Ever watched Firefly? Space scenes feel naked.

 

[jonesy]

On a slight tangent, does a person inside an exploding spaceship hear the explosion? What I mean is, since the explosion likely uses most of the air around it do you hear the beginning and then it just suddenly goes quiet, or does the air get used so fast that the sound never gets anywhere? What about when you're in a spaceship and only part of it blows up? Do you just feel the blast hitting the ship?

 

[Umbran]

And the sound that usually accompanies the explosion?

You want me to go for the No-Prize? Sure!

Sound doesn't travel as a wave through vacuum, but physical items can still move. When you hear an explosion in a space scene, the sound is poroduced by highly accelerated debris (including simple molecules of gas) impacting the hull of the ship in which the camera sits. The fact that this results in something we imagine sounds like an explosion is happy coincidence

 

[Dirigible]

If you don't believe me, look up on a bright sunny day...

*wrapping bandage around his eyes* Last time I take your advice...

Don't people realize that you DIE when you'e teleported?

Werrrrrl... every atom in your body is replaced over a long enough span of time (about a decade, I think)... so teleportation just does it quicker.

'Wobbly Thing in Space' (to quote Red Dwarf) is pretty overused. Sure, they may not call it that, but practically every sci fi prog has wobbly things in space, whether they be sub-meson rifts, time singularities.

Oooh, ooh, the one that really boils my goat... quantum leap, used to mean a huge, revolutionary progression - when it really refers to a miniscule, inexplicable translocation.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Oooh, ooh, the one that really boils my goat... quantum leap, used to mean a huge, revolutionary progression - when it really refers to a miniscule, inexplicable translocation.

Good one!

Someone pointed out to me that because you need a navicomputer to do hyperjumps, the MF could be the only ship to make the trip by traveling under 12 parsecs from start to finish without hitting a moon or such.

MF? Hope Eric's Grandma didn't see that.

 

[Plane Sailing]

MF? Hope Eric's Grandma didn't see that.

I'm sure she's a great fan of the Millennium Falcon

 

[Silver Moon]

You want me to go for the No-Prize?

A No-Prize! Have I found myself another member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society!

 

[Flyspeck23]

I'm sure she's a great fan of the Millennium Falcon

So MF is a common abbreviation of "Millenium Falcon"?

A No-Prize! Have I found myself another member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society!

Excelsior!

 

[Vocenoctum]

Well, I don't know about words, but the concept of teleportation is moderatly popular in sci-fi... I love the explanations for it. A machine rips you apart atom by atom, digitizes the info (somehow) and sends it to another machine the reconstructs you, atom by atom.

Don't people realize that you DIE when you'e teleported?

I always found it amusing that no one abused it.
I mean, if you can store it as data and send it somewhere to be replicated, why can't you just knock out replicants of people at will?

I remember them stating more than once that Clone's degrade with each generation (clone of a clone of a clone) but no matter how often you transport someone, they're fine, so why bother cloning?

 

[Flyspeck23]

I always found it amusing that no one abused it.
I mean, if you can store it as data and send it somewhere to be replicated, why can't you just knock out replicants of people at will?

IIRC there was a DS9 episode where a shuttle exploded with half of the main cast in it. They beamed out in time, but only barely - they were "stuck" in the ship's memory, only to appear on the holodeck. For some reason, they couldn't stop the running program (James Bond rip-off), or else these people (Sisko, O'Brian, Kira and Dex - again, IIRC) would've died.

Gosh, that was an awful episode. Didn't make any sense whatsoever.