Have you ever watched space shows or movies and wondered about some oddity? — Vera Mont

It's all odd to me :chin:



Does it help to be spaced out?

'Bowie wrote "Space Oddity", a tale about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom, the first of Bowie's famous characters. Its title and subject matter were influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which premiered in May 1968. Bowie said, "I went stoned out of my mind to see the movie and it really freaked me out, especially the trip passage".[Biographer Marc Spitz stated the song was likely inspired by the scene in which an astronaut communicates with his daughter on her birthday, saying "Tell mama that I telephoned" before ingesting a "stress pill", rather than the film's opening or ending.' - wiki.

Why do all the deities in the explored galaxy like to be invoked by an open flame? — Vera Mont

What exactly do you mean by "deities"? Could you give an example maybe?

What exactly do you mean by "deities"? Could you give an example maybe? — Sir2u

Not really. They never tell you who or what the aliens are praying to or invoking or whatever they're doing when they're alone in their cabin with a burning candle, chanting or deep in some kind of trance.

The only deities that have been explicitly referred to, as far as I recall, were the Prophets of Bajor, and the ancient gods of the Klingons, whom the First Couple killed because the gods annoyed them....

... which suggests another question:
Who's minding Sto-vo-kor?

Why do all the deities in the explored galaxy like to be invoked by an open flame? — Vera Mont

I suppose a related question is, "Why do we humans find a deity coming through flames apposite?"

Perhaps a huge amount of human history involved with the day's work being done, and having time at the end of the day to sit around the campfire considering and discussing, "What in the hell is going on here?"

It seems plausible that for humanity, having a cultural association between flame and metaphysical thought has deep cultural roots. Also, for the vast majority of human history, flame itself must have been a mysteriously animated thing to behold, and so perhaps symbolic of mysteries beyond our grasp.

Not really. They never tell you who or what the aliens are praying to or invoking or whatever they're doing when they're alone in their cabin with a burning candle, chanting or deep in some kind of trance. — Vera Mont

I think that most movies base their aliens and their customs on human expectations and ingrained beliefs.
Some scientists seem to believe that the need for the existence of a higher being is innate in humans and many authors try to pass that on to the aliens they create. Others create aliens based on basic fears of humans to make them appear more threatening to the readers or viewers, fear and scary are good for sales.

Personally I believe that if any alien ever gets here the must be smart enough to realize that there are no higher beings.

Another question I cannot find an answer to is why space traveling beings are depicted with claws or tentacles that can never have been used to create the spaceships they ride around in.

Another question I cannot find an answer to is why space traveling beings are depicted with claws or tentacles that can never have been used to create the spaceships they ride around in. — Sir2u

Yes! I like that question.
(In my personal galaxy, the best spaceship designs are in Babylon 5*)
except the Minbari ones - all that wasted space overhead yet impossibly small beds.

Related question: Why do curved spaceships have so many straight steel beams in the ceiling and why do the beams fall down so easily?

I suppose a related question is, "Why do we humans find a deity coming through flames apposite?" — wonderer1

You're quite right - it's the same question.
Writers project their own cultural icons onto their creations.

Why do curved spaceships have so many straight steel beams in the ceiling and why do the beams fall down so easily? — Vera Mont

Same reason as ships and planes, for structural force. Curved beams are used to hold the outer plating but it is not a good idea to have curved support beams inside, the bend too easily.

As to why the fall, it would not be exciting if everything stayed in place would it? The same as sparks flying out of electrical equipment and in the next scene everything is normal and working.

Ho-kay. Not quite following what would bend a convex support arch, but okay.
The sparks, I get. The steam, not so much.

Not quite following what would bend a convex support arch, but okay. — Vera Mont

High pressure or vacuum are terrible forces, they can bend or pull apart almost anything if it is not strong enough.
If you look at this image you will see that they try to keep the internal support beams straight as much as possible. On submarines and I would suppose star-ships the beams would be specially made in the form of the hull but they would not use curved beams for internal support.

On submarines and I would suppose star-ships the beams would be specially made in the form of the hull but they would not use curved beams for internal support. — Sir2u

No, they would use beams to support internal deck floors, which fall on people at the first volley of enemy fire. It's not the supporting walls that collapse - they're still intact. It's not the hull that caves in - there is still oxygen. The badly attached 10" I-beams are always in the ceiling.

The badly attached 10" I-beams are always in the ceiling. — Vera Mont

They would not be able to fall on the people if they were in the floor, and that would not be tension building as they wait to be rescued. Sci-Fi is still fiction even if the authors have made it as realistic as possible, it has to be exciting to sell.

Flame has more of the properties one might attribute to deities (dynamism, power, transformation) and its use might be explained as a kind of sympathetic magic (like invokes like).

Lighting a candle is much easier and less dangerous than blood letting and sacrifice. It's more amenable to contemporary moral sensitivities.

Fire dispels darkness. If a deity dispels darkness, then the metaphor is suitable.

Also all technological transformation began and continues from fire. It is the natural ancestor of any human ship which traverses space.

For space faring scientific humanoids, fire is a natural deity (enabler, protector of all).

:fire:

They would not be able to fall on the people if they were in the floor, — Sir2u

They are in the floor and fall on people on the deck below. In any case, they are far too big for the span and weight requirement. And not secured properly at the one end.
I know why they're in the plot, but it's bloody annoying when attempting to suspend disbelief. A writer with some imagination could find a more realistic predicament for the setting.

I like your take on this!

A lot of Sci Fi has a problem with technological inconsistency for the sake of conflict, story. Star Wars is a great example. All war would likely be by a more tech advanced proxy. Instead of worthless droids engaging in gun battles there could be invisible sniper probes or mines, or even nano machine assassins, that would be far more efficient and effective.

In Dune, a tiny insect like assassin is sent to kill Paul. If one needed to ensure the job, why not send a dozen backups. But then the story would end there.

Star Trek is absurd insofar as many of the scenarios seem impossible to overcome and survival appears to be a matter or pure luck. Living on a ship where these kind of heinous problems happen all the time makes it more of a horror show than an inspiring odyssey of scientific exploration.

This is always an issue with fiction, especially with modern tv fantasy series which have to sustain more seasons than they ought to. The writing becomes worse, protagonists make terrible decisions, so the story can drag on and action can happen.

:nerd: :up:

Star Trek is absurd insofar as many of the scenarios seem impossible to overcome and survival appears to be a matter or pure luck. — Nils Loc

Especially given that any passing alien can just take over control of their ship. That's got to be the least secure computer system in the universe!

I wonder how it came to be that every species knows, or can figure out in two minutes, just how to operate the machines of every other species - including ones that have been dead 1000 years and all the labels are in an unknown language.

Assume you were in-charge of rebooting Star Trek TOS (1966-69) that would run for five seasons (13 episodes per) on HBO, Showtime or some other premium platform and with more than a sufficient budget for high quality production, staff writers, performers, etc: (A) what main aspect/s of the 60's show would you change/update? and (B) what you would keep from the original to retain its identifiably Star Trek style rather than feeling like another generic space opera cashing-in on the franchise brand with all that glittering s/fx, pointless techobabble & Mos Eisley "aliens"?

My ST reboot fantasy:

(A) 2320s-2330s, Alpha Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy ...

1 - In universe, episodes from the original show (also the animated series (72-74) & films with the original cast (ST II, III & Vi)) – excluding a dozen or so bad, low budget, filler-episodes & time-travel idiot plots – would be Star Fleet cadet training films wherein the "USS Enterprise and crew" are dramatic composites of other starships and their missions/encounters from several decades ago; the technologies, specifically of starships and related to Starfleet operations, are 'dumbed-down' stand-ins for otherwise classified, bleeding-edge tech used by Starfleet personnel and featured in the show;
2 - this way, all the science and tech actually in use on "Five-Year Missions" can be updated – I have too many 'futuretech ideas' (old, old ST daydreams) to lay them out here – to be much less fantasy (i.e. less inconsistent with both physical laws or plausible implications for starship operations, societal arrangments, crew psychologies, communication styles, leisure/recreation, etc) and thereby 'harder', more believable, space opera to match current 'futurist' sensibilities;
3 - and these reconceptions would include Starfleet, The UFP (e.g. Vulcans, Andorians, various Human-offshoots, etc) as well as Klingon (space), Romulan (space) & Gorn (space);
4 - each season would feature a new, different starship with a different crew and different primary mission (with infrequent but dramatic tie-ins & call-backs to ships & events in either prior or following seasons) in the way that The Wire shifted its focus on different aspects of Baltimore each season
5 - space is too effin' big for a "metaplot" to make sense playing out even in a standard lifetime with FTL travel / communication, so each season would be mostly a self-contained episodic year on a starship, each relativistically separated from one another by space & time
6 - lastly, while mined for usable ideas, all spin-off series and related media (from TNG, DS9, and on) would not be treated as canon or even referenced in the cadet training films (which would be featured as in-universe references by Starfleet crew members on occassion)

(B) I would keep the focus on

• human optimism without utopianism
• the likely benefits of collaborative problem-solving versus the usual recklessness of individual heroics
• the problems of exploration (e.g. the vastness of space) and contact with the unknown (e.g. miscommunication, contamination) rather than militarism and "planet-of-the-week" action-for-action sake
• small ensemble character drama
• the ship is "home" (but NOT a TNG "family-friendly cruise ship") and therefore a character in its own right (e.g. onboard central Ai computer à la "M5" without going all "HAL 9000" that is cybernetically integrated with (ergo constrained by & learning "to be human?" from) the crew))
• quality character-actors for main casts (re: 30-60somethings, not teens-20somethings) & guest performers
• using the 1960s Gold, Blue & Red duty & dress uniforms (NO "mini-skirts & nylons") with 1980s movies jacket ensembles for Away Missions
• using the original designs of exterior & interior starships, shuttles, starbases, etc (with primary reference to Franz Joseph's work) but reducing "the cheese" factor as much as possible
• keeping the pulpy feel, or pacing, of TOS via plotting, (not contemporary tv-speak) dialogue & direction/editing
• keeping (variations) on the original theme and incidental musics from the 60's show

And since Strange New Worlds has been taken, I'd call my reboot To Boldly Go (without ST in the title) as in "... To Boldly Go Where No Starship Has Gone Before." :nerd:

(A) what main aspect/s of the 60's show would you change/update? — 180 Proof

Minute 1 of day 1, get rid of those piles of klunky hardware they substituted for computers. Even STNG still has half a dozen big tablet things to contain the amount of information a 300-year-old cellphone wouldn't even notice.
I'd certainly put the female characters in the same uniforms as the men wear and either give them all similar, practical haircuts or else show more versatility in all the crew's personal appearance - I lean toward the former. I'd like to see coherent, ready-for-action crew.
Seatbelts and lanyards. It's indecent how those poor people are made to bounce around the cabin every time they hit a space-pocket or enemy shell, and lose their weapons, tricorders or essential weapon at the first clumsy move. (Actually, I often wonder why so many characters in all kinds of drama keep dropping their phones down sewer grates, when all you need is a cord like boyscouts understood in 1908)
And for heaven's sake, I'd drop the attitude of "here's a planet we know nothing about. Let's just beam down there with no protective gear!" Space suits mandatory for initial survey!

I'd want the aliens to be a lot less obviously human. There are excellent makeup artists and animators out there, waiting for a chance to be creative. I appreciate that actors come in a limited range of sizes and shapes, and that characters need to fit in the set, but even within those constraints, their bodies, apparel and accoutrements could be more varied.
I can accept a universal translator - else scripts would be painfully awkward - but it should take a few samples and several minutes to turn unknown alien speech into English vernacular.

I also quite liked the novel serialization aspect of DS9 and Babylon 5. It's a good idea to have thematic lines and chronology and character development from which good writers can make engaging sub-plots for each episode.

(B) what you would keep from the original to retain its identifiably Star Trek style rather than feeling like another generic space opera cashing-in on the franchise brand with all that glittering s/fx, pointless techobabble & Mos Eisley "aliens"? — 180 Proof

I'm quite happy with the non-monetarist economy of Earth, but would need some kind of standard trading medium with other cultures. (Voyager bartered, and that's acceptable, but they shouldn't have had to improvise.)

I'd keep Star Fleet and maybe even the Prime Directive - though I'd either have to make it more flexible (twenty-seven pages of exceptions and special circumstances) or have the officers agree to consider one another's reasons for breaking it before going all legalese on his ass.
I'd keep the Federation, of course.

I'd keep the generally relaxed an homey atmosphere of the interiors: If people are going to live aboard for five years, they should not have to look at blue-grey brushed steel surfaces.

And for sure I'd keep the time travel. Those were some of the most fun episodes of all four series.

rebooting Star Trek TOS (1966-69) — 180 Proof

As an old millennial I've not watched even one full episode of TOS. My fondness for the fantasy escape is limited to Next Generation, Voyager, DS9. Am just a casual viewer and don't have much enthusiasm or mind to imagine show improvements. Sounds like real Hollywood homework.

Maybe these shows could give us something new in the way glimpsing how strange/unsettling the universe really is/could be. I like Sci Fi that is truly unsettling. Though to get too bizarre, realisitc or futurist is maybe to wreck what makes it comforting (the same old familiar crew who always is in control and overcomes whatever problem is thrown at them).

Maybe these shows could give us something new in the way glimpsing how strange/unsettling the universe really is/could be. I like Sci Fi that is truly unsettling. — Nils Loc

:up: :up:

Have you ever watched space shows or movies and wondered about some oddity? — Vera Mont

To quote noted popular culture critic Joel Hodgson - "If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts, just repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax.'" That being said - some thoughts:

• Steam punk - what's up with that?
• What if Einstein was right? That would make 33.4% of science fiction pretty silly.
• If time travel is possible, where are all the future people?
• As others have noted, if drones are about to take over warfare here in the 21st century, why are they still fighting with personal weapons millennia in the future?
• Why are space ships that will never enter the atmosphere so often depicted as aerodynamic?
• Why is Jean Luc Picard bald. Certainly they will have cured that by hundreds of years in the future. And while we're on the subject, why does he have an English accent when he's French?
• How can we hear when space ships explode?

If time travel is possible, where are all the future people? — T Clark

They played with that idea in TNG, Voyager and DS9. The time travel episodes were some of the most fun, so I was happy to suspend disbelief. I sure wouldn't want to have flocks of tourists from the future rubbernecking through my house!

Why are space ships that will never enter the atmosphere so often depicted as aerodynamic? — T Clark

Because the designers think a breadbox is unappealing. They probably have tremendous fun adding fins and bubbles. Besides, the vehicle has to be recognizable (by the audience) as belonging to a known or about-to-be-introduced species*. I thought the most creative space vessels were in Babylon 5. I loved the Vorlon ships in B5 and thought the Minbari ones, with their vaulted ceilings and wasted internal space were ridiculous (Especially the 'plucked chicken', which had no evident straight lines anywhere, yet managed to drop one of those I-beams I mentioned above, right in the control room.) But the Earth force battleships were as ugly and functional and dangerous-looking as one could wish.

Why is Jean Luc Picard bald. — T Clark

Could be personal choice. His brother didn't refuse the genetic enhancement. Oddly enough, his little French nephew, and later his weedy adolescent self (same actor) also had an English accent.

How can we hear when space ships explode? — T Clark

Collisions, explosions, screaming missiles, ominous rumbles... It's a very noisy space, space.

* Apropos of: How come all alien species are stereotypes, while humans are individual?

They played with that idea in TNG, Voyager and DS9. The time travel episodes were some of the most fun, so I was happy to suspend disbelief. I sure wouldn't want to have flocks of tourists from the future rubbernecking through my house! — Vera Mont

I recommend "Someday All This Will Be Yours" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I think it touched on similar issues, if not plausibly, at least with verisimilitude. It's one of my favorite time travel books and Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite science fiction and fantasy authors.

Thanks, will seek.

Symmetrical, or two-way, "time travel stories" have never made sense to me science-wise or plot-wise. An unpardonable sin of the e.g. Star Trek & Terminator franchises. Also, just as annoying has been stories with non-relativistic FTL / NAFAL ships & FTL comms-sensors (e.g. "warp drive", "impulse engines", "subspace radio" "hyperspace jumps" ... speed-of-plot space travel / transmissions in general) ever since reading Joe Haldeman's The Forever War in 6th grade (1975) – I'd been an obsessed Trekkie for 4-5 years by then – that had explicitly introduced me to the Einsteinian concept of 'time-dilation'. :yikes:

Most (sci-fantasy space opera-ish) handwavium gets a pass from me but the howlers above (along with the typical Hollyweird melodramatic / action-for-action-sake plot-holes & idiot-plots) still push my nerdrage buttons. :sweat:

I read a sci-fi book recently where the invincible invaders from outer space turned out to lack consciousness and wanted to acquire it from Earthlings, even though it was like smoking crack for them. Intergalactic brain-hungry zombies, basically.

I read a sci-fi book recently where the invincible invaders from outer space turned out to lack consciousness — praxis

Ummmm.... ?

I just asked ChatGPT about it and, sparing you the details, in summary she said:

In essence, current AI demonstrates that you can have sophisticated intelligence without consciousness.

She’s probably a bit bias though so take that with a grain of salt. Btw, in the book the intelligence was organic in nature.

In essence, current AI demonstrates that you can have sophisticated intelligence without consciousness

And do you, Chatty, have the motivation to expend whatever resources it takes to schlepp across the galaxy and steal it from somebody? Do you, without consciousness, generate such an overwhelming desire?