Scientific Accuracy Dilemma by Shuggie

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Scientific Accuracy Dilemma

POSTED BY: SHUGGIE
UPDATED: Thursday, June 13, 2002 15:12
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Wednesday, June 12, 2002 7:39 AM

We've started having a few discussions around the theme of the scientific accuracy/believability of the technology we're likely to see.

I completely understand this. Although it's generally not a problem for me, I can see that if something is shown on screen which screams out to you as being wrong* - then it'll hurt your suspension of disbelief and that hurts your enjoyment of the show.

It occurs to me though that there's a bit of a dilemma here. In SciFi you almost always rely on the audience to accept that certain things which are not possible now, will be possible in the future. Or to accept that things we now think of as fact may actually turn out to be approximations or partial truths. The history of science should tell us that such that such an acceptance in general terms is reasonable. (If an 'SF' writer in Newton's day had a written a story based on the universe working the way Einstein later described it - how would he have been received?)

However in the specific cases - it's often easier to accept if the break between what we know now and what's being shown as the future is explained in some way. So I'm hearing various people talk about how they hope such-and-such is adequately explained or it'll be disappointing.

The trouble is - and here's my dilemma - what's worse - not having something adequately explained or having a piece of gratuitous dialogue dropped into the script purely to explain some technical detail? Personally I cringe more if they suddenly start explaining the flux-capacitor to me for no other reason than for scientific plausibility. Of course if there's a feature of the flux capacitor's behaviour that leads to a point in the plot (needs 1.21GW at 88mph) then that's slightly different.

People may say that if you have to explain it then you shouldn't show it - but take that to the extreme and you wouldn't be able to show anything futuristic at all.

What do you think? Is there a way to balance scientific plausibility with character/story plausibility?

Shug

Her lips were saying 'No' but then I looked into her eyes
... and her eyes were saying 'read my lips'
- Niles Crane

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Wednesday, June 12, 2002 7:58 AM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.

The way I look at it, Firefly is Science Fantasy not Science Fiction. So yeah, I don't really need a lot of things explained. Just as I don't need a lot of things explained on Farscape (which I also consider science fantasy) to enjoy the show (and might I add enjoy it immensely).

As long as the science is consistent within the framework of the series, I'm confortable with whatever the writers dream up. Except, and I can't stress this more, NO DEUS EX MACHINA SOLUTIONS to plot.

I feel so cheated everytime I see something like that.

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Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:12 PM

That's simply a major key to good science fiction: milieu exposition. You've got a strange setting with strange technology and societies and rules. These things are either unimportant, in which case they're in the background, or important, in which case, as you pointed out, the characters and plots should bring them up naturally in the course of interacting with their environment. ST infodumps that are technobabble besides - this is the way NOT to do it. But not explaining anything isn't the way to do it, either - if this is science fiction and not science fantasy.

The real trick is when these elements that need explaining are such a part of the characters' lives that it wouldn't occur to them to mention it in ordinary circumstances. For us to say, so a 19th century person could understand: "I was on an IM (an instant messaging device, which is a computer program - a computer being a device based on... - etc) - well, we just don't explain things like that - we just use IMs. But it's pretty easy to get around that. If the interdimensional fluxitor is going to play a critical part in a dramatic scene in ep 12, then have the damn thing break down in ep 4 and have a character who doesn't usually use interdimensional fluxitors help someone fix it when the crew's shorthanded. They can talk about the war just past, because they're being friendly and getting to know each other (and we viewers are interested, because we're getting to know them, too) while they naturally discuss how to fix the doohickey. So the dramatic scene rolls around a few eps later and flows straight on through and we know what's up without any infodump clogging up the scene. F'rinstance.

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