Yearning for the old days... by Tienshaoduh

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Yearning for the old days...

POSTED BY: TIENSHAODUH
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 11:09
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VIEWED: 5620
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Saturday, November 26, 2005 5:09 AM

Is it just me or is the main problem with SF these days is they lack the naivete of the old SF of yesteryear (Late 19th - Early 20th Century)? Take the old pulp and SF magazines that weren't too concerned with credibility of the physics, either because they didn't understand it or just didn't want to confuse people.
Trek has too much of its technobabble and tries too hard to be consistent and scientfically sound that it just ends up being ridiculous. The whole point of SF is to let go of any restraints that limit us in reality and place any hero in some 'Whatif' scenario, what if our solar system was populated by alien life? How would our hero cope with it? How would humanity respond to this? Would there be war or peace?
The true essence of SF is not the science but the fiction, the story the emotion, humanity as a concept.
When people complain about the problem of FTL travel in Firefly i just tell them we don't need to know if they can travel faster than light. That is not important to the story, in fact i like it better like that because as i said you don't the technocrap about how the ship works. The fact that it works is good enough.
Would the fact you know the exact details of a Firefly class FTL drive make you enjoy the show any more or less? NO (and those who say yes are just being awkward).
The same goes for BSG, does anyone know or care how their FTL drive works? The importance is the people, and i love the fact the cylons believe in God and they might have a soul (however scientifically unsound it might be) i feel for the cylons a lot more than i would say...any alien in Trek. To me the cylons have emotion and justified cause and to an extent they are more pious than humanity, this is thought provoking.
Another problem is do we really need so many aliens in SF? Perhaps one or two species could do, bit how many do they need in a series like Trek, 'scape and Babylon.
I don't know what the future of SF holds but what we need is more writers like Joss Whedon and Tim Minear.

Angus

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"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
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Saturday, November 26, 2005 5:42 AM

NCBROWNCOAT

Totally agree with you. I could care less about the physics. Don't really completely understand physics either. Must be because I concentrated on history and literature in college.

SF is all about the characters and how they interact with each other and the problems and moral dilemmas that come up and putting it in a place different from our everyday world makes us pay attention.

SF is also often a vehicle used to comment on human society. Think of the countless SF stories that say volumes about the human condition without aliens and if they are used they are are mainly catalysts for the heroes to realize something about their own situation.

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Saturday, November 26, 2005 5:54 AM

THEREALME

I'm sorry, but I have a differing opinion.

There is no reason that a show or book must pick between good science OR interesting characters.

Is it not possible to have both? If the science is "good" does that mean that the characters MUST be ignored?

And no, I don't want to hear the technobabble crap about how "the vertrion particles produce a phase shift in the gravitaiontal matrix to... BLAH BLAH BLAH..."

But when we DON'T KNOW if our ship is Faster Than Light or not, that bothers me. When we DON'T KNOW if we are in one star system or many, that bothers me.

It bothers me as much as if we DON'T KNOW who the members of the crew are at any given time.

"Hey, who is that new guy that just walked onto the bridge?"

"Oh, he's Bob, the cargomaster. He's been on the ship for the last year!"

TheRealMe, First Officer of the Sereni-Tree

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Saturday, November 26, 2005 6:13 AM

TIENSHAODUH

It is possible to have both. I am a physicist and it annoys me when shows try to incorporate science into the show but it justs sounds too ridiculous and too complicated like FTL and time travel. Subtle things like whether there is noise in space annoys me (and Firefly is the only SF I have seen since 2001 that has done this). Basic physics is necessary to make the SF believable, but SF needs to be on a level that anyone can enjoy wihtout having a headache.

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"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
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Saturday, November 26, 2005 6:53 AM

RIVER6213

That's one of the main reasons I like Firefly. The show isnt hung up on the technical aspects of the FF universe, or the complications of alien life forms and communication. What you have left to focus on is the character development.

Firefly is very much like a soap-opera, and before you guys start yelling at me for saying this....have you ever watched a soap opera? If you have then you would notice that shows like this almost never go into detail about its background; they focus on the main characters and their dealings, everything else is window dressing for this and Firefly is the same way.

We don't need to know if they have or don't have a FTL drive, or we don't need to know if the 'verse is a collection of solar systems, or just one BIG solar system etc. We don't need to know why everyone sometimes swear, or speak in chinese, and we don't need to know what happened to The-Earth-That-Was.

Mal's relationship with Inara, Simon's realtionship with River, who was experimented on by the Alliance scientists. Kaylee's realtionship with Simon. Book's unspoken past, or wondering when Jayne's going to get around to selling the Captain out, or trying to figure out how the warrior (Zoe) and the wimp (Wash) could ever have gotten together and got married. These are the things that the writer force us to focus on....its a soap opera, but a well done soap opera.

Firefly is the 1st Sci-Fi show that I have watched that makes character development central to its story, so you walk away from the show thinking about one, or all of the characters, and their dealings, and not about the XL5- Warp drive that the Firefly's got.

just a thought.

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Saturday, November 26, 2005 7:24 AM

TIENSHAODUH

Quote:
Originally posted by RiveR6213:
...its a soap opera, but a well done soap opera.

I agree, thats why it is classed as a space-opera. Although i do believe that Firefly does stand much higher than a soap opera.

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"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
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Saturday, November 26, 2005 8:19 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

I generally tend to *respect* the movie a bit more if it sticks with the known physics, or at least tries to explain a bit if it makes a grand departure.

Case in point: 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of course, nowadays it just looks like something you'd watch if you were on acid, but at the time it was made and released (BEFORE the first Moon landing), it was nothing short of a revelation. It stuck close to the physics even in minor details: when Bowman blows the airlock to get back into the ship, it blows with no sound - and the sound only comes back when the airlock is closed and starts filling with air! Good technical direction, that. Also, aboard the PanAm shuttle to the space station, the stewardess is walking in zero gee - but she's able to do so with Velcro'd shoes and aisles to keep her anchored. It was little stuff like that that kept me sitting rapt watching the movie, and still place it among my top 10 all-time Sci-Fi movies.

The sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact kind of lost me when Roy Scheider's character is on the bridge of the Russian spacecraft, explaining to the Russian commander how the two ships can link and burn together to escape Jovian orbit. He's illustrating his point with a couple pencils, floating in zero gee, while they're drinking bourbon out of open-top glasses. Something startles him, and he jumps up and runs off the bridge at a sprint. That kind of "convenient" zero-gee scenario kind of ruined the movie for me. It's a terribly minor point, but when they took such great pains with the technical direction in 2001, it just seemed they'd have been as exacting in the sequel.

Side Note: Douglas Trumbull was the effects director for 2001. He later did another sci-fi flick as director - Silent Running. He did a pretty good job on the technical/physics aspects of that one, too. It's kind of a "tree-hugger eco-freak's" nightmare scenario of a movie, but it's worth a look - especially since so much of it seems appropo, 30 years on...

With movies based on Arthur C. Clarke's writings, though, I tend to be a bit more critical, because he DOES take pains to be true to the physics in his writings (as does Larry Niven, usually).

With Firefly, there are little tech/physics aspects that bug me a bit, but I learned to just let 'em go and enjoy the show. Call it a suspension of disbelief. :) If I really wanted to nitpick the show, I'd wonder why the heck they're shooting projectile weapons around in a spaceship (tasers or "zap-field" weapons would seem to make more sense in such a fragile environment, but might fry some of the ship's electronics), why they have perfect Earth-that-was gravity in the middle of space, in such a crude and primitive cargo ship, or things like that. Like I say, if I were nitpicking, I'd wonder... but I'm not. I just accept it, and thank Joss for not launching into a 10-minute Scotty- or Data-like diatribe about how it's done, or what happens if it fails or runs out of dylithium crystals.

So I guess it comes down like this (for me): If you're going to try to stay true to the physics, do it all the way. If you're not, don't bother trying to make a point of explaining why. It can come up in an off-handed comment or something, but you don't have to write a whole scene around it. :) A bit part of the fun of watching the original, first Star Wars movie was that it didn't try to over-explain; it just WAS. What we were interested in were the storylines and the characters, not trying to figure out how come that explosion in outer space was so loud. Same goes for Firefly.

Mike

Grrrrr. Arrrgghh.

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Saturday, November 26, 2005 8:41 PM

KHYRON

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
If I really wanted to nitpick the show, I'd wonder why the heck they're shooting projectile weapons around in a spaceship (tasers or "zap-field" weapons would seem to make more sense in such a fragile environment, but might fry some of the ship's electronics), ...

Hey there. I agree with what you were saying in general (I also prefer physically plausible and realistic stuff), and I know that nitpicking wasn't the point of your post, but on the point that I quoted above I'd just like to say that in one episode Jayne said that even Vera couldn't pierce through the hull. So while shooting projectile weapons on a space ship 500 years in the future may be a bit dangerous and dumb for all the usual reasons, I don't think it necessarily represents a danger to the ship, as long as it's limited to the cargo bay (not in the engine room or bridge, obviously).

Nonetheless, there are many things that are physically unrealistic in Firefly. My favourite: in the pilot, when they try to escape the reavers by doing the Crazy Ivan, they escape the planet's gravity field with what must be a whole lot of g's, yet nobody except Wash was strapped into a seat, which is expecially strange if you consider that Kalyee, who would have been looking downward during the ascent, stayed right where she was. Maybe she has a magnetic butt that we don't know of, but under normal circumstances she would have fallen to the other end of the engine room, face first.

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Saturday, November 26, 2005 9:20 PM

BELACGOD

Kaylee's magnetic butt...I wonder if Simon knows about this.

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Saturday, November 26, 2005 10:00 PM

GIANTEVILHEAD

Technobabble in Trek was not an attempt to stay consistent with real science, it was plot device, a very boring plot device that magically solved problems without people having to make the tough decisions.

"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:02 AM

ROBINHOOD

The original poster of this thread is a Troll / Moron, just check out the chat room. He and OOM9 are one and the same idiot I'm sure.

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:18 AM

TIENSHAODUH

Quote:
Originally posted by robinhood:
The original poster of this thread is a Troll / Moron, just check out the chat room. He and OOM9 are one and the same idiot I'm sure.

I resent this statement and completely deny any affiliation with this OOM9.

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"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan
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Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:39 AM

OOM9

Quote:
Originally posted by robinhood:
The original poster of this thread is a Troll / Moron, just check out the chat room. He and OOM9 are one and the same idiot I'm sure.

DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good day to you.

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:46 AM

TIENSHAODUH

Quote:
Originally posted by OOM9:
Quote:
Originally posted by robinhood:
The original poster of this thread is a Troll / Moron, just check out the chat room. He and OOM9 are one and the same idiot I'm sure.

DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!DOWN WITH ROBIN HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good day to you.

Dearest OOM9,

i would appreciate it if you could stop your shenanigans. You are tarninshing my reputation on this site.

Thanks

Tienshaoduh

PS. There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling

=================================================
"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
=================================================
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan
=================================================

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:54 AM

ROBINHOOD

You know, Tienshaoduh, I liked reading your first post up there, and I agreed with it 100%. Pitty it's been spoilt by all of this sillyness don't you think.
There are kids as young as 10, 11 (as you now know) who visit the chat room, so generally we all like to keep it as clean and as friendly as possible. So whoever OOM9 is, get him to behave.

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Sunday, November 27, 2005 12:03 PM

TIENSHAODUH

I cannot be held responsible for OOM9's actions and any further misbehaviour on his part should not be associated with me.

=================================================
"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
=================================================
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan
=================================================

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Monday, November 28, 2005 6:31 AM

OOM9

Quote:
Originally posted by Tienshaoduh:
I cannot be held responsible for OOM9's actions and any further misbehaviour on his part should not be associated with me.

=================================================
"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
=================================================
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan
=================================================

Yes you can, Tienshaoduh. You control me. Anything that I do comes from your mind.

Yours sincerely,

OOM-9

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Monday, November 28, 2005 10:55 AM

TIENSHAODUH

Dear OOM,

watch your behaviour or you may get banned. Anymore shenanigans and Robin Hood will have to inform Haken about you.

Tienshaoduh

=================================================
"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
=================================================
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan
=================================================

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Monday, November 28, 2005 10:57 AM

OOM9

For future reference please ensure that me myself Tienshaoduh----sorry I stand corrected OOM9 are not the same person. We merely inhabit the same body and physical appearence (obviously you stupid thief)

Up Sherriff Down Robin

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Monday, November 28, 2005 2:12 PM

PILOTHOBAN

Hello OOM9 and TS. I'm writing because I have to leave now. The internet cafe is closing forever, and I cannot afford to go anywhere else (the owners are nice and let me stay for free). But they don't get enough money. So it was amazing meeting you both. You have been so generous and have taught me much. One day I would like to visit you. Maybe I will when I am a teacher! Things are looking silver lining now. Now the cafe is closing I can work here and do laundry for money maybe save up enough to get more teaching! It is much nicer and easier, and pays more! Also I found out that the Buddhists who have been mean are not real! Sister Gildong said that they are a 'gang' and were only pretending to be Buddhists, after you told me they were not nice I asked her and she told me the truth (she wanted to hide the truth, but it was good because the truth was saddning beacuse there had to be a reason for the suffering). I have never met the real Buddhists, I think I will-maybe they will be nice, I think I will decide my faith later-that is what my mother used to tell me a long time ago. I just have to say thank you soo so much for being nice. People say you are 'troll' but you are not in my eyes and heart. You are my friends and I will remember what you have taught me and will never forget you I wish you the greatest with your lives. Goodbye. xxx

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Monday, November 28, 2005 6:35 PM

BRUISERSMOM

I agree. I never took physics classes in high school or college so I am an ignoramous in that area. I've never been interested in physics or in how star trek ships fly or how Serenity flys.

I've been drawn to these shows by the characters and the stories of which they are a part. For Star Trek, it was the relationships between Kirk, Spock, Bones and the other members of the Enterprise crew. It's the same thing for Firefly. Simon is my favorite character because he and I have a lot of attitudes, personality characteristics and blind spots in common. I like the relationship between Zoe and Wash because they are a loving, not too crazy couple that respect each other, which is a lot like my parent's relationship. Finally, I like how Book acts as Mal's conscience.

"You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals."--George Mikes

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Monday, November 28, 2005 11:27 PM

TIENSHAODUH

Quote:
Originally posted by PilotHoban:
Hello OOM9 and TS. I'm writing because I have to leave now. The internet cafe is closing forever, and I cannot afford to go anywhere else (the owners are nice and let me stay for free). But they don't get enough money. So it was amazing meeting you both. You have been so generous and have taught me much. One day I would like to visit you. Maybe I will when I am a teacher! Things are looking silver lining now. Now the cafe is closing I can work here and do laundry for money maybe save up enough to get more teaching! It is much nicer and easier, and pays more! Also I found out that the Buddhists who have been mean are not real! Sister Gildong said that they are a 'gang' and were only pretending to be Buddhists, after you told me they were not nice I asked her and she told me the truth (she wanted to hide the truth, but it was good because the truth was saddning beacuse there had to be a reason for the suffering). I have never met the real Buddhists, I think I will-maybe they will be nice, I think I will decide my faith later-that is what my mother used to tell me a long time ago. I just have to say thank you soo so much for being nice. People say you are 'troll' but you are not in my eyes and heart. You are my friends and I will remember what you have taught me and will never forget you I wish you the greatest with your lives. Goodbye. xxx

Dear PH,

I wish you all the best in future and I hope that you do become an excellent teacher. It is a shame the cafe is closing and I wish you well.

Goodbye,
TS

=================================================
"God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and everyone." Number Six '33'
=================================================
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan
=================================================

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005 5:43 AM

PILOTHOBAN

Tien are you still here? Please reply to me. I'm back for a little while.

I can't write is here, mine has lots of swirls and is in Korean.

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005 11:09 AM

OOM9

Dear PilotHoban,

Glad to see that you are back. Tienshaoduh is in Gibraltar for the time being, and I do not know if he visits this site from there. Thank you for your last message, I'm glad to see that we may have influenced your life somewhat. I visit the chatroom from time to time, so you might be able to speak to me there.
Good day to you for now PilotHoban, and I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Yours sincerely,

OOM-9

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