Though you jest, mon frère, there is a deeper truth to your words than perhaps you intended. Ridiculous, improbable, and poorly planned Sci-Fi is surely bad, but Science Fiction that gets its head too far up its own butt in explaining to the reader/watcher the Science of the Fiction is equally bad. I want a good, well written, enjoyable read. I'm not trying to apply for a position at CERN. We had a member not long ago who was deeply impassioned about some garage breakthrough that he just knew was going to revolutionize physics as we know it today. He wanted to explain his complete thesis and theory (and I do me the COMPLETE thing) through a novel. He had no idea why he got a unanimous no from any and all questioned here on the mater...
Time for my two bits. Why can a spaceship not be referred to as a boat? If you deal with military fiction, Naval or otherwise, spacecraft could be an extension of a ocean-going navy, so they would thenceforth be referred to as boats or ships. In most Science Fiction, because the author still has to deal with real world concepts and extrapolate or project them into a future world that still has to be able to be understood by the reader, they will take real-world concepts and push them forward. So a spacecraft, in a military context at least, would most likely be referred to as a boat, or a ship. Not spaceship. We already know it's a space vessel. So why refer to it as such? That is dumbing down for the reader, and most readers don't like it when they get talked down to. An example is Battlestar Galactica. They never referred to the Battlestars as spaceships. They were ships, or boats, and they carried planes. They were Aircraft Carriers with teeth who just happened to sail through the velvet blackness of deep space, instead of the medium of a liquid ocean. Other than that, most naval concepts still applied. Which worked to allow the Reimagined series to sit at the top ratings on TV for it's run. Not bad for a Sci-Fi TV series competing with normal commercial TV. The way to make Sci-Fi work is to draw the reader in with the concept and characters, and wrap the setting in such a way so that you as the writer believe in it. If you believe in what you are writing, then the reader will see it in the work and will tend to be drawn in also. This is why a lot of early work by authors has such rough styles. They are learning their trade and making their mistakes, then seeking feedback. We are so lucky in this day and age where we can slam out a work, email it to a handful of people for feedback, and then work at a lightning pace compared to the days of the typewriter. All the talk of hyperlight, FTL, space battles, etc is all irrelevant in a lot of ways because each author puts his or her own spin on it. But it's just gravy, not the meat and potatoes of the work. The meat of the work is how human our characters are, how we can relate to them, and what we do to them or with them to get from the beginning of our story to the end. Although talk of lightspeed travel is a lot of fun, but that's really a thread for a different post.
From a military view, a force of spacecraft fits a naval model better than any other military branch, including air force. Base vessels are like carriers, for which their is no mobile equivalent in modern air fleets. Also, space vessels can remain functional even when there is no active propulsion, like most ocean-going vessels. Given the many functional similarities to ships, it's not surprising that much of the same terminology would be borrowed from naval nomenclature, or that a similar rank structure would apply to military space fleets. Likewise, civilian shipping terms would very likely be applied to private spacecraft, too. Language migrates and adapts, and analogy is the means by which it does so.
Funny bit is that real life tends to disagree. While I know at a professional level that the language used to refer to these craft - upon which The People will decide - will not necessarily answer to paradigms that parallel the true nature of the thing (e.g. a coconut is not, in fact, a nut, but a drupe) the reality is that the branch of the military most closely associated with the space programs of the the U.S. and the former Soviet Union is the Air Force, not the Navy. ETA: My prediction is that just as the Marines from the Navy and the Air Force sprang from the Army, so the space going branch of military that will eventually come to be will spring from the Air Force.
I didn't pay much attention to this at first, but now it makes sense. If one is approaching light speed or even velocities a significant fraction of light speed, now molecules that are huge distances apart are going to be hitting up against the ship at a significantly high rates. I think it's worth considering in a sci fi story where accuracy is desirable. I may reshape my interstellar transport by adding a deflector shield to the front. It's needed anyway to protect the ship proper from meteoroids.
Except the Air Force also uses naval terminology: rocket ship, launch, aeronautical, air port, and so on.
Perhaps because when it came time to pick their terminology, those were the closest analogues. I don't deny in the least that nautical paradigms will very probably rule the names of those things we send to and between the stars; I only point out that the Navy is actually quite removed from the U.S. space program, and it is instead Air Force stripes and bars that one sees walking the halls of Cape Canaveral and the Houston Space Center.
Looks and first impressions can be deceiving. Apollo Space Exhibit at the National Naval Aviation Museum The US Navy: lost in space? The Navy and Space Exploration Naval Center for Space Technology Naval Space Command
I dealt with that by having the ships in my universe either being hydrodynamic-shaped against particles, or having removable armor plating that gets swapped out as it gets too badly damaged. They have shielding, but in my universe, shielding only works against particles that can be effected. Non-magnetic particles wouldn't bounce off a magnetic shield very well. Thus, armor plating to allow for a physical barrier against interstellar gas and debris. Then again, my ships also have vastly advanced power reserves to fuel their speed and velocity without having to have fuel tanks that occupy 93% of the ship's mass.
This is probably the most important futuristic technology any science fiction writer has to postulate. A starship will require a huge source of energy.
I have to agree. Within the universe I have crafted, fusion power alone, although extremely powerful by today's standards, is not enough for the requirements of one of the two forms of FTL travel that are available. So, this is an imbalance of power, one group holds the key to a vastly more powerful form of almost mass-energy conversion, and as such, has access to a much faster FTL form, while the other group uses fusion power and has a slower version of FTL they use. This allows for a power imbalance and conflict between the two groups that forms one foundation to the ongoing conflict. I have to be careful how I talk about this future tech in the series because I do not want to make it so implausible that the reader loses focus, but it still has to be there to provide and explain why the vehicles can do the things they do and not run out of power or burn up or melt.
I did a Google search and found all kinds of propulsion systems from antimatter to nuclear explosions. There really is quite a wealth of speculative science out there proposing different mechanisms that research directions might take. For example: Emerging Possibilities for Space Propulsion Breakthroughs Originally published in the Interstellar Propulsion Society Newsletter, Vol. I, No. 1, July 1, 1995. Marc G. Millis Space Propulsion Technology Division NASA Lewis Research Center Cleveland, Ohio In the end, since it was something that took place only as backstory in my story I left the propulsion out for the moment. I might put it back in. I did decide that the ship would use a slingshot effect by swinging around the entire solar system, not just a planet.
Does that actually help? If a spaceship is near Pluto, for example, the gravitational force from the sun will be very small, so you'd essentially only be using Pluto for the assist. Am I missing something?
Matter/anti-matter annihilation is a good source of energy for fictional star ship propulsion systems. You just have to avoid looking too closely at the engineering difficulties of making it work! I'm working on a story concept about the development of the first FTL drive. One of my main characters is an engineer who, at the beginning of the story, figures out how to make a practical anti-matter containment system. This is a major breakthrough but it is not well received by certain people because it effectively opens up the door for the weaponization of anti-matter.
I don't know, it sounded good. Guess I better study the problem a bit more. Not a big deal to change and have the assist come from the just right lined up planets on the way out of the system. http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/grav/primer.php
For me the border between sci-fi and fantasy is that fantasy breaks the laws of physics we know today, while sci-fi does not (or just a few ones which are well outside of everyday experience, like faster than light travel). I'm aware that there are more widely accepted definitions out there and with this self-made categorization I send most of the soft sci-fi stories (including Star Wars) into the realm of fantasy but one must draw a line somewhere and I draw it there for myself (yes, I'm too rigorous). The OP complains about misconceptions which are describing well known things in a false way. He made some mistakes in his post (as others pointed out) but still I can deeply agree with him. If a science fiction story breaks the laws of today's physics then where is science in it? I know there is fiction as well but at least the basics should be OK. This is only my opinion, not written to the sky with huge letters and others may be more permissive or restrictive. The above does not even mean that an author has to explain everything. I only say that if something works differently than reasonably expectable based on current technology/knowledge then it needs explanation. For example I expect that all living creatures have to wear some sort of spacesuit in space and if it's not the case my first question is : "Why?".
In sci-fi there would be a scientific explanation for why the suit was not needed. It is the future so there is some leeway for what we'll have developed that we have not yet. The usual explanations I've seen are simply more minimal suits. In a Ben Bova book I recently started to read (but didn't finish because it was too much like the first one) he has an older scientist exploring the surface of Mars in an older bulky spacesuit complaining how he doesn't trust the newer models. Then he laments about his limited mobility compared to the other researchers wearing the newer suits. If you write that we take pills to make us able to breathe the thinner air, you could still be in the science realm but you are getting closer to fantasy. But if you explain the pill changes one's metabolism in some way, that's still science. Cast a spell, on the other hand, to change one's ability to breathe something other than Earth's air, and one is in a fantasy world where you can solve any problem by just throwing magic at it. I don't have an issue with calling something science fiction even if fantastical devices are used. Dan Simmon's Hyperion is a mix of fantasy and science. There are gods that border on fantasy, but still with threads that keep it anchored in science. The Shrike does not follow any laws of physics. Yet I'd still put the series in the sci-fi genre. ... , there are no limits!
I recommend reading The Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. I'm still reading it, but frankly, we're talking about future tech and knowledge, not what we know today. If you're writing a contemporary novel you're labeling as sci-fi, then perhaps there should be a basis on today's knowledge, but 100 years from now? 1000? 12,000?
I don't think we are going to invent magic spells, wands, potions and fairy godmothers in any imaginable future. I don't have a huge problem with some sci-fi plot devices that are not likely in any realistic future as long as it's well written.
I did not say that you can't "invent" things. In 12,000 years Earth will change a lot so you are free to imagine cities underwater or levitating above the clouds, car sized vehicles capable to reach orbit or travel to distant stars, spaceships which can dive deep under the surface of the Sun. You are free to invent the future, I said only that if someone or something can do things which is against what we know today than it needs explanation. Gravity for example will behave the same way 12,000 years from now and if you write about people flying around on a planet and do not provide at least some basic explanation like "He turned on his anti-gravity belt and raised to about 100 feet high" then the reader can get confused and think that humans are so developed biologically that they can fly. For me the latter is not sci-fi unless it is set a million years from now and the writer explains how evolution led to this capability. I even do not say I can't enjoy a well written story about flying humans. But it's fantasy for me which I also like to read. I disagree I agree
It's hard to say what's plausible. 200 years ago who would have thought we could have things like delivery drones, self-driving cars, the ability to communicate large amounts of info across the globe, computational devices that fit into your pocket able to contain entire books, nuclear weapons. As far as I'm concerned the measure of a good SF writer is to make the impossible SEEM plausible (to those who actually care about it.) I just want you to know its all a trick. As Mr. Gene Wolfe explained: "Everyone writes fantasy, some are just more honest about it."
I think that Television is something that you could explain to 19th century people. Internet would be, I think impossible to explain to 19th century people. So in near future something really amazing could be invited.
I really love this forum, this particular thread is a lot of fun to read, although I didn't expand everything so I probably missed a lot. It also probably explains why Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't write Sci-Fi. Anyway there are things that travel FTL, way back in Physics class it was easily demonstrated that an interference pattern travels faster than the light waves creating it. I know you will knock the concept of an interference pattern, but it exists. The much bigger example is the Big Bang itself, much faster than light speed. It is only within the confines of our universe that FTL seems impossible. Now to my question, in my story line I want to use quantum entanglement communication to transmit information from a distant spaceship back home. It seems that concept may be more pipe dream than reality, but since I want to write a Sci-Fi story, will that be a problem for the purists among you? I also plan on using the concept of leaving the universe through a rift and reentering it at a different time, obviously a big "doesn't exist" concept, but I feel that neither of these concepts is really the story, it is just a mechanism to explain the story. So is that acceptable or just too much to accept?
