The Picard Maneuver, named after it’s inventor, Jean-Luc Maneuver.
Is that anything like the Klink Dipsy-Doodle?
Firefly quite sensibly took the approach that if you never explain how the science works, you can’t get it wrong. I mean, I like well-explained science fiction as much as anyone, but very few authors can pull it off. If you can’t pull it off, much better to be self-aware enough to realize that, and not try.
Besides, none of the characters in Firefly are the sort to launch into an explanation of the science of what they’re doing, and in most cases don’t even know themselves.
THAT’S the “bad science fiction trope” that I hate:
Nobody in real life explains technology as they use it…
“C’mon, get in my internal-combustion automobile and I’ll give you a ride. I’ll just start it with this key that’s matched to this cylinder so that no one else can use this “auto”. Hear that noise? That’s a series of explosions rhythmically pushing pistons. Man, I’ll never get over that, or how lucky we are that Étienne Lenoir, a Belgian, started igniting coal gas with an arc of electricity…”
people complaining about scientific impossibilities in a movie about comic book super heroes; the mind boggles
Kaylee : Catalyzer on the port compression coil blew. It’s where the trouble started.
Mal : Okay, I need that in captain dummy-talk, Kaylee.
Kaylee : We’re dead in the water.
It really is the smart way to write space opera. When you send an email or start your car, you don’t turn to the person next to you and explain the entire process to a granular functional level; you just assume they have the same practical understanding of what is happening, and anyway for most people that extends to essentially, “I pushed a button and then a miracle occurred.” Contrast that to the constant stream of screenwriter-generated meaningless technobabble and it is refreshing to hear characters just talk like real people.
On occasion there is an actual plot need in hard science fiction to explain the mechanics of how something works, but the problem in doing so is that unless the author is exceptionally well versed in the applicable domain of science or technology they’ll just make a hash of it which is readily apparent to anyone who is actually knowledgable. If you want to put characters in hibernation, just say, “Jujuflocher climbed into the cryotube and it frosted over, chilling him into somnolence,” rather than trying to explain the process of cryogenic preservation because there is no way any biologist or physician is not going to immediately poke holes in any attempt to explain how it might work.
Stranger
That reads like Mickey Spillane trying to ape Philip Francis Nowlan. Bad writing is bad writing in any genre.
Stranger
If they only had one of those “A” ration stickers on the spaceship.
Regarding Firefly —
There’s a scene in the pilot that demonstrates pretty clearly the creatives were thinking of spaceflight almost literally as an analog to oceanbound naval travel.
Our Heroes detect a nearby vessel, and realize, by observing high levels of radiation, that it is a Reaver ship, on a near-intercept course. They look out their viewports nervously as the two ships very slowly pass one another. The pace of the scene is stately, quiet, and very tense. Finally, our heroes breathe a sigh of relief when the Reavers continue on their way, ignoring them.
Except that we clearly see the two vessels are on opposing vectors. Essentially, one is northbound, and the other is southbound, flying almost directly at each other, on near-miss trajectories. By passing each other very slowly, the scene indicates that each ship’s independent forward velocity is absurdly slow. In a “real” SF context, the two ships would have flashed past each other in an eyeblink.
Yes, this is obviously a storytelling convention for the benefit of the audience, but it would have been pretty easy to adjust things for realism. (Well, more realism, at least.) Just establish that the two ships are traveling the same direction, on not-quite-parallel trajectories. The Reaver ship is ahead, and Our Heroes are catching up with them. They then have to decide what to do: Adjust heading before they pass, and hope the Reavers don’t notice and turn around? Or go ahead and pass, and then spend the next hour watching the Reavers falling behind them, hoping they don’t decide to give chase?
It would have been marginally more complicated to explain and show, but not that much harder. And it would have fixed the scene so it doesn’t bug the shit out of me every time I watch it.
While it’s legit to compare genres, and point out that it makes sense to hold some genres to higher standards than others, this post is unnecessarily personal. Try to stick to the topic and not criticize other posters.
…and it’s why spaceships swoop around in space like fighter planes, instead of moving i straight lines.
Still not as bad as vintage Lionel Fanthorpe (AKA Pel Torro, and plenty of other pseudonyms):
Except one of the unusual properties of luminiferous ether is that the music of the spheres is at the exact frequency that counteracts the sound of a human voice above a certain volume and pitch. That’s why in space, no one can hear you scream.
Well, of course. But out of the many scenes I have watched of space ships blasting away through the ether this time they did explain it. Incorrectly. I mean it’s Tony Stark. He can shoot fire out of his hands generated by some endless power supply the size of an apple and go careening around the planet. You would think he might have noticed that he didn’t stop as soon as he quit thrusting.
OK, a) There are no cows in space.
Do they though? Or does the art department think flames (or lights) radiating from the back of a spaceship just looks cool?
But there are pigs.
On the other hand, if you’re outside your ship doing vital emergency repairs and let go of your pliers for a moment, they immediately fly off into the inky void until they get three galaxies away and are consumed by an alien sun.