# Things I Have Learnt From Science Fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 25, 2006, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542 "2006-01-25T13:07:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/241 "2006-02-02T03:41:06Z")
> [@What Exit?](#): > > Now Amish in Space would be interesting. One of Charles Sheffield’s MacAndrew stories mentioned the “Amish Ark” as one of the splinter groups that left the Sol system in generation ships. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/242 "2006-02-02T05:06:11Z")
There’s been a series of novellas published in the last few years in _Asimov’s_ by Charles Stross that eventually involves an Imam somewhere in the middle of the solar system. _Asimov’s_ has [published](http://www.asimovs.com/Hugos/Halo.shtml) part of it on the web. Actually, now that I look at it (I don’t feel like pulling out my copy of the issue to double-check), it might be the entire story. > [@"Halo" by Charles Stross](#): > > The Imam is at prayer in a gyrostabilized mosque. > > His mosque is not very big, and it has a congregation of one: he performs salat on his own every seventeen thousand two hundred and eighty seconds. He also webcasts the call to prayer, but there are no other believers in trans-Jovian space to answer the summons. Between prayers, he splits his attention between the exigencies of life-support and scholarship. A student of the Hadith and of knowledge-based systems, Sadeq collaborates in a project with other mujtahid scholars who are building a revised concordance of all the known isnads, to provide a basis for exploring the body of Islamic jurisprudence from a new perspective–one they’ll need sorely if the looked-for breakthroughs in communication with aliens emerge. Their goal is to answer the vexatious questions that bedevil Islam in the age of accelerated consciousness: and as their representative in orbit around Jupiter, these questions fall most heavily on Sadeq’s shoulders. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/243 "2006-02-02T07:10:41Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > Have you noticed there are no Jews or Muslims\* in Science Fiction? Wonder why. Frank Herbert’s Dune Chronicles has Jews in a fairly important role in the later books (I want to say Chapterhouse Dune, but they might have shown up in Heretics of Dune as well). The Bene Gesserit exposited that they admire the Jews for their tenacious ability not to die out despite thousands and thousands of years of everyone trying to help them along to that end. ;j Also, Babylon 5 had a number of Jewish characters, though Commander Susan Ivonova was the only Jew of any great import on the show, occasionally looking up and talking to God in a very Fiddler on the Roof fashion. I now can kinda see her dancing around singing “If I were the Captain, Boom boom boom boom, boomboomboomboomboomboomboomboomboom…” History of the World Part II will feature Jews in Space, if they ever release it. ;j It could be argued that BattleStar Galactica almost exclusively features Jews, except that these Jews are Quasipolytheistic Spjews. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/244 "2006-02-02T07:13:19Z")
Oh, and because I forgot: The Chronicles of Riddick franchise features a family of Muslims in all three chapters (Pitch Black, Dark Fury, and Chronicles of Riddick), though their participation in the plot varies from film to film. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/245 "2006-02-02T10:44:22Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Frank Herbert’s Dune Chronicles has Jews in a fairly important role in the later books (I want to say Chapterhouse Dune, but they might have shown up in Heretics of Dune as well). The Bene Gesserit exposited that they admire the Jews for their tenacious ability not to die out despite thousands and thousands of years of everyone trying to help them along to that end. Both the Fremen ([Zensunni](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zensunni) ) and Tleilaxu ([Zensufi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zensufi) ) are also continuations of (highly altered) Islam into the future. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/246 "2006-02-02T12:55:46Z")
> [@ryobserver](#): > > Or the robot army is SLOWLY unloaded from its carriers and detached from its shipping racks, while the Gungan army stands around politely waiting for them to be deployed. Like the Japanese, who often waited for US Marines to clear the landing craft & enter the interior before attacking. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/247 "2006-02-02T12:59:32Z")
> [@Linty Fresh](#): > > In outer space battles, there are no such things as battle strategies, recon, or air support. For instance, the attackers advance across a snowy plain in huge, slow, clumsy vehicles that can be seen for miles while the rebel leaders get in nine holes of golf, drink a gallon of vodka, sober up, catch the game on TV, and _then_ roll out the troops with time left over for practicing their steely-eyed stare. \ [PROBE DROID](http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/StarWars/images/BookImages/probe.jpg) :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/248 "2006-02-02T13:26:08Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Both the Fremen ([Zensunni](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zensunni) ) and Tleilaxu ([Zensufi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zensufi) ) are also continuations of (highly altered) Islam into the future. Exactly. ‘THEY DENY US THE HAJJ!’ as a cry of Fremen angst spelled it out for me. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/249 "2006-02-02T16:11:05Z")
I have learned that when facing an alien race who has super-strength/intelligence/psychic ability etc, the humans will still win in the end because the human spirit always triumphs. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/250 "2006-02-02T16:26:41Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It’s hard to face Mecca. I remember in one of L. Sprague de Camp’s novels, a grifter who had been arrested in another star system for some scam and was being brought back to Earth remembered his Islamic faith, and kept pestering the captain to determine Earth’s direction so he could pray towards Mecca; this meant he sometimes had to stand on his head, depending on the ship’s orientation at the moment. A mosque on another planet would probably require some kind of mobile electronic _qibla_ to show Earth’s direction at prayer time. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/251 "2006-02-02T16:29:50Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > It could be argued that BattleStar Galactica almost exclusively features Jews, except that these Jews are Quasipolytheistic Spjews. 😃 Actually, they’re Pseudo-Spmormons. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/252 "2006-02-02T18:23:01Z")
There are dozens of chemical compounds that are completely unduplicable in spite of the advanced techology. They can, however, be found laying around dozens of planets for the taking. Said planets will be, without exception, extremely hostile to whatever life needs the chemical either through climate, flora, fauna, or some combination of the three. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/253 "2006-02-02T19:07:33Z")
Never base a cure or life support system around a highly rare element, even if it may make for high stakes drama. There will be no such thing as money, making huge fleets of ships run on rare elements and crewed by hundreds of people who need food and life support just happen without costs. Even if you have the greatest amount of resources at your fingertips and span out many planets and have to deal with so many threats you build sheilds that don’t stop solid objects and have ships with such centralized controls that if your bridge gets hit the rest of you over sized over crewed ship is screwed. There are only two ways the future can be: 1)Really run down and crappy with an even crappier scret being hid from the populous (eg That crappy green biscuit may have been your crappy roommate, Society will get worse and worse and nothing can stop it etc). You know crappy. or 2)A paridise that actually covers over a crappy secret from the populous (eg. there is no renewal after 30, you are just some organ bank to harvest, you are food for something horrible thing) You know crap that smells like flowers. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/254 "2006-02-02T20:08:48Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Like the Japanese, who often waited for US Marines to clear the landing craft & enter the interior before attacking. Not quite as idiotic as it sounds; the Japanese had a different tradition of static defense then the West. In the West the idea was to build an inviolable barrier no enemy could penetrate; while in Japan defensive fortifications were built around the idea of luring an enemy into kill zones. It’s a question of wanting to destroy an attacking force from the advantage of prepared positions, not simply holding them off forever. **The Seven Samuri** shows a great example of the “sucker them in and kill them” strategy. It does however require that the attacking force not be overwhelmingly more powerful than you’d counted on, as the Japanese discovered in WW2. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/255 "2006-02-02T20:42:36Z")
Don’t eat the green wobbly bit. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/256 "2006-02-02T20:48:03Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Not quite as idiotic as it sounds; the Japanese had a different tradition of static defense then the West. In the West the idea was to build an inviolable barrier no enemy could penetrate; while in Japan defensive fortifications were built around the idea of luring an enemy into kill zones. It’s a question of wanting to destroy an attacking force from the advantage of prepared positions, not simply holding them off forever. **The Seven Samuri** shows a great example of the “sucker them in and kill them” strategy. It does however require that the attacking force not be overwhelmingly more powerful than you’d counted on, as the Japanese discovered in WW2. It was mostly a response to the fact that the US Naval artillery available would kill absolutely anything that wasn’t buried and protected. Defending the beaches would’ve been extremely hazardous because of the millions of tons of explosive death ready to head your way. And in the prime examples, Okinawa and Iwo Jima, in both cases they knew it was a hopeless battle, they just wanted to buy time to build up defenses at home and ideally discourage attacking Japan itself by making a bloody example. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/257 "2006-02-02T22:58:42Z")
I haven’t seen this mentioned yet…extraterrestrial artifacts are typically composed of compounds that are “not found on the periodic table!” ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/258 "2006-02-02T23:18:14Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > \ [PROBE DROID](http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/StarWars/images/BookImages/probe.jpg) > :dubious: OK, OK, so they have _some_ recon. Basically, they have a “probe droid” that floats three feet above the air while muttering to itself in electronese. I guess this is its idea of stealth mode, the idea being that nothing that obvious could be doing recon. Sooner or later, the rebels wise up and shoot the droid, which apparently has worse aim than an imperial stormtrooper. _Then_ the attackers advance across a snowy plain in huge, slow, clumsy vehicles that can be seen for miles while the rebel leaders do each other’s nails, sit around giggling a lot while drinking Perrier, gossip about what’s going to happen on the soaps, and finally roll out the troops with time left over for practicing their wookie impressions. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/259 "2006-02-03T01:10:51Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > \ [PROBE DROID](http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/StarWars/images/BookImages/probe.jpg) > :dubious: :eek: Don’t mention “probe” to an SF fan! ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/260 "2006-02-03T01:40:36Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > I haven’t seen this mentioned yet…extraterrestrial artifacts are typically composed of compounds that are “not found on the periodic table!” That is extremely funny. As opposed to all the compounds on there now, of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542.md?page=14)