# 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:** 13\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/261 "2006-02-03T07:06:24Z")
> [@kingpengvin](#): > > 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. What’s this from? Closest I can think of is Star Trek, though their sheilds do stop most things (to varying degrees of success) and they do have the Battle Bridge on the larger ships (however, we hardly ever see them USING the Battle Bridge, which is presumably manned by the Graveyard Shift crew that we never see. > [@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. You can also see an example of this defense, incidentally, in “The Last Samurai” and “Babylon 5: In The Begining” (in Last Samurai, it was used by the Samurai vs. the Imperial Army, in the B5 movie, it was used on various occasions (quite succesfully) by the Minbari against the humans. > [@SenorBeef](#): > > 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. Contrast to the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, where General MacArthur sent out his troops to try and guard all the beaches, thus having totally insufficient numbers to repel an attack on any given beach. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/262 "2006-02-03T07:22:22Z")
> [@kingpengvin](#): > > 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. What’s this from? Closest I can think of is Star Trek, though their sheilds do stop most things (to varying degrees of success) and they do have the Battle Bridge on the larger ships (however, we hardly ever see them USING the Battle Bridge, which is presumably manned by the Graveyard Shift crew that we never see. > [@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. You can also see an example of this defense, incidentally, in “The Last Samurai” and “Babylon 5: In The Begining” (in Last Samurai, it was used by the Samurai vs. the Imperial Army, in the B5 movie, it was used on various occasions (quite succesfully) by the Minbari against the humans. > [@SenorBeef](#): > > 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. Contrast to the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, where General MacArthur sent out his troops to try and guard all the beaches, thus having totally insufficient numbers to repel an attack on any given beach. ---
**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 3, 2006, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/263 "2006-02-03T13:07:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :eek: Don’t mention “probe” to an SF fan! That’s the _other_ thing I’ve learned from Science Fiction–the part of the Human body that Aliens find most intresting/appealin/attractive is the Rectum. The Alien Greys are all ET deviates. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/264 "2006-02-03T13:12:33Z")
I learned, too late, that man is a feeling creature – and because of it the greatest in the universe. ---
**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 3, 2006, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/265 "2006-02-03T13:49:36Z")
> [@Johnny Angel](#): > > I learned, too late, that man is a feeling creature – and because of it the greatest in the universe. yeah, he can really feel those Alien Probes… ---
**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 3, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/266 "2006-02-03T14:27:09Z")
> [@Johnny Angel](#): > > I learned, too late, that man is a feeling creature – and because of it the greatest in the universe. > [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > yeah, he can really feel those Alien Probes… I’m reminded of a young woman named Ophelia Bottom. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/267 "2006-02-03T14:31:30Z")
It’s a COOKBOOK! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2006, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/268 "2006-02-03T14:49:24Z")
Despite when the evil robots say, our emotions don’t make us weak and vunerable. ---
**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 3, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/269 "2006-02-03T15:04:03Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Despite when the evil robots say, our emotions don’t make us weak and vunerable. NO INDEED! It’s our soft, fleshy shells that make us weak and vulnerable. > [@Bender of Futurama](#): > > DESTROY ALL HUMANS! ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/270 "2006-02-04T09:07:41Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > NO INDEED! It’s our soft, fleshy shells that make us weak and vulnerable. When the Aliens invade, we will have to find a way to exploit their only weakness… …their [entire bodies](http://www.itswalky.com) ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/271 "2006-02-04T12:22:06Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > When the Aliens invade, we will have to find a way to exploit their only weakness… > > …their [entire bodies](http://www.itswalky.com) I’ll have you know that I just spent three-odd hours reading the comics on that site. So much for sleep. But anyway…thanks! A bunch of Bach organ preludes on iTunes, quirky webcomics, and a long weekend…sometimes, life is just that good. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/272 "2006-02-13T18:45:18Z")
Here’s some more SF cliches: [http://www.galactanet.com/comic/253.htm](http://www.galactanet.com/comic/253.htm) And here: [http://www.galactanet.com/comic/174.htm](http://www.galactanet.com/comic/174.htm) And here: [http://www.galactanet.com/comic/163.htm](http://www.galactanet.com/comic/163.htm) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2006, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542/273 "2006-02-13T18:56:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :eek: Don’t mention “probe” to an SF fan! [http://www.galactanet.com/comic/31.htm](http://www.galactanet.com/comic/31.htm) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-i-have-learnt-from-science-fiction/341542.md?page=13)