The Laws of Science Fiction

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I think this leads to another rule: Setting your background and characters as similar to modern-day, familiar surroundings and situations as possible will help to draw in your audience. If the settings and situations are too "alien" and unfamiliar, you're liable to lose the reader's investment in the story.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Funny how so many of the decisions related to science and realism in SF come down to how "fun" it is... to encounter humanoid aliens, and to speak to them... to travel at ludicrous speeds... to have sex with robots... to have maritime-type battles in deep space... etc...

Well, from what I've been able to gather from the vast number of people who read fiction, they're in it for the "fun". So if it's not fun in some way, it doesn't sell.

Originally Posted by crich70

There is also the fact that the Orson Welles broadcast had the story set in NJ rather than in England as well. The filmmakers might have felt that more people are familiar with that version of the story than H.G.Wells actual book. The original WOTW movie was also set in the U.S. if you recall. Probably for the same reason (and possibly in part due to budget needs too).

Exactly! The biggest reason why that's done is simple familiarity. American audiences are going to be familiar with American locations. And if you really think about it, traditionally, foreign anything is seen as bad/evil/scary, and anything near home is consider safe/good. Why do you think most bad guys are foreigners? To admit we have those kid within our own midst would be paramount to treason in some people's eyes.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

And if you really think about it, traditionally, foreign anything is seen as bad/evil/scary, and anything near home is consider safe/good. Why do you think most bad guys are foreigners?

I think of Nosferatu, and Stoker's Dracula... both symbolic examples of the distrust of foreigners and foreign customs, come to corrupt good homey ways and ruin our women...


This week, BBC America is running its "Accent of Evil" week, subtitled, "Why are all villains Brits?"

(My first thought: Scarface. My second: Nazis. Brits are way too sensitive...)

[Over]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Over: Maybe so, but if you plan to have any inter-species communication between them, or any conversations that the reader can understand, you'll need it. Otherwise you can only end up with mute aliens, and that's no fun, safe for a sci-fi horror thriller where mute is best.

I can understand that, but I think there are more "realistic" ways to do that, like initially not knowing the language and then, after a learning process, we know they are talking their language but we hear/read in english, because we're reading/hearing what the listener (the human character) is understanding of the conversation, for example.

Although I think it's always much more immeresive to just imagine ways to comunicate with an alien, not knowing its language nor having them conviniently speaking english from the beggining.

Another thing about sci-fis... Why 90% of those books, when the story is centered on Earth (past or future), all events happens in the USA or has an american hero? Are aliens talibans, hating USA the most? Or they perceive the USA as world leaders, so when they asked somebody "take me to your leader", the obvious answer was "USA"?

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

As for my own contribution, all I can say is that please, for the love of God, avoid what TVTropes calls a "planet of hats": having all members of a species be defined by a single trait. If the majority of your alien species have a single one-note culture, like being logical or being warriors or being greedy, chances are you are doing something wrong.

Well. . . Sorta yes and sorta no. It should be acceptable for an otherwise sympathetic character to only SEE a single characteristic and to present that POV in the body of the story as if it were an inescapable truth. The challenge for the author is in presenting hints to the reader that the character's POV is flawed without destroying the character's credibility.

If the hint's are subtle enough and the reader misses them, is it an error of the writer or of the reader? Maybe it's a case of 'doing your best and pray for the rest'.

[Xanthe]

Originally Posted by nyrath

But not all readers. Under current circumstances, all FTL drives violate causality, which is why most physicists say they are impossible.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/roc...html#causality
The aphorism at rec.arts.sf.written goes "Causality, Relativity, FTL travel: chose any two." It is logically impossible to have all three, one of them has to go. (unless you want to open the squirming can of worms that is Causality Protection)


The hole will try and suck everything out, but it is not a black hole. All the loose papers and lightweight things will go into the hole, but nothing more massive
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3g.html#meteors
Mythbusters did a related experiment on blowing a hole in an aircraft, and found that no, the passengers would not be forcibly extruded through the hole like a Play-dough Fun Factory.

And "forbidding weapons that can puncture the hull" still covers a lot of ground. Shotguns, frangible rounds and flechette weapons are all firearms that can kill people dead yet not harm the hull.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3l1.html

Otherwise I generally agree with your list.

In reverse order, my concern was not banning weapons per se - I would imagine that there would be just as large an outcry as there would have been during any journey of exploration or journey to more violent cultures - just weapons that could directly damage the means of conveyance from Point A to Point B.

Until Mythbusters can prove it by testing it in the actual vacuum of outer space, I'll hold off on buying their proof. Besides, I like the conceit of holes blasted into hulls sucking out people.

No, I realize that for some readers of scifi every i has to be dotted, and every t crossed. But for someone like me who didn't major in quantum physics (or any other science) I really couldn't care less if FTL travel is impossible on any basis. I want a good story and if the author can give me an explanation of why it should work in their storyline, then I'm going to accept it and not get hung up over the fact that it's not possible. Anyway, I tend to believe that all things are possible - we either just haven't figured out how to do it or our species hasn't evolved enough mentally to comprehend the means.

[Joebill]

Hm... I have seen a few mono-cultures, right here on Earth. Expose someone in them to anything outside their experience and get in return 'You aint from around here are ya ?".

The human ability to ignore something new is very wide spread. Why, it even goes all over the world.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Until Mythbusters can prove it by testing it in the actual vacuum of outer space, I'll hold off on buying their proof. Besides, I like the conceit of holes blasted into hulls sucking out people.

Well, actually, they did in a small way when they tested the explosive decompression of an aircraft. And oddly, what they proved was that, depending on the pressure involved, and the volume of air, combined with the size of the hole, it is possible to suck someone out. But the volume of air and its corresponding pressure must be high enough first off to get them to the hole, and then the hole must be large enough to allow them through. If any of those three are insufficient, then they won't get sucked out.

So in other words, a room that is 8x8x8 pressurized to 1 atmosphere above external pressure has enough power and volume to suck someone through an open door very easily, but not through a viewing window. To suck them through the viewing window, you would need at least 10x's the pressure, as the body would need to first be collapsed in order to fit through the hole. That's been observed even in deep sea conditions where pressures are several hundred times that of sea surface pressures.

Case in point, there's a video on youtube that shows video from a repair bot as it was cutting through a pipe at several hundred feet. A crab walked over the pipe, was suddenly adhered to the pipe, and then imploded and was sucked into it through a quarter inch slice in the pipe in less than 2 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f17abJOMel4

Now if you figure out the pressure outside vs what was likely inside (I'm guessing 1 atmosphere since it was initially dropped in at the surface), you'll figure out what pressure difference was required for that.

Originally Posted by Joebill

The human ability to ignore something new is very wide spread. Why, it even goes all over the world.

lol. I actually use that in some of my books. It's a fun theme to play with.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Until Mythbusters can prove it by testing it in the actual vacuum of outer space, I'll hold off on buying their proof. Besides, I like the conceit of holes blasted into hulls sucking out people.

I saw that Mythbusters ep, too. In case you don't regularly watch it, I will attest to their thoroughness in testing their myths (in this case, the "sucked through an airplane window" myth, but the theory applies to vacuum too), and I agree that they busted that idea.

In fact, the situations shown in the latest Star Trek movie are found to be more accurate, where large chunks of hull being opened to space create large amounts of air and debris being blown out and carrying people out with it. But typical air pressure is simply not strong enough to pull large objects through tiny holes... they just plug it.

I mentioned the "fun" aspect of SF before, and I agree the idea is "fun." But when it is proven to be so glaringly inaccurate, sometimes you have to let the "fun" stuff go...

(...says the guy with FTL drives in 4 of his novels and who backs up a Trek movie...)

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I mentioned the "fun" aspect of SF before, and I agree the idea is "fun." But when it is proven to be so glaringly inaccurate, sometimes you have to let the "fun" stuff go...

(...says the guy with FTL drives in 4 of his novels and who backs up a Trek movie...)

Trek seems subject to less stringent restrictions than other SF.

A friend has written Trek novels, and has friends in NASA. She once asked one about a spacecraft executing an Immelman Turn. The response was that it didn't work that that way in space, and you wouldn't do an Immelman Turn. "Look, this is for Star Trek!" she replied, to which the response was "Oh. It's for Star Trek? In that case, you just..."
______
Dennis

[Falcao]

I hate when SF books are situated in, say 30th century, and make references to 20th/21th century facts, like if somebody would remember us in 30th century. How about making references to some invented 27th century cultural trends?

[Joebill]

One book I read on becoming an author said to not mention Star Trek if you wanted to write more serious stories.

Relatives have asked me about the science in Trek. I point out that it appears they write the story/episode and then ask the sceince people about it.

One thing that irritated me is that show uses time travelled to the destination as a plot device, the distance isn't covered in the same amount of time with the same type of ship, i.e. no internal consistency.

That 'internal consistency' is what I use to accept or not accept various propulsion methods or devices a SF story uses. If the author comes up with a reasonable explnation of why it works, and sticks to it, I'll accept FTL ships in a story.

i.e. I'll accept Dylithium crystals before I'll accept 'well, it just does'.

[Joebill]

Originally Posted by Falcao

I hate when SF books are situated in, say 30th century, and make references to 20th/21th century facts, like if somebody would remember us in 30th century. How about making references to some invented 27th century cultural trends?

As long as, like Futurama, they get it wrong or semi-correct, I don't mind.

I remember reading an article on clothing styles in the future... the article was written in the 1950s, for the distant future of the 1990s. Either in Analog or Astounding Stories. I don't remember when the name changed to Analog.

None of those clothing styles have happened, except at sf conventions. Well, those that could be seen in public.

[Xanthe]

I do watch Mythbusters, but I didn't happen to see that episode.

Nonetheless, whether it is actually possible or not, the idea that everything nearby would be sucked out into space has, I think, already traveled into the realm of common belief - whether it is scientifically true or not. So for your average reader, like me, we're just not going to have a WTF moment when we read about it happening in a story. We all have vacuum cleaners. We see what happens when something comes too close to the nozzle when the vacuum is turned on. We are told space is a complete vacuum, so therefore anything exposed to space must be sucked out into it. We're not concerned with degrees of "sucktivity".

Then again, I'm sure that there are things in stories that cause WTF moments for me that some of you would totally gloss over. It all depends upon our areas of expertise, I suppose. Don't know how many times I've read books with references to historical events in which I've screamed, "Noooo, it didn't happen that way!".

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

"sucktivity"?

Can I add that to my lexicon?

Originally Posted by Joebill

One thing that irritated me is that show uses time travelled to the destination as a plot device, the distance isn't covered in the same amount of time with the same type of ship, i.e. no internal consistency.

Rule: Consistency is KEY to accepting fictional science. If technology reacts to different situations in a counter-intuitive way, or in similar situations in different ways (or, as demonstrated by the old "Flash Gordon" serials, a laser that can melt a rock, yet create only a building agony when projected onto Flash Gordon's chest until it can be switched off at the other end of the cliffhanger--gad, I laughed at that scene!), the audience won't believe the science, and you've lost them.

Subrule: Quantum Mechanics is still mysterious enough to sometimes supply a "fudge-factor" and explain inconsistencies. But don't get too sloppy using it.