Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> In outer space, which is perfectly jet black apart from a few tiny
> points of light, it's going to be a tad difficult to not emit a single
> stray photon of thermal radiation. A space ship is presumably quite hot.
> Certainly a damn site hotter than what little dark matter is floating
> around out there. I'm also unsure whether you can shield the /outside/
> world from radio-frequency signals emanating from /inside/ a structure.
> (These ships have computers, right?)

In _Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country_, the Enterprise tracks a Klingon
ship by its exhaust.

Question is, why can't they do that in /every/ episode that has Klingons or
Romulans?  (Answer: because it would kill off a neat plot device.)
________________________

There are some suspensions of disbelief that are pretty standard for SF movies
with interstellar settings:
  - FTL travel and instantaneous communication across astronomical distances.
  - No G forces.  (_Star Trek: TNG_ addresses this with inertial dampeners.)
  - Nearly all intelligent life forms are humanoid.
  - Artificial gravity.

  - The stars of all habitable planets radiate at 5800 K.  Except Krypton.
  - In interstellar space, there is enough lighting to see the ship's hull.
  - In _Star Trek_, the universal translator.  In other movies, aliens that
    speak English on first contact.

_Star Trek_ has a couple of irritants: planets are backlit with a large finish {
ambient }, and gaseous nebulae are dense enough to hide in.

In _Star Wars IV: A New Hope_, the _Millenium Falcon_ is said to go 0.5 past
light speed.  Not fast enough!

_ST:TNG_ episode "Who Watches the Watchers?" has an inhabited planet orbiting
the star Mintaka.  No can do!  Mintaka is a class O star IRL; in the unlikely
event that a planet can even form around such a star, such stars do not live
long enough for intelligent life to evolve.  (It was still an excellent
episode.)

_ST:TNG_ episode "The Next Phase" has so many scientific plot holes it whacks
you upside the head with a frozen fish.  Could not suspend disbelief.

_ST:TNG_ and _ST: Voyager_ have episodes where individuals evolve or devolve.
Evolution doesn't work that way.

Post a reply to this message