Hawki said:
Bends, breaks, it's academic.
I think the distinction matters (well, no, none of this really
matters, but re the contexts of this discussion).
Interstellar, for example, mostly pushes its ideas and scenarios to the single percent degree, i.e. Kip Thorne and co tried to appease Nolan's story by pushing everything to the very edge, be it how viable the film's blight crops could be to the exact math of the black hole's spin rate, etc. If it's statistically possible at all, then they rolled with it.
...then again even this is subjective, I suppose. For one step in the 'believable' chain of events they needed a gravitational break. Kip's math dictated they needed another smaller black hole, but Nolan didn't want to introduce another given Gargantua's such a focus for the whole film - he, quite understandably, felt it would've complicated things too much. So a neutron star was included instead. Cold science would've determined the ship would've been torn to pieces by such a tiny body's tidal forces versus the 'gentler' effect of a smaller [than Gargantua] black hole.
Is that a bend, or a break? Technically it is the latter, if the science of
science-fiction has to count for something. One could argue they're still respecting - at this point - Newtonian rules (by acknowledging that a gravitational break was needed), so for some that could be an element of hard sci-fi, for others a bend, and for the real sticklers a break.
(btw, I read Kip's book several months after a viewing of the film, and for the life of me I can't even remember if the script mentions the above chain of events. if it does, it's only in a single sentence in passing. I'm intending to re-read it then rewatch the film sometime soon)
For instance, Mass Effect has FTL travel. I'd say breaking the rules is to have FTL travel without any explanation as to how. Bending them is having FTL travel but providing an explanation for it.
Eh, like I said previously, to me this isn't really bending - it's just
cheating. It's a hand wave. So much of Mass Effect's 'science' is utter bullshit because much of it revolves around a fantasy element which the writers have behave in exactly however way they wish. For all intents and purposes something like that cordons off a fundamental component of its entire science-fiction, thus making critique and analysis nigh on impossible... It's a 'nope! not going there!' finger-snap from the writers; if the core ideas can't be analysed, then none of its adjacent uses and consequences can be deconstructed to any satisfying degree.
This is compounded by the - what I'd describe as - very mushy, soft sci-fi or sci-fantasy depictions of ship movements, as well as potentially much of the script itself. Kallo in ME:A mentions 'descent engines' engaging. What are they? Is that just lazy writing from people who've no interest or understanding in science and speculative ship design, or is that an actual component of ship operation that the Codex doesn't bother to outline? Is 'descent engines' supposed to somehow represent a
mode of using ME fields from the core during landing? Or does it refer to the - peculiarly lonely - vertical thrusts, and if so, why don't
all ships in the ME 'verse have them as well as the other points of thrust which should be there?
I'd argue the series is pretty bad at depicting its own rules or non-rules, and all of this complicates classification/analysis (don't dare mention Newtonian law, for example, then have none of the depicted events conform to those).
Apropos FTL in a game like this: it might piss some people off, and it'd certainly require a significant overhaul of the entire gameflow and structure, but given ME's FTL is not magi-teleportation, having a set amount of time for some quests and tasks would be very interesting, and would enrich the science of its fairly pulpy science-fiction, e.g. every, er, time you jump systems or travel between bodies within a system a timer/counter reduces by an amount appropriate to the distance.
On the lore side of things that's just what would happen, but the game does not reflect that. You could have a generous timer for tasks, sure, and not all would be bound to them. In the trilogy (2 and/or 3?) you had the fuel resource, but ME:A has nothing of the sort. Ideally I'd like a fuel resource as well, but having time be another resource would be a great idea, and could obviously add layers to the narrative RPG side, e.g. a task initiated on a certain world could lead to multiple courses of action, with the consequence being you quite literally wouldn't have the time to accomplish all of them given ME's FTL still isn't fast enough.
Having the characters actually acknowledge those ideas would greatly strengthen its sci-fi credentials (because, again, what does any detail matter if it's just buried in Codex entries. ME's Codex is reasonably hard, but the game and its cinematics sure as hell ain't).
Haven't played ME2, but my point was "a to b." Mass Effect establishes that the world as we knows it existed, and a chain of event occurs that leads us to the year 2183 and beyond. That's sci-fi worldbuilding, whereas fantasy worldbuilding can often get away with the premise of "here's a world, don't ask about Earth." Star Wars is one such example of this approach.
Again, I'd say 'eh' to that. At the end of the day the depiction of life in space is still as fantastical. Firefly's 'verse has that A-to-B, but its depiction is frequently ridiculous (by way of being dramatically fantastical, e.g. guns 'needing' oxygen or atmospheric pressure to fire, or ships presumably at FTL coasting past each other within a few hundred meters).
Re worldbuilding: isn't what a character wears in a given environment just that? The tiny moments that make up the whole? Should any property putting on a sci-fi hat dare to flat out ignore the entire environment with regards to equipment? I suppose ME's own take on space-magic - mass effect fields and biotics - could be trotted out (again) to explain it, but that still breaks down when you consider that a KO'd biotic cannot maintain fields, ergo they'd have to rely on suits protecting them from potentially extreme environments.
Not catsuits and what you wear around a ship or market square... Some might call that dramatic license, sure, but I call it a pretty fundamental failure of an IP's science credentials.
Interstellar I'd classify as "hard" sci-fi. In that, soft sci-fi and hard sci-fi tend to favor different approaches:
Soft: "I'll tell a story, and use science to support/allow for it."
Hard: "I'll show my knowledge/ideas about science, and use a story to convey them."
Interstellar's approach is very much in the latter category.
Well, we'll have to respectfully agree to disagree on that methodology.
IMO, it falters on both these counts... / Tries to the exclusion of almost any other consideration.
...and that, obviously. ;-) Interstellar has a handful of moments of Nolan's quite patronising literalism, but overall I bought the entire premise and tone, and loved the sense of awe that it embraced and celebrated. I can't think of
any other film that depicts space travel and certain astronomical phenomena as well (or as spectacularly) as Interstellar. Nolan's typically a rather emotionless, overtly cerebral director, but Interstellar was incredibly emotionally grounded as well.
Xeorm said:
Pay attention to the last bit. Normally, any reaction drive like we use for our rockets means you release very hot propellant in order to propel yourself forward. It makes you very, very visible to anyone looking for heat signatures, and there's little you're able to do to mask it.
That entry surely still doesn't explain the range of motion of the Normandy (unless you're suggesting it uses that to bank and pitch in and out of vacuum) or any other ship in ME - given the Tantalus is a prototype.
As I said somewhere in the above reply; the series is incredibly unclear about its modes of flight. In Elite there are no atmospheres to deal with (yet), but conventional thrust functions as it should (main engines plus those necessary for maneuvers), and those are affected by variations in gravity (no MEF's in Elite's 'verse, obviously!). Then there's the Alcubierre flavoured FSD/frame shift drive, for sub-light speeds to several thousand times
c. The FSD also allows it to jump between systems, which is - as far as my grasp of Elite lore can tell - essentially a process of higher/inter-dimensional travel.
Compared to that I still don't know how [all] ships move in Mass Effect, and when and where (and why) certain drives are engaged (ME:A's 'descent engines' are another wrinkle. not sure if the trilogy ever included such terminology). Sure, Elite's a simulation and it needs that clarity for its very gameplay, but surely all sci-fi should get the very fundamentals of such technology and drive systems clear.
