Rant on!

---- MAD RANT ALERT ---- MAD RANT ALERT ---- MAD RANT ALERT ----

----Spoiler for B5 episode "Endgame" further down---- (just in case)

RE: Star Trek realism and other gubbins. Yes, ST does break a few laws
of physics in it's stories, but that is all they are. If we are going to
analyse ST, and in fact Sci-Fi in general, there are no series or films
which don't bend these rules at least slightly.
The Enterprise can accelerate at a rate that should tear it's crew
apart, and do a great many other things that should be impossible, but
so can other ships in other series.
Take for example the Whitestars from B5. Watch any episode that they are
involved in a battle in and you will see them pull maneouvers (sp?)
which should spread the crew all over the walls.
No-one questions the fact that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside.
Why doesn't the Leonov (2010), the Agamemnon (B5) or B5 itself include a
counter rotating section to push against and stop the rest of the ship
rotating the other way (Equal and opposite reactions etc...)?
Why do the capital ships in Space : AAB look just like 20th century
aircraft carriers?
How come in the B5 episode "Endgame", the Earth's defence grid didn't
use those particle beam cannon (that Pres. Clark aimed at Earth) against
Sheridan's fleet and instead used those horribly ineffective missiles?
Why are TIE fighters shaped so stupidly?
How come with all those bullets flying around in the A-team no-one gets
in the slightest bit hurt?
All these things require us to forget that we are constrained by these
laws, and believe (or just accept) that these things could actually
happen. I was going to come to a deeply impressive conclusion here, but
I forgot what it was.

That's all, you can come out of hiding now,
Andrew (wiping the foam from his mouth) Wren.

BTW, I kinda like the idea of space mines plugged into a handy socket,
able to be disarmed by pulling the plug out (Naked gun style).

On Thursday, January 15, 1998 12:22 AM, Wren A
[SMTP:A.Wren@] wrote:
case)
Yes, but who's to say there won't be anything like "inertial-dampers"
developed by that time. If they can bend space and use that as the
propulsion system, an inertial damper may also be likely... But than
again, nobody is 100% sure yet that FTL travel is possble anyway...
they
True, but if they have gravity-generating technology, they could
easily compensate for this.
It is possible they have small thrusters to compensate for this. And
besides, once the thing is spinning, you would need VERY little force
in the oposite direction because there is virtually no friction in
space (no atmsphere).
Because that is what they are - space-craft carriers! :)
Perhaps the particle beam cannot is very inacurate. While earth is an
easy target to hit, a moving ship may be much more difficult to hit
with that weapon. Plus, it may not be a very focused weapon, and
while it will kill millions on earth, it may easily be absorbed by a
battleship's armor.
Because the things on the sides (wings?) are actually solar panels.
They are there to provide power for the fighter craft. They are in
such possition to ensure reasonable absorption at most angles of
approach... But, yes, they do make the fighter craft a slightly
easier target...
Because A-team was supposed to be a comedy/parody.
Yeah... Possibly with a dead-man-handle type detonator. You power it
down, it drops containment, and boom. :)

Gordan

Previously, Gordan Bobic wrote....
I'd imagine we'd have more chance of getting something along the lines of
hyperspace working.
Only from the side - from the front (ie (-o-) ) the wings are going to be a
lot harder to hit and if you think about it - the mostly likely direction a
tie-fighter is going to be facing you when you're trying to shoot at it is
either towards or away.

Chris

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

Chris Turner wrote:
This is not very far from the way the warp drive works. Warp drive
continuously makes little space jumps (small space folds), and the uses
the rippling of the space to surf on it. Hyperdrive works in very much
the same way - you bend space between the point where you are and the
point where you want to be. Then you move to the point where you want to
be by moving to where you bent the destination point to (usually a few
inches is ample in such a situation). Then, you release the fold and the
space returns to it's normal state, and in doing this it catapults you
to the destination point. So, efectively, relative to the realspace, you
moved umpteen zilion lightyears (depending on how much you can bend
space. Relative to you, on the other hand, you moved a few inches. :)
Hence, no intertial damper / gravity canceller is necessary.

Or you could use the gravity canceller technology - you cancel out the
realspace mass of an object (don't askk me how - this is the wierd one
;^), and then create a time-space distortion. Since the object has no
mass, there is no inertia, so the object gets almost instantaneously
zapped over to the destination point. :)
Yes - this proves that their design is not as bad as it might have been
originally thought. :)

And besides - if you try to shoot at it from the side when it is moving
at mach 150, you will have somewhere around 2 pico seconds to hit it,
which is not very long even for an automated defence system to fire the
lasers into the target. :)

Still, my favourite is the TIE interceptor. (Fast, fast, fast! :)

Gordan

Are we talking about B5 hyperdrive or the Event Horizon one? B5
hyperdrive works by opening a gate into Hyperspace, a region where
everything is much closer together, so it takes less time to travel from
one point to another. I like this idea much more than "warping space"
What???????????????????
I rather like the design. At least it's different.
That's a point. Considering how fast they are going how could
Luke and Han actually hit anything with those manually moved guns on the
Falcon?
I prefer the shadow figthers

Luke

Dalli L said:
Quite apart from anything else, if there's too many people going
around bending space everywhere for their own purposes, I'd have
thought space would fairly quickly get very screwed up. (oh, it
already is?)
So where does conservation of energy/mass go at this point? It's not
only mass that's limited to light speed. Energy is limited to light
speed too... Even GRAVITY travels at the speed of light, although I
can't remember how you prove that.

No, screwing space up doesn't sound very clever. Opening a gate to
some place where everything is closer together sounds nice in theory,
but you have to find this place first, assuming it even exists, and
finding something that lies well outside normal space sounds very very
tricky.

There is one theory that the likes of Hawking still believe to be
possible. You open up a wormhole - yes this is possible - where you
take 1 point in space and split it into 2 points that can be
separated. Someone has already made a wormhole big enough to send an
electron through (or was it a photon?).

You take your 2 ends of your wormhole and drag them a few meters
apart, then you open them up (because they're very very small when
created) until they're big enough to send useful things like PEOPLE
through. You then have a gateway where you can step in one side and
come out the other side INSTANTLY because they're technically the same
point in space.

You then put one end of your gateway on a spacecraft and send it using
traditional techniques to a distant place. This means that you have to
make the journey at sub-light speeds ONCE, but thereafter (assuming
you can keep your wormhole open) you can just step between 2 different
planets and run cables between them and everything and they're no
further apart than any other step you might take.

Now Hawking and friends haven't YET managed to prove that this is
impossible, but they suspect they'll find some jolly good reason why
it doesn't work sooner or later.

This theory is kind of CLOSE to the "bending space up until your
distant point is actually very close" theory, except for the fact that
you have to start by making your own submicroscopic crease, and
gradually dragging the ends of the crease further and further apart
until you've got the bend that you were looking for.

Furthermore, if you send one end of your wormhole on a
near-light-speed return trip, you know how an astronaut can come back
the same age as the son he left behind? Well, you can bring the ends
of your wormhole back near each other and they technically occupy the
same POINT in space but a different TIME. you can bring the ends of
your wormhole back near each other and you have a time corridor... If
you managed to get a 1 year difference between the 2 ends of the
wormhole, and you brought them back until they were 1 meter apart,
then you can step into the gap between them, and walk through, and
you're back where you started but 1 year later. You can walk 10 meters
down the corridor and you've walked 10 years into the future. You can
also walk back down the corridor, but here's the clever bit, you can
only walk back as far as the point where you set the thing up. If you
try walking back another year, you'll find the gateway part-way
through it's near-light-speed trip around the solar system.

This unfortunately means that as soon as you start building this
machine, you find the corridor is packed full of tourists from the
future trying to visit you. Even ONE PERSON can fill the corridor if
they walk back and forwards down it enough times.

Hawking's main argument against this is that ONE SINGLE ATOM can move
down the coridoor at the right speed to exist in the same poinmt in
space thousands of times, creating an enormous mass and probably
wiping the machine out.

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky

[Wormhole stuff snipped]
Ah so you watched that horizon program too. However, I could have
sworn that at the end they had a quick bit at the end which pointed
out that one of Hawkings students had managed to prove the this minor
flaw in the theory.

If I recall correctly they also pointed out that the amount of energy
required to open the damn wormhole would be more than the sun gives out,
making the enterprise a little tricky.

Which made the whole program a waste of time from the perspective
of time/space travel. Very interesting from the point of view of
scientific proceedure though.

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

On Thursday, January 15, 1998 11:32 AM, Dalli L
[SMTP:L.Dalli@] wrote:
a
catapults
inches.
Yes, but consider - hyperspace is what it's name says!
Hyper-dimensional space! In B5 they are able to fold space and keep
it folded, thus making it appear that they are in another dimension,
which is outside normally visible 3-space dimensions. It is all down
to warping (or folding) space! This is the key idea behind the FTL
travel. If we cannot create hyperdimensional space, than the laws of
relativity (which have so far proved correct) prevent us from going
FTL. But, if we can warp space (like what happens near a black hole -
even horizon kind of thing), then we can work around that by saying
that we are moving in a subspace bubble. You see, all this is based
on the same thing. Hyper space (hyper dimensionally curved space),
Space fold (same thing), Warp drive/field/subspace bubble (again,
same principle), and the Event Horizon type drive are all essentially
the same thing. You fold up space to make your destination closer, so
you don't have to move as much. This same idea was used in Dune
(traveling without moving), and in fact just about every other sci-fi
film ever produced.

There are a few exceptions (the gravity canceler tech), but even this
does the same thing, albeit in a slightly different way.
out
wierd
has
As I said - it is a slightly wierd one. If you cancel out your mass,
than you can have infinite acceleration, plus the G-force will not
splatter you all over the walls of the ship. :)
on
Yes, but they have to slow down for an attack run. Falcon was nearly
stationary, and in order to fire on it, they would have to slow down
to roughly the same speed, otherwise the targetting computer would
not have the time to swing the laser cannons around and lock on. Of
course, given we have TODAY in fighter planes far more advanced
targetting and fire-control systems that what was demonstrated in
Star Wars, (and X-Wing, and TIE Fighter and all the other computer
games based on it) this remains a bit of a mystery. After all, a
computer would have much better chance of hitting a fighter plane
than a human...
Shadow fighters? Isn't that from B5?

Gordan

On Sunday, January 18, 1998 10:48 PM, Hanley F
[SMTP:F.Hanley@] wrote:
on.
advanced
a
I disagree. If the whole of the series we have seen only Luke
Skywalker, Yoda, Darth Wader, Obi-Van Kenobi, and the emperor who are
the Jedi masters. This only makes for a very small proportion of the
characters.

On the other hand, while the force can give you a good "feeling" for
improved accuracy, it is still very unlikely that you will be able to
beat the targetting skills of a computer. Human brain simply doesn't
have that kind of reaction time. From what I understood, force only
gives you some telepathic/telekinetic abilities, which make it
somewhat easier to anticipate your oponents move, and it gives you
the edge when attacking (you can telekinetically push on him from one
side while hitting him with the sword from the other, for example).
But moving an object is very difficult without concentrating a lot,
so it is not very easy to do when you are fighting someone. You may
be able to use it to some extent to aid your strength, but that's
about it...

Again, Just my humble opinion...

Gordan

gordan said
There were very few jedi masters but we saw that they were all capable of far more than just this. Yoda had no problems
lifting Lukes x wing out of the swamp. The Emperor
(not jedi but same thing) had electric fingers, etc.
As far as improved aim goes, to lift something telekinetically
one must be able to feel the shape, size and position
of something with one's mind. This is presumably what luke used in
Star Wars in the tunnel.

...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------
From: Gordan Bobic
Sent: 19 January 1998 10:05
To: 'ifis-chat@'
Subject: RE: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

On Sunday, January 18, 1998 10:48 PM, Hanley F
[SMTP:F.Hanley@] wrote:
on.
advanced
a
I disagree. If the whole of the series we have seen only Luke
Skywalker, Yoda, Darth Wader, Obi-Van Kenobi, and the emperor who are
the Jedi masters. This only makes for a very small proportion of the
characters.
Gordan

Lyth Chris wrote:
Yes, but even so, it is some kind of hightened perception. OK, it WILL
increase your chances of navigating successfully through tight spaces,
but it is not an all-doing, all-capable magic. It helps, but it isn't
infallible...

Note that Yoda did indeed CONCENTRATE to lift the X-Wing out of the
swamp. I doubt he could do it if he was fighting Darth Vader at the same
time.

Gordan

But that is only in the recent years of the Star Wars Universe.
Traditionally the Jedi Masters were responsible for keeping peace and
justice through out the galaxy. When the Empire wanted to rule the
galaxy they knew that the only thing that could really oppose them were
the jedes. So the Jedies were hunted down and almost completely wiped
out the Empirical forces. You will probably hear more about this in Star
Wars Geneses. (Which I can't wait for :-) )
Interesting, then, that in the first movie, Luke turned off his
targeting computer to make the hit on the Death Star. his colleges all
relied on computers, and missed. Also, Luke was a very inexperienced
Jedi at that time, imagine what a full Jedi Master could Do! :-)
Darth Vador didn't seem to have any trouble doing it in The Emperor
Strikes Back.

James Hanley, Jedi of the Dark Side.

On Monday, January 19, 1998 2:53 PM, Hanley F
[SMTP:F.Hanley@] wrote:
That is all fair enough, but it just proves a further point that the
force is not such an important thing as was considered - after all,
the Empire didn't have a lot of force wielding people (apart from the
Emperor and Darth Vader, and perhaps a few others). This means that
the Jedis were wiped out by nothing more than a bunch of Storm
Troopers with blasters. :)
able
Yes, but the computer missing the target - that is b******s. A
computer would hit a target in those conditions, even with today's
technology! I mean, today's fighter planes have more computers on
them than it was ever shown in any of the Star Wars ships. After all,
just look at the games (X-Wing, etc...) You have to turn the ship to
aim the lasers. Even today, the cannons can move at least a few
degrees to lock onto a target, withou necessarily turning the whole
plane toward the target!
you
True, but that was only because Luke was not very good at the time...
But, of course, someone as good as Darth Vader would be able to
concentrate very quickly, in order to loab stray objects at his
opponent... Which of course, holds for any really good Jedi master...

So yeah, I suppose you have a point...

Gordan

Gordan Bobic said:
And considering the demonstrated accuracy of the average stormtrooper,
this is quite an achievement!
Ummm, but you've got to rememebr that Star Wars is *NOT* set in the
future.

It's "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away".

They clearly followed a slightly different evolutionary track to us,
where super-accurate targetting computers didn't seem important
compared with "making the jump to light speed" and pretty glowing
swords, and huge man-made moons that blow up planets, and helmets that
make you sound even more evil than you actually are, etc etc...

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
Think big. Pollute the Mississippi.

What did Ben Kenobi say?
"This wasn't sandpeople. The blast points are too accurate. Only Imperial
Stormtroopers are this precise."

So stormtroopers are downright famous for their ability to accurately shoot
large slow things.

Anyway, we've not yet seen how the Jedis were "betrayed and murdered" by Darth
Vader.
Maybe he tricked them into hyperspace, and they never came back.
Maybe he let the stormtroopers into the barracks when they were all asleep.
Maybe he poisoned their soup.
Maybe he took them down to a planet, and said "Look! the atmosphere's perfectly
breathable."

Dominic.

"Show me something better than Sex and Alcohol and I'll show you my
hairy arse." [Barry McKenzie]

I thought that the Jedi knights were destroyed by Vadar and his cohorts,
some when after the Clone Wars.

As for the accuracy of storm-trooper blaster, it always make
me laugh when Obi-Wan looks at the damage on the SandCrawler and
says "look at these blaster hole, far too accuracy for Sandpeople,
must be imperial storm-troopers." One can only wonder how bad the
rest of the gaxaly is at shooting.

Star Wars also has the funny scene when one fighter takes out
an large cruiser - strangely enought another imperial ship can be
seem blowing up in the backgroung; but no one notices.
(Despite all this I think the Star Wars film are the best SF
films ever made...)


Daniel

P.S. You should see the film "Hidden Fortess", Star Wars is 80% a remake
of this. It's a Japaness film set in the 17th century. Darth Vadar,
the androids, Princes Leia, Obi Wan all make an appearance (in their
Japaness counterpart).

=====================================================================

Nortel Ltd, E-Mail : celano@
140 greenway,
Harlow Business Park, TEL : (01279) 405316
Harlow,
Essex.
CM19 5QD FAX : (01279) 405070

=====================================================================

On Tuesday, January 20, 1998 10:17 AM, Daniel Celano
[SMTP:celano@] wrote:
The same point I made in another thread... :) Glad we agree. :)
I agree - the idea of a fighter being able to blow away a Star
Destroyer is ridiculous. I mean, imagine one fighter plane taking on
a whole aircrafh carrier and winning!
Hmm... Can you suggest where a copy of this film can be obtained?
Perhaps, if there is more interested people, we can see it in an IFIS
film session. Even if it is just for the apparent connection to Star
Wars...

Gordan

In article <01BD25AD.2785EC20.gordan@>, Gordan Bobic <gordan@> wrote:
[...]
Like a single Mirage with Exocet sinking the Sheffield?

It happens.



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

On Tuesday, January 20, 1998 3:01 PM, simon@
[SMTP:simon@] wrote:
Hmm... OK, you've made your point... :)

Gordan

Dominic Thomas said:
Oh, I thought he was taking the piss!

When I went to see the Special Edition in the cinema, I almost fell of
my seat at that point. I was laughing my ass off!

Stormtroopers certainly seem to demonstrate, at all other points in
the movie, that if there are 30 stormtroopers and 3 "goodies", the
stormtroopers will miss all of them but suffer quite a few casualties.
Maybe he breathed at them in a threatenning manner.

Maybe he challenged them to a bit of target-practice against ten of
his best stormtroopers, and they died laughing!

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
Beating tomorrow's technology into submission.
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
War hath no fury like a non-combatant. -- Charles Edward Montague

Previously, Nick Waterman wrote....
That is because they are following the "rules". The "bad guys" in any film
always have to follow a series of rules, ie the head bad guy always has to
tell the good guys the plan before he kills them etc.

I can't remember the name or even the Author, but I remember reading a
trilogy of books that took the mickey out of such rules. Might be Craig
Gardener Shaw(??), thinking about it.

Chris

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

That'll be "River of the Dancing Gods" by Jack L. Chalker, and the two which
came after. Not bad books. Reasonably amusing.

Doh!

As resident Ifis Chalkerphile, I'm kicking myself for not spotting that
one. I thought Chris might not of read the rest of the MYTH series by
Asperin and was about to offer to lend him the series. Craig Shaw
Garderner indeed.

Still, I can regain my fan boy status by pointing out that there are
currently 5 books in the Dancing Gods series. Chalker has stated
that he needs one more book to wrap the series. However, because
the publishers don't like the series, it's highly unlikely that
there will be more. The most recent book, takes on the horror
genre, with the party searching for the Great McGuffin.

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

Chris Lyth also suggests something called the cineverse cycle by Craig Shaw
Gardner, which I'd not noticed.
FIVE?

Oh dear.
It was starting to wear a tad thin after three.

Dominic.

"Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself (includes cats)."

Previously, Dominic Thomas wrote....
Yup - thats the series I'm thinking of - well worth reading even if it does
get very silly in places.

Chris

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

[Books that take the piss out of the rules]
Can't say as I've read much Gardner (I found him to be highly
derivative and not particularly funny). Do you want to go into
a bit more depth as to his rules, Chris?

In River of the Dancing Gods, the theory is that after the creation
of the earth, a second world was created in the backwash. Being
as it was using second hand power, it was a bit flawed. As such,
something called the rules where created to allow the wizards of
that world to fine tune anything that had been missed. Anthing
added into the rules acts as if it were a fundemantal law, similar
to say gravity. For example, one such law states that all attractive
women, must be scantily clad. (Give or take certain sub-clauses
involving cold weather etc). Others include, the rule that states
that any conquest of territory must be accomplished by troops
(explaining why really powerful wizards always seem to drag an
army around).

All authors get their inspiration from dreams of this other world,
which is why our fiction follows these rules. I don't remember
the rule about mooks always missing heroes, but it's bound
to be in there. The first two books are certainly worth a read.

And whilst we're on the subject of rules, I ought to point out to that
Robert Asperin's MYTH series is an excellent example of an author
taking the piss out of various fantasy staples. Anyone who hasn't
read them, ought to.

Pratchett's take on the rules can probably be summed up neatly with the
rather famous quote "It's not a rule, more of a guideline really.."
Anyone who hasn't read Pratchett is remarkable brave.

Any others anyone can think of?

Later

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

Previously, Adam Hattrell wrote....
(I'm going to take a risk and assume that out of the _many_ chris' reading
this list you're talking to me? *8)

To be honest I don't think he ever actually gave a list of rules, it's
certainly been such a long time since I last read them that I doubt I could
remember them even if there was one. Not that it matters - if anyone tried
hard enough they could guess most of them already. We could put them on the
webpages if anyone actually does produce a decent sized list [Cue: What
webpages]

Chris, one of many.

---

chris@ #include <stddisclaimer.h> http://www.instituteofcorrection.org.uk/

"So this is really me? A no-style gimbo with teeth druids could use as a
place of worship" - Duaine Dibley (Red Dwarf - "Back to Reality")

The fourth book is fairly bad. Nothing really original. The other books
are fairly light, this ones depresive. Screws over the characters
fairly badly. Personally, I think he wrote it to stop the fans
requests for sequels to series he'd finished with. The fifth isn't
bad as it takes on a new genre, but unfortunately it carries over
a lot of the baggage from the fourth. If you found the third book
a bit of a bore, then I couln't really recommend them. Given
the recent discussion on the list I probably would recommend
"Downtiming on the Nightside" which is Chalkers take on time travel.

Later,

---

Adam Hattrell, Support, Cimio Ltd. adam@

On Tuesday, January 20, 1998 9:56 AM, Nick Waterman
[SMTP:nick@] wrote:
Which throws great confusion at people after someone in the first
part (I think it was Obi-Van) said that only the Imperial
StormTroopers can shoot this accurately...
today's
Yes, but they had more advanced technology. Not something we have
today, but possibly something we may have in the future.
us,
Yes, but one technology will make other possible. Obviously, you must
have a comuter on the ship that will fly most of the ship, especially
in the atmosphere. Now, if you have a computer to do that, that means
you have computer technology. Again, this means that it would have
probably occured to someone to stick a sensor on a laser gun and
throw in a computer that will aim it.

You see, the technology is very linked, and if something is invented,
then you can bet that someone will go looking for possible uses for
it, no matter how unreasonable they may be. And given that the
imperial troopers were not Jedi masters, the empire would have sure
invested LOTS of money and resources into technology that would aid
them in their fight against the Jedis - technology like the very
advanced targetting computers, etc...

Gordan

In article <01BD24C1.C09C51C0.gordan@>, Gordan Bobic <gordan@> wrote:
[...]
[...]

If the Force is supposed to be telepathic, we know that telepathy is
supposed not to be limited to the current time-frame: witness many accounts
of timeslips, flashbacks and flashforwards that occur in descriptions of
psi-powers.

The targeting computers are trying to get as close as possible to
simultaneous action, or to use deductive techniques to anticipate the target
in future time. A Jedi Master with the ability to perceive future events
would be able to shoot at the location that will be occupied by the target
in the future without complicated processing - he just shoots where the
target will be because he can "see" it.

Of course the "defocused temporal perception" theory of the Force might also
be offset by a "defocused temporal action" effect - hence "the Force is
strong in this one"...



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

On Tuesday, January 20, 1998 12:02 PM, simon@
[SMTP:simon@] wrote:
able
Yes, but they were missing the exhaust on the first Death Star.
Surely, this was a stationary target, and a computer should have had
no problem at all in locking on and hitting it. And surely, given
that the exhaust goes down from the surface, most of the targetting
would depend on the tracking systems inside the missiles themselves.
If they were computer guided, it was probably not very realistic that
they would have missed... But, then they would have lost an important
bit of the plot...

Of course, this all just stems from my complete lack of belief into
any kind of psi-powers or other forms of scientiffically
unexplainable powers which haven't even been proven to exist... But,
that's just MHO... And yes, I know - it was just a film... (I sense
flames coming... :)

Gordan

In article <01BD25F5.25832990.gordan@>, Gordan Bobic <gordan@> wrote:
[...]
[...]
Assuming I receive no massive objections, I am going to conclude that a
discussion of the relative scopes of science, magic, religion and philosophy
are off-topic, and take it to E-mail.



Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

On Thursday, January 15, 1998 8:21 AM, Gordan
Bobic [SMTP:gordan@] wrote:
that
I think that was his point.
Ah, but they don't. They're about to be given
it, as of the end of the 4th season.
So, what you're saying is that they put a weapon
on the Earth defence grid whose only apparent
practical use is to destroy a large, stationary
(relative), nearby flat surface. Mmmm, so
that'll be Earth, then.
I don't think he's being very serious, now.

---

Matthew Houghton

On Thursday, January 15, 1998 10:29 AM, Matthew Houghton
[SMTP:matthewh@] wrote:
No, no, no. This was not about EarthForce Battle Cruisers - this
originally referred to the WhiteStar ships! Those already have
gravity generating technology.
Well, it may be effective against fighters which whould get blown
away by it, but a battle cruiser has a lot of armor to make it
imune... This was just pure guesswork, and somebody already provided
a more likely explanation which I am not going to repeat...
Yes, but I thought I'd annoy him. ;)

<ducks out of the way>

Gordan

no-one
No, I think it has more to do with the fact that the A-team was a kids
show. The A-team where one of the few TV shows in history to recognize
that violent programs could have a negative effect on children. To
balance this with the knowledge that kids (and IFIS) enjoy watching
people shoot at each other, they went to the trouble of showing that
people weren't getting killed, or worse. Even badies who had just been
shot out of a tree would be shown getting up again. In more resent years
I've come to appreciate this. It's a pity modern kids death-and-glory
shows don't go to that much trouble.

James Hanley.

Jame Hanley said
James Hanley.

Personally,I think it is far more irresponsible to show major violence NOT hurting people. The A team is a minor example. Far worse is the tendency
in films like home alone to show a child inflicting mortal damage repeatedly
on adults and passing this off as humour. Even the least of Kevin McAllister's
traps should resultvin the hospitalisation of one of the burglars, not just acomedy pratfall
...............................................................................
clyth@
In relativity, matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter
how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted...
D. Adams Life, The Universe and Everything

----------
From: Hanley F
Sent: 16 January 1998 15:57
To: 'ifis-chat@'
Subject: RE: Rant on!
no-one

Absolutely, Home Alone and, even more, Home Alone 2 were extremely
irresponsible. The non-wounding violence was a very bad idea in that
situation. It showed (in an encouraging way) a child wounding adults
using methods that a child (or more precisely, the child of Satan!)
could theoretically pull of. Several traps in HAL 2 would have killed.
If I had children, I wouldn't let them see any of those movies.
However... In defense of The A Team, it's not to likely that five
children will get to gather with AK 47's and... Wait, let me rethink
this.... I those days it wasn't to likely that five kids would get
together to start killing people for money and American way!
Also, the A-team probably didn't kill anyone because they wanted to
show the kiddies that you can kick the **** out of badies, but you don't
have to kill them.

James Hanley

Lee once did a cool AD&D scenario where everyone assumed the role of an A-Team
member. I think we hid the Paladin under the tea trolley, and pushed him into
the baddies hotel room whilst masquerading as room service.
Of course, one could argue that it therefore trivialised violence, and made it
into a game, which of course, it isn't. So that these kids then bought AK47s
and were horrified when they killed and maimed people in shopping arcades.

But I wouldn't dream of using such an argument.

I liked Airwolf. When in doubt, blow the bastards up completely. Let's see you
come out of that one unscathed!

And has it affected me?

Has it turned me into a foaming psycho?

Worse - I GM Cthulhu marathons.

Dominic.

"If I ever have a mission statement, please shoot me." [Scott Adams]

Star Trek and Space AAB are "fun for all the family" Sci-Fi. i.e. all
the effort goes
into a fun, action adventure story where everyone can enjoy the
politically correct
space adventure, knowing that the good guys will win and Truth Justice
and the
American way will prevail. It's written for American TV audiences, to
make money,
not too explore the future of science (please note none of this applies
to the original
Star Trek series). It's fun to take the piss out of the dodgy
continuity (this has spawned
hundreds of books and articles, the funniest being in Scott Adams's "The
Dilbert
Future"). I don't see the problem in taking the piss out of the dodgy
physics.

Babylon 5 was written as an experiment to write a Sci-Fi series as you
would write a
novel. It tries very hard to maintain realistic tech and continuity
(which makes finding
mistakes all the more fun). It is closer to "hard-sci-fi" (which is
probably due to Harlan
Ellison being a good friend of JMS and being a consultant on the show).

DR Who was written for a British audience. i.e. it is slightly tongue
in check, or very
tongue in cheek for the scripts written by Douglas Adams.
The TARDIS interior exists in a separate dimension, this has been
mentioned in
several episodes. The other ships have devices to conter-act the
rotation, these
are not mentioned because the aim of the film/program is to entertain,
not bore
people with excessive techy details.
Because the writers/designers of Space AAB had no originality in there
ship design
(or in any of there scripts...) This is probably why it was canceled
after the first
season.
Because they take a while to warm up and more importantly because
President
Clarke had control of them and he was completely bonkers.
The amount of thought and planning that goes into the design of the tech
in these programs
generally reflects why they were written and who wrote them i.e.

ST:TNG - written by a committee of TV writers - written to make money
B5 - written by a Sci-Fi author (+ friends) - written as a TV experiment
Cool idea..

All the above is just my opinion, of course.

Paul.


Paul Ilsley
Paul.Ilsley@ (Work)
Pauli@ (Home)
"A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good."

Well excuse the hell out-a-me! (Space AAB fan here). The space ships
in Space AAB were cool. it is really quite sensible to base your ideas
on future ships on those of the present day (after all we learn form the
past). I haven't heard any complaints about the star destroyers in Star
Wars or the space ship in the 5th Element which went from Earth to that
'Paradise' planet. Now that I think about it, the 5th Element used
pretty much the same design for its battle ships.

I would also like to point out that Space AAB was one of the few
shows that recognizes that in the future you will still need
aerodynamics (sp) to fly in an atmosphere. May the Jedi Masters forgive
me for mentioning it, but those TIE fighters would fall straight out of
the air, disspite many indications in the movies that they could fly in
atmosphere. Most B5 and ST ships I've ever seen (though I haven't been
keeping up to date with B5) would be just as disabled (for want of a
better word) in atmosphere.

On Friday, January 16, 1998 4:47 PM, Hanley F
[SMTP:F.Hanley@] wrote:
form
out
fly
With all due respect, the F-117 Stealth fighter is the real life
proof that with enough computer technology on board to compensate,
you can make even a brick fly and stay airborne...

Gordan

Oh no, now someone's returned to that discussion thread about The
A-Team! I'll tell you why no-one ever got hurt - it was sanitised
violence! This is why so many people complained about Doctor Who over
on BBC1 at the same time on a Saturday afternoon during 1985 - at this
point, we were having people getting pushed into acid baths and Davros
having his hand blown off etc. Mind you, this season is recognised as
being particularly brutal by Dr.Who standards. Did the removal of such
violence after the 18 month holiday instigate the decline to the show's
eventual cancellation (which resulted from being put on opposite
Coronatin Street - a polite way for the BBC to say "We don't want to
make this show any more!")?

Oh dear, I do seem to have a habit of starting several discussion
threads in one day. Don't worry, I'm going home for the weekend - when
I get back, I dread to think how many E-mails I'm going to have... (how
many more generations of "RE: Rant on!" and "RE: Space ship propulsion
etc." will there be?)

David "If you were me, you'd be schizophrenic" Chilard