Inspired by a recent discussion of interplanetary adventures

[james_davis_nicoll]

If you could educate the writers of interplanetary adventures about just one thing, what would it be?

Comments

[doc_lemming]

I couldn't limit it to just one thing.

On the list would be:

• Learn orbital mechanics, bitches!
• Space is big
• There is no stealth
• If you saw it in an SF movie, learn and do the math first, because it's probably wrong!

Not specific to interplanetary adventures, my current fatigue list includes:

• There are other revolutions than the American Revolution
• For that matter, giving the confederates guns? Been done, tired of it
• There are other empires than the Roman Empire (and, frankly, it contained multitudes more than you're showing)
• There are other historical characters than A Certain General Of Justinian

My, I'm grumpy today. This document I''m writing has me on edge.

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

Newtonian physics, by which I include both celestial mechanics and how rockets "work".

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

This. As well as that spaceships are not boats.

[(Anonymous)]

With the freefall section underlined. And everything in real scale (esp. velocities).

Ewa

[asyouknow-bob.livejournal.com]

That 'libertarianism' is not a universal solution?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Actually, that hasn't been too common in the recent ones I've seen.

[asyouknow-bob.livejournal.com]

I guess I haven't seen many recent iterations, then: I may have been driven away from the sub-genre after reading my fill of stories of "Plucky Space Miners Throwing Off The Collectivist Shackles of Earth".

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Have there been many about "Extremist Space Colonists Throwing Off The Collectivist Freedoms of Earth"?

Okay I couldn't figure how to phrase that well :).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

John Barnes had one where the Earth-orbiting space-libertarians had crushed the Earth's various governments and were running the place as their own little empire, and the deep space socialists decided to stick their oar in (for their own reasons, not to help the unfortunates of Earth).

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

Title? I GOTTA read this one.

[terheyt.livejournal.com]

Psychiatry.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

That plot and good characterization makes up for a lot.

To Qoute Douglas Adams...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Space is big. You just won't believe how big...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

You stole my suggestion.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Space is big

Space is dark

It's hard to find

A place to park



Burma Shave

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

[agoodwinsmith.livejournal.com]

Huzzah!

No real suggestions regarding the science, because I never know when it is wrong, and I don't care, but that's funnnnnnny. :)

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

But that doesn't mean you get to claim your river is longer than the Milky Way.

[ilya187.livejournal.com]

It's a really, REALLY, winding river...

[ilya187.livejournal.com]

If all windings of The River in Philipp Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" were 1 km apart, and the planet was the size of Earth, the river's total length was close to 550 million kilometers. That's not a typo: 5.5 * 10^8 km.

Actually, I think in the book river windings were more like 5 km apart, which would make the river 5 times shorter.

[ilya187.livejournal.com]

Extraction industries such as mining can be basis of economy in some location, but can never be basis of total economy. However rich you may get digging X out of the ground, he who processes X into consumer products will always be much richer than you. Otherwise he'd never buy X from you at such price in the first place.

And "richer than you" means "has access to more and/or better spaceships and weapons".

[frater-treinta.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily, actually. His profit is dependent on the total cost of production and the sale price. If you're digging X out of the ground for $10 and selling it to him for $100, but he can only get $105 for what he makes out of it, your profits will handily outpace his. It's true that his prices will be higher, but that doesn't automatically imply higher profitability.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Don't put apostrophes into words to show they're in an alien language.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

+1

[daev.livejournal.com]

We live in a post-ASCII world -- use random IPA symbols instead!

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

Can we add the corollary that aliens can use contractions?

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

Unless it's to represent a genuine glottal stop and/or laryngeal fricative.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Sometimes a planet will have more than one society on it.

Societies often have more than two or three defining characteristics.

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

The planets in the solar system are not always the same distance apart. You know when they say something like: "I'll get tomorrow's ship to Mars, and, as usual, I'll be there in six months." The same with radio lag time. It is not *always* twenty minutes between remarks. In another few months it could be much longer.