Stars, planets and other Sci-Fi peeves

I think it's profoundly misguided to think that Star Wars capital ships could or should have direct analogies to any genuine Earth wet-navy ships.
 
arthwollipot said:
I think it's profoundly misguided to think that Star Wars capital ships could or should have direct analogies to any genuine Earth wet-navy ships.
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But in the Lucasarts Games, there is a definent analogy between the Tie Fighter and the Zero: both are very fast and maneuverable ,but both have almost no protection (no armor for the Zero, no shields for the Tie Fighter) and one good blast will shoot them down.
 
Darat said:
Read some earlier posts and I am always amused when you read about two ships being able to meet and I'm amused because despite the terrible "science" involved in e.e. Doc Smith lensmen universe FTL (back in the 1950s he actually made a lot of use of "intrinsic" velocity, in other words two of his ftl craft could on FLT zoom to almost touching distance but then to actually transfer across the master pilots had to fight the rockets to match the ships " intrinsic" velocity ( their velocity before they switched to FTL). It was decades later that other science fiction writers started to think about this, and many of them still just ignore it.
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Sci FI Nerd hat on: Lensman novels were first published as serials in the pulp sci fi magazine "Astounding" in the Mid Thirties..the first was "Galactic Patrol" in 1936.
But no doubt Smith had a massive influence on Fifties Sci Fi "Space Opera".
"Triplantery" was published in 1934,but in it's original version, was not set in and had nothing to do with the Lensmen Universe. The 1934 Magazine version was only the last part of the novel, the earlier parts of the novel setting up the Lensmen Universe were added when Smith rewrote it for book publication in the late 1940's ( to cash in on the big success he had with the Lensmen stories).
 
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dudalb said:
Sci FI Nerd hat on: Lensman novels were first published as serials in the pulp sci fi magazine "Astounding" in the Mid Thirties..the first was "Galactic Patrol" in 1936.
But no doubt Smith had a massive influence on Fifties Sci Fi "Space Opera".
"Triplantery" was published in 1934,but in it's original version, was not set in and had nothing to do with the Lensmen Universe. The 1934 Magazine version was only the last part of the novel, the earlier parts of the novel setting up the Lensmen Universe were added when Smith rewrote it for book publication in the late 1940's ( to cash in on the big success he had with the Lensmen stories).
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I think you meant "Triplanetary".

"Triplantery" was about Triffids, I think. :p
 
dudalb said:
But in the Lucasarts Games, there is a definent analogy between the Tie Fighter and the Zero: both are very fast and maneuverable ,but both have almost no protection (no armor for the Zero, no shields for the Tie Fighter) and one good blast will shoot them down.
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That's not a capital ship.
 
arthwollipot said:
I think it's profoundly misguided to think that Star Wars capital ships could or should have direct analogies to any genuine Earth wet-navy ships.
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Its an amusing conversation though, seeing as they were all named in accordance with the rule of cool in the first place.

A. "Cruiser makes no sense for reasons....."
B. "Sure it does base on this elaborate rationalization......"
C. "Who cares its fantasy in space and they were just named things that Lucas thought sounded cool, you know, the guy that thought 'Count Dooku' was a good name and 'younglings' sounded like space talk for kids."
 
dudalb said:
Sci FI Nerd hat on: Lensman novels were first published as serials in the pulp sci fi magazine "Astounding" in the Mid Thirties..the first was "Galactic Patrol" in 1936.

But no doubt Smith had a massive influence on Fifties Sci Fi "Space Opera".

"Triplantery" was published in 1934,but in it's original version, was not set in and had nothing to do with the Lensmen Universe. The 1934 Magazine version was only the last part of the novel, the earlier parts of the novel setting up the Lensmen Universe were added when Smith rewrote it for book publication in the late 1940's ( to cash in on the big success he had with the Lensmen stories).
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Ultra nerd if my recollection is correct. you'll only find accounts of the master pilots matching intrinsics after the publication of First Lensman in 1950 hence my use of 1950s forgetting the initial publication dates in the magazines. I'll deduct a 100 nerd points for my terrible mistake!
 
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dudalb said:
I never said it was and I agree with you on that;I just noted there were some parrelesl between real world fighter aircraft and some of the ones in the X Wing Games.
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More like between incorrect pop culture and the SW universe, to be honest.

IRL no plane ever was really armoured, because if you made one bulletproof then it couldn't fly because it's too heavy. Most airplanes were designed to be able to take a lot of damage by, basically, shrugging off the fact that a few bullets passed right through one side and out the other -- and occasionally through someone's head on the way out. As long as you didn't break the internal frame or something important (engine, fuel tanks, pilot, etc,) holes through the skin had not much effect.

Even the famed B-17 flying "fortress", was not as much a fortress, as just being able to come back with a lot of bullet and shrapnel holes going right through. Again, and sometimes through someone's head on the way out. As the propaganda truthfully said, the planes WERE coming back. What they didn't tell you is that the crewmen were coming back in body bags. No, really, you had an about 80% chance to die before finishing your tour of duty. But the plane just didn't have a problem with having lots of holes in it.

Back to the Zero, it had just about as much armour as any US or UK or German plane at the time. Which is to say a bit of steel plating on the back of the pilot's chair and a bit in front of the pilot, including a thick glass block in front of the pilot.

The Zero also did have a much thinner skin, which some people misunderstand as "ah-ha! see? less armour!!!111eleventeen", but it was just a skin over an internal frame. Again, not unlike any other plane of the era. The skin had no real ability to stop bullets on any airplane. It didn't even matter if it were metal or canvas for that purpose: the biplanes that crippled the Bismarck came back with many dozens of holes each, but as long as the frame was still in one piece, the thing flew anyway.

The Zero originally did lack self-sealing fuel tanks, so there is that, but at that point it was ruling the skies anyway because, see below, its opponents had no clue what it can do. Later IIRC it got those too.

What the Zero also did have was a feature that was misunderstood by idiots at the time. See, when you pushed the throttle to the max, flames would shoot out the exhausts on the sides up front. So it looked like you just set it on fire with the first short burst. (Without even hitting with that burst, even! See how flammable it is? ;) ) When in reality, the pilot just put the pedal to the metal, so to speak. Many an idi... err... brave US airman has broken pursuit when that happened, and some then lost their life when that Zero came back from the "dead" and back into the fight.

Well, at least early in the war. Then they learned.

But at any rate, early in the war many had this mis-conception about how the Zero works. And comparing reports on both sides, false reports of downed zeroes were through the roof. Mind you, both sides were reporting more kills in an engagement than the other had total in the area, but the Zero kills were easily the most over-reported.

Eventually what doomed the Imperial airforce was more of a combined case that:

A) the Americans were progressing in air tech faster than they were. The Zero eventually lost its agility edge and really all other advantages.

B) the American pilots were learning fast how to deal with it, and passing that information on to other pilots. And

C) meanwhile the Japanese weren't. Their being unprepared for a long war also included not pulling out the veterans to train new pilots. Eventually, just as the quality of American pilots was going up, the Japanese were sliding back from elite pilots to rookies who only had a couple of hours tops of actual flight before they were sent to their deaths.

Oh, and

D) Yamamoto's misuse of carriers and generally Japanese naval doctrine being stupid.

You'll notice that none of that includes any armour factor.
 
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As of last week, very picky science fiction writers are banging their heads and saying "Orange event horizon! I should have gone with orange!"
 
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