Stars, planets and other Sci-Fi peeves

[HansMustermann]

To be fair TOS for better or worse IS a product of the 60's. It IS rather progressive for the 60's, but a certain dose of sexism is there.

I mean, for example, I don't remember the name of the episode off the top of my head (might have been season 2?), but at one point Kirk expects to lose a female officer because she marries. I guess, of course a woman would then stay in the bedroom and make babies, instead of keeping her job on the bridge.

And then there's Mudd's Women, where a bunch of women would do anything, even take some mysterious medicine that the FDA probably never approved, to land a husband. And I mean, the prize there were some colonist hicks at the ass end of the galaxy.

And then there's the fact that the crew composition seems to be a precursor of Al Murray's joke, when he asks people from the audience what they do for a living: "Bearing in mind that the only acceptable answers for a woman are secretary or nurse." No, really, that's all the TOS women I can remember.

Now you might say, "now, hold on there, mate, the comms officer was a black woman." And you'd be right too. BUT... isn't she doing a glorified secretary job? She's just the gal operating the galactic telephone for the captain. That's it. That's all she ever does.

Etc.

So, yeah, it was progressive for the mid 60's, but that's kind it: FOR THE MID 60's. It's kinda like being the healthiest leper on the colony

 

[Bikewer]

One advantage of the Storm Trooper armor is very mundane (and applies to all similar costuming...). You don’t have to hire so many extras.
If the troopers are killed you just get ‘em up, dust ‘em off, and put them back in the line.

No fan-boys griping... “Hey, that guy was killed just a few minutes ago!’

 

[Pope130]

To be fair TOS for better or worse IS a product of the 60's. It IS rather progressive for the 60's, but a certain dose of sexism is there.

I mean, for example, I don't remember the name of the episode off the top of my head (might have been season 2?), but at one point Kirk expects to lose a female officer because she marries. I guess, of course a woman would then stay in the bedroom and make babies, instead of keeping her job on the bridge.

And then there's Mudd's Women, where a bunch of women would do anything, even take some mysterious medicine that the FDA probably never approved, to land a husband. And I mean, the prize there were some colonist hicks at the ass end of the galaxy.

And then there's the fact that the crew composition seems to be a precursor of Al Murray's joke, when he asks people from the audience what they do for a living: "Bearing in mind that the only acceptable answers for a woman are secretary or nurse." No, really, that's all the TOS women I can remember.

Now you might say, "now, hold on there, mate, the comms officer was a black woman." And you'd be right too. BUT... isn't she doing a glorified secretary job? She's just the gal operating the galactic telephone for the captain. That's it. That's all she ever does.

Etc.

So, yeah, it was progressive for the mid 60's, but that's kind it: FOR THE MID 60's. It's kinda like being the healthiest leper on the colony

In defense of the Original Series; They tried. In the first pilot the First Officer was a woman, Number 1, played by Majel Barrett. The network didn't like it, so in the second pilot she was gone. Majel later returned as Nurse (still later Doctor) Christine Chapel.

There were other female characters in non-traditional roles, for example Chief Angela Martine, phaser bank crew.

 

[Klimax]

To be fair TOS for better or worse IS a product of the 60's. It IS rather progressive for the 60's, but a certain dose of sexism is there.

I mean, for example, I don't remember the name of the episode off the top of my head (might have been season 2?), but at one point Kirk expects to lose a female officer because she marries. I guess, of course a woman would then stay in the bedroom and make babies, instead of keeping her job on the bridge.
...

Why do you assert that when it is very likely bad extrapolation on your part.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

In defense of the Original Series; They tried. In the first pilot the First Officer was a woman, Number 1, played by Majel Barrett. The network didn't like it, so in the second pilot she was gone. Majel later returned as Nurse (still later Doctor) Christine Chapel.

Actually the pilot aired later that same season, repackaged as a two part episode.

 

[Elagabalus]

Why do you assert that when it is very likely bad extrapolation on your part.

To be fair, I think a lot of the sexism in ST TOS can be forgiven if one acknowledges that Nancy Kovack was smoking hot back then.


Have you seen her original scene in "Private Little War" on the blooper reel? Goto 0:26.



Try not to drool.

 

[Axxman300]

Aren't the impulse thrusters supposed to use fusion power? I think that's where the hydrogen from the Bussard scoops is supposed to go.

As for specifying speed, I guess you can always just stop accelerating once you've reached the desired speed. Though why would you want to stop accelerating early, if the purpose is just to get from point A to point B, well, that's another question. Probably best left to psychiatrists

Propulsion system used aboard spacecraft for travel at subwarp speeds, employing traditional Newtonian action-reaction thrust physics. Full impulse speed is about one-quarter light speed, sufficient for interplanetary travel. Aboard Federation starships, fusion reactors power the engines using deuterium fuel to create helium plasma.

Source: http://www.startrek.com/database_article/impulse-drive

 

[Axxman300]

To be fair TOS for better or worse IS a product of the 60's. It IS rather progressive for the 60's, but a certain dose of sexism is there.

Well yeah. TOS had the female crew in mini-skirts. Gene Roddenberry was adamant about pushing the sexy factor on the show. It was part of the sexual liberation going on at the time. There's one episode where Kirk is held prisoner on a planet where the society is based on ancient Rome, and he is given a woman for the evening. The implication is that he takes advantage if his gift.

This was Roddenberry's personal blind spot. Hunt down "Pretty Maids All in a Row", and movie he made in the mid-70's staring Rock Hudson as a homicidal high school football coach who shags co-eds, and kills them. James Doohan is in it. When he brought back Trek in TNG he double-down on a lot of that kind of thing in the first two seasons. It head the series back IMO.

And then there's Mudd's Women, where a bunch of women would do anything, even take some mysterious medicine that the FDA probably never approved, to land a husband. And I mean, the prize there were some colonist hicks at the ass end of the galaxy.

That was an allegory for women searching for ways to artificially attain a fictional standard of beauty instead of being happy with who they are. In the end of that episode the miners Mudd is trying trick with the beauty potion end up asking the women to stay because...well, they're in the sticks, and they're not that bad looking, and they're lonely.

And then there's the fact that the crew composition seems to be a precursor of Al Murray's joke, when he asks people from the audience what they do for a living: "Bearing in mind that the only acceptable answers for a woman are secretary or nurse." No, really, that's all the TOS women I can remember.

They often featured women in their landing parties who were scientists who specialized in geology, anthropology, botany, biology, etc.

Now you might say, "now, hold on there, mate, the comms officer was a black woman." And you'd be right too. BUT... isn't she doing a glorified secretary job? She's just the gal operating the galactic telephone for the captain. That's it. That's all she ever does.

Not a glorified secretary. She was the communications officer, so on top of monitoring sub-space communication (whatever that is) she'd alert the Captain to other types of electronic communications the ship intercepted. She also participated in landing parties here and there.

So, yeah, it was progressive for the mid 60's, but that's kind it: FOR THE MID 60's. It's kinda like being the healthiest leper on the colony

Star Trek's closest competitor was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which was an all-white sausage festival. In some ways Voyage was ahead of its time. The first episode deals with the melting polar ice cap, and the crew is menaced by drone aircraft that can fire missiles. Lots of episodes about the impact of man on the oceans...but more episodes about getting stuck on a remote island where dinosaurs (giant iguanas) still rule. Star Trek was open to outside writers, so you got a diverse range of stories written by ex-cops, and ex-test pilots. Voyage was all Irwin Allen's crew, and the pots and monsters were often recycled in later seasons.

Star Trek wasn't perfect, but its writing stood out, which is why it continues to find new fans while its peer group has been largely forgotten.

 

[Elagabalus]

Well yeah. TOS had the female crew in mini-skirts. Gene Roddenberry was adamant about pushing the sexy factor on the show. It was part of the sexual liberation going on at the time. There's one episode where Kirk is held prisoner on a planet where the society is based on ancient Rome, and he is given a woman for the evening. The implication is that he takes advantage if his gift.

This was Roddenberry's personal blind spot...

My god, man! You mean it was "Gene" who is responsible for giving me a "thing" about Thigh Highs?!!* Damn you, Gene!! Damn you!!!




*as per episode ST TOS S02E04 "Mirror, Mirror".

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm resurrecting this to air another SF peeve of mine, namely the misuse of naval terms for spaceships.

Chief among them being "cruiser." Well, what many don't seem to grasp is that it's not a weight or firepower category, it's a description of what it DOES.

Cruisers aren't always the class of big ship between destroyer and battleship. There have been armoured cruisers (which incidentally is what CA stands for), protected cruisers, UNprotected cruisers, or even auxiliary cruisers which is nothing more than a thin skinned merchant ship with some guns on it. Some of the latter have even actually had less tonnage, less firepower and MUCH less armour than a destroyer.

What a cruiser can do is CRUISE for extended periods of time.

In the age of sail, there was no such thing as a cruiser for example. Any ship, regardless of size, could go anywhere. It may have taken longer than it took some lighter ships, but a ship of the line could go anywhere that you needed to project power.

In the age of steam, things change. The big warships burn coal and then oil like crazy, at least if you want them to also have a decent speed, and have a limited range in the process. It's neither economic nor, in some cases, even possible to use your biggest ships to patrol the seas and protect your shipping lanes.

The cruiser is born as literally a ship that can cruise for such long voyages, and still project a decent amount of power.

What I'm getting at is that a Star Trek cruiser is actually a cruiser, in a sense. It's a capital ship that can cruise across a whole quadrant if need be. But actually both the Star Trek and Star Wars cruisers are just pointless as a ship class altogether, since everything has more or less the same range, and in SW's case the times involved hardly would count as much of a cruise. There's no reason such a ship would be called a cruiser.

 

[dann]

Is there any reason to call such a ship a ship instead of a craft (Wikipedia)

 

[erwinl]

The classical cruiser function (cruising the seas, commerce protection/attack, showing the flag and more) was a role that had been fullfilled by the frigates. These having the ideal combination of speed, handyness, cheap (not so many sailors you have to pay), endurance, firepower etc, to fulfill this role.

Sometimes ships-of-the-line were used in this role, if needed, but overall it was the frigates that had to do this.
Ships-of-the-Line weren't always slower than frigates though. Especially those designed by Symonds.

Come the age of coal and technical restrictions made it that, in order to have enough endurance for the cruising part, you needed a large hull. As technology progressed, the protection could grow from just having the coal bunkers as protection, then supporting those with an armoured deck and finally a fully armoured cruiser with armoured deck and belt.
The latter ones had, by that time, really become battleships light. Especially as their main armament was just as god as those of the battleships (before the Russo-Japanese war the largest guns of the battleships (the 11 and 12 inch guns) were seen as supportive for the other mains guns they had (6 to 8 inch guns) and armoured cruisers had these same guns as well.
In some cases though the cruiser had a bigger main gun than the corresponding battleships in that navy. (witness the IJN Itsukushima which had a 12,8 inch gun, when battleships still had an 12 inch gun).

You are correct about the range of spaceships though. Although I think there still would be a smaller class of vessels to do the cruiser type of role. For the same reason as the 100 or 110 gun ship-of-the-line were not used for this role. Cost of operation. This role would fall to the cheapest vessel that is just powerfull enough to do the role. Which will not be a super star destroyer (if we keep to the SW universe).

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I wasn't saying that there weren't different classes of ships, some more suited than others for some roles. Just that there wasn't any such thing as calling it a "cruiser" when all ship classes could cruise just the same.

 

[HansMustermann]

Mentioning the SSD's though, brings me to the other peeve about misuse of naval terminology in SF.

Destroyer is short for "torpedo boat destroyer."

It's another ship type that didn't even exist in the age of sail, and this time neither did its role. The only ships you'd want in your battle line, were your aptly named ships of the line. The need to screen them in any form or shape didn't even exist.

Fast forward to the late 19'th century. One problem that navies faced in the age of the ironclad and later was that as awesome as your big capital ship may be against other such ships, a bunch of cheap torpedo boats could sink it just the same. Enter the idea of a essentially a bigger torpedo boat, this time as an independent ship, fast, agile, with faster firing guns, which could get between your big ships and those pesky torpedo boats and sink them before they can sink your battleship.

Eventually they took over similar roles, like also hunting subs, but that's still the same basic role.

Which brings me to the obvious issue: having a "destroyer" only makes sense if there's anything for it to destroy. Same as you don't have a tank destroyer unless there are tanks. If there is no such thing as torpedo boats, in fact if the only way to get torpedoed is by B-wing or other such bombers, which are best hunted by fighters anyway, it makes very little sense to have a destroyer, does it?

Ironically, one universe where it would make sense to have screening ships is Star Trek, not Star Wars. ST does have smaller and faster ships that can put a few photon torps up your tailpipe. Hell, even later shuttles and runabouts can carry torpedoes, making them a very close equivalent of torpedo boats. Down to being an actual boat, as in something launched off a ship. Also, the equivalent of submarines.

Yet ST seems to miss that opportunity.

But there is a more perverse aspect. Even torpedoes exist and are so devastating because of the obvious vulnerability. Ships can't have half a metre of plating all around, and enemy main guns tend to not cause any damage below the water line, so you don't put much plating there. Ironclads even had exactly none below the water line. Hence a device that can hit you there, is going to cause a big problem.

If you can be hit anywhere, then hitting you with the main guns is going to always be the better option, because they pack a lot more energy and are more accurate.

So exactly what vulnerability would space torpedoes exploit?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

If you want space opera space combat, read Alistair Reynolds - and despair.
Distances and sizes means that basically nothing makes sense in space.

 

[erwinl]

Mentioning the SSD's though, brings me to the other peeve about misuse of naval terminology in SF.

Destroyer is short for "torpedo boat destroyer."

It's another ship type that didn't even exist in the age of sail, and this time neither did its role. The only ships you'd want in your battle line, were your aptly named ships of the line. The need to screen them in any form or shape didn't even exist.

Fast forward to the late 19'th century. One problem that navies faced in the age of the ironclad and later was that as awesome as your big capital ship may be against other such ships, a bunch of cheap torpedo boats could sink it just the same. Enter the idea of a essentially a bigger torpedo boat, this time as an independent ship, fast, agile, with faster firing guns, which could get between your big ships and those pesky torpedo boats and sink them before they can sink your battleship.

Eventually they took over similar roles, like also hunting subs, but that's still the same basic role.

Which brings me to the obvious issue: having a "destroyer" only makes sense if there's anything for it to destroy. Same as you don't have a tank destroyer unless there are tanks. If there is no such thing as torpedo boats, in fact if the only way to get torpedoed is by B-wing or other such bombers, which are best hunted by fighters anyway, it makes very little sense to have a destroyer, does it?

Ironically, one universe where it would make sense to have screening ships is Star Trek, not Star Wars. ST does have smaller and faster ships that can put a few photon torps up your tailpipe. Hell, even later shuttles and runabouts can carry torpedoes, making them a very close equivalent of torpedo boats. Down to being an actual boat, as in something launched off a ship. Also, the equivalent of submarines.

Yet ST seems to miss that opportunity.

But there is a more perverse aspect. Even torpedoes exist and are so devastating because of the obvious vulnerability. Ships can't have half a metre of plating all around, and enemy main guns tend to not cause any damage below the water line, so you don't put much plating there. Ironclads even had exactly none below the water line. Hence a device that can hit you there, is going to cause a big problem.

If you can be hit anywhere, then hitting you with the main guns is going to always be the better option, because they pack a lot more energy and are more accurate.

So exactly what vulnerability would space torpedoes exploit?

That never really bothered me, for some strange reason.
I had no problem in seeing the Star Destroyers as being the biggest and baddest kids on the block and being able to destroy the largest opposing ships. That worked for me. In my mind I never put them in the same category as the well known WWII destroyers.

But I once saw a website where they did see it that way and they had to invent all kinds of larger and larger ships, called cruisers, battlecruisers and whatnot, just in order to explain the word Star Destroyer. Ships that would even dwarf a Death Star in power.

Conveniently forgetting the fact we never ever saw these larger ships.

 

[Horatius]

Mentioning the SSD's though, brings me to the other peeve about misuse of naval terminology in SF.

Destroyer is short for "torpedo boat destroyer."

It's another ship type that didn't even exist in the age of sail, and this time neither did its role. The only ships you'd want in your battle line, were your aptly named ships of the line. The need to screen them in any form or shape didn't even exist.

...

So exactly what vulnerability would space torpedoes exploit?

I think you're ignoring the "tradition" aspect of naming things. By your arguments above, there's no reason for us to have a "cruiser" class today, since virtually every ship in the fleet can "cruise" for extended periods (up to years, in the case of nuclear powered ships), and yet, "cruiser" as a term is still being used by the US Navy. The class, like the destroyers, has taken on a new role, but retained the old name because people don't like coming up with new names. I see no reason why a space navy wouldn't adopt the small-medium-large scheme of naming destroyers-cruisers-battleships. The roles have already evolved more than once without changing names, so why not again?

Same with "torpedoes". The distinction between a torpedo and a missile in space is currently academic, but one thing it would have over a "gun" would be the notion that it is independently guided, rather than being ballistic. Torpedoes and missiles can both steer to follow an evading target, but gun rounds cannot. That's been a factor in more than one space battle series.

And in fact, most of the space opera stuff I've read have destroyers actually operating in a "destroyer" fashion, in that they act as a forward defensive screen against missiles or torpedoes. Essentially the same role, just a different target.

Now, if you want to subvert this, you could try to have a space force that evolves out of the Air Force tradition, rather than the Navy tradition. All the names would be different, but they'd still have hold-overs from their planet-bound forebears.

 

[Delvo]

A lieutenant is only supposed to be a stand-in for someone else while he's away, not be the primary person in charge of something himself. Only ensigns can wear insignia. "Sword" comes from a word meaning "sharp" but swords were never the only sharp thing around. Tanks can't be cavalry, adults can't be infantry, and only mercenaries can be soldiers. Practically no kind of gun in use today is really a cannon.

Or we could just face the reality that when part of how the world works changes, old words can be retained with changes in meaning.

And either way, whether one wants to try to fight that in other cases or not, there still couldn't possibly be any real problem with a thing that destroys stuff being a destroyer.

 

[HansMustermann]

The point is, though, that you can still see where those names evolved from. When starting basically from scratch, as any civilization would when they start to militarize deep space, you can pick any name you want for your ships. So why would you pick something that is a misnomer from the start?

I mean, let's look at Star Trek, since unlike SW, here we know how it all started. Humans go from no deep space abilities to warp drive basically overnight. It is implied that more or less the same happened to every single warp-capable species out there. There is no evolution of military spacecraft and doctrines to that point, from which such terms might evolve.

So why would ANY of them call a ship a "cruiser" for example, if it doesn't cruise any better than any other ship? Why would any of them call a ship a destroyer (as apparently Kirk's first command was) if there is nothing for them to destroy?

It seems to me like the more logical thing would be to call spacecraft something entirely different. E.g., how the Romulans called their capital vessels "warbirds". The D'deridex isn't a "battleship" or some other navy derivation, it's a "warbird."

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

So why would ANY of them call a ship a "cruiser" for example, if it doesn't cruise any better than any other ship?

Since they've all been used to hearing it that way for centuries on their sci-fi shows?