Space crafts and anti gravity

[pete94857]

In ever space science friction involving a light speed or near light speed or even beyond when they engage warp drive or drop out of warp drive they persons on board hardly twitch yet if an aggressive ship fires upon them or some gravitational wave hit them suddenly they are all thrown all over the place and the ship starts falling apart. Kind of breaks the connection for me being able to indulge my imagination into it.

 

[Klystron]

In ever space science friction involving a light speed or near light speed or even beyond when they engage warp drive or drop out of warp drive they persons on board hardly twitch...

It has been a while since I saw Star Trek the Movie but if memory serves, things 'went crazy' on the bridge the first time they entered warp 1 exceeding speed of light. Visible light became hazy and rainbowed, the astrogator went bald and her voice lowered an octave, things bounced around during the transition. That was many Star Treks ago so I may be conflating plots.

Your point has merit. Consider two factors in your scenario. Technology advances giving writers and directors new tricks to play on our senses. For example, space ships in early SF movies appeared tiny. As cameras and photography improved, space ships appeared immense as the director could 'dolly' a camera along a scale model in place of suspending a small model by wires.

Cultural biases and interests evolve as audiences become used to warp drives or talking dragons, so take these for granted. Yet "everything old is new again" so the crew of the Enterprise gets blasted and thrown around the stage as if they were in a WWII tank battle. A creative writer deals with both aspects. Jaded audience expects new thrills even in sequels but wants familiarity at the same time.

SF auther Robert Heinlein famously noted that fans expect nothing new watching a baseball game yet baseball remains a popular American sport. I am amazed that production companies still crank out WWII movies after 80+ years, not unlike vampires rising from the grave in popular fantasy.

 

[pete94857]

All very true I'm sure, I've never seen that episode of star trek but I.most definitely would want to watch it, sometimes on tv it's a toss of the coin between old and newer versions if they happen to be showing at the same time, seems like the older version was much more about the unknown some would say impossible scenarios but quantum physics says anything is possible, well maybe.

The newer versions tend to be more political unfortunately from my own perspective.

 

[Klystron]

The newer versions tend to be more political unfortunately from my own perspective.

While PF prohibits political discussions, one expects an increase of politics in SF plots this decade. Afterall, Tolkien based much of LotR fantasy wars and devastation on WWII history as did George Orwell in his highly political novels "1984" and "Animal Farm".

Anti-gravity and free-fall (null gravity) seem as ubiquitous in SF as revolvers and shotguns stagecoaches in Westerns. Early SF movies and series sort of glossed over free-fall using wires, acting and special effects (FX) to simulate weightlessness. Ron Howard and other directors hired high flying cargo aircraft that could provide usuable minutes of free-fall in extended dives from altitude. Some "Apollo 13" footage looks nearly identical to actual weightlessness aboard the IST (International Space Station).

Gene Roddenberry followed a much less expensive path creating Star Trek. Stipulate some form of artificial gravity on all the space craft and film earthbound actors on a sound stage. SF movies and series do some things well but anti-gravity often seems haphazard. Once we have improved theories of quantum gravity in actual physics, expect better anti-grav representations in science fiction.

[edit 20241114: fixed typos. Replaced shotguns with stagecoaches.]

 

[Drakkith]

In ever space science friction involving a light speed or near light speed or even beyond when they engage warp drive or drop out of warp drive they persons on board hardly twitch yet if an aggressive ship fires upon them or some gravitational wave hit them suddenly they are all thrown all over the place and the ship starts falling apart. Kind of breaks the connection for me being able to indulge my imagination into it.

One handwavy explanation is that 'inertial dampeners' only work when they know ahead of time what's going to happen, such as when the ship is commanded to accelerate, but not when subject to rapid, unexpected accelerations from weapons impact and the like.

 

[pete94857]

One handwavy explanation is that 'inertial dampeners' only work when they know ahead of time what's going to happen, such as when the ship is commanded to accelerate, but not when subject to rapid, unexpected accelerations from weapons impact and the like.

I suppose that could be the case