this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Science Memes

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1104168

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[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 101 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (16 children)

I know we'd all like some scientific actualisation of Star Wars but I mean:

  • They made noise in space 'cause that's fun.
  • There was always gravity on pretty much any ship.
  • I don't really recall any spacewalks so we don't see any instance of 'no gravity'
  • There's hyperspace since lightyears is a bit of a long time.
  • Stormtroopers seem very scientifically and inefficiently accurate

At this point I think the Star Wars movies (the oldies) pretty much ignored a fair bit of the science.

But if it was a death star literally put there in our universe, I think there would be a bit of structural considerations for gravity, but not huge due to it being quite hollow. Gravity is pretty strong when the sphere is entirely comprised of dense rock and no air. A mostly hollow sphere of air where air is something close to 1/1000 that of rock (yes, used the density of water lol) is not going to get much of a rollicking from gravity.

Edit: an interesting 'expose' on the moon landings claim one thing: why were the photos so relatively boring? Because they were real and that's all they could get for all the limited resources they had at the time.

[–] bazus1@lemmy.world 34 points 3 months ago (9 children)

I don’t really recall any spacewalks so we don’t see any instance of ‘no gravity’

in The Last Jedi, Leia gets blasted into hard space and experiences weightlessness.

[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 31 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And then it really gets accurate.

[–] BlitzFitz@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Wasn't there a space fight with horses on the wing of a star destroyer in the rise of Skywalker?

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yes, I'm pretty sure either a hobbyist equestrian or a full on equestrian's parent was on the sequel trilogy's rollover staff, for two separate sequences to feature space horses coming to the rescue.

Also, low-key bummed that we didn't get Finding Your Roots with Lando Calrissian and totally not just gender flipped Finn but aged slightly and in charge of a bunch of other horse girl deserter storm troopers.

[–] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Lol yes but that was within a planetary gravity well

[–] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Don't make excuses for the sequels.

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[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Lightyears measure distance, not time.

[–] DarkenLM@kbin.earth 23 points 3 months ago

Quantum Physics joined the chat

When time is measured in meters you know you're in for one hell of a ride.

[–] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And parsecs measure distance, not time, and yet here we are.

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] Cube6392@beehaw.org 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I hate that retcon. Let Han Solo be a sleazy piece of shit conman. Stop trying to make his lies real via retains. Don't make him shoot in retaliation. In the original edit he has an arc. He goes from sleazy piece of shit to respected rebellion leader. Almost like he was a metaphor for how a lot of insurgents have backgrounds as pieces of shit. Now the cannon has him as a squeaky clean guy always doing the right thing even when sometimes he doesn't realize he's doing the right thing

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

How do you feel about Jar-Jar being a Dark Lord of the Sith?

Or midichlorians being attracted to the Force rather than being the source of it?

Do you have other retcons you don't like?

[–] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

Dimensional rotation, pal

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago

okay guy-on-the-way-to-Brock

[–] wildcardology@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago (3 children)

One of my gripes with star wars is a pilot can fly any ship from any faction without prior flight experience on that ship. They just go in flip some switches, push some buttons then jumps into the pilot seat and off they go.

[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That's one of the many things Andor gets right, at least with that shuttle they steal near the start of the series. Cassian basically chews his crew out for planning to just jump into an unfamiliar ship and wing it.

[–] wildcardology@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

That's why it really bugged me that the resistance just gave Luke an X-Wing.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

I fucking love Andor

[–] shutz@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 months ago

My headcannon for this is that spaceships in that universe are to those people what cars are to us. If you know the basics of driving a car, you can drive most cars, though the bigger ships might get more complicated (I've never seen one of our heroes try to back up a star destroyer into a starbase to help with their buddy's move.)

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[–] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 months ago

There's plenty of spacewalks in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. They don't have gravity there and instead have to use thrusters or magnetized boots.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Good call on it being hollow and mostly air.

FYI for soil, air is ~1/2000 the density.

[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks, I believe I was being lazy to not want to deal with averaging the density of various rocks, but your suggestion about the density of soil is a good one.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There was always gravity on pretty much any ship

And if the ship got damaged where the nose started falling (downward?) the gravity would shift towards the nose so that everyone went sliding across the floor.

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

That only happened near planets.

Star Wars ships don't orbit. They simply hang in the sky, in much the same way that bricks don't. In Star Trek ships orbit to save on fuel costs while parked near a planet. But in Star Wars antigravity is so cheap that it's more efficient to be stationary relative to the planet's surface. Which means no microgravity.

[–] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is just my head canon, but the noise actually comes from speakers on board the ship /in the cockpit, to help give the pilot an audio cue as to where hazards are around them.

[–] sawdustprophet@midwest.social 8 points 3 months ago

This is just my head canon, but the noise actually comes from speakers on board the ship /in the cockpit

I'm pretty sure this was explicitly addressed in at least one of the pre-Disney novels, and was somewhat entrenched with a part of the fanbase afterward.

[–] Sordid@beehaw.org 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I don’t really recall any spacewalks so we don’t see any instance of ‘no gravity’

Leia did one in the sequels.

[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 9 points 3 months ago

I don't deny the star wars universe is getting a bit more of an update in the cinemas, especially post-Interstellar and whatnot, but space opera in the 80s was really intent on ignoring the stark reality of space for both constraints of filming and viewership. Goddamn fun though.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 5 points 3 months ago

Spacewalks are a bad example anyway. A ship's artificial gravity could extend outside its hull. Conversely, the lack of spacewalks doesn't mean we aren't shown the absence of gravity, since we see the ships themselves maneuvering in a way that suggests a lack of gravity.

Gravity in SW is still kind of fucked, but not "gravity in deep space" fucked.

[–] Redfox8@mander.xyz 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Spoilsport! But like you say this is fiction, and entertainment, it is a fantasy world! :)

But yeah, the last one bugs me in soo many films and tv shows. They have super advanced AI robots tech, they can regrow a hand in a day, no more disease and live 257, transport living moving organisations across great distances, have developed telepaths and telekinetics, and can fold space-time, but are fucked if they can shoot straighter than a drunk badger with one 'arm', balancing on a log going down a rapids!

[–] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, the fact that we already have the technology to make a gun that handles the aiming for you... and we aren't even shooting light, which would be even easier to auto aim. Fights should be super short and boring, one shot, one kill... 20 shots, 20 kills. There would be no action heroes because very few people would ever live through more than a handful of fights. The heroes would be the beurocrats, so we'd have to spend alot more time watching them.

Sounding like they made the right choice.

[–] zeekaran@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They shoot plasma, not lasers. Think Halo alien weapons.

[–] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Ah fair, not quite as easy as re-aiming light accurately then, but probably still easier than solid metal.

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[–] frezik@midwest.social 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

These guys are supposedly in a vacuum outside the first DS:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zero-G_assault_stormtrooper?file=A_New_Hope-_Joe_Johnston_as_Spacetrooper.jpg

There's a whole Legends thing for Spacetroopers. New canon is pretty much just the guys above.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

they made noise in space cause it’s fun

Like the famous Bass Wars

https://youtu.be/utFRqsT61-k

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

I think the animated shows had a few more space realistic moments like space walk repairs and such.

Best battle scene in the whole series from clever tactics PoV IMO was Anakin deploying his artillery into a planetary ring system and then using his capital ship to bait Greivous into a pin between the ring mounted tanks and the capital ship.

Best battle overall is obviously the siege of Mandalore just for the absolute knockdown drag out chaos in the middle of a domed city megastructure that's probably meant to be a seed for an eventual ecumenopolis.

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