Hollywood Stupid

A REALLY common case is spaceship oriented as naval ships - i.e. on which decks are oriented parallel to the direction of acceleration.

Which literally made zero sense, even if you have "gravplates" and "non-rotational artifical gravity". Instead of having to deal with just one direction of compression stresses - at the direction of acceleration, like sensible spaceship (with decks oriented athwart to the direction of acceleration) the "classic space opera spaceship" is forced to deal with TWO at right angle. First - the acceleration from its own engines, which tried to compress ship from bow to stern, and the second - the valiant attempt of "gravplates" to pull "upper" decks on the "lower" decks.

From engineering point of view, it made the spaceship a horrible mess of differently directed stresses, which may be easily avoided if only the ship is build to "rocketship" configuration.

Praise the "Expanse" for doing this RIGHT, maybe in first time of the history of sci-fi TV series!

That depends on how acceleration is imparted to the ship. If it comes from reaction engines, or some other devices anchored to the ship’s structure at specific points, all of your arguments follow.

On the other hand, if acceleration is distributed throughout the ship’s volume by some non-reaction drive, it makes sense to orient the decks with the ship’s largest dimensions to make the best use of space. Examples are David Weber’s impeller drive, Alan Dean Foster’s K-K drive, Larry Niven’s reactionless drive used by the Puppeteers.
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They say I can't be a nonconformist because I'm not like the other nonconformists.

Imaginos1892 wrote:That depends on how acceleration is imparted to the ship. If it comes from reaction engines, or some other devices anchored to the ship’s structure at specific points, all of your arguments follow.

Even in that case, the rocketship configuration is just more logical. Your "up" is always the same as "bow", and the "down" is always the same as "stern". And the structural stresses from "gravplates" could be distributed along the lenght of the ship, instead of building some sort of reinforced keel that would handle the whole "weight".

On the other hand, if acceleration is distributed throughout the ship’s volume by some non-reaction drive, it makes sense to orient the decks with the ship’s largest dimensions to make the best use of space. Examples are David Weber’s impeller drive, Alan Dean Foster’s K-K drive, Larry Niven’s reactionless drive used by the Puppeteers.

I'm not really sure about RFC's impellers; considering that you need inertial compensators to survive the Honorverse's ship acceleration, they aren't exactly non-reaction. More correctly would be "propellantless", because they create a significant acceleration and significant structural stresses on the hull. There were several moments in Honorverse when ships collapsed or buckled under acceleration stresses because of battle damage or some engineering defects. So, unfortunately, Honorverse is the example of "Hollywood spacecraft engineering" albeit not profound.

The true non-reaction drive must be something that produce no acceleration at all - like Alcubierre drive, probably.

Dilandu wrote:..snip..
I'm not really sure about RFC's impellers; considering that you need inertial compensators to survive the Honorverse's ship acceleration, they aren't exactly non-reaction. More correctly would be "propellantless", because they create a significant acceleration and significant structural stresses on the hull. There were several moments in Honorverse when ships collapsed or buckled under acceleration stresses because of battle damage or some engineering defects. So, unfortunately, Honorverse is the example of "Hollywood spacecraft engineering" albeit not profound.

The true non-reaction drive must be something that produce no acceleration at all - like Alcubierre drive, probably.

We know that RFCs idea of the Honorverse was a 'Tall ships in space' so going from that it makes sense.

Joat42 wrote:We know that RFCs idea of the Honorverse was a 'Tall ships in space' so going from that it makes sense.

Well, since that it evolved toward "carrier warfare in space" and "Kirov-class battlecruisers exchanging missile salvos in space". So, frankly, no big deal.

Dilandu wrote:

Joat42 wrote:We know that RFCs idea of the Honorverse was a 'Tall ships in space' so going from that it makes sense.

Well, since that it evolved toward "carrier warfare in space" and "Kirov-class battlecruisers exchanging missile salvos in space". So, frankly, no big deal.

You forgot to mention the "gun-toting cats in space".

This thread makes me feel very much like an underachiever. I'm still not past Supergirl. I've got a lot of questions, still. Ok, maybe there's some explanation of her being able to safely catch a falling body on a dime, that has reached terminal velocity a few feet from the concrete and the organs don't disnintegrate in Supergirl's version of needing a compensation field.

But what about her diet. Supergirl must have a metabolism at least 10X the average man. And a metabolism 10X mine, means she must be consuming calories at about a couple of cows a day with the amount of energy she burns. Especially when she's battling powerful villains. Heck, several five-to-twenty-second firings of her eyebeams must really drain the reactor. That's about an entire slaughter house calory burn.

Seriously, I don't know how the Earth fed me when I was an active teenager playing sports. If I spent fuel like Supergirl does, I'd've been banished to the Phantom Zone by age 13!

I'm sad that I never got to have this talk with Joan Rivers. I'm pretty sure she would have understood my fears and told me exactly what I already know...basically...in case I ever got any red-blooded American boy's dream...

"Yes, there are some positions of the kama sutra that you should never consider attempting with Supergirl. Remember, her orgasms are super too. Someone with your skills, could die."

The Supergirl Boyfriend Ring

Given to her by her Krypton mother. "Kara, this a ring to be worn by any of your human bfs. The ring will open likeso, exposing this rock. He should give you a good whack on your bottom to ease your orgasm."

"What is this stone?"

"It is a piece of Krypton."

"What will that do?"

"It will weaken you on Earth and allow to have intimacy with the weaker humans. Your super orgasms will kill a human, dear. Rip his manhood right off of him. Snap it like a toothpick."

Have you not read Larry Niven's 'Man Of Steel, Woman Of Kleenex'? He brings to light all sorts of...difficulties.

cthia wrote:Ok, maybe there's some explanation of her being able to safely catch a falling body on a dime

They played that out in one of the Spider-Man movies. The Baddie threw Mary Jane off a building, Spider-Man caught her with a web less than a yard from the bottom...and her neck snapped.

There's a communal writers group who write Super Hero stories that address things like that.

whateleyacadamy.net

So a posibility is that she has a field around her that protects her from sudden stops etc, and that when catching people she subconciously extends that field to the person she's grabbing.

The field theory also how she can pick up a car. It's not her, but her field, which spreads out the stresses.

An extreme example was The 6 Million Dollar Man TV show. Basically an injured athletic astronaut who had a bionic arm and two bionic legs fitted along with other bits. He could pick up a car with his bionic arm without it tearing off his body or breaking his back.