Laser battles in space.
POSTED BY: Hjermsted
UPDATED: Monday, March 22, 2004 21:20
VIEWED: 21470
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I like that Firefly wasn't overly reliant on laser battles between ships in space. I can recall only a single energy beam of any kind (The Alliance cruiser destroying the reaver-infected colony ship). Laser battles in space indeed look cool, but they're kinda silly if you think about it.
What happens to those energy beams that miss their targets? We're talking about concentrated light here, correct? So those beams keep traveling until reflected/deflected, yes?
So laser battles that take place just outside of a planet's atmosphere can easily (and inadvertantly) cause a great deal of damage to the planet surface and any lifeforms there.
And planets much further away who suddenly find themselves bombarded by laser blasts from a distant battle they know nothing of... what do the inhabitants there think/do when that happens? Blame an angry god? Sue the local government? Construct deficit inducing space shields ala SDI?
I think there is at least one story that could be milked from this question. Firefly (with it's silent outerspace and lack of aliens) would have been the perfect show to explore what happens to this errant laser fire.
mattro
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Well, generally speaking it's safe to assume that most laser/energy based weapons have an effective range before they dissapate to the point where they're not really harmful, so planets further away than a few hundred kilometers probably wouldn't experience any damage at all. Like a laser pointer, no beam of light goes on indeffinately- dust, gasses, and whatever else gets in the way will weaken it, plus no matter how tightly you focus it it's going to spread out eventually over a few thousand kilometers.
As for fighting just above the atmosphere, it's possible that they could miss their targets and inadvertantly bombard the planet's surface... though when you think about it the likelyhood of hitting anything is pretty low. Hell, on an Earth-like planet, 70% of the time you'd hit water, and it's probably only half likely to hit a populated area. Most planets in the Firefly universe seem to be only a fraction as populated as Earth is, with the exception of the Core worlds, so that's even less of a threat. Plus, as I said above, gasses and dust would weaken a laser based weapon.
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Way back in the olden days I used to play the space battles expansion for Traveller that assumed beam weapons were relatively easy to defend against with reflective coatings or particle clouds. Hence projectiles and missiles were still used a great deal.
The other thing I've notice conspicuously absent from the Firefly universe is advanced computer technology. I'm guessing Joss has some historical reason in mind for this, but it has been 500 years - I'd expect see AI as a more realistic possiblity as well as advance robotics involved in space travel/exploration. But we've really only been given a close few of the frontier worlds where advanced tech is sparse.
SergeantX
"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith
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I really don't think the settler's ship from Bushwhacked was destroyed using lasers. It's looks more like missiles of some type or another. In regards to lasers missing their intended target and zipping through space, after a while the beam would start to spread and lose energy. Back in the seventies, astronomers bounced a laser beam off reflectors on the Moon left by the Apollo astronauts. The beam spread out a fair amount after leaving Earth. Granted weapons in the future would solve this problem, but I don't think anyone would be worried about being struck by a stray laser shot.
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In a continuation of this train of thought- bullets would actually be worse, as they will continue on their errant trajectories until caught by a gravity well (which would speed them up until impact)... and they don't dissipate.
The thing that confused me about Out of Gas, is why did the ship stop moving when the engine blew out? In space the ship would rely on momentum, not constant thrust, and one having reached it's speed it would continue at that speed with no further input from the engines.
I really like that they showed this in Objects in Space, when Early EVAed from his ship to Serenity while underway at what must be incredible speeds. One well-placed piece of space junk could have blew him apart.
There are also no "deflector dishes" or shields, it seems. So I wonder how they deal with running into dust and things in space. Even our primitive Space Shuttles take damage from hitting paint chips, nuts, bolts, and other "space junk" caught in orbit.
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When traveling between systems the ships use a system of googly hops, whereby 3dimensional space is transversed by means of a subspace phase modulator. The resultant n-gravity wave actually moves the ship and the surrounding space across vast areas of space without concern for the intervening substances. Or so I have heard.
SergeantX
"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith
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Quote:
Originally posted by RiskEverything:
The thing that confused me about Out of Gas, is why did the ship stop moving when the engine blew out? In space the ship would rely on momentum, not constant thrust, and one having reached it's speed it would continue at that speed with no further input from the engines.
Mal opened the front bay to let out the fire, along with a significant amount of rushing atmo. This might have been enough to slow down Serenity by providing force opposite their course heading.
"Let's moon 'em!"
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On what assumption do ya base the idea that she wasn't movin ?
Most visible stars are Soooooooo far away that you'd really have to be haulin ass to get any kind of perspective where they even seem to move a little, so unless you were going really, really fast...
"dead in the water" is a relative term, cause in space once ya start movin, ya tend to *keep* movin, see...
However, if you don't have the fuel/reaction mass to burn to change course (and apparently my impression is that Mals routes use a lot more course changes than the norm, being that he likes to stay away from other folk) well, then you're "dead in the water" - ya might be movin, but not in any kinda helpful direction, often as not... space is a BIG place yanno.
Most of the 'movement' we see Serenity do is in relative to close range, fixed-position objects or cameras, and thus, without a fixed point relatively close to her, how would you tell ?
They make give the impression, but it's likely a false one.
-frem
diefuxdie
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You also have to remember there are no visible laser beams in space. They only appear as a beam in air or other types of matter.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
The other thing I've notice conspicuously absent from the Firefly universe is advanced computer technology. I'm guessing Joss has some historical reason in mind for this, but it has been 500 years - I'd expect see AI as a more realistic possiblity as well as advance robotics involved in space travel/exploration. But we've really only been given a close few of the frontier worlds where advanced tech is sparse.
I think part of this can be explained by the fact that the show simply didn't have the time to explore a lot of things like this. With the 14 episodes we had, most of them were focused on character development, etc.
Another possible reason is that I think it was made fairly clear that some places were "flush with the new technologies" and "some not so much".
There were some definite class issues established that would probably been explored more in-depth if the show had lasted. I think technologies just weren't available equally - those with money and power probably had the most access. Mal & the Serenity crew lived on the fringe of society, so they probably didn't have access to a whole lot in terms of cutting-edge computers.
We only saw the alliance two or three times, so we don't really know the extent of the technology at their disposal. The hospital episode did show some pretty fancy imaging technology.
But I think the first reason is most important - simply not enough time. Who knows where the show might have gone.
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