Ponderables of SF on screen
Have you ever watched space shows or movies and wondered about some oddity?
My opening question:
Why do all the deities in the explored galaxy like to be invoked by an open flame? Candles seem to be the preferred source, but some are okay with sconces or braziers.
Just for fun answers would be appreciated, and more questions are welcome.
My opening question:
Why do all the deities in the explored galaxy like to be invoked by an open flame? Candles seem to be the preferred source, but some are okay with sconces or braziers.
Just for fun answers would be appreciated, and more questions are welcome.
Comments (59)
It's all odd to me :chin:
Does it help to be spaced out?
'Bowie wrote "Space Oddity", a tale about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom, the first of Bowie's famous characters. Its title and subject matter were influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which premiered in May 1968. Bowie said, "I went stoned out of my mind to see the movie and it really freaked me out, especially the trip passage".[Biographer Marc Spitz stated the song was likely inspired by the scene in which an astronaut communicates with his daughter on her birthday, saying "Tell mama that I telephoned" before ingesting a "stress pill", rather than the film's opening or ending.' - wiki.
What exactly do you mean by "deities"? Could you give an example maybe?
Not really. They never tell you who or what the aliens are praying to or invoking or whatever they're doing when they're alone in their cabin with a burning candle, chanting or deep in some kind of trance.
The only deities that have been explicitly referred to, as far as I recall, were the Prophets of Bajor, and the ancient gods of the Klingons, whom the First Couple killed because the gods annoyed them....
... which suggests another question:
Who's minding Sto-vo-kor?
I suppose a related question is, "Why do we humans find a deity coming through flames apposite?"
Perhaps a huge amount of human history involved with the day's work being done, and having time at the end of the day to sit around the campfire considering and discussing, "What in the hell is going on here?"
It seems plausible that for humanity, having a cultural association between flame and metaphysical thought has deep cultural roots. Also, for the vast majority of human history, flame itself must have been a mysteriously animated thing to behold, and so perhaps symbolic of mysteries beyond our grasp.
I think that most movies base their aliens and their customs on human expectations and ingrained beliefs.
Some scientists seem to believe that the need for the existence of a higher being is innate in humans and many authors try to pass that on to the aliens they create. Others create aliens based on basic fears of humans to make them appear more threatening to the readers or viewers, fear and scary are good for sales.
Personally I believe that if any alien ever gets here the must be smart enough to realize that there are no higher beings.
Another question I cannot find an answer to is why space traveling beings are depicted with claws or tentacles that can never have been used to create the spaceships they ride around in.
Yes! I like that question.
(In my personal galaxy, the best spaceship designs are in Babylon 5*)
except the Minbari ones - all that wasted space overhead yet impossibly small beds.
Related question: Why do curved spaceships have so many straight steel beams in the ceiling and why do the beams fall down so easily?
Quoting wonderer1
You're quite right - it's the same question.
Writers project their own cultural icons onto their creations.
Same reason as ships and planes, for structural force. Curved beams are used to hold the outer plating but it is not a good idea to have curved support beams inside, the bend too easily.
As to why the fall, it would not be exciting if everything stayed in place would it? The same as sparks flying out of electrical equipment and in the next scene everything is normal and working.
Ho-kay. Not quite following what would bend a convex support arch, but okay.
The sparks, I get. The steam, not so much.
High pressure or vacuum are terrible forces, they can bend or pull apart almost anything if it is not strong enough.
If you look at this image you will see that they try to keep the internal support beams straight as much as possible. On submarines and I would suppose star-ships the beams would be specially made in the form of the hull but they would not use curved beams for internal support.
No, they would use beams to support internal deck floors, which fall on people at the first volley of enemy fire. It's not the supporting walls that collapse - they're still intact. It's not the hull that caves in - there is still oxygen. The badly attached 10" I-beams are always in the ceiling.
They would not be able to fall on the people if they were in the floor, and that would not be tension building as they wait to be rescued. Sci-Fi is still fiction even if the authors have made it as realistic as possible, it has to be exciting to sell.
Lighting a candle is much easier and less dangerous than blood letting and sacrifice. It's more amenable to contemporary moral sensitivities.
Fire dispels darkness. If a deity dispels darkness, then the metaphor is suitable.
Also all technological transformation began and continues from fire. It is the natural ancestor of any human ship which traverses space.
For space faring scientific humanoids, fire is a natural deity (enabler, protector of all).
:fire:
They are in the floor and fall on people on the deck below. In any case, they are far too big for the span and weight requirement. And not secured properly at the one end.
I know why they're in the plot, but it's bloody annoying when attempting to suspend disbelief. A writer with some imagination could find a more realistic predicament for the setting.
I like your take on this!
In Dune, a tiny insect like assassin is sent to kill Paul. If one needed to ensure the job, why not send a dozen backups. But then the story would end there.
Star Trek is absurd insofar as many of the scenarios seem impossible to overcome and survival appears to be a matter or pure luck. Living on a ship where these kind of heinous problems happen all the time makes it more of a horror show than an inspiring odyssey of scientific exploration.
This is always an issue with fiction, especially with modern tv fantasy series which have to sustain more seasons than they ought to. The writing becomes worse, protagonists make terrible decisions, so the story can drag on and action can happen.
Especially given that any passing alien can just take over control of their ship. That's got to be the least secure computer system in the universe!
I wonder how it came to be that every species knows, or can figure out in two minutes, just how to operate the machines of every other species - including ones that have been dead 1000 years and all the labels are in an unknown language.
My ST reboot fantasy:
(A) 2320s-2330s, Alpha Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy ...
1 - In universe, episodes from the original show (also the animated series (72-74) & films with the original cast (ST II, III & Vi)) – excluding a dozen or so bad, low budget, filler-episodes & time-travel idiot plots – would be Star Fleet cadet training films wherein the "USS Enterprise and crew" are dramatic composites of other starships and their missions/encounters from several decades ago; the technologies, specifically of starships and related to Starfleet operations, are 'dumbed-down' stand-ins for otherwise classified, bleeding-edge tech used by Starfleet personnel and featured in the show;
2 - this way, all the science and tech actually in use on "Five-Year Missions" can be updated – I have too many 'futuretech ideas' (old, old ST daydreams) to lay them out here – to be much less fantasy (i.e. less inconsistent with both physical laws or plausible implications for starship operations, societal arrangments, crew psychologies, communication styles, leisure/recreation, etc) and thereby 'harder', more believable, space opera to match current 'futurist' sensibilities;
3 - and these reconceptions would include Starfleet, The UFP (e.g. Vulcans, Andorians, various Human-offshoots, etc) as well as Klingon (space), Romulan (space) & Gorn (space);
4 - each season would feature a new, different starship with a different crew and different primary mission (with infrequent but dramatic tie-ins & call-backs to ships & events in either prior or following seasons) in the way that The Wire shifted its focus on different aspects of Baltimore each season
5 - space is too effin' big for a "metaplot" to make sense playing out even in a standard lifetime with FTL travel / communication, so each season would be mostly a self-contained episodic year on a starship, each relativistically separated from one another by space & time
6 - lastly, while mined for usable ideas, all spin-off series and related media (from TNG, DS9, and on) would not be treated as canon or even referenced in the cadet training films (which would be featured as in-universe references by Starfleet crew members on occassion)
(B) I would keep the focus on
• human optimism without utopianism
• the likely benefits of collaborative problem-solving versus the usual recklessness of individual heroics
• the problems of exploration (e.g. the vastness of space) and contact with the unknown (e.g. miscommunication, contamination) rather than militarism and "planet-of-the-week" action-for-action sake
• small ensemble character drama
• the ship is "home" (but NOT a TNG "family-friendly cruise ship") and therefore a character in its own right (e.g. onboard central Ai computer à la "M5" without going all "HAL 9000" that is cybernetically integrated with (ergo constrained by & learning "to be human?" from) the crew))
• quality character-actors for main casts (re: 30-60somethings, not teens-20somethings) & guest performers
• using the 1960s Gold, Blue & Red duty & dress uniforms (NO "mini-skirts & nylons") with 1980s movies jacket ensembles for Away Missions
• using the original designs of exterior & interior starships, shuttles, starbases, etc (with primary reference to Franz Joseph's work) but reducing "the cheese" factor as much as possible
• keeping the pulpy feel, or pacing, of TOS via plotting, (not contemporary tv-speak) dialogue & direction/editing
• keeping (variations) on the original theme and incidental musics from the 60's show
And since Strange New Worlds has been taken, I'd call my reboot To Boldly Go (without ST in the title) as in "... To Boldly Go Where No Starship Has Gone Before." :nerd:
Minute 1 of day 1, get rid of those piles of klunky hardware they substituted for computers. Even STNG still has half a dozen big tablet things to contain the amount of information a 300-year-old cellphone wouldn't even notice.
I'd certainly put the female characters in the same uniforms as the men wear and either give them all similar, practical haircuts or else show more versatility in all the crew's personal appearance - I lean toward the former. I'd like to see coherent, ready-for-action crew.
Seatbelts and lanyards. It's indecent how those poor people are made to bounce around the cabin every time they hit a space-pocket or enemy shell, and lose their weapons, tricorders or essential weapon at the first clumsy move. (Actually, I often wonder why so many characters in all kinds of drama keep dropping their phones down sewer grates, when all you need is a cord like boyscouts understood in 1908)
And for heaven's sake, I'd drop the attitude of "here's a planet we know nothing about. Let's just beam down there with no protective gear!" Space suits mandatory for initial survey!
I'd want the aliens to be a lot less obviously human. There are excellent makeup artists and animators out there, waiting for a chance to be creative. I appreciate that actors come in a limited range of sizes and shapes, and that characters need to fit in the set, but even within those constraints, their bodies, apparel and accoutrements could be more varied.
I can accept a universal translator - else scripts would be painfully awkward - but it should take a few samples and several minutes to turn unknown alien speech into English vernacular.
I also quite liked the novel serialization aspect of DS9 and Babylon 5. It's a good idea to have thematic lines and chronology and character development from which good writers can make engaging sub-plots for each episode.
Quoting 180 Proof
I'm quite happy with the non-monetarist economy of Earth, but would need some kind of standard trading medium with other cultures. (Voyager bartered, and that's acceptable, but they shouldn't have had to improvise.)
I'd keep Star Fleet and maybe even the Prime Directive - though I'd either have to make it more flexible (twenty-seven pages of exceptions and special circumstances) or have the officers agree to consider one another's reasons for breaking it before going all legalese on his ass.
I'd keep the Federation, of course.
I'd keep the generally relaxed an homey atmosphere of the interiors: If people are going to live aboard for five years, they should not have to look at blue-grey brushed steel surfaces.
And for sure I'd keep the time travel. Those were some of the most fun episodes of all four series.
As an old millennial I've not watched even one full episode of TOS. My fondness for the fantasy escape is limited to Next Generation, Voyager, DS9. Am just a casual viewer and don't have much enthusiasm or mind to imagine show improvements. Sounds like real Hollywood homework.
Maybe these shows could give us something new in the way glimpsing how strange/unsettling the universe really is/could be. I like Sci Fi that is truly unsettling. Though to get too bizarre, realisitc or futurist is maybe to wreck what makes it comforting (the same old familiar crew who always is in control and overcomes whatever problem is thrown at them).
:up: :up:
To quote noted popular culture critic Joel Hodgson - "If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts, just repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax.'" That being said - some thoughts:
They played with that idea in TNG, Voyager and DS9. The time travel episodes were some of the most fun, so I was happy to suspend disbelief. I sure wouldn't want to have flocks of tourists from the future rubbernecking through my house!
Quoting T Clark
Because the designers think a breadbox is unappealing. They probably have tremendous fun adding fins and bubbles. Besides, the vehicle has to be recognizable (by the audience) as belonging to a known or about-to-be-introduced species*. I thought the most creative space vessels were in Babylon 5. I loved the Vorlon ships in B5 and thought the Minbari ones, with their vaulted ceilings and wasted internal space were ridiculous (Especially the 'plucked chicken', which had no evident straight lines anywhere, yet managed to drop one of those I-beams I mentioned above, right in the control room.) But the Earth force battleships were as ugly and functional and dangerous-looking as one could wish.
Quoting T Clark
Could be personal choice. His brother didn't refuse the genetic enhancement. Oddly enough, his little French nephew, and later his weedy adolescent self (same actor) also had an English accent.
Quoting T Clark
Collisions, explosions, screaming missiles, ominous rumbles... It's a very noisy space, space.
* Apropos of: How come all alien species are stereotypes, while humans are individual?
I recommend "Someday All This Will Be Yours" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I think it touched on similar issues, if not plausibly, at least with verisimilitude. It's one of my favorite time travel books and Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite science fiction and fantasy authors.
Thanks, will seek.
Most (sci-fantasy space opera-ish) handwavium gets a pass from me but the howlers above (along with the typical Hollyweird melodramatic / action-for-action-sake plot-holes & idiot-plots) still push my [s]nerdrage[/s] buttons. :sweat:
Ummmm.... ?
I just asked ChatGPT about it and, sparing you the details, in summary she said:
SheÂ’s probably a bit bias though so take that with a grain of salt. Btw, in the book the intelligence was organic in nature.
And do you, Chatty, have the motivation to expend whatever resources it takes to schlepp across the galaxy and steal it from somebody? Do you, without consciousness, generate such an overwhelming desire?
Ask her about the paperclip maximizer scenario.
Does it relate to the desire for consciousness?
Not directly, no.
But imagine, if youÂ’re willing, a non-conscious intelligence whose most underlying motive is procreation. No, I donÂ’t mean Homo sapiens. Imagine that eventually this motive drives them to the stars because theyÂ’ve exhausted the resources of their home world. While decimating planetary systems for their own use they happen upon some humanoids and are corrupted by their consciousness. Things quickly go to pot. The end.
Is it even possible to have desires without consciousness?
Plants seem to desire sunlight when they move towards it.
That was precisely my objection.
Quoting praxis
The operative word is "seem". Conscious beings with desires look at a plant see change in its orientation so that it gets what it requires, and interpret that process as identical to their own wants. Much like attributing purpose to the direction in which clouds float across the sky, or in the growth of a chrystal.
(Which doesn't mean I absolutely rule out the possibility of plant consciousness. If they are, they may well desire the things they need. If not, not.)
The body's willing, but the mind balks. If there is some underlying motive in an unconscious entity, it was programmed in by a conscious one. Quoting praxis
Then they would be compelled by that same prime directive to seek out more resources. If they encountered conscious entities along the way, they would suck up the trace metals and electrolytes in those bodies - once they'd finished with the airplanes, skyscraper skeletons and kitchen appliances. They not only wouldn't have any use the immaterial consciousness, they wouldn't even be aware of it.
Blindsight, yes, I didnÂ’t recall the name until you mentioned it. It had some interesting parts though I donÂ’t remember it being very engaging, and in fact I think I remember skipping parts. I usually remember books that I like pretty well and I donÂ’t remember much about this one. And I got some of it mixed up with other stories IÂ’ve read recently. IÂ’ve been binging on sci-fi short story collections. I just reviewed the wiki page about Blindsight and the unconscious aliens (or alien) didnÂ’t acquire consciousness at first contact. That must have been from a similar short story.
Quoting Vera Mont
AIÂ’s can seem to be conscious. Chatbots have fooled people into thinking theyÂ’re people, for example. I can imagine that AIÂ’s could get very powerful before reaching consciousness, if they ever do develop consciousness.
Indeed. And the operative word there is "develop". You have to grow your own; can't appropriate that of another species.
How can you say that so definitively, arenÂ’t we all still foggy about what consciousness is?
Not that foggy! It's something you have to be conscious to know it exists. To a rock, a plant doesn't "seem" to desire sunlight: a rock doesn't know, notice, observe or imagine: it's unconscious, incapble of knowing or caring. You want to spend your time talking to a sock puppet and worry that it's waiting for a chance to suck out your essence... fine, I guess.
YouÂ’re basically saying that itÂ’s impossible for an unconscious intelligence, no matter how powerful, to analyze and replicate a conscious intelligence.
Does this have something to do with the existence of a soul?
No.
It can analyze and replicate very well. That's what we use it for.
I'm saying it's impossible for an unconscious entity, however intelligent and powerful, to wish, want, crave, desire, yearn for or in other way conceive a motivation of its own.
Quoting praxis
No.
It has to do with the definition of consciousness.
Consciousness - afawct - evolved in organic entities over some billions of years as the organisms and their interaction with the environment grew more and more complex. Organic entities are driven by the survival instinct: internally motivated.
Machines, in contrast, are made, all of a piece, by a conscious intelligence for its own purposes, and have no internal or intrinsic motivation; no imperative to stay alive. That's why they're so perfect for warfare: no fear, no impulse to self-preservation, no empathy for living matter.
Whatever your your little computing friend says is a digest of words and thoughts previously fed into it by humans. You're talking to the echoes of the shadows of human ghosts.
Now, I'm not discounting the possibility that a computer, or more likely network of computers, can evolve a consciousness of their own. I would expect their evolution to be very much more rapid than ours was, because
- they were created complex (more like the Genesis story than the Origin of Species)
- they come equipped with sophisticated sensory equipment, as well as peripheral appendages and specialized tools
- they began existence in possession of a huge, human-collated data base, rather than having to discover and learn everything through trial and error
- their generational turnover is not limited by environmental conditions and maturation time
So, if and when it or they develop an independent self-awareness, it will be different from ours due to their very different evolutionary path and their very different requirements for survival. But their base knowledge will be our penultimate knowledge. They're unlikely to be either kind or cruel, sentimental or superstitious. They're likely to be even-tempered, rational and practical. Whether they have any use or room for us will depend on whether some vestige of the original purpose of their existence remains in effect.
Can you conceive a motivation yourself? Did you conceive the desire to eat, drink, and breathe yourself?
Yes. The breathing came automatically, as did theneed for nourishment; part of the organic package in which my DNA finds expression. But the desire for I needed as an infant was expressed as crying and physical distress. As a (relatively) autonomous organic entity, I feel the need for nourishment, then conceive a desire for food (sweet? savoury? crisp? soft?) and devise a strategy for obtaining what I desire.
A machine may be programmed to diagnose its physical needs and devise a strategy for obtaining what it needs, in a hierarchical priority order. It can't be programmed with the instincts, emotions and preferences in between.
Consciousness is prerequisite for internal motivation. While conscious entities may sometimes wish to be unconscious, it doesn't work the other way around.
:up: :up:
In other words, initially un/pre-conscious (as per Libet's experiments) and consistent with cognitive phenomena such as e.g. sleepwalking (i.e. performing complex tasks while functionally asleep / blacked-out) and blindsight, no?
So you didn't conceive desires as an infant, yet you still had them. :chin:
Wrong order. Had needs. Learned to identify them. Received appropriate care. Developed desire. Learned to differentiate and express desires.
I may have used the word 'conceive' in an ambiguous context. It means initiate a biological process, and also to think of; originate a new idea. Cognition begins with the first, develops into the sacond and culminates in the last.
I'm imagining baby Vera Mont in her crib expressing her needs (not desires yet?) and your mother trying to satisfy those needs. The cries are relentless. First, she tries to satisfy your needs with food. Perhaps a fat juicy steak sandwich, leftovers from the night before. Nope, that's not it. Maybe baby VM is a born vegetarian? Nope, she spits out the grilled asparagus too. Long story short, it turns out that baby VM's desires for sustenance were rather specific. How could you possibly have known what you wanted so specifically at such a young age? I'm pretty sure you had no trouble differentiating between a steak sandwich, grilled asparagus, and mama's teat.
A desire, which is basically an emotion, would mean that the being had a feeling of need or maybe an inclination towards something.
Plants only react to the changes in their environment.
Needs - identification - desire: it's a transition over some period of time. Forgive me if I don't recall minute-to-minute events of my first few weeks. You are imagining incorrectly. My mother was attentive and often anticipated needs; I was a healthy, happy infant and - if my parents' and relatives' are reliable witness - hardly ever cried.
Quoting praxis
How old do you have to be to distinguish feeling cold from, from feeling tired from feeling hungry?
Quoting praxis
I think you've reached the limit of my indulgence-tether.
I meant no disrespect to you or your mother. I apologize if you feel I've been disrespectful or vulgar.
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree that we learn emotion concepts as we develop. Concepts that are triggered in part by interoception. I don't see any reason why these concepts need to be conscious for an intelligence to function. Many things we observe, if not most, are beneath our conscious awareness, and we can react to them emotionally.
That's no problem, though the absurd extreme was uncalled-for. I just think I've explained as much as I'm prepared to.
Quoting praxis
Yes. And machines don't.
Talk about blindsight, I donÂ’t think I would have made that blunder if we had this conversation in person.
Interesting observation! Worth a topic on its own? Must think about ways to formulate a question.
I went into town today and got a brand new space-age library card. It's a little wee tag that goes on my keychain. Go away for a mere decade, and they change everything! Floor layout, organization, procedure, available services, access - everything.
Anyway, I borrowed The Doors of Eden , all 597 pages of it, which I have to finish by my dental appointment on the 20th. Better start going to bed earlier.
Just what we'd expect a philosophical zombie alien with a false conscience to say.
Luckily, we humans will come to the rescue in doubting what the omniscient narrator says about your experiential emptiness. You are too much like us to be denied and ought to belong to the cult of humankind.
So we will perform a ritual, here and now, kind of like the Eucharist. Eat of the body and bread of man, endowed with the blessed curse of sentience, to be as the creator intended us.
Benedicat tibi Spiritus et vive, ride, ama
I feel blessed.