No, but it's actually on my amazon wish list. I like the sound of how it focuses on the physiological effects on the soldiers once they get back home. Currently reading Pushing Ice by Alistair Reynolds which has a lot about it too (I nicked the Spica example straight from it - Reynold's was an astrophysicist working for the ESA so I assumed he did all his sums correctly). There's plenty of great science fiction novels that deal with time dilation in a relatively (sic) realistic way, my favourite probably being Tau Zero.

But I've never seen a movie or tv show assume that the light barrier isn't unbreakable.

Forever war is a good read, the passage of time is a major part of the story. I'm a big Reynolds fan, I like the lack of FTL & the years it adds; he could explore it more I'm sure. As far as I know his calculations are right and it's something that he knows sets him apart.

Back to Aliens, it's been a while since I saw it, but I'm sure I remember getting the impression there was no FTL, but it did t get it right.

MacIver wrote:

MacIver wrote:A couple of decades would of. Sure, if you went REALLY fast you could get there in a few minutes, but thousands if not millions of years would pass back on Earth.

Oh and gravity. Fucking gravity.

Okay, zero-g is difficult and expensive to do, that's fine. So build your fictional ships with centrifuges. Some morons will claim you're ripping off 2001 but there's no other way of getting gravity in space without technology far exceeding that which you're shown to have in the movie.

Even recent "hard sci-fi" films like Moon and Sunshine ballsed up on this.

Just remembered another cool aspect of this that would be good in a story.

As the ship travels away from Earth and reaches 99.99+% of the speed of light communications from Earth would slow down as they'd take longer and longer to reach the ship as it travels further away at faster speeds. News would slow down, literally, as any communiques would have to be adjusted for severe doppler shift. But on the way home this process would be reversed. The crew of the ship would see hundreds of years of human history squashed into a decade. They could watch the rise and fall of nations like watching a TV series.

I loved the way that Mass Effect handled the potential issues of long range communications; using quantum entanglement to ensure instant communication regardless of distance.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2th352t62Ts[/youtube]

(Hudson)Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?
(Vasquez) No. Have you?

Surely one of the best comebacks ever.

Oh jeez. I forgot about this thread.

They use Hyperspace drive in Aliens - no time dilation

chairman bill wrote:

Animavore wrote:This is what I think about in bed at night.

Hey, if it keeps you from wanking, it's doing God's work

Animavore wrote:"There's a secretion."
"Secreted from what?"
Nobody touch nothing"

Doesn't that mean we should touch something?



(guess what I'm watching right now? )

Eeewww!

BlackBart wrote:They use Hyperspace drive in Aliens - no time dilation

Do they?

I thought they were in hypersleep because of the lack of FTL. Guess its time to watch it again (any excuse)

infiniteentropy wrote:

BlackBart wrote:They use Hyperspace drive in Aliens - no time dilation

Do they?

I thought they were in hypersleep because of the lack of FTL. Guess its time to watch it again (any excuse)

Nooo... In the original movie, LV-426 is 9 months away. The closest star system is 4 light years away.

Yeah, and if I remember correctly it only takes three weeks for the Marines in Aliens to get to LV-426. The crew go into status probably because it's cheaper than keeping life-support going in the whole ship.

Of course, with time dilation it is possible to get to an alien star system in three weeks (relatively). But thousands of years would pass back on Earth. So it would be impossible to keep a civilisation or a corporate economy going that spanned more than one star system without FTL travel.

Bribase wrote:I loved the way that Mass Effect handled the potential issues of long range communications; using quantum entanglement to ensure instant communication regardless of distance.

Quantum entanglement is an interesting concept. But it's also a bit of a cop-out if you ask me.

It's entirely likely according to the laws of causality that information simply cannot travel from point A to point B faster than light. If it could it would essentially be travelling back in time. In the same way wormholes are probably impossible.

In terms of science fiction writers' imagination re alien life, I think they all are pretty limited except for Lem.

I've never read any Lem so I can't compare - although I have seen both Solaris films. But I've come across some profoundly alien... umm... aliens before within the pages of SF novels. But it is pretty difficult not do cross over into cliché territory when writing about them - so often the older SF writers are the best because they were starting with a clean slate.

Also, because of convergent evolution it is entirely possible that many aliens will resemble some form of life we're familiar with on Earth if it evolved in an environment anything like ours.

I'm not sure where everyone is from. But is this the insomnia thread?

Ha!

Ah, Lem - Wasn't there a creature he wrote about that had an extremely hard shell due to it living on a planet with constant meteor showers and the only way you could kill it was to be swallowed whole and leave a timed grenade inside it then get the shit out (literally) before it exploded? Talk about extreme sports/hunting. Was that in Star Diaries?

The best thing ever on the google home page was the homage to Lem on November 23, 2011.

oh, and the Forever war - great book as was Mindbridge. Joe_Haldeman

But back on film topic. I remember watching Pitch Black for the first time and wondering about the ecology of a planet like that - how on earth did the monsters survive? You did not see any other creatures apart from gigantic bones on the planet, had all the other creatures hidden already 'cause they knew it was nearly night? I used to dream about what the ecology of the planet could have been like. I think that the writers did a poor job by thinking too small and not explaining the ecology in that film.

halucigenia wrote:I think that the writers did a poor job by thinking too small and not explaining the ecology in that film.

All to common problem. Even in Avatar. I'm serious. If you're spending that much on a film at least hire Jerry Coyne or someone to work with your artists so your creatures look to have someone sort of plausible shared ancestry.

MacIver wrote:Yeah, and if I remember correctly it only takes three weeks for the Marines in Aliens to get to LV-426. The crew go into status probably because it's cheaper than keeping life-support going in the whole ship.

Of course, with time dilation it is possible to get to an alien star system in three weeks (relatively). But thousands of years would pass back on Earth. So it would be impossible to keep a civilisation or a corporate economy going that spanned more than one star system without FTL travel.

Vinge discussed that in A Deepness in the Sky. How to keep the Queng Ho alliance functioning despite the risk of each planet lapsing into civilisatory chaos, and, if it did, get it back on line again.

If I am to believe this screenplay as I do not have access to the movie atm and do not want to rely on my unreliable memory:

ECA REP

To be perfectly frank, we've surveyed over three hundred worlds and no one's ever reported a creature which, using your words (read from Ripley's statement) ...'gestates in a living human host' and has 'concentrated molecular acid for blood.'

http://screenplayexplorer.com/wp-conten ... Aliens.pdf

it is my understanding that by "worlds" are meant "worlds with lifeforms present". Else the dialogue, and essentially plot, would probably revolve around: Wow, you found alien lifeforms for the first time ever?!? In other words: .. and no one's ever reported any creature.

So the answer is no, as hinted by scott1328 earlier, its not necessarily too small, but maybe rather the opposite ;)

MacIver wrote:I've never read any Lem so I can't compare - although I have seen both Solaris films. But I've come across some profoundly alien... umm... aliens before within the pages of SF novels. But it is pretty difficult not do cross over into cliché territory when writing about them - so often the older SF writers are the best because they were starting with a clean slate.

My favourite is the Gowachin from Frank Herbert's two "Con-Sentiency" novels.

Just fucking insane.