LOL, yeah, Doctor Who relies mostly on verbal clues to make the worlds seem alien, usually along the lines of the Doctor alluding to some historical figure or author and the aliens clearly having no clue what he's talking about. I suppose the "gift of the time lords" allows them to perfectly understand all his idioms and colloquialisms, just not a reference to Hamlet or Einstein.
Another problem is that *very* few humans have experienced anything but earth gravity, so it would involve lengthy descriptions (to say nothing of scientific research) to integrate it properly into a story or movie. Movies, of course, would need extensive special effects to show it. For Christ's sake, they still have loud explosions in space...! If we ever do get to space, that kind of thing will look as cheesy as a 1940s Buck Rogers serial.
There's a good site for this kind of stuff: bad astronomy. The author now has a blog on the discovery channel website. Unfortunately, the author has limited himself exclusively to astronomy; I'd love to see a more general page that also considered bad physics, biology, etc.
P.S. Read Ben Bova's Space Travel. It is very clear, well-written, and about as accurate as I imagine any general purpose book could be. I intend to use it if I ever write another story or game involving space.
LOL, yeah, Doctor Who relies mostly on verbal clues to make the worlds seem alien, usually along the lines of the Doctor alluding to some historical figure or author and the aliens clearly having no clue what he's talking about. I suppose the "gift of the time lords" allows them to perfectly understand all his idioms and colloquialisms, just not a reference to Hamlet or Einstein.
Another problem is that *very* few humans have experienced anything but earth gravity, so it would involve lengthy descriptions (to say nothing of scientific research) to integrate it properly into a story or movie. Movies, of course, would need extensive special effects to show it. For Christ's sake, they still have loud explosions in space...! If we ever do get to space, that kind of thing will look as cheesy as a 1940s Buck Rogers serial.
There's a good site for this kind of stuff: bad astronomy. The author now has a blog on the discovery channel website. Unfortunately, the author has limited himself exclusively to astronomy; I'd love to see a more general page that also considered bad physics, biology, etc.
P.S. Read Ben Bova's Space Travel. It is very clear, well-written, and about as accurate as I imagine any general purpose book could be. I intend to use it if I ever write another story or game involving space.
Matt Barton, Managing Editor
Location: St. Cloud, Minnesota, USA
Email: matt@armchairarcade.com