I care, work faster.Originally Posted by Sapphire
I care, work faster.
Having worked on episode 5 of season 2 and not having seen any episode prior to it (which could be magical crystallized weed made from powdered Oxycontin and essence of Willy Coppens for all I know), my opinion is that the show sucks. Why? Because it seems like at some point they tried to make this all semi-realistic and such but then said, "Screw it; you know what would sell DVDs? Space battles and sex." Meanwhile, they seem to have forgotten a few things. Warning: there may or may not be spoilers ahead.
(1) Everybody knows that there's no sound in space, right? Right...
(2) ...however, were you also aware of Newton's Laws of Motion, specifically the second one? F = ma. Force = mass *acceleration --> If you apply a force, you will accelerate a mass. Not simply put a mass in motion (First Law!), but accelerate a mass. So each time a Star Fighter's engines are firing for a prolonged period of time and move the craft at a constant velocity, God kills a theoretical physicist.
(3) Star Fighter? Seriously? That's the best name they could come up with? Did the USAF and USN take all the good names. Or were they so jealous of the USSF's cool toys that they blackmailed the defense contractor into giving it the name that recalls a 1980s film about a kid being picked to save an alien race because he was good at an arcade game which was actually a scouting tool (The Last Starfighter. Go watch it. Or don't.)?
(4) Back to science. So the Americans say, okay let's use lasers to take out the enemy because we don't want to cause explosions. Meanwhile the Chinese use missiles because idk they are stupid lolololol. Yes, exploding spacecraft is not a good thing for stealth and secrecy and military-political intrigue BUT ALSO Kessler Syndrome. Some debris will burn up, some debris will fly off into deep space, but some debris will just float around... at ~18,000 mph (~29,000 kph for you folks in the civilized world). Back in 2007 IRL China tested an ASAT missile on an old weather satellite and herp derped thousands of pieces of golf ball-sized debris. Anything in the path of flying debris is going to have the shit kicked out of it and create more debris, which goes out and create MORE debris and so on. Congratulations: you can no longer get things into space past that level.
(5) At a defense complex outside Beijing:
"Sir, why are we programming our space fighters with all these extraneous inputs?"
"Because one day when one of comrade taikonauts gets his space computer fried he can salvage a space motherboard from an enemy imperialist craft that he disabled but didn't blow up and get himself back to earth."
"Ah, the motherland truly is great in valuing the life of each and every citizen. But how likely is that scenario, sir?"
"Shut up and code."
There's more in this episode - plenty more - but every second spent thinking about it makes me that much dumber.The amount of suspension of disbelief this show requires would have kept the Tacoma Narrows intact.
The main thing that bothered me in episode 5 was how whenever the ships were idle waiting for combat, they were just spinning around! WTF! It would be incredibly hard to pilot a ship, much less be concious, when all the blood is being pulled from your head due to the ridiculous g-forces you'd be experiencing from needlessly spinning your ship around like a retard.
That being said, Lostman makes this show awesome. He lost some cool points for getting his ass kicked so bad, though.
Here's all the episode links, since they haven't been posted yet (although it's not like they're hard to find).
[GotWoot] Episode 01
[GotWoot] Episode 02
[GotWoot] Episode 03
[GotWoot] Episode 04
[GotWoot] Episode 05
Last edited by Janice; Wed, 01-12-2011 at 03:27 PM.
I was wtfing at the computer swap nonsense as well. Why would a secret Chinese fighter have a compatible instruction set and software with a secret American fighter. Why would the Chinese software which was likely designed around the highly specific hardware of the fighter it ran run without any issues on a mobo which was likely designed around a different highly specific hardware environment. And who the fuck uses parallel cables anymore...
What bothers you more, something like this show where they seem like they're trying to stay grounded in some level of realism but sometimes just give up/fail miserably or something that just treats the laws of physics like something scribed on the back of a napkin and does whatever it wants for the sake of plot/drama value.
Honerable Mention: How the heck do you 'hide' in space. If i remember my basic astronomy class properly everything emits radiation just by having a non-zero temperature. If you are scanning in the proper range you should see a big blip anywhere something is. Hiding in the sun might help to a degree but again, the sun's spectrum is probably not volatile enough to mask some big thing sitting between you and it radiating energy.
They have "stealth systems," so you have to detect heat signature from their thrusters to locate them.
[Removed due to spoilers]
Last edited by thecowgoesmoo; Fri, 01-14-2011 at 10:54 PM.
Is the ep even out to the public yet? If you're going to talk about it you've got to at least give us a link.
That's what I was calling bullshit on. Even if the Chinese ships were radar resistant (and they didn't look it from their design) a passive Infrared camera should have found them in a single sweep of the sky given the relative temperature of space and anything that was just launched into it and is floating around shooting lasers and missiles at people. Hiding in the sun makes some sense but as it was shown a spectrum analysis of the suns light destroys that plan pretty easily.
Last edited by Yukimura; Thu, 01-13-2011 at 11:17 AM.
[GotWoot] Episode 06 - Rocket Boys
Episode 6: I'm baaaa-ack! This time I'll go easy on these guys since they have so much trouble with spacecraft: I'll just ignore anything at all to do with the professionals. Instead, let's take a look at these rocket hobbyists. Even then I'm just going to limit myself to just a few issues.
(1) GPS to measure altitude? Seriously? Did they not know about altimeters? And that there are really tiny, tiny altimeters? Ones that definitely weigh less than a GPS module plus antenna and work very reliably?
(2) How exactly do they get the GPS to communicate with their cell phone? A cellular data module on the rocket? From 100 km up? They're getting a cell tower signal from 100 km away? Hoooooly crap, AT&T and Apple need to talk to these guys.
(3) The overpressure from the launch was enough to crack the windshield on the truck, but the boys just needed to weather the wind, dust and smoke? No burst eardrums, no wincing in pain? That's the least of their worries, though...
(4) ...because if they have superhuman eardrums, they better have superhuman lungs and eyes, too. With high power amateur rocket engines, the propellant is usually either ammonium perchlorate and a metal, or nitrous oxide and a plastic/hydrocarbon. The combustion products aren't really stuff you want to be breathing in or exposing your eyes to.
(5) Okay, so they're launching in an open field. That's great. But, uh, did anybody check to make sure that there aren't any residential areas or buildings underneath their flight path? I don't see any parachutes on those lower stages. The first stage might land in that lake, but the second?
Finally, the first ever amateur rocket to reach the 100 km mark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilia...ploration_Team) was built by 25 people, 21 feet tall, and supported by corporate sponsorships. Look, I appreciate a "Rah-rah, fight the powah" underdog story as much as anyone else but, really?
I thought episode six would be fillerish.
But no matter how the Thecow rants it was storytelling brought to another level.
The pacing was good, the issues ... well you can't go around that anymore can you.
I loved this episode, because it was just THAT well executed.
God this show hates on America a lot. Americans in or near major cities are generally not going to be all that openly abusive to a Muslim/assumed terrorist. For one thing if they're worried that someone is a terrorist they will probably be scared shitless of being near them. Instead they would try to avoid them in public and make trouble for them behind the scenes. Even (sober) hicks tend to have enough sense not to mess with people they have convinced themselves are ready to blow up any time.
I also found it rather odd that Lostman left Ali in such a blatantly anti-Arab small town atmosphere while he lives it up in some swanky urban area.
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