8X07 "Kill The Moon" (Grading/Discussion)(SPOILERS!)

[intrinsical]

Changing the density (how compact) of a material is does not change its mass. You squeeze the sun down to the size of a pin head and it will still have the same amount of mass even though it is now extremely dense.

The only time mass increases is when you ADD more material. Unless there's a mother feeding the egg, the moon shouldn't be increasing in mass.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Changing the density (how compact) material is does not change its mass. You squeeze the sun down to the size of a pin head and it will still have the same amount of mass even though it is now extremely dense.

The only time mass increases is when you ADD more material. Unless there's a mother feeding the egg, the moon shouldn't be increasing in mass.

Indeed. Unless it's converting solar energy into mass, eating the Moon isn't going to increase anything, just convert Moon mass to space beastie mass.

 

[Lonemagpie]

TBH, I assumed the increased mass was the giant spiders/bacteria, having been attracted to the growing space baby dragon thing from elsewhere in order to feed on it.

 

[Mytran]

That's a whole lotta spiders!

 

[Lonemagpie]

That's a whole lotta spiders!

Made of who-knows-what

 

[Redfern]

Not sure if the following "helps" or "hinders" the episode, but have we forgotten that "The Silurians", Pertwee's second serial, claimed that the mooncame from "elsewhere", fairly "recently", at least upon a cosmological scale. The sapient reptilians observed a celestial body was approaching Earth, so they placed themselves into stasis to ride out the impending disaster. But the body didn't smash into the planet, but instead settled into orbit, becoming our moon.

Yeah, rather "wonky" itself as it doesn't "jibe" with the real life data we've accumulated. I just wanted to remind fellow fans about that element. Or was that "fact" overturned by a line or two in "The Hungry Earth". I honestly can't remember.

Eh, we can always blame the weirdness upon the "rebooting" of the universe in "The Pandorica Opens".

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Venardhi]

This is usually where the pure fantasy steps in, to provide a shield from reality by having the Doctor spout some nonsense technobabble as an excuse for why the nonsense things make sense in the context of the story. This story didn't even respect the audience enough to do that.

Covering inaccuracies with technobabble is the opposite of respecting your audience. It's a hollow, miserable trope devoid of wit or grace. I much prefer the "deal with it" attitude usually embodied by Doctor Who. Thinking that the moon creature is siphoning mass from a parallel universe makes you feel better? Then think that, but don't force the writers to insert ridiculous pseudoscience lines in what is, at its core, a morality play.

Federation Starships have warp drive. How does warp drive work? Imaginary technobabble. We accept that as a conceit of the universe it exists in, much like the TARDIS and the Sonic Screwdriver. If Star Trek insisted that instead of imaginary/theoretical technomagic powering and propelling the ship it was diesel engines and helium baloons, we would all call bullshit.

Solving the plot with technobabble is arguably an insult, but using it to fill in the gaps or set up the plot is just a necessary tool for writing in the genre. Would you have really felt insulted if instead of ignoring the fact that the moon/egg was gaining mass from nowhere that the Doctor scanned the "amniotic fluid" and said that it is really more like a nutrient-rich trans-dimensional lubricant, a byproduct of inter-dimensional siphoning by the pupating life-form and really quite tasty? One line and we have a solution to the mass problem. We don't need to know how it works, just that it works.

Would I be more forgiving if the story were better? Sure. But the story would also be better if it weren't built on such a flimsy premise.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Do any of you actually believe the average child viewer (The viewer the show is primarily aimed at) cares about the science?

That's a huge part of the problem with our society today. Science is undervalued even though it's more important than ever.

Mr Awe

Not only that, but Doctor Who was originally intended as a tool to teach science (and history). Granted, even some of the early stories were a bit off the rocker (Planet of Giants, I'm looking at you), but that spirit should still be maintained now, grounded in the realm of science-fiction.

 

[Mr Awe]

This is usually where the pure fantasy steps in, to provide a shield from reality by having the Doctor spout some nonsense technobabble as an excuse for why the nonsense things make sense in the context of the story. This story didn't even respect the audience enough to do that.

Covering inaccuracies with technobabble is the opposite of respecting your audience. It's a hollow, miserable trope devoid of wit or grace. I much prefer the "deal with it" attitude usually embodied by Doctor Who. Thinking that the moon creature is siphoning mass from a parallel universe makes you feel better? Then think that, but don't force the writers to insert ridiculous pseudoscience lines in what is, at its core, a morality play.

In Kill the Moon, it's not a deal with it attitude, it's an ignorance attitude. A basic misunderstanding of how common things work. It reflects poorly on the writer and production team that no one caught these. It's like we were watching the rough draft, which was written by someone who doesn't know science.

Just because DW regularly deals with unbelieavable concepts doesn't mean the show can be callous about it. If it is a familiar object or a concept with known physical laws, they have to respect those.

If it's like the TARDIS and not a familiar object, it can have its own laws for how it works.

And, they have to take care to not to have too many unbelievable things in one story because it destroys your suspension of disbelief.

Mr Awe

 

[Mytran]

Nothing too dense, I imagine. Didn't our heros pick one up / throw it at one point? If they were somehow super-heavy beasties that would not have been possible, not to mention the issues of sinking into the lunar soil.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Changing the density (how compact) material is does not change its mass. You squeeze the sun down to the size of a pin head and it will still have the same amount of mass even though it is now extremely dense.

The only time mass increases is when you ADD more material. Unless there's a mother feeding the egg, the moon shouldn't be increasing in mass.

Indeed. Unless it's converting solar energy into mass, eating the Moon isn't going to increase anything, just convert Moon mass to space beastie mass.

Which is why I brought up the massive constantly renewed surface reserves of helium 3.

 

[Venardhi]

How much energy would need to be converted to mass/matter to increase the moon to what we saw, which seemed something like 5-10x the existing mass of the moon or so based on the surface gravity being comparable to Earth's? Anyone got a physics book handy?

 

[Guy Gardener]

When you put it that way... The helium three would have been gone too, but that would only yield the necessary energy to increase the Moons mass by 8 if it's stomach was a nuclear furnace of somesort which is less fantastic than that it has an extradimensiona mouth that consumes extradimensional energy to explain the foreign mass.

If it's stomach is a helium 3 powered nuclear fusion generator, well shit is just going to transmute into other shit for no reason as waste products it can't control right beside al the necessary transmutation necessary for this thing to turn stone into organic steel, or what ever it is made from.

 

[intrinsical]

How much energy would need to be converted to mass/matter to increase the moon to what we saw, which seemed something like 5-10x the existing mass of the moon or so based on the surface gravity being comparable to Earth's? Anyone got a physics book handy?

Not a physicist, but e=mc² should apply. Just have to figure out how much mass the Moon needs to gain to have an Earth-like gravity, multiply it by speed of light squared and you'll have the amount of energy required.

According to Google, the mass of the Earth is 5.9726x10^24 and the mass of the moon is 0.0123 times that of the Earth. So the moon needs to gain 98.77% of the mass of the Earth. Distance from the core of the moon matters, but I don't know how to adjust for that... but its a freaking HUGE amount of energy that's required.

 

[Velocity]

Changing the density (how compact) of a material is does not change its mass. You squeeze the sun down to the size of a pin head and it will still have the same amount of mass even though it is now extremely dense.

The only time mass increases is when you ADD more material. Unless there's a mother feeding the egg, the moon shouldn't be increasing in mass.

Since mothers do not feed eggs, it could be that the writers intended that the cell division of the growing baby added to the weight of the moon. I still don't understand the whole spider plot device. What was their point? To eliminate crewmembers?

 

[Nightowl1701]

"I suggest you don't worry about this sort of thing, and just enjoy yourself. That goes for you all, too."

Or better yet, let's just agree this is the Timelash of NuWho and start looking forward to the Mummy on the Orient Express next Saturday instead. There's no making sense of this why-fi.

 

[Venardhi]

How much energy would need to be converted to mass/matter to increase the moon to what we saw, which seemed something like 5-10x the existing mass of the moon or so based on the surface gravity being comparable to Earth's? Anyone got a physics book handy?

Not a physicist, but e=mc² should apply. Just have to figure out how much mass the Moon needs to gain to have an Earth-like gravity, multiply it by speed of light squared and you'll have the amount of energy required.

According to Google, the mass of the Earth is 5.9726x10^24 and the mass of the moon is 0.0123 times that of the Earth. So the moon needs to gain 98.77% of the mass of the Earth. Distance from the core of the moon matters, but I don't know how to adjust for that... but its a freaking HUGE amount of energy that's required.

The surface of the Moon has somewhere around 16% Earth surface gravity, so the mass increase required should be about 6.5x, no? But yes, I think the technical term would be metric fuckloads of energy.

 

[Venardhi]

Changing the density (how compact) of a material is does not change its mass. You squeeze the sun down to the size of a pin head and it will still have the same amount of mass even though it is now extremely dense.

The only time mass increases is when you ADD more material. Unless there's a mother feeding the egg, the moon shouldn't be increasing in mass.

Since mothers do not feed eggs, it could be that the writers intended that the cell division of the growing baby added to the weight of the moon. I still don't understand the whole spider plot device. What was their point? To eliminate crewmembers?

That was exactly what they intended, which is the worst kind of nonsense. The spiders were supposed to be enormous bacteria, which is more nonsense but at least the right kind for making the story exciting. I don't see the need to make them exactly like spiders even down to the webs that never factor in, but spiders are creepy so I understand.

 

[Mr Awe]

"I suggest you don't worry about this sort of thing, and just enjoy yourself. That goes for you all, too."

Or better yet, let's just agree this is the Timelash of NuWho and start looking forward to the Mummy on the Orient Express next Saturday instead. There's no making sense of this why-fi.

If they don't want us to try make sense of it, they shouldn't write about things familiar to us where we know how they should work!

Don't give nonsensical properties to things we are familiar with, just things that we aren't like space trains!

Mr Awe

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

How much energy would need to be converted to mass/matter to increase the moon to what we saw, which seemed something like 5-10x the existing mass of the moon or so based on the surface gravity being comparable to Earth's? Anyone got a physics book handy?

Not a physicist, but e=mc² should apply. Just have to figure out how much mass the Moon needs to gain to have an Earth-like gravity, multiply it by speed of light squared and you'll have the amount of energy required.

According to Google, the mass of the Earth is 5.9726x10^24 and the mass of the moon is 0.0123 times that of the Earth. So the moon needs to gain 98.77% of the mass of the Earth. Distance from the core of the moon matters, but I don't know how to adjust for that... but its a freaking HUGE amount of energy that's required.

I believe, and hope to be corrected on if false, that double the distance halves the gravity?