3D Master
Rear Admiral
And there was still that SoD that the concentration of salt mattered - because we do carry less salt in our sweat and especially meat than the concentration of salt in seawater.
Good characters or good science?
- Thread starter blockaderunner
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And there was still that SoD that the concentration of salt mattered - because we do carry less salt in our sweat and especially meat than the concentration of salt in seawater.
Could be not necessairly "salt-water" that effected them but an organisim that's indigenous to only salt-water?
(I've not seen Alien Nation in years so I don't recall that paticulars of this problem the Newcomers had or that they even had it.)
Star Trek Enterprise did something similar in a S1 episode where Trip boards an alien ship to do repairs. The crew on the ship serves him little clear gelatinous cubes telling him they "tried to duplicate water as best as they could for him" or words to that effect.
Yeah.
It must've been so hard for them to simply burn the most abundant element in the universe in an oxygen-rich enviroment.
(Oh and there's the planet where they "mine" for deuterium as if it's some kind of fossil fuel and not just, well, heavy hydrogen.)
(I've not seen Alien Nation in years so I don't recall that paticulars of this problem the Newcomers had or that they even had it.)
Star Trek Enterprise did something similar in a S1 episode where Trip boards an alien ship to do repairs. The crew on the ship serves him little clear gelatinous cubes telling him they "tried to duplicate water as best as they could for him" or words to that effect.
Yeah.
It must've been so hard for them to simply burn the most abundant element in the universe in an oxygen-rich enviroment.
(Oh and there's the planet where they "mine" for deuterium as if it's some kind of fossil fuel and not just, well, heavy hydrogen.)
No, it wasn't an infection; it burned them like acid. It was a chemical reaction, not a biological one.
And it wasn't salt water in general, I think, but specifically seawater, which has a more complex chemistry than just water plus sodium chloride.
Huh. If it reacted like acid that would suggest that seawater's pH was the problem -which is, what, 8? An alkaline?
Man, they must've REALLY wanted to avoid lye, then. It'd probably dissolve them on the spot! (And I'm sure it'd cause problems for other items lower on the pH scale than seawater at a "measly" 8. Hell what regular water would do to them should still be pretty bad.)
Ok. Newcomers and seawater is pretty iffy science. (But I'd be "acceptable" if there were good plot reasons for it other than "to be alien.")
Man, they must've REALLY wanted to avoid lye, then. It'd probably dissolve them on the spot! (And I'm sure it'd cause problems for other items lower on the pH scale than seawater at a "measly" 8. Hell what regular water would do to them should still be pretty bad.)
Ok. Newcomers and seawater is pretty iffy science. (But I'd be "acceptable" if there were good plot reasons for it other than "to be alien.")
Ok, because it's a cool scene and I think it shows how much thought -despite some recent discussion to the contrary- Alien Nation's creators put into the "Newcomer's" biology and culture:
The Alien Nation fetus-pod birthing/transfering scene.
The Alien Nation fetus-pod birthing/transfering scene.
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I hope that by "recent argument" you aren't referring to my earlier post. Despite the problems with biochemistry, I think AN was one of the most intelligent and imaginative depictions of an alien culture in the history of television. And a lot of what the show established about their biology was quite clever and intriguing, despite being saddled with the silly ideas from the movie.
(Okay, if being burned by seawater was about pH, can you explain why sour milk would make them drunk and alcohol wouldn't?)
"recent argument" Was a "for want of a better term" sort of statement.
"Discussion" would've worked better.
And, no, like I said I fully agree. Their take on the Newcomers/Tenctonese is very well developed and diverse. Different religions, cultures, interesting customs and biology, very well done.
As much as I love Star Trek, it very much as the "all one culture" mentatily to alien races. Klingons are "warriors", Ferengi are "greedy capitalists", Romulans are "devious espionagists", Vulcans are "logical pacifist emotional supressionists", etc. It was nice AN put a whole lot more thought in their short time than Trek has in 45 years in the culture of an alien race.
Nope.
And, frankly, I don't think the seawater/pH thing makes sense, either just the best I can come up with.
IIRC, alcohol "makes you drunk" my interupting the flow of neurotransmitters in the brain. It gets between the neurons... or something and "puts too many birds on your antenna." Maybe Tenctonese brains aren't vulnerable to this chemical interuption? And then maybe the bacteria found in sour milk DO effect the neurological processes (by interupting blood/neurotransmitter flow.) But I think this would mean they couldn't eat cheeses, yogurt, sour cream or any number of things that contain "sour milk" (or at least bacterially alive milk products) without "getting drunk."
I guess I would then further suppose -sense these bacteria are always in dairy- it's the quantity of this bacteria and not the presence of it. Sort of like how you can eat foods cooked with alcohol without getting drunk -the alcohol is cooked out enough to not be a problem. Fresh milk has the bacteria but not enough of it to make them "drunk."
Trekker, pulling it all out of his ass.
Well, that's pretty dumb considering every living thing on this planet has salt in it. It's a basic ingredient of life on this planet.
Everything has salt in it.
As Christopher pointed out above human sweat should've then effected them. The Newcomers wouldn't be able to eat anything on this planet because everything has salt in it.
There are plenty of good science fiction stories without FTL (or aliens - an equally silly idea).
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Which is where we get the concentration SoD from I named above; you can eat things containing poison as long as the concentration of the poison is low enough. Case in point: blowfish. The neuro poison in it can kill you instantly, a little less and it paralyzes you, trapping you in your body, waking immobility with your heart beating only once a minute or so. But prepared right, with the concentration low enough, and it's a delicatessen.
Which would be the actual silly idea. To think that in all the vastness of the universe, we are the only intelligent living beings, is the height of idiocy and arrogance.
To assume that humans will ever meet them is the height of idiocy and arrogance.
I enjoy alien shows, just pointing out that they're silly.
To be fair, they were able to do that because the entire series focused on only one alien race, rather than a different one each week. I should point out that in DS9, we got extensive development of the Bajorans and Cardassians, because they were constant, ongoing presences in the series.
"Ever" could encompass millions of years. Generation ships traveling at no more than a quarter of the speed of light could spread through the entire galaxy within a few million years. Isn't it far more arrogant to assume that the conditions and limitations that prevail in your own personal experience represent the universal norm for all time to come?
I think 'ever' covers it pretty well.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
So said the Wright Brothers about humans never ever flying.
So said countless people including scientists to Jules Verne story "From the Earth to the Moon" about humanity never ever going to the moon.
So said computer scientists in the fifties about an SF story of desktop computers in homes linked by a network, they said computers would never ever be on a desk, computers then the size of an office room, would only grow bigger according to them.
You're not seriously saying that we're going to meet little green space friends in our lifetime? Jules Verne wrote fiction. Science fiction or at least the precursor to it. I don't know who your 'countless' people are but there's a difference between Margaret Thatcher saying there wouldn't be a woman PM in her lifetime and me saying humanity is not going to meet aliens across the void.
Who said "in our lifetime?" You were the one who specifically defined the time parameter as "ever," meaning at any time in the entire future history of the human race, even thousands or millions of years from now. You're shifting the goalposts by suddenly narrowing it to "in our lifetime."
I'm getting jumped on for saying something I think is correct. The jumpers cannot in any way, shape, form or size say I'm not correct. So what's your problem? The only way you can prove me wrong is in our lifetime, otherwise I'm correct as far as we all are concerned, unless we really aren't dead for all time.
^You've got the burden of proof backward. You're the one asserting a negative, so yours is the position that is impossible to prove. I'm not saying it's an absolute certainty that we will meet alien life at some point in the future; I'm simply saying it's hardly an absolute certainty that we won't.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
The only difference being Marget Thatcher's claim and yours is that it had nothing to do with science, science fiction, or drama. Jules Verne wrote science fiction; he wrote a book about going to the moon. Even a mere decade before we actually achieved it there were still plenty of people that thought we wouldn't ever do it.
The universe has a habit of proving anyone claiming something can't happen wrong; either in his life time, or soon after.
Your claim, simply put, is ridiculous; at least the other claims had at least some semblance of their science on their side. Your claim, not so much.
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