I wasn't around here when that happened. How bad did things get? I mean it's just a discussion of fictional spaceships how could that get heated?
I guess but then I realize it's all fiction and people getting heated over that makes me bow out of discussions once that point gets crossed. I mean it's one thing to get heated over real life stuff and issues but this is all make believe.
Oh it gets silly. Really silly. It's still fun, and I still enjoy it, to a point, but it always seems to devolve into rigid camps - and there's usually little consensus as to standards of evidence.
In the novels, the Super Star Destroyer at least, was grabbed by Rebel/New Republic tractor beams and pulled towards the surface. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ravager#Battle_of_Jakku The tractor beams eventually burnt out, but the stabilizing thrusters on the SSD overcompensated and flipped it over, which is why it's upside down. So maybe the down thrust slowed it down a bit? Also Star Wars Fantasy physics.
Star Wars just tells physics to fuck off. X Wings for example fly like regular aircraft in space with no indication of any other thrusters to help when they do tight turns and spins.
Which makes it confusing when people complain about the physics of the bombing scene in TLJ. I can understand most of the other complaints, but the physics? Why the hell are they complaining about the physics in a Star Wars movie?
Most sci-fi disregards a lot of real science. It has to. Trek has its own examples, so does Stargate, Babylon 5, Doctor Who (which just laughs hard at physics), it's all pretty much about ignoring actual science - and that's a good thing, because if they obeyed the laws of science, they would not exist!
Actually Babylon 5 did do a lot of science.. Starfuries function almost exactly how you would expect them to they have thrusters for each action they take and they often use them the way they are supposed to instead of having a few generic engines that magically turn the ship around without any visible process. I think those were done right. Also The Expanse shows realistic ships.
The Expanse might get more right than typical science fiction on TV, but it's hardly the scientist's bible that everyone makes it out to be.
A good point about B5, but generally, sci-fi plays fast and loose with science, it has to. I'm kinda pondering setting up a 'versus' thread, see where it leads.
True. That slingshot series maneuvering in one of the episode was pretty cringy. And they base their magical Epstein drive on physics, but it’s still a magical drive.
Good sci-fi generally knows to pick it's battles when it comes to "realistic physics" vs. "entertaining storytelling". There's usually at least one major technological conceit in order to make the story (particularly those of the adventurous persuasion) viable and not utterly dry and tedious affairs. Warp Drive, hyperdrive, transporters, naquadah, eezo, quantium-40, the holtzman effect, the epstein drive...etc. etc. But they also generally know to ground the fantastical elements in the realistic. So yeah, The Expanse is VERY good in that regard as it deals with aspects of space travel that most other shows and movies don't even *think* about, much less address. Like for example the effect of even minor internal injuries in a micro-gravity environment, how when someone is shot and killed in such an environment the body just stays right where it is. How high-G manoeuvres can by damaging, even deadly to the human body, that if you create gravity through spin you have to deal with the coriolis effect, and dozen and dozens of other details big and small. None of which however applies to Star Wars since it's not sci-fi, it's a fairy tale style fantasy adventure that happens to take place in space. P.S. All that said, the people that complained about the bomb drop in TLJ were idiots that didn't understand physics, at least so far as it pertains to inertia...or for that matter how magnetic rails work.
People for some reason want everything explained to them instead of using their eyes. Though to be fair I didn't even see the rails until after the Visual Guide pointed them out. I just went with 'there's gravity on the bomber'.