MYTHBUSTERS 2015 Season Thread

[Locutus of Bored]

Ouch. Sticking "turbo-" on the front of something spacey or futuristic is one of the lamest forms of technobabble. How in the heck can a laser be driven by a turbine? There's no fluid pressure of any kind involved in generating a laser beam. And no, no, don't tell me, I'm sure that fandom or the EU has made up some kind of elaborate handwave to rationalize the term, but it's still a silly term to begin with.

The turbine doesn't drive the laser, it's an emergency source of power to supplement the normal reactors in case a higher rate of fire is needed to combat smaller and faster starfighters instead of capital ships. Think of it like switching from electric to gas on a hybrid vehicle when you need a little extra boost of power for driving on the open road as opposed to being in traffic.

This may be the nerdiest sci-fi technology technobabble post I've ever seen you make.

That's nothing. I used to be way nerdier than that. Bernd Schneider started an offshoot site from Ex Astris Scientia called Canon Fodder for some of my silly theories when we were admins together at the Subspace Comms Network forums.

http://canonfodder.ex-astris-scientia.org/index.php?Index

All the ones authored by Bond, James Bond are mine. I was a total fanboy.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I said "don't tell me." I should've known someone would anyway.

But it's somewhat plausible, right? The Air Force tested nuclear powered long range bombers in the 50s, and while the nuclear reactor was perfectly fine for extremely long range, slow speed cruising and loitering, it lacked the power necessary for takeoff and landing operations, which is why the bombers maintained conventional engines for that purpose as well.

I see this as sort of the same idea of the reactors being satisfactory for most capital ship engagements, but needing a more energetic temporary power source for taking on starfighters.

 

[Christopher]

But it's somewhat plausible, right?

"Plausible" has never been an issue in Star Wars. It's not science fiction; in Lucas's own terms, it's space fantasy. It's sword-and-sorcery with a gloss of space-opera trappings -- sword-and-planet, as the subgenre was known in the pulps. It doesn't need plausible explanations any more than John Carter of Mars needs a plausible explanation for how Carter was teleported to Barsoom (although I did like the movie's answer) or Flash Gordon needs a plausible explanation for the musculoskeletal adaptations that allow the Hawkmen to fly -- or, for that matter, any more than we need a plausible explanation for how Harry Potter's wand summons a Patronus or the One Ring turns its wielder invisible.

More to the point, if they call something a "laser" when it's not even claimed to be based on the laser principle, there's not much point in bothering to justify the other half of the name either. It's just as much gibberish as "tibanna gas," even if it's familiar-sounding gibberish.

 

[Forbin]

I said "don't tell me." I should've known someone would anyway.

But it's somewhat plausible, right? The Air Force tested nuclear powered long range bombers in the 50s, and while the nuclear reactor was perfectly fine for extremely long range, slow speed cruising and loitering, it lacked the power necessary for takeoff and landing operations, which is why the bombers maintained conventional engines for that purpose as well.

I see this as sort of the same idea of the reactors being satisfactory for most capital ship engagements, but needing a more energetic temporary power source for taking on starfighters.

I think the nuke engines may have been powerful enough for takeoff, but nobody wanted to blast radioactive jet exhaust around the air base. Hence the conventional turbojets for takeoff. (Ooo - I said turbo!)

 

[Forbin]

Speaking of turbo, and being a fan of the total non-sequiter, my father had a pet monkey when he was on the tiny Pacific island of Ie Shima during WWII. Being a fighter pilot, Dad named him "Turbo." Here's a picture of Turbo taking dictation for one of Dad's mission reports:
http://www.inpayne.com/dad/turbotyping.jpg

 

[Locutus of Bored]

But it's somewhat plausible, right?

"Plausible" has never been an issue in Star Wars.

That was completely unhelpful, but not unexpected.

 

[Christopher]

It's not an insult. There's nothing wrong with fantasy. Star Wars was never meant to be plausible or technically grounded. It was meant to be Flash Gordon.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

That wasn't my bone of contention. I'm aware that Star Wars is space fantasy, and don't consider calling it fantasy an insult. But you can still speculate on how things work in a fantasy universe just for fun, even if the creators do not consider it necessary to do so themselves in order to tell a good story, right?

I was kind of hoping to get a straight answer from you regarding the turbolaser idea I posted instead of yet another repeat of the obvious "Star Wars is a fantasy" mantra you've already said multiple times. Just a little fun bit of speculation. But that's OK.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I suppose. I do remember once having a Shane Johnson tech manual about weapons from various sci-fi universes, mostly Trek but also including Star Wars, Space: 1999, and Logan's Run. I found his speculative version of lightsaber functioning to be pretty interesting, and enormously more plausible than that weird Force-crystal explanation that's apparently become canonical. (I think it said the blade was a magnetically contained beam of antiprotons, which was how it could cut through anything. It also explains why the blades repel each other.)

But generally it's just not something I'm invested in; I prefer to save my technical mindset for more grounded SF universes. And I still think that any technobabble term that starts with "turbo" is just someone's lame attempt to make it sound cool, and any attempt to rationalize that lameness after the fact is not really going to make it any less lame.

 

[Forbin]

Turbo-Monkey!!!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Speaking of turbo, and being a fan of the total non-sequiter, my father had a pet monkey when he was on the tiny Pacific island of Ie Shima during WWII. Being a fighter pilot, Dad named him "Turbo." Here's a picture of Turbo taking dictation for one of Dad's mission reports:
http://www.inpayne.com/dad/turbotyping.jpg

Get 99 more and put them in a room long enough and they'll write the script for Star Wars.

 

[Forbin]

Speaking of turbo, and being a fan of the total non-sequiter, my father had a pet monkey when he was on the tiny Pacific island of Ie Shima during WWII. Being a fighter pilot, Dad named him "Turbo." Here's a picture of Turbo taking dictation for one of Dad's mission reports:
http://www.inpayne.com/dad/turbotyping.jpg

Get 99 more and put them in a room long enough and they'll write the script for Star Wars.

How do you think Dad wrote his mission reports?

 

[Corran Horn]

The "lava" the MBs came up with looked better than the "lava" in the movie.

That may be so - but the "lava" in the movie was a combination of shots of actual lava footage and a practical recreation of lava made much the same way the mythbusters made theirs - the Making of RotS shows as much.

(of course there were some CGI shots of lava too)

 

[Forbin]

Was that it for the season, then?

 

[Christopher]

Apparently so. Six episodes earlier in the year, eight episodes in this bunch, for a fourteen-episode season.

 

[Forbin]

Doesn't even seem like it's been that many.

 

[publiusr]

And I go and miss the second Star Wars special

 

[TheSeeker]

Mythbusters has been cancelled.

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/mythbusters-discovery-ending-1201623363/

 

[Gepard]

Just came here to post this.

Sad news, but at least it doesn't sound like it was cancelled per se; they're getting a proper finale and Jamie indicates in the interview that he and Adam were involved in the decision to end it. I guess they saw which way the ratings were trending and felt that the show had gone on long enough. 14 seasons really is an incredible run for what amounts to a science show about two effects artists goofing around in a workshop.

I've never been to one of their live shows, but always wanted to go. I guess this winter will be my last chance.

 

[TheSeeker]

I knew it had to end eventually but I'm still a little bummed. I still enjoy the show.