View From The Porch: Lettin' my geek flag fly.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Lettin' my geek flag fly.

I want to see this movie. Badly.

Because, you know, space battleships!

49 comments:

Robert McDonald said...: I am interested.; 1:00 PM, January 04, 2010
Robb Allen said...: I've often wondered how real battles in space would be. Distances are vast in space, so keeping the fleet within a light-year of each other would be considered crowded in the whole scheme of things.

Unpowered projectile weaponry would be useless at distances. Powered projectiles would require a metric shit ton of fuel. Energy based weaponry seems like it could easily be defeated with a pocket mirror.

Also, the physics of space do not require that the ship be aerodynamic, nor would aircraft have to bank to turn unless the ship designers were dumb enough to put the thrusters in a fixed position on the aircraft.

Communications at distances would be tricky too. By the time you received the enemies positions, they'd be long gone (as well as evolved into a completely different species).; 1:00 PM, January 04, 2010
Diogenes said...: I remember that cartoon when I was a kid. Didn't last long but it was way cool. They nailed the look of the commodore. WOOT! new must see. Hope it releases here.; 1:02 PM, January 04, 2010
NMM1AFan said...: Oh heck yeah! Loved, loved that show as a kid.; 1:09 PM, January 04, 2010
BryanP said...: The 70's era anime "Space Battleship Yamato" was fun too. The Americanized version, "Star Blazers" is fun in it's own way, but they made changes. The edited out the death of a character, and the Admiral's bottles of sake became "springwater" among other things.; 1:13 PM, January 04, 2010
Anonymous said...: C'mon, Robb; you're harshing our mellow here!

Future space battles will generally be of the old sailing-ship type. Full broadside firing is the order of the day! ;-)

Heinlein has used kinetic weapons, you know. Flingers throw inert mass chunks at opponents with nasty results.

Beam weapons are quick; perhaps too much so for simple reflective defenses.

A civilization that can produce black-space warships can certainly overcome the FTL communications problems. Imagination, son. Imagination! (I used the "son" since I'm approaching codger-hood.)

Besides, think of the movie that *your* ideas would produce. Bo-o-o-ring! :-) (Word verification proves it - "snor me")

Jon B.; 1:13 PM, January 04, 2010
Robb Allen said...: Jon B, real life tends to be boring. It's why we go to the movies ;)

Again, kinetic weapons work great when the object you're aiming at doesn't have enough time to move out of the way. I would assume most battles are going to happen near a planet due to the fact that it's difficult to move a planet (Pierson's Puppeteers excepted, of course).

As for energy weapons, I'd suggest use a LARGE mirror. Or simply decorate the hull of the ship with surplus disco balls.; 1:29 PM, January 04, 2010
Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...: I've long thought David Weber-type massive spacefleet battles were unrealistic, both from a tactical point of view and from a "where do they get the money and materials to build all those superdreadnaughts" point of view. This leads me to concur with Robb Allen's comments.

I'm much more intrigued by the profusion of "Space Marine" fiction that's popped up in the last decade or so.

But then, I'm also an H. Beam Piper fan. That may explain a lot.; 1:48 PM, January 04, 2010
Robert Langham said...: In the future, the Japanese won't have time for haircuts or shaves......in space!; 1:58 PM, January 04, 2010
Butch_S said...: I can see space battleships being cool and all, but I'd no sooner want to see the Yamato raised for such a purpose than either the Bismarck or the Arizona.; 2:03 PM, January 04, 2010
Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...: Robb, David Weber does a pretty good job of coming up with realistic space battles. He even uses tactics and ship designs determined by the constraints of the propulsion systems.

His Honor Harrington series is a good example. Combat distances are, at most, measured in light minutes, and battles are generally focused around an immobile objective - planets, repair yards, etc.

Missiles and system-scale battles are feasible because his drive allows high accelerations (I believe missiles are generally around 5000 m/s^2, and ships max out at around 500-600 m/s^2 depending on size, with max velocities for both of .8c due to limitations in particle shielding).

They're good, character driven stories, too. He does occasionally get bogged down in tactical descriptions, but I think that's a way he emphasizes things like inertia, physics, and probability, since they usually get ignored by other authors.

And, yeah - unlike about 99% of the sci-fi authors out there, he actually acknowledges things like inertia, too. No instantly turning the ship around to chase after the bad guys - sometimes the heroes have to simply watch helplessly as the bad guys blow up innocents because they happened to be moving in the wrong direction when the SHTF.; 2:05 PM, January 04, 2010
Anonymous said...: IMHO space travel as we envision it (humans traveling light-years in metal bubbles filled with air) will never happen. As physicists expand our knowledge, reality seems to get ever further from what our senses tell us it is. By the time we learn enough to build interstellar spacecraft, we will have learned enough other stuff to conclude that long trips from one rock to another in 4-D spacetime is just booooring compared to what else we can do.

But the movie looks cool, anyway.

Samsam; 2:18 PM, January 04, 2010
Noah D said...: Want to know how 'real' space battles would be? Talk to the guys who did the research - and made a game out of it!

Ad Astra Games.

Attack Vector: Tactical is complex, but playable - if you're an old Star Fleet Battles hand, it's easy. If all you know is the Xbox, it's hard, and dull. But they did the skull sweat and came to some very interesting conclusions. There's a PDF of the ToC and sample pages on their Downloads page that has some of them listed. Mainly, it's not like anything that's ever been done on the small or large screen. The closest thing I've seen is the ship at the beginning of Avatar.

And they adapted their system to the Weberverse as well...; 2:24 PM, January 04, 2010
Anonymous said...: Oh, yeah. I forgot my answer to Robb's "bank to turn" comments.

They probably *should* use a banked turn whilst engaged in battle. It can help conserve power. How? Well, since shielding, maneuvering and weapons use lots of power, they may have to rob some from the artificial gravity system. Banking helps to keep "down" in the right direction.

Also, I think that acceleration would be as described above by Jake. Mass is still mass, regardless of gravity. Consider the aircraft carrier and its acceleration. Structural issues would, I think, limit acceleration to levels that would allow for projectile weapons. Use the proper 'lead' just like firing at a running deer.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Tam: Your word verification is scary! "Besser", as in the German form. Take that, Robb!

Jon B.; 2:30 PM, January 04, 2010
Anonymous said...: I see they broke out the kamikazes in space.

Somethings never change:>

Gerry; 2:58 PM, January 04, 2010
Comrade Misfit said...: I wonder if the space battleship Yamato will do any better than the original warship did.; 3:20 PM, January 04, 2010
global village idiot said...: See, there's geekery and there's geekery. I just wanna see a cool story. And whatever this is, it's a cool story!

gvi

WV: kleni - alien race that are the archenemies of the crew of the Space Battleship Yamato ?; 3:25 PM, January 04, 2010
VinceS said...: Tam,
THANK YOU for the link. I loved Star Blazers as a kid, and actually bought the entire three box DVD collection a while back for way too much money. Reminds me, I need to finish re-watching the Bolar Wars series.; 3:46 PM, January 04, 2010
Matt G said...: I'm so very there for Space Battleship Yamato. There, uh, might have been a time when I put a little too much attention into anime mechs, and another time when I was a bit too heavily into battleships.

This makes my geek pants go crazy.

As for Robb with his silly assertions about distances, this is all well and good... until the battleships actually close to Earth-battle distances. Using a kinetic energy weapon at 20 miles would be within parameters, and the gunners wouldn't have to account for drop, so T.O.T. would be way faster.

And who's to say that the Yamato wouldn't just be a space-worthy carrier? I'm sure Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar) in his Black Tiger fighter could get close enough to do all the good.; 3:47 PM, January 04, 2010
staghounds said...: Space battleships are obsolete, space aircraft carriers are the wave of the future!; 3:48 PM, January 04, 2010
Matt G said...: Here's the IMDB entry for it:

Uchû senkan Yamato; 3:54 PM, January 04, 2010
Matt G said...: From the "Trivia" page of the IMDB listing:
"During the mid-1990s, the Walt Disney Company bought the rights to produce this film. Tab Murphy wrote a highly-publicized script, which followed a ragtag crew of misfits (original characters, not from either "Uchû senkan Yamato" (1974) or its English counterpart "Star Blazers" (1979)) aboard the rebuilt U.S.S. battleship Arizona (which was sunk by the Japanese during the Pearl Harbor attack) on a mission to save Earth. Following Michael Eisner's departure from Disney, the project's rights reverted back to the Japanese."

Oof. Dodged that little bullet, didn't we?; 4:00 PM, January 04, 2010
New Jovian Thunderbolt said...: 1980. Channel 20. WDCA. 3:30 PM, during the school year when 5th grade got out at 3. I was 11. They only showed the series once. I knew it was special and made the effort to catch it. Only missed one episode.; 4:46 PM, January 04, 2010
excitedVulcan said...: Thanks Tam! I, as many others would rush home from school to see StarBlazers on the tube. Now my boy can enjoy it too.; 6:06 PM, January 04, 2010
Atom Smasher said...: I see your geek flag and raise you ........

ROCKETS! http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

It's all there. With equations.; 6:27 PM, January 04, 2010
Joe R. said...: Bring it on! I've been waiting a long time to see this in live action and I hope that they do it right!

Joe R.; 6:29 PM, January 04, 2010
Darrell said...: The Japs did a flying submarine back in the '60s. I think the nose spun on it too. I forget its name.

glyrmin?; 6:30 PM, January 04, 2010
wfgodbold said...: If you want gratuitous space battles, you should check out, uh, Gratuitous Space Battles at http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/

I haven't tried it myself, and as I understand it you set everything up and then watch it play out instead of controlling things in real time, but it still looks cool.; 7:34 PM, January 04, 2010
Loose Gravel said...: Star Blazers reruns used to come on at 5:30 am when I was in college. It was the ONLY thing that enabled me to get up in time to get to my 8:00 am French class. (Perfect attendance, no less!); 7:35 PM, January 04, 2010
Anonymous said...: Oh, cool.

Jim; 7:37 PM, January 04, 2010
James family outpost, Iowa. said...: Oooh my, good news indeed!
Ah, Junior High in the early 80's - Battlestar Galactica Friday nights, Star Blazers weekdays after school... Thanks to Sci-Fi channel we got the BSG re-boot series, now for Star Blazers!; 7:46 PM, January 04, 2010
Tirno said...: I saw this in the morning, showed it to my co-worker. He said,

"You had me at wave motion gun."

I work in a geeky place. There are Fallout 3 posters on the cube walls, and we aren't a game company.; 9:41 PM, January 04, 2010
Tirno said...: Um, at the time of this posting the yamato-movie.net web site has a count-down timer running on it that expires in 12 hours, 13 minutes. Does anyone read enough Japanese to tell us what happens at that time? New trailer? New teaser? New web-site with more than just a cast list? Movie release? The first radioactive meteorite impacts, and our heroes only have 365 days left to save the Earth?; 9:47 PM, January 04, 2010
Anonymous said...: Battle Ship Yamato . . . I watched it (when I could) when I was in AIT at Ft Gordon (c. 1978). My second amine (my first was the original Astro Boy), and I've been in love with the genre ever since. The adult-ness of a cartoon, the continuing storyline, plot and character development. What's not to love?

B Woodman
III-per; 10:04 PM, January 04, 2010
rickn8or said...: No dead/dying Nazis? No machine guns? No zombies?

How good could it be??; 10:55 PM, January 04, 2010
Tam said...: Uh, hello? Space battleships?; 10:57 PM, January 04, 2010
wfgodbold said...: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Tirno, but it's (now) a 331 day and 9 hour count down until 'launch' (presumably when it hits theaters). For some reason they put the day counter above the digital counter in red.; 12:40 AM, January 05, 2010
Anonymous said...: OMG! "Wing Commander" remade in Japan!!!; 3:40 AM, January 05, 2010
Ian Argent said...: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html has all your hard science/physics space travel and battle need covered.

Me, as long as it's internally consistent phlebotinum and doesn't overty break the laws of thermodynamics; if it has a story and characters, I'm good.

WV: readihe - short description of Heinlein; 10:29 AM, January 05, 2010
Bram said...: I thought Ringo's last couple of Posleen books were a tribute. He had two heavy cruisers made into space battleships.; 10:46 AM, January 05, 2010
Ian Argent said...: Yeah, but in both cases, the material of the ships was essentially play-doh'd out and the new starships (not spaceships) were re-assembled in significantly different form (aesthetically more "pleasing" in the case of USS Des Moines; though USS Salem was mighty peeved for a bit with her conversion).; 11:03 AM, January 05, 2010
Matt G said...: Countdown now says 329 days, 21 hrs, 27 minutes until Space Battleship Yamato comes out.

Damn but that's a long time.; 12:32 PM, January 05, 2010
Noah D said...: Not one, but TWO referrals to Winchell's Project Rho - it warms my spacewar geek heart!

(Warning - it's easy to get lost reading that site...)

I'm of two minds about this. One wants to see a strictly 'realistic' space battle movie - maybe a 2075 China vs. India with the US, Europe and Africa as minor players. Flaring fusion drives (or better yet, nuke pulse Orions), invisible lasers, radiators, and so on.

The other? Battleships...in...SPAAAAAAACE! :)

(If you're going to throw the rules out, do so in style and with joy.)

WV: 'reessist' - what we must do to the lizard invaders.; 2:31 PM, January 05, 2010
Ian Argent said...: Main reason as a proto-author I like the Project Rho site is because it's a lot better to KNOW why the rule exists when you break it; and to easily find the math that will keep you from looking like a fool (see the Lt Leary series' missile terminal velocity "error").; 2:51 PM, January 05, 2010
NMM1AFan said...: There's a pretty good fan made trailer at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTKlA66bG4g&feature=related; 8:06 PM, January 05, 2010
Kristophr said...: Good. Looks like someone was inspired by the latest incarnation of BSG to not make it a kiddie show.; 8:25 PM, January 05, 2010
atlharp said...: Dammit! The Japanese stole my script and made it better! Mine took place underwater. Torpedoes can never outdo lasers......I gotta remember that...Lasers, Lasers, Lasers!; 11:45 PM, January 05, 2010
Mark said...: 1) Really looking forward to SBY, because I Am A Geek.

2) Realistic Space Battles? Why hie thee to www.honorverse.com - I'm a bit chuffed that David Weber's hung my render of HMS Nike in his home. He's notoriously hard to please, so if he's happy, I'm happy. We should be shipping the game in less than six months.

2a) Sorry to whore myself, but show me an artist who doesn't show off, and I'll show you a poor artist...; 8:13 PM, January 06, 2010
Ian Argent said...: OK - I was already interested in the game, but one of the people involved reads VFTP? Dang.

(WV: Diesse - wrong series, but still a planet rich in sci-fi goodness); 8:32 AM, January 07, 2010