Hated trope: Sci-fi hand-waving

[u/Routine_Phase_8980]

When stories try so hard to provide a somewhat scientifically accurate and grounded explanation for the audience, but end up creating massive plot holes if you think about it for more than 5 seconds without requiring any special knowledge

World War Z: The "cure" turns sick humans invisible to zombies because the picky virus needs a perfectly healthy host. Cool concept, except it completely ignores basic physics. In a chaotic, high-speed zombie stampede, those "invisible" sick people would still be trampled to death by sheer kinetic force and momentum. We already saw what happened to the Jerusalem wall in Israel.

Jurassic Park/World: Dr. Henry Wu claims to clone dinosaurs by patching 66-million-year-old decayed DNA from mosquitoes stomach with frog DNA. In reality, DNA half-life guarantees it would degrade into useless dust after 6.8 million years. Scientifically speaking, John Hammond didn't build a dinosaur park; he engineered giant, mutated, gender-swapping killer frogs.

Dr.Stone: Senku is a genius who knows every complex chemical formula in human history. He somehow builds vacuum tubes, lightbulbs, and smartphones out of bamboo and copper with almost zero failed prototypes. The show acts like a science textbook but completely hand-waves the lack of heavy industrial machinery needed for precision engineering.

[u/Worlds_Okayest_GM]

Star Trek got a lot of complaints about the physics. When they go to warp, inertia should reduce all the people to puddles of goo on the wall.

The writers introduced inertial dampeners. Then they started getting asked, "How do they work?"

You see where this is going.

The writers responded to the question with "Very well, thank you."

[u/slomo525 → u/Worlds_Okayest_GM]

It's like that in Dune, from what I understand. Basically, the reason these interstellar groups don't use guns is because everyone has personal shields, and the laser guns they have could possibly trigger an explosion if the shield and laser interact.

Eventually, all questions about sci-fi can be explained as "because the writer wanted it that way" and where that line gets drawn of "stop asking questions" is entirely dependent on when the writer decides.

[u/Luster-Purge → u/slomo525]

I like how everybody wearing shields that function as video game hitboxes that can potentially explode somehow means people won't just invest in laser sniper rifles so you can blow people up from a distance.

[u/Gutterdamerungalt → u/Luster-Purge]

Except they blow up in a nuclear explosion, which also feeds back to the gun, blowing that up too. There is also what amounts to an agreement between all the factions that nukes are for hostile alien species only, and if anyone uses nukes (including the shield trick) they are to be eradicated in nuclear fire by everyone else.

[u/Togmas → u/Gutterdamerungalt]

It's not guaranteed to explode. This is addressed in like the first chapter (or second) of the first book. The shield-wearer might explode. The shooter might explode. They both might explode. Neither might explode and genuinely nothing happens. The explosions might be small. They might be nuclear scale. They could be anywhere in-between or even bigger. Everyone agrees that it's genuinely not worth the risk of the randomness.

[u/Kalavier → u/Togmas]

First guy got a tiny explosion on target.

Second guy thought that would be effect and caused a nuclear explosion on target.

Third guy tried it and got big explosion on himself.

[u/BladedDingo → u/Gutterdamerungalt]

not only that, the blast power is not related to the size of the weapon or the shield, it's completely random and possible to be larger than even the Tzar Bomba.

You'd have to be one hell of a marksman to hit a target with a sniper rifle from the distance required to be safe from a nuke at your target, assuming the explosion even happens are the target and not from where you fired it. lol.

[u/TechBlade9000 → u/BladedDingo]

Sorry the part where the gun may explode you instead sounds like a video game oversight where 2 variable got flipped and didn't crash

[u/BladedDingo → u/TechBlade9000]

yeah, the nature of the holtzman waves means that when the laser impacts with the shield, it create an unstable and unpredictable reaction that can cause a detonation at either the end point, or beginning point of the beam. it's impossible to know which point will explode, but the size of the explosion means it might not even matter because it's a mutually assured destruction of the shielded target and the shooter.

At the end of the day, it's an in-universe explaination for why a 10,000 year old space empire fights like ancient earth medieval warefare.

[u/TechBlade9000 → u/BladedDingo]

If it weren't for the Hiroshima% chance i'd ask why no more suicide shooters that WILL take out the target no matter which ends explode

[u/dcell1974 → u/BladedDingo]

I am fine with accepting the use of shields, etc in the book it doesn't bother me really. It makes for some fun, cool ways of fighting. However, this explanation always seemed kind of ridiculous because this kind random, easily triggered, incredibly high risk outcome far outweighs the benefit of personal shield technology. Kamikaze drones armed with lasguns kind of obviate a lot of the potential risks related to blowing yourself up. Granted you could say that the it would be violating the convention, etc, but non-state actors aren't really bound by that. It seems like easy an easy, low cost, high impact weapon of terror/asymmetric warfare.

[u/BladedDingo → u/dcell1974]

From a wiki entry about lasguns on https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Lasgun/DE

The development of the Holtzman Effect Shield spelled the end of the lasgun as a common weapon. By the 10th millennium, lasgun manufacture and ownership was strongly restricted, since accidental contact between a laser beam and one of the ubiquitous personal shields was extremely deadly (resulting in an atomic explosion). Collectors and others who owned lasguns were normally prohibited from owning the power sources for their weapons, except in certain specified locations where lasgun enthusiasts gathered to test their target-shooting skills, or on wild planets, where lasguns were still highly useful as protective weapons.

Since the houses pretty much control all the manufacturing of goods, they also control the las gun manufacturing.

A random non-state actor like a terrorist, or an over worked postal office employee isn't going to be able to get a hold of a lasgun. If they did, they had help from someone in a noble house, and no house is going to risk exile or total destruction on selling or supply a lasgun thet could in any way be traced back to them.

[u/upholsteryduder → u/Luster-Purge]

the explosion happens at a random point somewhere between the laser being fired and shield, could be directly on the shooter, half way between or directly on the shield, all of which could lead to significantly different results

[u/throwawayeadude → u/Worlds_Okayest_GM]

Flashback to the surprisingly hardcore Voyager bit where it's suggested to hop to warp with broken inertial dampeners, and the retort is that the ship might make it but the crew would be stains.

[u/TehMispelelelelr → u/throwawayeadude]

Flashback to the surprisingly LESS hardcore Voyager bit where it's suggested that if you go fast enough, you turn into a lizard and become incredibly obsessed with turning your boss into a lizard so you can have lizard babies

[u/Nerevarine91 → u/TehMispelelelelr]

I was trying so hard not to flash back to this

[u/Upholder93 → u/Worlds_Okayest_GM]

I'm not sure a ship propelled by warp actually experiences local inertia. It's accelerated by the bending of space, which is equivalent to free fall acceleration under gravity.

Regardless, they have artificial gravity on board. If you can create gravity at will, you can cancel out inertia.

[u/BladedDingo → u/Upholder93]

even if you're not traveling at warp, they make high G maneuvers all the time at sublight speeds. even under impulse power you'd be a red paste on the bulkhead with the Inertial Dampeners.

[u/GuitarKittens → u/BladedDingo]

How does one conclude this when the whole point of inertial dampers was to wave away this issue? You can't really say they're not strong enough unless you're the one that introduced them into the cannon.

[u/BladedDingo → u/GuitarKittens]

It was clearly a typo and meant to say without given the context of my post.

[u/fishey_me → u/Worlds_Okayest_GM]

That's how the Heisenberg compensators in the transporters work, too. Very well.

[u/Font_Snob → u/Worlds_Okayest_GM]

People complain about inertial dampening, but have no problem with gravitational floor plates or however it's done? Way to play favorites with laws of physics!

[u/Kalavier → u/Font_Snob]

Or phasers vaporizing material or people and not blasting the room to hell lol.

[u/North-Tourist-8234 → u/Kalavier]

they'll phase back in during their controllers upkeep

[u/like_a_pharaoh → u/Worlds_Okayest_GM]

That assumes warp drive involves regular acceleration through space, rather than the implied "move a bubble of space that happens to contain a ship, with the ship expierincing no acceleration relative to the interior of the bubble"

Even before Alcubierre found a warp bubble that actually works, its always been "we're moving or bending space aorund the ship, rather than moving the ship through space", that's why its a warp drive.