Science Fiction And Numbers: a keep counting article by: GF Willmetts.
Although I think I’ve covered this before, our ever-increasing number of readers might have missed it a few decades ago. This primarily pertains to Science Fiction films, where maintaining continuity within a film is often effective, but not always across multiple films. Oddities in numbers in science fiction.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) is a classic, as is the discrepancy in “2010: The Year We Made Contact” (1984). In the former, Frank Poole loses one of the three pods when the HAL 9000 uses it as a weapon to kill him. Dave Bowman, piloting the second pod, attempts to rescue Frank Poole, but upon his return to the USS Discovery, he encounters entry denial. To get in, Bowman jettisons himself from the pod into the Discovery’s emergency airlock, lacking a space helmet but cognitive enough to shut the hatch and restore his air supply. Despite the loss of his pod outside, current knowledge suggests that it likely orbits the Discovery at a similar speed as the spacecraft. One pod remains inside the spacecraft, serving as a tool when he approaches the larger monolith at a Lagrange Point in Jupiter’s orbit. In the sequel film, why is there still a pod inside the Discovery?
I did have a recent ponder and wondered if in some unseen scene that Bowman went out to recover that second pod. After all, it would still be in an orbit around Discovery, moving at the same velocity, and might be deemed a potential hazard as the spacecraft eased into Jupiter orbit or even to the Discovery itself. According to the novel, this didn’t happen. Other than that, why bother? Jupiter would draw the pod down and burn it up in its atmosphere. He wouldn’t need to buy a second pod. Would the monolith at the end of his ultimate trip return it ahead of him to the Discovery? Arthur C. Clarke depicts the monolith’s destruction of the hotel suite and pod in the novel, once Bowman’s transformation into the starchild rendered them unnecessary. The real problem lies with Peter Hyams’s sequel and the dressing of the Discovery’s pod bay. The pod doesn’t appear to have been in use.
I recently came up with a better solution. There’s a slim chance that the Leonov carried an extra pod for the Discovery, but we didn’t witness Heywood Floyd or Walter Curnow putting it on board. However, given that the Leonov already had several space pods of its own, and the Americans lacked any experience with them beyond possibly repairing any external damage to the Discovery, why would they bother? Oh, the Google search is wrong. The giant monolith did not turn violent, attacking and killing Maxim Brajlovsky and his pod. It was just unfortunate that we were returning the starchild/Bowman to our space to allow him to say his goodbyes to his mother and girlfriend on Earth that came through at that time. Brajlovsky was not directly struck, but rather caught in the backwash. Under other circumstances, he might have been drawn through the stargate himself, as he saw the same starfield that Bowman saw nine years prior. Regardless of any sentience the monoliths possess, their primary purpose seems to be cultivating sentient species and utilizing a member of their species to oversee the emergence of additional species within a star system.
The other prime example originates from Ridley Scott’s 1982 film ‘Blade Runner’, where the production team failed to pay attention to their own dialogue or plot. Supervisor Bryant tells Rick Deckard that six off-world Replicants have come to Earth and orders him to eliminate them. It is noted that one was killed trying to break into the Tyrell Corporation, leaving Roy Batty, Leon Kowalski, Zhora, and Pris. The fifth Replicant remains unaccounted for. You would have thought even with the director’s cut, someone would have amended the number from six to five. There was also the option to say two of them were killed breaking into the Tyrell Corporation. Indeed, if you purchase the 4K Ultra edition, a correction has been made, resulting in the death of two Replicants during the initial assault. However, it is important to pay attention to the dialogue.
People are hired to ensure continuity between scenes. However, when you consider the coordinates of the Devil’s Tower in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” they aren’t actually the real ones, and will people actually use them to go there? And surprise! It’s actually a farm in Colorado. Which site was Spielberg actually protecting?
Careless research, if it exists at all, accounts for a significant portion of the issue, not just in our genre but also in other fields. You certainly wouldn’t want to trust medical treatment based on American films, especially as they never get it right with type one diabetics. I’ve provided a comprehensive overview in a recent article, but I’ll briefly summarize the correct steps here. It’s a common misconception that a diabetic in a coma requires insulin, but it’s actually more effective to try to wake them up long enough to swallow a couple lumps of chocolate or glucose, followed by something a bit longer lasting, like a biscuit. If you can’t revive them, call an ambulance, tell them you have an unconscious diabetic and found the card of proof on them, and they’ll come and inject some glucose to revive them. I’ve had that once, although I later needed another injection to stop my seasickness. A lot more dramatic but honest. I understand the Americans’ desire for dramatic effect, but I’m equally surprised that no film studio is facing legal action for providing poor and potentially fatal medical advice.
Back to numbers. Things were quite simple with Doctor Who.’ Short of a Time Lord’s interception, Gallifreyans only have thirteen regenerations. During the tenth regeneration, we discover there was an extra one between the McCoy and Eccleston versions. He might have been called the War Doctor, but it created chaos in the numbering system. As a result, I decided to disregard the numbering system and instead focus on the actor portraying the character. All it really meant was the Doctor had one less regeneration to his 13. Steven Moffat believed that the revelation that the Doctor was the origin of all generations, not just Gallifreyan, negated the application of the 13 regeneration restriction. If anything, the Doctor went in cycles, and the Time Lords even wiped his memory from time to time. With them no longer around, that was less likely to happen again. Quite where this places the Valeyard, supposedly a future version of the Doctor, is anyone’s guess. It does suggest that the Doctor isn’t a goodie in all his regenerations. At least that would explain why the Daleks have avoided exterminating him, waiting for the time when he will become their ally, much like the Mistress.
When it comes to time scales, we all know it is distorted out of recognition or, cleverly, not acknowledging how long something takes to build. ‘Colossus: The Forbin Project’ (1970) comes to mind immediately. The length of time it took to build the supercomputer remains unspecified, but given its internal construction units, it likely assisted in the process. Even so, the President had to be in power for two terms to give time to build it and tie in the USA’s weapon systems before being announced. These days, we would no doubt have trial runs before handing the keys over to an AI, but it’s a good example of time scales never being explored.
Should I continue discussing computers? In the old days, both film and TV creators saw computers as magic machines to help the protagonists. It was hardly unexpected that these machines were either extremely large or adorned with numerous flashing lights. After all, this was the description provided by the scientists before the size of silicon CPUs shrank. Home ownership and the realization of fast programming and operation shattered many fictional illusions, though they persisted until the mid-1980s. Interestingly, when Bowman cut off its higher brain functions, the HAL 9000 from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ likely became the first computer with what appeared to be silicon CPUs, or at least solid-state. Who could have predicted that, from the days of floppy discs, we would quickly transition to CDs, and later, DVDs, as a means of storing a vast amount of information? Even so, reality is still lagging behind fictional androids and AI, but progress is being made. In science fiction films and TV series, computers serve a more subdued role, primarily in surveillance and AI rather than intricate programming. If anything, this indicates that writers still view computers as helpful tools.
This scenario is significantly superior to the future of Starfleet depicted in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ where Will Riker declares the absence of any currency. How will commerce function in the future, particularly on other Federation worlds that require trade? Remember, in a replicator society, everything is worthless, including pockets and the common cold. Surely, there must be a value on energy? What motivates work crews to construct starships? Are we likely to see the end of capitalism in the future? The ‘Robocop’ reality, where one can still purchase items for a dollar, indicates the absence of inflation.
In many respects, the same applies to the ‘Star Wars’ reality. So what do the likes of Jabba the Hutt do in his criminal activities when we never see any money? A value system based on rare gems in a galaxy far, far away makes little sense. At least in the ‘Terminator’ reality, things are more straightforward as there is no obstacle to Skynet’s actions.
Many stories, especially outside of our genre realities, ignore basic human functions like eating, loo calls, and even women’s periods. We assume these things occur, but we don’t allow them to interfere with the plot. One can only assume they have enough money to ignore a day job and live independently for the duration of the adventure. Should we talk about the problems of low gravity in space? It’s simply a widely accepted norm in science fiction across various media platforms. Unless it’s pertinent to the story, a lot of things are ignored rather than explained.
Only in time travel stories can we consistently determine the passage of time through dates, but this accuracy often falters beyond a few centuries. Traveling into the past requires consideration of numerous constants, one of which is spatial distance. The Time Lords’ TARDIS appears to consider spatial distance, given that it consists of six distinct parts. The Doctor has jury-rigged his own TARDIS, so presumably there is some automatic function working there. Alas, Doctor Emmett Brown’s DeLorean is likely to appear in space, not on Earth. Any time on Earth must also account for leap years, the true length of days and years, summer/winter hour changes, and any time accuracy prior to the 18th century, when no one was really keeping accurate records of time. Atomic clocks may be accurate for millennia, but their accuracy is insufficient to determine the exact start of time on Earth.
When creating technology in science fiction, there are numerous factors to consider. Understanding the current state of technology and its projected future can be beneficial. Many advancements focus on making things smaller and using better power sources. Battery-driven cars have been around since the 1880s but were not very efficient until now. Application is also fundamental. I doubt anyone could have predicted that the computer games we play today would have emerged from such a background. The NASA space program was the primary driving force behind the evolution of computers, so it’s important to always consider how their primary use can expand to other applications. The planned colonies on the Moon and Mars are going to give us enormous developments in plants, foodstuffs, and recycling that can benefit our planet, providing we don’t lose it to global warming first. There will undoubtedly be more developments in the near future, which should always be taken into consideration.
Hard science fiction that relies on only using the science and technology we currently have rarely looks at inaccuracies or flaws in the thinking any more than “standard’ science fiction. When you consider that many science fiction plots prioritize disaster over success, it is imperative that we address these issues in our stories, with the hope of inspiring some scientist or other to seek a solution.
Is SF running out of ideas? We need to evaluate what has been done and what could be done better. Looking for solutions is a strong principle in science fiction. We simply haven’t been practicing it enough.
© GF Willmetts 2024
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