Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 09/25/2003 - 7:32am.
Archived comment by Inuki:
You know, if you watch Star Trek, you'll see that 90+% of the time, two ships in space are oriented exactly the same way relative to a common "down." Even while fighting, it's rare to see the larger ships reorient - they just use the fact that their guns can swivel to attack at nearly any arc.
I think that's based on the fact that we as a species aren't used to fully 3D space. Yeah, we can swim, but we need air, so we're mostly limited to the surface - and most things underwater tend to have their bellies towards the ground anyway. Yes, we can fly (in planes), but even then they have to keep the belly of the plane towards the ground, or they won't be flying anymore. We just never developed the conception of fully 3D space, where orientation is a matter of prefrence or chance, rather than based on gravity.
Some people are better at conceptualizing how things would behave in outer space than others. Star Wars (I'm thinking original trilogy) is fairly good at using all three dimensions in combat - groups of similar ships may have the same orientation to begin with, but as soon as they enter combat, they all break off in every direction. And while forming up a fighter wing or a fleet to have the same relative down makes sense while travelling (same frame of refrence for all pilots), it makes no sense in combat.
...If any of that makes no sense, I apologize, and blame it on whatever bug I caught that's making my nose run like a faucet and my throat feel on fire.
You know, if you watch Star Trek, you'll see that 90+% of the time, two ships in space are oriented exactly the same way relative to a common "down." Even while fighting, it's rare to see the larger ships reorient - they just use the fact that their guns can swivel to attack at nearly any arc.
I think that's based on the fact that we as a species aren't used to fully 3D space. Yeah, we can swim, but we need air, so we're mostly limited to the surface - and most things underwater tend to have their bellies towards the ground anyway. Yes, we can fly (in planes), but even then they have to keep the belly of the plane towards the ground, or they won't be flying anymore. We just never developed the conception of fully 3D space, where orientation is a matter of prefrence or chance, rather than based on gravity.
Some people are better at conceptualizing how things would behave in outer space than others. Star Wars (I'm thinking original trilogy) is fairly good at using all three dimensions in combat - groups of similar ships may have the same orientation to begin with, but as soon as they enter combat, they all break off in every direction. And while forming up a fighter wing or a fleet to have the same relative down makes sense while travelling (same frame of refrence for all pilots), it makes no sense in combat.
...If any of that makes no sense, I apologize, and blame it on whatever bug I caught that's making my nose run like a faucet and my throat feel on fire.