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Fivemarks posted:I don't understand the idea of Sci-fi nerds wanting Engineers to be these HARD MEN who make stuff with NO SAFETY MARGINS for OPTIMUM PERFORMANCE. You always put a comfortable safety margin into things, because otherwise you get, well, the Tesla Death Factory. You should read Nerve by Lester Del Ray. It's all about what happens when safety margins get bypassed at a nuclear plant.
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Jul 23, 2021 01:16
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Fivemarks posted:I don't understand the idea of Sci-fi nerds wanting Engineers to be these HARD MEN who make stuff with NO SAFETY MARGINS for OPTIMUM PERFORMANCE. You always put a comfortable safety margin into things, because otherwise you get, well, the Tesla Death Factory. See, they're not building a ship, they're building A HARD CHOICE. Decades later, we can smell "sacrifice the girl" stories miles away. Looking at you, Last of Us.
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Jul 23, 2021 04:11
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Epicurius posted:I mean, I think his influence was complicated. He was racist, and pretty right wing, and in his personal life an rear end in a top hat, and a lot of that influence continues down into modern science fiction in not always the best ways. However, at the same time, Astounding and Unknown basically invented modern science fiction and fantasy and gave a platform for all the people who would become giants in the Golden Age....Asimov, Moore, Kuttler, van Vogt, del Ray, Sturgeon, Heinlein, etc, all got their start thanks to him, and he did a lot to boost already published authors....Moore, Kuttner, de Camp, Williamson, etc. Dude was racist as gently caress, crushed careers for not meeting his aesthetic criteria in stories - including black heroes or physically imposing female ones, defended the use of thalidomide, thought L. Ron Hubbard deserved a Nobel for Dianetics, used his position to fuel polemics against unions and socialism in sci fi writing for liberal decades, and literally praised slavery openly and argued that the Civil War was bad for black people. You can stop trying to defend him. He is not a study in contrasts. This is not a place of honor. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Jul 23, 2021 |
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Jul 23, 2021 04:23
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Mors Rattus posted:Dude was racist as gently caress, crushed careers for not meeting his aesthetic criteria in stories - including black heroes or physically imposing female ones, defended the use of thalidomide, thought L. Ron Hubbard deserved a Novel for Dianetics, used his position to fuel polemics against unions and socialism in sci fi writing for liberal decades, and literally praised slavery openly and argued that the Civil War was bad for black people. Wait for the classic defense of lovely people from the past: "They were normal for their time." It always comes up.
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Jul 23, 2021 04:38
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Epicurius posted:There's some of that, but I don't think that was the main idea behind The Cold Equations. Science fiction before then (and to a large extent after), had been been pretty relentlessly optimistic. Things might look bad during the story, but in the end, good would triumph over evil, the hero would come up with a clever plan and end up with the girl, the threat to mankind would be defeated, and so on. The idea behind the story was that good doesn't always win. Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, tragedy happens and the innocent suffer. It was sort of a push back against conventional science fiction. Campbell sent the story back to the writer thrice, because the author kept finding ways to save the girl, and Campbell (who explicitly believed that there were no 'wrong' propositions, only propositions that held in a very specific set of circumstances... so fascism and murder aren't wrong, they're just right in only specific conditions, as the murder in The Cold Equations was supposed to be) wanted the girl to die. Because he wanted to force supposedly humanistic SF readers to accept killing a teenage girl because she couldn't follow the rules, because he thought that was an exciting prospect. Campbell's perfidy is deep and wide and he is more than anyone else responsible for the Golden Age of SF's hostility towards women and minorities or politics to the left of Attila the Hun.
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Jul 23, 2021 04:42
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Joe Slowboat posted:Campbell sent the story back to the writer thrice, because the author kept finding ways to save the girl, and Campbell (who explicitly believed that there were no 'wrong' propositions, only propositions that held in a very specific set of circumstances... so fascism and murder aren't wrong, they're just right in only specific conditions, as the murder in The Cold Equations was supposed to be) wanted the girl to die. So you're saying Norman Spinrad stole Campbell's likeness for The Iron Dream 
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Jul 23, 2021 05:03
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Joe Slowboat posted:Campbell sent the story back to the writer thrice, because the author kept finding ways to save the girl, and Campbell (who explicitly believed that there were no 'wrong' propositions, only propositions that held in a very specific set of circumstances... so fascism and murder aren't wrong, they're just right in only specific conditions, as the murder in The Cold Equations was supposed to be) wanted the girl to die..
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Jul 23, 2021 05:09
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wdarkk posted:One project I'm considering is this, but the hyperspace dimension is bullet hell. Space Marisa plz go. That said, the Girl Must Die feels like it shares undertones with more obnoxious (and hopefully bygone) trends in RPGs, such as The Paladin Must Fall and the Gm Must Move Heaven and Earth to Do So. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Jul 23, 2021 |
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Jul 23, 2021 05:12
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JcDent posted:Oh wow, never heard of that Campbell POS before Oh, hey, neat. I knew the story behind the Cold Equations, but not that Campbell was the editor in question. It's honestly such a perfect illustration of how all stories are fundamentally artificial, reflecting author's views and biases more than any sort of objective reality, especially so when they pretend otherwise. The story's impact mostly hinges on a sense of inevitability it builds: nobody wants the girl to die, but die she must, the uncaring laws of physics demand it, and there is nothing anyone can do about it, for the alternative is even worse... unless you've read one of the three drafts where she survives, that is.
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Jul 23, 2021 06:47
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Pieces of Peace posted:So you're saying Norman Spinrad stole Campbell's likeness for The Iron Dream I mean, this is kinda the whole point of the story with a lot of fantasy/sci-fi fiction being downright fascist screeds propped up by childish logic.
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Jul 23, 2021 09:01
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Mors Rattus posted:You can stop trying to defend him. He is not a study in contrasts. This is not a place of honor. I'm not trying to defend him, unless you think "racist, right wing rear end in a top hat" is a phrase i use as a compliment.
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Jul 23, 2021 12:20
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Epicurius posted:I'm not trying to defend him, unless you think "racist, right wing rear end in a top hat" is a phrase i use as a compliment. Then don't attribute the rise of talented authors to him. They would have become famous and well respected under the auspices of any editor, and we would have had a less fascist golden age of sci-fi with more diverse and more leftist stories.
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Jul 23, 2021 12:58
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Epicurius posted:I'm not trying to defend him, unless you think "racist, right wing rear end in a top hat" is a phrase i use as a compliment. Then maybe don’t unironically go “ah, this is a land of contrasts” and try to explain how complex the influence of the racist slavery defender is.
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Jul 23, 2021 13:12
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Joe Slowboat posted:Campbell sent the story back to the writer thrice, because the author kept finding ways to save the girl, and Campbell (who explicitly believed that there were no 'wrong' propositions, only propositions that held in a very specific set of circumstances... so fascism and murder aren't wrong, they're just right in only specific conditions, as the murder in The Cold Equations was supposed to be) wanted the girl to die. One of my dream projects is to write a story that's a "sequel" to The Cold Equations about the accident investigator who tries to figure out what went wrong for the company that owns the rockets and trains the crews. He does things like interviewing the pilot of the rocket (stricken with grief and trauma over what he had to do) and encountering the various parts of the system that made the girl dying the only option. Corporate greed and corner-cutting would of course have to factor into it but I wanted it to have a part where the accident investigator meets a thinly veiled Campbell analogue who's the guy who writes the standards and shapes the attitudes of the people who built the rockets and develop the safety systems, who seems to take an almost obscene delight in the fact the girl was killed by the "necessity" he had created. Then either the accident investigator or the pilot from the original story have a revelation that this is how it is: he understands the logic of Campbell and all the people who engineered it so teenage girls must die. The next day, a surface-to-orbit rocket that's been accidentally loaded over its thin margin crashes into the headquarters of the company, killing the board of directors and Campbell. The investigation reveals that the accident investigator/pilot deliberately overloaded the rocket when boarding it (there were no real safeties), causing it to crash. Theories abound about the motivation: accident, deliberate sabotage, shame it hit the corporation, etc. Things move fast, new safety standards are implemented, etc. And then someone on the investigating team muses that, you know, this horrible accident will probably end up saving lots of lives in the long run, so from a certain perspective, Campbell had to die.
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Jul 23, 2021 15:54
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LatwPIAT posted:One of my dream projects is to write a story that's a "sequel" to The Cold Equations about the accident investigator who tries to figure out what went wrong for the company that owns the rockets and trains the crews. He does things like interviewing the pilot of the rocket (stricken with grief and trauma over what he had to do) and encountering the various parts of the system that made the girl dying the only option. Corporate greed and corner-cutting would of course have to factor into it but I wanted it to have a part where the accident investigator meets a thinly veiled Campbell analogue who's the guy who writes the standards and shapes the attitudes of the people who built the rockets and develop the safety systems, who seems to take an almost obscene delight in the fact the girl was killed by the "necessity" he had created. Even as a summary that's pretty cool and I would gladly read the gently caress out of a full story/novel with that premise.
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Jul 23, 2021 16:00
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Do it. Write. Make it happen. Dooooooo ittttttttttt
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Jul 23, 2021 16:12
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LatwPIAT posted:One of my dream projects is to write a story that's a "sequel" to The Cold Equations about the accident investigator who tries to figure out what went wrong for the company that owns the rockets and trains the crews. He does things like interviewing the pilot of the rocket (stricken with grief and trauma over what he had to do) and encountering the various parts of the system that made the girl dying the only option. Corporate greed and corner-cutting would of course have to factor into it but I wanted it to have a part where the accident investigator meets a thinly veiled Campbell analogue who's the guy who writes the standards and shapes the attitudes of the people who built the rockets and develop the safety systems, who seems to take an almost obscene delight in the fact the girl was killed by the "necessity" he had created. Holy poo poo, that's great. Absolutely do it.
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Jul 23, 2021 17:31
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Soulbound: Steam and Steel Fire Axe The Fyreslayers are a warrior culture, a culture of religious fanatics who seek war not for glory or territory, but to honor the fallen god Grimnir. Their war cannot end, because it has no cause but the gathering of ur-gold. A war, however, cannot be fought without weapons, and weapons must be made. The Fyreslayers are still duardin, and their smiths produce weapons, shields and helmets that are on par with any made anywhere in the world. Each magmahold is built around a forge-temple, a sacred space that is made not for simple war tools but to forge ur-gold into runes. These forges were lit by the fire of Grimnir's death, and they unlock the power of his bones and soul under the watchful gaze of the Zharrgrim. Like other duardin, the Fyreslayers excel at mining and smithing, and their metalwork far exceeds that of most human smiths. However, the art of the smith is not itself considered to be a holy art as it is among the Khazalid clans, nor are they so focused on new mining techniques as the Kharadron. For the Fyreslayers, simple craft is a means to an end rather than an end itself - it is the means by which violence and war can be achieved. They reject jewels and most forms of purely artistic craft in favor of weapons, fortification design and, of course, religious icons. Even the best smith is judged equally by their skill at arms as they are by their skill in crafting. The exception is those smiths given the honor of working ur-gold, for this task is a spiritual effort as well as a physical one. It is an act of prayer, and those who can master it are revered by their fellow Fyreslayers. After all, Grimnir's essence is spread through the ur-gold, and the Zharrgrim that work it are thus the only way to release his divine energies back into the world so he can return. A brief history of the Fyreslayers - originally, they were the duardin native to Aqshy, who found and awakened Grimnir in the Age of Myth. Grimnir aided them, pinning the godbeast Ignax to the Land of the Chained Sun in order to grant them light and heat. He taught them to fight, training them in the ways of the berserker and giving them the traditions of the hair-crest and the way of fighting without armor. The group that would become the Zhargrimm existed in this ancient time, but their role was very different. They were just the smiths of Grimnir's children, making weapons imbued with his battle fury under the tutelage of Grimnir's brother-god, Grungni. Their traditions were, back then, not very different from those of the Khazalid karaks. The change came shortly after Ignax was imprisoned, in a time the duardin refer to as the Thagduegi - the Great Betrayal. Some kind of terrible problem that ended with Grimnir and Grungni vhained together atop the Iron Mountains of Chamon. When Sigmar freed them, Grimnir asked the human god to name a foe he might slay to repay his debt. Grimnir then went to do it, returning to Aqshy to destroy Vulcatrix, Mother of Salamanders. The two died together in a blast of Bright magic that altered the nature of Aqshy itself. What few realize, though, is that in that moment of death, inside the forge-temple of each Fyreslayer hold, a new fire emerged. A divine fire that burned hotter than any mortal flame, combining the essences of Vulcatrix and Grimnir. This moment and the fires born from it are both known by the same name: Zharrkhul, the Master Flame and the First Fire. They knew instantly that the fire was born of their god and swore to never let it die. Thus, the temple smiths were elevated from simple craftsmen to firekeepers and priests - the Zharrgrim, the Unyielding Fire. The Zharrgrim were the first to notice that some of the gold the Fyreslayer warriors returned from their mercenary work with was special, connected to Grimnir. It was very, very rare, but his essence was in some of the gold, which they named ur-gold. They worked out via experimentation that approximately 5% of all mundane gold they could find had bonded with Grimnir's essence. It took many, many years for them to work out a process to purify the metal, and in that time, many Zharrgrim began to head out into the field to fight and earn gold - after all, they were the only ones that could tell ur-gold from normal gold. No matter what they did, they couldn't find a way to free the divine essence from the gold, though, and they knew that if Grimnir was to return, his nature must be freed from the cold metal. Eventually, they realized the problem they were having: you can't free a war god in a peaceful forge. Only war could free Grimnir, and so the Zharrgrim began to forge ur-gold into runes, first alloying them onto weapons and helmets but eventually deciding to put them into the flesh of Fyreslayer warriors. That proved to work much better, and the Zharrgrim found they could awaken the spirit of Grimnir in those who bore the runes, empowering them. More importantly, by doing so, they could release the energies from the ur-gold prisons. They realized that if enough ur-gold was used this way, Grimnir's essence could coalesce into a single entity once more, returning the god to them. Today's Zharrgrim have developed more standardized methods to do this, as they have developed a much deeper understanding of their materials, but even they do not fully grasp the divinity they are working with, and Zharrgrim are expected to not only study theology but goldsmithing as well, to further the understanding of ur-gold. The priests of every lodge are led by an Auric Runemaster, one of the master smiths of the Zharrgrim. To understand the runes better, they learn to control and send their battle fury into a deep slumber, and so they tend to be the most contemplative and calm of the Fyreslayers - though still quite volatile by most human standards. Most Zharrgrim dream of one day joining the ranks of the Runemasters, but spend much of their lives occupying the twelve priestly ranks below them. Most of these ranks also come with specialist duties in the forge - the three examples we get are the Klinkin, who stoke the furnaces, the Voldrini, who lead the miners, and the Drothnim, who hatch and raise the magmadroths. While outside the priesthood, Fyreslayer rank and position is inheritable, father to son, the Zharrgrim do not allow this. To rise in their ranks, one must demonstrate skill at working ur-gold, and that skill doesn't care about how good your bloodline is. Most Zharrgrim do not stray far from their temples, with the notable exception of those known as the Runesmiters. These priests are of the rank that joins the fyrd in warfare, studying the gold of their employers to choose that which is rich in ur-gold and activating the runes of the berzerkers. Runesmiters are occasionally overwhelmed by the fury of battle and focus more on combat than dedication to their god, but the Fyreslayers consider that to be an honorable trait, a way of showing devotion to a deity of war and battle. These Runesmiters will never advance beyond their current rank, and they don't generally want to. The ones who eventually become Runemasters are those who learn to control their tempers and act with restraint. Above all, the role of the priests is to care for the temple fires. While the Eternal Flame is stronger and brighter than any mortal forge, it still needs air, heat and fuel. Heat's the easy part - most temples exist inside active volcanos and the Zharrgrim have gotten good at using their prayers to divert magma flow. Air is harder, and most Fyreslayer lodges have extremely complex and extensive ventilation systems that pump air in from aboveground. Fuel is even harder, because few materials are worthy of burning in the flame of Grimnir and Vulcatrix. Aqshian coal is favored, and many Fyreslayers will offer their services to guard the coal mines of the Great Parch at reduced cost, as long as part of their pay is in coal. Chamon's Greyfyrd are experimenting with gaseous fuel mined from under the earth, and the Kharadron fear they may become competitors for aether-gold. Some lodges also mix their fuel with emberstone fragments, though many Zharrgrim forbid the practice because of the unpredictability that comes with realmstone. It produces a potent flame most of the time, but everyone's heard stories about forges exploding or dying out completely. It is universally acknowledged, though, that the forges which burn best do so on the warrior spirit of the fyrd. The fires burn brighter when a lodge frequently does battle, and they die out when a lodge turns purely to peace. Despite the focus on keeping the fires lit, many lodges have failed in their sacred duty. Skaven, grots and other invaders have taken over magmaholds, and while the Auric Hearthguard that defend the temples will die to keep the flames going, some things can't be fought. The Necroquake weakened many forge-fires, and those of the Ulrung and Zhuffnok lodges went out entirely. When a lodge's fire dies, their runes weaken and they become isolated from Grimnir's warmth. Most who survive such an event swear the grimnyn oath and self-exile, though there's a long history of starting new, breakaway lodges and lighting new forges as well, and the Ulrung have sworn to reawaken their own flame. The Zharrgrim have also developed mobile forges, as it's not always practical to return home whenever you need to forge new runes or receive the blessings of Grimnir. These are called Magmic Battleforges, miniature versions of a temple hearth-forge that bears a spark of the Divine Fire. They are not built, but instead are summoned from the blood of the earth in geysers of lava and molten gold. They are shaped by prayer, forming into the image of Grimnir's helmed head, his mouth blazing with the fiery blood of Vulcatrix. Their presence enhances the power of the priests, and it is said the first Battleforges appeared uncalled. Since then, the Zharrgrim have figured out rituals to conjure them up, and they've grown even more common in the days since the Necroquake. They can be used to craft weapons and runes, and they can be voluntarily extinguished in battle to empower the runes of nearby Fyreslayers, though this is used largely as a last resort. A dead Battleforge is still a religious symbol, and reclaiming one to set alight once more is considered an honorable quest. Besides Grimnir, the forges of the Zharrgrim are also sacred to Brokkfoor, called the Father of Forges. He is the spark that lit the fires, it is said, but no two lodges agree on any other traits of this demigod. The Hermdar Lodge teach that he was the messenger who bore the dying breath of Grimnir to each forge-temple, and was an animate flame that was the living body of the Zharrkul. The Lofnir agree on his form, but claim he was the fastest of Vulcatrix's children, moving on instinct rather than purpose. The Tangrim Lodge say the Brokkfoor is not a person but a place, the divine forge in which Grimnir made his own axes, and they search Azyr for its location in hopes of triggering a second Zharrkhul. The Greyfyrd argue that Brokkfoor is just another name for Grungni Forge-Father, but they are opposed in this by the Vostarg, who say that Brokkfoor was the last incarnation of Grimnir, who brought his flame to his children with aid from no other. Brawls over Brokkfoor doctrine are not uncommon. Next time: Runes, Icons and Gold
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Jul 23, 2021 17:43
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LatwPIAT posted:One of my dream projects is to write a story that's a "sequel" to The Cold Equations about the accident investigator who tries to figure out what went wrong for the company that owns the rockets and trains the crews. He does things like interviewing the pilot of the rocket (stricken with grief and trauma over what he had to do) and encountering the various parts of the system that made the girl dying the only option. Corporate greed and corner-cutting would of course have to factor into it but I wanted it to have a part where the accident investigator meets a thinly veiled Campbell analogue who's the guy who writes the standards and shapes the attitudes of the people who built the rockets and develop the safety systems, who seems to take an almost obscene delight in the fact the girl was killed by the "necessity" he had created. Not only write this story out, but submit it to Analog so that Cold Equation gets a follow-up. I didn't know that the story had so many drafts to it. I thought it was a cautionary about not having deep or good enough safety margins, and the 2021 film Stowaway was making a point on keeping up the struggle to find a solution, any solution in the face of disaster (I think the movie wasn't that they didn't have a safety margin, but a series of crises ate up all the margin) kinda like Apollo 13.
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Jul 23, 2021 17:57
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Loling at the thought of Space Amazon delivery rockets that crash 100% of the time if you put an extra package onboard. That’s some precision engineering, right there.
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Jul 23, 2021 19:28
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LatwPIAT posted:
Well, you have my sword or AKM or smth
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Jul 23, 2021 19:57
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Now I want to know what the original ways the girl was saved are.
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Jul 23, 2021 20:06
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El Spamo posted:Not only write this story out, but submit it to Analog so that Cold Equation gets a follow-up. Took a look at 'The Cold Equations' wiki, Don Sakers published 'The Cold Solution' in Analog July '91. Apparently it won reader's favorite for the year. But calling attention to how close we are getting to building things without a margin of safety or basic compassion is ground worth exploring. And exploding Campbell is a wonderful image.
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Jul 23, 2021 21:46
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LatwPIAT posted:One of my dream projects is to write a story that's a "sequel" to The Cold Equations about the accident investigator who tries to figure out what went wrong for the company that owns the rockets and trains the crews. He does things like interviewing the pilot of the rocket (stricken with grief and trauma over what he had to do) and encountering the various parts of the system that made the girl dying the only option. Corporate greed and corner-cutting would of course have to factor into it but I wanted it to have a part where the accident investigator meets a thinly veiled Campbell analogue who's the guy who writes the standards and shapes the attitudes of the people who built the rockets and develop the safety systems, who seems to take an almost obscene delight in the fact the girl was killed by the "necessity" he had created. There's a SciFi Channel adaptation of the story that ends with a courtroom scene where they absolve the pilot of any guilt but instead find the company liable for the girls death.
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Jul 23, 2021 22:32
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Prism posted:Now I want to know what the original ways the girl was saved are. If the issue was something exchanging X amount of oxygen and now being asked to do X+1, leading to eventual choking: as above (to slow the problem); lower cabin pressure if it isn't already at the tight-rear end minimum; if necessary, sedate the stowaway or a volunteer crewman so it's more like X+0.1. (Being sedated for days would certainly not be fun, but sure beats dying.) Given the era, one would also ask this hypothetical Mr. Campbell: Are you saying that these brave souls would not have a gentlemanly drawing of straws to see who will "accidentally" perish in a manner that will guarantee a generous life insurance payout to their widow? Do you think so poorly of our Homo spaciens?
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Jul 23, 2021 22:49
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Nessus posted:If the issue was "this additional mass means we are slightly slower and we have literally no margin on bottled oxygen": Jettison a pallet of cargo. Cut all physical training, smoking ban, maybe crack open the air supply on the space suits if you need to. Chuck the girl out with a spacesuit and emergency beacon, land the ship, deliver the cargo, refuel, then go rescue her floating in space before her oxygen runs out.
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Jul 23, 2021 22:55
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Nessus posted:If the issue was "this additional mass means we are slightly slower and we have literally no margin on bottled oxygen": Jettison a pallet of cargo. Cut all physical training, smoking ban, maybe crack open the air supply on the space suits if you need to. My guesses would've been the atmospheric one (if you can't just... ignore her weight, because the heat shield is going to have to be overdesigned, because the amount of abuse it takes varies heavily based on weather so you can't cut that down to no margins if you're entering an atmosphere) or, like, jettisoning chairs/clothes/etc. But I'm actually curious what the ones that were in the earlier drafts were, not the ones that we can think of, because I want to know what was rejected.
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Jul 23, 2021 23:21
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The story between the writer and Campbell over this honestly reminds me a lot of a bad session between a player and an edgelord GM. "Well, how about I save her like this?" "No." "How about this idea?" "Nope!" "Why not?" "You didn't *say* there'd be emergency rations, oxygen, or fuel." "But-" "She dies! SAVOR THE DEPTHS OF SPACE TRAGEDY!"
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Jul 23, 2021 23:35
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Pvt.Scott posted:Loling at the thought of Space Amazon delivery rockets that crash 100% of the time if you put an extra package onboard. That’s some precision engineering, right there. A friend who works at amazon said they stopped using palettes and instead just shrink wrap boxes of goods together, the machine that picks up these piles of goods crushes a lot of them, but the volume of goods transfer is so high its actually cheaper to destroy X% of products than stop and use a shipping palette. Now replace that with space shipping is such a high volume, cargo rockets that crash and wipe out cities and killing thousands/millions are still cheaper than basic regulations. Remember, per rich person logic, if the fine for breaking a law is smaller than the amount you make/save by breaking the law, you break the law. I suppose this leads to that Stross story about humanity being extinct and civilization is just a bunch of AIs filing lawsuits on each other. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Jul 24, 2021 |
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Jul 24, 2021 01:12
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Ronwayne posted:I suppose this leads to that Stross story about humanity being extinct and civilization is just a bunch of AIs filing lawsuits on each other.
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Jul 24, 2021 01:34
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Nessus posted:If the issue was "this additional mass means we are slightly slower and we have literally no margin on bottled oxygen": Jettison a pallet of cargo. Cut all physical training, smoking ban, maybe crack open the air supply on the space suits if you need to. The limiting factor is supposed to be fuel/reaction mass, not oxygen. So they can't complete the intercept with the target colony unless they lighten the load. Still lovely engineering.
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Jul 24, 2021 03:45
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The two options that immediately occurred to me are: 1) Find 50kg of mass to jettison. Clothing. Spare oxygen. Part of the cargo. No-longer-absolutely-necessary parts of the controls and/or systems. 2) Adjust the burn to put the ship into an elliptical orbit around the target colony, have a shuttle come out to meet it. You can create reasons for these solutions to not work. But as discussed earlier that's not an uncaring universe forcing the sacrifice, it's a capital-G God who cares very much about a specific outcome and is choosing to force it.
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Jul 24, 2021 04:08
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Alter the manifest to include the stowaway, duh. The power of bureaucracy will save the mission.
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Jul 24, 2021 04:38
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If you've got an airlock you can shoot a young woman out of, why not use that as an additional source of thrust, like on that one episode of Next Generation? You know, now I wonder if that's where they got this idea.
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Jul 24, 2021 04:41
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Just chuck out the pilot chair? If the stowaway can survive reentry without pancaking, the pilot can probably do that as well. Like, I'm sure if push came to shove, people aboard a space shuttle would find 50 kilo of chuckable material. But yeah, this is God/bad DM forcing a specific outcome a la that sacrifice Deadlands: Hell of Earth, anything that I remember about Glory, or that Hams Fantasy adventure with garden rear end in a top hat.
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Jul 24, 2021 08:38
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Literally nothing would have happened in that story worth reading about if the girl didn’t die. That’s the whole, entire story. It ain’t long, maybe 20 pages. Campbell sounds like a piece of poo poo but that story is nothing without an innocent person dying horribly. Let’s pretend the ship was built with proper safety margins. Upon discovering the stowaway, the pilot is not at all disturbed, because this happens regularly and there’s protocol for it. He flies her down to the planetary surface, she hangs out with her brother for a few hours, then he flies her back to the space station where she’s fined 200 space bucks. That sounds vastly less interesting than the brutal assault on the emotions of the readers that we got. That having been said, I refuse to reread that story because I read it when I was 12 and it made me cry.
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Jul 24, 2021 09:15
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The proper option is the story just not being written same as most of the bad adventures discussed in this thread.
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Jul 24, 2021 09:21
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Nigmaetcetera posted:Literally nothing would have happened in that story worth reading about if the girl didn’t die. That’s the whole, entire story. It ain’t long, maybe 20 pages. Campbell sounds like a piece of poo poo but that story is nothing without an innocent person dying horribly.
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Jul 24, 2021 09:26
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Nessus posted:We are at a stage in history where "and then the innocent girl died horribly for arbitrary reasons" is more along the lines of the expected, predictable ending. It wasn’t predictable to me! I didn’t think they were gonna kill her! Why were there not signs up about the consequences of stowing away? You would think that was something they would want potential stowaways to know! I changed my mind, I hate the story now.
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Jul 24, 2021 09:32
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I suspect more that "this is just how it is" doesn't really hold true when the author can write anything else as a reason to not do that. That and people mistaking "something bad happens" as somehow more deep and meaningful than "something good happens"
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Jul 24, 2021 09:40
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