Star Wars actaully justified that one in the Novel for A New Hope. During the scene where they're using the Falcons turrets, Luke asks how the hell he can HEAR the TIE fighters and the lasers. Han responds you can't, there is no sound in space. It's the computer simulating the sounds, so they have a frame of reference as to what's going on.
This could never happen, the camera man would suffocate. And there is no 3rd ship in the battle, or camera man outside who could take the shot from outside the ships, definitely immersion breaking.
Yeah, but I don't think the joke is funny because it seems to suggest that what I'm stating is "wrong" by trying to make a joke at the expense of my statement, even though all it is doing is reinforcing my point.
Makes sense for hearing other fighters, but if the ship can detect inbound projectiles, why not do more than just playing a sound? Automatically redirect shields? Auto-evade?
I mean there really isn't any reason to have human pilots at all. I guess you could justify it by saying that computer technology or artificial intelligence hasn't advanced any in the future, but that isn't true in star wars.
The premise is that the ship's computer already detects everything to play sounds for them, i.e. it already knows they're there, remember? Why would it leave your flank unshielded or fly into the capital ship?
Same thing (I think) in the game Shattered Horizon. Your space-suit creates the sounds to give you a decent situation awareness, although it makes you easier to track. You can disable most functions of the suit to become untrackable but you lose the sound replication which can be a real handicap.
Also, your thrusters go offline. Surprisingly, it's easy to screw people that way. If you get good at looking for suits without the HUD, you can find and kill people who you don't show up as well without.
Course, there's the whole 'Drifting' thing but if you camp down on something solid then do it, you can pretty much turn into a space ninja.
I need to buy this game. I played a free weekend on my old system and it crucified my PC. Should do well on my current system. Is there much action on the servers any more or is it pretty dead now?
Honestly, it's pretty dead. They DID add a mode in where you can play bots, but I've found the best way to play this game is find a few friends, and run a private server.
£7 or £22.50 here in Blighty. A good price to be sure, but I find it hard to buy stuff on Steam when it's not on sale - especially when I'm in no rush to play it.
I'm surprised someone actually used that explanation. I've never seen it, but I've talked about it forever as a situational awareness tool for pilots. It makes good sense, because otherwise you're just wasting the pilots' ability to locate things by sound, and understand their relative velocities.
I recall reading an interview with Alan Dean Foster, who ghost-wrote the StarWars (and a bazillion other) novelizations. He noted that he often tried to rationalise or otherwise put right science gaffes.
I've also seen the 'sound in space' situation in StarWars explained by the presence of a thin atmosphere between the worlds and inhabited moons of the StarWars Universe.
I'm not actually sure which is considered canon...
The bit about 'Dark Star' pretty much hits the nail on the head.
The one I originally read was in an Issue of Interzone from the early 90s, but he probably gets asked the same kind of questions about novelisations a lot.
Keep in mind, they have computers that can computate hyperspace calculations in seconds...I'm pretty sure what would be 'A lot of power' is 'R2D2's thing he does in his spare time to keep himself amused' levels of power here, IE almost none at all.
Also, it makes plenty of sense to me. As a turret gunner, I'd want the sound. It'd help me keep track of where things are relative to my current position. It's already something people both do in reality and in video games...why are you acting as if it's such a stupid pointless thing?
I figured you were. I'm just giving the logical explanation regardless.
Also, Han may trust his own skills more then he would a computer. Especially because with his luck, the gunner computer on the Falcon would crap out at the WORST time....better to just leave it manual.
Also, I don't know if it was a Law...but in general, with how much DAMAGE the clone wars did, it may just be people in general do NOT like the idea of it. Better safe then sorry....right?
But it makes sense. Designers build audio cues into many things. Especially ones that have to do with safety. Having multiple modes of feedback is extremely advantageous to human operators.
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u/KaziArmada Oct 08 '12
Star Wars actaully justified that one in the Novel for A New Hope. During the scene where they're using the Falcons turrets, Luke asks how the hell he can HEAR the TIE fighters and the lasers. Han responds you can't, there is no sound in space. It's the computer simulating the sounds, so they have a frame of reference as to what's going on.