Realistic Tech Sci-Fi TV Show

[vogelbek]

Does anyone think a realistic technology Sci-Fi show could make it on TV?<br /><br />My concept is essentially that a private company about 50 years from now aquires a small fleet of reusable launch vehicles and joins several dozen other space-powers; space travel would essentially be a wild-west endevour, with every crew you'd encounter having their own motivations and no laws enforcing polite behavior.<br /><br />The technology would consist of chemical rockets to get into space, on-orbit refuling for near earth trips, and custom built nuclear/electric propelled interplanetary spacecraft. Several groups of people would be living on the Moon, Mars, or in orbiting space stations.<br /><br />Would anyone actually watch a show where orbital mechanics work like the real world, science doesnt depend on alien crystals, and you cant just turn on the deflector shields??

 

[qso1]

Probably not but then again, its never been tried because conventional school of thought is that you have to have the space aliens, good versus evil themes which you mentioned having.<br /><br />With a good storyline, I don't see why it wouldn't work because people won't immediatly notcie thet the vehicles conform to real science but when they do, it could result in a cult status following such as that garnered by interest in Star Trek concepts which eventually were published as starfleet manuals on their own. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[vogelbek]

Yeah, what really first got me thinking about the idea was watching DVDs of the apollo 11 missions. That stuff was totally different than watching sci-fi, and was absolutely engrosing. I got to thinking: "Hey...could you do that with sci-fi???"<br /><br />If it was actually being done, I would still want some sci-fi technology- fusion reactors, more advanced bio-medicine, nano-electronics, etc. But spaceflight should still be realistic. <br /><br />To get arround the boredom of no sound in space, I would have events that should make hard sounds corespond to precussion in the soundtrack (was that done in Firefly??) Certain other things, like the weirdness of controls in orbital meachanics (speed up to go "up", apply RCS twice per manuever, etc) would be used to make normally mundain events like docking into somthing worthy of screen time. To explain why the characters all look healthy after months and months of 0-gravity, you would need to have them taking a slew of pills with each meal, and occasionally complaining to Mission Control about side effects.

 

[qso1]

I write space stuff as well and keep the space science as real as possible but non of my craps been published. I do it in the form of graphic novels which is very expensive to get traditionally published and I figured out a way to self publish exept for the marketing part. That is marketing with little or no cash. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[torino10]

I have been thinking about something similar to this, but my idea was to put it a little further into the future. One of my ideas was what would it actually be like to live on the flying space elavator concept as pictured in figure 4 on actual page 16 of this PDF <br /><br />http://trs.nis.nasa.gov/archive/00000535/01/cp210429.pdf<br /><br />A description of how it operates is on actual page 17(when I say actual I'm refering to the page of the adobe reader and not the page as listed by the document itself)<br /><br />Imagine a busy international airport located at the bottom of the skyhook configuration, Imagine the view from the hotels windows, looking down on the earth as it passes underneath, the constellations of the cities below.<br />Imagine an international rapid response team stationed at the skyhook able to respond to any threat to global security in a matter of minutes. The lives of heads of security on the elevator, the intermixing of vacationers on there way to the moon with workers from the micro gravity manufacturing facilities and mining colonists getting ready to head out on long term missions. The amazing fan dancing gliding ballet shows in the hotels casino entertainment complex.<br /><br />I kinda pictured the miners as having a large number of religous and social sepratist groups who get corporate sponsorship to man the mining operations in return for being allowed to setup there own little religous or social utopias. The World Gov would also subsidize this as a way getting the malcontents off earth and out of there hair.<br /><br />I don't think any of this is too unreasonable, you would have to have some serious political reasons though to explain the massive investment in infrastructure however.<br /><br />Did this help at all?sorry kinda got off on a tangent there.

 

[Saiph]

it's not live action, but it's almost an exact fit to your concept. No aliens, no inexplicable futuristic tech, etc.<br /><br />It's an anime series called PlanetES, very, very good. Don't let the "anime" (japanese animation style/genre) turn you off, as this really only uses the style loosely, it looks great (and no silly really huge eyed androgenous characters).<br /><br />I highly recommend it. If you want a taste before you buy the DVD (since renting it may only be possible with netflix or animetakeout.com) you can download it via bittorrent to see if you like it.<br /><br />It's on my "to buy" list. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[avidgamer]

"My concept is essentially that a private company about 50 years from now aquires a small fleet of reusable launch vehicles and joins several dozen other space-powers; space travel would essentially be a wild-west endevour, with every crew you'd encounter having their own motivations and no laws enforcing polite behavior."<br /><br />Put it a little farther in the future and this could be Firefly. I guess that answers your question about how it would do.<br /><br />Firefly was cancelled on TV, however it was a huge hit with loyal followers when it finally came out on DVD.<br /><br /> <br /><br />

 

[torino10]

I kinda like my flying space elevator concept, most of the plot lines would deal with how a world government would operate. some what represive but gaining finances from legeslating international businesses such as communications and global rescources such as space and the oceans. If the UN could tax global businesses and provide a legal standard for there operation they would have the ability to field there own armies. <br /> <br />I know it sounds kinda boring, but stories that involve international relations and give a framework on how things might work may draw a similar crowd as the west wing.

 

[PistolPete]

As a fan of sci-fi, a student filmmaker, and having written a couple of screen plays myself, I can tell you about the fact that television is a very competitive and cut-throat business. The reason that mildly accurate sci-fi such as Firefly doesn't make it on network TV is mainly because of politics. The view at Fox and most other major networks is that sci-fi doesn't sell. The only reason that Joss Whedon got to do Firefly in the first place is that he had some clout after Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (both of these shows Joss also had to fight Fox to the death for to keep them running as long as they did). But because Fox believes that sci-fi doesn't work on TV anymore (most major networks treat this theory as empirical fact), not only did they not support and advertise it to try and boost the ratings, but at the slightest sign of trouble they canceled it. They didn't even let the Sci-fi channel try to buy it (or maybe Joss Whedon didn't want to sell it to them. Remember Sliders? the first few seasons were petty good, then they sold it to Sci-fi and it began to suck big time). In order to make a realistic sci-fi show (i.e. quiet space, long travel times) a success is to fill that time with sexy actors and actresses, a lot of interpersonal drama, and crazy $%!&. Don't think it will work? Look at some of the shows that are hits o TV today. Take for example a show that is filmed in my home state of North Carolina: One Tree Hill. I've only seen a few episodes (against my will) and can tell you that the premise for the show is the lamest I have ever seen. Yet it is a hit for the WB because it follows the formula: it has very sexy actors and actresses (much sexier than there real life counterparts would be), a llllooooottttt of interpersonal drama, and a whole bunch of crazy $%!& happens in every episode. Another great example is CSI. Do you really think that the people in the real CSI Miami really look or dress that good? Of course not, they <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[nacnud]

<font color="yellow">People usually watch science fiction to escape from the real world. <br /><br /><font color="white">It can do that, sci fi can also cast new light on contemporary subjects by placeing them in unusual positions. <br /><br />I would love the idea of a realistic 50 yeas hence sci fi but I can't think of how to get enough characters involved. You may as well try and make a series out of antarctic exploration. Once you get over the cold, and introduce a few characters where do you go with the story?<br /><br />Still I'd love to see it attempted.<br /></font></font>