breathing in wing commander:P

We do see a lot of palm pilot type devices and such in WC. I'm curious as to what specific 'paper' incident we're referring to, as there may be some higher reasoning behind it.
 
The only one I can think of is the paper scene from WC IV. And that had "higher reasoning".
 
I remember ages ago I read how in Wing Commander 3 Tolwyn is seen reading a report on paper and other scenes like this and many arguments were put forward about how for someone who can enter warp space, their literacy methods are limping behind.
 
Nothing can/will replace paper or books.
There is magic in going to the bathroom while reading a book/newspaper/magazine
 
Yeah, I'd like to see someone who runs out of toilet paper try to compromise with his reading material in the Star Trek universe!
 
Maybe they use the three sea shells...


(For those who haven't seen demolition man don't bother to understand that one.)
 
The only part of a carrier that relies on a forcefield to keep out the vacuum is the flight deck... and it's sealed off from the rest of the ship during operations. I don't think bulkheads in the classic naval sense would really do much to keep air into a ship, though. :)
 
Although we do see(or really read) in End Run about there being forcefields all through the ship to close off an area that has been destroyed or ruptured.
 
That's pretty much a standard star ship sci-fi convention. (Not entirely sure if that made sense, let me know.)
 
I remeber one of the first scenes aboard the BWS Intrepid was of Maniac looking up into a hole in the ceiling of the ship's lounge, commenting on how the entire bridge was taken out with one hit. Perhaps one of the interior force fields were used to seal the hole from leakage?

Also, I seem to recall in the WC4 novel that after Blair landed, he had to wait for the flight deck to repressurize. I'm not sure what ship it was on, but the thought just sticks in my mind.
 
ChanceKell said:
Also, I seem to recall in the WC4 novel that after Blair landed, he had to wait for the flight deck to repressurize. I'm not sure what ship it was on, but the thought just sticks in my mind.

It was one of the Kilrathi transports Melek and company were travelling on. In "Freedom Flight", it's stated that the Kilrathi don't have the forcefield tech to seal their hangars against vacuum that Confed has. They apparently do, at least in the Hakaga-class supercarriers, of "Fleet Action", though Melek's WC4 transport either did not have it, or it was down for maintenance.
 
ChanceKell said:
...Maniac looking up into a hole in the ceiling of the ship's lounge...Perhaps one of the interior force fields were used to seal the hole from leakage?
Unlikely, unless it was somehow jury-rigged. IIRC that force fields can only operate in areas where they have been specifically equipped and set up to do so (flight deck, bulkheads, etc. ); perhaps there are a limited # of "portable field/shield generators" on hand on your more sizeable ships to (temporarily) provide for such emergencies...
 
It could also have been that the area he was looking up into was an isolated part of a breached deck that was still pressurized by forcefields and intact hull.
 
I believe one of the jump sections talks about how anti-gravitons and what-not are involved in force field generation.
 
A few years back, a good friend and I thought up our own shield system. It involved electromagnets and ceramics-coated metal spheres. Our theory was that, if you had six electromagnets positioned on your ship, with an equally strong field from each magnet, the metal balls would hover around your hull equally. Whenever your sensors detected an incoming shot (or, perhaps you'd actually have to have a shield opperator), it would shunt all shield power to that quadrant, and all of the balls would quickly congregate and form something of a wall there. It would block laser fire, or some gun/weapon fire, and possibly take the sting out of a missile.

The drawbacks would be

1) you couldn't handle fire from more than one direction at any given time.

2) solid weapons fire/missiles would, of course, send some of your shield balls cascading through space, and eventually your shields would be depleted.

We also had another idea for protection from lasers: water. A system of, basically, advanced sprinkler heads. Whenever a laser was being fired at you, a thick spray of water would scatter the laser enough that it wouldn't do much damage. We had intended to write a few not-so-distant future sci-fi stories about the first "space dogfight" conflicts. At the time, we were either going to pit the US against either Russia, or the Germans. Our technology was interesting, as well. But, that's all another story.

-Nick Blitz
 
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