History Main / ArtisticLicenseEngineering

** There's also the issue of how a city-spanning planet could possibly void all the heat that it generates, not to mention the gaseous exhaust of trillions of vehicles, building systems, and industrial facilities. It's even mentioned in one novel that Coruscant somehow still has ice caps, and the characters go skiing.
*** The supposed ice caps are actually an area which was built as a ski resort for anyone rich (or famous) enough to use. Although in the same book it explains that there are apparently a network of stations in orbit which are basically giant mirrors which HEAT the planet. Given the above mentioned exhaust though this really doesn't make much sense as making the planet warmer would seem to be a really bad idea.

* Thoroughly averted in the Literature/VorkosiganSaga; all the engineering is realistic, and even the 5-space theory expounded in ''Komarr'' sounds plausible.

** ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' is far worse off. They decided that a great idea instead of metal wiring, most of the ships utterly vital systems are connected with gel packs, basically biological goo. Not only does it open up engineering weaknesses that no good old copper wire would face (such as one instance where it was poisoned by Neelix's [[LethalChef cooking]]) but also cannot be replicated or grown. Yes, they chose the one system that couldn't be made on the fly with their replicators. They also have have other engineering slip ups like have no emergency lights and ''manual'' door overrides that don't work if it doesn't have ''power.''

-->'''Foaly''': Everything is molecular, and if you pack gigabytes of data into a little cable, some of that cable is going to wear off. I put the MPEG through my filters. Uranium residue points to northern Russia.

** Perhaps the city is in the [[FridgeBrilliance Southern Hemisphere?]]

** [[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]] is far worse off. They decided that a great idea instead of metal wiring, most of the ships utterly vital systems are connected with gel packs, basically biological goo. Not only does it open up engineering weaknesses that no good old copper wire would face (such as one instance where it was poisoned by Neelix's [[LethalChef cooking]]) but also cannot be replicated or grown. Yes, they chose the one system that couldn't be made on the fly with their replicators. They also have have other engineering slip ups like have no emergency lights and ''manual'' door overrides that don't work if it doesn't have ''power.''

* There is a lot of debate of how possible/impossible the city-planet of [[StarWars Coruscant]] is, and not least the concept of miles-high buildings and the infrastructure required to maintain them and the population they contain.

* Is there anything with HumongousMecha that ''doesn't'' fit into this?

* ''DwarfFortress''. Fortresses built entirely on one brick of soap? They've been done, and that's considered ''relatively insignificant''. Then again, without Dwarfy physics, we wouldn't get the mind-bendingly complex {{Death Trap}}s and megaprojects that Dorfs have been known to build. Case in point, DOMAIN, a suborbital KillSat defense network that works by ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome pumping magma up to dozens of Z-levels above ground level and dropping it on opponents]]'', is still making the rounds on the Bay 12 forums.

[[AC: Film]]

[[AC: Literature]]

* Thoroughly averted in the VorkosiganSaga; all the engineering is realistic, and even the 5-space theory expounded in ''Komarr'' sounds plausible.

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** The prequels and Clone Wars series make this worse, since the earlier designs were much more effective. The Clone equivalent to an AT-AT could walk straight up cliffs, had a lower center of gravity distributed further apart on more limbs, and had weapons that didn't all face forward just for one example... and [[{{Handwave}} vulnerable to the above-mentioned mines that the AT-AT have long legs against]]

** The prequels and Clone Wars series make this worse, since the earlier designs were much more effective. The Clone equivalent to an AT-AT could walk straight up cliffs, had a lower center of gravity distributed further apart on more limbs, and had weapons that didn't all face forward just for one example.

A ''very'' frequent cause of AwesomeButImpractical. CoolButInefficient is a subtrope. Related to NoOshaCompliance, as process safety is a pretty big issue for most engineers in RealLife.

** Mecha in general often touch this trope. A bipedal machine is, with anything resembling modern technology (or in the near-future sans [[HandWave Handwavium]]), a horribly complex, inefficient, and dangerous way to design a war machine. Just the stabilizing and moving systems alone would be a nightmare.

* There is a lot of debate of how possible/impossible the city-planet of [[StarWars Coruscant]] is, and not least the concept of miles-high buildings and the infrastructure required to maintain them and the population they contain.

* Trantor, the capitol of the Galactic Empire in IsaacAsimov's {{Foundation}} series, is a planet-spanning city like Coruscant in the example below (in fact, it's been suggested that Trantor was the inspiration for Coruscant). The engineering problems might be somewhat averted by the fact that unlike Coruscant, most of Trantor is underground. However, in later books in the series, people seem to have no trouble at all stripping away entire sections of the city, with apparently no concern for what it might do to the structural stability of surrounding parts of the city. Well, they do call that period "The sacking of Trantor"...

* ''DwarfFortress''. Fortresses built entirely on one brick of soap? They've been done, and that's considered ''relatively insignificant''. Then again, without Dwarfy physics, we wouldn't get the mind-bendingly complex {{Death Trap}}s and megaprojects that Dorfs have been known to build. Case in point, DOMAIN, a suborbital KillSat defense network that works by ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome pumping magma up to dozens of Z-levels above ground level and dropping it on opponents]]'', is still making the rounds on the Bay 12 forums.
* In the ''CityOfHeroes'' MMORPG, there are solar panels on the rooftops of all the university buildings... facing *north*.

<<|BuildingTropes|>>

* ''StarTrek'' routinely violates sound engineering principles. If you took a drink for every time the TNG ''Enterprise'' was nearly destroyed because something like the reactor [[FailsafeFailure failsafes failing]], you'd be comatose within a few episodes. Limited (or lack of) systems redundancy, no compartmentalization of critical systems, using active measures like force fields for biohazard containment (instead of, say, a freaking ''box'' marked "biohazard") ... the list is endless.

* Electronics, in ''ArtemisFowl: The Arctic Incident''. Apparently, data sent through irradiated cables becomes radioactive itself:

* Many writers will not even think about functionality when designing a machine; they're more concerned with the "look" and "feel" their machines convey rather than whether they actually make sense given the function they're supposed to perform. This is often the case with spaceships in [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness softer]] ScienceFiction.

Related to NoOshaCompliance, as process safety is a pretty big issue for most engineers in RealLife. A ''very'' frequent cause of AwesomeButImpractical.

Let's face it -- in any work that uses fictional settings, we often see buildings, space stations, tunnels, machines, and whatnot that look spectacular, but if attempted in RealLife, would blow up, collapse, or otherwise fail spectacularly.

Just going with [[RuleOfCool what sounds or looks cool]] or what suits their plot requirements, writers/artists end up with buildings that wouldn't stand up under their own weight, ventilation shafts that are big enough for the hero to walk through, NoOSHACompliance factories, skyscrapers that would either contain nothing but elevator shafts or two-hour waits to get to your floor, and cities full of flying cars with no traffic controls worth mentioning.

If the series takes place in modern times, you're supposed to [[MST3KMantra ignore it]], but if it is in a sci-fi or fantasy setting, it's a toss-up whether it will be ignored completely, explained as being made of {{Unobtainium}} or AppliedPhlebotinum of some nature, or only working because AWizardDidIt or a HigherTechSpecies show us how.

Related to NoOshaCompliance, as process safety is a pretty big issue for most engineers in RealLife.

* Architecture and machinery that fits, or appears to fit, this trope is common in Dr. Seuss books.

*** One expanded universe story suggests that the Imperials lost most of the AT-AT's to ice when the machines inevitably slipped and went crashing to the ground.

*** Because losing a leg never caused any problems?

*** One expanded universe story suggests that the Imperials lost most of the AT-AT's to ice when the machines inevitable slipped and went crashing to the ground.