Follow TV Tropes

Following

Playing With / Unrealistic Black Hole

Go To

Basic Trope: A black hole, as portrayed by Hollywood Science.

  • Straight: A spacecraft is sucked into a black hole, even though they are lightyears away from it.
  • Exaggerated:
    • The black hole in question acts like (quite literally) a cosmic vacuum cleaner, sucking up everything in the universe.
    • The black hole is a wormhole to another dimension, perhaps with a white hole on the other side to spit the spacecraft out.
  • Downplayed:
    • The black hole has no spin or electrical charge (a simple Schwarzschild black hole); most black holes found in nature are thought to have one or the other, if not both.
    • The black hole is scaled up and given color so it can be easily seen.
  • Justified:
    • The spacecraft is in the "danger zone" of the black hole; while still quite a ways away from the event horizon, it's close enough that one simple misfire of the rocket thrusters could send them closer to it instead of getting them away from it.
    • Black holes aren't even fully understood by actual astrophysicists (let alone the average joe); especially when the complexities of spin and charge and radiation are introduced, all sorts of crazy things can happen with them.
    • In the case of the above-mentioned Schwarzschild black hole, somebody needs a hypothetical situation, with the simplest scenario possible, for calculation or explanatory purposes.
    • It's an artificial black hole created by advanced science.
  • Inverted:
    • The spacecraft is ejected by, or catapulted away from a white hole, instead of being sucked into a black hole.
    • The spacecraft is threatened by a black hole (complete with spin and electrical charge), that is portrayed realistically. There is a point at which they can even orbit the hole safely, just like they could orbit anything else.
  • Subverted:
    • The Captain can see that they are getting close to a black hole, because of gravitational lensing.
    • The craft experiences spaghettification from the gravity.
    • A black hole cannon when used doesn't produce the typical vacuum. Instead it is effectively a very brief pulse of strong gravity followed which absorbs little mass before releasing it all as Hawkings Radiation.
  • Double Subverted:
    • The spacecraft gets closer for whatever reason(s), and are literally vacuumed up (complete with sucking sounds) into the black hole.
    • Then they come out on the other side, like nothing ever happened.
  • Parodied:
    • The black hole is someone's (very overpowered) vacuum cleaner.
    • A road sign near it reads "Major Plot Point Ahead!" or "Danger! Black hole ahead!".
  • Zig Zagged: A spacecraft gets simultaneously sucked in and repelled by a blend of a black hole and a white hole. How? Quantum physics.
  • Averted:
    • The black hole is portrayed realistically.
    • No black holes in the story.
  • Enforced:
    • We need a Negative Space Wedgie for our Space Opera or Sci-Fi novel.
    • We need a very simple Schwarzschild black hole for a physics problem or brief explanation, even though they (probably) aren't found in nature, so we can do our calculations and whatnot without mucking things up for our students or the audience that knows little or nothing about how black holes actually work.
  • Lampshaded: "Schwarzschild black hole ahead, Captain!"
  • Invoked: Some gizmo aboard the spacecraft picks up X-rays thought to be coming from a (relatively close-by) black hole.
  • Exploited: Someone creates a black hole cannon to suck in the spacecraft, that somehow works.
  • Defied: The spacecraft stays far enough away that the black hole isn't a problem.
  • Discussed: "If you got near a black hole, would you actually be sucked in or just...kinda...fall in.
  • Conversed: "Why are these idiots always being sucked into black holes?!"
  • Implied: The spacecraft gets sent from point A to point B, quite a distance away from a black hole... and never arrive.
  • Deconstructed: The black hole sucks in everything in the universe, causing The End of the World as We Know It...
  • Reconstructed: ...but it sent the things it sucked up to another dimension.
  • Played For Laughs: The Scrappy is being sent into one.

Back to Unrealistic Black Hole

Top