Markup View

Author: StarSword

Mar 11th 2013 at 8:11:56 AM

Re: Star Wars:  The setting has antigravity (called repulsorlifts) and makes use of it for this purpose.  ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' has inertial reduction technology (see the RPG), which also enables rapid acceleration to relativistic speeds for interplanetary travel.

TV:
* The ''Franchise/StargateVerse'' does this almost as often as ''Franchise/StarWars''.  According to supplemental materials and SG1: "Tangent", the Tau'ri reverse-engineered inertial reduction technology from the Goa'uld, who in turn cribbed it from the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Ancients]], who presumably developed it alongside the Ori before their schism (Ori motherships can land on planets, too).  No explanation is given for the Asgard (seen docking capital ships at a dirtside shipyard in SG1: "Small Victories") or the Wraith.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' normally avoids this, seeing as how one of the original reasons for the transporter in ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries TOS]]'' was to save on the special effects budget by not having to show the ''Enterprise'' landing.  The only ships regularly seen landing and taking off are shuttlecraft, [[ForgottenPhlebotinum when the writers can remember that the ship is equipped with them]].  [[Film/StarTrek The 2009 movie]] shows the ''Enterprise''-Nil under construction in a dirtside shipyard, but we don't know how they got it into orbit.
* Averted in ''Series/{{Starhunter}}''.  The crew always leaves the ''Tulip'' in orbit and takes a shuttle to the surface.

Video Games:
* Explicitly {{justified|Trope}} in ''Franchise/MassEffect'' by [[MinovskyPhysics the ubiquitous element zero]].  Ships use their eezo core to lighten their mass to make it easier to get out of gravity wells.  Even then, only smaller ships like the ''Normandy'' are generally capable of doing so on a regular basis.  As usual the Reapers are an exception (the two-kilometer ''Harbinger''-class Reapers are seen taking off and landing frequently), but the ''[[VideoGame/MassEffect3 ME3]]'' codex mentions that this requires a gargantuan eezo core, and even then so much field strength must be diverted to mass-lightening that their [[DeflectorShields kinetic barriers]] are severely weakened.