History Headscratchers / TheColdEquations

** Oh, get real. A strong and and hardened man who lived through dangerous life and death situations, is living on the edge of civilization, where most of the people he encounters are either brave explorers or dangerous criminals and irresponsible adventurers. He encounters a young girl. Of course he feels pity for her, and yes, because she's a young and frail girl. And that feeling is not an "unhealthy attitude toward woman", it's a natural human reaction which will hopefully never vanish. What is really an "unhealthy attitude" is to present it as a proof on some kind of oppression of women, and gender inequality and political incorrectness and other craziness. There's absolutely nothing wrong to feel pity about someone who is weaker than you, and is in mortal danger because of a sad misunderstanding. And if 99% of criminals in a border world happen to be strong and brutal males (because of the harsh conditions), then assuming a stowaway being one of them, and feeling differently when finding a young girl is not any form of evil and outdated and unhealthy prejudice.

*** Granted these last ones are understandable out-of-universe because [[ScienceMarchesOn the story was written in 1954, when computers were still very primitive]].

* [[http://www.spacewesterns.com/articles/105 The story]] has a lot of {{Fridge Logic}} problems. [[YourDoorWasOpen Doesn't the EDS have a locked door?]] [[NowYouTellMe Why don't they post a sign that describes the policy toward stowaways and the reasons behind it?]] Why isn't the EDS inspected before it gets sent on a critical mission with no margin for error? [[LexLuthorSecurity Why is the security around the EDS so lousy that a random college girl can sneak onto it]] when it is sent on life-or-death missions with no back-up? The whole scenario could have been made impossible by making it standard procedure for the pilot to take five seconds to check the closet before each mission. They bothered to give the pilot a pistol just so he can shoot stowaways, but they don't bother to do ''that''? Why does the EDS have such a tiny safety margin anyway? [[SchizoTech They can build "huge hyperspace cruisers", so why can't they make the EDS a little bigger and give it a decent safety margin?]] The things sound like total death traps, especially as they're used for missions where there is no possible help if anything goes wrong. Why didn't the EDS have an automatic system that instantly notified the pilot when it detected that it was over-heavy? For that matter, why did this ultra-minimalistic ship have a pilot anyway? It doesn't have a complex mission, so why don't they just make it a computer-controlled drone? I bet a computerized system built with centuries more advanced than present technology would weigh a lot less than pilot + life support + cockpit. Granted these last ones are understandable out-universe because [[ScienceMarchesOn the story was written in 1954, when computers were still very primitive]]. And it's odd how the characters never even seem to ''consider'' trying things like finding mass on the EDS that can be disposed of or if necessary lightening the girl by removing her limbs. It's not really implausible that this wouldn't have worked but you'd think the girl would have suggested things like that anyway even if the pilot knew better and since the whole [[AnAesop point]] of the story seems to be about how sometimes there really is no [[TakeAThirdOption third option]] it would have helped to see alternatives actually get shot down instead of the reader being left with the impression that possibly [[IdiotPlot the girl could have been saved if the characters used their brains a little bit]]. The story seems to be aiming for an {{Aesop}} about how sometimes there are nothing but bad choices or you can't always save people from the consequences of their own actions, but that's sort of undermined by the fact that the scenario in the story [[IdiotPlot could only happen]] because [[NoOSHACompliance the whole EDS system was basically set up to allow it to happen]].

* [[http://www.spacewesterns.com/articles/105 The story]] has a lot of {{Fridge Logic}} problems. [[YourDoorWasOpen Doesn't the EDS have a locked door?]] [[NowYouTellMe Why don't they post a sign that describes the policy toward stowaways and the reasons behind it?]] Why isn't the EDS inspected before it gets sent on a critical mission with no margin for error? Why is the security around the EDS so lousy that a random college girl can sneak onto it when it is sent on life-or-death missions with no back-up? The whole scenario could have been made impossible by making it standard procedure for the pilot to take five seconds to check the closet before each mission. They bothered to give the pilot a pistol just so he can shoot stowaways, but they don't bother to do ''that''? Why does the EDS have such a tiny safety margin anyway? They can build "huge hyperspace cruisers", so why can't they make the EDS a little bigger and give it a decent safety margin? The things sound like total death traps, especially as they're used for missions where there is no possible help if anything goes wrong. Why didn't the EDS have an automatic system that instantly notified the pilot when it detected that it was over-heavy? For that matter, why did this ultra-minimalistic ship have a pilot anyway? It doesn't have a complex mission, so why don't they just make it a computer-controlled drone? I bet a computerized system built with centuries more advanced than present technology would weigh a lot less than pilot + life support + cockpit. Granted these last ones are understandable out-universe because [[ScienceMarchesOn the story was written in 1954, when computers were still very primitive]]. And it's odd how the characters never even seem to ''consider'' trying things like finding mass on the EDS that can be disposed of or if necessary lightening the girl by removing her limbs. It's not really implausible that this wouldn't have worked but you'd think the girl would have suggested things like that anyway even if the pilot knew better and since the whole [[AnAesop point]] of the story seems to be about how sometimes there really is no [[TakeAThirdOption third option]] it would have helped to see alternatives actually get shot down instead of the reader being left with the impression that possibly [[IdiotPlot the girl could have been saved if the characters used their brains a little bit]]. The story seems to be aiming for an {{Aesop}} about how sometimes there are nothing but bad choices or you can't always save people from the consequences of their own actions, but that's sort of undermined by the fact that the scenario in the story [[IdiotPlot could only happen]] because [[NoOSHACompliance the whole EDS system was basically set up to allow it to happen]].

* [[http://www.spacewesterns.com/articles/105 The story]] has a lot of {{Fridge Logic}} problems. Doesn't the EDS have a locked door? Why don't they post a sign that describes the policy toward stowaways and the reasons behind it? Why isn't the EDS inspected before it gets sent on a critical mission with no margin for error? Why is the security around the EDS so lousy that a random college girl can sneak onto it when it is sent on life-or-death missions with no back-up? The whole scenario could have been made impossible by making it standard procedure for the pilot to take five seconds to check the closet before each mission. They bothered to give the pilot a pistol just so he can shoot stowaways, but they don't bother to do ''that''? Why does the EDS have such a tiny safety margin anyway? They can build "huge hyperspace cruisers", so why can't they make the EDS a little bigger and give it a decent safety margin? The things sound like total death traps, especially as they're used for missions where there is no possible help if anything goes wrong. Why didn't the EDS have an automatic system that instantly notified the pilot when it detected that it was over-heavy? For that matter, why did this ultra-minimalistic ship have a pilot anyway? It doesn't have a complex mission, so why don't they just make it a computer-controlled drone? I bet a computerized system built with centuries more advanced than present technology would weigh a lot less than pilot + life support + cockpit. Granted these last ones are understandable out-universe because [[ScienceMarchesOn the story was written in 1954, when computers were still very primitive]]. And it's odd how the characters never even seem to ''consider'' trying things like finding mass on the EDS that can be disposed of or if necessary lightening the girl by removing her limbs. It's not really implausible that this wouldn't have worked but you'd think the girl would have suggested things like that anyway even if the pilot knew better and since the whole [[AnAesop point]] of the story seems to be about how sometimes there really is no [[TakeAThirdOption third option]] it would have helped to see alternatives actually get shot down instead of the reader being left with the impression that possibly [[IdiotPlot the girl could have been saved if the characters used their brains a little bit]]. The story seems to be aiming for an {{Aesop}} about how sometimes there are nothing but bad choices or you can't always save people from the consequences of their own actions, but that's sort of undermined by the fact that the scenario in the story [[IdiotPlot could only happen]] because [[NoOSHACompliance the whole EDS system was basically set up to allow it to happen]].

*** It was apparently written as a TakeThat to the stories of the time, which always had happy endings, even if a DeusExMachina was required to make it so. "The Cold Equations" exists solely to drop an anvil. In this, it wasn't any less subtle or plausible than most of the stories it was a response to - in SF, those things were still years away.

*** It was apparently written as a TakeThat to the stories of the time, which always had happy endings, even if a DeusExMachina was required to make it so. "The Cold Equations" exists solely to drop an [[{Anvilicious}} anvil]]. In this, it wasn't any less subtle or plausible than most of the stories it was a response to - in SF, those things were still years away.

*** It was apparently written as a TakeThat to the stories of the time, which always had happy endings, even if a DeusExMachina was required to make it so. Trouble is, it's not any more subtle or well-told than those were.

* The pilot also comes off as having a rather unhealthy attitude toward women. His initial reaction to finding the stowaway is to think that [[TheUnfairSex if she were a man]] [[DoubleStandard he could probably have killed him secure in the knowledge that he was probably some criminal or con man, but now he can't do that]]. With the unspoken implication that [[TheUnfairSex he can tell she can't be one of those things because she's young, female,]] [[BeautyEqualsGoodness and wholesome-looking]]. [[ValuesDissonance It might have something to do with when the story was written]].

** Yeah, and that's a major flaw in "The Cold Equations": it's an {{anvilicious}} morality play, and the dilemma's so obviously set up by the author that it falls apart the moment the reader starts asking questions like why they couldn't just ''lock the frickin' door''. The story's sole purpose is to hit the reader with a gut-punch of an aesop: once that impact wears off, the house of cards falls down.

** Greedy ''and'' appallingly naive at the same time. If anyone had wanted to ''sabotage'' the UBS's mission, they could've just strolled on in, stuck a bomb in the cubbyhole the girl had hidden in, and walked out again. Even a simple load of luggage or junk that weighed the same as the girl could've skewed those equations enough to scrub the mission, with no radiant heat to betray its presence until too late.

* The key wallbanger to this story is something engineers call MARGIN OF ERROR. The author obviously had no perspective whatsoever on how a decent engineer thinks. No engineer with a full deck of cards is going to design a spacegoing vessel--- several tons of machine, fuel, and life support (air, water, food)-- with a margin of error for fuel smaller than a ''couple hundred pounds.'' And if fuel was literally THAT tight, ''why didn't they make it a glider wing like the Space Shuttle, or at least install a parachute?''

The story would have worked better, honestly, as an investigation of the Utter Cheap Bastards in the company hierarchy who were so cheap and shortsighted that they wouldn't even fork over the cost of emergency backups, reliable security, or at least enough fuel to insure a safe landing,''or even the cost of a stupid lock on the door.''