Example Sectionectomy: Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale

Hi.

Anyone else think the Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale page needs an Example Sectionectomy ? The trope is as such pretty broad in definition, and there are several other tropes (the various Goofs pages, for example) that handle examples of specific kinds of misjudged scaling better than this.

The main article seems to mainly emphasize the bigness of space (hence the alt title, "Space Is Big") and why it's an Acceptable Break from Reality to scale things down or else break physics in other story-friendly ways. But the examples are about all sorts of different things, including examples from some works that are not Sci Fi and, more to the point, some works (like Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann) that clearly have no truck with realistic physics and can't really be noted for any specific scale goofs (seeing as they don't use real world physics in the first place).

Hence, this looks to me as a page which is better off just defining a term and noting the phenomenon of scale misjudgment in fiction on a whole, rather than as a trope proper that can have examples. Thus, I propose an Example Sectionectomy.

Wouldn't it be better to just prune out all of the stuff not having to do with actual distance/scale? It's a common mistake to underestimate the scale of space and, as you pointed out, it's not exactly a story-killing phenomenon, and as such is probably unlikely to invite yes-it-is-no-it-isn't warring.

I say just clip out all categories except the ones relating to distance/scale; the current problem seems to be that the various categories implies that this is a page for general astrophysics screw-ups, which it doesn't seem to be.

What's the ratio of correct usage to incorrect usage? I've not the time to check, at the moment, but if it's still more correct than incorrect, after filtering out obvious natter, then zapping all the examples seems a bit extreme, to me.

If a clear majority of the examples are incorrect (and I mean supermajorities, not 51% or somesuch), then it might be worth considering an Example Sectionectomy.

edited 25th Jul '11 6:03:53 PM by Nohbody

I fully agree that an Example Sectionectomy is fine if the page usage just can't be salvaged, but I really think that the other categories should be killed first to see if that stems the tide (although some of them... how do you jump from "Space is bigger than SF writers think" to "Sunglasses aren't as effective as SF writers think"?). I don't think Example Sectionectomies should be done unless everything else has been empirically proven to not work.

Of course, if the misuse continues, then torch it and salt the earth. I will happily cheer from the sidelines.

How about splitting the categories into separate tropes and using Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale as an index? Then we can use Space Is Big for just the distance examples. There's enough examples for most of the others to make new tropes if there aren't equivalent tropes already.