Production costs!
The expanse did this well because they used acceleration not artificial gravity.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
352 points (97.3% liked)
Showerthoughts
41710 readers
2268 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Expanse did it amazingly imo, it also adds some realism into a otherwise very fictional story, which makes it somewhat easier to vibe with it.
Gawwwd, the scene where mid fight there are unsecured wrenches floating around was so beautifully tense.
"Captain, we were hit by a Class IV Photon torpedo in the aft. The production budget exploded!"
And magnetic shoes.
That was such a nice touch and just cost some red leds. I'm the books they spend a lot of time on the float (to expensive to burn all the time). The way the TV show got around it all was great
Don't forget the sound, that clunk with every step is what sold it as real.
Just flip around halfway and start slowing down! Free acceleration / deceleration gravity.
They actually do that in The Expanse.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
THE EXPANSE
GO WATCH IT!
No stupid gimmicky "artificial gravity" horseshit, the "gravity" is caused by acceleration and deceleration.
Which is fucking cool because it's one of the few space travel things that really does work. Like if we can figure out the fuel/propulsion thing and some kind of equivalent to deflector shields (not for space battles but for all the random shit in space that could destory your ship in a collision, especially if we get up to relativistic speeds), we could have space travel where you can walk around normally on the ship.
Also the gravity increasing ships like Goku used in DBZ, so we could actually have someone doing extreme gravity training while en route to a big fight.
And it works for both acceleration and deceleration, only difference is you're either travelling up or down.
Also loved the special seats they used when doing combat maneuvers. ST didn't just make up artificial gravity (since their ships moved forwards rather than up), they had inertial dampeners, because the evasive maneuvers would have been much more dangerous than the shocks from getting hit.
ST is more rooted in science than SW, but parts of it are just as much fantasy as the force, which was depressing to realize when you're hoping for humanity to eventually go in that direction. The biggest human tech fantasy in the Expanse is an engine upgrade that gives improved thrust and efficiency. Not to light speed, but just by like an order of magnitude. And they've even got a brutally realistic scene about the discovery that was great world building imo.
the expanse is the only universe where Epstein actually killed himself
I mean, gravity is just acceleration anyway.
Weird fucking acceleration due to the curvature of spacetime and how shit moves through time. But still, just acceleration.
To be fair; if you could build a fusion torch and fully direct the flow; aneutronic fusion fits the bill; the thrust numbers they are using are not crazy.
You would use stupid amount of fuel to get that much delta-v; but with advanced reactors using readily available fuel sources....maybe not an issue.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Up until the space magic bullshit, anyway.
So disappointing when the hand waving started.
Well the show didn't finish the story.
E: though, it didn't get less "magical", just more explained in a soft-scifi sense.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Spin up the drum.
Who else is thinking of that one scene near the start of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country?
Or Star Trek: First Contact, when Picard, Worf, and redshirt Neil McDonough test out their zero G combat training, further cementing the fact that Star Trek only remembers that space has no gravity when it's relevant to the plot.
They do throw things out the airlock an awful lot. Though, somehow, Borg don’t have the strength to stop it but Beverly Crusher does.
Beverly Crusher fucked a ghost. She can do anything.
My wife abused star trek of being a soap opera at some point. At first I thought, maybe she's just showing up at the worst possible time?
No. It's all of the time. Every episode has some weird soapy bullshit. Beverly fucking a ghost, LaForge fucking a hologram, Riker fucking anything with genitals INCLUDING a hologram. Everybody be fuckin. That's not even the soapiest thing. Voyager is basically Soaps in space.
I love classic trek, but guys I think it's a soap opera.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Admit it, you wanted to ask which movies and shows have done it. Instead of asking for people to tell you what the correct answer is, it’s far more effective to post the wrong answer, and wait for the flood of answers to arrive.
load more comments
(3 replies)
"Gravity plating!" As long as there is floor, you're good.
Magnetic shoes?
load more comments
(3 replies)
Gravity is a very dense liquid. Generator makes it in big batches at a time and it just stays there for long even after the generator is gone. After the battle is done and everything is repaired, they just top up the pool and all is good.
On a space station more than a space battle, but Titan AE had a scene that made good use of this. The station is old, and early in the scene the gravity generator goes on the fritz, causing everyone to float until some percussive maintenance gets it working again. When bad guys show up Matt Damon shoots the generator to cause some confusion and let him escape faster by pushing off toward the exit.
load more comments
(1 replies)
In Star Trek IV, The Undiscovered Country, exactly that happened. It is kind of a unique scene, because it had to be a bitch to film.
The Undiscovered Country is VI. Star Trek IV is The Voyage Home. Both are great, anyways.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Gravity is on a separate subsystem & power supply, because without gravity people couldn’t reasonably move and fix the rest of the ship, so even when compared to general life support, it’s the most critical function and the most isolated.
And production cost.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I am a big fan of sci-fi and understand how expensive weightlessness is to film, so combine that with the amount of shows that have been canceled and I completely accept the fact that they try to keep this more fictional than science.
Doylist explanation: it would be too expensive for the FX department.
As it happens, the same worldbuilding project I mentioned in another post here sort of addresses this. The same aliens mentioned there don’t use artificial gravity at all. Being arboreal creatures they’re well suited to microgravity and can happily live permanently in zero G. Upon meeting humans and learning that we want artificial gravity (specifically centrifugal gravity), they wonder why we spent all the effort to get away from gravity only to spend even more effort to bring it back.
Since human orbital colonies take the form of O’Neil cylinders, you can cut off the gravity by halting the cylinder’s rotation. If stopped abruptly enough this would cause a lot of damage initially as objects go flying. It would also put the terrestrial, bipedal humans at a disadvantage compared to the aliens with five prehensile extremities.
Well... Star Trek The Undiscovered Country.
Yep! One of the more rememberable parts... Floating pink Klingon blood droplets everywhere!
Simple. All the floors are made from a special exotic material, that is a lot like a magnet, but attracts everything. And just like magnets, they are not powered by any external source and don't need any external systems to control.
load more comments
(3 replies)
If it were expected to be more than a 1 in 1000 risk, they would probably have handles on the walls and ceilings to help move about during an emergency.
What you’re really saying is there aren’t enough big budget sci fi things to watch.
Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country did it, even making it a point during the Trial ;-)
That's why I prefer hard SciFi like The Expanse books, where science is a main driver to life and motivations to drive the story.
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›