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In Praise of the Sci-fi Corridor

brumgrunt writes "Technically a corridor in a science-fiction movie should just be a means of getting from one big expensive set to the next, and yet Den Of Geek writes lovingly of the detailed conduits in films such as Alien, Outland, Solaris and even this year's Moon by Duncan Jones."

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  1. Re:How to do a much shorter article next time by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >>>Would you pay to see a story about a guy who went about his day in the future and didnt have any problems

    No but that doesn't mean you have to go extreme either. I thought the best Science Stories were those that took ordinary genres, but set them in the future:

    - Elijah Baley - a detective solving a murder in the year ~3,000

    - Tekwar - a detective solving crimes in ~2020

    - The Road Must Roll - a worker strike in the year ~2050

    - I Robot - a collection of short stories where a household appliance (robot) goes haywire, and the engineer's attempt to find why the problem happened.

    And so on. Science stories are best when they are tied to reality. It doesn't have to be some "nightmarish reality" to quote the grandparent..

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. Re:Sci-Fi by egburr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, once you invent artificial gravity, you're back to having to have dedicated floor space for walking, standing, sitting, etc. And when your habitat expands beyond just a six person capacity with everyone knowing everything, to a large community where people have specialized tasks, you will probably not want to have everything just sitting out in the open like that for people who don't know what they are doing to accidentally bump things on their way by and not know how to correct it. And when your habitat grows beyond just a few small rooms, you will have to have dedicated travel (dare I say it?) corridors, that are just that, corridors.

    When your entire environment is very small and contains a very few smart, well-trained people, you can make use of every available space like they do on the ISS.

    --

    Edward Burr
    Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
  3. Re:I never liked Sci Fi corridors. by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You have never been on a submarine have you? Space ships have a lot in common with submarines.

    Use that space for something! Put labs there!

    Yes, because no one would mind people walking through their work space. Who cares if one get's jostled by someone passing through while one is performing a delicate and/or dangerous step in a procedure or experiment?

    Crew quarters!

    Yes, because no one would mind people walking through their living and sleeping space at all hours of the day and night. I am sure those people on night watch won't mind have their sleep disturbed ever few minutes.

    Those corridors connect rooms together. They are hallways. No corridors, and you end up with one huge room which will result in no privacy, a huge waste of air, and is wonderful vulnerability because it takes just a hole or two to kill everyone on the ship.

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    There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.