Recoil is my first thought. Like cartoon characters trying to use a fire hose
For All Mankind (AH Tv series at Apple TV)
- Thread starter Michel Van
- Start date
First, the bullets would face no air resistance, and would arc less due to lower gravity. Second, if you’re not on a solid surface (like the moon), recoil is going to be an issue, like @Expat just said. Treat any gun as an equally powerful rocket thruster.
Agreed. I was thinking the other day that ensemble shows are really hindered by the modern tendency to do <10 episode seasons. No time to develop characters to the extent they need. If the seasons were longer, characters could get shows more focused on them.
This occurred to me back during season 1, in particular when thinking of Danielle. First black astronaut from either country on the Moon--not a peep about that. That should have been at least as important given the racial justice social upheavals of the 1960s as Mollie Cobb being the first American woman. But nope.
In Ye Olde Days, shows with 26 episodes per season might have produced more clunkers, but there was room to breathe. From a literary perspective, I've read lots of novels with oversized casts of viewpoint characters--and the books are door-stoppers as a consequence. That's the length you need to do them justice. And it's not like Moore's a stranger to that--DS9 gave its large main cast, and the recurring supporting cast, room to grow that way.
What drives this short-season tendency? Is it budget? The network's desire to get more different shows onto its streaming service? One would think that Apple TV+, since it's trying to force its way into a market already saturated with streaming services, would want to try something different--a show that takes the whole year to drop, so that people have a reason to pay $5 per month every month rather than cancelling their subscriptions when the 10 episodes they care about are done.
There are a number of trends driving this, with money the general trend behind most of them.
- Budgets are much easier to approve.
- It does make it look like a service has more content since people don't think in terms of minutes or episodes, but in terms of number of titles.
- Actors like it because they get something steady and can still go out on the grind if they want, and generally aren't roped into the kind of career-freezing contracts that previous generations had to deal with.
- Producers and showrunners tend to feel the same. (Writers and techs tend to NOT like this arrangement.)
- It makes it muchmuchmuchmuchmuch more likely that a story is going to reach its completion, as the bar for renewal is much easier to attain (those budgets again.
- Honestly, it takes a particular kind of story to *need* a huge number of episodes. While I'm in absolute agreement that more FAMK would be amazing, the general formula does tend to work better for most shows. Think about the average show from the early 2000s and the decades preceding it and the general rule was just a lot of quality-reducing filler.
I agree, it would be interesting to see a service try something different. Absolutely unrelated content-wise, but it occurred to me the other day that (at least when there's no pandemic) The Groundlings and the like are gonna be performing whether there's a camera filming them or not. Why not get some licensing, a very very basic camera and sound setup, and put this on Netflix on the cheap every single week? For that matter, why haven't various standup clubs done this? If literally a hundred people watch each performance, that's double what even the largest clubs in the Village can handle.
What I bet will happen is that you'll get some daytime host who wants to make a deal with a streaming service while still keeping something close to their former frequency. That's probably where the barrier gets broken first, rather than with scripted TV.
Yes, though on a vehicle-scale rather than a personal-scale weapon. The "difficulty" is that there's been no real reason to arm astronauts IOTL, since, well, there aren't any situations where they might have to shoot at other astronauts/cosmonauts. At most you'll see survival weapons on Russian vehicles, but those are for fighting bears and wolves, not people, and aren't supposed to be used in space.
This is less set. You do get shows with a few more here or there. Especially if it's a proven hit. You also get shows with a lot less, especially if you look at the production credits and there's like 20 funding sources.
Re: Guns on the Moon.
Read a short story in either Astounding or Galaxy (I think) about a gov agent asking why the allies and soviets got on so well since on Earth things were tense. Before the base commander could answer an alarm went off and both the agent and commander went into the hall. Moment later a staccato noise was heard then another. A repair crew ran into the room and started to repair a patch on both walls on opposite sides of the room. The commander explained that there was actually a skirmish between the two sides and the resulting bullet storm is still orbiting the Moon about chest high. Because the base walls are unarmored the bullets pass through them at regular intervals so its kind of hard to fight since eventually you will have a wide field of bullets disrupting your activities so better to cooperate than fight.
Little far fetched given the topography of the Moon, but a funny one if you don't think about it too heavily. Also I think both sides were in a race to build a thicker wall.
Read a short story in either Astounding or Galaxy (I think) about a gov agent asking why the allies and soviets got on so well since on Earth things were tense. Before the base commander could answer an alarm went off and both the agent and commander went into the hall. Moment later a staccato noise was heard then another. A repair crew ran into the room and started to repair a patch on both walls on opposite sides of the room. The commander explained that there was actually a skirmish between the two sides and the resulting bullet storm is still orbiting the Moon about chest high. Because the base walls are unarmored the bullets pass through them at regular intervals so its kind of hard to fight since eventually you will have a wide field of bullets disrupting your activities so better to cooperate than fight.
Little far fetched given the topography of the Moon, but a funny one if you don't think about it too heavily. Also I think both sides were in a race to build a thicker wall.
I was wondering if there were maybe, um, “better” weapons than an m16 to take to the Moon. Considering how many things can kill you in space, plus supply constraints, training, and maybe even the fore-shortened spaces (less range needed), are there simpler alternatives? Is this a case of, “the Americans spent millions developing an m16 you could fire in space; the Russians spent $200 to put an air canister on a Red Rider.”
Probably not that specifically, but....big ol taser? Rock-thrower?
Probably not that specifically, but....big ol taser? Rock-thrower?
Would a taser work in space, of would the insulation on a space suit render them pointless?
An M16 would be very functional as far as firearms go on the moon. With white furniture to stop it melting in the direct sun of course. It has a spring loaded dust cover to prevent ingress of moon dust as much as possible. Combat ranges on the moon could possibly be actually longer than on earth where an abundance of cover such as buildings and trees, and the ability to quickly create entrenchments makes it easier for soldiers to conceal themselves. ON the moon the rigidity of the space suits means that most EVA combatants would have to fight from a standing position, and apart from craters and boulders there is not much to obstruct liens of sight. The lack of air resistance and lower gravity means that the weapons would have far higher effective ranges as well. Though using the standard sighting systems would likely be difficult with he bulky bubble helmets.
You don't need an atmosphere for a laser to function; in fact, not having an atmosphere means that it will work better since there is little possibility of dust, fog, or other atmospheric contaminants scattering the laser light.
A laser would be one option, the likely one given the technology of the 80s. Later they would possibly try something with a camera gunsight linked to a HUD system inside the helmet.