My thread about the funniest science fiction series got me to thinking. What do you think is the most realistic SF franchise? I can't go with any of the more famous series. Star Trek the Original Series I thought wasn't too terribly unrealistic but all subsequent Trek series have postulated what I think is the ridiculous idea of humans encountering literally THOUSANDS of intelligent alien species within the next few hundred years. Babylon-5 is better in my opinion. Though once again, more aliens than I see ever as likely. the new Battlestar:Galactica is better in many respects, though I think that intelligent robots capable of outthinking humans is about as likely as 1,000s of alien species. And BG has what I see as a very odd mixture of future tech and low tech. I think the Battletech Universe is the most realistic by far. Why: 1) No aliens. Aside from some rare appearances in a couple of obscure novels, the Battletech universe is alien free. Its all humans fighting other humans. 2) Difficulty of faster than light travel. In Battletech, starships don't zip around and shift into warp drive like changing gears. Ships must travel to certain points in a solar system and often spend anywhere from 7 to 10 days charging their FTL engines. 3) Related to #2 but space combat between large warships is very rare. One reason being their relatively low speed and ponderous manueverability not to mention the fact that warships can see the opposition coming long before they get within range so combat can be easily avoided. All these things strike me as being far more realistic than most series. By the way, Battletech started out as a game system, moved on into published fiction, and eventually had an animated series.
I considered SG:1. But the problem with SG:1 is it assumes a universe out there filled with aliens, descendents of humans transplanted to other worlds, and hyper advanced alien technology. Even worse, the show continually shows present day Air Force officers able to utilize technology hundreds if not thousands of years more advanced often with just a few minutes of familiarization. It also suggests a U.S. project involving tens of thousands of people (including literally hundreds of fatalities ) being able to be kept secret for years and years.
Firefly - in tech, in the way people act, and in the fact that the "bad guys" and the "good guys" are all just folk, each motivated by different values, but none villainously evil or idealistically good. The Feds in the pilot episode don't bother chasing Serenity because there's a transport in need of assistance.
Hence why I specified the first couple of seasons. It took fifty years of research to learn how to control the Stargate.
Smallville, except I find it hard to pin down exactly what sort of farming the Kents do. I don't see them raise any particular crops. and we never see them milk the cows.... Oh yeah, the Krypton and meteor-freak stuff, totally fine with all that.
given we don't know if there are aliens, and if there are, how many civilizations are out there, its a little presumptious to say that doesn't seem realistic when we don't yet know what the reality actually is. as it is, firefly is the most currently realistic in that theres no FTL, societies are similar to what we see on earth and a systems been terraformed rather than finding a ready-made system of planets.
Firefly, because there are actually poor people in it and not everybody speaks English - and there's organized crime.
Futurama, because the characters are all missing a finger on each hand. In 1,000 years, pinkies will go away.
I vote star Trek because of all the tech it inspired that has come to pass, more than any other sc-fi series. But it's also probably one of the most flawed as well.
I'd go with Firefly and have B5 as a close runner up. The whole terraforming planets and then just dropping settlers off to fend for themselves is very much in line with how the old west was settled. And B5 didn't shirk the homeless issue. Even in the future you had the people who came to B5 and didn't make it, but they couldn't afford to leave either. No magic replicators or free rides on passing ships.
Of course, one could go with the Honor Harrington series. It is basically a humans only series as well. And it is set so far in the future (a couple of thousand years from now) that one might actually believe some of the stuff there is possible.
Other than finding the possibility of a solar system with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons in the habitable zone of a star unrealistic, I'd say Firefly. Would have to be an O, B, or A type star just to even think about having a habitable zone that large, no more puny G2 yellow dwarf for humanity.
Farscape. Not because I think every aspect of it is realistic in any form or fashion, but because of how John Crichton got thrown into this whole universe of aliens. It was by accident and he was thrown into this larger universe, not because we were venturing out into the stars and encountering aliens at every step of the way. Yea, the number of alien species is certainly questionable, as well as the number that are capable of space travel, but the premise of Farscape is more realistic than most sci-fi series...simply by accident while we were experimenting in space...
That never occurred to me. A or B-type star it is! Man are they fucked in a few million years. Dammit, can't find any tables or graphs of habitable zones of any stars bluer than F5. They all say "uninhabitable" due to too much UV and a too short lifetime.
Did you know that Wesley Crusher is the next stage in human evolution? Think I'll set my phaser on 'overload' and just sit here and listen to its lovely little whine for a while...
