In a space scene, do my readers care about relative position?

[lorrdwolf]

I just started writing a short story (or maybe the opening of the first chapter of a novel) about a lady space-pirate. The scene begins on the target ship and I'm trying to figure out how to describe the relative position of the ships. I first came here for advice on that but then it occurred to me to wonder if the readers even care that much about such things.

The opening (all I've written so far) reads:
“Skipper, got a contact,” Peter said. “Bearing 173 mark 039, range 380m, offline, shallowing by five.”

Barny Linds, ‘skipper’ to the crew of the freighter Aunt Lucy, grunted in response. Offline but shallowing? Not a direct intercept vector, then but a generally converging course.


So, my question is how much do readers care about things like 'bearing' and, if that is important (which I suspect is itself relative to the work ) what's the best way to do it? Thanks!

 

[The Judge]

I'm personally not a hard-SF fan, so I tune out of any jargon and I'm happy with just being told eg how far away the other ship is and in what relative position so I can get a rough picture of it in my mind ie below them, heading in the same direction or facing them at 2 o'clock** high, and distance in terms not only of miles/kilometres but how long at present speed they'd be too close for comfort/within weapons range, whether that's minutes or hours. (As to which if the "range 380m" means they're 380 metres away, Peter needs a boot up his backside! Another ship should be detected from miles away. If the 'm' isn't for metres, perhaps use another consonant so there's no confusion.)

So for me, I'm happy for Peter's dialogue, but I'd like Barny to think a bit more about what it means so I can get an image of it in my head, and if the contact isn't expected I'd want Peter to give some detail of the other ship. The info is needed, so that as and when something happens -- ie they turn on an intercept -- we can follow at least some of the changes and understand what's going on.

But for the moment, as this is all you've written, don't worry too much about it! It may well be that as you get into the story you realise this isn't where it should start, and this info isn't needed after all. The important thing is to carry on and get it finished!

Anyhow, good luck with it -- and Welcome to Chrons!



** with children nowadays not being taught to read old-fashioned clocks with hands, goodness knows if they'll actually understand what that means if it's ever used!

 

[Danny McG]

** with children nowadays not being taught to read old-fashioned clocks with hands, goodness knows if they'll actually understand what that means if it's ever used!

I think I've mentioned in Chrons before that I had a teacher who served in the Battle of Britain, he often used jargon like that to keep our interest "There's a small diagram, at 4 o'clock low, on the wall if you're struggling"

 

[Parson]

Okay, I consume a lot of military SF and at least for me the "jargon" as @The Judge talks about is significant but probably not in the way that you think. For me those kinds of things give the book a feeling of reality and I like it. But I would warn that there are going to be people (I'm occasionally one of them) who will try to work out the meaning of those technical words, distances, et. al. and if they don't make sense or even worse if the author is making them up out of whole cloth, they will kick out those readers about as fast as anything does. As The Judge points out the 380m (if meters is assumed and it will be unless there is some explanation) is a very small number in space terms. I have to admit when I read those numbers I thought that you were stealing those numbers from a submarine on the prowl, not a space ship.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

The best way to use Jargon in any type of sci-fi writing is to use it in a manner that the specific Jargon does not really matter. Your example is pretty good. The crewman uses jargon to tell the skipper he has detected another ship. The captain uses plain English to explain why the Jargon matters. The critique I have is that if I were to read the crewman's line out loud It doesn't feel right.

“Bearing 173 mark 039, range 380m, offline, shallowing by five.”
"Bearing one-seven-three mark zero-three-nine, range three hundred eighty m, offline, shallowing by five."
As @Parson and @The Judge noted, the range feels off. Maybe drop the unit - "Range three-eighty" - all the crew knows the unit of measure. Certainly not any unit in use on Earth today...

Generally, I'd say you are on the right track.

I understand that the writers on Star Trek would write a script with the word "Jargon" on the script to be filled in later. Jargon is for flavor. It's like the color of the speeder. It helps with atmosphere. And much like adjectives and adverbs it should be used sparingly and with intent.

There was a line in Dr. Who where the Darleks announce that something will happen in so many Rhels and Dr. Who says as an aside, "How long is a Rhel again? I can never remember." The point is that the specific amount of time is the amount of time needed for the plot. Made-up Jargon is a great way to be ambiguous while appearing to be specific.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Okay, I consume a lot of military SF and at least for me the "jargon" as @The Judge talks about is significant but probably not in the way that you think. For me those kinds of things give the book a feeling of reality and I like it. But I would warn that there are going to be people (I'm occasionally one of them) who will try to work out the meaning of those technical words, distances, et. al. and if they don't make sense or even worse if the author is making them up out of whole cloth, they will kick out those readers about as fast as anything does. As The Judge points out the 380m (if meters is assumed and it will be unless there is some explanation) is a very small number in space terms. I have to admit when I read those numbers I thought that you were stealing those numbers from a submarine on the prowl, not a space ship.

For me the most important part is internal consistency. I'll buy any made-up thing until the made-up thing loses its definition.

The other side of it is that the specifics of most things are not critical to the story.

 

[Dave]

I'm trying to figure out how to describe the relative position of the ships ...what's the best way to do it? Thanks!

Generally, I'd say you are on the right track.

I understand that the writers on Star Trek would write a script with the word "Jargon" on the script to be filled in later.

I appreciate that Gene Roddenberry was a pilot himself, and flew 89 combat missions in WWII, but I'd have to say that, in regard to relative positions of ships, Star Trek as a TV show is a poor example. They are very inconsistent between episodes and series, and it often makes no sense at all. That's probably down to having so many different writers and errors.

However, one of the Star Trek books might be useful to you:

Star Trek Star Charts: The Complete Atlas of Star Trek
Writers : Geoffrey Mandel
Published : 2002
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
ISBN : 0743437705

While the maps themselves are obviously only in 2D, near to the front of the book it does describe an adequate system to measuring directions and orientation, which tries to emulate the same jargon used on the show. It also tries to explain Sectors (as a cube) and their size. Any map projection must have some distortion if it is projecting something from 3D to 2D. Since the Milky Way is a flattened spiral, it can still be shown as a 2D map without much distortion. And starships travelling between stars along the plane of the galaxy probably really would meet each other the same way up! Almost?

I think that the other advice would be not to use Imperial measurements. We have a whole thread about that here: Units of Measurement

Although, that thread first suggested making up your own units and measurement systems instead, at which point the thread spins off into examples of possible units, and then ultimately morphs into giving very poor examples of the uses of comparative sizes from various different sources.

 

[lorrdwolf]

So for me, I'm happy for Peter's dialogue, but I'd like Barny to think a bit more about what it means so I can get an image of it in my head, and if the contact isn't expected I'd want Peter to give some detail of the other ship. The info is needed, so that as and when something happens -- ie they turn on an intercept -- we can follow at least some of the changes and understand what's going on.

But for the moment, as this is all you've written, don't worry too much about it! It may well be that as you get into the story you realise this isn't where it should start, and this info isn't needed after all. The important thing is to carry on and get it finished!

Anyhow, good luck with it -- and Welcome to Chrons!

Thanks! And thanks for the advice.

 

[lorrdwolf]

As The Judge points out the 380m (if meters is assumed and it will be unless there is some explanation) is a very small number in space terms. I have to admit when I read those numbers I thought that you were stealing those numbers from a submarine on the prowl, not a space ship.

Good points!

 

[lorrdwolf]

Thanks for the input, everyone. Much appreciated!

 

[paranoid marvin]

Just Google 'shallowing' - not what I was expecting to see and definitely not work-friendly!

It works fine, but I'd avoid any jargon that could confuse the reader. And in the case of another ship, speed would probably be an important factor.

Obviously the most important things are to be consistent and to let the reader understand what is going on.

The danger with going too technical is that you alienate those who aren't bothered about the intricaces and you annoy those who do if you don't get it right.

 

[Swank]

I think it is a little much. I would rather see it condensed to something like "Contact! Vector 518 alpha, converging." I feel the current form is too 2D and is distractingly realistic, causing the reader to pause as they try to figure out if they need to understand these numbers to continue reading.

 

[msstice]

I don't read military fiction and my reaction is that I just read four sentences I did not understand. A generally seamless way of doing this is for someone to yell out jargon and then write out what it means from inside another person's head.

“Skipper, got a contact,” Peter said. “Bearing 173 mark 039, range 380m, offline, shallowing by five.”

Barny Linds, ‘skipper’ to the crew of the freighter Aunt Lucy, grunted in response. The ship was not heading directly towards them. Yet. Why wasn't it signalling? And way was it orbiting so close to the planet below?

(I wrote this imagining that offline means not sending out any signals and I totally made up shallowing)

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

It's nice to have a bit of this, but it can get a bit tedious if you keep doing it all the time. Maybe best to switch to "reported speech" for more routine scenes of navigation, then bring back the precise headings to add a sense of urgency in more dramatic scenes?

 

[Astro Pen]

Bearing in mind all the while that, in that somewhat distant future, AI systems will make that kind of talk largely redundant. It will likely tell the skipper in more conceptual terms of approaches and probably advise actions and evasions and execute them as requested.
I'd (and I havent) take a look at even current fighter plane systems, guidance and automatic control. Others here will know I'm sure.

 

[Swank]

Bearing in mind all the while that, in that somewhat distant future, AI systems will make that kind of talk largely redundant. It will likely tell the skipper in more conceptual terms of approaches and probably advise actions and evasions and execute them as requested.
I'd (and I havent) take a look at even current fighter plane systems, guidance and automatic control. Others here will know I'm sure.

SF writers gets to choose between full automation and a future where limitations on what a computer can do are a reality of the world. Everything from zero (Dune) to whatever.

 

[THX1138]

For me, I would go with something like, "Contact 2000 Clics, Bearing 57(degs), Z axis 120(degs) to convay a more 3D'ish view.
Where Bearing and Z Axis deg of 0 is straight ahead and in line of the ships point of travel out of 360degs for each, or something like that.