Black Holes Suck: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Butthead''': So [[Like Is, Like, a Comma|like]], a black hole is like, this giant bunghole in outer space. It's like, it sucks up the whole universe, and then it's like, it grinds it up and sends it all to [[Hell]] or something. }}

 

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' both uses and partially averts this trope on a couple of occasions. In one episode, the Stargate connects to a planet falling into a black hole; the fact that time slows down near a black hole is used both as a plot point and for dramatic effect (our heroes must watch an unfortunate SG team on the doomed planet try to reach the gate - they keep running, but can never reach safety as time slows to a crawl for them, and the 38 minutes the gate can stay open passes in under a second.). In another episode, the evil Replicators use a black hole's distortion of time and some [[Applied Phlebotinum]] to escape from its accretion disk (at least it was made clear they weren't trapped in the black hole ''itself''!) Of course, as with everything in Stargate, moderately plausible science is liberally mixed with [[Rule of Cool]], and black holes get to interact with Stargates (and ''[[Deus Ex Nukina|nuclear weapons]]'') in lots of interesting ways.

** In another episode, the team combines a Stargate, Explodium, Technobabble, and a black hole to dial the Supergate and keep the Ori out of the Milky Way. Points for McKay telling Mitchell that it's not the black hole he's looking at, it's the accretion disk. Not that Mitchell cares.

* [[Red Dwarf]] once featured a "White Hole," which supposedly spewed out all the matter black holes sucked up...and the ''time'' too, which doesn't make a lick of sense. At the very least, you'd think it'd be physically impossible to ''drift into'' one.

** You actually cannot enter a white hole, just like you cannot leave a black hole.

* The instructions for ''[[Crystal Quest|Crystal Crazy]]'' describe black holes as "rifts in the space-time continuum that instantly transport you from one place to another. Actually the time bit isn't really correct. Neither is the continuum bit. Or the rift. But it sounded good."

* Lampshaded in ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Empire at War - Forces of Corruption]]''. The map description for the Maw - a black hole cluster which has no effect on in-game spacecraft - claims the following:

* The ''[[Geometry Wars]]'' games feature Gravity Wells, a semi-sentient enemy that drifts benignly towards you, doing absolutely nothing. If attacked, it burns brightly, and starts drawing in everything nearby (to add to their mass), sometimes allowing them to orbit it. The gravity increases with the size of the Well. The only way to end the Wells is to shoot them to chip their mass away. And the gravity multiplies if multiple Gravity Wells are allowed to try to engulf each other (they just dance around each other), to the point your craft cannot escape the pull. Oddly, Gravity Wells will split and repel your firepower, meaning you have to draw close, shoot, and use the gravity to slingshot yourself to safety.

* In the [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''[[Gateway]] II: Homeworld'', the [[Precursors|Heechee]] have hidden away from the [[Cosmic Horror|Assassins]] ''inside'' a black hole. The only way to get through it is with a specially-modified Heechee ship that can survive entering a singularity. The game even goes so far as to describe the devices that allow that to happen.

** This is ''slightly'' [[Hand Wave|HandWaved]] by the fact that it was called a "matter-antimatter rift", though the intent was there. A more straight example was in the second episode, when [[Bruce Campbell|Magnanimous]] threatened to throw Kiva and Jamie into a "Quantum Singularity", described as a "black hole, but portable and with a cooler name." It was ''roped off'' to prevent things from getting sucked in, and the only thing to be so unfortunate (Magnanimous himself) eventually escaped largely unharmed, save a scar he got fighting an [[Eldritch Abomination]] within it. Additionally, Magnanimous was only sucked in because he touched the Event Horizon, which [[Rule of Funny|made the whole space station blow up.]]

* [[The Tick]] once battled a race of aliens who planned on destroying the universe by throwing a black hole into ANOTHER black hole. The Tick, being the Tick, ended up having to catch one and throw it away from the other.

'''Arthur:''' Fight it, Tick! Fight that black hole! }}

* "John [[Blackstar]], astronaut, is swept through a black hole, into an ancient, alien universe!"