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Dramatic Space Drifting: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''
''There's no kind of atmosphere
''I'm all alone
''More or less...''
|'''Ending theme''', ''[[Red Dwarf]]''}}
So you're watching a good old [[Space Opera]] or your favourite [[Cyberpunk]] tv series. There's been a grand battle and within all the excitement, you forget that in an intergalactic space war so big there must have been at least a few casualties. It is of course, the writers' jobs to remind of this eventually so as to add to the drama whilst slowing the pace a little.
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Next you, the casual viewer, will be shown images of the debris left behind in the battle and it'll only be a matter of time before you're shown a body (or parts thereof) floating within the wreckage.
This is
Common in [[Science Fiction]], this is when a spaceship blows up in a battle and relatively important characters are visible drifting through the debris, usually with all body parts intact. This is a trope based mostly in aesthetics as there is often little scientific logic behind such scenes. Characters are usually dead, thus emphasizing the tragic consequences of the battle at a human level, but there are occasions in which characters are still alive and such occasions can either have the same effect or achieve a more comedic one.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]''
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==
* "The Short, Happy Life of Roons Sewell", a comic arc in the ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'', ended with Roons' death; the front of his Y-Wing exploded, sending shrapnel through his flight suit and ejecting him into space. There's an image of him still out there during his eulogy, frozen dead with a manic smile on his face. Unusually for this trope, it's a relatively uplifting thing - he gave his life, he saved people in doing this, his sacrifice had meaning. If we cannot celebrate the moments we hold back a dark tide, why fight it at all?
** In [[Rebel Leader|Rogue Leader]], an ''[[X Wing Series]]'' comic, it was shown that a week after the Battle of Endor, the sanctuary moon's skies are still crowded with ships and bodies. Some pilots, including Wedge, signed up for salvage duty, because even Imperials deserved a proper funeral.
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* ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]'' had a rather Narmy example where {{spoiler|Kain's dead body}} is shot from an airlock as if out of a cannon.
* Parodied in ''[[Spy Hard]]'', where General Rancor is launched into space aboard his rocket, and then floats around until he slams into an Apollo-type spacecraft, prompting a voiceover of "Houston, we have a problem".
* At the beginning of ''[[You Only Live Twice]]'', the attack by SPECTRE's rocket severs the safety line of an American astronaut who was doing a spacewalk. It was apparently a communications line as well, because his description of what he sees happening is [[Killed Mid-Sentence|cut off]] the instant the cord is cut — and he goes drifting away, presumably still alive ... until his oxygen runs out.
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* The last chapter of [[Lois McMaster Bujold|Lois McMaster Bujold's]] ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|Shards of Honor]]'' focuses on a shuttle crew recovering bodies in Escobar orbit after the big battle.
** In ''Komarr'' a precise analysis of the trajectory of drifting debris is used to help determine the cause of a space accident.
* In ''The Fall of Hyperion'' by Dan Simmons, one of the characters passes through a portal onto a warship that's been destroyed in the
* Happens in ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Shatterpoint]]'' with the troop complements of a number of destroyed [[Drop Ship
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** The second is of {{spoiler|Dr. Weir (now turned replicator) and her Ascension-seeking brethren}} floating in space after she tricked them into following her through the Stargate to protect the rest of the expedition.
* Several times in ''[[Firefly]]'':
** During the episode "Objects in Space" in which {{spoiler|Jubal Early is spaced and left to die}}. Played for comedic value at the end of the episode, where even Jubal recognizes he is performing some excellent
{{quote|"Well, here I am."}}
** Also in the Firefly episode "Bushwhacked" when ''Serenity'' encounters a derelict ship and then a dead body smacks into the cockpit windshield, startling Wash (and the audience).
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* ''[[Star Trek]]'' does this pretty often, but one of the standouts is in ''[[Star Trek: The
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* ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' had this, though it wasn't after a battle.
* ''[[Quake 4|Quake IV]]'' brutally featured this in its [http://youtube.com/watch?v=bMRBb00z8bg intro].
* ''[[
** Chemistry takes a back seat there (No oxygen to sustain the combustion). It's just pure ''[[Rule of Cool]]''. Or perhaps, the cigarettes are loaded with oxygen. This is how all those non-space marines are breathing on alien planets.
*** Or possibly not: [[Fridge Brilliance|smoke is a sign of incomplete combustion due to a lack of oxygen]]. It wouldn't last long, but residual heat and the thin atmosphere around the debris might just be enough to keep a trail of smoke going.
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[[Category:Tropes in Space]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:
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