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Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale/No Sense of Mass: Difference between revisions
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* [[Anne McCaffrey]]'s ''[[Dragonriders of Pern]]'': If we go by the measurement system provided by the books and supplemental materials, the Queen Dragon Ramoth at 45 meters from nose to tail would be only slightly smaller than the [[wikipedia:Lockheed L-1011|Lockheed Tristar]], a passenger jet capable of holding around 250 passengers (which is used as the example in the supplemental books), making her the largest animal '''ever''', and the other dragons are no slouches either. Bronze dragons which are the only ones "allowed" to mate with the golds range from 30 to 42 meters in length. And all of these dragons only get one Rider. There's a reason why the fan roleplaying communities tend to believe that "meter" is a mistake and use the foot instead, making Ramoth only slightly larger than the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', which was not the largest animal ever on Earth, which makes it a hell of a lot easier on an environment by not having several hundred carnivores exceeding 100 feet in length devouring what are essentially Earth cows.
** And then there's the [[Hand Wave]] that a dragon weighs only as much as it wants to and can carry as much as it wants to being a result of their [[Psychic Powers|telekinetic powers]] which only get discovered in one of the last books chronologically.
** Their tactics were developed back when the ''largest'' dragons were about the size of Ruth. Still, one Rider is enough, because most of the job is done by the dragon anyway. A backward-looking spotter could be useful, but they don't have nice closed helmets with radio headsets (plus dragon sized headsets), so there's only one human who can be in a reliable and fast communication with the dragon when it's needed most. The only thing they miss from which could actually benefit is "crew" of 2-3 on Gold dragons (who don't buzz around and rarely have to evade anything, because they only mop up the Threads others have missed) - not for more flamethrowers, but as spotters, for thoroughness. Then again, a cloud of tiny flying lizards as networked scouts is even better, and they eventually got this one back.
* [[Andre Norton]] describes the [[Intrepid Merchant|Free Trader]] ship ''Solar Queen'' as both "small" and "needle-slim." It's also clearly a rocket shape. But when she explains the accommodations on a single deck within that "small" hull, it's clear that to have "needle-slim" proportions at that size, it'd need to be about the height of a [[wikipedia:Saturn V|Saturn V]].
* Ship sizes in Andrey Livadny's ''[[The History of the Galaxy]]'' series can be a little off, at least [[All in The Manual|as described on his website]]. From 20-meter one-man [[Space Fighter|Space Fighters]] to 7-kilometer flagship cruisers, crewed by 150 people. While the author tries to explain it by having most systems be automated (in fact, entire ships can run without crews, using only AIs), this does not explain why the ships have to be so ridiculously big. Interestingly, one novel specifically mentions a heavy cruiser (about 5 km in length) with a crew of 2000. However, even that is an extremely-low number of people to run a ship this size. For reference, a [[Real Life]] ''Gerald R. Ford''-class aircraft carrier will be about 333 meters in length and have a crew of 4660. This is not even to mention the stress of trying to maneuver a 7-kilometer beast in battle. The only thing the author got right is that any ship larger than 500 meters is unable to enter planetary atmosphere without assistance from technical carriers (i.e. tugs). Even corvettes, which are 500 meters long, come equipped with additional planetary engines to allow them to survive re-entry.
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