Hi Ryk,
Each time you write for the Aurora bridge "bright flash" it makes my cringe.
A screen can't be brighter than its light source.
Soon the 13th episode I hope.
If you go from looking at deep black with a few tiny white spots to looking at intense Blue/White at the top of any screens brightness you will be temporarily blinded and it straight up sucks.
Yes you can adjust the brightness of any monitor but they have. The have to increase the brightness to see objects in the dark of space.
Yes there is a limit to how bright a monitor can be, but when its a wrap around like on the Aurora that's still a lot of White in the eyes.
Tonight when you turn off all the lights wait a few minutes for your eyes to adjust then look at a light bulb and turn it on. Its like that.
You can't see the source the light has been diffracted by a lens.
Jean-Louis Noel: When on the bridge, the jump flash is through the view screens. It's like when you're in a dark room watching a movie. When the scene is dark, so is the room, but when you suddenly cut to a commercial--say, of a guy in the brightly lit desert--the room will suddenly light up.
No one said it was brighter than the screen itself. Try it, you'll see.
The bridge isn't a dark room. You need some light there.
Ok imagine sitting in your living room, and someone has a camera pointed at you, and they left the flash on. now imagine that half the room is that flash bulb. Yip & your eyes just had a bad day.
No, the bridge isn't a dark room. I was just using that to demonstrate the point. The fact is, any monitor will translate a bright flash of light as exactly that, a bright flash of light. A monitor showing a black screen emits very little visible light. A monitor showing a white screen emits more visible light. I have three monitors in front of me right now. This page is black, and when I put my hand in front of it there is very little illumination on my hand from the monitor. If I move my hand to the left monitor, which contains my email (so the screen is mostly white) my hand lights up.
Now, multiply that by a thousand. Let's not forget that it isn't a flash bulb, its a jump flash. (Even though the view screen has been programmed to filter as much of the flash as possible so as not to blind the crew.) In addition, the main view screen is a quarter sphere that encompasses the entire forward half of the bridge. I'm sorry, but there is simply no way that a screen that size that goes from showing the deep black of space to suddenly being surrounded by a brilliant blue-white flash of light is not going to wash light over the inside of the already lit bridge.
Ryk is correct. I have a 20 ft dlp screen in the front of my office, and when someone turns it off with a black display enabled, or changes the screen from the default black screen to any other color, everyone in the office notices it.
There is an upper limit to how much light the screen can put out though. Why build a screen that can blind people sitting in front of it? That being said, you could limit the max light of the screen, but you will also limit the view range of it as well. It's better to setup a filter or a auto shut off on jump feature, than it would be to limit the screen
Notice, yes almost blinded no.
However, the cameras could be HS for a time.
Is it worth mentioning that the Aurora and Celestia no longer have this problem, because they filtered the damn flash.
On the Scout ships and the Falcons they are looking though Glass directly at the fields, can we agree that that is bright as all hell?
Hi Aidan,
Sure, it's Rik privilege to make it ultra bright.
So, I don't argue about Scouts and Falcons.
But, it's only the front line that's blinded and when
we are speaking of a display screen that front line is the cameras.
In defense of the front line people's eye sight... no one was actually blinded, people had a light shone in they're faces and it took a moment to get they're focus back, with blue spots in they're vision. and the application of additional filters in the viewer sorted out that issue. and the falcons will have new canopy's which will sort them out. and the Scouts can close over they're window hatches so they are good too.
(I do think its stupid that the scouts have a forward facing "window" even with a hatch cover, that's just plain stupid for a warp ship. a sizable chunk of space rock could shatter the glass and render the bridge/crew dead instantly)
My point all along is that I have a laptop, and when I look at a black page my eyes become acclimatized to that, then if I switch to a white screen, that fucks with my eyesight for a sec. I take it its worse with a bigger screen. No one in the story is blind, but a lot of people have learned that its better not to look at a jump flash directly too often because of the whole wanting to be able to see thing. Think of the lens flares in JJ Abramm's Star Trek, to much flash and you need to visit your local nanite supplier.
I know what you mean about the inconsistency. Jumping seems like it should be more akin to teleportation which would negate whatever objects were in the path of travel.
Red lighting is used to pre-dilate ones eyes to seeing better in the dark. This comes from ship bridges setting their interior lighting to "night" or "red" for their lookouts that leave the bridge and step outside in the dark where they need to be have their night vision immediately available. On a spaceship bridge where they do not need night vision, setting lighting to red is of no value especially considering their big view screens which are in full color and brightness.
I am also concerned that bridge crew are not strapped into chairs with harnesses and are subject to being thrown around during combat. In the early books bridge officers were just standing. How can they enter commands into their stations if they are busy holding onto their consoles. I suppose there may have been a problem with Nathan becoming Captain if the original captain had been strapped into his chair and not tossed about getting himself critically injured. He might have needed a crossbeam dropped on him. Helm and navigation had seats, and the captain. Science officer, no. sensors officer no. And why no airbags to keep their faces from being smashed into their consoles?
And what about automatic fire suppression systems. They have them now in 2015. How could thy have uncontrolled fires in the bridge?
Just my thoughts. Intended to be constructive not critical. Otherwise keep up the great story line.
That bothers me too.
If you cannot jump through matter, any piece of rock or debris would be disastrous to the ship. Even in Star Trek they had to use a deflector dish.
There is no way to detect this stuff at the distances they are jumping
