whats your opinion on mass/size shifting?

Discussion in 'Transformers General Discussion' started by Bass X0, Aug 22, 2008.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Optimus Sledge

    Optimus Sledge Yar har fiddle di dee

    Joined:
    Jun 10, 2008
    Posts:
    7,915
    Trophy Points:
    176
    Likes:
    +9
    And you know what? So far, no one has given a reasonable explanation for their opinion that mass-shifting is silly.

    Or were you suggesting that, once again, we should dance around the "why should I have to explain my opinion" question?
     
  2. MGX

    MGX Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2007
    Posts:
    1,002
    News Credits:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    267
    Likes:
    +186
    I support it. It's alien tech. If everything were explainable, they wouldn't be aliens or technologically advanced.

    • Few TFs should be able to do it.
    • Mass Shifting down is good (Soundwave).
    • Mass Shifting upwards is bad (Broadside).
     
  3. Omnus

    Omnus needs more time TFW2005 Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2002
    Posts:
    1,196
    News Credits:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    282
    Likes:
    +85
    Ebay:
    Having a somewhat scientific bent (particle physics being something where recent experiments have offered up many new and interesting ideas when I've read about them), I'm going to weigh in here. I would've weighed in sooner if I checked this part of the forums more often.

    Hmm...do you know how how old non-digital A/C temperature gauges work? I'm guessing you don't, otherwise you wouldn't necessarily need the nanobot idea (although a nanobot cellular-like structure works fine, too, but this is a less complex version). Using thermal expansion/contraction of layered metals works just fine for having a metallic robotic face moving almost exactly the way a flesh-and-blood face does.

    (Not meaning to pick on you in particular Roook, that's just one of the things that regularly gets brought up and people fail to note that there is more than one scientifically-feasible way in which it could be accomplished).

    Moving on to other TF tech...Teleportation, we already have some rudimentary teleportation tech. We had 100% successful teleportation of beams of light a couple of years before the turn of the millenium. Matter has proved much more difficult and will take a very long time before we get that right (85% quantum-pattern replication is NOT teleportation, no matter what the researchers want to claim).

    Invisibility, we had a recent breakthrough in that one in the past month of so. Those that read about it will recognize that it puts on a realistic timetable for getting it truly working in the next few decades (30 years on the outside, but it could be as little as 10 if they make two more breakthroughs on the same scale as the recent refraction one).

    And to the topic at hand - my opinion on Mass/size shifting. From a scientific point of view - absolutely 100% feasible, with technology at least 100 years in advance of our own (rough projection).

    Subspace is BS, though. That fanon is truly fantasy. There are no existing phenomenon that realistically point to the possibility of something like that. Just theoretical nonsense.

    How it could work is advanced particle manipulation. If you can set up a field effect to selectively remove the Higgs Boson, then everything else that is left in the targetted area would also be a type of boson. Further field manipulation to pull each type of boson together for storage then makes it simple to store the excess particles. Since bosons of the same type may occupy the same physical space, all bosons of each individual type can be funneled into a containment device that could even be microscopic in size. I don't know how many individual containment devices are needed since I can't recall how many known types of bosons there are off the top of my head (and there is the possibility that there are others that we are currently unaware of). The greatest difficulty with the technology is, of course, correctly re-integrating all the contained bosons into their correct configuration in the original pattern. That would be a very advanced field effect manipulation problem.

    So, basically, when I was younger and more ignorant I had some problems with mass/size shifting. Now that I'm more educated, I have no problems with it at all. In fact, I find the lack of use of it in the recent movies to be as ignorant as the Director's reasoning for the junk-pile appearance of the TFs. The appearance of the movie-TFs is a topic for another discussion, however.
     
  4. Foster

    Foster Haslab Victory Saber Backer #3 Veteran

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2003
    Posts:
    40,985
    News Credits:
    13
    Trophy Points:
    447
    Likes:
    +40,855
    Omnus, thank you. You've just blinded me with science.
     
  5. Omnus

    Omnus needs more time TFW2005 Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2002
    Posts:
    1,196
    News Credits:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    282
    Likes:
    +85
    Ebay:
    Heh, you're welcome. Next time I'll try to adjust the glare filters properly, though. :D 
     
  6. SMOG

    SMOG Vocabchampion ArgueTitan

    Joined:
    May 13, 2006
    Posts:
    23,161
    Trophy Points:
    412
    Location:
    Robot Narnia, Quebec
    Likes:
    +9,485
    Absolutely not. You've been given reasonable explanations. It's not our fault that you can't get your head around them. :) 

    As I said, mass-shifting is discordant. It stands out because the technology requires too much of a suspension of disbelief. The fact that there is even a thread devoted to this is evidence enough that mass-shifting stands out in the fandom as one of the contentious issues.

    Further supporting my reasonable explanation, I already pointed out that "subspace" is for me, just as tedious as mass-shifting... if not more.

    I also don't know why you keep including "AI" in your critiques as an "implausible" technology. There is no AI in Transformers. TF's are alive, and self-aware, the same way the gooey mass of hormones, chemicals and electric impulses between our ears makes US alive and self-aware. We are machines. They are machines. Only the base materials are different. :) 

    You can hold up Omnus' contribution to the debate as scientific vindication of "mass-shifting", but that doesn't change the fact that whether or not mass-shifting is plausible, in the public mindset, we still have issues with it... particularly when applied to technological science fiction as opposed to cosmic fantasy. We take little issue with the Enterprise on Star Trek using Transporter Beams and Replicators on a daily basis... but if Jean-Luc Picard said "Mr. Laforge... the Romulans are almost upon us... use the mass-shifters to make us the size of a sandwich to hide in that asteroid" a lot of us would roll our eyes. It's just a matter of what "works" in our imagining of how the universe operates... and what stands out like a sore thumb.

    Hence, those who say "Mass shifting is cool. Except in the new Bay movie... it would have been stupid there"
    are actually admitting that "realistically" they can't easily accept mass-shifting .

    Exactly... I think these 3 points are important elements towards making the notion of mass-shifting more acceptable... though I think your above statement about "advanced aliens" is totally bogus. :) 

    Technological evolution is not a universal straight line... there's no reason why alien tech would have to be indecipherable to us in order to be "advanced". It's entirely plausible that TFs might be very advanced in some areas, but relatively basic in others.

    zmog
     
  7. Digilaut

    Digilaut Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 29, 2008
    Posts:
    11,512
    News Credits:
    15
    Trophy Points:
    362
    Likes:
    +1,633
    I'm not too fond of mass-shifting. It seems a bit too 'out-there', and I wish the focus was on the fact that they are robots and their parts shift around, not that they can somehow magically shrink or grow.

    On the other hand, you can't do Soundwave justice without mass shifting.
     
  8. DanLyons

    DanLyons Little-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2004
    Posts:
    698
    News Credits:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    277
    Location:
    Natick, MA
    Likes:
    +1,387
    Ebay:
    Facebook:
    Twitter:
    Instagram:
    I don't have any "excuse" for it, but when I first saw the show in '84 the mass shifting (or growing & shrinking - to use the terms that would have been available to me at the time) bothered me.

    Living alien robots - not an issue. Living alien robots that change size however was, apparently, too much for my poor 11 year old brain.

    Rational - no. Scientific - no. But the issue was decided then and there. What makes it worse? Bumblebee's size changes bothered me more than Megatron or Soundwave.

    So, my opinion, such that it is, would be against. That's probably why I've always preferred the G2 tank Megatron over the original
     
  9. DJ Soundwave

    DJ Soundwave Action Figure Master

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2004
    Posts:
    1,152
    Trophy Points:
    177
    Likes:
    +2
    I don't mind it al all .... With my Vivid imagination it has never phased me .
     
  10. shroobmaster

    shroobmaster Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 18, 2007
    Posts:
    13,627
    News Credits:
    30
    Trophy Points:
    262
    Likes:
    +52
    No just because I'd rather have a big robot turning into a big vehicle and a small bot turning into a small vehicle, not I AM TAPE DECK, I AM THE SIZE OF MEGATROOOON! or LOOK AT ME I'M A JEEP THAT TURNS INTO A GOD-SIZE LEG!
     
  11. D-Unit

    D-Unit #1 Heel

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2006
    Posts:
    4,212
    News Credits:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    312
    Likes:
    +436
    Ebay:
    It never bothered me, honestly. Most of the aruguments against it use physics as evidence, but that always seemed silly to me, as the TF's are ALIENS, so that should excuse everything. It doesn't have to make sense, it's alien technology, and if you follow the old continuity, it's millions of years more avanced than anything we can come up with
     
  12. BHB

    BHB Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 29, 2008
    Posts:
    229
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Likes:
    +1
    This.
     
  13. $5HotRod

    $5HotRod Trailbreaker Fan

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2006
    Posts:
    1,402
    Trophy Points:
    227
    Likes:
    +10
    Ebay:
    I'd listen to this person. In classical Newtonian physics, no mass-shifting is not possible but when we get into special relativity, quantum mechanics, and all that, that's where mass/size-shifting becomes possible. And given that TFs, story-wise, are far more advance than we are in science and technology, I don't consider this a hard pill to swallow.
     
  14. vektsilver

    vektsilver Transorganic member

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2006
    Posts:
    1,690
    Trophy Points:
    227
    Likes:
    +9
    See Mass shifting aside the key problem was in the concepts given they didnt try to keep any specific size relations based on vehicles. The movie is a great example of putting the cart before the horse.

    The character designs were created with absolutely no transformations in mind. It only had to look like it transformed. All the robots could have been made to be the same height if they thought about the transfomations a bit more.

    Personally the fact that the autobots have full compartments engines and what not kinda ruins the illusion for me as my brain literally refuses to accept that all the empty space in a car is literally the same for a 20 -32 foot robot. There just would not be enough material.

    Its funny lets look at Screamer for a second an F22 raptor has tons of empty space in comparison to a car never mind the empty fuel load screamer doesnt have to carry yet their transformed screamer almost seems to be adding mass making him bigger when he transforms. Not Taller but bigger. The autobots are completely hollow in alt mode with all the compartments and trunks and engine space which makes this less believable. They as cars in disguise do not need to be so indisguise that they pass a sticker inspection check. lol Its not like people would be popping under someone elses car's hood to see if its an alien or not.

    The big problem with suspending disbelief in the movie as opposed to the show had nothing to do with mass shifting. It had to do with transformations being cheated so much.
     
  15. Optimus Sledge

    Optimus Sledge Yar har fiddle di dee

    Joined:
    Jun 10, 2008
    Posts:
    7,915
    Trophy Points:
    176
    Likes:
    +9
    More than that, I can't see them. Maybe you could quote one of the reasonable explanations that I've clearly skipped past somewhere? :) 
     
  16. SMOG

    SMOG Vocabchampion ArgueTitan

    Joined:
    May 13, 2006
    Posts:
    23,161
    Trophy Points:
    412
    Location:
    Robot Narnia, Quebec
    Likes:
    +9,485
    Dude, I've posted several times in this thread, and each entry is absolute gold. :) 

    That's what the Search function is for. Go to it! ;) 

    This seems to be part of a different issue... but I think I share your view on this. Maybe I tended to think more critically than most other kids my age, but even from the beginning, I thought it was improbable for TFs to resemble cars inside and out. There's just too much robot in there! I pictured the interior of an Autobot to be a cramped, spartan space... if there was any space at all! Tinted windows would remove all need for a credible interior. No leather seats, no pedals, no steering wheel, no fuzzy dice. And forget about finding a trunk space or a halfway normal looking engine. Accordingly, Autobots would probably weigh a lot more than real cars (barring some kind of ultra-light Cybertronian alloy... which is of course likely).

    As for the oft-repeated mantra of "They're advanced alien tech... they can do ANYTHING!" this is hypothetically true, assuming that alien tech means limitless magic powers to explain any unlikelihood you want, but using that excuse can get tiresome, especially when asking one's suspension of disbelief to stretch itself into some tenuous shapes.

    Even with millions of years of head-start on us, there's no reason that we should expect TFs to have every incomprehensible magic science power we can think of. As I've said before, technology is not a straight-line evolution that every culture follows unwaveringly. TFs have protracted lifespans, different biological needs, and an eons long war that has reduced their society to a burnt-out shell, and their resources to nil. Advanced scientific development on Cybertron could be as stunted, conservative and diverse (and indeed, seems to be) as a caveman riding an X-wing.

    Riding outside the X-wing. :) 

    (actually I'd initially gone with a laser-rifle wielding soldier in a horse-and-buggy, but was more amused by the caveman image)

    Also, some of the super-science people are attributing to them is not science so much as simply an innate part of their biology... AI, energy weapons, teleportation and invisibility. We have yet to fully understand the complexities of the human body... our brain, our eyes, our nervous system... having the ability to think and feel and see is not the same as having the technology to do so.

    Since characters with Teleportation or Invisibility are relatively unique individuals, such things are more akin to random mutations, or super-powers (as I have always considered them) born out of some bizarre irregularity in their Spark, and not easily duplicated by even Cybertronian science.

    Arguably, mass-shifting could also be considered an innate Cybertronian ability, though again this goes back to my point about it being a more problematic leap of believability than some of the other aspects of Transformers. Still, considering Mass-shifting as a "special power", perhaps limited only to certain TFs who have the necessary talent or "gift", might go some distance for making it seem less tedious and abusive an ability.

    zmog
     
  17. Chimeran

    Chimeran Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2007
    Posts:
    83
    Trophy Points:
    46
    Likes:
    +0
    One of my biggest issues with mass shifting (the others have already been mentioned) is that if Transformers have such a super-advanced and powerful technology that they can shrink an enormous robot down to the size of a hand gun... why are they just using it to do things like transform into a hand gun? The only time that some sort of mass shifting beyond a character's regular ability to turn into a tiny object was used to any strategic advantage was in Microbots. Mass shifting would be more acceptable - and could actually be a pretty neat concept - if it was actually utilized as an advanced technology and not just an excuse to miraculously make a tiny alt mode into a giant robot.

    Which is frankly what is was. And that's okay! An 80's cartoon for young children made to sell toys (some of which involved tiny objects that changed into robots) doesn't need to have airtight logic! The problem comes when the grown-ups start claiming that's it's a completely logical idea and totally on the same level of believability as intelligent transforming robots.

    As for the question posed by the thread: I don't mind mass shifting in things like G1, it's all part of the campy silliness that makes it awesome, but overall I think it's iffy and am glad that other TF shows minimized the use of it (BW, 2007 movie, Animated).

    (I also find it hilarious that some people find it a-okay for robots to grow and shrink all they want, but how dare the mystical god-cube change size how unrealistic and stupid is that?)
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2008
  18. SMOG

    SMOG Vocabchampion ArgueTitan

    Joined:
    May 13, 2006
    Posts:
    23,161
    Trophy Points:
    412
    Location:
    Robot Narnia, Quebec
    Likes:
    +9,485

    Q.F.T !
     
  19. lightdestroyed

    lightdestroyed Stronger than all!

    Joined:
    Apr 3, 2007
    Posts:
    986
    Trophy Points:
    207
    Likes:
    +6
    Well, they are sentient alien robots, so it's not that far fetched.
     
  20. Rodr-Evil

    Rodr-Evil Anubicron TFW2005 Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 23, 2004
    Posts:
    3,783
    Trophy Points:
    342
    Location:
    Old Khem
    Likes:
    +985
    I don't have problems with that, in fact I like it.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.