FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

For a while now I've been wanting to write a series of articles about the 'science' in science fiction. How things presented in sci-fi might be plausible given our current understanding, and especially things presented in science fiction that we know to be absolutely wrong. This isn't just an issue among amateur writers, such as myself. It's an issue that frequently finds its way into professionally published works of fiction, movies, and television series. As a fan of science fiction, which has spurred a life long interest in actual science, these sort of inaccuracies really gnaw at me, because they ruin the verisimilitude of the worlds being created.

Today I want to talk about Dark Matter, because its something that's popped-up in my viewing queue lately, and it's something that's never gotten right. The first time I heard reference to Dark Matter was back in the 90s on a cartoon called_EXOSquad_. Back at this time, there was a great deal of speculation in the world of astronomy and hype in the media about the possibility of another planet in our system beyond Pluto. In the first episodes of EXOSquad, a tenth planet is discovered that according to the show is comprised of large concentrations of Dark Matter. This Dark Matter somehow imparts a sort of cloaking field to the planet, rendering it invisible, and can do the same when the mineral is used in the construction of spacecraft, which bands of space pirates use to great effect. This is, of course, is completely made-up, and has no basis in actual science. About a month ago, I was watching an anime on Netflix entitled Harlock: Space Pirate, which I gather was based on a manga series which I've never read. Again, in Harlock, Dark Matter is presented completely inaccurately. In this story, it's basically used as a catch-all magic space dust, that can heal the spaceship like its living tissue, power the ship, and cloak it. The last example that spurred me to write this article was coming across the character of another user (whom I won't name or point-out) who had built her character around a darkness/shadow theme. Cool concept, which I don't take issue with in the slightest. I have my own dark/shadow-themed character. However, this other user described the source of her character's powers as Dark Matter, which made me scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Dark Matter does not work that way!" like Morbo at my computer screen.

So, what is Dark Matter then? Let's let noted astrophysicist and science-advocate, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson explain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4x6N0uAkTQ

Basically, we don't really know what it is. We can say with a good bit of skepticism what it's not. It's not a catch-all magic-space dust. We can't see it, so maybe you could stretch that fact to use it as a source of cloaking technology... But as a sci-fi fan, I'm not buying that. We do know that the concept has to do with gravity for which we cannot mathematically account, given our current knowledge of astrophysics. As Dr. Tyson explains, it's better termed 'Dark Gravity', 'Dark Energy' or simply nothing at all. It's always been assumed that gravity and mass go hand-in-hand, and so Dark Matter was originally termed 'missing mass'. But, we don't know. This exhibited gravity that we cannot explain could, for all we know, be some form of energy that is not to tied to mass.

As a sci-fi fan, amateur writer, and hopefully in a few years, professional scientist, I would find the most plausible use of 'Dark Matter' in science fiction, given what little we know, as a source for artificial gravity. It fits both a common technology in science-fiction which we don't know how to create with actual science, and the only thing that we do know about Dark Matter; that it is responsible for 85% of the gravity we see exhibited in the cosmos. Either that, or just stay away from references to Dark Matter in sci-fi all together.