The Science-Fiction of Battleship

   The "board" game is not Science-Fiction... at all... ever. Maybe Electronic Battleship, but that's just because the player (you) can face off against the computer (SkyNet) without the need of another human player. That seems a little Science-Fiction-y to me, especially at a time when the best home gaming console was the Atari 2600. I can only guess as to why the makers of the movie decided aliens need to be the opposing force in the movie. It was already taking place during THE naval exercise, known as RIMPAC (which is actually real). Why, then add aliens?

   Primariy what makes this movie Sci-Fi is the alien invasion motif. The timeline of events is as follows:

2005- "Planet G" is discovered, a terrestrial world in the Goldilocks Zone of its solar system

2006- NASA finishes the Beacon Project which is a laser communication system to signal "Planet G"

2012- During RIMPAC 2012 an alien invasion begins in the Pacific

   I can't wrap my brain around a direct need to fire what looks like the Deathstar Superlaser at a planet. Was it a message with information, or, as the name implies, was it a beacon just advertising "Earth is here and we are listening?" But we already have been broadcasting radio and TV signals from Earth for the past 100 years. I guess that's not good enough. Part of the technology involves three antennae, on the hillsides of Oahu, that "combine" into one laser mid-atmosphere and hit an amplifier satellite. It should be noted all with a limited window of use every 24 hours. Then the satellite fires the laser to "Planet G." There is some unexplained science here, since NASA has been using this signal for six years. Lots of things that require this to work are constantly in motion; the Earth (with Hawaii on it) spins, the amplifier shares an orbit with GPS satellites, "Planet G" moves around its star, and both our solar systems move relative to each other.

   This is an example of Super Science that Earth scientists in the movie manage to invent. I won't get into the fallacy of seeing lasers or hearing stuff in space. But I will get into the Speed of Light. Assuming that Project Beacon wasn't a faster-than-light (FTL) communication system and that the aliens themselves are not capable of warp drive/hyperspace, then this leaves a maximum distance to the alien solar system at 3 Light Years (LYs) away (6 divided by 2 for math people). There are no stars that close to Earth. Proxima Centauri is the nearest star at 4.2LY and until we have better space telescopes there appears to be no terrestrial planets in its habitable zone. If the aliens have warp drive then that gives them a maximum of 6LY distance. There are only four stars that close to us, the three stars that compose Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star. The movie never fills in any blanks but I like Barnard's Star for their origin.

   It's never explained but I think the aliens have a warp drive. As the movie plays out, the alien's primary concern becomes the use of Project Beacon to call for help or report on first contact. It would be almost useless to "phone home" if you weren't getting a response in six Earth years. Also, for whatever reason we only see the aliens when they pass Saturn. Their approach involves breaking up the ship into five parts, entering Earth's atmosphere, then (after splash-landing) combining back together. This all goes wrong when one of the ships collides with a satellite and breaks up in orbit. That at least shows us their ships are more delicate than one would expect. My guess is they never use satellites so they never thought to check for any on their approach to Earth.

   All of this is tracked by NASA from Saturn to Earth, showing all the planets in between in a nice line. That doesn't happen very often (on the galactic scale) but certainly isn't happening now. We also can't track things that far away. We're lucky to find Near Earth Asteroids (NEOs) days before passing near us. So NASA must have built a solar system scanning radar just in case we make contact. I kind of think that puts this movie in an alternate time line. By the way, when did NASA get the funding for these projects? Is that what happened to the manned space flight program? It got shelved to talk to aliens? Even the scientists involved thought it was a bad idea. As they put it "it would be like Columbus and the Indians, and we're the Indians."

   The ship that collided with a satellite breaks up and tumbles out of orbit spreading debris and at least one escape pod across the Earth, before crashing into Hong Kong. The rest off the four ships plunge separately into the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii and appear to rejoin into a larger ship. It turns out the crashed vessel is a communications ship, with paneling made from elements that don't appear on our Periodic Table. These panels are thought to serve the dual purpose of solar panels and communications antenna. All of our elements in our solar system were created by the previous star that went super-nova and formed the nebula which eventually formed our solar system 4.7 billion years ago. This implies wherever they get their material it ain't from the same nebula that we formed out of, even though their star is nearby (galactically speaking).

   The alien fleet is composed of a mother ship, three smaller combat vessels, and the aforementioned comms ship. After landing, the ship goes silent and floats in the ocean like an iceberg, more vertical than horizontal. And that's where the human cast of the movie gets involved. I don't know why, but the aliens wait for Hopper to touch their ship before launching an attack. Aliens by definition should have completely different thought processes, so that tends to be my go-to answer for weird alien behavior. It seems overly dramatic though. But first an enormous energy barrier is erected around the Hawaiian islands, reaching 300,000 feet up and 2 miles underwater. It blocks all conventional radio and telecommunications as well as destroying an F/A-18 that slams into it. Standard Sci-Fi force-field that blocks matter and energy. Not only that, but it also jams all communications within the bubble, too. Later in the movie a NASA scientist finds a weakness that allows a signal out so it isn't perfect. It also doesn't matter where the mother ship is, it just has to continue to beam energy straight up.

   The aliens have some powerful weapons systems, but for all their technology it doesn't come equipped with a guidance system. The "shell-pegs" they fire head to a predicted location, which works wonders only if the target isn't moving. Maybe it's something they learned from space combat but never adapted to atmospheric fighting. And to make matters stranger, they never overtly attack unless threatened, but will destroy potential targets if their heads-up-display (HUD) highlights them. The aliens wear a completely armored suit reminiscent of the Master Chief's armor in Halo. The helmet's HUD (which we see a lot of) filters everything they view as either green (ignore) or red (do something like destroy it). I never once got the impression the aliens were in control of their data. I think a computer was dictating all their actions, like when a video game shows you important targets and directions to go. This is disastrously stupid, because as we quickly see when the destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) turns its guns away from an alien ship, they are no longer considered a threat. No thought of destroying it just in case it's a future threat. In fact, during a couple skirmishes the destroyer's main weapons are able to fatally damage alien combat vessels and dodge a few attacks. No shielding around their ships, just shielding around the battle-space.

   Their other weapon is a drone (which looks like a spiky ball with spiky, extendable tentacles) that homes in on designated targets but has a really strange Rule of Engagement (ROE). The computers running everything may not understand life that is different than the aliens. In one scene a "battle drone spheres" nearly kills a little-leaguer during a game, but redirects its attack on a bridge abutment, which kills dozens of people. Why the difference? I think the computer in charge doesn't understand life and just wants the destruction of infrastructure and war machines, but it knows enough about life not to kill it directly. Weird. This is almost Borg thinking. Only get involved when you need something or there is a threat. So why come to Earth in the first place? Probably because we fired what looked like the Deathstar Superlaser at them which is determined to be a threat. Or the movie is just poorly written. There is also a sonic weapon which implies they do sometimes need to fight in an atmosphere. I also think the machinery (and maybe the AI) was stolen from the Decepticons.

   Interestingly they don't appear on radar or sonar, which would be invaluable in space. Maybe they use a computer in space combat just to help target opponents better. These seem like wasted concepts on a planet, though. They can be physically seen, but somehow the hull absorbs sound and energy. Maybe they aren't used to being shot at with actual shells from actual barrels. This eventually means during the movie that both forces have to guess where on a grid the enemy might be, and fire on them. That sounds more like Battleship. Another odd feature is the apparent ability to hover, but not glide over the ocean. The combat ships "hop" from place to place, but the "battle drone spheres" can fly no problem and they aren't exactly aerodynamic. The mother ship just seems to drift in the water. How exactly were they supposed to get back into space? Or was this a permanent settlement? For that matter, how was Project Beacon supposed to help them if the force field jams all communications? Were they going to drop it for a second, send a six-year signal, and hope the entire US Navy fleet doesn't manage to sneak in?

   The aliens themselves (never named) are bipedal with, I think, four opposable thumbs, and chin spikes. Hopper and Nagata manage to get a helmet off of an unconscious alien, which quickly wakens. So, these they have similar atmospheric needs as pressure and breathable air, but no discussion of diseases or immune systems or anything that would make H.G. Wells proud. At least a character put a helmet on and learns its just an expensive sun shield, that the aliens are light sensitive. Odds are this means they're from a dim-starred planet. This is three knocks against them that leads to their eventual loss by the end of the movie. The suits they wear have "switch-blade" appendages with different tools snapping out for different needs, but other than armor, I don't know why the aliens don't just have sunglasses.

   There are a couple strange actions from the aliens which lead me to believe they don't know what they're doing. What was first contact supposed to be, if they still had a comm ship? Did they think we attacked them in orbit? Are they that stupid or are they a war-like culture anyway? It one point a scared NASA scientist and an alien meet face-to-face and he's shaking badly. The alien reaches out to calm him. What? The alien didn't kill him? He was green, a non-threat. Even though he had the device to communicate through the jamming he was still allowed to live because the HUD showed green. An alien even mind-melds with Hopper, imparting some kind of imagery about a space battle or a ground campaign, but it's hard to determine if it is the past or a visual interpretation of their plan for the Earth. Human and alien minds shouldn't mix easily so it's okay by me if the visuals are confusing. The same thing happened in Mass Effect.

   In the end, with all their technology, the alien fleet was destroyed by a satellite and 20th Century artillery. Everyone is happy by the end that the alien threat is vanquished, but don't they think some aliens might notice their scouting trip to Earth disappeared? Once again, a poorly written movie.