The artificial gravity generators never seem to get destroyed in space battles.
The artificial gravity generators never seem to get destroyed in space battles.
Production costs!
The expanse did this well because they used acceleration not artificial gravity.
Well, not free. Acceleration usually requires a bunch of energy.
I guess if you have to do it anyway then it’s a really convenient side-effect.
They also made amazing computerized wire rigs for the actors they used in conjunction with motion-controlled cameras. The production of the show was super impressive.
Also - everyone should read the books. They’re fantastic.
Ty Frank, one of the authors and the Amos actor Wes Chatham had a really fun podcast (“Ty and That Guy”) that did lots of fun deep dives on genre stuff.
My wife abused star trek of being a soap opera at some point. At first I thought, maybe she’s just showing up at the worst possible time?
No. It’s all of the time. Every episode has some weird soapy bullshit. Beverly fucking a ghost, LaForge fucking a hologram, Riker fucking anything with genitals INCLUDING a hologram. Everybody be fuckin. That’s not even the soapiest thing. Voyager is basically Soaps in space.
I love classic trek, but guys I think it’s a soap opera.
guys I think it’s a soap opera
It always was, but it was our soap opera with spaceships and laser guns.
LOL. Got me. 😅
But there’s more than that to it. I think there’s some strange default setting in the human mind that makes us want to correct mistakes. Maybe it’s all about setting the record straight, being correct or whatever.

Gravity is on a separate subsystem & power supply, because without gravity people couldn’t reasonably move and fix the rest of the ship, so even when compared to general life support, it’s the most critical function and the most isolated.
And production cost.
Doylist explanation: it would be too expensive for the FX department.
As it happens, the same worldbuilding project I mentioned in another post here sort of addresses this. The same aliens mentioned there don’t use artificial gravity at all. Being arboreal creatures they’re well suited to microgravity and can happily live permanently in zero G. Upon meeting humans and learning that we want artificial gravity (specifically centrifugal gravity), they wonder why we spent all the effort to get away from gravity only to spend even more effort to bring it back.
Since human orbital colonies take the form of O’Neil cylinders, you can cut off the gravity by halting the cylinder’s rotation. If stopped abruptly enough this would cause a lot of damage initially as objects go flying. It would also put the terrestrial, bipedal humans at a disadvantage compared to the aliens with five prehensile extremities.
Star Trek IV: The One With the Whales
A go to for sick days in bed for years.