History Main / StreamingStars

Compare and contrast HeavenlyConcentricCircles.

Real spaceships transiting the void would move at incomprehensible speeds, however you wouldn't know that by looking out the window. In media, this is unacceptable. A moving object [[RuleOfPerception must give the impression]] of speed and motion.

Of course, from a production standpoint, even if you averted this trope, you ''could'' theoretically still convey motion with the starship moving across the screen, though probably not in a way that says "warp speed". Video games often get around this by having particles of space dust that will naturally fly past the camera to convey movement, but of course this can't apply to FTL speeds either.

!!Examples

[[folder:Webcomics]]
%% * In ''Webcomic/{{Relativity}}'', the view from Irina's light speed spaceship window looks like this.
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%% * This was played straight in both instances where ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'' did a send-up of ''Franchise/StarTrek''.

* Variation and partial aversion in ''Franchise/StarWars''. It uses the effect, but in fact it's only the reality warp of going into hyperspace. Once you're ''in'' hyperspace all you can see out the windows is a crazy blue energy tunnel that gives people migraines if they stare at it too long.

Real spaceships transiting the void would move at incomprehensible speeds, however you wouldn't know that by looking out the window. In media, this is unacceptable. A moving object must give the impression of speed and motion.

As Douglas Adams pointed out, space is big. This means that stars are really far away. Galaxies are even farther out. There will be very little MotionParallax in a star field seen from a spaceship moving through the solar system or even between nearby stars. In [[Series/{{Firefly}} captain dummy talk]], that means you simply won't see a star move in relation to you, unless you're a) within said star's solar system (and then it'll just be the one), b) moving really, ''really'' fast, like cross-the-galaxy-in-a-day fast, or c) turning. Anyone who's driven down a long highway in a wide flat area can see this effect to a lesser extent: that mountain far to your left doesn't really seem to move much as you go. Our sun, and even just the Moon, which is much closer, give an even better example; they don't seem to move at all as you move.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Relativity}}'', the view from Irina's light speed spaceship window looks like this.

* This was played straight in both instances where ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'' did a send-up of ''Franchise/StarTrek''.

* UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows comes with a screensaver that shows this effect.

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|1978}}'' (old series only)

* The Sid Sutton-designed title sequence used in ''Series/DoctorWho'', from 1980-1986.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}''. When the series came back from the dead in the late 1970s, an attempt was made at a more accurate depiction of space, but everyone agreed it [[TheCoconutEffect didn't look right for Star Trek]], so [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality they went back to the original style]].

* Justified in ''The House On The Borderland'', where the narrator sees stars wheeling overhead so fast that they appear as bright streaks circling the planet. As he's traveling forward in time at incredible speed, on his way to the end of the solar system, that's just how the Earth's own rotation ''would'' make the night skies look.

** This is contrasted in story with the eponymous video game, in which stars occasionally fly past the player's ship.

* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} universe, the stars are actually balls of fire about a mile wide, so this happens gradually as A'Tuin swims through space, and the constellations change regularly. It would actually be possible for a time traveler to identify the era by what stars are visible.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} universe, the stars are actually balls of fire about a mile wide, so this happens gradually as A'Tuin swims through space, and the constellations change regularly. It would actually be possible for a time traveler to identify the era by what stars are visible.
* Averted in ''Only You Can Save Mankind'', the first book of the ''Literature/JohnnyMaxwellTrilogy'', also by Terry Pratchett, where Wobbler creates a video game "Journey to Alpha Centauri". Apparently if you leave it running for several hundred years a message appears saying "Welcome to Alpha Centauri. Now go home," but the view doesn't noticeably change at any point along the way. (It changes. It just does it in real time.)
** This is contrasted in story with the eponymous video game, in which stars occasionally fly past the player's ship.
* Justified in ''The House On The Borderland'', where the narrator sees stars wheeling overhead so fast that they appear as bright streaks circling the planet. As he's traveling forward in time at incredible speed, on his way to the end of the solar system, that's just how the Earth's own rotation ''would'' make the night skies look.
* Averted in the ''Literature/HeecheeSaga'', where the ships are described as catching up to light emitted from behind them and eventually just seeing a mottled sploch on the front viewscreen from all the old light.
* In Creator/AlastairReynolds' ''Literature/HouseOfSuns'', Purslane's ship features a dining room that displays this image in its windows, purely because Purslane likes the effect.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Nemesis'': Because FTL travel is based on [[SubspaceOrHyperspace jumps through space]], seeing the stars move is the first sign that something's wrong -- it was a short test jump, stars weren't ''supposed'' to move perceptibly. [[spoiler:The ship had rotated while in hyperspace, causing the perspective to shift.]]
* The realistic version caused by moving at high sublight speeds appears in Creator/FrederikPohl's novel ''Literature/TheWorldAtTheEndOfTime'', continuing up to the point that the light of the Universe is concentrated on what looks like a ''very'' bright star.
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* In ''Film/{{Airplane}}'', the stewardess gets high while watching this trope, perhaps a dig on how people allegedly got high on drugs before watching the Stargate sequence in ''2001''.

* ''Film/StarTrek2009'' uses this trope in a similar way that ''Franchise/StarWars'' does, to represent the reality-bending acceleration into warp. Like ''Franchise/StarWars'', a ship's view during warp travel is a chaotic opaque vortex, a departure from the traditional aesthetic.

* While not technically a streaming starfield, the Stargate sequence in ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'' deserves special mention.
** Also the starfield in the exteriors moves because it just didn't look good if it didn't, Kubrick tried it the right way but went with wrong because it made for a better looking shot.