Bucking sci-fi trends

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2002-12-27 03:43am

Here's a neat sci-fi reversal that Vernor Vinge wrote in his story "Original Sin":

Normally, you see ancient and extremely long lived aliens show up on Earth, and they get scared of the explosive creativity, innovation, and ambition of the Earthlings.

In Original Sin, (can you guess where this is headed?) Humans come to a world where the dominant life form is born fully self aware, very hungery, and lives for about two years. Since the missionaries arrived and got them to stop eating each other, they've gone from stone-age to post-industrial in about fifty years...

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2002-12-27 03:50am

Darth Wong wrote:The Jedi would fall before the clonetroopers, who have good survivability against shrapnel from artillery shells. But the clonetroopers would still have taken heavy casualties from accurate shelling of their front lines; I imagine they would have had to rely more on armour and air support in that case.

Mind you, even the heavy Geonosian sonic cannon was doing a number on the Jedi in the arena. I always wondered why none of the idiot Jedi thought to attack or capture that cannon, since it was right there on the arena floor. You have to try to take out the enemy's heaviest weapon, or so I would think ...

Well, the Jedi seem to be more the defensive types, and probably are used to dealing with criminals or pirates who don't have heavy weaponry, plus I gathered that they don't often work in large numbers. Outnumbered by the Genosians by a large number, and outgunned, they gathered together but didn't really work as a group. They simply dug in and kept fighting on their own, or in small groups.

As for the clone army, since weaponry in the SW galaxy has been energy based for a long time, and artillery really wouldn't be useful for the police actions that are the norm, I'm not suprised that they tended to focus their weapon developement towards blaster based technology.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-27 05:04am

A Starship that really is held together by Duck Tape, hope, and Monkey fixing. And SHOWS IT.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2002-12-27 07:03am

Darth Wong wrote:A boardroom meeting in Star Trek where they think up a brilliant new idea and give the engineer two hours to implement it, and he screams "WHAT KIND OF FUCKING MORON TRIES TO JURY-RIG A PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL SHIP WITH SOME GODDAMNED UNTESTED IDEA IN A CRISIS, AND HOW FUCKING LONG DO YOU IDIOTS THINK IT TAKES TO MAKE SIGNIFICANT MODIFICATIONS TO A WORKING PIECE OF HIGH-TECH EQUIPMENT?"

That's when they override him, order him to do it anyway, and when he tries it, it promptly blows out half the ship's systems, leaving them dead in the water for the crisis. His last words: "I told you so ..." Their last words: "Why didn't you tell us this might happen?"

Yes, I read Dilbert.

That's hilarious.

It was such a mind boggler when I was in the Navy after seeing so much Trek. We actually had to rely on how our equipment was designed to work. I didn't come up with a plan to design something I could jury-rig onto my antenna so I could pick up higher or lower frequencies than were already included. About the only thing we could change or modify was some of the programing for helping us evaluate signals.

I know there are a lot of people who do wild an crazy things to their home electonics and it works. But you don't jack with millions of dollars worth of equimpent (on a multibillion dollar aircraft carrier) that has had lots and lots of people working on it, refining and redisgning it. If you think you have a good idea on how to make something better or cheaper ect... you write a proposal and submit it. If it is accepted they give you a nice bonus but the actual application is left to the companies who build the equipment.

Baron Mordo · Post by **Baron Mordo** » 2002-12-27 01:11pm

I'd like to see a villain that conforms to the parameters of Peter's Evil Overlord List.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2002-12-27 01:36pm

Darth Wong wrote:I'd like to see a mob of high-tech foot soldiers with their fancy energy weapons charging bravely toward an enemy installation ... only to get blown to bits by primitive artillery.

Could it be a friendly fire incident? That would be the icing on the cake!

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2002-12-27 02:07pm

Dennis Toy wrote:I like to see aliens not want to invade earth, i want to see earth invade an alien world.

They do in Vandread. In that show, Earth is the "bad guy".

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2002-12-27 04:06pm

I'd like to see one scifi movie where all the aliens are not based the aliens from StarCraft or WingCommander. How many times do they have to steal the aliens from Ender's Game to figure out that the space bug idea is OLD. I'd like to see one where Aliens and Humans were working together against an agressive hegemonizing force but did not get into race relations. Damn modern allegory, you've made the human dynamic a cliché!!!!

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2002-12-27 04:09pm

Or better yet, keeping with the theme that Wong said earlier, fundie humans engaged in a religious war against fundie aliens when the two groups have a culture clash after first contact. Then a counter movement is created on both worlds that destroys fundamentalism completely!

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-27 05:04pm

SyntaxVorlon wrote:Or better yet, keeping with the theme that Wong said earlier, fundie humans engaged in a religious war against fundie aliens when the two groups have a culture clash after first contact. Then a counter movement is created on both worlds that destroys fundamentalism completely!

Awww Damm. Now you've given me something else to write...

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2002-12-27 05:49pm

NecronLord wrote:
SyntaxVorlon wrote:Or better yet, keeping with the theme that Wong said earlier, fundie humans engaged in a religious war against fundie aliens when the two groups have a culture clash after first contact. Then a counter movement is created on both worlds that destroys fundamentalism completely!
Awww Damm. Now you've given me something else to write...

*Grabs paper and a LOT of pencils and closes himself in closet, trying to beat Necronlord in getting a story.*

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-12-27 07:30pm

Baron Mordo wrote:I'd like to see a villain that conforms to the parameters of Peter's Evil Overlord List.

And John VanSickle's SF cliches list, and my "aliens guide to the conquest of humanity"....

Take a look at Charlie Stross' recently published stuff. It at least attempts to follow the do and do not lists.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-12-27 08:07pm

A couple of capital ships join up and they're all off axis to each other.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-12-27 10:04pm

Aliens so alien you can't communicate, you can't barter, all you can do is try and figure out why the hell a giant amobea managed to 1) Get so big, and 2) Somehow build a starship.

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2002-12-27 10:41pm

A team that is motivated, not for reenge,not for the greater good,not to expandd outrknowl;edge of the universe.. but is motivated by trying to pay the humongious debt off on the loan to there starship I mean hey those things gost Moolahh and ya gots to get it from somewhere

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2002-12-28 12:37am

*stiirring dramatic scene before the final battle"
"Men, we're not going out there to fight for revenge. We're not in this for the glory, or staying in the fight because of honor. We're not doing it for friendship and camaraderie, hell I hate all of you and you know it. We aren't fighting to save our country out of idealism and patriotism. We are going to go out there and WIN, for the money, the chance to loot the enemies dead bodies, and the possibility of wasting the guys in the unit we all owe money to while no one is looking.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2002-12-28 01:13am

--A team that is motivated, not for reenge,not for the greater good,not to expandd outrknowl;edge of the universe.. but is motivated by trying to pay the humongious debt off on the loan to there starship I mean hey those things gost Moolahh and ya gots to get it from somewhere--

Thats Cowboy Bebop

The series' main characters go around trying to make money, but whatever they make, the millions of woolong, must be put back into the ship. Theres episodic stuff tho, considering its about shady people.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2002-12-28 01:16am

Darth Wong wrote:I'd like to see a mob of high-tech foot soldiers with their fancy energy weapons charging bravely toward an enemy installation ... only to get blown to bits by primitive artillery.

Damn, I had some comic book like that, I think it was illustrated by Azpiri.
Basically a huge alien fleet comes near Earth orbit, babble about how the primitive Earth tech will be no match for the Imperial weapons, only to be blown apart by billions upon billions of nukes.

What was left of the fleet escaped, then ranted something about being impossible to achieve such impossible number of missiles without exhausting the entire planets resources, and that it wasn't worth conquering.

SWPIGWANG · Post by **SWPIGWANG** » 2002-12-28 01:51am

How about some super advanced race attacking earth only to find "giant-mega-uber-zuper" defense station o doom and die with lots of stuff blowing up? *yess it is all about stuff blowing up*

200GT on planet, on screen, close range, repeated

Logical ship designs, logical battles, logical motivation (no attacking planets with toxic elements everywhere...ArGGG H2O), actually naval tactics like ship concentrations, covoy routes and such shown, as well as intelligent combat that involves more than "causing a transphasic subspace cascade that will disrupt sensors" or "their attack can not hurt us." And using real science based tricks not technobabble to gain advantage.

Truely alien intelligence. No more bugs or human with weird forheads. It would be fun to see humans though the eyes of a intelligent hive mind for once, though original ideas would be better. It would also be fun to learn about non-human emotions and motivation that is completely alien to us. How have them debate philosophy with discordians for fun.

A universe where the evil villan reads "Taking over the universe for dummies."

A group of humans travelling the stars visiting remote colonies to get laid in new ways. Perhaps fighting a few skimishs in the space controlled by crazy zealous feminist woman and n30-zonderlite fundamentalist christians.

Combat of ideas is always fun, as ideas are far more dangerous than any lifeform can ever be by itself.

Bill Gates VS THE BORG

Raxmei · Post by **Raxmei** » 2002-12-28 05:42am

SirNitram wrote:Aliens so alien you can't communicate, you can't barter, all you can do is try and figure out why the hell a giant amobea managed to 1) Get so big, and 2) Somehow build a starship.

C.J. Cherryh, Chanur series. The oxygen breathers are humanoidish but the methane breathers are bizarre with psychology to match.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2002-12-28 06:13am

What about a bunch of Communist aliens and unite the world against the USA?? I got the idea from the International Maoist Movement's review of "Independence Day."

Sort of "Star Trek: First Contact" meets "X-Files."

Or what about a sci-fi civilization which is totally non-hierarchial?? (although the Culture might count as such)

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-12-28 06:32am

Simon H.Johansen wrote:What about a bunch of Communist aliens and unite the world against the USA?? I got the idea from the International Maoist Movement's review of "Independence Day."

If the aliens are so advanced they can travel to us they would already have found out that communism doesn't work (if their intellect is even remotely similar to ours).
Or they maintain their regime through opression. Although the idea of the world uniting against the US would certainly make for a good plot.

Raxmei · Post by **Raxmei** » 2002-12-28 07:05am

The seemingly unstoppable superbeing aliens really are unstoppable. Mankind has to learn to deal with it or get squashed like the ants they are.

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2002-12-28 07:53am

SWPIGWANG wrote:Truely alien intelligence. No more bugs or human with weird forheads. It would be fun to see humans though the eyes of a intelligent hive mind for once, though original ideas would be better. It would also be fun to learn about non-human emotions and motivation that is completely alien to us. How have them debate philosophy with discordians for fun.

The problem with that is, you have to invent a whole new philosophy, and to be believable, it isn't easy... or rather, it's impossible in less than 30 years of work. Looking the humans through alien eyes is not possible, since we don't know any aliens. It's like trying to see the world through an ant.

Yes, it's possible to create weird non-human aliens, with wierd non-human thinking, and the like, but we always need to put some human aspects in them, to find some sort of relation, some yardstick measure. Anybody that has pets can find a parallel, we deal with them long enough, and we start to find some human aspects in their behaviour, in other words we rationalize their behaviour in a human way, and when creating aliens, that rationalization will prevail, since it's our yardstick to understand them.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2002-12-28 08:33am

Cpt_Frank wrote:If the aliens are so advanced they can travel to us they would already have found out that communism doesn't work (if their intellect is even remotely similar to ours).
Or they maintain their regime through opression. Although the idea of the world uniting against the US would certainly make for a good plot.

Actually, they could be a species who don't have individual consciousness but a "hive mind" like the Tyranids and the Borg. Or simply a species which lacks the individualistic instincts of humanity, although I don't want them to be modelled upon ants.

The story would perhaps be even more entertaining, if it was viewed from our imaginary alien communists' perspective. If Eisenstein made sci-fi...

I would also like to see archetypical "grey"-type aliens (you know, the skinny, bug-eyed ones with really big heads) who land on a high-gravity world and experience their ridiculously big heads falling to the ground.

(although they probably would think twice about landing if they knew that gravity would immobilize them)

I've always wondered how their frail musculature should be able to support such heavy heads. (perhaps they have implanted anti-gravity devices in their noses, or have a very odd physique)