TV Tropes: Standard Sci-Fi Fleet

[VF5SS]

Hey, Dodais were in the intro to Rise from the Ashes and they're in every Giren's Greed. I also don't see who the Dodai is "barely acknowledge" when the entire premise is using sub flight platforms accounts for lots of combat in Zeta. Really the only functional difference is the Mobile Suit doesn't just stand on the Dodai, but crouches down and grabs on.

[Commander 598]

Hey, Dodais were in the intro to Rise from the Ashes and they're in every Giren's Greed. I also don't see who the Dodai is "barely acknowledge" when the entire premise is using sub flight platforms accounts for lots of combat in Zeta.

Games never count (Especially not Gihren's Greed with almost literally a dozen different Gyan variants and a Zeon Gundam, and honestly Rise From the Ashes had Magella turrets pulling more Gs than F22s), and when was the last time you saw it in a series? 08th Team, so blacked out you almost couldn't even see them and definitely not performing the job we're discussing. Even MS Era had Gaws doing bombing work rather than put a Dodai in it, even though it's supposedly a bomber. They're much saner in Zeta as well, being that they seem to low altitude hover on minovsky craft systems instead of being a plane with mecha footholds.

Really the only functional difference is the Mobile Suit doesn't just stand on the Dodai, but crouches down and grabs on.

[VF5SS]

Like I said, the functional difference between the old Dodais and the new ones is that the Mobile Suit doesn't stand up. And the Jobbers in Zeta don't function on minovsky craft since this was before any miniaturization of that technology existed. They appear to fly on a combination of thrust and lifting body design. I still don't see how the Dodai is barely acknowledge (your 08th MS team example covers practically every miscellaneous cameo anyway) since the entire concept played a strong role in Zeta.

[Commander 598]

Well, damn, you're right. Behold the Dodai Kai:



Though I'll note the Hyaku Shiki has no problems standing on it, facing the rear no less:



...and the Base Jabbers carry two laying down:



I was probably confusing them with V era variants that literally parked in midair...

(Yes, that's from the New Translation trilogy, to anyone who would ask)

I still don't see how the Dodai is barely acknowledge (your 08th MS team example covers practically every miscellaneous cameo anyway) since the entire concept played a strong role in Zeta.

And it played a practically non-existent role in every OYW based series except MSG.

0080? Nope.
0083? Nyet.
08th Team. One scene. Literally, the rack of Rick Doms they were powering the Apsalus with probably had more screen time.
IGLOO 1? Nowhere.
IGLOO 1.5? Nein.
IGLOO 2? Still missing as of Ep2.

Pretty sure it would've been damn useful somewhere in there. My point is that somewhere along the line someone at Sunrise probably concluded that giant stomping robots having multi-kilometer firefights and dodging artillery on the ground was more entertaining and a way better idea than trying to handwave giant stomping robots with canonically terrible fuel efficiency having dogfights in midair with plenty of conventional aircraft still around canonically raping the shit out of mobile suits. Also the Dodai is just ugly as sin. Beyond being a flying MS platform the Dodai Kai bears basically zero resemblance to the Dodai despite it's name implying it's just an improved version.

This is pretty much how things are "retconned" in Gundam, nobody says that it's not there anymore, they just sort of stop talking about it and act like it never existed. Take the original Gouf for instance, good luck finding that outside of a game that just includes shitloads of units from here on since Norris Packard the Gouf Custom went and made it look like a retarded stepchild and Ramba Ral's meme of a line ain't gonna change that. If they go and make a new Dopp design that kicks ass and incorporate it in something good you can probably kiss that goodbye too.

[Shroom Man 777]

The trope wiki does encourage a form of intellectual laziness when it comes to analysis of literature. It gives the impression that all fiction is made up of interacting tropes,

Tropes, Characters, Settings, Plots, Events, all kinds of stuff.

When you oversimplify them into, say, "Hurr! Trope Five Man Band! Crowning Moment of Placental Separation!" it diminishes the actual work of literature/fiction into something that looks like a pre-packaged piece of lego. Except it's the troper who's interpreting it into a pre-fabricated piece of lego. Thus diminishing his appreciation of literary stuff into "hurrr! lookit dem tropes! tee-hee! ir so smarts!"

It's half-assed literary analysis.

And it becomes HORRIBEL when amateur writers decide to create their fiction and base their stories out of tropes! Instead of deciding to craft an interesting tale or something, they just decide to patch some pre-fabricated lego tropes together!

Because those subtleties are what makes the shows interesting.

But those are NOT subtleties! Those are ham-fisted categories and taxonomies that LAEM DROKS compulsively try to hammer into every piece of fiction they see to be so clever and smarts!

I mean yeah, we can make long essays on the primary differences between two guys who may have high goals but do terrible things to achieve them, but we're not trying to be that specific. Because those differences are why we watch and read and play. Its not a matter of a tenuous connection, but rather a broad category. We occasionally have more narrower focuses, but only when it happens a lot of times (and preferably over different media).

Bleh, you guys basically do it for shits and giggles and the resulting thing that comes out isn't really as clever as you'd like to imagine and is very simplified and is actually useless for any barely worthwhile literal analysis.

But keep in mind that a single character can (and good ones do) contain all kinds of tropes and characterizations. To list a character in the article for a single trope does not mean that's all he or she is. If you do a text search of that character (or check their name under the Character sheet for that series, if it has one), you'll find a large list of tropes and character types that person encompasses. Saying that cheapens a character is like saying mankind was cheapened when we found out our bodies are just a collection of tissues and organs.

Then you get pretentious droks and other douches making up all sorts of tropes for characters, tropes that BARELY APPLY but they still try to fit characters into tropes because they think it's funnies and they go "hurr hurr" and pat themselves on the back while showering together in men's locker rooms and oiling each other up to play beach volleyball and smelling each other's jockstraps.

[NecronLord]

Seriously, I fail to see how that is a literary device which, though it sounds pretentious, is what a 'trope' is supposed to be. It would be like making a 'standard sci fi armoury', which lists the classes of guns which turn up in fiction.

What about First Person Shooters?

... A lightsaber is a knife, supposedly a weak weapon? Heh. I've never played a SW FPS with that as an option, where I often switched away from it. It's usually just so far better than blasters it's barely funny.

[SAMAS]

The trope wiki does encourage a form of intellectual laziness when it comes to analysis of literature. It gives the impression that all fiction is made up of interacting tropes,

Tropes, Characters, Settings, Plots, Events, all kinds of stuff.

When you oversimplify them into, say, "Hurr! Trope Five Man Band! Crowning Moment of Placental Separation!" it diminishes the actual work of literature/fiction into something that looks like a pre-packaged piece of lego. Except it's the troper who's interpreting it into a pre-fabricated piece of lego. Thus diminishing his appreciation of literary stuff into "hurrr! lookit dem tropes! tee-hee! ir so smarts!"

And much like Lego Art, it's the way those blocks come together that makes a work what it is.

It's half-assed literary analysis.

We're a bunch of amateurs. Were you expecting professional-grade work?

And it becomes HORRIBEL when amateur writers decide to create their fiction and base their stories out of tropes! Instead of deciding to craft an interesting tale or something, they just decide to patch some pre-fabricated lego tropes together!

And this is TV Tropes' fault how?

Nevermind. Anyways, the point of entertainment is to be entertaining. It doesn't matter how original a work is, as long as it's fun to watch/read/play. Besides, we love good original stuff as much as we love well-executed tropes. If someone wants to build a Lego model kit using the instructions rather than an original thing, that's their choice.

Because those subtleties are what makes the shows interesting.

But those are NOT subtleties! Those are ham-fisted categories and taxonomies that LAEM DROKS compulsively try to hammer into every piece of fiction they see to be so clever and smarts!

Like I said before, the categories are supposed to be broad. Not every Tsundere, Town With A Dark Secret, Chest Blaster, or Alien Invasion are the same, but do we really need a separate article for each and every iteration?

Yeesh, first you accuse us of pigeonholing, then you complain that we don't pigeonhole enough...

I mean yeah, we can make long essays on the primary differences between two guys who may have high goals but do terrible things to achieve them, but we're not trying to be that specific. Because those differences are why we watch and read and play. Its not a matter of a tenuous connection, but rather a broad category. We occasionally have more narrower focuses, but only when it happens a lot of times (and preferably over different media).

Bleh, you guys basically do it for shits and giggles and the resulting thing that comes out isn't really as clever as you'd like to imagine and is very simplified and is actually useless for any barely worthwhile literal analysis.

OF COURSE WE'RE DOING IT FOR FUN! It's not like this was a big secret or anything. If we were serious, there wouldn't be nearly as many bad jokes in the articles.

But keep in mind that a single character can (and good ones do) contain all kinds of tropes and characterizations. To list a character in the article for a single trope does not mean that's all he or she is. If you do a text search of that character (or check their name under the Character sheet for that series, if it has one), you'll find a large list of tropes and character types that person encompasses. Saying that cheapens a character is like saying mankind was cheapened when we found out our bodies are just a collection of tissues and organs.

Then you get pretentious droks and other douches making up all sorts of tropes for characters, tropes that BARELY APPLY but they still try to fit characters into tropes because they think it's funnies and they go "hurr hurr" and pat themselves on the back while showering together in men's locker rooms and oiling each other up to play beach volleyball and smelling each other's jockstraps.

Jeez man, Project much?

[SAMAS]

Seriously, I fail to see how that is a literary device which, though it sounds pretentious, is what a 'trope' is supposed to be. It would be like making a 'standard sci fi armoury', which lists the classes of guns which turn up in fiction.

What about First Person Shooters?

... A lightsaber is a knife, supposedly a weak weapon? Heh. I've never played a SW FPS with that as an option, where I often switched away from it. It's usually just so far better than blasters it's barely funny.

*looks at the article* Actually, going by the definition, it would be a "Chainsaw." (Melee Weapon that's supposed to be competitive with the rest of the arsenal) It's inclusion in the "knife" category would be what we call a "mistake", and thus should be corrected. *editeditedit*

[Shroom Man 777]

I am just wailing against TVTropes because it stole so many precious hours of my life that I'll never get back.

[Stark]

Hey I'm loving how SAMAS has actually established his retarded trope religion (which he expounds with pathetic LEGO analogies for crying out loud) instead of simply repeating it over and over because he's a fat nerd obsessed with finding patterns, regardless whether they exist or not.

This, ironically, is the attitude behind all superstition. This puts everything he says in a hilarious light.

[SAMAS]

And I love how you're making a mountain out of a molehill, and assuming the same of me and others.

No I don't. It annoys me.

Dude, It's not that important. We do it for fun, no more, no less. Who the fuck are you to decide how people should have fun on the internet?

[Stark]

Positive claim + no evidence + shrill bleating + nerd-clique references = lolgasm.

Sorry, I was under the impression 'fun' could be stupid baseless crap, and calling something 'fun' doesn't answer quesitons like 'isn't it massively forced' and 'is it intellectually lazy' and 'are you all a bunch of fatties'.

It's even funnier in this case than usual, because the article you wrote is forced and intellectually lazy.

[SAMAS]

Not lazy, simply insufficient. Incomplete. I seem to remember posting in a place where I figured people who knew better than I did could provide some wisdom to help me improve the article. I got your punk ass instead.

Seriously, your words have been full of shit since your first post in this thread. Any possible useful information is buried under piles of insults and self-righteous posturing. You've been about as helpful as Rush Limbaugh giving a lecture on Parkinson's Disease.

Seriously, man. Go away.

[Axiomatic]

I still don't get the accusations that TvTropes is intellectually lazy when it comes to literary analysis. What on earth, sea or sky could make anyone think TvTropes is in any way devoted to LITERARY ANALYSIS?

[Bounty]

I seem to remember posting in a place where I figured people who knew better than I did could provide some wisdom to help me improve the article.

And they did; the best improvement you can make to that article is make it go away. It does nothing except try to label something that cannot and should not be labelled (seriously, "standard SF fleet"? What does that even mean?), and then it tries to do that in the most hackneyed and scattershot way possible. It's a completely empty and futile string of words that serves no-one except those who think that regurgitating factoids in 'new' and increasingly more irrelevant subcategories (sorry, 'tropes') is a pastime.

If this was you writing an article about naval terminology and how SF writers have adopted it, with relevant examples showing their evolution through time, you'd get criticism. This, however, warrants exactly what Stark has been giving it.

[fgalkin]

Especially considering that Nyrath beat you to it years ago, and your article is not even a tenth as good as his (except for his Destroyer rant. That one is silly.)

Of course, then there is the The Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy, which is sorta like TVTropes before you lot ruined it.

TVTropes used to be fun. I've read some of the new articles....it's dead to me now.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Stark]

I still don't get the accusations that TvTropes is intellectually lazy when it comes to literary analysis. What on earth, sea or sky could make anyone think TvTropes is in any way devoted to LITERARY ANALYSIS?

Uh, because he fucking said so? I know full well Tvtropes is a site devoted to fat people being self-indulgent and stupid while constantly pimping their pet shows, but HE said they were the BUILDING BLOCKS from which FICTION IS CREATED.

Don't give me your fucking attitude; he's the laughably pretentious one.

[Stark]

Not lazy, simply insufficient. Incomplete. I seem to remember posting in a place where I figured people who knew better than I did could provide some wisdom to help me improve the article. I got your punk ass instead.

Quick, you better get back to eating... I mean polishing the twinkie!

Seriously, your words have been full of shit since your first post in this thread. Any possible useful information is buried under piles of insults and self-righteous posturing. You've been about as helpful as Rush Limbaugh giving a lecture on Parkinson's Disease.

That's ironic, since I made a bunch of serious criticisms which others agreed with, and you spun off into pompous gasbagging about how tropes are 'so real man'. I'll stop posting about how dumb you are when you stop being dumb.

Deal?

Seriously, man. Go away.

Why would I do that, when you're so fucking funny? I'm not the one making totally unsupported claims about the nature of fiction.

[NecronLord]

The insult to argument ratio of your posts is getting pretty high Stark. Care to tone it down a bit? If he wants to do something unnecessary and post it here, that's up to him. You don't need to go mad and spend three posts berating him as a fat nerd with no life.


In any case, as a "trope," I'd say this is utterly wrong.

As a matter of fact, for TV a 'standard sci-fi fleet' probably only has one main type of warship. Ha'taks, Venator Star Destroyers, Romulan Warbirds, Narn Heavy Cruisers, Minbari Warships, Dominion 'bug' cruisers, Cylon Basestars, Munificents, Wraith Hive Ships, Aurora-Class battlecruisers, Dalek Saucers, the Master's human-built Warfleet of one hundred thousand identical rockets...

Almost all of those have one type of capital ship, occasionally with super-ships that dwarf them in size and power thrown in (Goa'uld flagships, Dominion Super Battleships, Subjugator-class heavy cruisers, Wraith Doom Ship, the Dalek Imperial Command Ship).

This is what I'd call the 'standard sci fi fleet' - if they're showing much diversity of designs it's quite unusual (and not neccesserily any more realistic, space fleets aren't wet navies, natch) - it's something a lot of TV shows do, because it stops them having to buy more models (physical or CGI).

[Bluewolf]

That took...oohh 10 posts for this thread to crash. Not bad

Really TVTropes should just be used for general themes or things that happen in a plot. You don't use it like some kind of Bible and can shows for every "Trope", nor do you build fleets of it which has been said. A fleet will be comprised with whatever the fleet needs for its mission. There wont be some standard template that will fit with everything.

Oh SAMAS. Step back would you. You are getting buthurt over a internet website where people post Tropes of fiction which does not have anyone really to moderate to check over it. You are just trying to defend a site from flaws you can't defend (if you have little moderation people are bound to pimp certain things. Take how Suvival of the Fittest is always included in RP entries) and your anger towards Stark is like a child going "Leave me alone". Its also part of the reason Stark is probably still posting in this thread.

[Stark]

Yeah, a discussion about one-notes, widely disparate fleets (ie the fighter+one cap fleets common to nBSG and the SW movies) and the super-diverse ones (like Federation, Harrington, etc) would be more meaningful... but it's not enough cubbyholing I guess.

Ironically speaking in general terms you could indeed break the population of 'space fleets' into groups like that without having to force silliness like 'lol dreadnought is teh bigz' and crap.

[SAMAS]

As a matter of fact, for TV a 'standard sci-fi fleet' probably only has one main type of warship. Ha'taks, Venator Star Destroyers, Romulan Warbirds, Narn Heavy Cruisers, Minbari Warships, Dominion 'bug' cruisers, Cylon Basestars, Munificents, Wraith Hive Ships, Aurora-Class battlecruisers, Dalek Saucers, the Master's human-built Warfleet of one hundred thousand identical rockets...

Almost all of those have one type of capital ship, occasionally with super-ships that dwarf them in size and power thrown in (Goa'uld flagships, Dominion Super Battleships, Subjugator-class heavy cruisers, Wraith Doom Ship, the Dalek Imperial Command Ship).

This is what I'd call the 'standard sci fi fleet' - if they're showing much diversity of designs it's quite unusual (and not neccesserily any more realistic, space fleets aren't wet navies, natch) - it's something a lot of TV shows do, because it stops them having to buy more models (physical or CGI).

Good point, I completely forgot about the whole "One Ship Fleet" thing. Don't know why.

[SAMAS]

I still don't get the accusations that TvTropes is intellectually lazy when it comes to literary analysis. What on earth, sea or sky could make anyone think TvTropes is in any way devoted to LITERARY ANALYSIS?

Well, technically we do (and you might wanna put quotation marks around that), but certainly not in the way anybody who's spent tuition on it does, if you know what I mean.

[ScreenXSurfer]

I don't see why people are making a big deal about it. It's just a website where people like to point out similarities and cliches between fictions. Can't be as bad as a website founded to prove Star Wars beats Star Trek.

[fgalkin]

I don't see why people are making a big deal about it. It's just a website where people like to point out similarities and cliches between fictions. Can't be as bad as a website founded to prove Star Wars beats Star Trek.

It can when every third article is written by a blithering moron.

TVTropes used to be an amusing site, with quite a bit of truth. I've spent hours of my life browsing it. Now, it's just painful to read, and articles like the one SAMAS wrote are the reason why.

It's not "TVTropes sucks because it lists similarities between fictions," it's "TVTropes sucks because it does a piss-poor job of it."

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin