Sci-Fi events of complete dickery created by lazy writers

[Junghalli]

They were fed other dead humans IIRC from Morpheus' chat to Neo in the first movie.

That just means they're efficient recyclers. The bulk of whatever goes into that nutrient slurry they feed them has to come from somewhere else.

Of course if they're synthesizing the food it really destroys the whole "power source" theory, as they'd by definition have to put more energy into synthesizing the food than they get out of the humans. The same would probably be true if they're growing plants under lamps. Heck, even today it takes more energy to produce and ship food than the food contains as calories.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The Rebels in general in SW have a notably bad record in this regard, basically ignoring the deaths of billions on Byss and outright sanctioning Kyp Durron's planet-destroying little crusade. Both due to lazy writers who could not be bothered to assess the moral consequences of what their "heroes" did.

Quite frankly, I don't think the population of Byss matters. They're arguably assimilated into the Galactic Emperor and unknowingly but legitimately military targets by directly sustaining a war criminal and the management for the enemy war machine in the most general sense possible. Furthermore, the Eclipse's ramming of the Galaxy Gun (a perfectly legitimate target) was not supposed to cause a misfire of the latter which just happened to successful immolate the planet. If the Japanese had managed to kamikaze a B-29 carrying a live nuke over U.S. soil, and the bomb ended up going off over a city, would that be a war crime anything like building and deliberately using the bomb yourself?

As for Durron, the property destruction he caused is pretty amazing, but when you really think about it, all he did was raze a military training camp (we did the same in Afghanistan, in fact it was the goal of the war), a couple warships, and a few naval bases. The collateral damage is immense, but ultimately inert, just a star and dead bodies of rock. All of his targets were legitimate military targets that would be completely legitimate in pursuit of general war by conventional military means.

[Themightytom]

but the vorlons and shadows are still DB's.

so iws the Weyland Yuutani company by the way from Aliens
"eh? theres a xenomorph on board? Well tell the android to fuck around with the crew so they get impregnated."
and then
"A whole colony? And xeno morphs? Send Farmer joe out there unarmed, it will lead to more hosts."
and then Aliens 3:
"A prison? This gets better and better!! YAHTZEE!"
and then Alien 4
"Shit we got bought out by Wal mart" (From the book)

[Erik von Nein]

Yeah, I think you're failing to understand the point of this thread. It's not a collection of jackasses in sci-fi, it's a collection of unintentional jackasses that are only jackasses because of lazy writing making them jackasses. If they're were deliberately written to be jackasses that doesn't count.



Jackasses!

[Andrew_Fireborn]

EGS Nein?


Well, honestly any syndicated show that uses reset buttons is going to have a number of "Wouldn't X from episode Y have solved the Z problem without any of the hassle?" issues. Especially as the show drags on and the writers forget about old plot points and devices.

[Adrian McNair]

I'm going to have to cast a vote for The Doctor (of Doctor Who fame for those unfamiliar) on this one, specifically the contemporary David Tennant Doctor. Doctor Number Ten. His frankly bizzare sense of morality irks me no end. It just doesn't jive with the conduct of previous incarnations.

Whereas, the Doctor of older serials was quite willing to eliminate his enemies or use weapons (albeit with reluctance), this incarnation seems to have lost all sense. He's become pointlessly conflicted.

He condemns Harriet Jones for eliminating a scourge that could have menaced other species (the Sycorax), enables The Master to kill millions but does nothing to prevent it when he was fully able to due to sentimentality and still attempts to reason with the Sontarans when they're about to depopulate Earth (despite being fully aware of their M.O.).

Meanwhile, one-note villains like the Family of Blood suffer fates worse than death. I guess you need to have some sort of attachment to the good Doctor or have commited genocide on a monstrous scale in order to earn his mercy. He's grown senile. Plus, there are times when I can't stand Tennant's expressive over-acting, but that's another issue.

He's nothing but a moral cripple with delusions of grandeur if you ask me.

[Junghalli]

Don't forget Anaconda: Hunt For the Blood Orchid, where they all cheer as the flowers that had the immortality elixir in them are buried under a huge landslide. Granted the giant snakes that were going to eat them were buried in it too, but it just feels wrong how nobody expresses any regret at the greatest medical breakthrough of all time being lost forever.

[Sabastian Tombs]

I'm going to have to cast a vote for The Doctor (of Doctor Who fame for those unfamiliar) on this one, specifically the contemporary David Tennant Doctor. Doctor Number Ten. His frankly bizzare sense of morality irks me no end. It just doesn't jive with the conduct of previous incarnations.

Whereas, the Doctor of older serials was quite willing to eliminate his enemies or use weapons (albeit with reluctance), this incarnation seems to have lost all sense. He's become pointlessly conflicted.

He condemns Harriet Jones for eliminating a scourge that could have menaced other species (the Sycorax), enables The Master to kill millions but does nothing to prevent it when he was fully able to due to sentimentality and still attempts to reason with the Sontarans when they're about to depopulate Earth (despite being fully aware of their M.O.).

Meanwhile, one-note villains like the Family of Blood suffer fates worse than death. I guess you need to have some sort of attachment to the good Doctor or have commited genocide on a monstrous scale in order to earn his mercy. He's grown senile. Plus, there are times when I can't stand Tennant's expressive over-acting, but that's another issue.

He's nothing but a moral cripple with delusions of grandeur if you ask me.

He has also been running around invoking the Shadow Proclamation to get various aliens to back down from what they're doing. The first time the Shadow Proclamation needs his help on something, he leaves them in the lurch. Granted, he fixed the problem himself, but still he uses the SP as a threat to make others do what he wants while ignoring it when it gets in his way. And while I'm still trying to blank out that last episode on SCI-FI, was he actually trying to save Davros' life there at the end?

[Zixinus]

Of course if they're synthesizing the food it really destroys the whole "power source" theory, as they'd by definition have to put more energy into synthesizing the food than they get out of the humans. The same would probably be true if they're growing plants under lamps. Heck, even today it takes more energy to produce and ship food than the food contains as calories.

What really blows the whole "power source" out of the hole to begin with, is that nuclear energy would suppy far more energy both far more cheaply and effectively then using humans are batteries. Machines wouldn't be that much more bothered by nuclear waste then humans, especially considering that they are not that terribly concerned about accidental spilage. Nevermind fusion, which considering that those octo-hunter thing were floating in the mid-air appearently using anti-gravity, isn't a strech.

Never mind the idea that humans are very inefficient are producing electricity, and only a tiny partion of the nutrient intake is actually used to do that.

The real reason, and the more believable reason, was that the machines didn't want to kill the remnants of humanity that is under their control for some reason.

Then again, you would then ask why they wanted to destroy the free-city but let's not try to think too hard when it comes to the Matrix.

[Darth Hoth]

Quite frankly, I don't think the population of Byss matters. They're arguably assimilated into the Galactic Emperor and unknowingly but legitimately military targets by directly sustaining a war criminal and the management for the enemy war machine in the most general sense possible. Furthermore, the Eclipse's ramming of the Galaxy Gun (a perfectly legitimate target) was not supposed to cause a misfire of the latter which just happened to successful immolate the planet. If the Japanese had managed to kamikaze a B-29 carrying a live nuke over U.S. soil, and the bomb ended up going off over a city, would that be a war crime anything like building and deliberately using the bomb yourself?

I disagree with the assertion that the unarmed populace of Byss, officially a sanctuary world for people such as the Alderaanian refugees, was a legitimate military target. The dynamic of Palpatine’s Force depredations is poorly understood, and was even more so at the time. Furthermore, even if one goes by your line, that at worst makes them unwilling accomplices; bombing them is then akin to bombing slave labour. It might be perfectly legal, but it should raise a few eyebrows.

And no, while blowing them up might not be a war crime given the circumstances, I would say just cheering and never thinking of all those innocent lives lost does make you a "dick". Which was the topic of the thread.

As for Durron, the property destruction he caused is pretty amazing, but when you really think about it, all he did was raze a military training camp (we did the same in Afghanistan, in fact it was the goal of the war), a couple warships, and a few naval bases. The collateral damage is immense, but ultimately inert, just a star and dead bodies of rock. All of his targets were legitimate military targets that would be completely legitimate in pursuit of general war by conventional military means.

Was there not a truce in effect that he was violating? And do you expect me to believe that the ENTIRE Caridan system was nothing but a military installation? There was a kriffing SPECIES called Caridans living on that planet; I very much doubt they evolved simply to provide logistics for the Empire’s installations. Wiping them out is tantamount to xenocide, even if they are "mere" collateral damage. If you use that kind of unreasonable force, then you ARE a "dick", and quite probably a war criminal.

[Ted C]

The real reason, and the more believable reason, was that the machines didn't want to kill the remnants of humanity that is under their control for some reason.

Then again, you would then ask why they wanted to destroy the free-city but let's not try to think too hard when it comes to the Matrix.

Simple thermodynamics tell us that the machines couldn't be using humans as a power source. Further, as others have pointed out, if you could generate power from humans, you should be able to generate it from any warm-blooded animal, so why not use cows and avoid all the trouble with human rebellion.

The more plausible explanation to me was that the machines needed humans to solve various kinds of programming problems that they could not easily solve themselves, hence the elaborate simulation of 20th century Earth, including businesses that specialize in computer programming. After all, if you just needed humans for power, you could just keep them all in comas.

[CaptJodan]

I'm going to have to cast a vote for The Doctor (of Doctor Who fame for those unfamiliar) on this one, specifically the contemporary David Tennant Doctor. Doctor Number Ten. His frankly bizzare sense of morality irks me no end. It just doesn't jive with the conduct of previous incarnations.

I haven't seen the latest season (series) yet, so I can't say what David Tennant has done recently, but I'd throw a vote in for the eighth doctor in Genesis of the Daleks, which I recently caught. Everything was going fine right until the Doctor started moralizing why he couldn't kill the Daleks then and there in the past. He knows their M.O., he knows millions will die because of them, he knows they cannot be negotiated with, but he refuses to kill them the first go-around. He waxes poetic about how wrong it would be to take out this obvious scourge of the galaxy. What a dick. Only later does he finally realize he has to kill the young Daleks, and even then a Dalek conveniently rolls over the two wires necessary to set off the explosion, thereby keeping the Doctor's hands clean.

Plus he leaves before finishing the job. "Oh, they're trapped down there, but we've probably bought you 1,000 years or so. Good luck with that. We're out of here, see ya." I realize they couldn't finish the Daleks off once and for all, but his attitude in that one was abominable.

[Crazedwraith]

Genesis was a fourth Doctor Story, not Eighth. The Eighth doctor was the Movie Doctor.

[Pablo Sanchez]

The more plausible explanation to me was that the machines needed humans to solve various kinds of programming problems that they could not easily solve themselves, hence the elaborate simulation of 20th century Earth, including businesses that specialize in computer programming. After all, if you just needed humans for power, you could just keep them all in comas.

Or the machines never actually conquered humanity, but the surface was rendered uninhabitable as seen in the movies by some unknown cause--environmental damage from emerging super-science technologies, or whatever. The matrix was created by humans as a way to keep themselves alive and rather comfortable in perpetuity, with the machines in place to maintain the system. Kind of like the Pixar movie Wall-E. The humans in Zion can be explained either the way the films explain it (retardedly), or as a faction of weirdo hippies who decided to go live near the center of the Earth rather than get plugged in because they were too into eating whole grains and shit. This explains their bizarre rave-party lifestyle. The machines, who developed their own society, also developed their own mythology, and the retarded Second Renaissance stuff was just completely made up.

[CaptJodan]

Genesis was a fourth Doctor Story, not Eighth. The Eighth doctor was the Movie Doctor.

Ahh, right, sorry.

[PainRack]

There's some nice battletech stories that have unintended dickery involved. Camerello Commanches(Errr. or whatever), where House Kurita sent a merc unit to Towne so as to protect them against the Black Dragon Society, but ineveitably actually attracting above said attention there in the first place.


There's also the ending for MechCommander II. Ok... you just liberated Carver V by butchering the Steiners unit and the Cappies nobility,renaming it Freedom. Ok, the "people" are being supported by ex Davion forces, who retain significant links to House Davion........ now what? Carver V or Freedom can't stand on its own. The Chaos March already show how difficult independent worlds can stand on their own. Acamar and Genoa ultimately reverted to House Davion when they accepted their aid, even after Acamar had its own civil war between Liao Loyalists, the merchants Davionists and the Johnston confederation. And if Acamar is any evidence, just having your own government isn't going to stop said industries from screwing you over later in order to secure more mineral rights.

So, as a merc, you essentially decided to work for little or no pay in the last part of the campaign to "liberate" a people, only for them to eventually revert back to the status quo. Of course, the Jihad showed up which screwed Carver V even more, but hey, at least, that wasn't a forseeable consequence.

[PainRack]

There's also the ending for MechCommander II. Ok... you just liberated Carver V by butchering the Steiners unit and the Cappies nobility,renaming it Freedom. Ok, the "people" are being supported by ex Davion forces, who retain significant links to House Davion........ now what? Carver V or Freedom can't stand on its own. The Chaos March already show how difficult independent worlds can stand on their own. Acamar and Genoa ultimately reverted to House Davion when they accepted their aid, even after Acamar had its own civil war between Liao Loyalists, the merchants Davionists and the Johnston confederation. And if Acamar is any evidence, just having your own government isn't going to stop said industries from screwing you over later in order to secure more mineral rights.

So, as a merc, you essentially decided to work for little or no pay in the last part of the campaign to "liberate" a people, only for them to eventually revert back to the status quo. Of course, the Jihad showed up which screwed Carver V even more, but hey, at least, that wasn't a forseeable consequence.

Oops. I forgot to mention. Carver V was actually a Liao world in 3050/3052. So, you actually just inflicted a huge war on Liberty for nothing more than just consolidating Davion gain, well, that and a name change for Carver V.

[Block]

There's also the ending for MechCommander II. Ok... you just liberated Carver V by butchering the Steiners unit and the Cappies nobility,renaming it Freedom. Ok, the "people" are being supported by ex Davion forces, who retain significant links to House Davion........ now what? Carver V or Freedom can't stand on its own. The Chaos March already show how difficult independent worlds can stand on their own. Acamar and Genoa ultimately reverted to House Davion when they accepted their aid, even after Acamar had its own civil war between Liao Loyalists, the merchants Davionists and the Johnston confederation. And if Acamar is any evidence, just having your own government isn't going to stop said industries from screwing you over later in order to secure more mineral rights.

So, as a merc, you essentially decided to work for little or no pay in the last part of the campaign to "liberate" a people, only for them to eventually revert back to the status quo. Of course, the Jihad showed up which screwed Carver V even more, but hey, at least, that wasn't a forseeable consequence.

Oops. I forgot to mention. Carver V was actually a Liao world in 3050/3052. So, you actually just inflicted a huge war on Liberty for nothing more than just consolidating Davion gain, well, that and a name change for Carver V.

Yes but killing the Liao is its own reward. The Capellan confederation is the most annoying group in the BT universe.

[CaptHawkeye]

The lobby scene in the Matrix. Imagine this:

You're a security guard working long hours in a building. You're trying to support your family on your small income and boredom is a serious issue on the job. Here come a couple of people wearing trench coats and shades. Dang Hot Topic punks. Ok, give 'em the usual check before letting them in and-

What the fuck, that asshole just unloaded a machine gun into me and then killed all my buddies. Thanks a lot, fucker. Oh, you're here to rescue your friend? Well, by all means then, go and ahead and MURDER anyone who gets into your path without any warning, mercy, or hesitation.

Then they kill the SWAT team that went in after the pair of psychopaths who just hosed a couple rent-a-cops. Then they blow up part of the building for no discernable reason.

Now imagine this: you're a single mom, raising a kid, you need money after paying for your husband's funeral, you're working two jobs, and you happen to glance out the window at the office where you work as a secretary just before a fucking helicopter comes through it and messily splatters you like a gerbil in a blender. Then it explodes and kills all your co-workers too.

Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus ride off into the sunset, blissfully ignoring the innocent lives they just snuffed out, either unintentionally or quite deliberately.

These are the assholes who are supposed to save humanity? Look, if saving me from the machines involves KILLING ME and anyone else who happens to be present when you're waltzing through the area, do me a favor: go fuck yourself and drop the 'hero' schtick.

Every time I bring this up to a Matrix fan, they excuse it by "well, those people could have been turned into agents at any time". Yeah, and anyone in this country during the Cold War could have been a Russian spy, but we didn't fucking exterminate the entire population "just in case", now did we.

How about all the poor people just driving to work/home or taking their families on vacation who got shot, blown up, wrecked, or otherwise horribly maimed and killed during the highway chase?

Gosh those movies sucked. And not just because the so-called heroes were total dicks.

Hey, nice copy-past skills straight from cracked.com you got there. Not even a quote box. Cute.

[Thanas]

I'm going to have to cast a vote for The Doctor (of Doctor Who fame for those unfamiliar) on this one, specifically the contemporary David Tennant Doctor. Doctor Number Ten. His frankly bizzare sense of morality irks me no end. It just doesn't jive with the conduct of previous incarnations.

Whereas, the Doctor of older serials was quite willing to eliminate his enemies or use weapons (albeit with reluctance), this incarnation seems to have lost all sense. He's become pointlessly conflicted.

He condemns Harriet Jones for eliminating a scourge that could have menaced other species (the Sycorax), enables The Master to kill millions but does nothing to prevent it when he was fully able to due to sentimentality and still attempts to reason with the Sontarans when they're about to depopulate Earth (despite being fully aware of their M.O.).

Meanwhile, one-note villains like the Family of Blood suffer fates worse than death. I guess you need to have some sort of attachment to the good Doctor or have commited genocide on a monstrous scale in order to earn his mercy. He's grown senile. Plus, there are times when I can't stand Tennant's expressive over-acting, but that's another issue.

He's nothing but a moral cripple with delusions of grandeur if you ask me.

Let's also not forget JE, which takes the cake for all kinds of dickery.

[Coyote]

Getthefuckouttahere! He cribbed that from Cracked.com?

Right in the shadows of the Wanderer Plagiarism scandal?

We just got the fucking guillotine cleaned!

[CaptHawkeye]

Found the article I was thinking of, he didn't copy it verbatim. So i'll withdraw the charge.

[darthbob88]

While we're on the subject of the Matrix: this. If the Matrix "knows" the location of every individual out there, and the details for that location, and has methods available for setting location of individuals, and values for those details, then you don't even need to fly around or kung-fu your way to victory. setTemperature(neo.getLocation(), VERY_HOT);
Neo is dead and the movie is over, with one line of code. Granted, this makes certain assumptions about how the Matrix operates, but it still seems a reasonable hypothesis.

[Gaidin]

While we're on the subject of the Matrix: this. If the Matrix "knows" the location of every individual out there, and the details for that location, and has methods available for setting location of individuals, and values for those details, then you don't even need to fly around or kung-fu your way to victory. setTemperature(neo.getLocation(), VERY_HOT);
Neo is dead and the movie is over, with one line of code. Granted, this makes certain assumptions about how the Matrix operates, but it still seems a reasonable hypothesis.

One might argue that given the setup and the necessity of choice, while the Deus Ex Machina might have all of that data, he might be blocking the agents off from it.

[Swindle1984]

The lobby scene in the Matrix. Imagine this:

You're a security guard working long hours in a building. You're trying to support your family on your small income and boredom is a serious issue on the job. Here come a couple of people wearing trench coats and shades. Dang Hot Topic punks. Ok, give 'em the usual check before letting them in and-

What the fuck, that asshole just unloaded a machine gun into me and then killed all my buddies. Thanks a lot, fucker. Oh, you're here to rescue your friend? Well, by all means then, go and ahead and MURDER anyone who gets into your path without any warning, mercy, or hesitation.

Then they kill the SWAT team that went in after the pair of psychopaths who just hosed a couple rent-a-cops. Then they blow up part of the building for no discernable reason.

Now imagine this: you're a single mom, raising a kid, you need money after paying for your husband's funeral, you're working two jobs, and you happen to glance out the window at the office where you work as a secretary just before a fucking helicopter comes through it and messily splatters you like a gerbil in a blender. Then it explodes and kills all your co-workers too.

Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus ride off into the sunset, blissfully ignoring the innocent lives they just snuffed out, either unintentionally or quite deliberately.

These are the assholes who are supposed to save humanity? Look, if saving me from the machines involves KILLING ME and anyone else who happens to be present when you're waltzing through the area, do me a favor: go fuck yourself and drop the 'hero' schtick.

Every time I bring this up to a Matrix fan, they excuse it by "well, those people could have been turned into agents at any time". Yeah, and anyone in this country during the Cold War could have been a Russian spy, but we didn't fucking exterminate the entire population "just in case", now did we.

How about all the poor people just driving to work/home or taking their families on vacation who got shot, blown up, wrecked, or otherwise horribly maimed and killed during the highway chase?

Gosh those movies sucked. And not just because the so-called heroes were total dicks.

Hey, nice copy-past skills straight from cracked.com you got there. Not even a quote box. Cute.

I didn't copy and paste it, fucktard. I read it years ago when it first came out and happened to agree wholeheartedly.