SF Military Tropes

[Marcus Aurelius]

Not that other series are any better of course. Nevermind Pensacola, is there ANY military B5 main character who ISN'T qualified to do infantry work, close combat, fighter combat, infiltration/guerrilla work AND command a starship?

None of the commissioned naval officers have extensive infantry training in B5, but like most Military Academy trained commissioned officers in real life, they do have some training in handling personal weapons and basic infantry tactics. There's nothing really extraordinary in that. They all also seem to have Starfury training, which may be a bit of a stretch, but Starfuries have extensive computer assist, so they are not quite as difficult to fly as modern fighter jets.

The infantry specialist in B5 is Garibaldi, who has actual infantry combat experience from the Minbari War and whatever training senior NCOs get in B5-verse. He is NOT qualified to command a starship and rarely does so (actually I can't remember if he ever does). He is qualified to fly a Starfury, which is presumably something he learned to do after taking the position as the security chief of B5. However, we do not see Garibaldi pulling any really heroic fighter jock stuff, so there is no reason to assume that he is very good at it.

As for infitration/guerrilla work; most of that is done by Marcus, who has very extensive Ranger training just for that. Some is also done by G'Kar, who used to be an actual guerrilla in his youth, and Garibaldi, who also has many of the qualities needed for such work.

[Bladed_Crescent]

They all also seem to have Starfury training, which may be a bit of a stretch, but Starfuries have extensive computer assist, so they are not quite as difficult to fly as modern fighter jets.

On B5 senior staff and piloting skills: this is mentioned in one episode - can't remember the name, but it's where Sheridan's out practicing. Ivanova comments to someone else - Marcus, I think? - that being certified on fighters gives an officer a pay bump, but to keep their certification (and the extra money) they have to log X hours over Y time.

However, we do not see Garibaldi pulling any really heroic fighter jock stuff, so there is no reason to assume that he is very good at it.

Indeed; if memory serves, Ivanova is the only one that flies in combat regularly. Garibaldi flew in the season five opener, where he was suitless (and really hoping that he didn't hit anything - if he was a SO AWESOME fighter jock, he'd probably have been less worried, even with no suit) and in the third season end, where Ivanova was in C&C. It seems to be EarthForce - or at least Babylon 5 - tradition to have a senior officer present in major sorties. Normally, this is Ivanova (Severed Dreams, Thirdspace, etc), except in the third season when they had Keffer.

[Uraniun235]

However, we do not see Garibaldi pulling any really heroic fighter jock stuff, so there is no reason to assume that he is very good at it.

Indeed; if memory serves, Ivanova is the only one that flies in combat regularly. Garibaldi flew in the season five opener, where he was suitless (and really hoping that he didn't hit anything - if he was a SO AWESOME fighter jock, he'd probably have been less worried, even with no suit) and in the third season end, where Ivanova was in C&C. It seems to be EarthForce - or at least Babylon 5 - tradition to have a senior officer present in major sorties. Normally, this is Ivanova (Severed Dreams, Thirdspace, etc), except in the third season when they had Keffer.

Ah, Garibaldi flew suited-up in combat in season 1 against the Raiders as well. I'm guessing from a production standpoint this came down more to having a regular speaking actor representing the second squadron than anything else - you're paying these guys big bucks every episode, you might as well get all the use out of them you can.

[PeZook]

Choosing your Enemy: Special Forces avoid pitched stand-up battles whenever possible. If they come across a unit that is significantly larger than them, they let it pass, and when possible, pass the word on about that unit. ("This is Fox Five, large amount of VC entering grid square FG51, recommend artillery strike in battalion strength to eliminate VC").

Oh, yeah. I see it all too often, and not just in fan fiction: the idea that SF troops are just plain better than "normal" infantry. It's everywhere, from books to computer games.

They're very specialized for a very narrow field of work, and the moment they try to directly stand up to, say, a mech infantry company, they'll get pasted. Even simple light infantry is a big threat, because there's usually more of them, and in the typical scenario, they have the home field advantage.

For an example: the Soviets had gigantic numbers "special forces" units detailed to various duties ; Plenty of those would be used as saboteurs and partisans behind NATO lines, and it was expected they'd eventually suffer crippling casualties or be totally destroyed. But it was okay ; When a saboteur unit found and destroyed even a nuke-tipped missile battery or radioed in the location of a supply convoy, they more than made up the cost of their training.

[SylasGaunt]

Actually no. See: Honor Harrington for very egregious example of that. Honor is not just a excellent Starship captain, but she's also execellent in everything!

Eh, Honor's an example of a character who's got a few too many things they're awesome at, but it's not a case of 'Degree in Military' considering that aside from being a starship captain none of the rest of that is stuff she was taught as part of her training, it's all from her extracurricular activities.

Probably a better example is the check from AVP:R who can drive strykers and fly helicopters with no explanation as to why other than that she's military.

[Lost Soal]

Indeed; if memory serves, Ivanova is the only one that flies in combat regularly. Garibaldi flew in the season five opener, where he was suitless (and really hoping that he didn't hit anything - if he was a SO AWESOME fighter jock, he'd probably have been less worried, even with no suit)

He wasn't worried about about hitting something, he was worried that the fighters structural integrity would fail due to two linked Starfuries attempting to fly in opposite directions.

[Shroom Man 777]

PeZook. Yes, Soviet military logic is very pragmatic, logical and practical. Just like in that movie, Zvezda (The Star), they see infantry - even special forces operators - as a tool used to attain an objective, and when the cost/benefit ratio is good enough, they're willing to use them as an expendable asset to reach and complete an objective. Often, these objectives aren't even glorious, and just involve information on the enemy's forces and disposition. Yet this information is crucial, worth enough for the HQ to sacrifice special forces on in order to gain information that will give the conventional forces of the army a greater strategic advantage over that of the enemy's.

Really, special forces aren't an end-all-be-all war-winning battle-busting badass force, they're just another facet of combined arms tactics, another chess piece in the game of war. I love how Russian cinema portrayed them, so unlike dramatized American depictions. Heh.

In truth, even in American military, this is pretty much the same. Lots of those dead American soldiers, even those former football player heroes, died because they went to do a relatively inglorious mission of patrolling or reconnoitering enemy positions in order to give information for their commanders to get a better picture of the battlefield. They don't say this in the news, they don't say that SF operators do vital but not so glamorous stuff and that they die for seemingly trivial reasons.

So it's up to the movies and other fictions to glamorize their exploits, to make people feel better, to build up mythos and perception of how badass SF is. The more warped and ridiculous the perspective, the better! Which leads to fatty nerds making lol tropes, am i rite?

[PeZook]

Hey, I just realized I've seen that movie! And it was actually really great, one of the best war movies I've ever watched, as far as dramatism is concerned. Too bad about the downer ending, but it seems Russians in general don't tend to glamorize war as much as Americans.

[open_sketchbook]

Of course, the only reason any of this stuff gets done is that is that a small ragtag group of six guys setting off against the evil army is a much, much more compelling story that the story of the 220 professionals in Third Army Recon, Bravo Company for the simple reason that it is impossible to get attached to two hundred and twenty dudes. Every one of these tropes evolved out of the need to make those six soldiers stand a chance.

[SAMAS]

However, we do not see Garibaldi pulling any really heroic fighter jock stuff, so there is no reason to assume that he is very good at it.

Indeed; if memory serves, Ivanova is the only one that flies in combat regularly. Garibaldi flew in the season five opener, where he was suitless (and really hoping that he didn't hit anything - if he was a SO AWESOME fighter jock, he'd probably have been less worried, even with no suit) and in the third season end, where Ivanova was in C&C. It seems to be EarthForce - or at least Babylon 5 - tradition to have a senior officer present in major sorties. Normally, this is Ivanova (Severed Dreams, Thirdspace, etc), except in the third season when they had Keffer.

Ah, Garibaldi flew suited-up in combat in season 1 against the Raiders as well. I'm guessing from a production standpoint this came down more to having a regular speaking actor representing the second squadron than anything else - you're paying these guys big bucks every episode, you might as well get all the use out of them you can.

That's why the trope happens in the first place. If your characters are all pilots, and you want to do a ground action episode, just use the cast you got instead of having to hire another five or six guys.

[The Yosemite Bear]

No one suffers from PTSD in Mil Sci Fi


Except in Anime, where the most effective soliders are stressed out basket cases.

[Simon_Jester]

No one suffers from PTSD in Mil Sci Fi

Hmm... one exception that comes to mind is David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series. Some of the characters are pretty damn shell-shocked.

[The Yosemite Bear]

and some of them are so beyond th pale that they shouldn't even be near any weapons (Stuebens comes to mind)

[Ford Prefect]

A superman seems to me that it would be even less than useless, but might even be counterproductive. Soldiers don't work alone; you want team players, not guys who think they can do it all on their own.

And you can't make teams of them for what reason? Just because you have outright superhuman ability doesn't necessarily make you inherently incapable of working with other (equally superhuman) soldiers. Even Halo had that and it fucking runs on a messianic-army-of-one-chosen-saviour-of-mankind-super-duper-amazo-soldier.

[Simon_Jester]

and some of them are so beyond th pale that they shouldn't even be near any weapons (Stuebens comes to mind)

Steuben isn't a PTSD case. He's a giggly psychopath. Kept around by the colonel because he's a useful maniac-on-a-leash.

[Setzer]

Actually Shep, logical outcomes aren't always 100% prevalent. Sometimes, in the real world, logic is utterly irrelevant. Emotions or completely random whims and desire outmaneuver it.

I prefer Chaos Theory. This leads to that and so on and so forth. And unlike logic, its easy to get the average guy to understand and listen to.

This leads to that sounds more like Cause and Effect then Chaos theory. The very idea behind Chaos is that it's chaotic. There's no step in the an observation where you can point at a given process and say "This happened because of that, A led to B, and would have gone on to D but was stopped by C"

Hmmm, an example?


Is the stereotypical badass lonewolf doing better than eight or ten of himself a good one that gets annoying and outright ludicrous at times?

A Bad ass lone wolf doing better then eight or ten of himself? But if the Bad ass lone wolf is the baseline example, then how can he do better then eight or ten of himself? That's like saying I'm stronger and can carry more then eight or ten of me.

I thought Call of Duty 4 had a nice portrayal of special forces troops in that mission where they had to defend a hilltop position untill they could be extracted.

They took some time setting up charges at prepared positions, then used machine gun fire to trick the enemy into thinking they were a larger force. They fall back when the enemy blasts their position with mortars, then set off the first group of charges as the enemy charges up the hill. Whenever the SAS guys have to fight a large number of enemies, they always had support on hand, be it local allies or an AC-130.

[Aaron]

No one suffers from PTSD in Mil Sci Fi

Hmm... one exception that comes to mind is David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series. Some of the characters are pretty damn shell-shocked.

They pop up on occasion in 40K, Kage from The Last Chancers is a good example. Though he's also a psychopath.

[Sarevok]

No one suffers from PTSD in Mil Sci Fi

Hmm... one exception that comes to mind is David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series. Some of the characters are pretty damn shell-shocked.

That is not surprise considering the author fought in the Vietnam war. Sometimes I wonder can someone who has never been in the army write Military Fiction as good as someone did ?

[Aaron]

That is not surprise considering the author fought in the Vietnam war. Sometimes I wonder can someone who has never been in the army write Military Fiction as good as someone did ?

I consider Drake to be the exception to military sci-fi, guys like John Ringo and that guy who wrote Freehold are just plain awful.

[harbringer]

I agree that in most SF there is a lack of specialists and too many go all out with the odds and justify them somehow. That said it is popular otherwise all the Honour Harrington books would never have sold. In reality most special groups in a army whether it is artillery or Spec Forces use people that are more or less the same just with different training, we have not yet gone to eugenics to solve recruitment in special forces or fighter pilots. As others have quite rightly said sometimes it is the personality or mental abilities that differ, sometimes it is just outlook (not every successful armour commander in WW2 came from armour or cavalry for example).

Perhaps it is more appropriate to ask what do you think soldiers require and why isn't this list that is put into books?. Training has since the beginning of warfare improved the odds of victory as has discipline with the roman legions one of the most cited examples. Initiative is important, you not only need a soldier to do his job within his training but he also needs to see opportunity and use it to advantage. Equipment is another obvious one but something that is highly dependent on it being used well in the right circumstances. Good leadership is especially important at lower levels but also right up to the top of the chain of command, good soldiers badly led might sometimes win but will lose more then they should. Viable tactics and strategy, while this belongs under training and equipment there is a long history of mistakes that have lead to needless casualties, most often this is referred to as fighting the last war but would also include the WW2 U.S. AT gun defence theory which slowed development of armoured units and gifted allied forces with the M10 TD which was a dead end in armoured evolution. Lastly is a diverse set of capabilities, there should be the ability to use light forces for counter insurgency or heavy armoured units for open warfare - there will not be a one size (or budget cuts for politicians) fits all approach. I think it is hard to show large engagements in books or on screen and this is partly the reason, you need to relate to a character and that means you have to develop the character. I feel the military and warfare are things like driving - you need to do to understand, and even some jobs are harder to relate to without experience. I guess those two reasons alone would be enough still I'm sure many of you wouldn't agree with me so I will say that this is all my opinions and your free to.

[Teleros]

I agree that in most SF there is a lack of specialists and too many go all out with the odds and justify them somehow.

One of the things I did make a point of adding into my sci-fi setting (see sig) is direct information downloads to people's brains. Which is both an easy cop-out for much of this (although there's still training required, specialists definitely still exist, and not every military skill you learn is learnt solely by the brain), and potentially creepy enough for some interesting plot developments.

Of course this also does away with things like "going to school", but that's another subject entirely.

[Coyote]

There's a difference between guys who are psychopaths in uniform, and guys who are PTSD. Someone who joins an army at war to get in touch with their inner Hannibal Lecter is not the same as a normal guy who goes to war and comes back haunted by the things he's seen, done, and had happen around him.

One of the few good PTSD characterizations I have seen in military sci-fi was the character Nog in Deep Space Nine. After losing his leg in a desperate battle, he becomes inwardly-focused, unable to cope or socialize, and retreated into a fantasy game world for days on end. He was edgy when people asked him about what happened, and irritated by people who wanted to hear "war stories".

It's sad that Nog's tale is a rare exception in a field of science fiction. Writers briefly touched on Picard's PTSD after the Borg, but it got quickly swept under the carpet and only trotted out once or twice afterwards when it seemed that he needed an "edge" to make a scene work-- and then it went back into storage.

[Simon_Jester]

That is not surprise considering the author fought in the Vietnam war. Sometimes I wonder can someone who has never been in the army write Military Fiction as good as someone did ?

They'd have to really, really stretch themselves, and be very good.

The problem is that the military experience is extremely foreign to the civilian experience, and that in societies with a volunteer military there isn't much cross-flow between the two worlds. Authors whose experience is entirely civilian are going to run into problems writing a war story, because their motive is to write a story about war. Most authors don't take the time to do years of research before writing a book (and would make a damn sight less money if they did). So versimilitude gets sacrificed for the sake of simplicity and story-telling tropes.

Whereas when you look at military-experienced authors... well, the best example is David Drake, who has come right out and said that writing has been a form of therapy for him. He wasn't just writing stories about soldiers because they'd make good stories; he was writing them because they were in some peculiar sense "true." And it shows.

But I think it may have to be combat experience to achieve the result, and the writer has to be the right kind of "good:" inherently willing to place characterization over plot. John Ringo, for example, had peacetime service in the airborne infantry, doesn't he? And yet he still writes cheesy military SF, because writing realistic depictions of soldiers isn't really his top priority. With Drake, the characters are larger than the plot: the events that are happening are secondary compared to the sort of people they happen to. Which is why we remember Major Steuben, the scary-as-hell psychopath, more vividly than we remember any of the planets we've seen him on.

With Ringo, it's almost always the other way around.

[Darth Wong]

I agree that in most SF there is a lack of specialists and too many go all out with the odds and justify them somehow.

One of the things I did make a point of adding into my sci-fi setting (see sig) is direct information downloads to people's brains. Which is both an easy cop-out for much of this (although there's still training required, specialists definitely still exist, and not every military skill you learn is learnt solely by the brain), and potentially creepy enough for some interesting plot developments.

Of course this also does away with things like "going to school", but that's another subject entirely.

Have any sci-fi authors ever tackled the fact that this technology would have, as an inevitable side-effect, the ability to significantly alter someone's personality?

[Aaron]

Have any sci-fi authors ever tackled the fact that this technology would have, as an inevitable side-effect, the ability to significantly alter someone's personality?

Bill Kings novel Space Wolf notes this. The primary character,a Space Marine initiate named Ragnar notes that the teaching machines are altering his personality and reinforcing his dedication to the Emperor and his Primarch but he considers the information he is receiving to be worth the cost.