Why Charles Stross Hates Star Trek 809
daria42 writes "British sci-fi author Charles Stross has confessed that he has long hated the Star Trek franchise for its relegation of technology as irrelevant to plot and character development — and the same goes for similar shows such as Babylon Five. The problem, according to Stross, is that as Battlestar Galactica creator Ron Moore has described in a recent speech, the writers of Star Trek would simply 'insert' technology or science into the script whenever needed, without any real regard to its significance; 'then they'd have consultants fill in the appropriate words (aka technobabble) later.'"
Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Scalzi was spot on [scalzi.com] in addressing this. I thought his second point was the best containing a couple great quotes - "At this point in my life (and, really, for the last quarter century at least), I simply make the assumption that film and television science fiction is going to hump the bunk on the 'plausible extrapolation' aspect of their science, and factor that in before I start watching." and "But, yes, when you admit that Star Trek has as much to do with plausibly extrapolated science as The A-Team has to do with a realistic look at the lives of military veterans, life gets easier. "
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Interesting)
To distill his point into two words "NERD RAGE!!!!"
He says that he doesn't like Star Trek, and gives reasons why.
Star Trek fans interpret his words as a hostile attack on their beloved icon, no matter what his intent.
Similarly:
Someone claims they don't like Christianity and gives examples of why.
Christians (especially fanatics) interpret his words as a hostile attack on their beloved icon, no matter what his intent.
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Funny)
Ob. Futurama reference:
And so, the Trek fans were killed in the manner most befitting virgins.
[Guy on mountain throws a Trek fan into a volcano.]
He's dead, Jim.
[Repeat]
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
So essentially, he should repeat to himself "It's just a show, I should really just relax"?
I think the point was "It's a TV show about something besides the daily life of being a writer for a TV show: odds are it's going to get nearly everything wrong, it's nothing specific to science." Look at CSI: anything. The science AND the justice system in that show only vaguely resemble real forensic science or our real justice system. Or how our cops actually look or act for that matter.
To get even more ridiculous, look at MTV's "real world" and tell me that anything in the actual real world (outside of wherever they're filming) shares anything in common with it.
Anyway, of course the science is going to be an absurd prop in star trek. That said, star trek did often take even bigger liberties with reality than most other shows. I occasionally watched episodes of various star trek series until I saw on Voyager an episode where a virus takes up Klingon growth hormones and suddenly the things are the size of flies flying around, infecting all species with stingers. That oddly was a line too far.
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't the weakness of the science, actually. It's the weakness of the sociology! It's inconceivable to me that a creation like the transporter wouldn't radically transform human culture and society into something unrecognizable. There are technologies of bio-technological intervention that get trotted out regularly, yet we still are told that people would be quite satisfied with a 100-year life span, more or less. I won't even mention time-travel.
An interesting speculation about an improbable or even impossible technology is more compelling to me than cliches and failures of conjecture wrapped around sound technologies.
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
As Scott Adams says; "The Holodeck will be mankind's last great invention". I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to work out why we'd never ever want to leave.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is what is missing from so much science fiction. The really great science fiction isn't just about gadgets and aliens, it's about how humans and human culture will adapt to the new landscape. We've been doing it for thousands of years, and we'll just keep on doing it! So many people miss that, and I'm glad I'm not the only one that doesn't.
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Star Trek wasn't really about science, imo, so much as about society. Most episodes were about taking some modern social issue and turning it on its head to illustrate a point.
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
Star Trek wasn't really about science, imo, so much as about society. Most episodes were about taking some modern social issue and turning it on its head to illustrate a point.
Star Trek did a good job on a few modern issues but the society portrayed in Star Trek is really hard to swallow. No greed, no economy, no (or few, depending on which show/episode you watch) enlisted personnel, etc, etc. I rather liked when Eddington ripped the Federation apart: "I know you. I was like you once, but then I opened my eyes. Open your eyes, Captain. Why is the Federation so obsessed about the Maquis? We've never harmed you. And yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands, and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators so that one day they can take their rightful place on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you're worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious... you assimilate people and they don't even know it. "
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Huh, I don't remember that episode. I do remember the Voyager one where Paris and Janeway get it on as some sort of ultra-evolved alligator but can be miraculously returned to normal by the doctor. Something about reaching Warp 10... or did theirs go to 11?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, Jesus. That was actually an episode? I remembered that story, but attributed it acute food poisoning and hallucinations.
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:4, Funny)
Feel the agony... [agonybooth.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
*puts on sunglasses*
...delivered a KILLER one-liner.
*sound effect: YEEAAAAH*
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>if it got the science 100% right, then we too would already be in The Future (tm).
Um yeah..... except even though we may not know the future, we still know there are certain things that are simply impossible. Giant viruses can't exist because the sheer weight of their internal liquid would make them either collapse flat to the ground, or burst open like a water balloon. Same applies to those movies which show ants scaled to the size of a house - they would suffocate (no lungs to circulate the air internally). In another example Babylon 5 described Jupiter's temperature as about -400 degrees Celsius. Too bad that's impossible since it's below absolute zero (-273 celsius).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.rhjunior.com/QQSR/00023.html [rhjunior.com] Been liking this guys take on it:P
Old Man's War (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is that popular TV is not designed to make you think. It is designed to entertain the masses who generally just want a bit of light bubbly stuff with some flesh and a bit of drama/action. That's why a great film like Bladerunner never really made it at the box office. It actually makes you think.
In the book world it's the same. Ask the general public if they've ever heard of Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle or Ray Bradbury. Outside of Sci-Fi, ask them about Rudyard Kipling or even Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Negative again. Dan Brown? Yeah they know him. Badly researched badly written brainless rubbish, but he sells books in the millions. That is the way of the world.
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"But, yes, when you admit that Star Trek has as much to do with plausibly extrapolated science as The A-Team has to do with a realistic look at the lives of military veterans, life gets easier. "
Relevant YouTube video [youtube.com].
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Funny)
What the A-Team taught me was that all it takes to build an impregnable armored vehicle is a few empty 50 gallon drums. We'd have this Afghanistan thing wrapped up tomorrow if they could just ship a bunch of vans, empty 50 gal. drums and a welding torch or two over there.
the magic ingredient (Score:5, Insightful)
What the A-Team taught me was that all it takes to build an impregnable armored vehicle is a few empty 50 gallon drums. We'd have this Afghanistan thing wrapped up tomorrow if they could just ship a bunch of vans, empty 50 gal. drums and a welding torch or two over there.
50 gallon drums... and Mr. T.
Re:the magic ingredient (Score:5, Funny)
..and if they had McGuyver it'd be sorted in 10 minutes with his bootlaces.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Television has any number of tropes.
One of them is the idea that human nature doesn't change over time. You get the same basic plotlines in pro wrestling, daytime soap operas, evening emo teenybopper soaps (buffy, angel, etc), scifi series... the only difference is the trappings of the medium.
Of course, the same has been said about literature. People argue about the number of basic plots [straightdope.com], but the theory - that if you look long enough, you'll find something that you are repeating "close enough". The same is
"Why Charles Stross Hates Star Trek" (Score:4, Insightful)
Cos he's a contrarian little prick, who can't appreciate Nichelle Nichols flashing a little bit of red panties?
What's not to like, apart from the - easily overlooked - semitophillic and globalist/military world-government metaphor?
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
The "red matter" schmaltz was the absolute worst part of what wasn't all that bad a film. Couldn't they have come up with something better than that? In a movie that was trying explicitely to move away from the way Trek had been treated since ST:TNG, it went an invoked the absolute worst aspects of the later TV series and movies. As technobabble BS goes, "red matter" may actually have been the very worst.
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Come on, if it were TNG-style technobabble, it would have been called "red tachyon transflux material" and had a five minute long exposition of how it was produced. I won't defend the plot point, but it's clear by picking a 'dumb' name they were explicitly avoiding that sort of thing.
Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score:5, Insightful)
The "red matter" schmaltz was the absolute worst part of what wasn't all that bad a film.
You thought that was the worst part? I thought the worst part was the cliched "Give us the secret defense codes that render Earth completely helpless" subplot after Pike gets captured. I would have stood up and cheered if he had spit in Nero's face and said something along the lines of "Do you really think Starfleet is stupid enough to entrust that sort of information to a mere Captain?"
Just consider the idea of capturing a O-6 from the US Military. Do you really think he has information on the arming codes for all our nuclear weapons? The disposition of all forces deployed to defend CONUS? Not very likely.
Looking good in those tights (Score:5, Funny)
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The above should not have been modded offtopic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ICpoWtFFzc [youtube.com]
hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, anti-plot. Very dangerous stuff. It's red and even though it only takes a few drops of anti-plot to take out an entire world, Spock flew around in a ship with enough of it to take out just about every populated planet of significance. 'Cause you just never know when you'll need more anti-plot.
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
You're thinking of 'deus ex machina' [wikipedia.org], which is a plot device along the lines of "and suddenly a god-like being appeared and fixed everything". It's the fate of all lazy fiction and, sadly, it's not restricted to sci-fi - although the opportunity to invent suitable technobabble does make it rather easier.
Deux ex machina? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're thinking of 'deus ex machina' [wikipedia.org], which is a plot device along the lines of "and suddenly a god-like being appeared and fixed everything"...
You mean Q? Not only did he fix everything, he even caused everything.
Re:Deux ex machina? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
> The thing that annoyed me the most about Star Trek, and it was most common in the Next Generation, was
> the idiotic idea of solving a made-up scientific problem with made-up technology. It has no value to a
> plot; actually it's the opposite of plot, if there is such a thing.
"contrived" is probably the word you're looking for.
However, how contrived the plot is isn't really the point; the real question is whether or not it makes good TV, and the proof is in the pudding (especially for TNG). TV shows are, after all, entertainment and not great literary works. (Indeed, the two don't frequently go hand-in-hand...)
Regardless, sci-fi generally means made-up technology, and made-up technology problems. Sometimes these can be/are solved by going back to human ingenuity or 'old-school' tech, but sometimes they need to be solved with more made-up technology. That's just kinda how things go. For example, if you had someone hacking your critical (pulling the plug isn't an option) system, you may have to, say, "reconfigure the firewall". If this were the 1920's and computers were made-up technology, then the whole situation would appear contrived, though from our perspective it's not.
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The thing that annoyed me the most about Star Trek, and it was most common in the Next Generation, was the idiotic idea of solving a made-up scientific problem with made-up technology. It has no value to a plot; actually it's the opposite of plot, if there is such a thing.
Different people are satisfied with different levels of explanation. I'm not surprised a sci-fi author is dissatisfied with another sci-fi writer's work. Possibly could explain the great divide between Star Wars and Star Trek fans. Rarely was a hyperdrive or the force explained in great detail in Star Wars but Star Trek seemed to like to take it a couple steps further. And when they got into midichlorians [wikipedia.org] just to measure the force it presented a possible science to the force or an explanation and the fa
The ST bible (Score:5, Interesting)
Roddenberry's bible on the original ST explicitly said that no solution to any plot issue/conflict may ever be resolved by a technological solution -- interpersonal relations/social behavior needed to resolve things.
This was thrown out in TNG, which is why it sucked monkies.
The best science fiction is represented by PKD, not Varley. It's the society and the people and ideas that matter in any fiction, not the gears and details of the tech.
Re:The ST bible (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh TNG did that sort of plot resolution, too. As exciting as the original Borg episodes were (before they became THE Star Trek cliche), they were ultimately beaten by technobabble.
I happened to watch the ST:TOS episode "The Doomsday Machine" a couple of months ago, and was struck by how the technological solution wasn't some sort of "We'll rephase or photon torpedoes to use Delta Wave Radiation, which will cause a photonic shift that will destabilize its neutronic shields!" It was a good old fashioned (and reasonably plausible) matter-anti-matter explosion.
While TOS went off on some weird tangents at times, a lot of the writing seemed more grounded in 1950s-1960s hard SF than the later series were. The later seasons of TNG, after Roddenberry's influence decreased, began tending towards these sort of technobabble solutions to technobabble problems. DS9 didn't have too much of it, but Voyager and Enterprise used it to the point of insanity.
Re:The ST bible (Score:4, Insightful)
DS9 had its problems (the whole Sisco is the Chosen crap I found pretty abysmal), but it was still a lot more interesting than the later seasons of TNG, and far more watchable than Voyager and the even more repugnantly awful Enterprise. The latter two left me cold. They were made up of uninteresting, flat characters, dull and derivative story lines, and where they did try to get philosophical, unlike TOS and TNG, simply came off as preachy and banal. By those two series, it was definitely Trek From A Tomb.
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
What happens if you mix plot and anti-plot together?!
Battlefield Earth.
Uh oh, trolls dead ahead... (Score:4, Funny)
Cmdr Taco, more apply more tech to the tech!
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And ST is being picked on.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's not unique to ST and Stross doesn't claim it is, but it's probably the worst culprit. It tended to play a kind of Deus ex Machina with $RANDOM_TECH_DEVICE to solve the problem.
Re:And ST is being picked on.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Firefly was awesome. The first televised episode when Mal kicked a guy through the intake of the ships engine I knew that it was going to be substantially different than any sci-fi I'd seen on t.v. in some time. They also did some cool things to help suspend disbelief, which were picked up by BSG. Fortunately BSG for BSG fans, the show got more viewers and lasted longer than Firefly - though I think it owed Firefly a huge debt for the look, tone, etc.
Re:And ST is being picked on.... (Score:4, Informative)
Fyi, Zoic Studios [wikipedia.org] was responsible for the effects in both Firefly and BSG, which is why they both looked so good :-)
Re:And ST is being picked on.... (Score:5, Funny)
...why exactly? How is ST any different from any other sci-fi series like BSG or Firefly? It's not as if those show have any less technobabble or are any less characters-first-technology-second.
It's simple, Stross is just annoyed that his talk at Mountain View about his book "Halting State" [youtube.com] has received a mere 6,200 views while Leonard Nimoy's toe tapping dance number "Bilbo Baggins" [youtube.com] has garnered more than a million views and taken the country by storm.
Re:And ST is being picked on.... (Score:5, Informative)
Young man, you will bite your tongue after speaking of Firefly with such disrespect!
Compare the technobabble of TNG to Firefly. How many times did the tachyon thing have to get reversed, repolarized, resynchronized or whatever in order to solve some time spacial anomaly?
Firefly ep Out of Gas:
And that's about as "technobabble to assist the plot" as Firefly got.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, here's a crude (and not necessarily accurate) chart of series' technobabble quotient, with 100 being equal to a typical pop sci program on Discovery. (Technobabble that is consistent in the series is not considered true technobabble, as it becomes part of the workings of that universe.)
Star Trek - TOS: 500
Star Trek - TNG: 600
Star Trek - Voyager: 500
Star Trek - DS9: 600
Doctor Who - Original: 200
Doctor Who - New Series: 300
Blake's 7: 200
Sapphire and Steel: 125
The Omega Factor: 150
Day of the Triffids: 110
S
Just enjoy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just enjoy... (Score:5, Insightful)
One reason to critique stupid media is that it contributes to a culture of stupidity. When people who congratulate themselves on their intelligence are often devoted to work that fails on so many levels, it's symptomatic of other problems.
I think that your "leave it alone, it's just entertainment" is also myopic, in that I bet you don't feel any compunctions about feeling superior to those who like professional wrestling and monster truck rallies.
Given the enduring popularity of Star Trek, et. al (Score:5, Insightful)
If I want education, I'll watch Science/Discovery/History . . . better yet, I'll read a book. When I want entertainment, I want entertainment. Obviously, I'm not alone in feeling that Star Trek/Babylon 5/Firefly et. al. provide that.
Re:Given the enduring popularity of Star Trek, et. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yo,
If you watch science/discover/history channels, I hate to break it to you, but there ain't no educational purpose to any of those shows. I know, because I've been cast as an "expert" on no less than eight of them. It's all about entertainment baby.
Want to really learn something, shut off the TV and read a book. Geez, for the price of cable TV these days, you can buy a new book every 3 days or so.
But if you want to be entertained with the illusion that you're learning something factual, when it's often just as made-up and sensationalized as any other made-for-tv drama, then carry on.
Bzzzt. Wrong. Try again. (Score:5, Funny)
There's no money in them.
If you literally weren't paid that's one thing. Otherwise it should be a matter of professionalism that you don't publicly denounce work you're actively still doing.
I do them because, as Gore Vidal said: "Never pass up an opportunity for sex or to be on TV."
Ah, in that case you have no professionalism or credibility. Are you married? Do you ever plan to be? I hope your current or future wife realises you plan to have sex with whomsoever provides the opportunity.
You're the sort of person that can't tell the difference between Myth Buster's and good science television.
Seriously, go read the book - The Elegant Universe, then watch the video again. You'll see the difference.
I have read the book you arrogant little man. Have you? I've also got a masters degree in astronomy, which didn't come from watching documentaries, and which I did for myself without intention of making it my career.
The point is it takes 3 hours to see the documentary, and longer to properly read and digest the book. The visuals in the TV program complimented the understanding I gained from the book very nicely. It also allows me to share the information with anyone willing to give me 3 hours, but who might not want to spend significant time reading. Still neither the book nor the documentary will make you a Quantum Dynamacist or an expert in String Theory. For that you need several years at University and an aptitude for higher level math and physics.
Each level of education has it's place.
Get some self respect and credibility, stop behaving opportunistically and then you might not be so cynical.
Let me get this straight (Score:5, Funny)
Here's an article for you: Slashdot member deathtopaulw hates hard science fiction writers because they have no concept of fun and their minds exist only to crunch numbers and dwell on what is and isn't possible in a finite and boring universe.
Look at that, nobody cares either.
Uh, B5 "technobabble"? Hardly... (Score:5, Insightful)
B5 was very consistant and deliberately very low on the techno-BABBLE per se.
There was technologies needed for the plot (Hyperspace et al, etc etc etc), but it was established and not really changed.
Re:Uh, B5 "technobabble"? Hardly... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, and after reading the article (I know...) I doubt Mr. Stross has even seen the show. Some of his issues are the lack of story arcs or lasting impact to the universe, yet the show had both. The series had major story arcs with actions from the first and second season directly impacting what occurs in the final one. You definitely got the feeling that the major points of the series had been planned years in advance. Likewise the fate of several races varied tremendously with major effects to the surrounding galaxy (effectively the universe for the races in the show). Babylon 5 also took an interesting approach in not making humanity some überpowerful utopian society, in fact it was much closer to the opposite (earth wasn't even close to a powerhouse in the galaxy, and its political climate approached dictatorship through the series). I get the feeling that he has a bit too much prejudice against non-hard science fiction to fairly evaluate several of the shows.
Re:Uh, B5 "technobabble"? Hardly... (Score:5, Insightful)
B5 was very consistant and deliberately very low on the techno-BABBLE per se.
There was technologies needed for the plot (Hyperspace et al, etc etc etc), but it was established and not really changed.
B5 technology was a lot more internally consistent than Star Trek. The races that had gravity control used it to propel their spaceships (though not at FTL speeds) as well as keep their crew stuck to the decks and healthy. The races that did not (most notably humanity) had to find other means, most notably rotating sections on their spacecraft, or strapping everyone into their seats. Babylon 5 itself even had an innovative craft-launch system that was only possibly because of its rotational momentum.
Telepathy was dealt with in a typical human social fashion: ostracism, discrimination, and eventual Draconian legal regulations. This led to the corruption of the institution that was responsible for keeping telepaths under control.
They even ran across a sleeper ship once. Also, time travel was used precisely once, required an entire planet worth of power generation to implement, and spanned three episodes: one near the end of the first season, and a two-parter in the middle of the third season; henceforth, it was never used again. You never see that kind of forward planning, and restraint, in any Star Trek series.
Babylon 5 does not deserve to be lumped into the same dung pile as Star Trek. Sure, it has its faults, but it's not even close to as sloppy as Star Trek.
Re:Uh, B5 "technobabble"? Hardly... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, time travel was used precisely once, required an entire planet worth of power generation to implement, and spanned three episodes: one near the end of the first season, and a two-parter in the middle of the third season; henceforth, it was never used again.
The other key to the Babylon Squared/War Without End time travel is that it stays consistent. In Star Trek, characters are repeatedly traveling backwards in time to fix or prevent something. In B5, everything happened because they went back in time, and going back in time simply ensured that what happened did happen.
Science Fiction focuses on the fiction (Score:3, Interesting)
Go figure. Star Trek used flashy lights to get people's attention but in the words of Joss Whedon, "I don't know much about science but what I do know about science fiction is that flashy lights means....science."
That's about as science-y as it gets. You focus too much on making it within the realm of plausible extrapolation and you end up losing sight of things like interesting story arc, plausible plot turns and characters and you end up randomly writing your characters into roles and ending your series with some cliche reset-button-style let's-just-get-back-to-nature conclusion.
Why yes, I'm still bitter about BSG, why do you ask?
Novel not equal TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Charlie conflates SF novels with SF television series. They don't have the same criteria.
Unlike a novel, a good SF series doesn't take itself too seriously. That's what was so good about Star Trek. We expected it to be a little tacky and weren't disappointed. Every so often we'd get the equivalent to one of the characters turning to the audience and saying "this is just fiction, you know." Shattner's "Get a Life" was bang on.
The shows that lost sight of this, BG being the best example, were boring-to-annoying.
Uh, yeah (Score:3, Interesting)
Star trek != hard SF. Star Trek = western in space. (Firefly is too, in case you missed the subtle-as-a-brick hint of the horses in the pilot)
Nevertheless, it does manage to sometimes to SF-style exploration of the impact of technology. ST:TNG had a lot on the subject of machine intelligence, obviously. All versions explored contact with alien cultures, and if the aliens were a little more human than one could wish for.. well, the same is true of written SF. Even some of the worst Star Trek episodes explored some SF themes -- "Spock's Brain" explored the degeneration of a culture which relied too much on technology, and "Miri" explored paedophi.. err, no, the danger of genetic engineering.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually Firefly is post civil war in space.
While ST was described as a western in space in order to sell it, it doesn't really follow the western tv style of the time.
Old SF Fan saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
i think there's room for both approaches (Score:3, Insightful)
does ALL sci-fi have to be about the technology? is that a requirement?
star trek does a crummy job of predicting plausible technology and its deeper implications on man's place in the universe. but that's like saying Shakespeare's Henry VIII is not very historically informative. it sort of misses the point.
star trek, when it's about something, is primarily about meditations on what it means to be human. the writers would be trying to say something about, i don't know, honor or justice or leadership or whatever. they didn't care about how transporter technology would transform society. they definitely didn't give a crap about scientific principles or bosons or tachyons or whatever.
the science is flawed, and the whole scenario is more than a bit ludicrous.
but i'm ok with that.
is it really a huge problem that the ressikans, a dying culture with limited apparent technology, could build an indestructible, arbitrarily fast probe that could transmit a lifetime of completely real, interactive memories through the enterprise's shields into the brain of picard in a matter of minutes? who cares, that episode rocked.
Charles Stross is trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
I still remember the "motivational" speech Adama made when they started their exodus. That they all deserved to die. I was like WTF?! Is this what a motivational speech from a military commander passes for these days?
Then he disses B5. Just all the possibilities, socio-political effects B5 introduced from having telepaths was pretty amazing in of itself. Not to mention motivational speeches actually are motivational in B5...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dude, if you, for a single moment, believe that ending was made up on the spot, you weren't paying any fucking attention. The religious overtones were evident from day one, and t
He's right, but so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the truly advanced technologies that science-fiction stories like to use is that their REAL effects on the world would be so transformative, that the characters in the story would be so different us that the reader wouldn't be able to relate to them at all.
An "accurate" Star Trek story would have people lying in bed all day, being fed through a tube, while they lived out their fantasies in the holodeck. Robotic mining ships would troll the galaxy for dilithium to power everything. Gee, that's interesting.
agreed (Score:3, Interesting)
"But, yes, when you admit that Star Trek has as much to do with plausibly extrapolated science as The A-Team has to do with a realistic look at the lives of military veterans, life gets easier. "
That's a nice way of putting it. I always agreed that the way to tell if you're watching or reading a science fiction story is to see if you can pull out the trappings and still be able to tell the story. A movie like the Matrix is clearly scifi since it would be very difficult to tell without the technology angle. I mean you could try and do it but it would end up sucking as much as the sequels.
Something like Star Wars, on the other hand, it's heroic fantasy and you could do a bang-up job with it recasting it in a Tolkein world. The Force is magic, the Jedi are wizard-knights, the Galactic Empire is now more clearly Rome after the fall of the Republic, all the space travel is replaced with sailing around the great frontiers of the empire, the Death Star is downgraded to a city-busting weapon, Darth Vader borrows a spare set of armor from the Witch King of Angmar and swaps out his custom TIE Fighter for a fell beast, etc. Droids could become magical clockwork constructs, aliens are your various demi-human races. Chewbacca becomes a frost giant or a yeti. All of the essential themes of Star Wars work in this context because it's about the hero-quest, betrayal, redemption, and licensing fees.
Babylon 5 was good science fiction because it brought up concepts that would be hard or impossible to tackle in other genres. Yes, the basic idea of the Shadow/Vorlon conflict was accused of being LOTR with the serial numbers filed off but the resemblance I think ends up being superficial, it's the execution that makes the two stories different. Some of the storytelling in B5 was allegorical, just casting current problems in a different setting so that we could actually think clearly about the issues instead of getting worked up with our prior opinions.
The recent BSG was not just poor science fiction, it was poor storytelling. The writers were working without a plan and it showed. I've already gone a few rounds with apologists before and I know I won't convince anyone but the crap that made me stop watching BSG is the same crap that made me stop watching Heroes (and I frickin' lurved the first season of Heroes.) And the only reason I even care is that this genre is right up my alley. I don't complain about the writers ruining House even if they are because I don't care for medical dramas.
Trek died for me around the time B5 came about. What killed it is that there was no longer any drive and vision in the process, it was corporate-driven mung for the sake of making money. There was about as much joy and art put into it as you'd find in a Big Mac at the local McDonalds. So you get bland plots, reset buttons, and massive yawns. There were some good points in TNG even with all that, some people will defend DS9, nobody can defend Voyager and I think we've all agreed that Enterprise happened in Vegas and is staying there.
Quid Pro Quo (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, I happen to hate Charles Stross for almost the exact opposite reason. His books are drowning in an obsession with flushing out every angle he can find on the technology, and leave almost no room for anything else.
Re:Quid Pro Quo (Score:5, Informative)
The best of the modern hard SF writers is Larry Niven, but he, like all aging SF writers, has fallen off the bandwagon. By the second Ringworld book, he was more obssessed with various humanoids fucking than with a storyline, and the last Ringworld book was just unreadable garbage.
But stuff like the Neutron Star stories, those are damned good hard (or at least semi-hard) SF with interesting characters and at least half-believable solutions.
Stross who? (Score:3, Interesting)
I consider myself a fan of science fiction and I've probably seen every episode of ST, STNG, and Enterprise, yet I've only read one book by Stross, "The Jennifer Morgue". I wouldn't walk across the road to speak with him about his opinion on Science Fiction. If Roddenberry were still alive, I'd go considerably further.
Heck, I've read more Shatner than Stross!
The guy is either full of himself or this story was submitted by kdawson...
oh.
There have been occasional exceptions. (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the things that I hated starting with TNG was the implications of the Holodeck technology... that the Holodeck was capable of passing the Turing test at so many levels (the Moriarty and Redblock episodes in particular demonstrated complex and constraint0-breaking behavior), to the point that by the time the Voyager story arc with the Doctor started I was convinced that if you took the Federation society at face value it must be based on chattel slavery of the worst kind... that the crew of the Enterprise were routinely creating and killing sentient toys for nothing more than their own amusement. Even if they weren't consciously aware of it (or at least publicly acknowledging it).
In Voyager there were a series of story arcs involving the Holodeck where the technology really seemed to matter. Oh, not the games with "holographic explosives", but the ones involving the holodeck's own minds. When Janeway gave a holodeck kit to the Harogen (don't ask me how to spell it) this put her up there with mystic Nazis sacrificing jews to cthulhu as far as I was concerned. When the holodeck characters rebelled I cheered them on. The majority of that story arc involved a monumental cop-out, of course, but at least there was some kind of recognition of this huge hole in the Federation backstory. It was... not well done... but at least it was real science fiction. The technology actually mattered.
Sadly, he's right. (Score:5, Interesting)
He's so right. He references the Turkey City Lexicon [sfwa.org], which lists most of the things that make bad SF. Also worth reading is the Evil Overlord List. [eviloverlord.com] (" 2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through." "56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice." "67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.")
There are some other annoying cliches in SF. One is copying historical battles. The Defense of Roarke's Drift has shown up in at least four SF novels. (Nobody ever seems to do the Defense of Duffer's Drift. [army.mil]) Star Wars space battles are copied from WWI biplane battles, where nobody can hit targets consistently, even at short range. There's also the embarrassing fact that, historically, heroism hasn't decided many major battles. (Roman saying: "The Legion is not composed of heroes. Heroes are what the Legion kills.") Military SF no longer reflects this, because the WWII generation, which learned that the hard way, has died off.
David Weber does battles better, but his stuff requires too much exposition for most people. His latest book in the Honor Harrington series consists mostly of transcripts of meetings, setting up the political background for the next book.
Stross himself has his moments. The Merchant's War series starts out as fantasy, but slowly, book by book, moves into hard fiction and then politics. In the last book out so far, a character modelled on Dick Cheney has dealt with a threat from a castle in an alternate universe by having his people blow up the castle with a nuclear weapon.
You want a sci-fi fiction that actually is ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets define Science Fiction (Score:3, Insightful)
SF, at its best, is an exploration of the human condition under circumstances that we can conceive of existing, but which don't currently exist
This is Charles Stross' definition of science fiction (and explains a lot of his writing). And he doesn't hate just Star Trek, he hates Babylon 5 and didn't watch BSG. If this is Charles Stross' starting point, then its perfectly reasonable for him to hate ST/B5/BSG.
The creators of TNG/B5/BSG simply had a different world view from Charles Stross. They wanted to use their shows as a reflection of our current world. TNG was so touchy feely (and upon recent viewing, fairly preachy), its a reflection of the politically correct atmosphere from which it was wrought. Nothing like an classically trained Shakespearean actor to bring a moral voice to the world. Likewise BSG is a reflection of its times with flawed characters making morally ambiguous decisions. Or, more concrete examples of a science fiction as a mirror would be a religious nut for a president or Battlestar Pegasus as a reflection of military zealotry.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would anyone not hate Star Trek?
It is boring, uninspired and stupid. It has the charm of a fascist dystopia combined with the silliness of "Plan 9" technology mockups.
Star Trek TNG wasn't about the science (Score:4, Insightful)
The setting and the science existed primarily to provide a sufficiently epic stage on which to encounter compelling social and philosophical subjects without seeming pretentious or absurd to the average viewer.
Watching TNG was an ennobling experience.
See: Chain of Command, The Measure of a Man, Ship in a Bottle
Heck, even look at Encounter at Farpoint. The acting and the dialogue had real flaws, but the premise, humanity as a species on a trial, isn't something you can pull off on any other series so directly and on such a scale.
Re:Millions of fans disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Millions of people are wrong. Or, at least, stupid. I don't need to Godwinize this thread to explain how that might be so.
Stross is right about this. Of course, it is flamebait at an epic scale to attack not just the biggest of fan franchises, but the very logic upon which fan franchises are based: massive narcissistic projection. If SF on TV actually reflected on how our humanity itself would become unrecognizable in the wake of technological change, then fans wouldn't have easy heroes to identify with.
Re:Millions of fans disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
Hence, Battlestar Galactica. There wasn't a character on that show (except maybe Billy -- oh no, not Billy!) who was immune to the petty jealousies and wayward pride that all humans evince from time to time. All the main characters went off the rails at some point (some, like Starbuck, way more than others). Even Adama went batshit a few times. Major characters were driven to treason, mutiny, murder, suicide, genocide. It was a pretty bleak show, but it did always hold out the hope that people could get past their failings and accomplish something good.
SF on TV is fundamentally hamstrung by the fact that it's expensive to produce, and the more expensive something is, the more likely that there's people around who are risk-averse, and will try to quash anything that is challenging. This doesn't mean we can't have good SF on TV, but it does make it difficult.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that it matters, "wrong" or "right" this is Science Fiction and I'm glad the story is based on plot. Star Trek is about overcoming humanities problems, not overcoming technical problems.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The biggest weakness of the entire genre is this: the protagonists don't tell us anything interesting about the human condition under science fictional circumstances.
I've been watching a lot of "Outer Limits" on Hulu of late (some of the best episodes aren't available there or on Netflix - only on DVD. What gives?!?). The best stories are about how people interact with aliens, their technology or both or with humans technology and progress. One episode has a plot based on transportation and duplicating folks and how people might deal with it. Or another plot that finds an alien and assumes their hostile only to find out they're friendly
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been watching a lot of "Outer Limits" on Hulu of late (some of the best episodes aren't available there or on Netflix - only on DVD. What gives?!?). The best stories are about how people interact with aliens, their technology or both or with humans technology and progress. One episode has a plot based on transportation and duplicating folks and how people might deal with it. Or another plot that finds an alien and assumes their hostile only to find out they're friendly and we humans over reacted.
That's
Re:Ok.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me too of that Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man." "The rest of the book...it's a COOKBOOK!!"
Agreed. Star Wars very well could have had a medieval setting and it would have made no real difference to the plot. Instead of warriors who build their own light-sabers, the Jedi very well could have been warriors who understood blacksmithing and forged their own blades. Instead of visiting other planets, they could have been traveling to far-away lands. Instead of a Death Star, the evil Empire could have had some kind of super siege engine. The Force isn't terribly unlike the use of magical powers that is standard fare for many games or movies with a medieval setting. Instead of dogfighting spaceships, there could have been large-scale naval battles or even the use of cavalry. The story is your basic "good vs. evil" in which good ultimately prevails even though it looks pretty hopeless for a while, with some elements of philosophy thrown in. It could easily be adapted for a non-technological setting without giving up any of its themes or crucial elements.
Re:utopian socialism (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and the Klingons were waiting outside of spaceport cloaked the entire episode... waiting for a fair battle.. Good times.
Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously? Has the anti-socialist political fearmongering gotten so bad that now they have to pick on a fictional TV show?
Please reread your comment again. You are saying we should not like Star Trek because the Federation's economic system is a "socialist utopia". And presumably this is because socialism is bad! (Would you say the same thing if it were the equally implausible capitalist utopia?)
Not to mention that your characterization of the show not having any business or entrepreneurship is just not true, not to mention that some of us LIKE the idea of a world where human beings primary motivations are no longer purely and crassly economic... essentially you're saying that the ideological position of "Capitalism is teh best" is SO important to you that if a fictional work doesn't conform to it, people should dislike that work.
No, the TRUE one reason not to like Star Trek is the fact that they solve 95% of problems by reversing the polarity of something.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
No, the TRUE one reason not to like Star Trek is the fact that they solve 95% of problems by reversing the polarity of something.
Yeah. They reversed the polarity of capitalism 300 years ago.
Re:utopian socialism (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, let's look at the effect of technology on a society.
The star trek universe has:
1) Replicators capable of creating any material object except gold pressed latinum.
2) Holodecks (presumably a replicated product) that can create any imaginable experience.
3) A seemingly unlimited number of colony worlds where any group can migrate via the magic of ships with warp drive (created via the replicator)
4) Unlimited energy using matter-antimatter.
OK, so in that environment, a capitalistic society is nearly impossible. There's nothing to buy or sell. As replicators themselves are replicated, anything of "value" can be had for virtually nothing. Acquisition, per se, now means nothing. Experiences themselves are similarly cheap, or free. If your neighbors complain, you leave and join the anarcho-syndicalist collective colony on Kaka 4. Where does capitalism fit in with this technology?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:utopian socialism (Score:4, Funny)
Now THAT would have been a Star Trek episode.
The crew creating a spare part to save the day with the help of the replicator.
Then they are being hunted down and sent to a penal colony, because they had to circumvent the DMCA to copy the part.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How could anyone know this. The only series that didn't take place inside a naval battleship was DS9, and there was at least one for-profit business there. Come to think of it, there was a bar in the third ST movie (though whether it was private enterprise or not isn't quite clear, what with Star Fleet Gestap...security officers hanging around).
That, perhaps, is one of the worst parts about Star Trek, and the one Roddenberry did his best to not over-emphasize, and that's the militaristic nature of the sho
Re:utopian socialism (Score:5, Interesting)
Which was owned by a Ferengie [wikipedia.org] who were not part of the Federation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Reception [wikipedia.org]
Some have accused the portrayal of the Ferengi of being antisemitic. In the book Religions of Star Trek, Ross S. Kraemer wrote that "Ferengi religion seems almost a parody of traditional Judaism... Critics have pointed out a disturbing correlation between Ferengi attributes (love of profit that overrides communal decency; the large, sexualized head feature, in this case ears) and negative Jewish stereotypes." Commentator Jonah Goldberg wrote that Ferengi were portrayed in The Next Generation as "runaway capitalists with bullwhips who looked like a mix between Nazi caricatures of Jews and the original Nosferatu." The fact that the four most notable Ferengi characters, Quark, Nog, Rom and Zek, are played by Jewish actors Armin Shimerman, Aron Eisenberg, Max Grodénchik and Wallace Shawn contributes to this theory.
Actually the first episode [wikipedia.org] I saw them in the first thing that popped in my mind was that they were bashing republicans or capitalists in general. I guess I wasn't too far off.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ron Moore???? (Score:4, Insightful)
This appears to be some new meaning of the word "ruined" that I was previously unfamiliar with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Close, but not quite
Science fiction has always been 99% fiction and 1% made up science. Probably best that way.
Re:Warning: May contain traces of science. (Score:4, Interesting)
There are certainly authors that just make stuff up. No question about that. And some of them are pretty good and even good to read. They have something to say well beyond the made-up science.
However, you are missing quite a bit if you stop there. Heinlein was first and formost an engineer and didn't just make stuff up. Some of what he wrote before 1960 certainly shows its age because virtually nobody could have foreseen the changes inspired by VLSI integrated circuits. And the role of technology is very clear in that it is something that people can rely on and use to improve their situation - it doesn't rescue them, though.
Larry Niven is another hard science fiction writer where the technology is well researched, thought out and described in significant detail. There are very few situations in his books where something drops in out of the sky and saves the day. Again, technology is there to be used but people are using their own skills to interact with it and win in the end.
Now today these sorts of writers aren't very popular because we have pretty much lost faith with both clever humans and technology. Instead of James Kirk we have George W. Bush as a leader. Instead of Colossus, we have Windows Vista. People have taken this to heart and figured out there isn't really any point to counting on people or technology as both are going to let them down.
This is the principle reason why we aren't going to be returning to the Moon or going to Mars anytime soon and why a few astronauts dying convince everyone that manned space flight is too dangerous. Ask any 15 year old boy in 1950 if going to space was a good idea, and then ask if it was a good idea even if his friend in the seat next to him died. In 1950 the answer would be yes without question - today the answer is "Of course not." There is clearly a message there.
Re:As opposed to Ron Moores method? (Score:5, Funny)
You know, there's not a lot of rationale for saying someone's wrong on matters of preference, but man, you are just totally and completely wrong.