Charles Stross recently wrote a blog post that I really liked. He talked a lot about why he doesn't read science fiction much anymore even though he is a science fiction author. His reasoning was largely that people usually write science fiction without really filling out the world in ways that make sense.
The main example he used was the way that space battles are so consistently staged like WW1 fighter battles. The planes move slowly enough and have short enough range that they can see each other easily and a viewer can watch them spin and twirl around each other as they battle. In short, it is visually appealing, even though it makes no damn sense in nearly any science fiction setting. The most obvious example is Star Wars where the way space battles were staged was clearly for the benefit of the viewer, not because any of it was logical. To this day the same WW1 style of space fighting continues to be used even though pilots that shoot guns at each other well within visual range went out of style by WW2 and don't seem likely to ever return.
Stross doesn't like worlds where things don't make sense. He wants to be able to figure out why the bread vendor on the street that the heroes walk along is there. He wants the system of money and culture and tech to all fit together seamlessly. You can have wonder and magic, tech that is beyond current scientific understanding, but if you give people teleportation technology then you should actually change society in response.
Star Trek is a great example of another silly trope in science fiction - the high tech showdown at OK Corral. So many science fiction stories give people weapons and tactics that are simply lifted out of Westerns and plopped down in futuristic situations. Nobody seems to have advanced past six shooters.
There are good counterexamples of course, and I have a few in mind. The Forever War is a great example of futuristic battles that do not rely on six shooters or biplanes as models. Humans fight a war that is completely alien to what we are used to and I LOVE it. I don't know that it is any more 'realistic' because it does rely on tech magic wands but the author really tries to extrapolate and do something interesting and it feels right. Ship combat uses plausible physics and it really does make the story feel more real.
The Hyperion series is the second great example because it shines in showing off what a futuristic soldier with futuristic equipment might be able to do. Unlike Star Trek's pathetic six gun phasers a soldier in this universe would be wearing armour that lets them fly, provides effective, shifting camouflage, and has a variety of defenses against beam weapons, projectiles, and other attacks. That soldier's gun is capable of taking down a small flying craft at tens of kilometers distant and can deliver flechettes to destroy unarmoured targets, beam weapons, or explosives. The soldier operates all of their gear with a powerful, effective direct connection. Such a soldier could take out a small army of modern day soldiers or even destroy an aircraft carrier by themselves if they were so inclined. THAT is what a soldier hundreds of years in the future should be able to do!
I think this is a big part of why I am not as big on Star Trek or Star Wars as many other nerds. I know a lot about them but they don't grab me the way really top drawer science fiction does because they are so obviously staged for cinematic combat, not for logical conclusions. Similarly I found Ender's Game the movie to be a big letdown, in part because it went with stupid tropes like asteroid belts being all close together and silly WW1 style ship combat. There were lots of problems with that movie, but those ones really got me down, especially when they were shoved in there even though the book didn't have them in it at all.
It matters to me a great deal that the monetary system of a futuristic political entity make sense. I am okay with violations of physics, so long as those violations are spelled out and then taken to their logical conclusions. What I want is a wondrous new world, imagined to take into account all the strange things the author has dreamed up. What I don't want is a reskinned Western shootout or WW1 battle.
Star Trek was pitched to the studio executives AS a western in space. So it's kinda a good thing that you think that's what it turned out to be? It's also 52 years old so I think it had plenty of unimaginable sciency tech going on as it was. (And 'western in space' is really only a trope now BECAUSE of Star Trek.)
ReplyDeleteGundam set up the minosky particle as one that interferes with all long range communications and weapons, which is why the battles of the future require mecha to do up close combat. I always thought that was an interesting out to have giant robot suits fighting.
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