Common Sci-Fi tropes that annoy you!

[Grach]

Anthropomorphic aliens. It really irks me is writer that thinks there's other intelligent lifeforms on the galaxy that look like us but with some added prosthetics. To think there could be literally anything out there, even a race of spacefaring spider clowns, it seems just like a lack of creativity on the writers part.

Mass Effect is exempt though. They would've needed entire new skeletons for the models and the first Mass Effect didn't have the time or money to make a bunch of skeletons from scratch.

Also, "warrior" races that have one and ONLY one doctrine, weapon and fighting style. Especially when humans (who have a fuckton of different martial arts, strategies and weapons) are portrayed as a being more diplomatic race.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Proud warrior race guys who are:

A - (western view?) Samurai analogues. What about warrior guys whose culture rewards sneaky, dishonourable or whatever wins thinking?

So Klingons, then? I'm not talking about the TNG YOU LACK HONOR Klingons. I'm referring to the sneaky, backstabbing sons of bitches from TOS and Deep Space Nine. The Klingons in TOS were analogs for the Russian communists, and were quite keen on playing dirty tricks to gain the upper hand.

Deep Space Nine Klingons were a reaction to the ridiculous honor obsessed TNG Klingons, showing them to be completely ruthless, indiscriminate in their attacks, and that their whole display of honor and courage is just a bluff that hides their true ambitions.

 

[Belaam]

Poorly designed alien life forms. Evolution should work the same everywhere. Pandora's entire planet of six limbed creatures with one single four limbed species drove me nuts.

 

[Zetatrain]

I hate the Big Dumb Object trope when done stupidly.

an example on it being done well was the Ringworld book series, Ringworld started off as a big dumb object but as the characters actually explored it, it slowly started showing it's actual reasoning for being there.


as for being done poorly, Mass Effect's Citadel.


Reason for it being there? cause the reapers want the galactic civilization to form around it. no other reason given.


it's there for the sake of plot and being a late game McGuffin powered Checkov's Gun.

Err...well the reapers want the Citadel to be at the core of galactic civilization so that when they come through the portal it makes it easier for them to divide and conquer. To me that seems like a good explanation.

Also considering it's the setting where a good chunk of the series takes place, I think that raises it above McGuffin status since a McGuffin is something that has a single purpose and is never seen or heard of again once that purpose is fulfilled.

 

[Zetatrain]

Proud warrior race guys who are:

A - (western view?) Samurai analogues. What about warrior guys whose culture rewards sneaky, dishonourable or whatever wins thinking?

So Klingons, then? I'm not talking about the TNG YOU LACK HONOR Klingons. I'm referring to the sneaky, backstabbing sons of bitches from TOS and Deep Space Nine. The Klingons in TOS were analogs for the Russian communists, and were quite keen on playing dirty tricks to gain the upper hand.

Deep Space Nine Klingons were a reaction to the ridiculous honor obsessed TNG Klingons, showing them to be completely ruthless, indiscriminate in their attacks, and that their whole display of honor and courage is just a bluff that hides their true ambitions.

DS9 Klingons are still TNG Klingons except shown in a more...realistic light. While its shown that there are those who are hypocrites or simply don't believe in the whole honor code, the Klingon culture is still heavily engrossed in the whole honor and courage thing and definitely does not reward sneaky and dishonorable acts as Serioli mentioned above.

There was one episode in DS9 (one where Quark has to marry a Klingon woman) where Quark finds out that one Klingon guy is undermining another Klingon house/clan through financial means (something considered dishonorable). When the matter is brought to the chancellor, the same Klingon tries to deny it.

 

[Schtimpy]

Alien invasions being so easily repelled. Let's say you travelled across a galaxy, would you really bank conquering a planet on an all in attack and not stop and see what's up with the planet first? In Signs, the aliens were weak against water (which you can see from space), in War of the Worlds it was a earth disease of some kind. Both easily checked by sending down a scout and realizing "Nope, not worth it." I know in movies humans always have to win, but it wreaks my suspension of disbelief when the super powerful, technologically advanced race shows up to conquer a planet and just kinda fizzles by the end of the movie. At least make the victory earned.

Also, I'd like to see a movie with a alien as the main character, maybe even with humans as the bad guys. And no free passes if you have one human as a co-conspirator, District 9 I'm looking at you. Seriously, how did the hero of that movie end up being a white guy?

 

[xPixelatedx]

Poorly designed alien life forms. Evolution should work the same everywhere. Pandora's entire planet of six limbed creatures with one single four limbed species drove me nuts.

Not to defend that awful, awful movie... but what about real life? Most things here are 4 limbed species, yeah, but you can bet we have a bunch of things that aren't to! What would have happened if not humans, but a giant octopus or insect rose up and became the sentient life form on earth? Technically speaking, it would then be like Pandora, with the citizens of earth having a different limb-set then most of the animals around them.

But that was just a hypothetical idea for the sake of argument. I was merely defending the notion, not the movie. That said, I am pretty sure they showed other primates on Pandora who had six limbs. If their other primates had six limbs there is simply no reason why the Na'vi didn't, aside from purposely making them more "human-like" to be relatable. Which is indeed VERY poor alien design.

 

[Thaluikhain]

DS9 Klingons are still TNG Klingons except shown in a more...realistic light. While its shown that there are those who are hypocrites or simply don't believe in the whole honor code, the Klingon culture is still heavily engrossed in the whole honor and courage thing and definitely does not reward sneaky and dishonorable acts as Serioli mentioned above.

There was one episode in DS9 (one where Quark has to marry a Klingon woman) where Quark finds out that one Klingon guy is undermining another Klingon house/clan through financial means (something considered dishonorable). When the matter is brought to the chancellor, the same Klingon tries to deny it.

Er...the TNG klingons were pretty dodgy as well. All that stuff about Worf's father, and covering it up, and keeping it covered up. Later, Gowron wants to quietly forget the Federation's help when Picard needs him, until Picard says it's ok, we'll find other klingons to be friends with.

 

[Zetatrain]

DS9 Klingons are still TNG Klingons except shown in a more...realistic light. While its shown that there are those who are hypocrites or simply don't believe in the whole honor code, the Klingon culture is still heavily engrossed in the whole honor and courage thing and definitely does not reward sneaky and dishonorable acts as Serioli mentioned above.

There was one episode in DS9 (one where Quark has to marry a Klingon woman) where Quark finds out that one Klingon guy is undermining another Klingon house/clan through financial means (something considered dishonorable). When the matter is brought to the chancellor, the same Klingon tries to deny it.

Er...the TNG klingons were pretty dodgy as well. All that stuff about Worf's father, and covering it up, and keeping it covered up. Later, Gowron wants to quietly forget the Federation's help when Picard needs him, until Picard says it's ok, we'll find other klingons to be friends with.

Oh definitely, in addition to Gowron you also had the Duras Sisters who definitely weren't above trickery and backstabbing. There was also Alexander's mother who wasn't exactly a fan of traditional Klingon values if i remember correctly.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oh definitely, in addition to Gowron you also had the Duras Sisters who definitely weren't above trickery and backstabbing. There was also Alexander's mother who wasn't exactly a fan of traditional Klingon values if i remember correctly.

True, but Gowron was supposed to be the establishment, the best klingon leader. Duras et al were rogues...though they had loads of supporters.

 

[Zetatrain]

Suicidal kamikaze death dives being heroic.

I am so sick of the whole 'If I'm going to go, I'm going to take them with me!' crap being jazzed up as some heroic action of self-sacrifice. You're possibly about to die, crashing into one last enemy not only makes it 100% certain you will perish rather than 'finding a way' to pull through, but it's essentailly a coward's way out. Usually effective the first time, true, but it's not heroic at all, and has much wider consequences than just that incident.

For example, in WW2 the Japanese were idealogically opposed to ever being taken prisoner. Wounded soldiers would call out for help, and when Allied soldiers approached, they would produce a grenade and try and blow as many away as possible. This strategy is not heroic, and was never regarded as such at the time. As a result of witnesses to this strategy, the Allies would give the Japanese no quarter or mercy. The wounded would be shot on sight. Bodies would be bayonetted to 'make sure' they were dead. Japanese who wanted to live weren't given the chance, because the Allies could no longer risk leaving them alive.

I'd say it depends on the circumstances, like say the enemy is already taking no prisoners or said sacrifice does make a difference.

If a spaceship does a death dive like that- chances are the ships of that faction will be seen differently after that. They'll be engaged from further away, and shown no quarter when mercy is asked for. The actions of one stupid, arrogant big ship captain condemn countless other lives that could have been saved... to death.

The new Star Trek is probably the worst. Didn't even scratch the other ship. He should have been seen as the absolute useless moron that he was.

HUMPH! /rant

Well what did you expect him to do?

It was clear Nero wasn't taking any prisoners, and the crew had already evacuated. Also by charging at the ship you could argue that he drew their fire away from the fleeing shuttles. And whose to say he didn't scratch Nero's ship? That looked like a pretty decent sized explosion and Nero's ship didn't fire upon the shuttles or attempt to follow after it got rammed. So who knows maybe it did do some damage.

Oh definitely, in addition to Gowron you also had the Duras Sisters who definitely weren't above trickery and backstabbing. There was also Alexander's mother who wasn't exactly a fan of traditional Klingon values if i remember correctly.

True, but Gowron was supposed to be the establishment, the best klingon leader. Duras et al were rogues...though they had loads of supporters.

IMO, politicians are usually the first to break their code of ethics...it's just something that comes with the territory I guess. And I would say the Duras sisters are in the same boat as Gowron since they have political aspirations themselves.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Alien invasions being so easily repelled. Let's say you travelled across a galaxy, would you really bank conquering a planet on an all in attack and not stop and see what's up with the planet first? In Signs, the aliens were weak against water (which you can see from space), in War of the Worlds it was a earth disease of some kind. Both easily checked by sending down a scout and realizing "Nope, not worth it." I know in movies humans always have to win, but it wreaks my suspension of disbelief when the super powerful, technologically advanced race shows up to conquer a planet and just kinda fizzles by the end of the movie. At least make the victory earned.

In War of the World's, they couldn't send down a scout, they travelled via giant space guns, not ships, they'd probably have not way of signalling back home.

The point of the story was that victory wasn't earned by the humans, the aliens just didn't understand the planet, which is fair enough.

(As an aside, British artillery was capable of defeating the alien war machines, and most European nations had better artillery at that time)

Also, I'd like to see a movie with a alien as the main character, maybe even with humans as the bad guys. And no free passes if you have one human as a co-conspirator, District 9 I'm looking at you. Seriously, how did the hero of that movie end up being a white guy?

Because it was about the mistreatment of aliens, based on the mistreatment of black people. So the hero is white. Same way as Schlinder's List was about killing Jewish people, so the hero was white. The Last Samurai was about the end of the old way in Japan, so the hero was white.

 

[Megalodon]

Alien space babes:
Making an entire group of aliens "hawt" so that people can get cheap fanservice.
Twileks
Orions
Asari
I dont mind fanservice in works of fiction, but when Captain Dude lands on a planet and the female population consists entirely of bikini models in skin paint with some rubber ridges added to their forehead my eyes roll so hard they hurt.

The Asari shouldn't count. The interesting deal about them is that they're "shape-cheaters". They actually look like a member of whichever race whomever's watching them belongs to. They look human-like to us because we're human, to the Turians, they look turian-like and so on.

Except that doesn't quite work, as Asari are clearly the most human shaped of all the major alien races you encounter. If Asari looked like Krogan or Turians to members of that species, the illusion would be dispelled as soon as physical contact was made, as they are blatantly different (wrong head shape, number of fingers etc.). Combined with the fact that only humans and asari could use the same armour in ME1, it is clear that asari are basically human-like.

So there are 2 possible explanations I can think of for that scene in the bar in ME2 (which I assume is the basis for the "shape-cheater" idea). The first is that the writers were stupidly lazy and forgot what the first game had already shown us, and put that scene in to deflect the very trope we're discussing, despite it not making any sense (this is very possible, as I'm leaning towards the idea that the only thing the writer could remember between games was who Shepard could sleep with). The second is that you hear the salarian and turian essentially explaining their own species' 'male gaze', with each species focussing on the closest analogue the asari posses to their own species' secondary sexual characteristics.

 

[rorychief]

Any time humanity inherits the solution to an unstoppable all consuming galactic cull/purge type threat, and the solution is always some form of automatic purge wave anyway. It would make for a great thought experiment to try and come up with a way to stop the reapers, flood, necromorphs etc. without the cop out of their last victims having fully developed a machine to simultaneously turn every member of the enemy 'off' with no collateral damage or need to tactically deploy the weapon. It's just a button press and they would have won, too bad they went extinct somewhere between making the win machine operational and hitting the switch.

It pisses me off because it reeks of laziness when there are so many real life cases of drastic solutions to insurmountable problems. It robs humans of the chance to use the traits we're supposed to hold over the less imaginative, more rigid enemy, our ingenuity and adaptiveness and turns the final section into a 'Get to the button!'rat race like humanities greatest militaristic feat is the equivalent of a toddler making their way across the floor to get to a discarded pistol. I mean would WW2 really be the fascinating example of humanity pushed to extremes if it had just been the allies throwing all their resources into excavating Antartica in search of the fabled Nazi off switch?

For once I'd love if the human's poured absolutely everything they had left, every ship, man, woman child and sentient drone into securing the magic OFF button created by the ancient ones to combat the great Darkness, only to realize it was all a huge waste of time, and that every culture has some kind of dispelling satan from the world myth and just because you find hieroglyphs on an alien planet doesn't mean the staff depicted as being held by the most prominent high priest figure is a literal real world object and the key to saving the present day. Bonus points if the bad guys spread word of the legendary weapon of absolute zero drawbacks and effort as a means to keep the goodies chasing bullshit mythical artifacts rather than accomplish anything tactical.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Proud warrior race guys who are:

A - (western view?) Samurai analogues. What about warrior guys whose culture rewards sneaky, dishonourable or whatever wins thinking?

So Klingons, then? I'm not talking about the TNG YOU LACK HONOR Klingons. I'm referring to the sneaky, backstabbing sons of bitches from TOS and Deep Space Nine. The Klingons in TOS were analogs for the Russian communists, and were quite keen on playing dirty tricks to gain the upper hand.

Deep Space Nine Klingons were a reaction to the ridiculous honor obsessed TNG Klingons, showing them to be completely ruthless, indiscriminate in their attacks, and that their whole display of honor and courage is just a bluff that hides their true ambitions.

DS9 Klingons are still TNG Klingons except shown in a more...realistic light. While its shown that there are those who are hypocrites or simply don't believe in the whole honor code, the Klingon culture is still heavily engrossed in the whole honor and courage thing and definitely does not reward sneaky and dishonorable acts as Serioli mentioned above.

There was one episode in DS9 (one where Quark has to marry a Klingon woman) where Quark finds out that one Klingon guy is undermining another Klingon house/clan through financial means (something considered dishonorable). When the matter is brought to the chancellor, the same Klingon tries to deny it.

It's only dishonorable if you get caught. Besides, Quark teaching Klingons finance is hilarious.

 

[hermes]

Universes where humans are the best because they are more adaptable, resilient, had more potential or know the power of love... I believe Mass Effect 1 did a great job by making humans the underdogs, but by the time of 2, we where the biggest priority of the eldritch killing machines, and run the show on the most powerful clandestine organization in the galaxy

 

[hermes]

Alien invasions being so easily repelled. Let's say you travelled across a galaxy, would you really bank conquering a planet on an all in attack and not stop and see what's up with the planet first? In Signs, the aliens were weak against water (which you can see from space), in War of the Worlds it was a earth disease of some kind. Both easily checked by sending down a scout and realizing "Nope, not worth it." I know in movies humans always have to win, but it wreaks my suspension of disbelief when the super powerful, technologically advanced race shows up to conquer a planet and just kinda fizzles by the end of the movie. At least make the victory earned.

In War of the World's, they couldn't send down a scout, they travelled via giant space guns, not ships, they'd probably have not way of signalling back home.

The point of the story was that victory wasn't earned by the humans, the aliens just didn't understand the planet, which is fair enough.

(As an aside, British artillery was capable of defeating the alien war machines, and most European nations had better artillery at that time)

Actually, in war of the world it was shown that the tripods where below the surface the entire time, and it was interpreted as them being sent a long time ago. It was also said that we where intended as a target for a long time.

 

[Strain42]

Given how long this has gone on for, I'm sure someone has already said this (and if they haven't that makes me very sad)

but I'm going to go with the Genius Smart-Ass kid that seems to pop up in a lot of sci-fi.

Wesley Crusher, Cubert, etc. etc.

 

[Belaam]

Not to defend that awful, awful movie... but what about real life? Most things here are 4 limbed species, yeah, but you can bet we have a bunch of things that aren't to! What would have happened if not humans, but a giant octopus or insect rose up and became the sentient life form on earth? Technically speaking, it would then be like Pandora, with the citizens of earth having a different limb-set then most of the animals around them.

All mammals, birds, and most reptiles have very similar skeletal systems. Certainly there could be sentient octopi or insects, but it does seem as though it would be unlikely for only one member of that species to exist in a given area. It would be like if humans were the only mammal on the planet. I guess theoretically possible, but...

I spent a good chunk of Avatar wondering if there was going to be a reveal that the Na'vi were also alien to Pandora, but showed up and bio-engineered the planet to be controllable by them.

Certainly their pretty much identically human feet seem more evolved for fast movement on a flat surface than running around on trees as they do throughout the movie.

But in general CGI budgets keep alien biodiversity low. I mean, if an alien landed in my backyard and peeked over a couple fences and hung out there for ten minutes, it would almost see humans of a variety of sizes and skin tones, three very diverse breeds of dogs, a half dozen differently colored cats, quite a few bird species (hummingbird to possibly hawk), dozens of flying and crawling insects, and probably 50 species of trees, plants, grasses, flowers, etc. In contrast, alien worlds in film all seem to have suffered some major disaster that killed off most plant and animal life.

 

[Grach]

But that was just a hypothetical idea for the sake of argument. I was merely defending the notion, not the movie. That said, I am pretty sure they showed other primates on Pandora who had six limbs. If their other primates had six limbs there is simply no reason why the Na'vi didn't, aside from purposely making them more "human-like" to be relatable. Which is indeed VERY poor alien design.

The problem with the wildlife in Avatar is that it's just a mishmash of species we already know, essentially having WAY too much evolutionary analogues to earth. This makes the movie hard to take seriously, since everything is either two species combined together (the thanatos is just a bigger panther with a flower in its neck) or just a species we already know but with more limbs added (which would make them useless) and decked out with bioluminescence just for making them cool.

This wouldn't bother me so much if only Cameron hadn't said that he wanted the wildlife to be biologically accurate.