Thinking about it, what is the stupidest fictional thing ever?

[Mid Boss]

Pretty much any movie that bring up aliens for the express purpose of the "aliens are gods" trope. Yes, they traveled light years to get here, it's still stupid to assume that means they can blow up buildings with their minds and completely dominate us. Yes, we HAVE seen advanced cultures fight un-advanced cultures and ya know what, the gods (the advanced culture) 100% of the time, bleed. Advanced cultures generally win, but they still bleed. If they didn't, explain the wars of the natives and settlers, or the Americans with Iraq, or the Romans and... well a good number of their enemies. It's rare that victory, in a war, means no one on the winning side died.

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

If an alien race wanted to wipe us out the LAST thing they'd do is send in war ships and troops. If they have the technology to traverse the universe then bombing us from some insane distance away or engineering a virus to wipe us out would be simplicity. It would also be far faster, easier, and more cost efficient. There's only one movie I've seen that came close to this and that's Maximum Overdrive. Yeah, the Steven King movie where machines become sentient and start killing all the humans. They were made sentient by an alien ship in orbit around the earth that everyone thought was a comet. No one on earth EVER knows they are being invaded.

That's all assuming they'd be interested in us at all or if the technology to traverse the universe is even possible. One scientist, I don't recall whom, once said "If they're out there... Where are they?" As old as the universe is, dozens of intelligent races would have risen up billions of years before us and, even with our current level of technology, could have used conventional rockets to form an intergalactic empire spanning the galaxy by now. Which leads one to believe there is three possibilities. We're protected, like some sort of animal preserve. Interplanetary travel is just too expensive of an undertaking. Races invariably destroy themselves. Or that they're all melded with some super computer living out eternity as Neo and don't give a damn about the real world.

 

[Thaluikhain]

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

The US could destroy Rome with nuclear weapons quite easily, however that doesn't happen in the real world for various reasons.

Now, sure, aliens could have reasons for not doing so, but they generally aren't mentioned.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

A race of aliens hell bent on conquering the Earth are essentially thwarted by the common Cold (War of the Words).

EDIT: I'm surprised nobody has mentioned killer trees yet.

 

[Torkuda]

Pretty much any movie that bring up aliens for the express purpose of the "aliens are gods" trope. Yes, they traveled light years to get here, it's still stupid to assume that means they can blow up buildings with their minds and completely dominate us. Yes, we HAVE seen advanced cultures fight un-advanced cultures and ya know what, the gods (the advanced culture) 100% of the time, bleed. Advanced cultures generally win, but they still bleed. If they didn't, explain the wars of the natives and settlers, or the Americans with Iraq, or the Romans and... well a good number of their enemies. It's rare that victory, in a war, means no one on the winning side died.

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

If an alien race wanted to wipe us out the LAST thing they'd do is send in war ships and troops. If they have the technology to traverse the universe then bombing us from some insane distance away engineering a virus to wipe us out would be simplicity. It would also be far faster, easier, and more cost efficient. There's only one movie I've seen that came close to this and that's Maximum Overdrive. Yeah, the Steven King movie where machines become sentient and start killing all the humans. They were made sentient by an alien ship in orbit around the earth that everyone thought was a comet. The vast majority of the human race was wiped out without anyone even knowing they were being invaded by aliens.

I hate to say it, but even that doesn't really work. We have how many weapons that can achieve obit these days? Half of them nuclear and all of them super sonic (physics dictates they have to be super sonic, escape velocity is pretty high after all). Seriously, I've never seen an alien race in fiction that I was convince would be able to beat us like that, unless they used "aliens = gods". Sit just on top of our atmosphere where we already have hundreds of satellites? We would just shoot them down. "But they would shoot your missiles down about a hundred feet before hitting the target!" Yea, that MIGHT work with normal missiles, but do you know what 100 feet away from hitting a target is to a nuke? IDEAL detonation distance. Nuclear weapons don't work like bullets, close really does count. If someone is honestly trying to wipe us out, I think Obama could get clearance to fire something nasty at them, in space.
Even with a virus, there's no assurance that plan would actually work. Sure, firing back would be a challenge if they just deposited something and left, but even if we didn't figure out how to cure a bug, we already have quarantine protocols, in fact most societies have that. Biological war has existed for a lot longer than we've had a specific name for it. It's effective, but only to a degree. It especially doesn't work if you don't stick around. Say you poison the water supply and leave... and then folks just get water from another source. That won't even be marginally effective. I know "what if they poisoned ALL the water!" And that's just giving them god like powers again. Seriously how would something like that even work?

 

[Torkuda]

(I especially love the arguments in favor of this. "But what if America were to fight Republican Rome? They only had swords and knives and stuff!". Yes, because it's not like knives and stuff are used to kill people to this day, and it's not like the Romans could just do what the natives did and take guns from our corpses or trade with our enemies for them or anything.)

The US could destroy Rome with nuclear weapons quite easily, however that doesn't happen in the real world for various reasons.

Now, sure, aliens could have reasons for not doing so, but they generally aren't mentioned.

Well one would assume that blasting the sh** out of us with an alien version of nukes would actually be incredibly stupid if they wanted our land. Unless they live in radiation, and even then the results of their attack would probably be pretty unpredictable even for them. War is almost never that straight forward.

And sure, the US could nuke Rome, and either A, have all our allies start shooting at us, or foregoing that, the land would be irradiated, so just like the aliens, if we expected to get anything out of that, we were just being idiots.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Sit just on top of our atmosphere where we already have hundreds of satellites? We would just shoot them down. "But they would shoot your missiles down about a hundred feet before hitting the target!" Yea, that MIGHT work with normal missiles, but do you know what 100 feet away from hitting a target is to a nuke? IDEAL detonation distance. Nuclear weapons don't work like bullets, close really does count.

In atmosphere, yes, in vacuum, not so much. I'm led to believe that we don't have missiles designed to reach orbital targets that are designed to carry nuclear warheads, as there is currently no use for them, but possibly some could be modified for that role.

On the other hand, though orbit capable weapons aren't that common, they can be launched from surface vessels, submarines, planes or large trucks more or less anywhere on the planet. The target is sitting there in orbit with nothing to hide behind.

On the other other hand, the technology to travel interstellar distances, they might be able to intercept and destroy missiles at extreme distances, and definitely won't need to be in orbit to attack.

Well one would assume that blasting the sh** out of us with an alien version of nukes would actually be incredibly stupid if they wanted our land. Unless they live in radiation, and even then the results of their attack would probably be pretty unpredictable even for them. War is almost never that straight forward.

Kinetic bombardment doesn't have that issue.

Now, certainly, there may well be issues that prevent that, which a writer could use, but it's very annoying when they don't bother.

 

[Torkuda]

In atmosphere, yes, in vacuum, not so much. I'm led to believe that we don't have missiles designed to reach orbital targets that are designed to carry nuclear warheads, as there is currently no use for them, but possibly some could be modified for that role.

On the other hand, though orbit capable weapons aren't that common, they can be launched from surface vessels, submarines, planes or large trucks more or less anywhere on the planet. The target is sitting there in orbit with nothing to hide behind.

On the other other hand, the technology to travel interstellar distances, they might be able to intercept and destroy missiles at extreme distances, and definitely won't need to be in orbit to attack.

Well one would assume that blasting the sh** out of us with an alien version of nukes would actually be incredibly stupid if they wanted our land. Unless they live in radiation, and even then the results of their attack would probably be pretty unpredictable even for them. War is almost never that straight forward.

Kinetic bombardment doesn't have that issue.

Now, certainly, there may well be issues that prevent that, which a writer could use, but it's very annoying when they don't bother.

To orbital nukes, actually you should look up how ICBMs work. Most folks think we just fire them straight across and no, we don't. Not only that, but like you just pointed out, it would be pretty easy to rig up weaponized stuff to shoot into orbit if we didn't have it already. We've been to the moon already, I don't see why we can't just launch a rocket with a bomb.

Also, as a race we've always been capable of traveling great distances, but that has nothing to do with the range of our weapons. Just because aliens can travel over light-years, doesn't mean they have missiles that can be fired from light years away from a target. I guess that would finish us off... well... actually we could just shoot the missiles down... and also if they started firing at a hundred light years out right now, I'm not sure if that would work several centuries from now, after all, the missiles could only travel so fast and by the time they got here, it would be at least 100 years later.

I even had one person ask, "hey, what if they shot down every missile one hundred feet after it left the silo?". My response was something along the lines of "we could only hope they would be that stupid". Then we could just launch five hundred missiles, only twenty of which are actually a threat, and watch these little micro managers try to figure out which ones to shoot. He even countered with "what if they knew how our nukes read on radar could read all the missile trajectories?". Response, "And we're back to aliens are gods". How exactly would they know all of that, they're aliens. Sure they might have done SOME research, but the settlers probably did SOME research on the natives when they landed, but that precise of intel is pretty impractical.

 

[Thaluikhain]

To orbital nukes, actually you should look up how ICBMs work.

ICBMs aren't designed to hit targets in orbit. Now, if the target was in a stable orbit, not too far from the Earth, and made no attempt to evade or anything, and was located in a possible flight path of an ICBM, could theoretically hit it (miss, and the thing is coming back down somewhere though). ICBMs wouldn't cover all possible orbits, though.

We've been to the moon already, I don't see why we can't just launch a rocket with a bomb.

We can't go to the moon whenever we want, though. If someone just happened to be preparing a moon mission at the time, sure, you could send a warhead. If they aren't, though, you'd need lots of time to prepare one.

Also, as a race we've always been capable of traveling great distances, but that has nothing to do with the range of our weapons. Just because aliens can travel over light-years, doesn't mean they have missiles that can be fired from light years away from a target. I guess that would finish us off... well... actually we could just shoot the missiles down... and also if they started firing at a hundred light years out right now, I'm not sure if that would work several centuries from now, after all, the missiles could only travel so fast and by the time they got here, it would be at least 100 years later.

I didn't mean missiles from interstellar distances (though I won't say those are impossible). Humans have sent things to Mars, so an alien race could stay that far out and send things here, being perfectly safe from any attack humans could make.

Also, there's no reason to assume their projectiles can be intercepted, without knowing what they'd be firing at us.

I even had one person ask, "hey, what if they shot down every missile one hundred feet after it left the silo?". My response was something along the lines of "we could only hope they would be that stupid". Then we could just launch five hundred missiles, only twenty of which are actually a threat, and watch these little micro managers try to figure out which ones to shoot.

Assuming they couldn't destroy all of them. There's no reason to be certain they cannot.

I don't think that'd work though, currently all ICBMs have nuclear warheads anyway, there's no decoys, they are all threats.

How exactly would they know all of that, they're aliens. Sure they might have done SOME research, but the settlers probably did SOME research on the natives when they landed, but that precise of intel is pretty impractical.

That's a very important point, one that cannot be stressed enough. Aliens should be, you know, alien. Not like us in all sorts of ways. Which means we are not like them.

Another thing that bugs me is when aliens have weird alien powers, but humans don't have weird human powers. We could easily have better colourvision than they do, or advantages due to being bipedal. If nothing else, we are used to the gravity and atmosphere here, which they are unlikely to be.

If the aliens are unused to working in gravity, they won't understand mortars. If they are unused to atmosphere, they won't understand fire. Now, that's something they could learn, but to really grasp the idea, they'd need experience, which'd take time.

 

[Torkuda]

To orbital nukes, actually you should look up how ICBMs work.

ICBMs aren't designed to hit targets in orbit. Now, if the target was in a stable orbit, not too far from the Earth, and made no attempt to evade or anything, and was located in a possible flight path of an ICBM, could theoretically hit it (miss, and the thing is coming back down somewhere though). ICBMs wouldn't cover all possible orbits, though.

We've been to the moon already, I don't see why we can't just launch a rocket with a bomb.

We can't go to the moon whenever we want, though. If someone just happened to be preparing a moon mission at the time, sure, you could send a warhead. If they aren't, though, you'd need lots of time to prepare one.

Also, as a race we've always been capable of traveling great distances, but that has nothing to do with the range of our weapons. Just because aliens can travel over light-years, doesn't mean they have missiles that can be fired from light years away from a target. I guess that would finish us off... well... actually we could just shoot the missiles down... and also if they started firing at a hundred light years out right now, I'm not sure if that would work several centuries from now, after all, the missiles could only travel so fast and by the time they got here, it would be at least 100 years later.

I didn't mean missiles from interstellar distances (though I won't say those are impossible). Humans have sent things to Mars, so an alien race could stay that far out and send things here, being perfectly safe from any attack humans could make.

Also, there's no reason to assume their projectiles can be intercepted, without knowing what they'd be firing at us.

I even had one person ask, "hey, what if they shot down every missile one hundred feet after it left the silo?". My response was something along the lines of "we could only hope they would be that stupid". Then we could just launch five hundred missiles, only twenty of which are actually a threat, and watch these little micro managers try to figure out which ones to shoot.

Assuming they couldn't destroy all of them. There's no reason to be certain they cannot.

I don't think that'd work though, currently all ICBMs have nuclear warheads anyway, there's no decoys, they are all threats.

How exactly would they know all of that, they're aliens. Sure they might have done SOME research, but the settlers probably did SOME research on the natives when they landed, but that precise of intel is pretty impractical.

That's a very important point, one that cannot be stressed enough. Aliens should be, you know, alien. Not like us in all sorts of ways. Which means we are not like them.

Another thing that bugs me is when aliens have weird alien powers, but humans don't have weird human powers. We could easily have better colourvision than they do, or advantages due to being bipedal. If nothing else, we are used to the gravity and atmosphere here, which they are unlikely to be.

If the aliens are unused to working in gravity, they won't understand mortars. If they are unused to atmosphere, they won't understand fire. Now, that's something they could learn, but to really grasp the idea, they'd need experience, which'd take time.

Good point on the last.

I would further say, we could just drive our missiles to new locations, ICBMs could probably be reprogrammed to donate in space pretty easily, and the dodging thing... yea sorry but, no, to leave our atmosphere a projectile has to be traveling at around mach 25 or faster. Unless the aliens already knew where it was headed and we couldn't just redirect the missile (which we can do, look at how cruise missiles work)dodging something going that fast would make dodging bullets look like child's play.

However the whole, "they ARE aliens" thing is one of the main things I wish people would address, and it's far less intellectually vacant then trying to figure out how they could kill us all without even giving it much thought. Aliens would actually be pretty unlikely to know where our missile trajectories are or even how our stuff works. Who's to say a alien race even knows how nuclear weapons work in the first place? There are probably ways to achieve space flight without knowing how nukes work. In fact the connection between the two subjects is pretty loose to say the least. What if they have no idea about the 100 foot rule?

There are examples of more primitive native cultures having advantages over more advanced foreign invaders. Look no further than American history for that. The natives didn't have anything the settler COULDN'T have made or have any strategies the settlers COULDN'T figure out, but all the same, they WEREN'T familiar with native weaponry and they DIDN'T know their strategies. This DID provide advantages. The settlers were NOT godlike. They just had a different history that lead to making some better weapons and having a different way of thinking.

 

[Groxnax]

Hacking an alien ship via a laptop and installing a computer virus into the alien computer system.
Young children gaining powers and have to save the world or something else.

 

[FPLOON]

Comic relief characters that are not comedic and/or bear any significance to the overall story...

Also, only a random blank slate of a character can save humanity...

 

[Torkuda]

Young children gaining powers and have to save the world or something else.

How is Ben Tenyson gaining powers any different than Peter Parker? Agreed, Ben wouldn't be as smart as Parker, but actually, I do find this interesting. You have two ludicrously out there plots, why is your problem age difference? Peter has no combat training or police work history either, so experience is pretty relative, and super powers kinda make physical strength a non-issue. I agree, a 20 year old and a 10 year old can't be equals even under the most ideal circumstances for the ten year old. However in my mind, that just makes for a possibly even more interesting story. We have a hero that is playing the game with a lower IQ for a damn good reason, so he will have difficulties you or I would not have. He's not an idiot, he's just young.

Or is your problem that they always have to "save the world"? I agree, dumb or not in concept, that's pretty over done these days.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Medium sized Turkey Condom (gravy flavored even).
If you get the reference...then you know why. Besides the obvious.

But a close second would be uploading your corpse to the internet via a giant cannon so you can later integrate and take over the mind of a man who has lived, trapped, under your evil corporate headquarters for nearly two decades.
Why? So you can lead an army of goons to kill people with arbitrary levels of "bad" in them, and capture people with arbitrary levels of "good" in them for the express purpose of...killing them later.

 

[RandV80]

So if Sayans get exponentially stronger after they get beat up and are left to heal, how come this and the ability to go Super Sayan wasn't discovered until there were only a couple left, and not when there was a whole goddamn planet of them?

 

[Torkuda]

So if Sayans get exponentially stronger after they get beat up and are left to heal, how come this and the ability to go Super Sayan wasn't discovered until there were only a couple left, and not when there was a whole goddamn planet of them?

More over, if it's a space fairing race with bounty hunters and other set ups all over, would blowing up the main planet actually have any hope of actually whipping out a race? Sure a lot of them live there, but a good number of them don't assumidely.

Actually, the same problem arises with Super Man's origin.

 

[Vegosiux]

The entire "Only villains good looking people ever succeed at anything" thing. Honestly, ever seen a fat and unkempt person in an authority position who wasn't obviously a villain? (not counting parodies, mind - those are silly by definition)

 

[rcs619]

The USS Enterprise (currently on a secret mission in the Klingon home system), being able to dial up Scotty's cell-phone (he stayed behind on Earth), and then proceeding to have a lag-free, completely real-time conversation with him. I have no idea where the Klingon homeworld is, but I doubt it's like, Alpha Centauri. Seriously, I have never seen the massive scale and infinite scope of space-travel so utterly destroyed by a single moment in a movie.

 

[Cecilo]

Stupid things in Fiction hmm?

Well, in Sword of the Stars there is a automated war machine called a System Killer, and all it does, is destroy planets in a solar system by causing the Star to go supernova.

Further there are about 48 of these System Killers just roaming around our known Galaxy. I have no clue as to why anyone would ever make something like this, and in the game there is no hint to which race made them, but we do know that none of the races you can play as DID make them.

Granted they did STOP a supernova once, after Humanity, and a few other races lured some of them to a star that was already going nova. But still, they had to be lured to do that, normally they just destroy solar systems.

Other than that,

Probably Superman/Batman Syndrome, where you have given your hero so many powers, or so much of an advantage, that unless facing each other, they can't be beaten. Ever.

 

[brom0220]

Medium sized Turkey Condom (gravy flavored even).
If you get the reference...then you know why. Besides the obvious.

But a close second would be uploading your corpse to the internet via a giant cannon so you can later integrate and take over the mind of a man who has lived, trapped, under your evil corporate headquarters for nearly two decades.
Why? So you can lead an army of goons to kill people with arbitrary levels of "bad" in them, and capture people with arbitrary levels of "good" in them for the express purpose of...killing them later.

What are these from? I don't remember either of those, but the second one sounds familiar.