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

[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.

 

[Groxnax]

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.

Its the "Save the world" part not the youth part.

 

[General Grind]

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.)

I think you are coming at this from the wrong perspective. Yes, human on human warfare has always yielded losses on both sides, but an alien race attacking humans is not the same as human on human warfare. If the imagined alien race is exceptionally smarter than the human race, they can be able to wipe us out without a single casualty on their side. Coming at this from a human perspective is natural and obviously the only possible way we can come at it, but if they are unimaginably smarter than us than it would be not akin to warfare between an advanced civilization and a primitive one, but more akin to war between man and sheep. Thus I do not think it is "stupid" to assume that alien race X would completely dominate us, but that it is just as likely as us being able to repel them on account of nukes or other advantages we have.

OT: A man who grows bone claws out of his hands and can subtract them at will. Also a girl with faerie wings who shoots acid. Basically, most of X-men really.

 

[cojo965]

Canon-Sue protagonists. (God Mode Sue = Resident Evil, Anti-Sue = Twilight, Black Hole Sue = Charmed).

Armor double standard: The less she wears, the more it protects.

Also anything of the following books. I think the name of the URL speaks for itself: http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/10-real-book-covers-from-dinosaur-on-human-sex-novels/

Wait, WHAT!? I'm sorry I can't contribute because nothing could possibly top that FUCKING image I now have in my head. Now excuse me while I go headbutt the pointy part of a nail.

 

[Atmos Duality]

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

I figured I'd give others a sporting chance to figure them out first.

But as a hint:
One is from a movie.
The other is from a very stupid video game.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Someone probably already beat me to this BUT!

Every single plant, bush and, tree in Manhattan/New York City (or was it The Whole World?) stops letting off its regular pollen and instead spreads a strain that causes a violent allergic reaction in every human being on the Earth. Symptoms include falling into a trance-like state until the effected person finds a way to end their own life. This pollen only effects humans and, the cause is specifically because humans are polluting the planet.

---

A global cosmetics/pharmaceutical producer inadvertently discovers a way to revive and, mutate dead cells which leads to the revivification of humans bodies. Instead of going public with the knowledge, this company instead turns to making biological weapons out of humans, frogs, dogs, plants and all sorts of other things.

---

South America attempts to invade the USA while commandeering an orbital super weapon in the US's control.

---

Giant Red Buttons that act as a self-destruct trigger...but not automatic self-destruct, the kind that starts a 5, 10, etc. minute timer.

 

[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.)

I think you are coming at this from the wrong perspective. Yes, human on human warfare has always yielded losses on both sides, but an alien race attacking humans is not the same as human on human warfare. If the imagined alien race is exceptionally smarter than the human race, they can be able to wipe us out without a single casualty on their side. Coming at this from a human perspective is natural and obviously the only possible way we can come at it, but if they are unimaginably smarter than us than it would be not akin to warfare between an advanced civilization and a primitive one, but more akin to war between man and sheep. Thus I do not think it is "stupid" to assume that alien race X would completely dominate us, but that it is just as likely as us being able to repel them on account of nukes or other advantages we have.

OT: A man who grows bone claws out of his hands and can subtract them at will. Also a girl with faerie wings who shoots acid. Basically, most of X-men really.

As I've said (something to the effect of), there's no idea that is entirely inconceivable. This does not mean there are not intellectually vacant ideas.

Generally folks seem to use the aliens dominate us like gods plot to say "What if the aliens completely dominate us and force us to reexamine ours ways of thinking?". Don't you mean "what if I had a convenient plot item that forced everyone to just sit quietly while I preached at them?"? Kinda what Taken (the sci-fi miniseries) started to feel like after a while, especially after the BS, aliens made us THINK we fought them episode. Being conquered or otherwise subjected by an alien race is a very interesting idea, why can't we actually explore and show how things go down? Why, if you want to work some kind of anti war message into your production, can't you actually show horrors of war? Actually showing non-glamorized death is pretty effective, artists have proved this before. It's better than just using a device to shut everyone else out while your alien Jesus pontificates.

Or they use the plot to set up an unbelievably dumb miguffin. "The aliens can only be defeated by an ALIEN laser beam, because that's made of energy (or its alien or advanced or something)". Oh yea, because shock waves and flashes from nukes aren't made of energy or anything. Lasers are so next gen, there's no way we could make something so amazing as a laser beam.

The only time I find this plot interesting is when it's used as "we just got pwned, deal with it.". That's interesting because, now we realize just how small we are and we have to figure out how to establish our worth when we have been shown so rudely how not special we really are. A god like entity farted and that was it. It probably just made a mistake or didn't even notice. Any survivors now have to figure out where to go from there. That is an interesting idea. Interesting, but I've never seen it.

 

[Yoshi4102]

Aliens having a very similar anatomy to humans. Because if there even is intelligent life out there, pretty much no chance they'll be anything like us.