"Science" Fiction

[-Drifter-]

Science Fiction as a genre tends to disappoint me. I really want to like it, but generally just can't, and I think I've finally realized why that is: With a few exceptions, Sci-Fi is just really hokey.

Part of this, I think, comes from Science Fiction's general disregard of the whole "Science" part. Think about it. Among other ridiculousness, there's a vast universe potentially full of extra-terrestrial life, life that started from a completely different point and evolved in different conditions, yet aliens are almost always just weird looking humans who are somehow fluent in English.

Spoiler: Parenthetical Statement

The English part in particular gets to me. Even on Earth there are a number of different languages; hell, there are even different variants of the same language, and you're telling me that everyone in space just speaks the one? The popular Mass Effect is particularly guilty of this, which is one of the reasons I find the series so hard to get into.

Despite this silliness, many of these games take themselves way too seriously, which for me only makes the campy bits stand out even more.

Not to give too much credit to Half-Life in one day, but I liked the first and second games a lot because they took a bleaker, scarier and more scientific approach to things than your typical Star-Trek/Star Wars/Starship Troopers knock off, without completely sacrificing characterization, plot or the odd bit of humor.

Spoiler: Another Parenthetical Statement

I say the first two because I sort of fell out with series when Episode one came out, since it seemed like a bit of a cop-out after the ending of Half-Life 2, and around Episode 2 things were starting to feel... well, hokey.

Do you like the Sci-Fi genre? Do you feel like I do, that it could be good but generally isn't? Or do you just dislike it in general?

 

[joebthegreat]

What bugs me is when they start throwing out the whole psionic (MAGIC) thing. Oh, well we're flying around in space now and so obviously people can move stuff with their minds.

Where is the good science fiction out there that takes a more realistic look at things without getting magic involved?

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I read Sci-Fi books all the time, but I suspect you mean games. About the language thing, that isn't a problem in WH40K, because if you know anything about the universe, they're not actually speaking English and all the prayers and stuff aren't in Latin. They're just place-holders for the fictional languages, such as High Gothic. But to answer your ending question, I like Sci-Fi and rarely find problems with any of it if you just have a little think about it.

 

[Jack_the_Knife]

I'm much more fond of the period of science fiction mostly dominated by the light-to-medium sci-fi writers, you know, Asimov, Bradbury, more dealing with issues of society in a unique way.

'Course, not to say I'm some pretentious and obnoxious purist who holds disdain for anything that hasn't won a literary award, I really enjoyed the new Battlestar Galactica series as well as Caprica.

What I really don't like are those series where the resolution involves a Deus Ex Machina or "I'mma use these Alien stem cells to treat the disease forever" or "I'm going to hack the crap out of this malevolent AI with my hacking gun" as opposed to a resolution with the already established logic of the world.

I let the bit with Mass Effect slide, just because they've gone to great lengths to ensure everything fits, from translators to galactic politics and the like.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Well do you want to not understand anyone? I just like to think in these games tht some sort of universal translator has been made and is popular enough that it doesnt really need to be mentioned just like you dont really need to mention chairs that much

Oh and I dont really have a problem with techno-Psychic abilities but thats just me, im not the biggest Sci Fi fan ever but its an alright Genre, although i could see why it might annoy some people

 

[Terminal Blue]

I remember an old Simpsons comic where the nerds were hired by a film studio to make a science fiction movie on the grounds that it would be the most accurate science fiction movie ever. It was implied the entire movie consisted of a spaceship travelling at sublight speed to get to where stuff was happening because the laws of relativity don't permit faster than light travel.

Realism isn't the problem, the problem is when the lack of realism is used to hold up bad plots. The point of science fiction is that, like fantasy, you can tell stories unhindered by the concerns of remaining accurate to real world or historical settings, but wheras fantasy is quite stilted in endlessly ripping off JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and/or Mervyn Peake, science fiction has tended to be more dynamic because our perception of what is scientifically advanced chances constantly.

Mass Effect is not scientifically accurate, but it is a reasonably convincing idea of what might happen if the human race discovered faster-than-light space flight and alien races within the next century. That is interesting, even if I do find myself asking how the ships all survive multiple unshielded impacts from weapons with the destructive power of several nuclear bombs.

 

[MetroidNut]

I love sci-fi. I've noticed the majority of what was mentioned in the original post, but I'm perfectly fine with rationalizing most of it. For example, I always assume that if everyone's speaking English, it's either a universal trade language that isn't actually English, or everyone has some sort of instant translator. As for every species in the galaxy being near-human, I like to think it's the result of convergent evolution - if life really does develop most commonly on earth-like planets, then it could make some sense that you end up with a galaxy full of bipedal humanoids.

And if all that rationalizing fails (humans and Vulcans really shouldn't be able to reproduce), well, I have no problem ignoring the scientific issue in question to focus on the actual product, which is often quite good.

I also caution against letting these sorts of inaccuracies turn you away from the Mass Effect series; Mass Effect 2, particularly, is superb.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Personally I take the "Science" part of Science fiction with mountains and mountains of salt. Anything is possible fictionally and I don't need it to sound entirely feasible. Everyone has a point of disconnect, that "Okay, this is just too silly" moment but as long as it is an interesting read I'm okay with believing they just brought back dinosaurs and are having a war against tanks using Tyrannosaurus cavalry.

I love Sci-Fi. I should probably get back to writing it sometime soon :/

 

[-Drifter-]

I also caution against letting these sorts of inaccuracies turn you away from the Mass Effect series; Mass Effect 2, particularly, is superb.

Well, I made mention that it was "one" of the things that turn me off of Mass Effect, but certainly not the only thing. This is just my opinion, but I find Mass Effect in general to be very campy and badly written. I know, I know, and I've said this before [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.252842-Actually-I-havent-played-X-and-probably-never-will-because#9399434] but I think Bioware is vastly over-rated when it comes to their writing.

 

[Fenring]

Part of this, I think, comes from Science Fiction's general disregard of the whole "Science" part.

No. Most science fiction will actually explain the main principal. Take 2001, the Monolith a completely solid state computer which exists in four dimesions (thus allowing it to have much larger space within than it appears to). Any good sci-fi will take the time to explain itself. Even Dune explained the space folding engines and the spice quite well.

Think about it. Among other ridiculousness, there's a vast universe potentially full of extra-terrestrial life, life that started from a completely different point and evolved in different conditions, yet aliens are almost always just weird looking humans who are somehow fluent in English.

In fact, most series do not have inter-species fluency, most often there is a new, created language for communication or some mechanized translation device, which is actually amazingly reasonable.

Spoiler: Parenthetical Statement

The English part in particular gets to me. Even on Earth there are a number of different languages; hell, there are even different variants of the same language, and you're telling me that everyone in space just speaks the one? The popular Mass Effect is particularly guilty of this, which is one of the reasons I find the series so hard to get into.

Mass Effect has those translator thingies, and it is safe to assume in the future that more languages will die out and we will be left with only a few predominant languages which almost everyone speaks fluently, this is normally attributed to globalization or a single human alliance promoting unity in Science Fiction.

Not to give too much credit to Half-Life in one day, but I liked the first and second games a lot because they took a bleaker, scarier and more scientific approach to things than your typical Star-Trek/Star Wars/Starship Troopers knock off, without completely sacrificing the odd bit of humor.

LOL. Have you read Starship Troopers? That shit is bleak, it's humanity living in a fascist government crushing other species and killing settlements of mutants, doesn't get much more bleak than that. I agree with your thing about Star Trek, but they explain it a bit but it's very subtle and kinda dumb, imo. Star Wars is more fantasy than Sci-fi, I wouldn't look into it.

Do you like the Sci-Fi genre? Do you feel like I do, that it could be good but generally isn't? Or do you just dislike it in general?

Read some books. Games typically don't go into depth about this stuff because it's a game. You don't want to stop and have ten minutes of exposition every time something happens. Read the novelizations or stuff like the Codex in ME, which pretty much explains EVERYTHING. Try Greg Bear books, he goes crazy on science stuff.

 

[Defense]

I like Science Fiction like most other people, but I prefer when games go full fiction and bring a lot of things from out of nowhere, like the Persona series.

 

[Chicago Ted]

Well do you want to not understand anyone? I just like to think in these games tht some sort of universal translator has been made and is popular enough that it doesnt really need to be mentioned just like you dont really need to mention chairs that much.

Spoiler: Parenthetical Statement

The English part in particular gets to me. Even on Earth there are a number of different languages; hell, there are even different variants of the same language, and you're telling me that everyone in space just speaks the one? The popular Mass Effect is particularly guilty of this, which is one of the reasons I find the series so hard to get into.

Mass Effect has those translator thingies, and it is safe to assume in the future that more languages will die out and we will be left with only a few predominant languages which almost everyone speaks fluently, this is normally attributed to globalization or a single human alliance promoting unity in Science Fiction.

To be fair to the Mass Effect series that the OP called on this, it is actually said that there are universal translators that are constantly updated in order to translate everyone speaking.


If you skip to the 2:50-2:55ish mark, you will see it being directly referenced. Mass Effect is one of the best Science Fiction games I can think of for explaining stuff because of its Codex and attention to detail.

 

[Fenring]

If you skip to the 2:50-2:55ish mark, you will see it being directly referenced. Mass Effect is one of the best Science Fiction games I can think of for explaining stuff because of its Codex and attention to detail.

Yeah, they also do quite a bit in the books too. They only thing I can really fault them for is the logic for the switch to limited ammo, which was explained terribly.

 

[MetroidNut]

If you skip to the 2:50-2:55ish mark, you will see it being directly referenced. Mass Effect is one of the best Science Fiction games I can think of for explaining stuff because of its Codex and attention to detail.

Yeah, they also do quite a bit in the books too. They only thing I can really fault them for is the logic for the switch to limited ammo, which was explained terribly.

True, but as I noted a little while ago in a totally-unrelated thread, gameplay trumps realism. Mass Effect's weapons were incredibly boring; adding in limited ammo made combat in Mass Effect 2 rather more enjoyable, for me at any rate.

 

[Chicago Ted]

If you skip to the 2:50-2:55ish mark, you will see it being directly referenced. Mass Effect is one of the best Science Fiction games I can think of for explaining stuff because of its Codex and attention to detail.

Yeah, they also do quite a bit in the books too. They only thing I can really fault them for is the logic for the switch to limited ammo, which was explained terribly.

Bit of Gameplay and Story segregation really, what annoys me more though is how all the weapons that previously were prone to overheating suddenly changed in 2 years and how it was all changed to the heatsinks.

The logic behind the choice was there, it was for soldiers and allowing them to fire more rapidely. Waiting for a weapon to cooldown took many seconds, while someone who was trained could swap out a heatsink for a new one in only a couple. It makes sense why it would be implemented, but not why the other type of gun is completely absent. It'd make more sense to keep the technology still in pistols and backup weapons.

 

[Fenring]

If you skip to the 2:50-2:55ish mark, you will see it being directly referenced. Mass Effect is one of the best Science Fiction games I can think of for explaining stuff because of its Codex and attention to detail.

Yeah, they also do quite a bit in the books too. They only thing I can really fault them for is the logic for the switch to limited ammo, which was explained terribly.

True, but as I noted a little while ago in a totally-unrelated thread, gameplay trumps realism. Mass Effect's weapons were incredibly boring; adding in limited ammo made combat in Mass Effect 2 rather more enjoyable, for me at any rate.

Yeah, but I can't forgive them nerfing my super Biotics. I loved them...

 

[MetroidNut]

Snip.

Yeah, but I can't forgive them nerfing my super Biotics. I loved them...

I always brought Liara in Mass Effect 1, for just that reason.

Enemies are behind cover.
Cover starts levitating.
As it hits the ceiling, I see the enemies are levitating as well. I snipe them one-by-one.
Biotic Lift for the win.

 

[Fenring]

Snip.

Yeah, but I can't forgive them nerfing my super Biotics. I loved them...

I always brought Liara in Mass Effect 1, for just that reason.

Enemies are behind cover.
Cover starts levitating.
As it hits the ceiling, I see the enemies are levitating as well. I snipe them one-by-one.
Biotic Lift for the win.

I never used Liara, I was a Vanguard, I would just throw their cover at them! Or do the Singularity and get them with my shotgun. So good.

On topic, Biotics are explained very well too!

 

[kuyo]

Not all Sci-fi is in space. See Sliders (the first season, it turned to shit later.) I've seen the English thing explained in something I don't remember, or maybe I just thought of it my self. They don't speak English but instead stimulate the message directly to the brain. It sounds like English when in fact no words are spoken.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Do you like the Sci-Fi genre? Do you feel like I do, that it could be good but generally isn't? Or do you just dislike it in general?

It certainly could be better in gaming, if that's what you mean; personally it's one of my favorite genres, but the problem is that companies are too scared to take the risk for it, since they are blinded thinking we only like FPS games.