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Why Charles Stross Hates Star Trek
daria42 writes "British sci-fi author Charles Stross has confessed that he has long hated the Star Trek franchise for its relegation of technology as irrelevant to plot and character development — and the same goes for similar shows such as Babylon Five. The problem, according to Stross, is that as Battlestar Galactica creator Ron Moore has described in a recent speech, the writers of Star Trek would simply 'insert' technology or science into the script whenever needed, without any real regard to its significance; 'then they'd have consultants fill in the appropriate words (aka technobabble) later.'"
Firefly was awesome. The first televised episode when Mal kicked a guy through the intake of the ships engine I knew that it was going to be substantially different than any sci-fi I'd seen on t.v. in some time. They also did some cool things to help suspend disbelief, which were picked up by BSG. Fortunately BSG for BSG fans, the show got more viewers and lasted longer than Firefly - though I think it owed Firefly a huge debt for the look, tone, etc.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Funny, I happen to hate Charles Stross for almost the exact opposite reason. His books are drowning in an obsession with flushing out every angle he can find on the technology, and leave almost no room for anything else.
Roddenberry's bible on the original ST explicitly said that no solution to any plot issue/conflict may ever be resolved by a technological solution -- interpersonal relations/social behavior needed to resolve things.
This was thrown out in TNG, which is why it sucked monkies.
The best science fiction is represented by PKD, not Varley. It's the society and the people and ideas that matter in any fiction, not the gears and details of the tech.
Which was owned by a Ferengie who were not part of the Federation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Reception
Some have accused the portrayal of the Ferengi of being antisemitic. In the book Religions of Star Trek, Ross S. Kraemer wrote that "Ferengi religion seems almost a parody of traditional Judaism... Critics have pointed out a disturbing correlation between Ferengi attributes (love of profit that overrides communal decency; the large, sexualized head feature, in this case ears) and negative Jewish stereotypes." Commentator Jonah Goldberg wrote that Ferengi were portrayed in The Next Generation as "runaway capitalists with bullwhips who looked like a mix between Nazi caricatures of Jews and the original Nosferatu." The fact that the four most notable Ferengi characters, Quark, Nog, Rom and Zek, are played by Jewish actors Armin Shimerman, Aron Eisenberg, Max Grodénchik and Wallace Shawn contributes to this theory.
Actually the first episode I saw them in the first thing that popped in my mind was that they were bashing republicans or capitalists in general. I guess I wasn't too far off.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I know. That was the part that I found most compelling about All Good Things. I think whoever came up with that plot is a genius because he found a way of having Q simultaneously destroy and save the entire universe through the actions of Picard. It was extremely clever along with the added bonus of the whole "How all of the characters drifted apart in the future." arc.
To distill his point into two words "NERD RAGE!!!!"
He says that he doesn't like Star Trek, and gives reasons why.
Star Trek fans interpret his words as a hostile attack on their beloved icon, no matter what his intent.
Similarly:
Someone claims they don't like Christianity and gives examples of why.
Christians (especially fanatics) interpret his words as a hostile attack on their beloved icon, no matter what his intent.
He's so right. He references the Turkey City Lexicon, which lists most of the things that make bad SF. Also worth reading is the Evil Overlord List. (" 2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through." "56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice." "67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.")
There are some other annoying cliches in SF. One is copying historical battles. The Defense of Roarke's Drift has shown up in at least four SF novels. (Nobody ever seems to do the Defense of Duffer's Drift.) Star Wars space battles are copied from WWI biplane battles, where nobody can hit targets consistently, even at short range. There's also the embarrassing fact that, historically, heroism hasn't decided many major battles. (Roman saying: "The Legion is not composed of heroes. Heroes are what the Legion kills.") Military SF no longer reflects this, because the WWII generation, which learned that the hard way, has died off.
David Weber does battles better, but his stuff requires too much exposition for most people. His latest book in the Honor Harrington series consists mostly of transcripts of meetings, setting up the political background for the next book.
Stross himself has his moments. The Merchant's War series starts out as fantasy, but slowly, book by book, moves into hard fiction and then politics. In the last book out so far, a character modelled on Dick Cheney has dealt with a threat from a castle in an alternate universe by having his people blow up the castle with a nuclear weapon.