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Science-Fictional Shibboleths (antipope.org)
An anonymous reader writes: SF author Charlie Stross has put together a short list of what he considers to be shibboleths for implausible science fiction. (If you're unfamiliar with the term, read the Wikipedia entry first.) So, what tops his list? "Asteroidal gravel banging against the hull of a spaceship. Alternatively: spaceships sheltering from detection behind an asteroid, or dodging asteroids, or pretty much anything else involving asteroids that don't look like [a pock-marked potato]." Another big red flag for Stross is when authors fail to appreciate Newton's second law, having their characters undergo impacts or accelerations that would turn them into a thin, reddish paste on their starship's hull. Some interesting examples from commenters include: futuristic yet manually-aimed weapons, technobabble as a plot device, and science officers with Ph.D. levels of expertise in dozens of fields. One of mine: entire races or planets full of people who behave the same, often based on some keyword. What are yours? Stross's focus is on books, but feel free to bring up movies and TV shows as well.
And those "aliens" always have the weirdest MANDATORY rituals.
Like when the Earthican science officer has to travel home so he can celebrate Chr'istm;as with his family or else he will experience a drop in honour and require an increased h;oul'y pAy''ra'te for those days.
It was bad enough when he had us all sitting around the rec deck cutting Chr'istm;as kh'ah'rdd=s out of pAy''pur so we could exchange them with each other for kh'ah'rdd=s that we had just cut out.
This is actually a pretty good shibboleth. It can be used to identify trolling assholes with almost 100% certainty.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
"Earth Sugardrink" when talking about whatever the most popular human soda is.
I'm adopting this expression. Hell, we should all adopt this expression, so maybe we'll drink less of it and actually enjoy it more when we do have it...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
And the elite all speak with British accents, so you know they're elite.
A British accent is usually a sure sign that they are evil too. That and well groomed beards, favoured by bad guys everywhere. I guess they need something to stroke, and cats are never around when you need them.
In my science fiction universe, everyone speaks with a working class Scottish accent.
When the crew meets a new alien race for the first time and transmits a universal greeting in all known languages, does that include Welsh?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They were clearly trained by the forensics investigators from cop shows, who can also enlarge any photograph by a factor of 1000 with perfect detail.
"Hold on, go back to that photo they took with a point-and-shoot on the International Space Station.
Enlarge.
Enlarge.
Zoom in on that dot.
Magnify 1000x.... can you clean that up?"
[Exchanging knowing looks]
"We've got the son of a bitch now. Notice the rotation of the screws on the main shoulder plate? This is Iron Man right after he got clipped by a Navy fighter jet, clearly violating Newton's 2nd Law. He should have been turned into a reddish paste on the inside of that suit, but this photo clearly shows the only serious damage was to the realistic depiction of physics."
"And fachrissakes would someone tell me what the word 'shibboleth' means!?"
Nothing posted to
Yeah, it's a different type of Earthican sugardrink. You probably never heard of it. I get it imported from a small distributor.
- Klingon Hipster