Star Trek

[Doc Nebula]

Socialist.  The Federation is not communist.  People get what they want in addition to what they need, and they don't seem to be required to give back anything in exchange... at least, not if they are willing to settle for basic, subsistence level life.

The central government takes care of everyone, and demands nothing in return... which is only made possible because they have INSANELY cheap energy, plus the ability to rearrange matter at will.   

What drives me crazy about STAR TREK is that they don't use their technology logically, nor does their technology change their behavior in any way.  I mean, yeah, it's pretty much eliminated racism or petty crime, but... people still get old.  Non mainstream sexuality is still obviously taboo.  People still get sick.  It's annoyingly stupid.

[Sigma]

Socialist.  The Federation is not communist.  People get what they want in addition to what they need, and they don't seem to be required to give back anything in exchange... at least, not if they are willing to settle for basic, subsistence level life.

The central government takes care of everyone, and demands nothing in return... which is only made possible because they have INSANELY cheap energy, plus the ability to rearrange matter at will.   

What drives me crazy about STAR TREK is that they don't use their technology logically, nor does their technology change their behavior in any way.  I mean, yeah, it's pretty much eliminated racism or petty crime, but... people still get old.  Non mainstream sexuality is still obviously taboo.  People still get sick.  It's annoyingly stupid.

It's hard to make that compelling television though. I'd argue that non-mainstream sexuality being taboo is more a limitation of it being a television show than what would reasonably occur in that kind of setting.

If you want exposure to what the Federation would become if taken to its logical extreme, you need to read Ian M. Bank's Culture novels.

[Buster's Uncle]

[ninja'd; also, what Sigma said]

You're judging it by print standards.  Screen SF STILL hasn't caught up, and ST was contemporary to Lost in Space.  The context matters.

TV and movies maybe aren't good at exploring the future in a smart way - at least, no one's impressed me with that sort of thing, onscreen.  Different media do tend to have different strengths.  [shrugs]  I wish I could get my sister on here to talk about characterization and soap opera, and why girls like Star Trek, and not so much Larry Niven novels...

[Doc Nebula]

Roddenberry was interested in compelling television.  I'm interested in either good science fiction or good pulp.  STAR TREK was almost never the first and hardly ever the second.

[Doc Nebula]

[ninja'd; also, what Sigma said]

You're judging it by print standards.  Screen SF STILL hasn't caught up, and ST was contemporary to Lost in Space.  The context matters.

TV and movies maybe aren't good at exploring the future in a smart way - at least, no one's impressed me with that sort of thing, onscreen.  Different media do tend to have different strengths.  [shrugs]  I wish I could get my sister on here to talk about characterization and soap opera, and why girls like Star Trek, and not so much Larry Niven novels...

MAX HEADROOM was good science fiction.   You can do it on TV.  Roddenberry just didn't want to.

I wouldn't despise Roddenberry so much if he'd just been honest.  If he'd done good pulp with rayguns and space ships, fine, I like good pulp.  But STAR TREK was always half assed.  He was too full of himself to do good pulp -- you can't imagine Roddenberry ever reading a Doc Savage novel, for example -- and too lazy/dumb to write good science fiction.

I'm sure there have been some other good sf shows on TV.   The third season of that submarine show, with Michael Ironsides... it had some good SF in it.  There have probably been a few others.  But good SF has little mass appeal; it requires people to be able to think.  TV audiences hate that.  Witness the idiocy that was the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. 

[Sigma]

Roddenberry was interested in compelling television.  I'm interested in either good science fiction or good pulp.  STAR TREK was almost never the first and hardly ever the second.

Then go read Consider Phlebas by the aforementioned Ian M. Banks. It's exactly what you'd surmise the Federation would evolve into given enough time, and it's a pretty good book too.

[Buster's Uncle]

[I hearby call attention to the fact that these jokers are out-posting me this afternoon; ninja'd again]

Mind you, I think the girls miss a lot, not keeping up on their Niven...

The BS:G remake did indeed wear out its welcome with me in a hurry.  Strong-ish start, but went on WAY after they ran out of stories.  And dreadfully unimaginative and un-SF from the very beginning.  I even missed the robot dagget before they wrapped up.

If you want to poke around on previous pages, BTW, I posted videos of the entirety of all three Flash Gordon serials a few months ago.  That stuff rocks.

[Doc Nebula]

I've got a lot in my in stack, and haven't heard good things about Banks.  But thanks for the recommendation.

[Doc Nebula]

Yeah.  The first BS:G was good pulp SF.  The second was just a mess. 

From my blog, long ago:

Should we, or should we not, watch the galactically stupid Battlestar: Galactica?

So, we watched the first two episodes (after the pilot, I mean) of Battlestar Galactica's first season. And, yeah, interesting characters, fascinating human interactions, decent dialogue, hot naked blonde chicks in virtual hot tubs... I get the appeal. Really, I do.

But does it have to be so, well, galactically stupid, from the scientific POV?

First -- as with nearly any TV SF, I'm already working hard to ignore so much on this show. I mean, these characters are, literally, unEarthly human beings. Which is to say, they are not from Earth. They have never been to Earth. Earth is naught but a vague, ancient legend to them, and it's not even the human race's common origin point from millenia in the past... no, it's the mythical '13th Colony', that is 'beyond the farthest star', a place which is as exotic, alien, and utterly unknown to them as their planetary settlements are to us.

And yet, they wear the same clothing styles and fashions as we do, not just on Earth, but in Western 21st Century culture. Their clothes hangers, their padlocks, their bricks of plastic explosive, their detonators, their carrying cases and tool boxes, their flashlights, their small arms, their books... all are virtually identical to the items that perform the very same very specific tasks in our own Earthly culture.

Plus, while the actual cards are somewhat differently shaped and designed, these unEarthly human beings pretty obviously play poker, too.

And they use the exact same kind of money we do. And they're all free market capitalists, and their government is a republic that places an obvious premium on individual liberty which is ruled by democratically elected representatives. And their chief executive's title? President, naturally.

Now, I think it was Shakespeare who noted that tools designed to be used by similar beings for similar purposes will often end up similar in appearance, and I'm not discounting that, but these are very very specific artifacts designed to perform very very specific tasks, and there's no reason why, for example, we need to be watching characters from a distant star system who have never set foot on Earth opening what is obviously a clothes closet and taking what is obviously a military jacket off of what is obviously a clothes hanger. Why can't they have some kind of oddly geometrical gridwork with hooks jutting off it at irregular intervals that folds into the wall once you hang your clothes on it? Why can't their hand weapons look like laser pointers or chrome eggs or headbands or jeweled brass knuckles or wristbands with metal spigots or something? Why can't they read geometrical printing on triangular plastic scroll sheets wrapped around metal batons, instead of Earthly printed volumes? Why can't their explosives be lengths of metallic cord, and their padlocks be open triangles of metal with little dial-rings embedded in one vertice?

And if I can come up with all these viable, completely exotic seeming alternative presentations of very common, everyday artifacts in five minutes of free association while I'm typing, why can't the professional writers employed on Battlestar: Galactica come up with something even better? Why do they seem so absolutely determined to never, ever remind us that these people aren't from Earth, except when someone mentions it in a specific bit of expository dialogue?

And, for the love of the jesus, why can't these characters wear articles of clothing besides jackets with zippers, and skirts, and V neck sweaters, and button up collared white shirts with neck ties, and goddam nylon stockings with goddam high heels? I mean, NECK TIES? A race of humans from beyond the furthest star completely independently invented NECK TIES as formal wear for the male half of the race? And I completely balk at the idea that any other sentient race anywhere has ever inflicted nylons and high heels on their women. I just absolutely balk.

I mean, I'm already willfully ignoring -- not suspending my disbelief, there isn't enough titanium alloy cable in the universe to let me do that, but by sheer force of will, straight up refusing to think about -- stuff like what the hell these people do for gravity when they're out in space, and how they have Hispanics and Asians and Africans and other very recognizable, very specific Earthly human subraces, and how is it exactly that they can create artificial intelligence and live comfortably for an indefinite time period in the harshest natural environment known to man and travel faster than light, and they can do all this and yet, still, the remainder of their clearly evident technological infrastructure is exactly identical with that of industrialized 21st Century Earth?

They have cheap, apparently limitless power, but they don't have focused energy weapons. They have artificial gravity, but they don't have anti-grav. They have some kind of effective radiation shielding that works for years on end in space, and highly efficient environment control technology, and they can create autonomous, self programming artificial intelligence, yet they don't seem to have any kind of cloning, or genetic engineering, or rejuvenation of injured tissue, or any sort of advanced medical technology at all (although they do have some kind of anti-radiation medicine they can inject themselves with, when, as always, the plot requires it).

They can jump entire fleets of space ships across parsecs of empty space instantaneously, and yet, they still use motorized vehicles to get around on the surface of their planets.

There may be plausible explanations for some of this, but the only reasonable explanation for ALL of it... for the exact technologies we need to fulfill the requirements of the ongoing story arc to be the only advanced technology they have, and to have those things have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the surrounding technological infrastructure -- is that godlike aliens showed up at some point in their past and gave them everything they need to travel in space. The ability to construct viable long term artificial life support environments, the artificial gravity, the cheap and apparently limitless power, the faster than light drive, the capacity to build self aware artificial life forms -- they can't possibly have actually invented or developed any of it themselves. Because if they had, this stuff would have grown out of other technological advances and it would have spawned other advanced technological offshoots. That's how an actual advanced technology works... but not on Battlestar Galactica.

So I have to willfully ignore all that to watch this show, and I do it, and it's damn hard work. But they'd make it enormously easier for me to do this if they'd put just a little bit more imagination into dressing the sets. Hire some actual SF geeks to work in the props department. Come up with some truly alien appearing tools, weapons, and wardrobe choices. And, hey, maybe even spend a little money making a few extras up as members of an exotic, unEarthly in appearance human sub-race, as well. Maybe a completely hairless people with visibly reddish skin. Or a group of overly hirsute dwarves with pointed ears and epicanthic folds around their eyes. A gold skinned race with solid black eyes, and webbed fingers and toes that lives on a mostly aquatic planet. People with really weird hair. People with antenna. People with horns, or chitinous spurs projecting from their heels and wrists. The possibilities are endless, and you wouldn't need to have many of these weirdos around. One regular supporting character, and the occasional sight of a few others in the background would go light years for establishing verisimilitude on this show.

But while SF in books is for the intelligent and the imaginative, SF on TV and in the movies is nearly always for brain-dead droolers who not only don't notice any of this [poop], but who would probably be deeply troubled (without understanding why) if a nominally science fiction TV show presented any kind of truly exotic, unEarthly environment or characters on a regular basis. So I understand why they can't do any of this, or why they choose not to, anyway.

It tasks me, but, yeah, I get it.

But here's what I don't understand -- in the second episode of the first season, a stinking Cylon saboteur blows up half the Galactica's water tanks, and 60% of their available water gets vented to space, and this is a huge thing, because suddenly a water supply that would have lasted for several years with their completely efficient recycling systems will now only last, maybe, three hours and twelve minutes if they go on strict water rations. So Edward James Olmos has to order all his cool little cargo ships out scout around the nearby star systems desperately looking for water, and if they don't find it by the end of the episode, then they're all doomed to die... a horrible death.

And nobody apparently is aware that there's plenty of water -- in fact, there is exactly as much water as they need to replace what they've lost -- traveling in the exact same ballistic path as the Galactica, in the form of a cloud of ice particles surrounding the Galactica. I mean, jesus christ, you idiots, the water didn't vanish into a [intercourse gerund] black hole when it blew out of your tanks, it turned into ice instantly and is still floating out there in the vacuum of space. Yes. RIGHT THERE, you [intercourse gerund] dumbasses. Give your crew-guys in their dorky orange coveralls some space suits, jet packs, and butterfly nets and go get it back, dipshits.

I mean, I'm sorry, but this is just galactically stupid.

Now, as I said, I like the interactions and I like the drama and I like the humanoid Cylons and I like the dialogue and the characters and the actors and all that stuff. But you know what? The backdrop, the science, and the essential internal conflicts in the plots themselves are also important stuff.

I don't know why I'd expect any better from Ronald D. Moore, a man who has mastered the art of creating utterly craptastic and completely brainless hack non-science fiction for television while toiling in the moronic franchise vineyards of post Roddenberry Star Trek and the likable but perpetually stupid Roswell. And honestly, I don't know why I keep hoping for real, honest to god science fiction to show up on TV. And I'm perfectly aware that on the very rare occasion when SF does show up on TV and the internal science makes sense, either the human elements are hackneyed and utterly predictable (Babylon 5), or the show itself lasts only eight episodes before vanishing forever (Max Headroom).

I'm still very pleased I got this for Christmas. But I'd be a great deal more pleased if the producers of this show would hire, like, the Comic Shop Guy from The Simpsons, or some other ubergeek, to fact check their scripts and make intelligent suggestions to the prop department.

Actually, I'd really really like it if they'd hire me, because, you know, that's got to be way better than working in a call center.

[Buster's Uncle]

As I said about six months ago in this very thread, we really lost something when they threw out the yarns and centons and amobrosia and socialites and daggets - aside from the joke about the value of a life without amobrosia and socialites.  It's not the same without, not only the wonderful cheese of it, but a legitimate attempt to make these space people a little bit alien.

I imagine any hard-core fans of the original real BSG wouldn't need me to explain my cranky distain for fake Star Track.  People who didn't get it did a revival that didn't get it.  It's hard to take, seeing that done to something you love.

[Doc Nebula]

Socialators were one of the very few real, actual science fiction elements in the original BS:G, or on TV at all, for that matter.  Here was a futuristic non Earthly society that had DIFFERENT SEXUAL MORES from us.  Amazing.

(Not different sexual mores than any human culture, though... many historical cultures have legitimized prostitution.  Just not ours.)

I also liked the laser bolos. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Exactly.

It's a pity that real BSG wasn't very good.  It had a lot going for it, honestly.

[Doc Nebula]

It could have been good.  But not under Glenn Larsen.

[Buster's Uncle]

I cannot say.

[Sigma]

BSG wasn't designed to be hard science though; it's science has about the same degree of accuracy and integrity as, say, Star Wars, and knowing that it's an intentional decision allowed me to enjoy the show for its merits rather than for failing astrophysics class. As for your comments on culture, you're absolutely right and that is largely irrelevant; the show isn't about the kind of clothing people wear or what card games they play, the show is about how the characters deal with faith, doubt, betrayal and destiny, as well as cool space dogfights.