SF conventions--of another sort

[vilakins]

Someone on an SF mailing list directed me to an interesting post on james_nicoll's LJ.

If you could make one convention of modern SF go away, which one would you choose?

If you could add one, what would you add?

I commented there but I decided I'd like to know what you think. My picks are:

Get rid of the hackneyed civilisation where--gasp, how original!--women are oppressed. Even Farscape and Firefly have done it. Use some imagination already.

I want more alien aliens. How about furry aliens, or insectoid ones instead of the usual humanoids, and let's play with gender with a little more imagination. How about societies with several sexes, where you need more than two to procreate, or a hive society? Anything but clichéd old recycled human ones.

But you knew that. :-)

Comments

[kernezelda]

IIRC, the Tenctonese in, oh, God, I can't remember the name of the series, with Newcomers and a cop buddy show - Alien Nation, yes, that's it! - had a tri-part reproductive system, and the males were nominally the 'weaker' sex.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I remember that show, very vaguely. You're right. Didn't they also use growls to seduce? :-)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Humming. Humming was very erotic for them. :)

And, yeah, that was a show that really put some thought into making the biology and the culture and such actually feel kind of alien, even if ultimately the aliens were just humans in spotty headpieces. Their reproductive system didn't make a whole lot of sense to me in evolutionary terms, but if you believe that they were genetically engineered -- which is supportable from canon -- it works quite nicely. What I really liked is the fact that the alies quite clearly regarded themselves as normal, and when the human got freaked out by them not conforming to his ideas of "masculinity," etc., it was pretty clearly the human's problem.

I liked that show. :)

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Binnaum, Linnaum, and Gannaum, as I recall. Humans labled Linnaum as female and both Binnaum and Gannaum as male - Binnaum being "weak" males. George was Gannaum, and Alfred was Binnaum. Wierdly enough they still tended to have two-partner unions - I think because Binnaum were rare and there weren't enough to go around, they had an almost monk-like order of them I think.

A Binnaum was a catalyst - they needed to have sex with the Linnaum before conception by the Gannaum was possible. And leter on, the Linnaum tranfers a half-formed pod to the Gannaum - who actually gives birth. Kinda like seahorses.

...I was mildly obsessed with the show growing up, okay? *blushes*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent example of the sort of thing I'd like to see more of. astrogirl2 loves that series too; I think she's been watching it lately.

So, what are your picks? :-)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Alfred was Binnaum

Albert, actually.

And, yup, the binnaum were a very small percentage of the population. So binnaums generally wouldn't form pair-bonds themselves, but would join aforementioned monk-like order, and catalyze the unions of couples wishing to have children in a sort of religious ritual. Binnaum were allowed to leave the order if they wished, but were not allowed to practice outside it. Albert eventually left the order to marry a female, which was apparently permitted, but not exactly something the order was happy about.

(Um, yes, I was mildly obsessed with that show, too. Why do you ask? :))

[kerravonsen]

(hey, I get to use my "SF" icon!)

If you could make one convention of modern SF go away, which one would you choose?

Humans being culturally superior to aliens. That happens far too often. I say "culturally superior" because aliens often enough have superior technology, but not superior culture -- or if they do, it's of a "go away and leave us alone, you primitive humans" sort, which... doesn't seem all that superior, though. "Hello Mr. Alien, we believe in Freedom and Democracy!" I guess that tends to happen more often with US shows, though.

A related one that I'd like to get rid of is those monolithic alien cultures, where all aliens of a particular species only have one culture, one religion/world-view, one form of government, and so on. That was another thing that Alien Nation was good with -- the Newcomers had multiple religions, if I recall correctly.

If you could add one, what would you add?

Well I guess going back to what's above -- aliens which have a variety of cultures. Including at least one technologically superior alien society which is not atheist. I am sick and tired of the "religion is a thing only for primitives" which keeps on being prated in SF...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Humans being culturally superior to aliens.

Oh, yes. But then there's the opposite cliché, aliens being superior to primitive humans, more popular recently than the reverse. I think it goes in waves and people are much more pessimistic about the future now.

And yes, the monocultural aliens is a very good choice. I suppose it's easy to write them that way, but I'm hard put to think of a counter-example. I barely remember Alien Nation, which was treated more badly than most SF here. I think we got one season. I do wish I'd seen more what with all the praise it's getting here.

Who's the character in your icon?

[kerravonsen]

It's from one of the versions of the cover of "Komarr" by Lois McMaster Bujold, therefore I deduce that it's Ekatarin, who was the other main character in that book (besides Miles).

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Humans being culturally superior to aliens.

What gets me is when all the aliens (and AI) want to be more human. Or ought to be more human, because, I dunno, we're conflating the biological and moral definitions of "humanity" or something. Often that goes along with aliens that aren't whole people in themselves, but just little isolated chipped-off bits of humans. Vulcans are logical, Ferengi are greedy, Klingons are aggressive... and that's, like, all they are. So they need to learn to fill in the missing parts of their psyches and Be More Like Us. *rolls eyes* OK, you can actually do some interesting stuff with that, in an it's-all-just-symbolic-anyway kind of way. But when that becomes the unexamined default... Grr.

My favorite example of bucking that trend, btw, is in the Farscape roleplaying book. It points out that, for example, Luxan culture places a lot of emphasis on warrior stuff, and that Luxan strength stats make them very suitable for fighter characters... and then encourages you to go ahead make a Luxan techno-geek. :)

Including at least one technologically superior alien society which is not atheist. I am sick and tired of the "religion is a thing only for primitives" which keeps on being prated in SF...

Babylon 5 did a nice job with not just representing alien religions, but with recognizing that religion is almost certainly something that's not just going to go away for humans, either. It did a less good job with the "monolithic alien cultures" thing, though I do at least recall that the Narns had a couple of different religious sects.

And, yeah, that's another area where Alien Nation was realistic. They had, as I recall, one majority religion, at least a couple minority ones, and some fringey stuff, and you saw various aliens take different attitudes towards their religions.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

What gets me is when all the aliens (and AI) want to be more human.

Oh, yes! I loved Data the way he was; why give him an emotion chip? He had emotions. Just not the same as ours.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I want more alien aliens. How about furry aliens, or insectoid ones instead of the usual humanoids, and let's play with gender with a little more imagination. How about societies with several sexes, where you need more than two to procreate, or a hive society? Anything but clichéd old recycled human ones.

I think that it's largely down to cost as far as the physical aspect is concerned.

As for which convention I'd like to do away with, there are any number. How about the one that reckons that highly advanced civilisations will be unaware of the fuse or circuit breaker, so that any damage to any piece of electronics will make the whole lot go up in flames.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, like the exploding consoles in Star Trek! And of course there's Independence Day where the clever humans used a computer virus to bring the aliens down. Serves them right for running Windows. Mind you, I could explain that one away: Bill Gates was one of them, sent here to soften us up for invasion. :-P

Right, I'm cold and tired and off to bed.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

Shame on you, the computer in Independence Day was a PowerBook running Mac OS! ;) (http://www.stidy.com/MondoMac/applefilm.html)

[kerravonsen]

I think that it's largely down to cost as far as the physical aspect is concerned.

Yeah, I remember that they had an insectoid alien on B5 for a while, but they stopped using it because (a) the animatronics was very hard to work with and (b) it's impossible to have a character subtly portray emotions when it doesn't have human-like eyes and mouth. It really is amazing how much gets conveyed by facial expressions.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It doesn't have to be very humanoid; look at Number Five in Short Circuit and Zoidberg in Futurama. I suppose the arrangement of features has to be vaguely human to work though. Farscape had an insectoid alien with eyes right out to the sides. I don't think they did, but I think you could use them to convey emotion by drooping or tilting them.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The Andorians in the DS9 relaunch novel Paradigm have four sexes, all of which are needed for procreation (and that's what the story is about).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I do think novels have it over the visual media. They can be so much more complex and of course there's no SFX budget.

[spacefall.livejournal.com]

What you said. I love it when someone comes up with a genuinely alien alien, with all of the communication problems you'd expect (up to and including total communication failure.)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

SG1 did that really well--for the first part of season 1. Even after they degenerated into all the breakaway human societies speaking American, they did have one race of scaly aliens with a language and culture only Daniel understood a tiny bit of.

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

If you could make one convention of modern SF go away, which one would you choose?

How about Super Scientist Guy?

You know, Professor Daniel Jackson who started out as a linguist, seagued into archaeology, then somehow became an expert in anthropology, biology, and uh, close quarter combat?

Or Chakotay, who started out as a pilot (IIRC), then somehow became an expert anthropologist, linguist, archaeologist, bioligist... Hmmm. Seems to be a theme developing there.

Or especially John Chricton. Who has a degree. In 'Science'...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Huh! I never noticed about Chakotay. I didn't think he got enough screentime to develop improbable expertise. :-P You're right about the others, but OTOH it was getting a bit annoying that no matter how clever Crichton was (in things other than science, mostly tactics) he was the stupid human for far too long. I'm glad they dropped that one.

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

I always read that as a combination of specism on the part of the other characters and John still finding his footing in a new part of the universe with vastly different cultural rules to any he'd ever encountered. I did like the way he suddenly regained his confidence in season 4 though.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, that icon is superb!

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just :D. It's by nomadicwriter.

I do like your poor Vila though. He does look like he's been through the ballast...