Favorite and Least Favorite Sci-Fi Tropes

[BudgetDM]

I am currently working on homebrewing sci-fi and I'm wondering people like in their sci-fi? What do they hate?

Some things I've already decided I'm going to add are:

• FTL Travel via Hyperspace
• Psionics
• Aliens
• Ancient Precursors

[dsmiles]

Favorite Sci-Fi Tropes, eh?

• The Doctor
• Daleks
• Smugglers with junky ships
• Cthulhu Mythos (if you look into it, it fits really well in Sci-Fi)

Least favorites:

• George Lucas
• the Ewok principle
• Parsecs as a unit of time, when they're actually a unit of distance (Really, Han? Really?)
• Greedo shooting first

[Eldan]

I like:

-Actually alien aliens. Not "Humans, but". Detailed ecology a bonus.
-Alien societies that actually appear stable and functional.
-Transhumanism. In the form of genetic engineering, social engineering, cybernetics, nanotechnology, anything.
-Detailed technology.
-Science fiction, in short. I really like science fiction that does the "What if" thing. "If we had technology X, how would society react and change?".

I dislike:

-One biome/climate planets. Come on, people. Even Mars has more than that, and from our perspective, it's a cold chunk of rock.
-Badly applied technology. If you have Tech X, why not do Application Y?
-No sense of scale.


That, however, is mostly worldbuilding. Interestingly, for my actual stories, I like soft SciFi just as much. I'm a Doctor Who nerd, after all.

[Excession]

Scavenger World can to some degree explain badly applied technology. Yeah, you have FTL spaceships and ray guns, but it all has a tendency to stop working or explode when you try to do anything useful with it.

Transplanted Humans, Stargate style if you want actually human aliens, or actually alien humans...

I agree that Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale is really annoying. 400 billion stars. Just stop and think about that while I laugh at your "galactic empire"

[Gnoman]

I've always despised the Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions trope, and the related "Any race that has advanced enough to have mastered interstellar travel will by definition have outgrown all form of confrontation and violence.

[Eldan]

Scavenger World can to some degree explain badly applied technology. Yeah, you have FTL spaceships and ray guns, but it all has a tendency to stop working or explode when you try to do anything useful with it.

Transplanted Humans, Stargate style if you want actually human aliens, or actually alien humans...

I agree that Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale is really annoying. 400 billion stars. Just stop and think about that while I laugh at your "galactic empire"

Oh, sure. I just don't like adding "except when it's explained well" to every point I make.

[FlyingScanian]

I've always despised the Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions trope, and the related "Any race that has advanced enough to have mastered interstellar travel will by definition have outgrown all form of confrontation and violence.

To that, I have but one reply: Schlock Mercenary (especially the editor's note...)

[Tengu_temp]

Aliens should belong to one of two categories: either very alien and weird, both in their biology and culture, or human-like enough that their females can be attractive to me. Bonus points if you manage to combine both.

I hate when the story paints science as wrong or evil, which happens way too often in sci-fi. I also hate when some kind of Space Elves are painted as better than humans in every way, or when aliens conquer humanity and we're told it's a good thing.

[Mastikator]

I like hard science fiction over soft science fiction. If you're the reverse then you can reverse this list as well.

Like:
- Age of exploration like space travel. Travel between worlds should take months or even years imo, partially because moving really fast is really costly, partially because livable planets are few and far between.
- Transhumanism
- Realistic weapons, ballistic weapons are more cost effective than laser guns, but on the other hand laser guns have no recoil, sound and is unaffected by wind and gravity, making it ideal sniper weapons and would likely never be used as a hand gun. A gun that fires superheated plasma would vaporize everyone within a fraction of a second, probably only used in space.
- Information is free, all of human knowledge should be at the fingertips of everyone, since computers are incredibly cheap and internet access useable globally and ridiculously fast.
- Robotic civilizations, but as long as they aren't "humans with iron skin" or "metallic but with a human heart". That's just human-centric crap.

Dislike:
- Human aliens, aliens should be really alien
- Robotic sentient lifeforms that resemble humans, just no, they should be more alien than alians
- Psionics and other psudo-fantasy. I'm ok with mind-reading machines though.
- Ancient human civilizations. There were never any humans before us, this one always breaks immersion for me. Ancient alien civilizations on the other hand are likely to exist, the universe is old, if we only go back 1% of the world's time then we've entered ancient times after all ;)

[BudgetDM]

Favorite Sci-Fi Tropes, eh?

• Smugglers with junky ships
• Cthulhu Mythos (if you look into it, it fits really well in Sci-Fi)

Yeah, definitely going for smugglers and junky ships.

I hadn't thought about the Cthulhu Mythos though. I probably won't go fully Lovecraftian, but some mindbending alien artifacts would fit nicely.

Least favorites:

• the Ewok principle

I'm sure I've heard what it was once, but remind me what the Ewok principle is.

I hate when the story paints science as wrong or evil, which happens way too often in sci-fi. I also hate when some kind of Space Elves are painted as better than humans in every way, or when aliens conquer humanity and we're told it's a good thing.

I am really trying to avoid Space Elves. Because it is annoying, it kills things for you if players don't like them a much as I do, and I want all species open to players, so they should be balanced.

I like hard science fiction over soft science fiction. If you're the reverse then you can reverse this list as well.

Like:
- Realistic weapons, ballistic weapons are more cost effective than laser guns, but on the other hand laser guns have no recoil, sound and is unaffected by wind and gravity, making it ideal sniper weapons and would likely never be used as a hand gun. A gun that fires superheated plasma would vaporize everyone within a fraction of a second, probably only used in space.

I was planning to do this, though for the less scientific reason that I think ballistic weapons are more interesting.

- Information is free, all of human knowledge should be at the fingertips of everyone, since computers are incredibly cheap and internet access useable globally and ridiculously fast.

This is how things are going to be. On Earth. Once you leave Earth, connections speeds, when they exist, are sub dial-up.

And now an additional question. A lot of you have talked about making aliens really alien. Would you consider Chewbacca sufficiently alien? And if not why not?

[Tengu_temp]

I'm sure I've heard what it was once, but remind me what the Ewok principle is.

It's when a primitive civilisation defeats a much more advanced one for plot reasons and because everyone in the advanced one suddenly started acting like morons. Return of the Jedi and Avatar are prime examples.

And now an additional question. A lot of you have talked about making aliens really alien. Would you consider Chewbacca sufficiently alien? And if not why not?

He's not very alien. He's just a humanoid sloth - clearly based on an Earth animal, just more human-like and intelligent. I wouldn't mind if all aliens were at least as non-human as Chewbacca though, with no rubber foreheads in sight.

The main reason I like human-like female aliens and robots is because I'm a big old pervert. I know well they're completely unrealistic without very good justifications.

[flumphy]

Likes:

• Sapient AI. Robots, intelligent computer programs, etc.
• Everyday characters. They're easier to identify and arguably see more interesting parts of society than scientists or space marines.
• No aliens. With the size of the universe and frequency of mass extinctions, there's actually a pretty big chance we'll never actually run into another intelligent species. Rather than make up some alien race that's not really believable (and face it, most aren't) why not just keep it to what we know and save the trouble? Unless, of course, you are makinging some social/political point.
• Exploration of spirituality. How do religion and philosophy evolve in reaction to new technology? How do they influence scientific advancement?
• Warped history. Just as we've forgotten or collectively misinterpreted a lot of things from just a couple centuries ago despite the people back then leaving plentiful written records, the future will likely do the same to us.

Dislikes:

• "Planets of Hats", to use the TVTropes name. Basically, alien cultures that are homogenous. In reality, barring some kind of hive mind, an alien species would probably be as varied as humans.
• Psionics. Especially on humans, who we know don't have any kind of funky biology to support it. I'm fond of the softer side of sci-fi, but at the same time it really annoys me when it's implied something has a scientific explanation when it clearly can't. Just call it "magic" or "the force" or something and call it a day.
• Utopias. Sorry, not going to happen and not believable
• Dystopias, unless the work is making a political point. Also unlikely to happen on a large scale, but much easier to stomach than a world where people have actually managed to stop killing each other.
• A universal religion, or a complete lack of religion. Again, basic human nature dictates that this will never happen.

[Eldan]

It's when a primitive civilisation defeats a much more advanced one for plot reasons and because everyone in the advanced one suddenly started acting like morons. Return of the Jedi and Avatar are prime examples.

Note that this doesn't just mean that the "weaker" enemy can win. Infiltration, guerilla warfare and similar strategies can win a one-sided war.
What is meant is "We'll land all our spaceships, then attack the enemy on foot, through the jungle!" or "Oh no, our hovertank was brought down by a kid with a slingshot!" or "They have found the one weakness of our adamantium space marine armour! Arrows!"

[Excession]

A combination of hyperdrive FTL and no FTL comms can work well.

• No way to phone in the cavalry without spending weeks in transit means you need to fix problems when you find them.
• There's always an element of the unknown when you go somewhere, all sorts of stuff could have happened since the last news out of a system.

You may need to explain why they don't use FTL drones for communications. Size is probably best; when the drone is as nearly big and nearly as expensive as your little ship you don't get to have one. Bigger systems might have drones or dedicated mail ships, everyone else just dumps a few petabytes of flash drives onto whoever is leaving next.

I guess this is a bit of Space Is an Ocean, but I kinda like that in moderation.

[Tvtyrant]

Dislikes: Special Snowflake Humans. Ultimate example is Halo, where all 5 other species are "unable to innovate" and are rapidly overtaken by humanity in technology. Yeah, because the million years it took us to develop two sided stone tools after developing single sided stone tools totally indicates that we have a magical golden touch when it comes to tech.

[claricorp]

http://sots.rorschach.net/Main_Page

This is the wiki for SotS, or Sword of the Stars a really fun 4x space game with real time combat, randomized tech trees and other sci fi goodness.

The alien races are really detailed with ecology, backstory and culture so It may definitely be a good thing to look at for inspiration.

Otherwise: Likes
Non Humanoid races are great, but don't feel bad about having a few humanoid-ish ones in there.

Ballistic weapons with maybe a sci fi twist(smart aiming, x-ray scope, curving bullets)

Dislikes.
Energy weapons, they can be acceptable as heavy weapons, but I find a universe where everyone is using a laser pistol or rifle kind of, well, boring.

[Eldan]

As for FTL communications and ships...

I remember a universe I made up once for a forum strategy game. There were, basically, two categories of ships, in-system slower than light ships, and FTL ships. Those used Alcubierre drives to bend spacetime. However, the engines were absolutely huge, and required things like gigantic antimatter power plants and particle accelerators (bear with me, I'm not a physicist, just a sci-fi reader). So, in the end, FTL ships ended up kilometers long and ungodly expensive, so no one ever really thought of attacking one. Especially since it had tons and tons of antimatter on board.

[Lapak]

Dislikes: Special Snowflake Humans. Ultimate example is Halo, where all 5 other species are "unable to innovate" and are rapidly overtaken by humanity in technology. Yeah, because the million years it took us to develop two sided stone tools after developing single sided stone tools totally indicates that we have a magical golden touch when it comes to tech.

If you haven't read it, you should definitely give 'A Mote In God's Eye' a whirl. Subverts that trope with a vengeance.

[Yora]

Like:

• Technology Porn. Having the futuristic devices based on real world technology and showing it.

Disike:

• In a universe of many species, humans are the dominant one.

[Tavar]

Dislikes: Special Snowflake Humans. Ultimate example is Halo, where all 5 other species are "unable to innovate" and are rapidly overtaken by humanity in technology. Yeah, because the million years it took us to develop two sided stone tools after developing single sided stone tools totally indicates that we have a magical golden touch when it comes to tech.

More than 5 other species(grunts, prophets, engineers, brutes, elites, hunters, drones, etc). On the other hand, their religion/government(it's a theocracy) does do a very good job of inhibiting their tech level. That, and humanity doesn't really seem to innovate too much. The only thing i can think of that's explicitly better are Spartan II shields, and those are only stronger than the Covenants basic foot soldiers: if you start fighting elite Elites, they're rapidly outclassed.

There's also a couple other factors that play into the difference, but that's getting a bit into spoiler territory.

[Yora]

Humans in halo are technologically inferior to the Covenant, and they actually lose massively. The only thing they get done is killing Gravemind and they do that entirely with forerunner technology. At the end, the great journey is called off and the Covenant dissolves, but the later was caused by Covenant infighting and not by any human victories. On the other hand, the human space empire is completely annihilated.
Okay, Master Chief kills a huge number of equally elite warriors all by himself, but that's because he's a protagonist in a shoter, not because humanity is so great.

[hamishspence]

It's when a primitive civilisation defeats a much more advanced one for plot reasons and because everyone in the advanced one suddenly started acting like morons. Return of the Jedi and Avatar are prime examples.

Rock Beats Laser is one name for it. Sometimes it can make sense.

[Tavar]

Humans in halo are technologically inferior to the Covenant, and they actually lose massively. The only thing they get done is killing Gravemind and they do that entirely with forerunner technology. At the end, the great journey is called off and the Covenant dissolves, but the later was caused by Covenant infighting and not by any human victories. On the other hand, the human space empire is completely annihilated.
Okay, Master Chief kills a huge number of equally elite warriors all by himself, but that's because he's a protagonist in a shoter, not because humanity is so great.

Technically, there are some colonies left: the skipped a lot when Regret went to Earth.

And, Master Chief(and all Spartans) are super soldiers, and normally they only fight the rank and file of the Covenant. And it's still pretty difficult.

[Yora]

Regret has 6 or even more Honor Guards with him, I think each of them should be equal to a Spartan.

[Emmerask]

Least favorites:

• Parsecs as a unit of time, when they're actually a unit of distance (Really, Han? Really?)

This one I can forgive, it is after all a different galaxy and their naming of units can be different, for all we know there could be the scientist Hugo Parsec who thought up a nice time unit and called it parsec ^^

• Greedo shooting first

This on the other hand is unforgivable :-///

[hamishspence]

This one I can forgive, it is after all a different galaxy and their naming of units can be different, for all we know there could be the scientist Hugo Parsec who thought up a nice time unit and called it parsec ^^

They eventually provided an explanation- the Kessel Run gets more dangerous the shorter the route taken.

Even then, in the scene where Han does it, in Rebel Dawn, Chewie thinks it was a computer malfunction that made the displayed distance that low.

[Emmerask]

Hm, kessel was the area full of black holes if I remember correctly?
So yes then it would make sense to brag about the short route taken if that leads you through that field instead of around it ^^

[hamishspence]

To shorten the route enough, he did end up entering the field and coming very close to one of the holes. The fact that there were imperial ships in close pursuit had something to do with it.

[dsmiles]

That makes sense. I never read any of the books other than the original trilogy.

[Tengu_temp]

Dislikes: Special Snowflake Humans. Ultimate example is Halo, where all 5 other species are "unable to innovate" and are rapidly overtaken by humanity in technology. Yeah, because the million years it took us to develop two sided stone tools after developing single sided stone tools totally indicates that we have a magical golden touch when it comes to tech.

Similarily: I really dislike when in a universe with many races, humans are the generic ones, the baseline, the jack of all trades and master of none. I like when something that's so ingrained in human nature that's obvious to us is actually shared by very few or even no aliens, and becomes the distinguishing trait of human civilisation among all the races of the universe.

Just don't make that trait "being bastards", because we're entering Avatar territory again.