Filing off serial numbers
Dec. 10th, 2011 04:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI know when people want to write wildly unlikely Stargate Atlantis alikes they just do and post it as an AU. But while attempting to sleep the people in my head started being a version of the expedition that started from now and had watched the TV series Stargate, and indeed Atlantis. Therefore calling them John and Rodney is a bit too meta for me. So my brain, while poking around for names a bit like Rodney but definitely not Rodney at all, came up with Rhodri.
So then my expedition has Rhodri and Sean. And suddenly it's British. And it leaves through a stone circle, activated by Rhodri, after years of studying crystal technology when everyone thought he was mad. So now he's going to Prove Them All Wrong!!! And the stone circle only works for a little while around the summer solstice, which kind of annoys everyone because for why? But when they get there they realise the stone circle is under serious ice most of the year, so their options are go back right away or stay until the next time the ice melts (or of course they manage to melt it and warm the stones up enough, but that requires power, and fighting a big ice sheet). So they find the Lost City, the one the ancients retreated from as the ice advanced, and it's full of all kinds of everything, like the still running VR environment where what's left of the ancients live, if live is the word for it. And the section where they quarantined the results of their experiments into immortality. And the depths, with the scary scary decor, that are trying to keep people out so hard they surely must have something interesting in... possibly nuclear waste, but you never know. And there are neighbours, who are less sexually dimorphic than Earth humans are used to, all about the same height, not much invested in gender as an important category or a way of presenting themselves. And the locals think the Earth people are mostly giants, some of them with strange exaggeration in the chest area that they all find kind of funny. And the locals are right there, nearby, also with an expedition to the lost city, and their tech is just as advanced as ours, just by a different path. So the number of locals that are mad enough to stay up in their version of Antarctica when there's a perfectly good alternative just down the way is lower than the number of Earthers that will stay out the year, but there's a ton more of them the other side of the ice. There is no going home and closing the door and going :-p and ignoring all your neighbours. There is only learning to get along with a world as various as our own.
There's really no need to do the stargate thing had have a ton of different planets and every planet is assessed based on what's a short stroll from the stargate. That's pretty daft, really. And if you have transporters, like the stone circle, you can still skip the boring parts if you want, or take the bus if you also want. You don't really need more than two planets to do a lot of exploring. You just can't run away as far afterwards.
It's a peculiar sort of fantasy really, adventures that can't follow you home, except for the season end cliffhangers.
So now the adventures in my head are a bit more urban fantasy and a bit more steampunk and maybe a bit more biotech - because they're dealing with this one city full of scary they can't do much about, and a world full of alternative tech up to our tech level and maybe one up or down in select areas, and then there is stuff to learn and trade in both directions.
But if it's British then it isn't hugely well resourced, and everyone's a bit lower key, maybe a lower character points value to build them on. Best in Britain is only occasionally best in the world. But they get by.
I do like the idea of an international expedition, but Britain gets in enough trouble trying to hold the regions together. A united British expedition, with people from all over this one island, would work out plenty well. And then in later seasons other countries can hear about it, and we get the Brits trying to work with all the EU people and the Americans and suchlike.
Also, if they're really always on the same planet dealing with the same people, it doesn't get silly when it always looks like Thetford Forest and that one quarry.
I like the space station stories more than the starship stories, usually, because then there are consequences. Lots of dealing with the fallout. Learning subtleties. Meeting more than one representative of a particular culture, so we know Them Other Dudes aren't all just alike. It's depressing how much source material draws entire huge sprawling multi century cultures with them all looking and acting just alike.
I also like stories where people have read science fiction.
Like, to appeal to a wider audience, there was a series relatively recently that kept on going on about how it isn't science fiction. The writers don't watch science fiction, they don't read it, they don't write it. These just happen to be people, who happen to be In SPAAAAAACE, but it isn't science fiction.
:-p
All that happens then is the last century of dialogue is completely unknown to the writers and they fall into the same old boring traps and think they're being really original when they're retreading something really famous and they totally underestimate the audience and take a really long time to explain something you could technobabble in like five lines and then get on with the interesting stuff.
Writing good science fiction means studying up on it first.
Writing original science fiction probably means studying up on a wide range of texts first, because otherwise you just stir the same old stew. But since many of us like that stew, you can go far on it.
But there's like a hierarchy: Writers don't read science fiction, Audience isn't expected to read science fiction, Characters don't read science fiction, Characters don't know they're in science fiction, and then Everyone Is Literate. If everyone knows all the stories, they can get in argues about which story they're in. They can shorthand, like Darmok. And, yes, there needs to be a non geek who doesn't get the references for the benefit of audience and to present the mundane point of view, but the whole expedition not knowing the references? Boooooring.
So, Rhodri and Sean, arguing about whether the stone circle is a stargate or a transmat, making bets on probability of finding a Federation that just hasn't asked us to join yet. Trying to pull together... probably not a couple of hundred people, this being British, but at least a couple dozen people willing to step through a stone circle and vanish.
You could get so many reasons to want to do that, from so many frames of reference. You'd have the people arguing they're in a fantasy, or horror, as well as science fiction. You'd want to bring people with skills on a variety of tech levels, because you have no idea if you're going to be figuring out advanced physics or just trying to get food and water out of your environment with hand tools.
There's totally story in there.
So then my expedition has Rhodri and Sean. And suddenly it's British. And it leaves through a stone circle, activated by Rhodri, after years of studying crystal technology when everyone thought he was mad. So now he's going to Prove Them All Wrong!!! And the stone circle only works for a little while around the summer solstice, which kind of annoys everyone because for why? But when they get there they realise the stone circle is under serious ice most of the year, so their options are go back right away or stay until the next time the ice melts (or of course they manage to melt it and warm the stones up enough, but that requires power, and fighting a big ice sheet). So they find the Lost City, the one the ancients retreated from as the ice advanced, and it's full of all kinds of everything, like the still running VR environment where what's left of the ancients live, if live is the word for it. And the section where they quarantined the results of their experiments into immortality. And the depths, with the scary scary decor, that are trying to keep people out so hard they surely must have something interesting in... possibly nuclear waste, but you never know. And there are neighbours, who are less sexually dimorphic than Earth humans are used to, all about the same height, not much invested in gender as an important category or a way of presenting themselves. And the locals think the Earth people are mostly giants, some of them with strange exaggeration in the chest area that they all find kind of funny. And the locals are right there, nearby, also with an expedition to the lost city, and their tech is just as advanced as ours, just by a different path. So the number of locals that are mad enough to stay up in their version of Antarctica when there's a perfectly good alternative just down the way is lower than the number of Earthers that will stay out the year, but there's a ton more of them the other side of the ice. There is no going home and closing the door and going :-p and ignoring all your neighbours. There is only learning to get along with a world as various as our own.
There's really no need to do the stargate thing had have a ton of different planets and every planet is assessed based on what's a short stroll from the stargate. That's pretty daft, really. And if you have transporters, like the stone circle, you can still skip the boring parts if you want, or take the bus if you also want. You don't really need more than two planets to do a lot of exploring. You just can't run away as far afterwards.
It's a peculiar sort of fantasy really, adventures that can't follow you home, except for the season end cliffhangers.
So now the adventures in my head are a bit more urban fantasy and a bit more steampunk and maybe a bit more biotech - because they're dealing with this one city full of scary they can't do much about, and a world full of alternative tech up to our tech level and maybe one up or down in select areas, and then there is stuff to learn and trade in both directions.
But if it's British then it isn't hugely well resourced, and everyone's a bit lower key, maybe a lower character points value to build them on. Best in Britain is only occasionally best in the world. But they get by.
I do like the idea of an international expedition, but Britain gets in enough trouble trying to hold the regions together. A united British expedition, with people from all over this one island, would work out plenty well. And then in later seasons other countries can hear about it, and we get the Brits trying to work with all the EU people and the Americans and suchlike.
Also, if they're really always on the same planet dealing with the same people, it doesn't get silly when it always looks like Thetford Forest and that one quarry.
I like the space station stories more than the starship stories, usually, because then there are consequences. Lots of dealing with the fallout. Learning subtleties. Meeting more than one representative of a particular culture, so we know Them Other Dudes aren't all just alike. It's depressing how much source material draws entire huge sprawling multi century cultures with them all looking and acting just alike.
I also like stories where people have read science fiction.
Like, to appeal to a wider audience, there was a series relatively recently that kept on going on about how it isn't science fiction. The writers don't watch science fiction, they don't read it, they don't write it. These just happen to be people, who happen to be In SPAAAAAACE, but it isn't science fiction.
:-p
All that happens then is the last century of dialogue is completely unknown to the writers and they fall into the same old boring traps and think they're being really original when they're retreading something really famous and they totally underestimate the audience and take a really long time to explain something you could technobabble in like five lines and then get on with the interesting stuff.
Writing good science fiction means studying up on it first.
Writing original science fiction probably means studying up on a wide range of texts first, because otherwise you just stir the same old stew. But since many of us like that stew, you can go far on it.
But there's like a hierarchy: Writers don't read science fiction, Audience isn't expected to read science fiction, Characters don't read science fiction, Characters don't know they're in science fiction, and then Everyone Is Literate. If everyone knows all the stories, they can get in argues about which story they're in. They can shorthand, like Darmok. And, yes, there needs to be a non geek who doesn't get the references for the benefit of audience and to present the mundane point of view, but the whole expedition not knowing the references? Boooooring.
So, Rhodri and Sean, arguing about whether the stone circle is a stargate or a transmat, making bets on probability of finding a Federation that just hasn't asked us to join yet. Trying to pull together... probably not a couple of hundred people, this being British, but at least a couple dozen people willing to step through a stone circle and vanish.
You could get so many reasons to want to do that, from so many frames of reference. You'd have the people arguing they're in a fantasy, or horror, as well as science fiction. You'd want to bring people with skills on a variety of tech levels, because you have no idea if you're going to be figuring out advanced physics or just trying to get food and water out of your environment with hand tools.
There's totally story in there.