The Tough Guide to SF
Nov. 2nd, 2005 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlHere is a site rec:
The Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy
It's arip-off of homage to Diana Wynne Jones's The Tough Guide to Fantasyland; it's hilariously funny and very true.
A few examples:
2) Aliens with Forehead Ridges. Much more common - especially in HOLLYWOOD SCIFI - than Really Aliens, these are species that look almost exactly like Earth Humans, except for some distinguishing visible feature such as, well, forehead ridges, or odd-shaped ears, or whatever. Sometimes they look rather less like humans, in which case (if friendly) they often resemble large teddy bears. *coughEwokscoughWookieescough*...Aliens with Forehead Ridges have become much less common in written SF (save for media tie-ins) than they were some decades ago. In written SF, the KNOWN GALAXY seems increasingly to be inhabited only by Earth Humans. However, Aliens with Forehead Ridges continue to thrive in Hollywood Scifi. This is for an obvious reason: the audience wants aliens of some sort, and Aliens with Forehead Ridges are the only kind that can be played by members of the Screen Actors' Guild.
GRUNTS. Soldiers, especially infantry. These were relatively uncommon in the GOLDEN AGE, when WARFARE mainly took place in Space. However, with the increasing popularity of PLANET WARFARE, large numbers of Grunts have been recruited, trained, and sent into action. (As a nod to the Space environment, though, the NOMENCLATURE for them is often Marines.)
They may may wear POWER-ARMOR SUITS, but are still basically your Mark I Mod 0 Grunt. They yomp through lots of mud and kick a lot of ass. Though primarily used on HABITABLE Planets, the ones with Power-Armor Suits will sometimes show up elsewhere, occasionally even in Space. Don't laugh; the British Royal Navy carried an enemy ship by boarding in 1942 CE.
This one is priceless:
HANDWAVIUM. A substance with extraordinary properties, capable for example of withstanding a direct hit by a thermonuclear warhead. By extension, the term [which I stole from Chris Weuve's SFCONSIM-L discussion group] is applied to high-TECHLEVEL engineering of any sort, especially if it falls outside the constraints of HARD SF. A lot of people, me included, try to avoid arbitrary use of Handwavium, but the truth is that you can't travel the KNOWN GALAXY without it, because any FTL is pure Handwavium. So get used to it.
BATTLE STATION. The largest class of COMBAT SPACECRAFT, these may range from a few kilometers in diameter to the size of a small planet. TECHJARGON terms include Orbital Fort and Death Star. A few are in fixed parking orbits, as you would expect of such massive constructions, but most Battle Stations are remarkably mobile, and are liable to turn up anywhere. Their firepower is in line with their size; most can SLAG a planet with their secondary batteries, and the main armament must be intended to make stars go supernova.
Battle Stations also have multiple layers of defensive weapons and protection, and can easily hold off entire fleets of BATTLE CRUISERS. However, all Battle Stations have a critical design weakness. They can easily be blown up, but only when attacked by the smallest of all Combat Spacecraft, SPACE FIGHTERS. Indeed, the primary mission of Space Fighters seems to be to destroy any enemy Battle Station they happen upon.
Ahem. Yes.
BATTLE CRUISER. A large COMBAT SPACECRAFT; almost always a STARSHIP. As the name implies, it combines the firepower of a BATTLESHIP with the high speed, large cruising radius, and general dashing flavor of a Cruiser. Although larger space warships exist (TECHJARGON terms being Dreadnought, Annihilator, etc.), Battle Cruisers seem to do most of the work, and are the mainstay of most interstellar battle fleets.
Their type name is seldom hidden behind Techjargon; people in future centuries (and even wholly alternate universes) apparently find this First World War-era terminology irresistable. Battle Cruisers do have one important similarity to their prototypes at Jutland: they frequently blow up with spectacular explosions. [See also FRIGATES for more borrowed wet-navy terminology]
I do have a pet theory that the militarist SF subgenre is because the authors really want to write about a navy, but the historical one requires tedious research about Jutland or the Napoleonic wars or the Atlantic convoys in WWII, so you borrow the ranks and ship classes, move it into space and the future and voila, you can make up the rest. JMO, of course :D
I don't need to talk, as I read anything from space opera through Hornblower in space-type stuff to hard SF. The thing about the more "soft" end of the spectrum is that if the science is all hot air and handwavium anyway, it doesn't date so obviously (what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ajhalluk (I think) calls the 'slide rule phenomenon'—1950s SF writers didn't foresee the advent of computers).
The Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy
It's a
A few examples:
2) Aliens with Forehead Ridges. Much more common - especially in HOLLYWOOD SCIFI - than Really Aliens, these are species that look almost exactly like Earth Humans, except for some distinguishing visible feature such as, well, forehead ridges, or odd-shaped ears, or whatever. Sometimes they look rather less like humans, in which case (if friendly) they often resemble large teddy bears. *coughEwokscoughWookieescough*...Aliens with Forehead Ridges have become much less common in written SF (save for media tie-ins) than they were some decades ago. In written SF, the KNOWN GALAXY seems increasingly to be inhabited only by Earth Humans. However, Aliens with Forehead Ridges continue to thrive in Hollywood Scifi. This is for an obvious reason: the audience wants aliens of some sort, and Aliens with Forehead Ridges are the only kind that can be played by members of the Screen Actors' Guild.
GRUNTS. Soldiers, especially infantry. These were relatively uncommon in the GOLDEN AGE, when WARFARE mainly took place in Space. However, with the increasing popularity of PLANET WARFARE, large numbers of Grunts have been recruited, trained, and sent into action. (As a nod to the Space environment, though, the NOMENCLATURE for them is often Marines.)
They may may wear POWER-ARMOR SUITS, but are still basically your Mark I Mod 0 Grunt. They yomp through lots of mud and kick a lot of ass. Though primarily used on HABITABLE Planets, the ones with Power-Armor Suits will sometimes show up elsewhere, occasionally even in Space. Don't laugh; the British Royal Navy carried an enemy ship by boarding in 1942 CE.
This one is priceless:
HANDWAVIUM. A substance with extraordinary properties, capable for example of withstanding a direct hit by a thermonuclear warhead. By extension, the term [which I stole from Chris Weuve's SFCONSIM-L discussion group] is applied to high-TECHLEVEL engineering of any sort, especially if it falls outside the constraints of HARD SF. A lot of people, me included, try to avoid arbitrary use of Handwavium, but the truth is that you can't travel the KNOWN GALAXY without it, because any FTL is pure Handwavium. So get used to it.
BATTLE STATION. The largest class of COMBAT SPACECRAFT, these may range from a few kilometers in diameter to the size of a small planet. TECHJARGON terms include Orbital Fort and Death Star. A few are in fixed parking orbits, as you would expect of such massive constructions, but most Battle Stations are remarkably mobile, and are liable to turn up anywhere. Their firepower is in line with their size; most can SLAG a planet with their secondary batteries, and the main armament must be intended to make stars go supernova.
Battle Stations also have multiple layers of defensive weapons and protection, and can easily hold off entire fleets of BATTLE CRUISERS. However, all Battle Stations have a critical design weakness. They can easily be blown up, but only when attacked by the smallest of all Combat Spacecraft, SPACE FIGHTERS. Indeed, the primary mission of Space Fighters seems to be to destroy any enemy Battle Station they happen upon.
Ahem. Yes.
BATTLE CRUISER. A large COMBAT SPACECRAFT; almost always a STARSHIP. As the name implies, it combines the firepower of a BATTLESHIP with the high speed, large cruising radius, and general dashing flavor of a Cruiser. Although larger space warships exist (TECHJARGON terms being Dreadnought, Annihilator, etc.), Battle Cruisers seem to do most of the work, and are the mainstay of most interstellar battle fleets.
Their type name is seldom hidden behind Techjargon; people in future centuries (and even wholly alternate universes) apparently find this First World War-era terminology irresistable. Battle Cruisers do have one important similarity to their prototypes at Jutland: they frequently blow up with spectacular explosions. [See also FRIGATES for more borrowed wet-navy terminology]
I do have a pet theory that the militarist SF subgenre is because the authors really want to write about a navy, but the historical one requires tedious research about Jutland or the Napoleonic wars or the Atlantic convoys in WWII, so you borrow the ranks and ship classes, move it into space and the future and voila, you can make up the rest. JMO, of course :D
I don't need to talk, as I read anything from space opera through Hornblower in space-type stuff to hard SF. The thing about the more "soft" end of the spectrum is that if the science is all hot air and handwavium anyway, it doesn't date so obviously (what
ajhalluk (I think) calls the 'slide rule phenomenon'—1950s SF writers didn't foresee the advent of computers).
