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Irrational Science Fiction & Fantasy Clichés

Clones that retain the memories and personalities of the original (specifically when there isn't some explanation such as mind recording and uploading, while we can't do this at the moment, it may become possible someday and is a sort of acceptable break from reality).
 
Tachyons as miracle particles, allowing FTL travel or time travel, or for closing up warps or tears in space-time (I'm looking at you Star Trek franchise).
 
Close enough. Of course, the amount of fuel required to accelerate for months on end is impractical,so we won't be using this method in the foreseeable future. Both Heinlein and Corey in The Expanse used unobtainably powerful drives to obtain the effects they described.
 
One piece I remember reading about why NASA was researching non-chemical engines is that the top speed of a craft using chemical exhaust is limited by the speed the exhaust moves while leaving the vehicle. IE, if the exhaust only moves 20m/s then your vehicle will never move more than 20m/s unless you use a gravity slingshot to accelerate. BUT, if you use a gravity slingshot you can't do a steady controlled burn acceleration. You're coasting, but not in a straight line.
 
Better than a gravity slingshot is the Oberth Manoever, where you accelerate during the slingshot approach. This magnifies the effect of the acceleration significantly, and looks spectacular, as Project Icarus illustrator Adrian Mann has realised here.
icarus_pathfinder_1l.jpg[img]
icarus_pathfinder_1l.jpg
 
Humanoid aliens. Evolution will work the same on every planet, and our body form is not the only practical one. There are some factors that can help get a species to space - binocular absorption of light around our visual spectrum, some sort of hands/tentacles to make and use tools, audible language that isn't limited by direct sight lines, living in air for access to heat-based energy. But these don't necessarily lead to something almost exactly human. And no cross-breeding hybrid children! Sex, sure, there are people who get jiggy with all sorts of un-people, just look at the Weird Sex thread.
Star Trek's "The Devil in the Dark" was one of the first times I saw a physically alien sentient being, and there were others in that series. (I know, TNG had the explanation lonely ancient aliens pansperming.) Live action telly and movie have some limits, but animated films and even more so written stories can dispense with that.
 
madmath said:
Humanoid aliens. Evolution will work the same on every planet, and our body form is not the only practical one. There are some factors that can help get a species to space - binocular absorption of light around our visual spectrum, some sort of hands/tentacles to make and use tools, audible language that isn't limited by direct sight lines, living in air for access to heat-based energy. But these don't necessarily lead to something almost exactly human. And no cross-breeding hybrid children! Sex, sure, there are people who get jiggy with all sorts of un-people, just look at the Weird Sex thread.
Star Trek's "The Devil in the Dark" was one of the first times I saw a physically alien sentient being, and there were others in that series. (I know, TNG had the explanation lonely ancient aliens pansperming.) Live action telly and movie have some limits, but animated films and even more so written stories can dispense with that.
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TNG also had aliens that were literally glowing crystals and nothing more. And aliens made out of nebula gases. That was a neat one.
 
Timble2 said:
Clones that retain the memories and personalities of the original (specifically when there isn't some explanation such as mind recording and uploading, while we can't do this at the moment, it may become possible someday and is a sort of acceptable break from reality).
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I would add clones that they can age to match the subject who's been cloned.
 
PeteByrdie said:
I would add clones that they can age to match the subject who's been cloned.
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Yeah, magic tech that lets you make a fully grown adult with properly developed everything...

Most hilarious use was from the old live-action Spider-Man. Doctor Octopus takes a sample of Spider-Man's blood and clones him and looks at the face of the clone to figure out his secret identity.
 
madmath said:
Humanoid aliens. Evolution will work the same on every planet, and our body form is not the only practical one. There are some factors that can help get a species to space - binocular absorption of light around our visual spectrum, some sort of hands/tentacles to make and use tools, audible language that isn't limited by direct sight lines, living in air for access to heat-based energy. But these don't necessarily lead to something almost exactly human. And no cross-breeding hybrid children! Sex, sure, there are people who get jiggy with all sorts of un-people, just look at the Weird Sex thread.
Star Trek's "The Devil in the Dark" was one of the first times I saw a physically alien sentient being, and there were others in that series. (I know, TNG had the explanation lonely ancient aliens pansperming.) Live action telly and movie have some limits, but animated films and even more so written stories can dispense with that.
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This is a big one. I would be willing to let it through simply because of its narrative value. An audience needs to be able to relate to characters, and so those characters must be human even when they're not human. However, the thread is for those cliches that are far more common than they should be given how unlikely they are, and this undeniably fits that criteria.

It's not just that characters in science fiction visual media are humanoid, their genders are delineated by the same physical characteristics. I was watching a science fiction series yesterday which included an alien woman who was portrayed in a very sexualised way, and it dawned on me that I've been watching media containing aliens with recognisable male and female characteristics all my life.
 
PeteByrdie said:
This is a big one. I'm would be willing to let it through simply because of its narrative value. An audience needs to be able to relate to characters, and so those characters must be human even when they're not human. However, the thread is for those cliches that are far more common than they should be given how unlikely they are, and this undeniably fits that criteria.

It's not just that characters in science fiction visual media are humanoid, their genders are delineated by the same physical characteristics. I was watching a science fiction series yesterday which included an alien woman who was portrayed in a very sexualised way, and it dawned on me that I've been watching media containing aliens with recognisable male and female characteristics all my life.
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In live action TV it's a way to save budget. The actors are all humans and most of them rather normal looking. Making them look like something else takes a lot of budget. There have been other takes. I remember there was this one show that used muppet-like puppets for aliens. It was good enough that it didn't look comical, but you could tell they had major shooting limitations by the way they moved.
 
marhawkman said:
In live action TV it's a way to save budget. The actors are all humans and most of them rather normal looking. Making them look like something else takes a lot of budget. There have been other takes. I remember there was this one show that used muppet-like puppets for aliens. It was good enough that it didn't look comical, but you could tell they had major shooting limitations by the way they moved.
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I'm guessing you're thinking of Farscape here?
production_FAR-feature1.jpg

In all fairness it was made by the Jim Henson Company.
 
Helium-farting Rygel was clearly a muppet, but I was never sure whether the relatively huge Pilot was moved by rods or whether some-one was in inside him.

Pilot.jpg
 
Bad Bungle said:
Helium-farting Rygel was clearly a muppet, but I was never sure whether the relatively huge Pilot was moved by rods or whether some-one was in inside him.

View attachment 25373
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from wiki; Pilot was one of two regular animatronic puppet characters in Farscape. He is operated by Sean Masterson, Tim Mieville, Matt McCoy, Mario Halouvas and Fiona Gentle. His voice is provided by Lani Tupu (who also plays the character Captain Bialar Crais).


farscape was a cracking series. in the uk this was when bbc still used to put sci fi on the main channels. because it had muppets in it they assumed it was 'for kids' and put it out at 6pm bbc2. NOT suitable for kids.
 
marhawkman said:
One piece I remember reading about why NASA was researching non-chemical engines is that the top speed of a craft using chemical exhaust is limited by the speed the exhaust moves while leaving the vehicle. IE, if the exhaust only moves 20m/s then your vehicle will never move more than 20m/s unless you use a gravity slingshot to accelerate. BUT, if you use a gravity slingshot you can't do a steady controlled burn acceleration. You're coasting, but not in a straight line.
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According to Star Trek if you do a gravity slingshot, you can travel through time.
 
Most hilarious use was from the old live-action Spider-Man. Doctor Octopus takes a sample of Spider-Man's blood and clones him and looks at the face of the clone to figure out his secret identity.
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Now in the context of the story that makes a lot of sense.
 
Ladyloafer said:
farscape was a cracking series. in the uk this was when bbc still used to put sci fi on the main channels. because it had muppets in it they assumed it was 'for kids' and put it out at 6pm bbc2. NOT suitable for kids.
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The Beeb had sci-fi on a main channel tonight! But yeah, I loved Farscape, it was far too good to be squirreled away at teatime (and they had to trim the violence in that slot), but cult status was all it got.
 
GNC said:
The Beeb had sci-fi on a main channel tonight! But yeah, I loved Farscape, it was far too good to be squirreled away at teatime (and they had to trim the violence in that slot), but cult status was all it got.
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I loved Farscape. It was 'different'.
 
GNC said:
Well, it was Blake's 7 with a budget, shall we say. But funnier.

I still remember the cliffhanger to season 2, one of the greatest ever, I was buzzing.
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Agreed!

Blake's 7 was, for me, so early in my experience of the genre that it was entirely new-minted for me :)
 
I now feel I should watch Farscape. I only ever saw snippets in the past, I think it was on at a time that didn't allow me to regularly watch. Aeryn was played by scifi goddess Claudia Black. A striking woman, certainly.
 
Mine is 'technobabble' used to explain a plot point with vaguely scientific sounding big words.
I mean, if 'rotating the shield harmonics' in Star Trek only works in an emergency when you're being attacked by, lets say, The Borg, why don't they just have the default setting at 'rotating'?
 
Trevp666 said:
Mine is 'technobabble' used to explain a plot point with vaguely scientific sounding big words.
I mean, if 'rotating the shield harmonics' in Star Trek only works in an emergency when you're being attacked by, lets say, The Borg, why don't they just have the default setting at 'rotating'?
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It's annoying, isn't it? Technobabble introduces so many inconsistencies in science fiction series that the world-building often suffers. And it's always we're in a desperate situation, here's some unfathomable technobabble to get us out of it.
 
The problem with the Borg is they are very adaptable. So you shift the shield harmonics, to keep them from adapting to that specific harmonic. For other species that just isn't needed.
 
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