The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches
John & Linda VanSickle
Those of us who have read or seen a lot of science fiction have seen
certain story elements pop up over and over and over. Some of these
elements were actually pretty good ideas, and when handled well make for a
pretty entertaining story, but have become hackneyed from overuse by the
unimaginative. Others came into being through the deliberate effort to
avoid another cliché. Still other ideas were lame from day one, and should
have been dismissed from the author's thinking.
It should be noted that in some cases, the cliché is excusable if it is
supported by a well-reasoned means. F'rinstance, if an alien species is
subjected to frequent and thorough racial purges, a large degree of racial
homogeneity will not challenge the reader's credulity.
The sophisticated reader (one who reads more than just SF) will note
that these clichés are not found solely in SF, but in other genres as well.
1. Overused plot lines:
a. Post-apocalyptic rag-tag armies struggle to kick the Rooskies out
of the good ol' US of A
b. Rag-tag rebel army/fleet struggles valiantly to overthrow the Evil Empire
c. Time travel by Good Guys to stop a historical Bad Guy, usually Hitler
d. Time travel by Bad Guy to stop Good Guy from ever being born
e. Time travel by Temporal Policeman to catch a Bad Guy who escaped into the past
f. The race to stop the Supervirus from killing us all
g. An alien who
i. Is stranded on earth
ii. Befriends a human child or falls in love with an earth gal
iii. Is pursued by shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials under the
pretense of national security
iv. Uses alien powers to defeat the shadowy malevolent Pentagon
officials, amking them look very foolish without really harming
them
v. Makes teary farewell and returns to home planet
h. A virtual reality program is activated, and the distinction between
reality and the program becomes confused or indistinguishable
i. People connect their brains directly to computers and get dependent
on them
j. Aliens travel a zillion miles to loot the earth of resources which
exist in far greater and much more easily recoverable quantities on
the many uninhabited bodies they pass on the way to earth
k. Gang of cute and/or misfit kids rescue the universe, where a large
group of competent, organized and well-armed adults failed
l. A complex computer system spontaneously becomes self-aware
m. A couple filing an application to the government for permission to
conceive a baby
n. A human developing a romantic attachment to a robot
o. UFO abductions
p. Brain-controlling parasites attempt to wrest control of human race
q. Aliens put an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of humanity
r. A high-tech amusement park goes lethally berserk
s. Death from old age turns out to be due to some simple, single
cause, leading to an easy immortality treatment, with consequent
catastrophic social implications
t. A great hunter decides that humans are the most entertaining prey of
all, and rounds some up for a hunt
u. Psychedelic drugs give somebody magical power over space, time and
reality
2. Overused characterizations/settings:
a. Aliens whose thinking is so different from ours that no
communication is possible
b. Alien races that find our women attractive, while we find theirs to
be repulsive
c. Alien races whose women differ from ours only in skin color and
facial features
d. Extra breasts on the alien women
e. The aliens are incomprehensible to humans, while the humans are
perfectly comprehensible to the aliens
f. Alien species depicted as having no ethnic, religious, cultural,
philosophical or political variance, especially:
i. Wise mystic alien races
ii. Stoic warrior races
iii. Innocent pastoral races
g. Alien races whose names all have lots of hard consonants
h. Lots of apostrophes packed into alien words and phrases for no
apparent reason
i. Humans of future depicted as having no ethnic, religious, cultural,
philosophical or political variance
j. Cities of future depicted as though sanitation workers have been on
strike from now until then
k. Entire story setting dominated by huge impersonal business
conglomerates
l. Planets with the same exact climate planet-wide
m. Super-intelligent AI's that speak, behave, and act in a manner
indistinguishable from the human characters.
n. The incredibly competent man-of-action with more skills/degrees
than you can shake a blaster at
o. The incredibly competent woman-of-action with large breasts, no
sexual inhibitions, and more skills/degrees than you can shake a
blaster at
p. Shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials
q. Every single character has a tainted history
r. Society divided as follows:
i. A handful of ultra-powerful ultra-rich
ii. Hordes of starving people living in the streets
iii. Criminal lords who control everything not controlled by the
ultra-rich
iv. Police whose only principle of operation is maintenance of the
status quo
s. Societies where all technology has been destroyed except automobiles
and their equivalents, which are still running yet there are no
mechanics, workshops, or gas stations
t. Heroes who are so emotionally stunted that they don't care about
close friends/relatives that die as long as they complete some mission
u. Any character with a perpetual two-day growth of beard, when no
apparent pains are taken to maintain this rugged look
v. Futuristic societies where only the ultra-rich can afford quality
health care, and everyone else is reduced to selling their bodily
organs
w. Beings of pure energy
x. A society in which everyone is required to die on his or her Nth
birthday
y. Creatures from our mythology (e.g., centaurs, dragons) occur among
the wildlife native to an alien planet
z. Aliens whose sociology, values and beliefs are indistinguishable
from those of an Oriental culture, e.g., feudal Japan.
aa. Eccentric scientists
ab. The assistant to the scientist who is either deformed or dating the
scientist's daughter
ac. Future societies that have relapsed into feudalism for no apparent
reason
ad. Alternative Earths where society is just like some society of the
past, with some technodoodads added
ae. Palace guards who are ineffectual due to ineptitude or
inattentiveness
af. Fantastical but non-viable creatures (two-headed men, gigantic
insects) made possible by high levels of radiation
ag. Aliens that speak human languages without error, having taken no
pains to learn how
3. Overused story events/plot devices:
a. Discussions, ending with a joke, about how bureaucracies are the
same everywhere in the galaxy
b. Most intelligent course of action precluded by orders from high-
ranking ignoramus, on the basis of a transparently flawed
rationale
c. Technological malfunction as a plot device
d. Super-intelligent computers that blow up when the hero confuses
them
e. Control panels that explode when some distant portion of the
ship is damaged
f. The timer count-down on the Bad Guy Device being stopped by the
hero with bare seconds left
g. Alien contact perceived or regarded as a spiritual/quasi-
religious experience
h. Aliens who are vastly more intelligent and advanced than we are,
but we beat them anyway by "ingenuity," plain guts, or
exploiting an Achilles Heel
i. Teenage genius who discovers an entire new field of science, and
builds practical devices that use it, in his bedroom
j. A robot is shot and bleeds oil (excusable if the robot's
mechanics are hydraulically powered)
k. Psychological trauma of female character cured by sex with hero
l. Persons of different species interbreeding without difficulty
m. Lectures by the author to the reader, disguised as lectures by
one character to another, or as the Cosmic Message from the Ultra-
enlightened Aliens to the Great Unwashed Human Masses
n. A computer is re-programmed or virus-infected by someone who has
no knowledge of the computer's operating system
o. A conspiracy involving lots of people that remains secret for an
extended period of time
p. The author attempts to wittily euphemize the phrase go screw
yourself by referring to it as "a physiologically impossible act"
q. The availability of firearms notwithstanding, swordfighting
returns as a significant method of combat
r. The Big Surprise at the end of the tale:
i. Barbaric society turns out to be post-apocalyptic Western
civilization
ii. The man and woman who flee from a doomed civilization and
start rebuilding on the third planet of a medium-sized
yellow star are named Adam and Eve
iii. Alien children, slaves, or pets are actually the parents,
masters, or owners
iv. Head of Terran government revealed to be disguised Bad Guy
or under direct control of Bad Guys
s. Telepaths use their power to achieve a heightened sexual
experience
t. Telepaths are regarded as witches or lunatics, and are dealt
with accordingly
u. Inherited supernatural power (telepathy, lycanthropy, etc)
becomes pronounced at the onset of puberty
The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés is a cooperative
effort. Due to my failure to keep track of things, not all of the people
received credit for the clichés they pointed out. But here are the ones I
can credit:
Steve Schonberger
Julius Ackermann
Scott Doty
Rob Thornton
William Vetter
Cambias
Matt McIrvin
Peter Klumbach
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Matteus S. Gadd
The latest version of this list is maintained at:
http:www.erols.com/vansickl/cliche.htm
Suggested additions are always welcome.
--
"We Yellowbeards are never more dangerous than when we're dead."
http://www.erols.com/vansickl
spambot bait: qbe...@hotmail.com ph...@wwems.com pics...@picsmallbiz.com
extp...@mykabot.net the...@webjetters.com SUE...@HOTMAIL.COM
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <878469...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <345C52...@sowega.net> ca...@sowega.net "Jack Cox" writes:
>
>> John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>
>> > r. Society divided as follows:
>> > i. A handful of ultra-powerful ultra-rich
>> > ii. Hordes of starving people living in the streets
>> > iii. Criminal lords who control everything not controlled by the
>> > ultra-rich
>> > iv. Police whose only principle of operation is maintenance of the
>> > status quo
>>
>> common
>> pattern in human society, with no reason to suspect it won't crop up again...
>
>That isn't what the Middle Ages were like.
>
(details clipped)
On the other hand, the VanSickle schema could be used as a basis
for medievalpunk.
--
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
October '96 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
John & Linda VanSickle
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
> In article <878469...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <345C52...@sowega.net> ca...@sowega.net "Jack Cox" writes:
> >
> >> John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
> >
> >> > i. A handful of ultra-powerful ultra-rich
> >> > ii. Hordes of starving people living in the streets
> >> > iii. Criminal lords who control everything not controlled by the
> >> > ultra-rich
> >> > iv. Police whose only principle of operation is maintenance of the
> >> > status quo
> >>
> >> common
> >> pattern in human society, with no reason to suspect it won't crop up again...
> >
> >That isn't what the Middle Ages were like.
> >
> (details clipped)
>
> On the other hand, the VanSickle schema could be used as a basis
> for medievalpunk.
I don't know if I'd want a cliche named after me...
Larisa Migachyov
: John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
:
: >
: > a. Aliens whose thinking is so different from ours that no
: > communication is possible
I don't think this is all that overused. The only author who even
considers the idea is Lem, and he wrote only 2 or 3 books dealing with the
subject. The cliche would be an alien race that speaks English; or at
least, speaks a language that becomes understandable after it's
translated.
Larisa
Larisa Migachyov
John & Linda VanSickle (vans...@erols.com) wrote:
: Jack Cox wrote:
: >
: >
: > >
: > > communication is possible
: >
: > Now this one seems like something fairly likely to happen. Perhaps the
: > cliche is aliens who prove to think similarly enough to humans that all
: > it takes is a bit of translation to communicate.
:
: It would depend on how many concepts we have in common with the aliens.
: If they have to eat, if they have any of our five senses (even if the
: particulars vary), if tool use is a regular part of their lives, then
: there will be enough common ground for communication. Their manner of
: communication--unless it's outright telepathy--will be interpretable
: after a period of peaceful interaction.
:
: Naturally there will be some concepts lacking in one or both races. If,
: for instance, the race in question is an intelligent starfish that
: gets ill when eating any of its native planet's plant life, it will
: consider green (or whatever color the plant life has) to be the same
: as poison, and have one word for both.
:
I do not think that it is that simple. For one, the aliens might not have
the same senses as we do, and might not communicate in the same sensory
mode. As I have read, deaf people in our culture - people just like us -
have had a lot of trouble getting their mode of communication - a language
using the visual mode rather than the auditory mode - recognized as a
language.
Furthermore, the language we use is shaped by the society we live in. If
the aliens are social creatures like us - which is not mandatory - their
society would be a very different one from ours. It would be shaped by
influences that we cannot imagine, and would never be able to understand.
The physical shape and structure of the aliens' bodies would also
influence their language, making it even more incomprehensible. As Lem
(or someone like that) put it, the simple telegram "Grandmother dead.
funeral Thursday" would make no sense to beings that reproduce
nonsexually, like bacteria; to beings that do not die, and thus have no
concept of burial; etc. We cannot assume that everyone is just like us.
Our language is shaped by the way we move, the way we eat, the way we
breathe. We cannot separate it from our physical structure.
Furthermore, language evolved in the human brain, for the purpose of
communicating with other human brains. Would an alien brain have a need
for language? Would it be the same kind of language as the kind we use?
I doubt it.
Larisa
Hosun Simi Lee
I always wondered why the bad-ass-menace that got beat up at the end
of story by a *REALLY* contrived coincidence or sheer luck (the evil
girlfriend defects, someone pops out of nowhwere and saves the good
guys, a hero/heroine exhibits a previously unknown ability that stalls
the bad guys long enough)....doesn't just come back in the NEXT
novel with the exact same weapons or plot.
This time though, they'd keep the doors locked, the girlfriends' at
home and do the exact same thing over again.... It's not like their
plans were defeated by clever planning and an efficient opposition.
--
/ Hosun S. Lee / Vorpal Bunny(TM) /
"How is it that you are able to cure this dreaded plague? Centuries of
research have determined the choking demon is unbeatable! We have tried
all manners of ritual singing and dancing...and yet....this Vaseline?"
-Space Tabby Warlord from the Omega Galaxy, MAD-DOG #1
Larry Caldwell
John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
> r. Society divided as follows:
> i. A handful of ultra-powerful ultra-rich
> ii. Hordes of starving people living in the streets
> iii. Criminal lords who control everything not controlled by the
> ultra-rich
> iv. Police whose only principle of operation is maintenance of the
> status quo
Modern India.
Bummer when your cliches are based on reality, huh?
-- Larry
Jack Cox
John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>
> > Now this one seems like something fairly likely to happen. Perhaps the
> > cliche is aliens who prove to think similarly enough to humans that all
> > it takes is a bit of translation to communicate.
>
> It would depend on how many concepts we have in common with the aliens.
> If they have to eat, if they have any of our five senses (even if the
> particulars vary), if tool use is a regular part of their lives, then
> there will be enough common ground for communication. Their manner of
> communication--unless it's outright telepathy--will be interpretable
> after a period of peaceful interaction.
Trick is, how likely are these if's to occur. Now, eating (in one form or
another) should be fairly certain, but the rest might be too chancy to predict.
>
> Naturally there will be some concepts lacking in one or both races. If,
> for instance, the race in question is an intelligent starfish that
> gets ill when eating any of its native planet's plant life, it will
> consider green (or whatever color the plant life has) to be the same
> as poison, and have one word for both.
Except, of course, the starfish might refer to green by changing to the
appropriate color, waving a tentacle in the right fashion, and emitting three sorts of
pheromone into the water.
Then there's always the possibility that there'll be something truly difficult
to deal with...try, say, chattin' it up with dolphins, or elephants. We do a good job
with apes, but they're close enough to us evolutionarily.
> >
> > So the political system is the same as a modern democracy? <g>
>
> Well, if you've ever seen Star Trek and its Prime Directive...
Yes, which seems to provide a nice opportunity for some crewmember to say "Hey,
that's breaking the prime directive!" as the captain does so...<g>
Carey
Jack Cox
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <j3TX00O5...@teleport.com>,
>> i. A handful of ultra-powerful ultra-rich
>> ii. Hordes of starving people living in the streets
>> iii. Criminal lords who control everything not controlled by the
>> ultra-rich
>> iv. Police whose only principle of operation is maintenance of the
>> status quo
>
>
>Bummer when your cliches are based on reality, huh?
I thought that there's a substantial middle class in India.
Alter S. Reiss
On 2 Nov 1997, Hosun Simi Lee wrote:
> I always wondered why the bad-ass-menace that got beat up at the end
> of story by a *REALLY* contrived coincidence or sheer luck (the evil
> girlfriend defects, someone pops out of nowhwere and saves the good
> guys, a hero/heroine exhibits a previously unknown ability that stalls
> the bad guys long enough)....doesn't just come back in the NEXT
> novel with the exact same weapons or plot.
>
> This time though, they'd keep the doors locked, the girlfriends' at
> home and do the exact same thing over again.... It's not like their
> plans were defeated by clever planning and an efficient opposition.
They built another Death Star, didn't they?
-- Alter S. Reiss - www.geocities.com/Area51/2129 - asr...@ymail.yu.edu
"Nonsense, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist"
Robert Sneddon
In article <63iut6$maj$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>
l...@leland.Stanford.EDU "Larisa Migachyov" writes:
> : John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
> :
> : >
> : > a. Aliens whose thinking is so different from ours that no
> : > communication is possible
>
> I don't think this is all that overused. The only author who even
> considers the idea is Lem, and he wrote only 2 or 3 books dealing with the
> subject.
Terry Carr, _The Dance of the Changer and the Three_, amongst many
others whose names and titles do not immediately spring to mind. Tiptree,
IIRC, and Pratchett (the alien races in _Dark Side of the Sun_), and
Vinge (_Fire Upon the Deep_) etc. etc.
--
To reply via email, remove the string "_nospam_" from my address.
Robert (nojay) Sneddon
PMccutc103
WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>Yeah -- we editors see these all the time. We even have code names for a
>few of them: 2 l (the planet with uniform topography and climate) is the
>Greely County syndrome, after Greely County, Kansas, which is pretty much
>one big field. Principal towns are Horace and Tribune.
I cannot imagine that anybody would be stupid enough to do this. Can you
imagine anybody writing a story -- or even a novel -- about a whole planet
that is little but _desert_? With giant worms crawling around?
Such a book would be duned to fail.
________________________
Pete McCutchen
William George Ferguson
John & Linda VanSickle <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
> Those of us who have read or seen a lot of science fiction have seen
> certain story elements pop up over and over and over. Some of these
> elements were actually pretty good ideas, and when handled well make for a
> pretty entertaining story, but have become hackneyed from overuse by the
> unimaginative. Others came into being through the deliberate effort to
> avoid another cliché. Still other ideas were lame from day one, and should
> have been dismissed from the author's thinking.
Of course a hackneyed cliche becomes a hackneyed cliche through overuse
(as you rightly point out, in some cases once constitues overuse). It's
interesting, at least to me, to try to identify the origin of the cliche.
> 1. Overused plot lines:
> a. Post-apocalyptic rag-tag armies struggle to kick the Rooskies out
> of the good ol' US of A
Well, not Rooskies, but is Burroughs Moon Maid/Moon Men the first example?
> b. Rag-tag rebel army/fleet struggles valiantly to overthrow the
Evil Empire
Space opera staple, going back to the thirties pulps. Anyone feel able to
cite a specific '1st time'?
> c. Time travel by Good Guys to stop a historical Bad Guy, usually Hitler
> d. Time travel by Bad Guy to stop Good Guy from ever being born
> e. Time travel by Temporal Policeman to catch a Bad Guy who escaped
into the past
Early (good) examples I can think of are
Asimov - End of Eternity
Laumer - Worlds of the Imperium
Norton - the Time Traders and Cross-Time books
far as I know, Norton is the only one who has used this cliche set on
an alien world
> f. The race to stop the Supervirus from killing us all
Can we blame this all on Michael Crichton, or did someone else preceed him?
> g. An alien who
> i. Is stranded on earth
> ii. Befriends a human child or falls in love with an earth gal
> iii. Is pursued by shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials under the
> pretense of national security
> iv. Uses alien powers to defeat the shadowy malevolent Pentagon
> officials, amking them look very foolish without really harming
> them
> v. Makes teary farewell and returns to home planet
Doesn't incorporate all the above elements, but is there an earlier,
better example than Hal Clement's Needle?
> h. A virtual reality program is activated, and the distinction between
> reality and the program becomes confused or indistinguishable
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury :)
> i. People connect their brains directly to computers and get dependent
> on them
> j. Aliens travel a zillion miles to loot the earth of resources which
> exist in far greater and much more easily recoverable quantities on
> the many uninhabited bodies they pass on the way to earth
My all time favorite worst was the legendary 70s tv series, where the
invaders suffered from 'hereditary sterility', a problem that would seem
likely to only last one generation.
This is one of those ideas that was overused the first time it appeared.
A more fruitful cliche to look at is the Seemingly Benevolent Aliens With
Ulterior motives (To Serve Mankind wasn't the first, but was certainly the
nastiest)
> k. Gang of cute and/or misfit kids rescue the universe, where a large
> group of competent, organized and well-armed adults failed
The Ransom of Red Chief is probably the literary progenitor of this entire
group.
> l. A complex computer system spontaneously becomes self-aware
The key is 'spontaneously', as opposed to the makers having malice aforethought.
I'm not sure which one is first. Some early examples would include John
Sladek, Clarke, Heinlein (TMiaHM). I can't remember in 'spontaneously
sentient' stories from the 30s-40s.
> m. A couple filing an application to the government for permission to
> conceive a baby
Goes back to the 30s pulps. Anyone want to cite a '1st'?
> n. A human developing a romantic attachment to a robot
Helen O'Loy or Adam LInk, maybe (or Jay Score, but I don't remember any romance)
> o. UFO abductions
Started in the 50s (with the whole UFO thing) and was overused the first time
> p. Brain-controlling parasites attempt to wrest control of human race
Heinlein - The Puppetmasters (any earlier examples?)
> q. Aliens put an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of humanity
Just a varient on 'God puts an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of
humanity' which goes back to Job (the bible book, not the Heinlein book)
> r. A high-tech amusement park goes lethally berserk
Westworld (the movie) was the first I can remember of this theme. Any
earlier examples?
> s. Death from old age turns out to be due to some simple, single
> cause, leading to an easy immortality treatment, with consequent
> catastrophic social implications
Blish - The Spin-Dizzy/Okie/Worlds in Flight series
> t. A great hunter decides that humans are the most entertaining prey of
> all, and rounds some up for a hunt
The Greatest Sport - I think by Saki, but I may be misrembering that.
> u. Psychedelic drugs give somebody magical power over space, time and
> reality
Psychodelic-40
> 2. Overused characterizations/settings:
I'm not going to do a lot of these, except:
> g. Alien races whose names all have lots of hard consonants
> h. Lots of apostrophes packed into alien words and phrases for no
> apparent reason
Where these are being used as a convention, to id a recognizable but
unpronouncable name, it's ok ("kkpr'lrt responded 'what were you
thinking'" is better than "[unpronouncable] responded" especially when
there are going to be several characters with unpronouncable names.)
> k. Entire story setting dominated by huge impersonal business
> conglomerates
Preferred Risk
> n. The incredibly competent man-of-action with more skills/degrees
> than you can shake a blaster at
Richard Seaton from the Skylark books is about as early an example of
totipotent hero as I can think of (oops, not counting Jules Verne)
> o. The incredibly competent woman-of-action with large breasts, no
> sexual inhibitions, and more skills/degrees than you can shake a
> blaster at
This wasn't really a commonplace in early sf. Arguably, Deetee from
Number of the Beast may be the first example. I don't even know if this
has happened enough to qualify as a cliche.
> p. Shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials
Of course, a subset of Evil Empire secret government conspirace, which has
been around for a long time (I don't even think 'The International Zionist
Conspiracy' was the first example)
> x. A society in which everyone is required to die on his or her Nth
> birthday
Anything earlier than Asimov - The Stars Like Dust?
> aa. Eccentric scientists
Unfortunately, this one is drawn from real life :)
> ab. The assistant to the scientist who is either deformed or dating the
> scientist's daughter
Tolkien - The Fall of Gondolin :) :)
> 3. Overused story events/plot devices:
> h. Aliens who are vastly more intelligent and advanced than we are,
> but we beat them anyway by "ingenuity," plain guts, or
> exploiting an Achilles Heel
All John W. Campbell's fault, I'm afraid
> q. The availability of firearms notwithstanding, swordfighting
> returns as a significant method of combat
Burroughs - A Princess of Mars
And give a nod to the ones with explanations, like Dune with the personal
shields against energy weapons, or Flight Into Yesterday, with personal
shields that would stop anything traveling above a certain threshold
velocity (And I especially like the art of making a sufficiently slow
strike being discussed)
> r. The Big Surprise at the end of the tale:
> i. Barbaric society turns out to be post-apocalyptic Western
> civilization
I believe Andre Norton (Star Rangers aka The Last Planet) beat Pierre
Boulle to this by a few years.
> s. Telepaths use their power to achieve a heightened sexual
> experience
This isn't a cliche, it's just a variation on why a dog licks itself.
> u. Inherited supernatural power (telepathy, lycanthropy, etc)
> becomes pronounced at the onset of puberty
Well, there's lots of sex-linked characteristics that show up at puberty.
The ones I find bothersome are the ones where this is established, but
then ignored whenever the author finds it useful to ignore it.
--
annoying signature --
John & Linda VanSickle
Larisa Migachyov wrote:
>
> John & Linda VanSickle (vans...@erols.com) wrote:
> : Jack Cox wrote:
> : >
> : >
> : > >
> : > > communication is possible
> : >
> : > Now this one seems like something fairly likely to happen. Perhaps the
> : > cliche is aliens who prove to think similarly enough to humans that all
> : > it takes is a bit of translation to communicate.
> :
> : It would depend on how many concepts we have in common with the aliens.
> : If they have to eat, if they have any of our five senses (even if the
> : particulars vary), if tool use is a regular part of their lives, then
> : there will be enough common ground for communication. Their manner of
> : communication--unless it's outright telepathy--will be interpretable
> : after a period of peaceful interaction.
> : Naturally there will be some concepts lacking in one or both races. If,
> : for instance, the race in question is an intelligent starfish that
> : gets ill when eating any of its native planet's plant life, it will
> : consider green (or whatever color the plant life has) to be the same
> : as poison, and have one word for both.
> I do not think that it is that simple. For one, the aliens might not have
> the same senses as we do, and might not communicate in the same sensory
> mode. As I have read, deaf people in our culture - people just like us -
> have had a lot of trouble getting their mode of communication - a language
> using the visual mode rather than the auditory mode - recognized as a
> language.
So? They can still communicate, and we can stil learn it. The operative
phrase in the cliche is "no communication is possible."
> Furthermore, the language we use is shaped by the society we live in. If
> the aliens are social creatures like us - which is not mandatory - their
> society would be a very different one from ours. It would be shaped by
> influences that we cannot imagine, and would never be able to understand.
Just because they eat something we don't eat doesn't mean we can never
learn their word for "eat."
> The physical shape and structure of the aliens' bodies would also
> influence their language, making it even more incomprehensible. As Lem
> (or someone like that) put it, the simple telegram "Grandmother dead.
> funeral Thursday" would make no sense to beings that reproduce
> nonsexually, like bacteria; to beings that do not die, and thus have no
> concept of burial; etc. We cannot assume that everyone is just like us.
Once more, with feeling:
ANY similarity will produce enough common ground to make communication
possible. If they have to ingest substances so that their bodies can
chemically break them down, communication is possible.
> Our language is shaped by the way we move, the way we eat, the way we
> breathe. We cannot separate it from our physical structure.
So? There will still be common concepts.
> Furthermore, language evolved in the human brain, for the purpose of
> communicating with other human brains. Would an alien brain have a need
> for language?
Unless it was telepathic, YES.
> Would it be the same kind of language as the kind we use? I doubt it.
Different in the particulars? I don't doubt it.
But language is merely a set of sensory symbols that represent concepts.
There have been several strange ways of communication. HP Lovecraft
has a race of beings that communicated by changing the color of their
heads, and I read a story by another author in which a race of ameoboids
used scent to communicate. Each of these species was as different as
could be, and yet there was intercommuncation between humans and the
other kind.
--
"You may bang your head on the floor until forgiven."
John & Linda VanSickle
Jack Cox wrote:
>
> John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
> >
>
> > > Now this one seems like something fairly likely to happen. Perhaps the
> > > cliche is aliens who prove to think similarly enough to humans that all
> > > it takes is a bit of translation to communicate.
> >
> > It would depend on how many concepts we have in common with the aliens.
> > If they have to eat, if they have any of our five senses (even if the
> > particulars vary), if tool use is a regular part of their lives, then
> > there will be enough common ground for communication. Their manner of
> > communication--unless it's outright telepathy--will be interpretable
> > after a period of peaceful interaction.
>
> form or another) should be fairly certain, but the rest might be too
> chancy to predict.
Concepts like "go," "I," "you," common objects like stones, sticks water,
sand, etc.
> > Naturally there will be some concepts lacking in one or both races. If,
> > for instance, the race in question is an intelligent starfish that
> > gets ill when eating any of its native planet's plant life, it will
> > consider green (or whatever color the plant life has) to be the same
> > as poison, and have one word for both.
>
> Except, of course, the starfish might refer to green by changing
> to the appropriate color, waving a tentacle in the right fashion, and
> emitting three sorts of pheromone into the water.
You're losing the forest for the trees. Of course these options might be
available (although I doubt that scent will ever be a viable form of
communication beyond signalling avaiability for mating and marking of
territory), and nothing precludes us from being able to decipher them
over time. Look at it: You learned your first language by observing
its use when you had only the vaguest idea what was being said!
> Then there's always the possibility that there'll be something
> truly difficult to deal with...try, say, chattin' it up with dolphins,
> or elephants. We do a good job with apes, but they're close enough to
> us evolutionarily.
It could be that dolphins and elephants simply have nothing to say.
I know that a dolphin can be recognized to fetch a particular hoop--whether
square, round, or triangular--on cue. Has one dolphin, not trained but
housed with another dolphin that has, ever demonstrated this trick?
--
"You may bang your head on the floor until forgiven."
Ian A. York
In article <345E86...@erols.com>,
>sand, etc.
None of these concepts might be used by a sessile aquatic hive-mind. I'm
sure others can think of different scenarios in which they wouldn't be
used.
I've seen some Usenet posts which appear to have been written by beings
with whom I have no concepts in common.
Ian
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Andrew Crisp
Of all the days I chose to join this NG, *this* had to happen today...
PMccutc103 <pmccu...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19971103181...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> I cannot imagine that anybody would be stupid enough to do this. Can you
> imagine anybody writing a story -- or even a novel -- about a whole
planet
> that is little but _desert_? With giant worms crawling around?
>
> Such a book would be duned to fail.
> ________________________
>
> Pete McCutchen
>
Very punny.
Andrew Crisp
John & Linda VanSickle
Michael Powers wrote:
>
> On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
> <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> Adding my "Sharon Stone has ugly toes" complaints here...
>
> > 1. Overused plot lines:
> >
> > a. Post-apocalyptic rag-tag armies struggle to kick the Rooskies out
> > of the good ol' US of A
> >
>
> survive when beset by bandits/mutants/cyberpunks" etc. might fit
> better here.
Yeah, I suppose.
> > f. The race to stop the Supervirus from killing us all
>
> Better fit:
>
> f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
> i. Virus
> ii. Alien Race
> iii. Being
I was thinking of some enemy whose defeat rests on some scientific
discovery, and the rest of the story alternates between the rampaging of
the enemy and the rush to make the earth-saving discovery (with a torrid
affair or two thrown in to maintain the producer's interest in the project).
> > 2. Overused characterizations/settings:
> >
> > a. Aliens whose thinking is so different from ours that no
> > communication is possible
>
> (insert standard "No, a better fit is "Aliens whose communications are
> so like ours that a linguistic translator is all that's required")
Okay, you win.
> > d. Extra breasts on the alien women
>
> Hmmm...intriguing concept...point out some examples? ;D
They kinda point themselves -- No, no, no.
Can't think of one. Sorry. Maybe I should drop it.
> > l. Planets with the same exact climate planet-wide
>
> If you're talking about low-population colony worlds, this might be
> easily explained away by "Well, everybody lives in the temperate zone,
> so therefore you could say that the only part of the planet anyone
> cares about is temperate."
Nah. I'm thinking of the desert planets, ice planets, etc. Besides, the
intro does make allowance when there is a reasonable rationale.
> > p. Shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials
>
> Delete "Pentagon", insert "Government"
They're from the Pentagon often enough. Depends a bit on which way the
author's politics lean. Lefties go for Shadowy Pentagon Officials,
Right-wingers and libertarians go for Shadowy Government Officials.
> > s. Societies where all technology has been destroyed except automobiles
> > and their equivalents, which are still running yet there are no
> > mechanics, workshops, or gas stations
>
> ? Where does this one happen?
Mad Max and its lesser carbon copies.
> > w. Beings of pure energy
>
> No, more like "Omnipotent beings of pure energy who still take an
> interest in the affairs of corporeal beings"
Who are complete pacifists, but only seem interested in disarming the
protagonists.
> > b. Most intelligent course of action precluded by orders from high-
> > ranking ignoramus, on the basis of a transparently flawed
> > rationale
>
> Side story: It might be interesting, once in a while, to explore the
> reasons _why_ some of these "high-ranking ignoramuses" gave orders
> precluding said course of action based on a "transparently flawed
> rationale".
Except that the sole reason is to keep the protagonists from doing the
most intelligent thing.
> > n. A computer is re-programmed or virus-infected by someone who has
> > no knowledge of the computer's operating system
>
> Add another: 'Someone's actions are made explicitly obvious by the
> computer, e.g. displaying a large message box saying "UPLOADING
> VIRUS'".
Okay.
> > r. The Big Surprise at the end of the tale:
>
> Add:
> Society described in story turns out to be the Enemy, under
> attack by the Good Guys
> The Scooby-Doo Ending: "So-and-so was really Such-and-such in
> disguise all along!"
> Someone's irrational behavior explained by "I had orders"
> Evil Overlord commits suicide out of remorse
Ogre dokey.
> > s. Telepaths use their power to achieve a heightened sexual
> > experience
>
> Now _here_ is a cliche that I wish I saw _more_ of!
>
> A whole new category:
>
> Equipment Oddities
>
> (the panel explosions one can go here)
>
> Somebody's mech, vehicle, body or other device has some silly flaw
> that a reasonably competent design review team would have spotted
> right off (glaringly obvious weak point, vulnerable to some common
> element or stimulus, limited range of motion or vision, etc.)
Is utterly impractical for the situation in which is it used, aka the
forest chase scene in Return of the Jedi.
> Primary Source: Happens extremely often
>
> A vehicle which is "invisible to all known forms of detection" is
> detected anyway
>
> Primary Source: Again with the cloaking devices!
Primary Source: A news report on the B-2 bomber.
> All of one side's weapons are rendered useless at once
>
> Primary Source: Well...I dunno, but I seem to recall this happening a
> lot.
>
> A prototype design is so dangerous that only one person can safely use
> it (if that's the case, then said design is useless)
>
> Primary Soruce: Macross Plus
>
> The enemy can only be defeated by a new weapon that a scientist is
> frantically working to complete
>
> Primary Source: Again, happens too often to count.
Will fall under the Race to Discover Something Vital
> Fighting spacecraft have design features pointlessly carried over from
> wet-navy craft (shape, guns mounted in flat turrets, aircraft launched
> via long flight decks rather than protected hangars)
Might be worth including.
--
"You may bang your head on the floor until forgiven."
John & Linda VanSickle
William George Ferguson wrote:
>
> John & Linda VanSickle <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
> > Those of us who have read or seen a lot of science fiction have seen
> > certain story elements pop up over and over and over. Some of these
> > elements were actually pretty good ideas, and when handled well make for a
> > pretty entertaining story, but have become hackneyed from overuse by the
> > unimaginative. Others came into being through the deliberate effort to
> > avoid another cliché. Still other ideas were lame from day one, and should
> > have been dismissed from the author's thinking.
>
> Of course a hackneyed cliche becomes a hackneyed cliche through overuse
> (as you rightly point out, in some cases once constitues overuse). It's
> interesting, at least to me, to try to identify the origin of the cliche.
In many cases I had a good idea of inept usage, but I don't pretend to
know who blessed us with these ideas.
> This is one of those ideas that was overused the first time it appeared.
> A more fruitful cliche to look at is the Seemingly Benevolent Aliens With
> Ulterior motives (To Serve Mankind wasn't the first, but was certainly the
> nastiest)
It's in the list!
> > q. Aliens put an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of humanity
>
> Just a varient on 'God puts an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of
> humanity' which goes back to Job (the bible book, not the Heinlein book)
Actually, the whole point is to test Job. Job passes early, but falters
later.
Regards,
John
--
"You may bang your head on the floor until forgiven."
Brendon Towle
In article <63ldm8$r5i$3...@ncar.ucar.edu>, rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
> Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>
> > f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
> > i. Virus
>
> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
I'm the third person on my server to respond -- with a different answer
than any of the others, no less.
_Worlds Apart_, Joe Haldeman.
B.
--
Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu>
"Could God have prevented the serpent from tempting Adam and Eve? If yes,
why didn't he? If no, discuss the possibility that the serpent was as
powerful as God." --Harlan Ellison, "The Deathbird"
Nancy Lebovitz
The one person in the novel/on the spaceship who cares about 20th
century rock music or has a couple of books on *paper*.
Nancy Lebovitz
Men and women live in separate societies.
Robert Sneddon
In article <63lkig$l...@camel20.mindspring.com>
rpea...@pipeline.com "Robert Pearlman" writes:
[re: alien aliens]
> Also, Damon Knight's (?) "Stranger Station".
Another one in the back of my mind, but I couldn't remember the title
until I saw it in print - not sure about Damon K., but it feels like
one of his darker stories.
> Surely no-one will read
> it twice. Goes 'way beyond the cliche level, reasonably enough since
> it was written before the idea was a cliche.
Very nasty story. It might have made a "Twilight Zone" episode, but it
would have to be toned down quite a bit.
Robert A. Woodward
In article <ferguson-031...@ferguson.qed.dist.maricopa.edu>,
ferg...@dist.maricopa.edu (William George Ferguson) wrote:
> John & Linda VanSickle <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
> > Those of us who have read or seen a lot of science fiction have seen
> > certain story elements pop up over and over and over. Some of these
> > elements were actually pretty good ideas, and when handled well make for a
> > pretty entertaining story, but have become hackneyed from overuse by the
> > unimaginative. Others came into being through the deliberate effort to
> > avoid another cliché. Still other ideas were lame from day one, and should
> > have been dismissed from the author's thinking.
>
> Of course a hackneyed cliche becomes a hackneyed cliche through overuse
> (as you rightly point out, in some cases once constitues overuse). It's
> interesting, at least to me, to try to identify the origin of the cliche.
<SNIP>
>
> > l. A complex computer system spontaneously becomes self-aware
>
> The key is 'spontaneously', as opposed to the makers having malice
aforethought.
>
> I'm not sure which one is first. Some early examples would include John
> Sladek, Clarke, Heinlein (TMiaHM). I can't remember in 'spontaneously
> sentient' stories from the 30s-40s.
>
"Logic Named Joe" by Will F. Jenkins (Murray Leinster's real name) in 1946.
<snip>
>
> > q. Aliens put an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of humanity
>
> Just a varient on 'God puts an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of
> humanity' which goes back to Job (the bible book, not the Heinlein book)
>
Heinlein used this in _Have Spacesuit, Will Travel_.
<snip>
>
> > n. The incredibly competent man-of-action with more skills/degrees
> > than you can shake a blaster at
>
> Richard Seaton from the Skylark books is about as early an example of
> totipotent hero as I can think of (oops, not counting Jules Verne)
>
> > o. The incredibly competent woman-of-action with large breasts, no
> > sexual inhibitions, and more skills/degrees than you can shake a
> > blaster at
>
> This wasn't really a commonplace in early sf. Arguably, Deetee from
> Number of the Beast may be the first example. I don't even know if this
> has happened enough to qualify as a cliche.
>
A goodly percentage of the female characters in SF in the Pulp era WERE
shapely. Several appeared to be competent. However, all stories in that
period had sexual inhibitions.
<snip>
>
> > u. Inherited supernatural power (telepathy, lycanthropy, etc)
> > becomes pronounced at the onset of puberty
>
> Well, there's lots of sex-linked characteristics that show up at puberty.
> The ones I find bothersome are the ones where this is established, but
> then ignored whenever the author finds it useful to ignore it.
Then there is the early Timothy Zahn novel, _A Coming of Age_, where the
kids LOST psi powers at the onset of puberty.
Giles Boutel
Colin Rosenthal <rose...@asp.hao.ucar.edu> wrote in article
<63ldm8$r5i$3...@ncar.ucar.edu>...
> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
> Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
> >On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
> ><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> > f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
> > i. Virus
>
> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
>
Kronk by Edmund Cooper?
-Giles
Aznin
On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART (Michael Powers) wrote:
>On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>
>> d. Extra breasts on the alien women
>
>Hmmm...intriguing concept...point out some examples? ;D
>
>
Eccentricca Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.
Source: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gallaxy, Douglas Adams. Apart
from this one, I can't think of any.
Aznin
********************************
<insert standard witticism here>
********************************
az...@NOSPAMhotmail.com
Remove the spamblocker for personal replies.
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
Michael Powers (mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART) wrote:[snip]
> > p. Shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials
>
I'd say "malevolent Pentagon officials" was a legitimate cliche a couple
of decades ago. But these days other Evil Government Agencies appear to
dominate the pulps.
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew
Jonathan Dresner
In article <63ldm8$r5i$3...@ncar.ucar.edu>,
Colin Rosenthal <rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu> wrote:
>On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>>On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
>><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>> i. Virus
>
>A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
Well, there was the "catalyst" in "Rule Golden" by Damon Knight.
Don't remember the race name, though. The alien was Aza-Kra.
Jonathan
Charles Frederick Goodin
In article <345E6B...@sowega.net>, Jack Cox <ca...@sowega.net> wrote:
>John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>>
>> Jack Cox wrote:
>
>> > Now this one seems like something fairly likely to happen. Perhaps the
>> > cliche is aliens who prove to think similarly enough to humans that all
>> > it takes is a bit of translation to communicate.
>>
>> It would depend on how many concepts we have in common with the aliens.
>> If they have to eat, if they have any of our five senses (even if the
>> particulars vary), if tool use is a regular part of their lives, then
>> there will be enough common ground for communication. Their manner of
>> communication--unless it's outright telepathy--will be interpretable
>> after a period of peaceful interaction.
>
> Trick is, how likely are these if's to occur. Now, eating (in one form or
>another) should be fairly certain, but the rest might be too chancy to predict.
>
>>
>> for instance, the race in question is an intelligent starfish that
>> gets ill when eating any of its native planet's plant life, it will
>> consider green (or whatever color the plant life has) to be the same
>> as poison, and have one word for both.
>
> Except, of course, the starfish might refer to green by changing to the
>appropriate color, waving a tentacle in the right fashion, and emitting three sorts of
>pheromone into the water.
Weird...I'm working on a story where one type of alien communicates just
like that!
chuk
Charles Frederick Goodin
In article <63lmas$adc$4...@ncar.ucar.edu>,
Colin Rosenthal <rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu> wrote:
>On 3 Nov 1997 21:18:40 GMT,
>wombat <wom...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>According to Colin Rosenthal <rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu>:
>>> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>>> Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>>> >On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
>>> ><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
>>> > i. Virus
>>>
>>> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>>> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
>>> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
>>
>
>Neither of the two answers offered so far is the one I was thinking of
>so maybe this is another cliche in itself!
What about _After the Plague Years_ by Norman Spinrad? (IIR the title C)
chuk
William Clifford
rose...@asp.hao.ucar.edu (Colin Rosenthal) wrote:
>On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>>On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
>><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>> f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
>> i. Virus
>A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
Has _Snow Crash_ been mentioned yet? What about Tom Cool's
_Infectress_ (salvation through destruction kind 'o' thing).
-William Clifford
from fields foiled! (you figure it out)
David Mitchell
In article <towle-ya02408000...@news.acns.nwu.edu>,
Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu> writes
>In article <63ldm8$r5i$3...@ncar.ucar.edu>, rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>> Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>>
>> > f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
>> > i. Virus
>>
>> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
>> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
>
>than any of the others, no less.
>
>_Worlds Apart_, Joe Haldeman.
>
>B.
_The Stone that never came down_ John Brunner
That one by Damon Knight! (Golden Rule ?)
David Mitchell
William Clifford
l...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Larisa Migachyov) wrote:
>John & Linda VanSickle (vans...@erols.com) wrote:
>: Jack Cox wrote:
>: > John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>: > > communication is possible
>: > Now this one seems like something fairly likely to happen. Perhaps the
>: > cliche is aliens who prove to think similarly enough to humans that all
>: > it takes is a bit of translation to communicate.
I have to second this last statement. Universal translators simply
have to go. So do aliens who can conveinently learn Human while lazy
homo sapiens don't have to do a thing.
>: It would depend on how many concepts we have in common with the aliens.
>: If they have to eat, if they have any of our five senses (even if the
>: particulars vary), if tool use is a regular part of their lives, then
>: there will be enough common ground for communication. Their manner of
>: communication--unless it's outright telepathy--will be interpretable
>: after a period of peaceful interaction.
I've peacefully interacted with our cat for some months now and we
still can't communicate very well. I talk to it and it lies there. I
meow at it and it ignores me. If it meows at me I could only guess at
what it wants (I have narrowed it down to a short list of
possiblities). While not exactly disagreeing with this point, I
wouldn't hold my breath during this 'period of peaceful interaction.'
However, my cat would probably understand a good swift kick very well.
Likewise, I'd understand it clawing my leg. The analogy fails in that
cats and humans have a lot more in common than humans and Beta
Reticulans. As I think of it a war might just provide enough ipetus
for learning about each other to make the any following peace more
profitable than peace alone.
>Furthermore, the language we use is shaped by the society we live in. If
>the aliens are social creatures like us - which is not mandatory - their
>society would be a very different one from ours.
We'd have better success with social aliens who might someday *want*
to communicate and be social with us than anti-social ones. A race
descended from herd animals would be easier to understand than one
that descends from territorial loners (like bears, rhinoceroses,etc).
Ross Smith
Colin Rosenthal wrote:
>
> On 3 Nov 1997 21:18:40 GMT,
> wombat <wom...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >According to Colin Rosenthal <rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu>:
> >>
> >> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
> >> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
> >
>
> Neither of the two answers offered so far is the one I was thinking of
> so maybe this is another cliche in itself!
_Welcome, Chaos_ by Kate Wilhelm?
--
Ross Smith (Wellington, New Zealand) ...... <mailto:al...@netlink.co.nz>
......... <http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/3699/> ..........
"While I'd like to claim that it was a bitter and satirical
attack upon the mindless brutalities of war, it was really
just plain bloody violent..." -- Alan Moore
Benjamin Adams
Michael Powers wrote:
>
> > s. Telepaths use their power to achieve a heightened sexual
> > experience
>
> Now _here_ is a cliche that I wish I saw _more_ of!
Joan D. Vinge's Cat books (_Catspaw_, _Dreamfall_)
-Ben Adams
Paul Clarke
In article <ferguson-031...@ferguson.qed.dist.maricopa.edu>,
ferg...@dist.maricopa.edu says...
The shields in Dune also stop anything above a certain velocity, rather
than energy weapons specifically (in fact, they don't work against
'lasguns' - the interaction of shield and gun generates an explosion).
So, in the spirit of your enquiry, which came first: _Dune_ or
_Flight Into Yesterday_?
>> r. The Big Surprise at the end of the tale:
>> i. Barbaric society turns out to be post-apocalyptic Western
>> civilization
>
>I believe Andre Norton (Star Rangers aka The Last Planet) beat Pierre
>Boulle to this by a few years.
>
Te Big Surprise in _Star Rangers_ is (do I need SPOILER warnings on
something this old?) that the planet they've discovered is Earth.
Given that the date is somewhere in the 9th millenium, it seems a
bit of a stretch to describe this as a post-apocalyptic Western
civilisation.
</reminisce on>
_Star Rangers_ was the first Norton novel I read, which might make it
the first SF novel that I read. I loved the scene where they're walking
round the table, reading the destinations of the first colonisation
flights engraved on the backs of the chairs and finally coming to the
chair at the head of the table and reading "Terra. Terra of Sol".
<sigh>
(Though given that I understood Terra to mean Earth and didn't take
Latin, maybe this wasn't my first SF.)
</reminisce off>
Paul Clarke
In article <robertaw-031...@blv-pm107-ip10.halcyon.com>,
robe...@halcyon.com says...
>
>In article <ferguson-031...@ferguson.qed.dist.maricopa.edu>,
>ferg...@dist.maricopa.edu (William George Ferguson) wrote:
>
[snip]
>kids LOST psi powers at the onset of puberty.
>
I also recall one story (but not author or title) where a boy gained
PK powers at puberty but, as they were powered by his libido, lost
them along with his virginity. I wonder if this was intended as a
cautionary tale: "See: not only does sleeping around cause unwanted
pregnancies and unpleasant diseases, it also makes you lose your
psychic powers!"
James Michael Rogers
>period had sexual inhibitions.
>
to apply the "weird menace" sex/sadism theme to the SF market. Also, A.
Merrit's THE METAL MONSTER (first lesbian theme that I know of in SF) and
sTAPLEDON'S ODD JOHN (pronounced sexual theme throughout, as well as what
was probably the first incest motif in SF).
James
WooF
On Tue, 4 Nov 1997, William Clifford wrote:
>
> I've peacefully interacted with our cat for some months now and we
> still can't communicate very well. I talk to it and it lies there. I
> meow at it and it ignores me. If it meows at me I could only guess at
> what it wants (I have narrowed it down to a short list of
> possiblities).
[snip]
> A race descended from herd animals would be easier to understand than
> one that descends from territorial loners (like bears,
> rhinoceroses,etc).
>
Aha: that's the problem! Cats aren't herd animals. When you meow at your
dog, he'll try to understand What You Are Up To This Time.
Note that one can interact with a parrot more closely that with most cats,
even though people and parrots are a lot farther apart, biologically, than
people and cats.
George Scithers of owls...@netaxs.com
Andrew Ducker
In article <345F08...@pacbell.net>, Benjamin Adams
<lo...@pacbell.net> writes
The Galactic Milleu books of Julian May
--
Home: sam...@dial.pipex.com
Work: and...@irw-associates.demon.co.uk
Jack Cox
Charles Frederick Goodin wrote:
> >> Jack Cox wrote:
> > Except, of course, the starfish might refer to green by changing to the
> >appropriate color, waving a tentacle in the right fashion, and emitting three sorts of
> >pheromone into the water.
>
> Weird...I'm working on a story where one type of alien communicates just
> like that!
>
> chuk
Nah. Not that strange of a coincidence-- body language is common in animals, so
are color changes, and lots of critters like pheromones...so it's not beyond reason to
assume something would put them all together.
Massive impedance to long-distance communication, but...
Carey
Dorothy J Heydt
In article <EJ4H6...@isltd.insignia.com>,
Paul Clarke <Paul....@isltd.insignia.com> wrote:
>
>I also recall one story (but not author or title) where a boy gained
>PK powers at puberty but, as they were powered by his libido, lost
>them along with his virginity. I wonder if this was intended as a
>cautionary tale: "See: not only does sleeping around cause unwanted
>pregnancies and unpleasant diseases, it also makes you lose your
>psychic powers!"
Cf. MZB's Darkover stories ad libitum, where Keepers have to be
virgins (not only that, fanatically chaste in thought, word and
deed) because the sexual and telepathic "energies" use the same
"channels" (insert vague reference to Hindu mysticism and lots of
hand-waving).
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@uclink
(My account might go away at any moment; if I disappear, I haven't died.)
Jack Cox
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
> Men and women live in separate societies.
Well, there is, iirc, some minor evidence that neanderthals did
this.
And do you mean completely separate, or just some form of
purdah?
>
> --
> Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
>
> October '96 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Carey
Graham Head
In article <63iut6$maj$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, Larisa Migachyov
<l...@leland.Stanford.EDU> writes
>: John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>:
>: >
>: > a. Aliens whose thinking is so different from ours that no
>: > communication is possible
>
>considers the idea is Lem, and he wrote only 2 or 3 books dealing with the
>subject. The cliche would be an alien race that speaks English; or at
>least, speaks a language that becomes understandable after it's
>translated.
>
Well, there's also Knight's _Stranger Station_ (?) and others - but I
think you're right in general.
--
Graham
Ralph Barbagallo
In article <346a2d80.23895329@news>,
Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>Fighting spacecraft have design features pointlessly carried over from
>wet-navy craft (shape, guns mounted in flat turrets, aircraft launched
>via long flight decks rather than protected hangars)
>
>Primary Source: A big feature of anime, though Yamato/Star Blazers is
>notable.
Well, considering the fact that Yamato WAS a converted Japanese
WWII battleship, I suppose it makes sense that the navy craft features
are present.
--
*Ralph Barbagallo http://www.cs.uml.edu/~rbarbaga *rbar...@cs.uml.edu*
"I have known many game designers; they encompass a broad range of
personalities. Yet all these disparate people share one common trait;
they all sport towering egos."--Chris Crawford, 1987.
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <345FE4...@sowega.net>, Jack Cox <ca...@sowega.net> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>>
>> Men and women live in separate societies.
>
> Well, there is, iirc, some minor evidence that neanderthals did
>this.
I've heard of human societies that severely limit contact between
men and women.
> And do you mean completely separate, or just some form of
>purdah?
>
Any substantial degree of separation.
Michael Powers
On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 22:43:22 -0500, chen...@monmouth.com (Christopher
J. Henrich) wrote:
ters
>> later.
>>
>I'm not sure that Job really faltered. He yelled at God, and God told him,
>in effect, "You can't possibly understand;" nevertheless, God was better
>pleased with Job than with any of his "comforters."
I think that the point was that Job didn't _leave_ God, he was just a
little peeved at God's apparent lack of action on his behalf.
Mike Powers
Michael Powers
On 4 Nov 1997 03:26:12 GMT, jbo...@nospam.mindspring.com (John
Boston) wrote:
>>--
>
> Yeah? Any good ones about villainous IRS agents?
Ha! Check out Reader's Digest--you'll find more stories about IRS
agents than you can shake a stick at.
Mike Powers
Matt Austern
John & Linda VanSickle <vans...@erols.com> writes:
> Once more, with feeling:
>
> ANY similarity will produce enough common ground to make communication
> possible. If they have to ingest substances so that their bodies can
> chemically break them down, communication is possible.
That's speculation, based on no evidence. We don't know whether it's
possible to communicate with an alien technological society, because
we've never met one. Maybe we never will.
Until we do meet aliens and try to communicate with them, it's
entirely legitimate to speculate about whether or not we'll be able
to. Most SF writers don't do that: they never raise the issue, and
assume that communication would be no more difficult than between
speakers of two human languages. A few writers take the opposite
point of view.
If anything is a cliche here, it's what the vast majority of writers
do.
Michael Powers
On 3 Nov 1997 23:01:48 -0500, nan...@universe.digex.net (Nancy
Lebovitz) wrote:
>Men and women live in separate societies.
Hey, good call--how about "...and consider one another to be an alien
race"
Another one--"clones of human beings are 'mentally unstable' but no
verifiable reason for it is given"
Mike Powers
A. Sharp
Heinlein did it earlier --PUPPET MASTERS, where Hero's father ran a
special security unit for the President; Terra was invaded by Titian slugs
which were only killable by a very dangerous Venusian fever.
A. Sharp
In article <345F05...@pacbell.net> Benjamin Adams <lo...@pacbell.net>
writes:>Colin Rosenthal wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>> Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>> >On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
>> ><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> > f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
>> > i. Virus
>>
>> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
>> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
>>
>Orson Scott Card's _Xenocide_ had something like this.
>-Ben Adams
Charles Buckley
In article <chenrich-031...@ppp146.monmouth.com>,
Christopher J. Henrich <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>In article <ferguson-031...@ferguson.qed.dist.maricopa.edu>,
>ferg...@dist.maricopa.edu (William George Ferguson) wrote:
>
>> > certain story elements pop up over and over and over. Some of these
>> > elements were actually pretty good ideas, and when handled well make for a
>> > pretty entertaining story, but have become hackneyed from overuse by the
>> > unimaginative. Others came into being through the deliberate effort to
>> > avoid another cliché. Still other ideas were lame from day one, and should
>> > have been dismissed from the author's thinking.
>>
>>
>> > b. Rag-tag rebel army/fleet struggles valiantly to overthrow the
>> Evil Empire
>>
>This one has some real-life exemplars. For example, in the 1500's the
>Dutch "Sea Beggars" struggled against the huge power of the Spanish Habsburgs,
>and did kick them out of Holland (though not overthrowing them altogether).
>Had they failed, the Spanish Armada would have had a comfortable jumping-off
>point for invading Britain, and the history of the English-speaking world might
>have been *very* different.
>
>The rise of the independent Dutch ought to be the subject of some fine
>slam-bang historical fiction. Does anybody know of examples?
>
I don't think that this is historically accurate. The Dutch were a major
shipping power while still part of the Spanish Empire. During that age,
very few nations had a dedicated Navy. (England had a few ships). Most
nations rented merchant ships for the duration of a war. Merchant ships,
at that time, were as heavily armed as any ship in the Spanish navy - as
the Spanish navy was the same type. The dutch never really went head for head
against the Spanish Navy, instead focussed on raiding the Spanish treasure
fleets, or were engaged in smuggling. The Spanish were defeated on the ground
and because the Dutch were making the venture to expensive to manage.
(The Spanish Army mutinied yearly, sometimes monthly due to not getting paid).
Most of the historical examples you will cite will turn out to be mostly
image. Rarely, if ever, did an ill-equipped navy defeat a superior navy.
And, at no point in history, did an outclassed navy hold it's own militarily
over the course of years. (I include the US navy in both of our wars against
England). Generally, an ill-equipped Navy adapted very fast to be superior in
arms and tactics over the previously superior foe, or were bottled up
in ports. In the US example of the War of 1812, both of the shown cases
occurred to the US navy. It was, ship-for-ship superior to the English,
so the English changed it's tactics to where a squadron would attack US
warships.
Michael Powers
On Tue, 04 Nov 1997 03:36:20 -0800, Benjamin Adams <lo...@pacbell.net>
wrote:
>Michael Powers wrote:
>>
>> > s. Telepaths use their power to achieve a heightened sexual
>> > experience
>>
>> Now _here_ is a cliche that I wish I saw _more_ of!
>
>Joan D. Vinge's Cat books (_Catspaw_, _Dreamfall_)
>
Hmmm... :P~~~ (drool)
Mike Powers
Nyrath the nearly wise
Thus spoke Paul Clarke (Paul....@isltd.insignia.com):
> </reminisce on>
> _Star Rangers_ was the first Norton novel I read, which might make it
> the first SF novel that I read. I loved the scene where they're walking
> round the table, reading the destinations of the first colonisation
> flights engraved on the backs of the chairs and finally coming to the
> chair at the head of the table and reading "Terra. Terra of Sol".
> <sigh>
I've got a very warm place in my heart for STAR RANGERS
(aka THE LAST PLANET). The feeling of a new genesis
on Terra, the collapse of a galactic empire, imposing
ancient ruins, all sorts of classic good stuff.
But more to the point, having read that novel at a tender
age, it impressed upon my developing personality just
how *stupid* race prejudice is.
All the non-human races are contemptuously referred to
as "Bemmys" (short for Bug-Eyed-Monster). And Our Hero
is shunned because he is a telepath.
In the story, Our Hero and his friend are beset upon by
a "Can-hound", sort of a telepathically controlled zombie.
The hero has to telepathically enter the can-hound's mind,
put it to sleep, and withdraw without alerting the
controlling master mind.
To a telepath, doing this is unspeakably unplesant and
vile. A non-telepath cannot understand what's so bad
about it.
Reading this as a boy, I vowed that even if I was a
non-telepath, by golly I'd feel sympathy for the poor
telepath. And do all I could to understand his situation.
I would *not* contemptuously dismiss his distress because
I didn't understand.
You can see how such an attitude can help when trying
to be sypathetic to a victim of racial prejudice.
* A B S I T * I N V I D I A * V E R B O ** I D E M * S O N A N S *
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| WINCHELL CHUNG http://www.clark.net/pub/nyrath/home.html |
| Nyrath the nearly wise nyr...@clark.net |
+---_---+---------------------[ SURREAL SAGE SEZ: ]--------------------------+
| /_\ | It is claimed that religious intolerance is the fruit of |
| <(*)> | conviction. I am tempted to think, however, that religious |
|/_/|\_\| fanaticism often is the result not of conviction but rather of |
| //|\\ | doubt and insecurity |
+///|\\\+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Nathan P Helfinstin
John & Linda VanSickle <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>Michael Powers wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
>> <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
[snip]
>> > d. Extra breasts on the alien women
>>
>> Hmmm...intriguing concept...point out some examples? ;D
>
>They kinda point themselves -- No, no, no.
>
>Can't think of one. Sorry. Maybe I should drop it.
Only example that comes to mind is David Brin's Tymbrini, from
_The Uplift War._
Nathan Helfinstine: n...@acsu.buffalo.edu
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~nph/
Geoffrey C Marshall
Colin Rosenthal wrote:
>
> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
> >On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
> ><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> > i. Virus
>
> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
>
"The Stone that never came down" _ John Brunner.
"Harvest" - I. Forgot.
Geoff...
Bob Goudreau
Aznin (az...@NOSPAMhotmail.com) wrote:
: On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
: >On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
: ><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
: >
: >> d. Extra breasts on the alien women
: >
: >Hmmm...intriguing concept...point out some examples? ;D
: >
: Eccentricca Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.
: Source: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gallaxy, Douglas Adams. Apart
: from this one, I can't think of any.
Another example is featured in the movie "Total Recall", when
Ah-nold visits the Martian settlement known as Venusville.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation
goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive
+1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
John & Linda VanSickle
Christopher J. Henrich wrote:
>
> In article <345E8F...@erols.com>, John & Linda VanSickle
> <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
> > > > certain story elements pop up over and over and over. Some of these
> > > > elements were actually pretty good ideas, and when handled well make for a
> > > > pretty entertaining story, but have become hackneyed from overuse by the
> > > > unimaginative. Others came into being through the deliberate effort to
> > > > avoid another cliché. Still other ideas were lame from day one, and should
> > > > have been dismissed from the author's thinking.
>
> > >
> > > Just a varient on 'God puts an ordinary Joe on trial for the sins of
> > > humanity' which goes back to Job (the bible book, not the Heinlein book)
> >
> > Actually, the whole point is to test Job. Job passes early, but falters
> > later.
> >
> I'm not sure that Job really faltered. He yelled at God, and God told him,
> in effect, "You can't possibly understand;" nevertheless, God was better
> pleased with Job than with any of his "comforters."
Yep. God took away Job's blessings, leaving him with his wife and friends.
A young man Elihu is the last of the bunch to pontificate; he is not of
Job's three friends, and draws neither criticism nor praise from the
Almighty.
--
"You may bang your head on the floor until forgiven."
http://www.erols.com/vansickl
spambot bait: qbe...@hotmail.com ph...@wwems.com pics...@picsmallbiz.com
extp...@mykabot.net the...@webjetters.com SUE...@HOTMAIL.COM
Captain Button
Wild-eyed conspiracy theorists insist that Paul Clarke <Paul....@isltd.insignia.com> wrote:
[ text lost in singles bar ]
> I also recall one story (but not author or title) where a boy gained
> PK powers at puberty but, as they were powered by his libido, lost
> them along with his virginity. I wonder if this was intended as a
> cautionary tale: "See: not only does sleeping around cause unwanted
> pregnancies and unpleasant diseases, it also makes you lose your
> psychic powers!"
"Push No More" by Robert Silverberg fits this description. In
his collection _Unfamiliar Territory_ IIRC.
--
"As the _Dying Swan _ spurted from the momship's belly, worldkiller
starbombs gestating beneath savage winglets, to featherfall upon the
somnolent globe, Li-Hon Auletek, the Living Buddha of the Universal
Pacifist Church, parted his lips in a wolverinesque sneer. "
My 1997 losing Bulwer-Lytton entry. Captain Button - but...@io.com
John & Linda VanSickle
Larisa Migachyov wrote:
>
> John & Linda VanSickle (vans...@erols.com) wrote:
> : Larisa Migachyov wrote:
>
> : > Furthermore, the language we use is shaped by the society we live in. If
> : > the aliens are social creatures like us - which is not mandatory - their
> : > society would be a very different one from ours. It would be shaped by
> : > influences that we cannot imagine, and would never be able to understand.
> :
> : Just because they eat something we don't eat doesn't mean we can never
> : learn their word for "eat."
>
> They might not have one. Perhaps eating for them is an involuntary action
> - sort of like a sponge filtering microorganisms out of the water. Are
> you aware of all your involuntary actions? For instance, is it a matter
> of great importance to you when your liver secretes slightly more bile
> than it did 5 minutes ago?
To be honest, I doubt that any creature with no conscious control over
where and what it ingests will develop intelligence.
> : > The physical shape and structure of the aliens' bodies would also
> : > influence their language, making it even more incomprehensible. As Lem
> : > (or someone like that) put it, the simple telegram "Grandmother dead.
> : > funeral Thursday" would make no sense to beings that reproduce
> : > nonsexually, like bacteria; to beings that do not die, and thus have no
> : > concept of burial; etc. We cannot assume that everyone is just like us.
> :
> : Once more, with feeling:
> :
> : ANY similarity will produce enough common ground to make communication
> : possible. If they have to ingest substances so that their bodies can
> : chemically break them down, communication is possible.
>
> We have 99% of our genes in common with chimpanzees; yet we have
> difficulties even there.
Arising from the dimness of the chimps and their lack of anything
meaningful to say.
> And even if you do manage to get across the idea
> of "eat", what next? How do you communicate the idea of, say, a dinner
> party? Or of an eating disorder? Or of lunch? And how do you move from
> basic "I eat, you eat" to higher concepts? How do you communicate the
> idea of "truth", "beauty", "justice"?
How did you first learn them?
> This is more difficult than you imagine.
Not nearly so. You learned them for the first time in your native
language.
> I spent some time recently
> reading ancient Japanese literature - the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, the
> Tale of Genji, and various haikus. The society described in the pages of
> those books was composed of people who are physically just like me. Yet I
> know that I will never fully understand that society, and that the
> underlying assumptions of it will never make sense to me. If I were, by
> some time-machine accident, stranded in Japan of 1000AD, I could make
> myself understood, eventually; I could even learn the language, given
> enough time and effort; but the only reason I could do so would be because
> physically, I am like these people <aside from a small racial difference>.
> Just like them, I breathe, eat, walk, eliminate wastes from my body, feel
> sexual desire, etc. This is enough of a common ground. Also,
> significantly, just like them, my brain is attuned to an auditory
> language.
But we have now departed from the original point under contention:
"NO COMMUNICATION IS POSSIBLE." The situation you describe is NOT one such.
> Now, suppose I, with all my Earthling assumptions, am stranded in a
> society where the dominant intelligent beings are sessile, communicate
> visually (by flashing patterns of ultraviolet at each other), and ingest
> nutrients by photosynthesis.
You have described creatures whose life functions are never affected by
their consciousness. Hence they will not possess any, let alone be
intelligent enough to have a language.
> If they develop a mathematics of some kind, it will not be the same as
> our mathematics;
And what, pray tell, will they regard as the correct sum of two and two?
> nor will their physics be the same as our physics.
They won't have any science whatsoever.
> Their language might not have any verbs in it; it
> might have some parts of speech that we have no idea about. I don't know;
> it seems to me that communication is fairly impossible. And communication
> beyond a basic level is definitely impossible; we have no way of
> understanding their culture, the unspoken assumptions of their society,
> the rules of etiquette, the taboo topics, etc. Nor do they have any way
> of understanding ours. How do you explain Thanksgiving, for instance, to
> beings that have no idea of food? Or Valentine's day to beings that are
> asexual?
As I pointed out, the chances of such species having intelligence is
negligible. It will have nothing to say.
> If we find a way to communicate with dolphins or whales, it would help me
> believe that we might eventually find a way to communicate with aliens.
> But until then, i do think that it is impossible.
I doubt that the dolphins are saying any more than a cat says with its
meowing.
John & Linda VanSickle
Ian A. York wrote:
>
> In article <345E86...@erols.com>,> >Concepts like "go," "I," "you," common objects like stones, sticks water,
> >sand, etc.
>
> None of these concepts might be used by a sessile aquatic hive-mind. I'm
> sure others can think of different scenarios in which they wouldn't be
> used.
Considering that the barnacle is the smartest sessile creature on earth,
the chances of anything sessile being intelligent enough to have thoughts
is simply too remote to be worth debating.
John & Linda VanSickle
> >>
> >> Men and women live in separate societies.
> >
> >this.
>
> I've heard of human societies that severely limit contact between
> men and women.
>
> > And do you mean completely separate, or just some form of
> >purdah?
> >
> Any substantial degree of separation.
One extreme whose name escapes me: The men live on earth in a hunter-
gatherer state, the women are starfaring.
John & Linda VanSickle
David Fetter wrote:
>
> Larry Caldwell <lar...@teleport.com> wrote:
> > John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>
> > > r. Society divided as follows:
> > > i. A handful of ultra-powerful ultra-rich
> > > ii. Hordes of starving people living in the streets
> > > iii. Criminal lords who control everything not controlled by the
> > > ultra-rich
> > > iv. Police whose only principle of operation is maintenance of the
> > > status quo
>
> > Modern India.
>
> s/Modern India/the Third World/;
>
> > Bummer when your cliches are based on reality, huh?
>
> Industrial strength bummer, indeed.
Except that in the Third World groups i and iii are, when not one and the
same, at least indistinguishable.
Colin Rosenthal
On Tue, 4 Nov 1997 08:38:52 +0000,
David Mitchell <da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <towle-ya02408000...@news.acns.nwu.edu>,
>Brendon Towle <to...@ils.nwu.edu> writes
>>In article <63ldm8$r5i$3...@ncar.ucar.edu>, rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>>>
>>> > f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
>>> > i. Virus
>>>
>>> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>>> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
>>> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
>>
>>than any of the others, no less.
>>
>>_Worlds Apart_, Joe Haldeman.
>>
>>B.
>
>_The Stone that never came down_ John Brunner
That's the one I was thinking of. Thanks for all the other suggestions.
--
Colin Rosenthal
High Altitude Observatory
Boulder, Colorado
rose...@hao.ucar.edu
John Moreno
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu> wrote:
] Paul Clarke <Paul....@isltd.insignia.com> wrote:
] >
] >I also recall one story (but not author or title) where a boy gained
] >PK powers at puberty but, as they were powered by his libido, lost
] >them along with his virginity. I wonder if this was intended as a
] >cautionary tale: "See: not only does sleeping around cause unwanted
] >pregnancies and unpleasant diseases, it also makes you lose your
] >psychic powers!"
]
] Cf. MZB's Darkover stories ad libitum, where Keepers have to be
] virgins (not only that, fanatically chaste in thought, word and deed)
] because the sexual and telepathic "energies" use the same "channels"
] (insert vague reference to Hindu mysticism and lots of hand-waving).
I'm not sure this really applies since this is just degenerate
superstition by people who no longer know better. Just like Keepers
having to be female.
--
John Moreno
cd skogsberg
In <63m4kk$7...@camel18.mindspring.com>, jbo...@nospam.mindspring.com
(John Boston) wrote thus:
>In article <63lpee$4...@clarknet.clark.net>, aha...@clark.net says...
>>
>>Michael Powers (mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART)
>>wrote:[snip]
>>> > p. Shadowy malevolent Pentagon officials
>>>
>>> Delete "Pentagon", insert "Government" [snip]
>>
>>I'd say "malevolent Pentagon officials" was a legitimate cliche a
>>couple of decades ago. But these days other Evil Government Agencies
>>appear to dominate the pulps.
>
> Yeah? Any good ones about villainous IRS agents?
ISTR that in the Doom novelization _Hell on Earth_ it's mentioned that
the IRS joined forces with the invading legions of Hell almost
immediately.
cd
--
"I have a vision, and in that vision I'm standing on top of a
building. God asks me "why do you love your Father", and I say "I do not know
Lord." He offers me absolution and I thank him, and the shots ring out into
the crowds below."
-D.J. Babb
Roberta and Craig Becker
John Boston (jbo...@nospam.mindspring.com) wrote:
: Yeah? Any good ones about villainous IRS agents? What about
: accountants working for the FBI?
Hmmmm....many (~20) years ago, I read a really fun short story
in _Analog_ about a truck driver in the near future who got into
arrears with the IRS, and the tax laws had been changed to allow
the IRS to kill off tax delinquents. I remember the law had somehow
inherited some provision from old English Common Law that the body
would then be buried in an unmarked grave in the middle of the road
or some such.
Anyway, I remember the story as being quite good and a lot of fun,
the IRS agent who was assigned to kill the protagonist wasn't really
a villain, he was portrayed as a basic civil servant/accountant who
was simply trying to do his job.
Did anyone else ever read this? Who wrote it?
Craig
--
-- Craig Becker bec...@bga.com http://www.bga.com/~beckers Austin, TX USA --
-- HTML Consulting Services - http://www.bga.com/~beckers/craig/tmr.html --
Matthew Elmslie
wom...@xs4all.nl (wombat) wrote:
>According to Colin Rosenthal <rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu>:
>> On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>> Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>> >On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
>> ><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> > f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
>> > i. Virus
>>
>> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
>> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
>Ehm. David Brin, The Giving Plague.
Or the last Wild Cards book.
Mike Powers
On Tue, 4 Nov 1997 14:12:05 +0000, Andrew Ducker
<and...@irw-associates.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>It's worse than that.
>
>Take your car (or, for this particular experiment, someone elses), open
>the bonnet, take a sledgehammer
I'm sorry, but I don't normally carry sledgehammers in my hat.
(ducks thrown sledgehammers)
Sorry! Sorry! Just indulging my Merkin lack of knowledge regarding
English culture!
Mike Powers
Mike Powers
On 4 Nov 1997 12:18:41 -0500, rbar...@cs.uml.edu (Ralph Barbagallo)
wrote:
>>Primary Source: A big feature of anime, though Yamato/Star Blazers is
>>notable.
>
> Well, considering the fact that Yamato WAS a converted Japanese
>WWII battleship, I suppose it makes sense that the navy craft features
>are present.
...except that every other space battleship the Earth forces built in
that series looked the same...
Mike Powers
Mike Powers
On Tue, 04 Nov 1997 18:21:20 GMT, c...@alfakonsult.se (cd skogsberg)
wrote:
>> Yeah? Any good ones about villainous IRS agents?
>
>ISTR that in the Doom novelization _Hell on Earth_ it's mentioned that
>the IRS joined forces with the invading legions of Hell almost
>immediately.
>
I read that a year ago and I still feel sick. Talk about a good
concept and reasonable writing style ruined by horrid plotting...
Mike Powers
Matt Austern
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> You might keep in mind also that even among terrestrial mammals
> the primate arrangement of two, high up on the chest, is much
> less prevalent than the setup with six or eight in two rows, back
> on the abdomen. One *occasionally* sees a properly-researched
> cartoon, e.g., of a cat wearing a bikini, with [pause to consult
> the nearest cat] three narrow tops forward of the bottom piece.
There was a series in Farley a couple years back (for non-Bay Area
types, it's a local comic strip) in which Bruin Hilda bought a
Wonderbra. The cartoonist called up an expert at Yosemite to find out
how many cups a bear's bra should have. (Six.)
Geoffrey C Marshall
John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>
> the chances of anything sessile being intelligent enough to have thoughts
> is simply too remote to be worth debating.
No, you completely omit the class of a motile that
returns to sessile behaviour.
I grant your case a possiblity in a permanently
sessile creature, but one that has readapted.
Different kettle of muscels....
Geoff...
Andy Mulhearn
On Wed, 05 Nov 1997 23:36:39 +1100, Geoffrey C Marshall
<co...@ozemail.com.au> rendered unto us these pearls of wisdom:
Geoff, I've tended to agree with you before now. Now its time to kick
butt. You obviously have never come across Homo CouchSpud,
alternatively know as Couch Potato of the genus Homo. A creature
derived from Homo Sapiens but one which, after subscribing to all
available Sky Channels, can only move its lips, to ask for another
beer, and its right index finger to press the channel change on the TV
remote control.
I am very disappointed that you failed to consider this new creature
in this recent post.
I thank you for your attention,
Andy
p.s. Huge Grin Intended
"A bit like the Wasp Factory but without the happy ending and redeeming
air of cheerfulness" - Iain Banks on Complicity
Hint, my mail address has no X's in it.
Steve Brinich
Quick reverse engineering and duplication of a highly advanced
technology.
--
Steve Brinich ste...@access.digex.net If the government wants us
PGP:89B992BBE67F7B2F64FDF2EA14374C3E to respect the law
http://www.access.digex.net/~steve-b it should set a better example
Alan Gore
mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART (Michael Powers) wrote:
>> s. Societies where all technology has been destroyed except automobiles
>> and their equivalents, which are still running yet there are no
>> mechanics, workshops, or gas stations
>? Where does this one happen?
We call it "Mexico."
ag...@primenet.com | "Giving money and power to the government
Alan Gore | is like giving whiskey and car keys
Software For PC's | to teenaged boys" - P. J. O'Rourke
http://www.primenet.com/~agore
Roberta and Craig Becker
: >>> A special non-prize to the first person to identify
: >>> anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
: >>> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
: >>_Worlds Apart_, Joe Haldeman.
...
: >_The Stone that never came down_ John Brunner
How about Norman Spinrad's "Journal Of The Plague Years"?
Martin Soederstroem
Bob Goudreau skrev:
> Aznin (az...@NOSPAMhotmail.com) wrote:
> : On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
> : mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART (Michael Powers) wrote:
>
> : >On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
> : ><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
> : >
> : >> d. Extra breasts on the alien women
> : >
> : >Hmmm...intriguing concept...point out some examples? ;D
> : >
> : Eccentricca Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.
> : Source: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gallaxy, Douglas Adams. Apart
> : from this one, I can't think of any.
>
> Another example is featured in the movie "Total Recall", when
> Ah-nold visits the Martian settlement known as Venusville.
>
There have been a couple in the French comic book series about Linda and
Valentin. I hope those are their names in English too, but then they
probably haven't been translated at all.
--
Martin
Remove NO.SPAM from address in order to reply.
Jack Cox
Geoffrey C Marshall wrote:
> I grant your case a possiblity in a permanently
> sessile creature, but one that has readapted.
> Different kettle of muscels....
>
> Geoff...
Hmm....the Great Galactic Couch potatoes...
Speaking of, does a species that is completely _unwilling_ to communicate count
as one with which it's impossible to communicate?
Carey
David Mitchell
In article <63rjqh$7...@nntp02.primenet.com>, Alan Gore
<ag...@primenet.com> writes
>mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART (Michael Powers) wrote:
>
>>> s. Societies where all technology has been destroyed except automobiles
>>> and their equivalents, which are still running yet there are no
>>> mechanics, workshops, or gas stations
>
>>? Where does this one happen?
>
>We call it "Mexico."
>
ROTFL
Thanks.
David Mitchell
David Mitchell
In article <34688325.3975365@news>, Mike Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker
.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> writes
Doesn't Merkin mean "pubic wig".
I don't understand your sentence at *all*
David Mitchell
Andrew Ducker
In article <34613695...@access.digex.net>, Steve Brinich <steve-
b...@access.digex.net> writes
>Quick reverse engineering and duplication of a highly advanced
>technology.
Like getting hold of a fighter craft, hooking up a mac to it to make hte
doors open and close and then using this sudden jump in understanding to
infiltrate a computer system the size of a small moon and shut the whole
thing down?
Samael
--
Home: sam...@dial.pipex.com * I'm a brit. Infer Necessary Smileys
Work: and...@irw-associates.demon.co.uk * This is _not_ a rehearsal
Beth and Richard Treitel
To my surprise and delight, aha...@clark.net (Ahasuerus the Wandering
Jew) wrote:
>I'd say "malevolent Pentagon officials" was a legitimate cliche a couple
>of decades ago. But these days other Evil Government Agencies appear to
>dominate the pulps.
But that goes without saying. If they're Evil, then they're bent on
domination. You of all people should be well aware of this.
- Richard
------
A sufficiently incompetent ScF author is indistinguishable from magic.
What is (and isn't) ScF? ==> http://www.wco.com/~treitel/sf.html
I use PGP 2.6.2.
Bill Woods
Michael Powers wrote:
> On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
> <vans...@erols.com> wrote:
....
> Fighting spacecraft have design features pointlessly carried over from
> wet-navy craft (shape, guns mounted in flat turrets, aircraft launched
> via long flight decks rather than protected hangars)
>
> Primary Source: A big feature of anime, though Yamato/Star Blazers is
> notable.
>
> A further note: Some of the cliches can be excused if they "look
> good", though only on artistic merit.
A pet peeve of mine is spaceships oriented like water-ships or airplanes,
with long decks reaching from front to back. However the internal artificial
gravity works, it's needlessly difficult to cancel out the ship's acceleration
*and* add a one gee field at right angles.
Except for shuttles which have to fly through planetary atmospheres, ships
should look more like flying skyscapers.
_---_
/-----\
/-------\
/---------\
|-- Decks --|
|-----------|
|-----------|
___________ ____________\ |___________|
" " "| |-------------\ | |
" "| |--------------\ | |
"| Engines |--- Decks -----) | Engines |
"| |--------------/ | |
" "| |-------------/ | |
" " "|___________|____________/ |___________|
: : : : : :
: : : :
: :
^ ^
/|\ /|\
____________\ | | Forward
Forward / | Up |
| | = Up
Wrong Right
--
Bill Woods
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely
mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way
down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
-- Douglas Adams
John & Linda VanSickle
Roberta and Craig Becker wrote:
>
> Hmmmm....many (~20) years ago, I read a really fun short story
> in _Analog_ about a truck driver in the near future who got into
> arrears with the IRS, and the tax laws had been changed to allow
> the IRS to kill off tax delinquents. I remember the law had somehow
> inherited some provision from old English Common Law that the body
> would then be buried in an unmarked grave in the middle of the road
> or some such.
This reminds me of another cliche, which is not related directly to what
you have here.
"Societies that are utopian, except for one Really Huge Drawback."
John & Linda VanSickle
Andrew Ducker wrote:
>
> In article <34613695...@access.digex.net>, Steve Brinich <steve-
> b...@access.digex.net> writes
> >Quick reverse engineering and duplication of a highly advanced
> >technology.
>
> Like getting hold of a fighter craft, hooking up a mac to it to make hte
> doors open and close and then using this sudden jump in understanding to
> infiltrate a computer system the size of a small moon and shut the whole
> thing down?
In other words, it was overused in its very first instance.
Bill Woods
Roberta and Craig Becker wrote:
> John Boston (jbo...@nospam.mindspring.com) wrote:
> : Yeah? Any good ones about villainous IRS agents? What about
> : accountants working for the FBI?
>
> Hmmmm....many (~20) years ago, I read a really fun short story
> in _Analog_ about a truck driver in the near future who got into
> arrears with the IRS, and the tax laws had been changed to allow
> the IRS to kill off tax delinquents. I remember the law had somehow
> inherited some provision from old English Common Law that the body
> would then be buried in an unmarked grave in the middle of the road
> or some such.
>
> Anyway, I remember the story as being quite good and a lot of fun,
> the IRS agent who was assigned to kill the protagonist wasn't really
> a villain, he was portrayed as a basic civil servant/accountant who
> was simply trying to do his job.
>
> Did anyone else ever read this? Who wrote it?
"The Tax Man"(?) by Tak Hallus (or Stephen Robinett)
Jack Cox
John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
> This reminds me of another cliche, which is not related directly to what
> you have here.
>
> "Societies that are utopian, except for one Really Huge Drawback."
>
Oh, every utopian society would have that drawback...simply
since it's not likely that it's almost certainly going to be someone
else's idea of utopia...
Carey
Scott Colvin Beeler
mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART (Michael Powers) writes:
>A whole new category:
>
>Equipment Oddities
>
>All of one side's weapons are rendered useless at once
>
>Primary Source: Well...I dunno, but I seem to recall this happening a
>lot.
Iain Banks' "Mind Bomb" in _Against a Dark Background_, for one.
Although it's mostly played for laughs, since the guy who activates
it believes it's going to do something *very* different.
(And it comes back later as part of a different plot point.)
Scott
--
Scott Colvin Beeler
Geoffrey C Marshall
Andy Mulhearn wrote:
>
> On Wed, 05 Nov 1997 23:36:39 +1100, Geoffrey C Marshall
> <co...@ozemail.com.au> rendered unto us these pearls of wisdom:
>
> >>
> >> the chances of anything sessile being intelligent enough to have thoughts
> >> is simply too remote to be worth debating.
> >
> >No, you completely omit the class of a motile that
> >returns to sessile behaviour.
> >
> >sessile creature, but one that has readapted.
> >Different kettle of muscels....
> >
> >Geoff...
> >
>
> butt. You obviously have never come across Homo CouchSpud,
> alternatively know as Couch Potato of the genus Homo. A creature
> derived from Homo Sapiens but one which, after subscribing to all
> available Sky Channels, can only move its lips, to ask for another
> beer, and its right index finger to press the channel change on the TV
> remote control.
>
> I am very disappointed that you failed to consider this new creature
> in this recent post.
>
> I thank you for your attention,
>
> Andy
>
> p.s. Huge Grin Intended
Ah, but the question is is Homo CouchSpud intelligent ?
Geoff...
Geoffrey C Marshall
A 'merkin' is a pubic or chest wig.
A 'Merkin is one of those unfortunate inhabitants of the
Western outposts who doesn't like tes......
Geoff...
Steve Brinich
John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
> >Steve Brinich writes
>> >Quick reverse engineering and duplication of a highly advanced
>> >technology.
>>
>> Like getting hold of a fighter craft, hooking up a mac to it to make
>> the doors open and close and then using this sudden jump in
>> understanding to infiltrate a computer system the size of a small
>> moon and shut the whole thing down?
>
> In other words, it was overused in its very first instance.
This cliche was old long before _Independence Day_. IIRC, John
Campbell wrote a column about it (pointing out that it was like
dropping a TV set into the Middle Ages and expecting the locals
to duplicate it). I also recall Arthur C. Clarke making the point
that poking around with unfamiliar technology is a good way to
get yourself killed -- imaging Edison trying to figure out a
nuclear reactor.
Nyrath the nearly wise
Thus spoke Bob Goudreau (goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com):
>
> : Eccentricca Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.
> : Source: the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gallaxy, Douglas Adams. Apart
> : from this one, I can't think of any.
>
> Another example is featured in the movie "Total Recall", when
> Ah-nold visits the Martian settlement known as Venusville.
I seem to recall a four-breasted exotic dancer in
one of the Star Trek movies, the one where Spock's
half-brother hijacks the ship in order to find God.
She attacks Kirk in the bar, and he tosses her
into the swiming pool.
Beth and Richard Treitel
To my surprise and delight, allynbbrdsky@NO_SPAM.loop.com (Allyn B.
Brodsky) wrote:
>
>To the best of my knowledge, only Warren Norwood, in his Windhover
>Tapes series, tossed in a love interest for the protagonist who was
>tri-mammary. No explanation wa apparently thought necessary.
Well, as far as "love" goes you may be right, but both _The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy_ and "Total Recall" include triple-breasted whores.
The one in _Hitchhiker_ is kind of an intellectual: she writes a book on
the Big Bang theory.
Nancy Lebovitz
People live in a dome. One person gets out, and discover that, not
only is life better outside, but there's a smallish number of people out
there who are much preferable to the ones in the dome.
--
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
October '96 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Nyrath the nearly wise
Thus spoke John & Linda VanSickle (vans...@erols.com):
> This reminds me of another cliche, which is not related directly to what
> you have here.
>
> "Societies that are utopian, except for one Really Huge Drawback."
Ah! Logan's Run.
Andy Mulhearn
On Fri, 07 Nov 1997 15:09:37 GMT, tre...@wco.com (Beth and Richard
Treitel) rendered unto us these pearls of wisdom:
>Well, as far as "love" goes you may be right, but both _The Hitchhiker's
>Guide to the Galaxy_ and "Total Recall" include triple-breasted whores.
>The one in _Hitchhiker_ is kind of an intellectual: she writes a book on
>the Big Bang theory.
I though it was Zaphod Beeblebox (sp) who she described as "the best
bang since the big one..."
William Burns
jdre...@login6.fas.harvard.edu (Jonathan Dresner) wrote:
>In article <63ldm8$r5i$3...@ncar.ucar.edu>,
>Colin Rosenthal <rose...@hao.SNIPME.ucar.edu> wrote:
>>On Mon, 03 Nov 1997 20:32:29 GMT,
>>Michael Powers <mpo...@mail.widowmaker.com.DELETE-THIS-PART> wrote:
>>>On Sat, 01 Nov 1997 16:57:10 -0800, John & Linda VanSickle
>>><vans...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>>> f. The race to stop the ( ) from destroying all life on Earth:
>>> i. Virus
>>
>>A special non-prize to the first person to identify
>>anti-f-i: The race to spread a virus to the whole human race as
>> the only way to _prevent_ its destruction.
> Well, there was the "catalyst" in "Rule Golden" by Damon Knight.
>Don't remember the race name, though. The alien was Aza-Kra.
Doesn't fit. That catalyst was designed to destroy all life. The
alien itself said that it is doing to Earth what its people did to
Mars.
--William
A man said to the universe,
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation." (Stephen Crane)
John & Linda VanSickle
Jack Cox wrote:
>
> John & Linda VanSickle wrote:
>
> > you have here.
> >
> > "Societies that are utopian, except for one Really Huge Drawback."
> >
>
> since it's not likely that it's almost certainly going to be someone
> else's idea of utopia...
What I was driving at is the Logan's Run sort of thing. Life in the
society there seemed to be a thirty-year-long orgy.
--
"I 'ave acute 'earing."
"We're not interested in your jewelry!"
http://www.erols.com/vansickl