“Honk shoo.
Okay, Iâm calling a couple tropes we donât need anymore in sci-fi.
1. The Space Fighter Pilot Who Knows a Bunch of Moves
You canât just throw a character in a cockpit and they somehow know ways to fly a spaceship that nobody has ever thought of. Like, why is someone, for the first time, like âWhat if I went down instead of to the side?â And every other character is like âbravo. Nobody else can fly like that.â
What?
Also, donât just do moves that involve sci-fi nonsense.
Han Solo flies into an asteroid field because itâs dangerous to follow, then he hitches into an asteroid so they might not see the Falcon. Then we see ships blowing up because they get hit by asteroids, some dude is like, “Uh, maybe we should stop looking?” and Darth Vader is all, “Do you want to get force choked right now!?” I, as a viewer, understand how that works. It’s not just space nonsense about ion thrusters and shit that is made up on the spot.
In this book, this pilot shoots blue gak at a big ship that melts it or something? And everyone is completely floored, but I was like âSomeone had to load that goo in, right, like they mustâve planned that out ahead?â
Also, just enough with the âThe coolant canât hold!â And then it just does because our magic space pilot is smart and everyone else is dumb. Nobody knows ships like she does. You never saw this crap on TNG. Geordi didnât say the engine couldnât hold, and then it just did, and the solution was that Captain Picard just had huge, giant balls and was like “Give me warp 10 and if we explode, we explode!”
This is a mechanic saying âHey youâve burned all your oil and your car is not going to keep rolling.â And then the driver is like âDonât tell me the odds!â And the mechanic is like âOkay, but these aren’t odds, I’m telling you a mechanical fact, which is that your car is out of oil, and it will cease operation very soon no matter what you do.”
The problem with this character is that there’s no tension in the story because if they can just make up a new reason to get out of every tight spot, then there’s no such thing as a tight spot. If your ship, which is essentially a UPS truck, is confronted by a giant warship, and if you somehow, for some reason, suddenly shoot out blue gak that melts the warship, you didn’t really solve the problem, the problem never existed. You always had what you needed to beat the warship, so why all the running around? What’s tense? It’s like having a scene where two guys are fistfighting, and it’s close, then one guy is like, “Oh, wait, shit, I had a pistol in my hand the entire time! Haha, like you know when you’re looking for your keys and it turns out you were carrying them in your hand the whole time you were looking?” Then he shoots the other guy.
Watch Star Trek: TNG. They don’t pull Tokyo Drifts and shit on the Enterprise. They very rarely solve a problem because the Enterprise is a badass ship and their pilots are the best. Rough around the edges, sure, but they’re the best. They get out of situations in ways that make sense because that’s how a story works.
Or Star Wars: A New Hope. Star Wars gets away with Luke pulling a move no one else could because he is the only one using the force, which has been set up for the entire movie, so by the time we get to the Death Star, all that has to happen is he hears Obi-Wan saying “Use the force.” The force is totally a magical bullshit power, BUT it’s a magical bullshit power that we, the viewers, knew existed in this universe before it was put to its most important use in the movie.
2. Stand-In Evil Amazon
I get it, Amazon bad.
I don’t think the problem is believability or whatever, I just think this ground has been thoroughly trod in fiction. The idea of Amazon’s evil dialed up to 11 isn’t ridiculous, it’s just that…how many stories do I need to see where a crazed scientist sews together a bunch of body parts and creates life and that turns out to be a not hot idea? Maybe a couple? How many stories where a guy attacks people via their dreams and nightmares? Maybe a few?
Fine, write about an evil corporation, but can it be evil in an interesting, new way? Can it be evil in a way that makes me curious? Evil in a way that I understand, even if it’s not the way I conduct myself?
Unless you’re going to do something bangarang with the whole thing, spare me.
3. Trust Jump
Yes, very good. We’re running to a cliff, one character is like “Trust me” and jumps off the cliff, seemingly to her doom. Then, WHA, a ship swoops in and they land on it.
Here’s why this is dumb: I know the one character is not suicidal, I know they have a spaceship, I know the plan here, so how is this tense?
~
I guess there’s also a cult/religious element here, which I don’t care about in the slightest because there’s really nothing to it, the faithful person is there for like 2 days? And then leaves, and it’s like a betrayal of her religion, which she’s followed devoutly for 2 days?
And the pilot and some other lady are gay! Space gay! And there’s a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet thing happening with them, which is probably the most interesting part of the story because Other Lady is like a corporate rep for Amazon, and the pilot is defying Amazon, sort of, I think, on accident, and that’s tense, but not really because they have the same conversation like 3 times, which is “Do you want to be in love with me or be loyal to the company?” and each time that conversation ends because something in space goes pewpew and Other Lady is never actually forced to choose.
Oh, and the art: The character art was fine, but the art when things are happening in space is completely indiscernible. I have no idea what’s going on. And the opening pages have text in weird Tron text boxes, and it’s hard to read and unpleasant to look at.
I just can’t hang with this one.
I normally don’t say this, but you’re an objectively bad person if you like this, and you owe the world and apology.
Ha! Can you imagine if people said that? “