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What tropes in science fiction annoy you?

I wonder if I've now seen/read every trope and every possible combination of such trope that can be used in an SF story, either literary or in other media. Probably not, but it feels like it. Time to die?
What about a "poor communication kills" scenario being subverted by the stupid characters' parents intervening ad calling them idiots to the camera? Alternatively, the subversion is executed with a yet-to-be-invented form of social media?
 
What about a "poor communication kills" scenario being subverted by the stupid characters' parents intervening ad calling them idiots to the camera? Alternatively, the subversion is executed with a yet-to-be-invented form of social media?
Can I have that translated into English please?
 
Can I have that translated into English please?
I mean, let's say that you have a young stupid couple that doesn't have full trust for dumb reasons. So a family member or friend intervenes with sophisticated surveillance cameras or social media comment trawling to show to the couple that their concerns are unfounded, thus averting the audience from having to waste their time on a generically frustrating season of melodramatic writing.
 
I mean, let's say that you have a young stupid couple that doesn't have full trust for dumb reasons. So a family member or friend intervenes with sophisticated surveillance cameras or social media comment trawling to show to the couple that their concerns are unfounded, thus averting the audience from having to waste their time on a generically frustrating season of melodramatic writing.
Hmm, that doesn't sound much like science fiction. It would have done a hundred years ago. It does sound like something J J Abrams would churn out though. I suspect you have an example in mind. It might make an episode of Black Mirror if twisted sufficiently.
 
I think I get it. Lots of times on TV shows (especially comedies) there is a misunderstanding that could be easily cleared up if the people involved would actually talk to each other and explain what they thought the other meant. @Enterprise1701 is talking about someone outside of those people intervening to show them where they're wrong.

@Enterprise1701, do you have a concrete example from a specific show or movie?
 
Yeah, poor communication is a trope often used for dramatic and comedic effect. I find it becomes really infuriating if overused. Specifically, I remember Lost as a culprit. However, it's not uniquely a sci-fi trope.
 
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There's a Trope that I find particularly grating. It's people behaving like complete imbeciles turning a situation easily solved into a nightmare. I just rewatched Jurassic World 2015 and I am shocked at the sheer stupidity and incompetence of the people we see. There's some vicious dangerous genetically engineered dino in a closed area but in addition to being super clever, the dino also has powers beyond beliefs. So it fakes its escape by masking its heat signature (something that's virtually impossible) and blending in the background like a giant super chameleon, then it claws at the wall to make it look like it climbed up. And then you have the guard who's incredibly obese. The hero who's impulsive and stupid and a third guy. And what these brilliant minds do. They go inside the cage to examine the claw marks.
Question: Why do these imbeciles do that? Either they believe that the dino escaped and determining the circumstances is much less important than the fact that it ESCAPED!!! Or they're not sure if it escaped and going inside its cage is beyond idiotic. Plus in addition to visually assessing the position of the dino and the heat sensors, they also have an emitter that allows them to localize it but instead of checking it these bozos decide to go into the cage...

Also, the dino possesses super-intelligence because it guesses the function of the emitter that they implanted in it and claws it out! I mean it's dino-Einstein! Plus though it never went outside of its cage, it also guesses where the aviary is and uses the flying dinos there as missiles to destroy the helicopter chasing it!! I could go on and on. The whole movie is one outrageous action after another up till the end.

Like the so-called "good guy" watches the so-called "bad guy" being devoured by a raptor with a working rifle in his hand without doing the decent thing and shooting the damn beast! What a bastard! Are we supposed to like this guy?
 
Star Trek has done that a lot
It was an interesting concept the very first time. But the repetition gets really tedious and tiresome really quickly. One exception for me was Doctor Who "Heaven Sent," which I just saw the other day for the first time. Technically it's not a "time loop" since time was moving forward while the Doctor kept disintegrating and getting re-created, but for all intents and purposes the idea was essentially the same. That episode was masterful. :eek:

Kor
 
Regarding time loops, I hate it when the heroes figure out they're in a loop because they have deja vu. If everything is completely reset when the loop begins again then their brains should be back to the point before they experienced any of it and thus unable to have an vague memories of it since at that point in the loop they haven't experienced any of it.
 
Regarding time loops, I hate it when the heroes figure out they're in a loop because they have deja vu. If everything is completely reset when the loop begins again then their brains should be back to the point before they experienced any of it and thus unable to have an vague memories of it since at that point in the loop they haven't experienced any of it.

If each loop was absolutely identical to the one preceding it then it would never end. So there has to be something different in each loop.
 
Not strictly movies because it is mainly from the comics--but I am so tired of heroes having to duke it out before becoming allies. It worked once for me in the MCU, the first Avengers film, because it was fun to see in live action.
 
If each loop was absolutely identical to the one preceding it then it would never end. So there has to be something different in each loop.
Which is precisely where Nietzsche got eternal recurrence wrong. You don't have to be a superman to cope with the thought of things playing out differently each time. In fact, it's more reassuring that sometimes you might not screw things up so badly - not that you'd ever know in either case.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Gay Science, and Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future are works of philosophical fiction, although one could argue they are also science fiction as they effectively appear to be based on Poincaré's state recurrence theorem - even though they preceded it. Nietzsche was an SF author and never realised it.
 
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Which is precisely where Nietzsche got eternal recurrence wrong. You don't have to be a superman to cope with the thought of things playing out differently each time. In fact, it's more reassuring that sometimes you might not screw things up so badly - not that you'd ever know in either case.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Gay Science, and Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future are works of philosophical fiction, although one could argue they are also science fiction as they effectively appear to be based on Poincaré's state recurrence theorem - even though they preceded it. Nietzsche was an SF author and never realised it.

He also was a bit crazy too.
 
Nietzsche really leaves me cold.

How can somebody live like that? Utterly without feeling or compassion, without a stitch of caring for others, interested only in oneself and one's lust for power.

I can't even conceive of liviing in such a manner. :(

@Asbo Zaprudder, you say I am a moral absolutist? I don't know about that, but I definitely believe in the existence of good and evil. If those things don't exist, then all life is meaningless, and I absolutely refuse to accept that.

Besides, how can you look at the actions committed by, say, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the 9/11 attackers, Charles Manson and his ilk, etc. and NOT believe in evil? Those are as close to absolute evil as I've ever seen.
 
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Nietzsche really leaves me cold.

How can somebody live like that? Utterly without feeling or compassion, without a stitch of caring for others, interested only in oneself and one's lust for power.

I can't even conceive of living in such a manner. :(
Yeah, he lost his marbles, probably because he actually tried to live his life by his philosophy. His sister perverted his philosophy in ways he would have hated.
@Asbo Zaprudder, you say I am a moral absolutist? I don't know about that, but I definitely believe in the existence of good and evil. If those things don't exist, then all life is meaningless, and I absolutely refuse to accept that.

Besides, how can you look at the actions committed by, say, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the 9/11 attackers, Charles Manson and his ilk, etc. and NOT believe in evil? Those are as close to absolute evil as I've ever seen.
Yes, they were evil but that is a poor label we give them because their actions were morally repugnant to us and the irreversible harm they did to others was inexcusable. However, I could not rank the degree of their evil relative to each other nor could I say they were equally evil and that represents an absolute value. The same goes for people we classify as good. The universe just doesn't give a damn - only humans do.
 
their actions were morally repugnant to us and the irreversible harm they did to others was inexcusable.

Exactly. So given that we all acknowledge the harm they caused...how can anyone not believe in the existence of evil?

The universe just doesn't give a damn - only humans do.

And I should care what "the universe" thinks...why, exactly?
 
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