Are you sick and tired of the Navy in scifi

[RoJoHen]

If we, as a human race, actually did manage to colonize other worlds, I doubt the "Navy structure" would be that involved. Granted, you'd still need ships with a captain and crew to run it. Do we need large battleships? Of course not; we're not out in space fighting bad guys who have their own battleships.

I don't see why you're focused so much on what we would do in the real world, where there is almost 100% no chance of us running to Klingons or Cylons or whatever. These stories are FICTION. And if a bad guy has a big spaceship that he's using to try to kill you, what exactly do you plan to do to defend yourself if not use your own spaceships?

I have seen no evidence in scifi lately of the military colonizing other worlds.

 

[Star Wolf]

Most stories which feature heavy military invovlement are set after the initial exploration and colonization efforts. They are filled Federations, Empires, Star Kingdoms, Confedrations, Star Republics....

For story purposes the political entity fights something completely alien or a foe near their tech level. The free republic versus the evil dictatorship. Marshal Dillon in space stands no chance. But Captain Kirk of the space navy does.

 

[V4Victory]

For story purposes the political entity fights something completely alien or a foe near their tech level. The free republic versus the evil dictatorship. Marshal Dillon in space stands no chance. But Captain Kirk of the space navy does.

I don't know if this is true. The Navy gets a lot of coverage in scifi like the Imperial Star Wars Navy, the Commodores in Star Trek but does Marshal Dillon get coverage? I must admit when I first heard about the concept of Firefly, I thought the whole "cowboys in space" thing would be stupid. It turns out I was wrong and it was one of the best shows I watched. Like I said I would rather scifi stayed on the colony and stuck with ranks of working people and why not use town and police ranks. Chief Magistrate, Transport Minister, Inspector, Mayor, Assistant Secretary, Detective, Facility Manager, Commissioner bla bla. But if we must use military here's another alternative to the Naval military structure Marines in Space Anyone see a series called SAAB?

 

[Neroon]

For someone who alleges they like the Navy, you're pretty aggressive in its use in the films / shows discussed here. Understand that for most people it makes little to no difference which brach is used, or even if its a combined force. The forces are interchangable and little more than a mechanism for holding characters and conveying stories. The audiences have grown used to it and tend to look more to the overall story as opposed to the individual devices. Any sufficiently engrossing and entertaining story can be told in the hands of a good enough writer & director regardless of whether it's with Navy, Air Force, etc.

 

[Captain Intrepid]

It makes sense that a starship would have similar organizational structure to a ship. It's got many more parallels than with air travel. On a starship you need an overall commander, people to navigate, people to manage the crew, people to run the engines and make sure they continue running, and people to do general maintenance, all during extended trips without external support. That's a skipper, deck officers, engineering officers, and deckhands basically.

Airplanes on the other hand generally fly for a few hours, then land and a completely different crew takes over and fixes everything for them. If something goes wrong in flight, generally they just land ASAP and let someone else fix it. That's not an option at sea or in space.

Aircraft also don't have the dynamic of a group of people trapped in a small space for weeks, months or years at a time.

 

[CorporalClegg]

For story purposes the political entity fights something completely alien or a foe near their tech level. The free republic versus the evil dictatorship. Marshal Dillon in space stands no chance. But Captain Kirk of the space navy does.

I don't know if this is true. The Navy gets a lot of coverage in scifi like the Imperial Star Wars Navy, the Commodores in Star Trek but does Marshal Dillon get coverage? I must admit when I first heard about the concept of Firefly, I thought the whole "cowboys in space" thing would be stupid. It turns out I was wrong and it was one of the best shows I watched. Like I said I would rather scifi stayed on the colony and stuck with ranks of working people and why not use town and police ranks. Chief Magistrate, Transport Minister, Inspector, Mayor, Assistant Secretary, Detective, Facility Manager, Commissioner bla bla. But if we must use military here's another alternative to the Naval military structure Marines in Space Anyone see a series called SAAB?

That's because humans are imperial by nature.

If the human race ever does venture out into space, be assured that all ventures will be funded and regulated by the government, and by default, run by the military.

Look at the space race, pretty much all the astronauts were ex-military. What was the first thing they did when they landed on the moon? Planted a flag.

The renaissance "explorers" really weren't explorers at all. The captured land for their countries in order to colonize it.

And, please, please, please, could you start using paragraphs?!

 

[Neroon]

Presuming that the naval analogy is used more often than any other military branch, what might it take to have stories/films/shows/etc. wherein a different branch is used? Would a more colonist based story allow for that?

 

[Star Wolf]

Space Above and Beyond doesn't really break the Navy model you seek to get away from. Like most shows about fighter pilots from the Blacksheep Squadron based in WWII, to James Brolin's short lived Wings of Gold post Gulf War to Batllestar Gallatica writers love to use USMC model so they can occasionally have the hero fighter pilot become the best ground fighting commando around.

SAAB followed along this long tradition and had its naval aviator/marine standing guard duty with a rifle occasionally, but the Wild Cards base mission was as a fighter squadron aboard the US space aircraft carrier Saratoga and their squadron commander(was he the CAG also?) awnsered to a Navy Commodore. They were no different then Starbuck and the Viper pilot warriors aboard the battleship(carrier) Gallatica.

 

[stj]

The problem is not which branch of the military supplies some background---the problem is that space travel is treated like some weird combination of waterborne shipping and air travel. Neither is the case. It's been some time since I could really accept any space war scenario as anything but retro scifi, usually of an unfortunatley pompous tone.

Babylon Five's double talk about the impossibility of battle in hyperspace and the way the really advanced races made war a hobby (droppped as soon as it started costing their own lives!) instead of an economic proposition probably did it about as well as could be done.

The paradigm is exhausted in my opinion.

 

[Neroon]

Is it really exhausted, or is there simply a lack of imaginitive writing?

 

[Star Wolf]

Is it really exhausted, or is there simply a lack of imaginitive writing?

It goes in waves, you had the post Vietnam era Forever War's and the like then the genre disappears. Then Tom Clancy gets hot and Mil/SF comes back. Then the cold war ends which cut the heart out of the fictional mil/SF universe's.

Now with plenty of vets coming from a war different enough from Vietnam expect another wave of mil/SF

 

[stj]

As the decades roll by, planet hopping more and more looks like old scifi, instead of a real possibility. As decades of chair force warriors pushing buttons fail to conquer, the rest of it also seems more and more childish. There will always be the childish or gullible, but I think space war and the Navies/Air Forces/Marines who fight them wll more and more be a cult taste. Space stories and/or conflict in space is not exhausted I believe but the WWII military model is.

 

[zakkrusz]

While I really enjoy epic space fleet battles and ship to ship combat, I think it would be interesting to see another Starship Troopers-esk type sci-fi Army/infantry movie.

 

[Borg451]

What the fuck is your problem?

Why do you hate the navy? are you associated with one of the other armed forces or something?

its all the same.. but just on different stuff. so if the show is about shooting things.. make it army..

if its on a ship or similar give em Navy names..

Can you explain to me your hate.. it seems WELL random to me.

 

[Neroon]

Whoa.... he's not exactly going off the deep end in his opposition here, so it really doesn't warrant such an overly aggressive response. Keep it calm, please.

 

[Star Wolf]

While I really enjoy epic space fleet battles and ship to ship combat, I think it would be interesting to see another Starship Troopers-esk type sci-fi Army/infantry movie.

Of all the movies you pick that one. After they turned the Mobile Infantry into Gomer Pyles. Big problem, massed infantry has been gettng blown away for 150 years now and really don't belong in SF. Either you have a small team on a limited objective like the Colonial Marines of Aliens. Or like the Starship Troopers novel a few Ironmen on the bounce taking an entire province. Maybe it might work.

 

[Corran Horn]

but as I read it most of the people in space didn't come from the USN but came from the Air Force or Marines Corps. Armstrong and Shepard are the two I can think of from the Navy but if you ask me I would read 9 out of 10 of people in space are not navy.

Neil Armstrong was a civilian test pilot at the time of his flight.

Apollo 12 had an all-Navy crew. Bean, Conrad, and Gordon.

 

[Lord Lunacy]

Most Sci-Fi use the Naval structure as a story element to provide a familiar setting the audience can quickly identify with; Large ships equate to a Naval force, and it is a paradigm that will most likely not change in the foreseeable future. As far as watching a sci-fi show about colonization...Stargate Universe is supposed to be something along those lines...though not exactly...but close.

Oh, and no I'm not sick of the Navy in Sci-Fi; if you must have ships of any sort in space, they will need a Navy to protect them from an antagonist that is alien or human in origin.

 

[BenRoethig]

Trust me, by the time space is space enough for civilians, the plotlines would be pretty boring.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Well the space opera has transitioned from the James Kirk, Dylan Hunt model of the ship of the line all alone who's captain can bring civilization to the savages. It has become Task Force 58 while focusing on one aircraft carrier and its heroic pilots. Those naval aviators dominate everthing in its path.

Dylan Hunt? But.. but.. He worked for PAX fighting the Terranians!