What tropes in science fiction annoy you?

[Timewalker]

Since a couple of people mentioned Canada, that brings me to weather-related peeves (since we've just had our third snowfall of the season here and Calgary is digging out after a snowstorm).

Why don't people dress for the weather when they beam down or decide to explore a planet they land on? Why didn't Kirk beam down some winter coats and thermal blankets to Sulu and the landing party?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

There is a massive alien conspiracy afoot but only a small group of people know about it and can stop it.
Enough already.

Oh ugh! I hate that one.

Not to mention the fact how did this group find out about this conspiracy, or was it just random chance which is double stupid.

 

[Marsden]

My biggest is gravity in space, as in: 1 falling to your death in a space 2 having a "beam" or whatever fall from the ceiling on you in space.

Why do so many spaceships have a bottomless pit? So someone can fall in it?

If those big metal things are so easy to break lose, why are they there? So they can squish someone?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

My biggest is gravity in space, as in: 1 falling to your death in a space 2 having a "beam" or whatever fall from the ceiling on you in space.

Why do so many spaceships have a bottomless pit? So someone can fall in it?

If those big metal things are so easy to break lose, why are they there? So they can squish someone?

Unintentional death trap. That's also a trope.

As for bottomless pits yeah. Even the Enterprise E had one.

 

[Random_Spock]

Oh - and scientists who know every field of science! Dana Scully was the big one for me. The woman is a medical doctor! She should know medicine - and likely only know one or two fields of medicine well, at that. She might have a decent general knowledge of biology and chemistry, but she would be no expert in either one. But she constantly makes pronouncements about every science - hell, her thesis was rewriting Einstein!

On similar lines, Doctors who can treat any alien. There's no such thing as a Doctor who even knows every field of Human medicine well, but in sci-fi Doctors usually not only know every field of Human medicine, but everything about dozens of alien species as well. You could spend a lifetime of studying and never cover a tenth of all that.

Word. That got on my nerves.

And to add to that: the fact that both Mulder and Scully weren't allowed to grow, change or evolve... unless forced to. Only when Chris's hand was forced, did those two ever grow (at least from what I could tell). Once the audience he gave a damn about left, he was left with the one he didn't really care for. So the show was forced forward. But once it came back, everything good was taken away and we were left with the same old non growth and evolution.

Which leads me to another pet peeve: break ups that lead to nowhere

It was all done for teh DRAMA (which is another thing I really don't like -- meaning drama for the sake of it, shallow plots that lead to either unsatisfying conclusions and/or ones that lack anything meaningful).

And then it lead to another thing I dislike: having the characters get back together for one night for comfort and have it lead to the female character (in this case, Scully) getting pregnant. The entire episode, Plus One, was nothing more than a cheap plot device leading up to that. Which was eventually revealed in the final episode, My Struggle (to not throw things at my tv) 4.

The worst part of Plus One: The name of the motel... it was a nod to something in the bible. The story of St. Rachel (being that the woman dies in childbirth). It made me sick. That the character (Scully, herself) would possibly be put at risk. I really don't like stories that resort to cheap angst either.

Another thing I'm no fan of... character's children that pretty much turn out to be evil (William/Jackson, Mulder and Scully's kid was this). Such a cheap plot device.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Angels run the Earth.. OK I love the movie The Adjustment Bureau but if you take the premise to its conclusion that means angels have been running Earth since the first civilization and they have given us little bits of free will and when they step back humanity turns to shit because they are no longer whispering in people's ears or adjusting their thoughts.

I love this movie to bits but the concept of such beings living among us irks me. Humanity never grows on its own and never gets to tell them all to bugger off our planet.

I wonder how the Doctor would react meeting this agency.

 

[11Alive]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the warrior race with a rigid code of honor, each individual willing to die for the greater good of their race. See the Klingons, the Jem'hadar, the Minbari or the Jaffa. Just once, I'd like to see a warrior race where everybody had to worry about being stabbed in the back by any of their comrades at any moment. Even in the TOS episode "Friday's Child," where a fight to the death for leadership positions could break out at a moment's notice, the aliens talked about honor. I suppose the closest thing might be the Terran Empire in the mirror universe, at least the one in TOS.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Advanced Alien cultures who go extinct and leave their tech behind, which humanity magically manages to reverse engineer.

Advanced aliens visit earth for reasons and take primitive cultures and dump them on a far away planet.

Multiple evolutions of the human race ala Halo, Battlestar galactica, Stargate

 

[F. King Daniel]

Time travel stories ending in a complete reset where nobody remembers anything and you've just wasted an hour or two of your life for something that will have zero bearing on future installments.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Oh and motherfudging aliens masquerading as gods. Man that got old by the end of stargate.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Advanced Alien cultures who go extinct and leave their tech behind, which humanity magically manages to reverse engineer.

Advanced aliens visit earth for reasons and take primitive cultures and dump them on a far away planet.

Multiple evolutions of the human race ala Halo, Battlestar galactica, Stargate

That's easily explained in some stories as humans being plucked from Earth or another world and seeded all across the galaxy. So that's why they are everywhere hehe. It's kind of silly.

Oh yeah extinct alien tech and yeah we manage to make it work because HAA Humans Are Awesome trope. Again also silly.

 

[Mysterion]

Just once, I'd like to see a warrior race where everybody had to worry about being stabbed in the back by any of their comrades at any moment.

See the Nietzcheans in the series Andromeda. Would love to see them up against, and kicking the ass of, the Klingons.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

See the Nietzcheans in the series Andromeda. Would love to see them up against, and kicking the ass of, the Klingons.

YES! That would be a nice fight to see mind you Andromeda is several 100s of years in the future or something even the ships are way overpowered.

 

[Scout101]

How about the one where the movie is moving along ok, and then 'oh, ok, I guess this is a random horror movie now...'

 

[Graham]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the warrior race with a rigid code of honor, each individual willing to die for the greater good of their race. See the Klingons, the Jem'hadar, the Minbari or the Jaffa. Just once, I'd like to see a warrior race where everybody had to worry about being stabbed in the back by any of their comrades at any moment.

Klingons were actually meant to be that, back in TOS. IIRC Gene specifically described them as being a bunch of no-goods, who would betray one another in an instant. Basically how Humans are in the Mirror Universe.

But in TNG they wanted to make them Samurai, so the whole "killing your superior" thing was turned into something done to get rid of a weak leader, for the good of the ship.

 

[UssGlenn]

Could any warrior culture that didn't have strict rules, full of backstabbers, even survive? Any real world examples?

 

[USS Firefly]

Could any warrior culture that didn't have strict rules, full of backstabbers, even survive? Any real world examples?

The USA

 

[flandry84]

“None of it was real...it all took place inside your mind”
“It was our planet all along”.
“It was all a test”.

Pale mutant survivors living underground...cannibal cults...funkily dressed biker gangs ...oh,and sexy vampires.

 

[JD]

I've been trying to think of one, and I finally got one. When a series spend an episode or even a long arc trying to convince you a character who they would never kill off is going to die, and get to a point where they are about to die, and then don't kill them. It just feels like they are screwing with us, and unless they actually kill the person, it just feels like needless drama and emotional manipulation.

 

[flandry84]

Or equally the random killing off of a character for little or no reason.Dosen’t anyone Just move away now or get another job?
Nah,let’s kill them.

Then resurrect them.Then discover that they were never really dead,it was a clone,twin or alternate universe doppelgänger.
Yes Marvel,I’m looking at you.