What does it for me: SF elements in SGA stories
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| Title: | What does it for me: SF elements in SGA stories |
| Creator: | Carolyn Claire |
| Date(s): | April 26, 2010 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Stargate Atlantis |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | What does it for me: SF elements in SGA stories, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
What does it for me: SF elements in SGA stories is a 2010 essay by Carolyn Claire.
Introduction
The post's introduction:
This post is a sort of a hybrid thing--not really a story review, not as objective or extensive as an essay, and a little bit of both, maybe. As I was thinking about a couple of stories I might like to post about, it struck me that several of them have something in common--they have a SF element in them that really impressed me. But it's a Stargate show, you may say; the entire premise of the series is SF based. And you're right, it is, but that doesn't mean that all the stories written that are based on the series are SF themed, in and of themselves. There's romance, adventure, thrillers, porn, drama, humor, all sorts of foundations for the action and interaction of the stories that aren't SF based, even though the universe, itself, invites the use of wormholes, faster-than-light travel and knowledge of life on other plants as tools to advance those stories. The stories I'm talking about, the ones that give me a little thrill reminiscent of the way the SF stories I grew up on made me feel, have SF elements at their hearts--the stories are built around those elements, and they're extremely cool.
The Stories Referred to and Discussed
- Synthesis by Thingswithwings
- The Ones You Leave Behind by Leah
- Whipping Boy by Skinscript
- The Fourteenth of Green by Kanata
- Dearest by Lavvyan
Excerpts
A podcast I was listening to, recently, by a group of SF and fantasy writers brought up issues of suspension of disbelief, particularly in regards to SF works (SF readers are a notoriously nit-picky lot.) They used a number of examples in text and in film, but one that was particularly entertaining to me was the Transformers movies and the way that an enormous, transforming alien robot was able to fold down to an object the size of a toaster. Several participants put forward the idea that, once you've bought into the existence of the enormous, transforming alien robots, it's not much of a stretch to swallow the folding down to toaster size, but it apparently is, for some people--they'll go for the Transformer, but certain things within the universe had better remain consistent with ours, such as the conservation of mass. That's the SF audience, that's the way they think and what writers might want to keep in mind when creating these stories. Other common SF tropes may begin to disappear for the reader, much like a "said" attribution does--no one watches Star Trek or Stargate regularly and harps on the impossibility of faster-than-light travel; it's accepted as a given. A lot of SF depends on being willing to accept and ignore the implausibility of some of the science it's based on--no trekking to the stars without warp drive, no planet-hopping without a Stargate. So the picky SF-loving brain can overlook some implausibilities but be unwilling to handwave others, perhaps, while there are tropes that can become so accepted that they lose some of their innovative impact and fade into the background.
A lot of the SGA stories I've read have had no SF-ish elements in them beyond the (to the reader) invisible science of the Stargates and the hyperdrives. Those have become the setting; the story, itself, often focuses on the characters (which is a good thing), even when those stories are episode-like in their execution. That the setting is a spaceship or a distant planet is less important to the story than who's there, what drives them, what trouble they get into and out of, who they love or want or miss, or who brought the lube. Stories that have a SF element as part of their focus, while still promoting the importance of the characters, their actions and interactions and growth, are created around an element that can't be easily translated without significantly changing the story--a spaceship could become a cruise ship, for instance, or another planet become another country, in many stories, and not significantly change what's essential to the story. The following stories, though, all contain elements that make the story true SF, for me, and especially appealing. (They all do a terrific job with the personal and interpersonal, too, which isn't the case with all SF stories, unfortunately.)
Excerpts from Comments at the Original Post
- [noracharles]: I love SF. I'm mostly drawn to SF and Fantasy fandoms, and I can't actually think of any fandom I've been actively involved it which didn't have SF/F elements. But what I'm drawn to is not the gee whiz factor, and I don't care about mecha or cool space ships or awesome weapons. I do like science in and of itself, and learning about it through fiction can be fun, but that's not what most "science" fiction is actually about, and I don't particularly seek it out. No, what interests me are new and different ethical dilemmas, relationships with the Other, and emo porn and kink. Lavvyan's fic Dearest is a good example of this.
- [carolyn claire]: Anyway. I can't actually think of any fandom I've been actively involved it which didn't have SF/F elements. Me neither--XF, TS, Buffy, SG-1, SGA, side trips into things like Vamp Chron and Voyager--I'm a genre fan all the way. And, like I said, I was raised on SF--a lot of old school stuff and hard SF, mostly, that my dad gave me to read. I'm much more into newer interpretations, now, and I'm glad that the genre has become so wide and encompasses so much--there's something for everyone.
[sholio]:
...interesting discussion. My own definition of SF is pretty broad - I'm a lumper, not a splitter *g* - but while I do include space opera and similar things in my personal definition of SF, I also really appreciate seeing SGA stories tackle more "hard" SF or social SF elements, as opposed to the usual handwavium, which could just as easily be, say, magic swords and wizards in terms of its effects on the story. (And this is making me think about my own use of SF elements vs. handwavium in my own stories as well.)
- [mrs. hamill]: This is a wonderful topic, and were I not so completely exhausted from the past month, I would love to discuss it at length with you. My biggest problem is that I can't not have hard science in anything I write -- well, anything with a plot, anyway (which is more than three-quarters of my stories) -- and if I write science, it has to be as accurate as I can make it. This has led to some really incredible migraines when trying to reconcile (for example) Stargate wink-wink-nudge-nudge science with actual astrophysics (and don't get me started with the language) or George Lucas' playing fast and loose with stellar distances. I cut my teeth on Analog and learned to read with Clarke and Heinlein and Niven so technobabble comes easy, but if it isn't as accurate as I can make it, then as far as I'm concerned, it's not worth writing. There are stories with hard SF themes that end 'happily', though I can't at the moment name names, it's too late and I'm too tired. The best ones are the ones that integrate the science into the story so it becomes the background, the expected, so you're not reading the story for the SF, but the SF is almost another character in the story, a background red shirt, if you will; essential but unobtrusive. Well, unless the story is about the science, of course.
- [carolyn claire]: Surely, in a fandom as filled with the happy as SGA is, there are more happy SF stories, but, yeah, when you lean towards the dark and angsty, maybe they just don't stick as well. I've read those two, loved them, in part because of the dark, yes. :)
- [carolyn claire]: It's been a long time since I've read [[[Ok Computer]]], but, from what I remember of it, the VR and time travel used were similar enough to things that had been done in the SG-verse that they didn't hit me in the "cool, SF!" way. Maybe that's key to what I'm talking about, and what I'm looking for--SF tropes that haven't been done much on SG, already, to the degree that we come to expect them, both in the show and in the stories. Because it is a SF-based show, and does have a lot of SF elements; the stories I mention have SF elements I've seen before, but maybe not so much on SG eps--I think the ones I remember from reading SF novels are probably the ones that ping me, the most. (It is a good story, though waaaay too long for me to re-read before responding to you in a timely manner. *g* I will re-read it over the weekend, though; thanks for reminding me of it.)