Everything2
Near Matches
Ignore Exact
Full Text
Everything2

Science fiction clichés

created by Johnny

(idea) by Johnny (1.2 d) (print)   ?   (I like it!) 1 C! Fri Jul 02 2004 at 8:23:13

Life in 2236

I have to tell you, life in 2236 is great. Couldn't be better. Except for the thoroughly evil and technologically superior Empire that the pitifully under-equipped and out-gunned rebellion I work for is trying to overthrow. But that's okay, because even though we're smaller and less well-armed, we'll still prevail against impossible odds to save the day (and the world!). Especially considering that even the best-trained Imperial super-commandos never hit what they're shooting at, and our new-recruit infantry manage to peg every target they squeeze a few rounds off at.

Other than that, life's pretty spiffy.

Although, there is the Artificially Intelligent computer created by a team of researchers a few years ago that has gone criminally insane and decided that it needs to purge the planet of us humans. Right now the AI is holed up in some city, building its army, but we're going to wait for them to make the first move. Better that a few million people die than we destroy them while they're vulnerable. Civil rights activists scare me more than a few lousy death robots, anyway.

Other than that, existence in the 23rd century is mostly decent.

Well... Earth still needs to deal with the small matter of the alien armada that's come a few hundred thousand light-years to scour our planet of every last workable resource, leaving us a lifeless hulk floating silently through space. This doesn't really make much sense, when the aliens could find those same resources in much larger quantities in uninhabited locales throughout the galaxy. But that doesn't matter much, because they're here, they're so technologically superior that we can only defeat them by the sheer ingenuity of the human race, and - oh wait, never mind. Word just came in that we just destroyed their mothership with a single shot that exploited their one weakness. Huh, go figure. Luck, I guess.

Living in 2236 is alright, I suppose.

It's alright if you ignore the masses of poor people caught starving on the streets between feuding crime lords that control almost everything, except for what the super-rich societal elite control with their wealth and influence. The police, of course, exist only to provide the illusion of authority, but nobody ever actually cares about justice or betterment of the people, and the less fortunate are reduced to living in shanty towns and selling bodily organs to survive. In spite of all this, everybody has a grand old time using advanced technology that is still around against all odds and reason.

Damn, I guess life in the 23rd century pretty much sucks...


(idea) by Major General Panic (1.4 d) (print)   ?   (I like it!) 1 C! Tue Aug 01 2006 at 17:19:19

Science fiction clichés are becoming more and more important to us, not only because they shape our ideas of how to craft universes in science fiction, but because the culture of the past fifty years has given many people a deep-seated desire to live in The Future, to experience culture and inventions that are "futuristic."

Many science fiction archetypes have come and gone as scientific progress shows that they're not really feasible, or even supersedes them. Many still remain in our fiction. Many have even bled into real life, either by the happenstance of a sci-fi author coming up with something that really gets invented later, or by the simple fact that most people in our culture are acquainted with these archetypes, if only to some small degree, and work them into their thoughts and design for new products and fashion. Have you taken a good look at the stuff that Apple is making these days? There's a stylishness to it that's informed not only by generalized tastes, but also from our ingrained expectations about how technology should look.

My favorite example of this phenomenon is in The Fifth Element, where the future is heavily influenced by our pop-culture ideas of what the future will be like: architecture, fashion, and technology have strong overtones of Star Wars and other popular sci-fi.

Here's a small listing of famous clichés, both obsolete and timeless. It's fun to see which ones have had real-life influence and which haven't. Sorted alphabetically to avoid prioritizing them.


See also technology inspired by science fiction, science fiction archetypical technology, and science fiction archetypical military technology.


printable version
chaos

Useless weapons in science fiction movies These aren't the droids you're looking for Packing the perfect narghila head The Evil Overlord list
Theories as to what was inside the briefcase in Pulp Fiction Science fiction archetypical technology Videogame clichés The History of Science Fiction
Swear words from science fiction Science Fiction Archetypical Military Technology Technology inspired by science fiction Captain Obvious
Turkey City Lexicon: A Primer For Science Fiction Workshops Recognizing a porn star as someone you know Science fiction terraforming
science fiction convention Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow I was promised flying cars The Zogmekiad: Episode II
The Influence of Space Power on History Sector General Humorous Writings of E2 The 4400
Y'know, if you log in, you can write something here, or contact authors directly on the site. Create a New User if you don't already have an account.
  Epicenter
Login
Password

password reminder
register

Everything2 Help

Cool Staff Picks
The best nodes of all time:
Paolo Soleri
Living up to your potential
Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities
What the hell is Grimace, anyway?
Pentagram
Children of the Screens
September 28, 2006
Squatting
Mass Pike
Is your teenager concerned about inequality and pollution? Call a drug counselor.
she named it killer and took it to the beach to play in the sand
Thirteenth Step
Gauss' Law
New Writeups
Cuckowski
Slavonic Princess(poetry)
Heitah
Posthumous Oscar(thing)
ignis_glaciesque
University of South Florida(place)
ignis_glaciesque
Flogstaskriket(idea)
liveforever
Caesar's last breath(idea)
dagnyswaggart
she wants to believe(personal)
antigravpussy
he doesn't know, but her eyes widen too far(thing)
dagnyswaggart
Wild tides guard her secrets(poetry)
Lord Brawl
Caesar's last breath(poetry)
locke baron
Forgotten things in space(fiction)
sitaraika
Colours(idea)
etouffee
Wild tides guard her secrets(poetry)
Lord Brawl
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog(review)
a8ksh4
regret(idea)
Heisenberg
Editor Log: July 2008(log)
Everything 2 is brought to you by the letter C and The Everything Development Company