Joshua Done's Blog: Joshua Done - Culture and Entertainment - Posts Tagged "army"
All Bad Guys Have the Same Guns
Recently I have visited a few gun shows and what I have noticed is that there are as many types of weapons as there are weapon owners. That, when combined with the fact that as many as two out of three three people in the world own a firearm (and this is probably a low estimate) creates a real world situation in which there are thousands upon thousands of types of firearms and exponential variants on each type.
How does this pertain to science fiction you say? What we find is that in science fiction the ratio of armed characters is much higher, say somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety-five to one hundred percent. What we also find is that the ratio of diversity in firearms is twisted in the opposite direction. In a split that almost seems a sci-fi version of white hat – black hat, science fiction tends to put the same weapon in every soldier’s hands on whatever side they may be on.
While there may be slight variations for hero characters in these stories or heroes may have their own weapon, there is a very simple explanation that belies even greater than writer apathy or laziness. This is that people will be playacted if the hero has a cool weapon and ‘forget’ to look at the rest of the cast. I say ‘forget’ with emphasis because this is simply a fallacy. Readers will not forget; they will, however, be happy to place the lapse in the subconscious “yeah-right” section of their brain and continue on with the movie.
This does not mean that the readers have forgiven the movie or your fictional warring factions for their unrealistic lack of diversity, only that the penalty is a stigmatism to the art and deadened enthusiasm. It is not hard to slap a few more foam canisters together to make a different ray gun, or hire a few no name writers to work on the background of military diversity of the factions.
The lack of diversity in firearms is an easily fixed problem. It is not hard to write in a few extra lines discussing a strange or unique weapon. Equally easy is the addition of background realism to the militaries of the silver screen. What is really lacking is someone, somewhere, who actually cares, to say ‘wow, time out, what do you think you are doing? Your army looks like a bunch of computer generated copy characters. Of course, in many cases this is exactly the case. All we need to do is look at the background and sci-fi can trump popular war and Hollywood movies by seeming more real, and drawing the reader into an already engaging universe.
How does this pertain to science fiction you say? What we find is that in science fiction the ratio of armed characters is much higher, say somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety-five to one hundred percent. What we also find is that the ratio of diversity in firearms is twisted in the opposite direction. In a split that almost seems a sci-fi version of white hat – black hat, science fiction tends to put the same weapon in every soldier’s hands on whatever side they may be on.
While there may be slight variations for hero characters in these stories or heroes may have their own weapon, there is a very simple explanation that belies even greater than writer apathy or laziness. This is that people will be playacted if the hero has a cool weapon and ‘forget’ to look at the rest of the cast. I say ‘forget’ with emphasis because this is simply a fallacy. Readers will not forget; they will, however, be happy to place the lapse in the subconscious “yeah-right” section of their brain and continue on with the movie.
This does not mean that the readers have forgiven the movie or your fictional warring factions for their unrealistic lack of diversity, only that the penalty is a stigmatism to the art and deadened enthusiasm. It is not hard to slap a few more foam canisters together to make a different ray gun, or hire a few no name writers to work on the background of military diversity of the factions.
The lack of diversity in firearms is an easily fixed problem. It is not hard to write in a few extra lines discussing a strange or unique weapon. Equally easy is the addition of background realism to the militaries of the silver screen. What is really lacking is someone, somewhere, who actually cares, to say ‘wow, time out, what do you think you are doing? Your army looks like a bunch of computer generated copy characters. Of course, in many cases this is exactly the case. All we need to do is look at the background and sci-fi can trump popular war and Hollywood movies by seeming more real, and drawing the reader into an already engaging universe.
Joshua Done - Culture and Entertainment
Joshua Done is a science fiction author who lives in the Pacific Northwest. He is classically trained in political economy with experience in all manner of studies from music to ancient history and la
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