From: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: Chain Of Command Part II -- review
Date: 30 Dec 92 22:04:34 GMT
Reply-To: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Dept., Madison, WI

In <1992Dec28.212729.5734@bnlux1.bnl.gov> schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder) writes:
>In article <1992Dec28.114848.538@rivers> ph9991_manfr@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu writes:
>>But this was the problem with the episode, there were no science fiction
>>plot devices at all in this story, and there should have been.  Big ones.  
>>I have no objection to parallels to today's Earth, and in fact I like them,
>>but they have be drawn with the pencils of science fiction.  This was
>>drawn with a twentieth century ballpoint pen.

>Okay, Steve, what kind of SF plot devices would you suggest?  Picard was
>tortured by aliens, there was a show down in a nebula with spaceships,
>electronic torture devices were used, shuttlecraft were flown...what
>would have made this "sci-fi" enough for you?

Not that I'm defending Steven's opinion that more SF was needed in "Chain Of
Command" (since I don't agree), but I think you miss his point.  The only one
of those elements you mention which strikes me as truly being SF is the
torture gizmo implanted in Picard, and even that isn't really a necessary
innovation; knives or burning steel would have worked as well.

All of these elements could have been easily transported into, say, a 20th
century naval scene, with minimal changes.

>						Go to your bookshelf and
>pick up what you consider to be a representative SF novel.  Strip away
>the ray guns and robots and what do you have?  A story with antagonists
>and protagonists.  A story that once stripped of the gizmos is about the
>human condition.

Not necessarily.  There are quite a few SF stories which, while they may or
may not focus to some degree on "the human condition", could not reasonably be
written without their SF or fantasy elements.  Most time travel stories fall
within this framework, for instance (e.g., "City On The Edge Of Forever",
"Cause And Effect", Doctor Who's "Mawdryn Undead"...)  There are other concept
which, when properly handled, are necessary science fictional underpinnings in
their stories (the Borg, the "Masterpiece Society" - though that particular
epispde needed to be greatly expanded upon - and so forth).

However, while I disagree with Gary that "a story stripped of the gizmos is
about the human condition" (in that some stories CAN'T be stripped of their
gizmos without becoming a different story), I disagree with Steven that a good
science fiction story needs to have good (or necessary) science fiction.  A
story can be a good story with only a nominal science fiction backdrop.
That's what "Chain of Command" was.

-- 
Michael Rawdon				  rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department,  Madison, WI
( Now in the Boston, Massachusetts area! )

    "What about you, Captain?" Krill asked.  "Do you seek death, or do you
run away from it?
    "Neither," Kiroth answered.  "Death seeks me.  It will find me in time.  
To run is simply a waste of energy.  To embrace death is sheer madness.  I 
await death.  When it comes, I will be ready."
    "To fight, or to flee?"
    Kiroth looked at his XO with barely contained horror.  "To die."
		- "Escape From The Holdfast", by Jim Hart; Captain's Log #8
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current