What I've learned from watching science fiction shows

I watch a lot of science fiction. I read alot of science fiction, too, but I grew up watching Star Trek and Stargate.

Yes, I’m a geek. (It’s okay, you can say it. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.)

I realized recently that I’ve learned a few things from my steady diet of space battles. (One of them is that regardless of space being a giant vacuum, explosions will always sound…well, like big explosions. Always.) Hopefully those things will even help me post-apocalypse, but only time–and the apocalypse–will tell.

I’m concentrating on TV shows here, otherwise this post will turn into a novel. Or at least a thesis paper. (Hmm…might not be a bad thesis topic.)

Anyway. So, what have I learned from watching science fiction? Well, it depends on the show.

What I’ve learned from Star Trek: The Original SeriesĀ and Star Trek: The Next Generation

  • Going boldly where no one’s gone before pays off, most of the time. Just make sure you bring your giant starship along.
  • If someone in your survival group turns out to be…promiscuous (ahem) like Kirk, it’s okay, he or she will be immune to every STD in the known universe. And they’ll help the group make some allies along the way. They might make some enemies too, so make sure they don’t decide to seduce anyone who’s already taken. Never stopped Kirk, but it might work out better for you and your group.
  • The post-apocalypse will be full of rainbows, unicorns, and puppies. Everyone will love everyone else, and the police state anthem will be Kumbaya.
  • Watch out for those Romulans. They’re devious, those guys. (You may have to assign this label to a particular group. But whoever you pick, you should be wary of them.)
  • Everyone will speak American English.
  • Never go on an away mission with the regular cast a raiding trip with the people in your survival group who regularly go on raiding trips (unless you’re one of those people).
  • Never, ever–EVER!–wear a red shirt. Unless you want to be the first to die.

What I’ve learned from Star Trek: Voyager

  • Getting lost sucks. Try not to get separated from your survival group, because that might mean you’re hopelessly lost for eternity. Also, the Borg might get you.
  • If you do get lost, you’ll run into a nice little alien someone who knows their way around. Make friends with this person. They might make hideous coffee, but they’ll save your ass on more than one occasion.
  • You’ll find your way back to your survival group eventually, thanks to your future self, because your future self wants to change the future so badly, you’ll risk being assimilated by the Borg eaten by zombies.

What I’ve learned from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

  • The world is not full of rainbows and unicorns. And the police state? It hates Kumbaya. You will be arrested because you hummed the first few bars and thrown into a post-apocalyptic jail cell reminiscent of a Thai prison.
  • A wormhole will spit out a group of shapeshifters.
  • These shapeshifters will have their own army. That army is scary. And scary-looking.
  • Shapeshifters = evil (except for one, who you should really have in your survival group)
  • Shapeshifters = tyrants (well, except for that one guy)
  • There’s a mirror universe that you’ll find a portal to. It might be a little different over there, but it’ll still be the post-apocalypse. Though instead of having shapeshifters as your ruling tyrannical despots, you might instead have scaly lizard-men controlling your every move. And they don’t like Kumbaya, either.
  • War is inevitable. Well, maybe not war, but violent disagreements with different survival groups. (Or lizard-men. Or shapeshifters.)
  • Someone in your group–maybe even you–will end up being a major religious figure in post-apocalyptic society. Not Jesus, but maybe somewhat similar.
  • Glowing orbs will give you the best hallucinations in the post-apocalyptic world. No idea where you’ll find these orbs, but find them. They might make the dreary hopelessness of the post-apocalypse more bearable.

What I’ve learned from Star Trek: Enterprise

  • People will ignore you, and you will have to result to all sorts of WTFery and drama to get people to pay attention to you again.
  • The WTFery and drama are a bad idea. You will die anyway. And all that WTFery will probably ensure that you will die first.

What I’ve learned from Stargate: SG-1

  • Somewhere in the pile of debris that used to be civilization, you will find a giant ring. If you turn it on, you might be able to escape to a different planet. Yay, no more apocalypse! Right?
  • Sadly, that planet has its own version of hell, where slug-things are the tyrannical despots and life isn’t any better than on Earth. It’s probably best to stay in your post-apocalypse. After all, you don’t want to be eaten by a slug that’s taken over your best friend, do you?
  • It’s always a good idea to have a genius astrophysicist and a genius linguist in your group. Just in case you run into cuneiform tablets that tell you how to build spaceships or something. (I know, it’s highly unlikely. But hey, as the Girl Guides say, “Be Prepared!”)
  • The scariest bad guys will not be zombies, vampires, or those slug-things. They will be religious fundamentalists with superpowers. And magical sticks that can zap you.

What I’ve learned from Stargate: Atlantis

  • If you stumble across the ruins of a city, try to find a control room. If you do, then congrats! You’ve just found a giant flying city. There aren’t any supplies in it, though. You’ll still have to find those. (Bummer.)
  • You’ll still have to organize your on raiding/looting parties to get the supplies necessary for your giant flying city. (By the way, it likes to sit on water, like an island, only made of metal.) But your city will have one of those handy giant rings in it. It’ll take you to other parts of Earth, and maybe other planets if you’re lucky.
  • You’ll make some friends and allies, but you’ll make a lot more enemies. A lot of people are threatened by your giant flying city and want it for themselves. After all, it makes a great fortress.
  • Watch out for your computers and other electronics. At some point, they will become sentient. And they will want to eat you and make you one of them.
  • Now that you’re running away from your attacking iPhone, you and your survival group will run into a colony of giant, mutated bugs. And yep, you guessed it: they want to eat you.

What I’ve learned from Stargate: Universe

  • The post-apocalypse will be dreary, depressing, pesimisstic, and will have really crappy lighting.
  • Your survival group will be alone, with no one around you for hundreds of miles.
  • Not many people will like you.
  • There will be lots of drama.
  • There will be much in-fighting and backstabbing in your survival group.
  • There will be lots of drama.
  • A rival survival group will somehow find you and take over your camp. But that’s okay, you’ll take it back.
  • You’ll find these crazy stones that let you switch bodies with people from other survival camps on the other side of the planet. (Trippy.)
  • Did I mention there will be lots of drama?

Obviously, these aren’t the only science fiction shows that are on the air (or found on Netflix). I have a list of shows I still need to watch, and preferably before the end of the world. (Since that’s supposed to be December 21 of this year, I have a lot of TV to watch.)

Here’s my list of shows to watch this year:

  • Dr. Who
  • Eureka
  • Supernatural
  • The Walking Dead

What shows would you recommend I watch? And have you learned anything from watching science fiction?

 

2 thoughts on “What I've learned from watching science fiction shows

  1. Aah The Walking Dead is an awesome show. It’s taught me that a screwdriver is an extremely nifty tool to have when going up against a zombie, and that other people will conveniently hold on to things you picked up days ago and forgot about.

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