Vormaerin wrote...
You don't need scientists, militarists, or engineers. You just need consistency.
The idea that a spacefaring military would automatically grow out of our Navy is not a given. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a unified service or using a different rank structure than the one we have. The Navy's current rank structure is barely a hundred years old, even if you ignore the assorted tweaks its had since then. Why would it need to be the same in another hundred years.
Heck, you don't even have to have a rank structure. You could have a system built around MOS based paygrades (Ashley is B2, IIRC, Shepard is N7, Vega is N6, etc) and billets (ie jobs like Chief Engineer, CO, XO, etc).
The only problem with ME is lack of internal consistency. Biotics do some stuff in some places, but can't do that same stuff in others. Ashley's changes in rank don't follow any rules that are explained. And so on.
I do agree, you probably don't need 'modern' hard facts. Just consitency and consitency that has internal logic to the setting. You pull it off right and even the ready accepts this new logic within the fiction even if it is not 'realistic'. It is the very foundation of the term suspension of disbelief.
The second trick would be familiarity, you do want a certain sense of familiarity so the audience can still associate but you do not want this familiarity to backfire either by turning known conventions around yet appealing to said known conventions.
For example the travesty of the ranks is one source says a Major holds the same rank as a Captain (using the naval tradition Captain in rank rating). If the System Alliance has a unified command structure, why does it suddenly have two ranks at a given rank rating? Also why would a rank that was always considered below another in human history suddenly be above or equal? There is being new, than there is being silly.
It can have its own ranks removing and adding new ones to meet the demands of the future, but turning already established traditions upside down will only cause confusion in the audience, which is not a good thing. Truth be told it is more likely born from writers not paying attention to each other's contribution and breaking consitency.
The same is true with scientific elements. If you going to have an NPC talk about evolution or inertia, at least google the subject and read its wikipedia entry at the very least; but better yet go to your local library (or online via a legitimate article) and read up on the subject a bit. Doesn't take much time to get the basics.
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Now I do defend the idea of consultants. The role of consultants is during large productions you tend to have more than one creative mind behind the project (finish ME3, look at the credits... see how many writers they had...). So instead of trying to have 4-8 people going out and doing the 'homework' they can go and cosult the one guy they have on set or in the studio, or in the office.
Of course this is also the job of the lead, the lead is suppose to double check everyone's work to make sure their is consistency, not just with the facts. Just plain old consistency. If writen by several writers the peer review process is also important for this fact (since the lead won't be able to catch all the inconsistencies).
However, any project that only has 1 writer on it, does do his homework when he writes about anything. All good writers admit to this, writers that say they don't are only kidding themselves. Even writers that write in groups should also do their homework too if they are writing about the subject or are the lead.
Modifié par Madecologist, 24 avril 2012 - 05:31 .
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Sorry for jumping down your throat. I will say that I should still submit that your statement be revised. Dark Energy isn't something that may or may not exist. It's merely a measureable quantity, something that we can observe but not yet explain. For lack of knowing what it is, we call the phenomenon "Dark Energy". All the argument is about is what Dark Energy is made of, or possibly, what causes the phenomenon we call "Dark Energy".
