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There have been countless posts on this forum suggesting that Shepard or one of her allies solve problems by 'doing research.' Kill the Reapers by 'doing research.' Control them by 'doing research.' Develop some super-duper weapons by 'doing research.' Cure Thane by 'doing research.' When I ask people what Shepard should have been doing when they complain about incarceration, pretty much the only answer I hear is Shepard 'doing research' on the Reapers. The list goes on.
There's a reason why conflicts with great enemies in epic fiction tend to be solved by violence, not by 'doing research.' And a reason why people need to give up this idea of protagonists solving problems by 'doing research' or whatever it is they imagine smart people do. It's poor writing.
All the things the audiences associate with science -beakers of bubbling chemicals, equations on whiteboards, lasers and lab coats - those are all just props. The real science is the thought. And the thought is invisible. The audience can't see it. Can't perceive it. Can't appreciate it.
Technology begins with an idea. An applied principle or series of principles. And once the ideas are in place...it's just a matter of work - the tremendous and often difficult process of building and refining that applied principle. But work is work. There's no interesting themes in a villain being defeated with work.
So when a problem is solved by 'science' and science alone...it's really nothing more than a Deus Ex Machina. One moment a person has no idea how to solve a problem. The next they do. One moment the galaxy is helpless as the Reapers are on the cusp of invading. The next moment Shepard comes up with an idea for a super-weapon. Or super-technology. Or super-whatever. After which, it's just a process of refining the idea and building the thing. And even if the weapon is actually somehow scientifically and logistically possible against the Reapers, it would be ridiculous. Because where's the conflict in that premise? Where's the drama? Where are the themes? There are none.
So allthrough scientific work requires intelligence and experience, it's thematically no different than other work. And conflicts solved by work and nothing else are boring and narratively pointless. How thematically ridiculous would it be to have the Reapers defeated and conflict lasting millions of years solved because factories produced a certain amount of weapons? Because shipyards built a certain number of ships? Incredibly ridiculous and incredibly lame. Scientific work is ultimately no different. There's no meaning in a great villain being defeated because a bunch of scientists spent X number of hours in the lab.
Which brings us back to what seems to be the general BSN sneering at violence in stories as immature and mindless and praising science as the supposed smart and mature writer's way to solve conflicts.
Stories have protagonists confront conflicts with violence because violence does carry themes. Themes of courage. Themes of unity, friendship, and love as characters see their friends and lovers at risk. Themes of loyalty and sacrifice. Themes of strength and honor. Of despair, of loss, of hope, and of triumph. And these themes simply don't apply to the labors and invisible thoughts of a scientist 'researching.'
I think of Gandalf speaking to Pippen in Minas Tirith about 'a far green country' as a troll and their death hammers on the door a few feet away. I think about Aragorn speaking to his men before the Black Gates. (Lord of the Rings is very good with this sort of thing.) I think of Shepard kissing Liara after the battle in Lair of the Shadow Broker. Incredibly strong moments, and all heavily and directly associated with violence.
You know how many such moments I've seen taking place in a laboratory? Taking place as characters sit and type at computers? Zero.
Consider Breaking Bad. A protagonist hailed as someone who solves their problems with science. But look carefully. When the audience knows about the plan beforehand, Walter never comes up with the idea himself. Every time the plan is known ahead of time to the viewer, the original idea comes from somewhere else.
Walter builds a battery in the desert...after Jesse suggests it. Walter breaks into the evidence room using a magnet...after Jesse suggests a magnet. Robs the train using a clever weight idea...after Jesse suggests the method how. Why? Because the writers understand that a person just coming up with an idea and successfully applying it is off the table. Because it's boring. Because it carries no themes.
Science always exists on the periphery in these kinds of stories. There's science in the weapons and defences the characters use, science in the ships and other vehicles they travel on. Science in AIs and electronic warfare. Science in the characters overriding locks and hacking drones and disrupting shields. But thinking science to be some sort of glorious arrow of rationality and intelligence that pierces through the muck of mysticism and immaturity to solve whatever conflict the story focuses on conveys a failure to understand both stories and science.
I feel I should cap things off by reminding the BSN that even if this sort of thing wasn't a huge problem from a narrative standpoint, the chancesof anyone coming up with a plausible scientific solution to a very difficult problem faced by people with lots of resources (which is going to be any epic story, including Mass Effect) might as well be zero. It can be done with a small group of people facing a relatively small challenge (such as breaking into a vault), but it's next to impossible for large-scale conflicts. Either the science itself is going to be fabricated, or it's going to be so effective and obvious that everyone else looks like a complete and total idiot for not using the solution beforehand. I'm reminded of science fiction stories where the good guys defeat the enemy ship by scanning and then 'matching their shield frequency' to the enemy's 'weapon frequency,' upon which the enemy's weapons apparently bounce off and blow up their own ship. Pretty much every 'Reaper killing' suggestion I've seen on the BSN has fit these two problems like a glove.
Modifié par David7204, 08 janvier 2014 - 09:37 .
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