I’ve been watching Ascension and Dark Matter recently and I’ve decided we need a list of Science Fiction tropes that need to be stopped!
- Literal Minded Robots
Androids, Robots, Computers, why do we think that in the future none of them will be able to understand slang. Sure, I get sarcasm, I know humans that struggle with that, but slang? There’s a scene in Dark Matter where the android, who is acting jealous, is told not to get a “big head” which she takes literally. Seriously? Siri can already be pithy, but a future android doesn’t understand a “big head”???
Sure, it was funny 25 years ago when Data did it, but it’s not funny now. - Unlimited Resources
In Ascension the crew of 600 is on a 100 year voyage to a the nearest star. While they play a certain amount of lip service to conserving assets, in several episodes they were pretty cavalier with some of their resources, burying people in space instead of using them for fertilizer. Incinerating items, etc… If you are on a generational spaceship 50 years out from home, please conserve resources. - Explosive Decompression
This has been on mythbusters. Explosive decompressions is NOT a thing. You won’t get sucked out the side of a spaceship or through an airplane window, so STOP DOING IT!!!