ratcreature | meta-ish sga fanfic thoughts

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meta-ish sga fanfic thoughts

I read quite a lot SGA fanfic and I'm starting to develop-- well, it's not quite a pet peeve, but this plot device in SGA fanfic that random alien "natives" capture/torture/sacrifice/chase the team with primitive weapons without ever being given proper motivation or even just common sense, it's staring to make me twitch whenever I see it. I get that the point of these stories isn't the alien culture but the h/c or sex ritual or whatever the author needs the spear waving natives for, but still.

For one it throws me out of the story, because it is so obvious that the Pegasus natives are only there for their effect on the team, that they aren't even real people. It's not that the team being the primary interest in the story was a problem, well developed cultures can serve the same ultimate purpose in a narrative, it just wouldn't be so blatantly obvious that they are only there as a plot device. These natives don't even get the minimal development of stock characters, who at least have a thin veneer over their purpose of just serving the heroes' plot. Even the traditional "exotic backdrop natives", problematic as they are for numerous reasons even when it's all filtered through being fantasy and not projected onto an actual culture, are at least, well, "exotic" and as such interesting or at least colorful.

Which leads me to the second point, i.e. it is reminiscent of the cringe-worthy and racist cliche of "primitive, non-rational savages vs. European explorers" in adventure fiction. Personally I think that they are so often complete non-entities is kind of worse than even if they were exotic backdrop for the protagonists (like in the typical "Africa movie") because they often don't get even that much minimal agency and presence as people.

That said, I wonder whether there would be any interest in an SGA thematic list with the topic "alien cultures" or something like that, kind of expanded from my earlier post to collect stories that give the Pegasus cultures at least a bit more room than to be just savages alternatively hurting the team or making them have sex.

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I agree with you, I've found this cringeworthy for a while, too. I don't even like the word "natives," it just has such an unfortunate overtone to it. If I go to Japan or France I'm not going to come back and be like "Oh, yeah, I loved Japan, the natives are all so polite." It just seems to imply condescension, and I wish they wouldn't use it on the show. (Although they do use it a lot less than fanfic tends to.)

The "angry, violent savages" cliche-- ugh, it's so stupid. Think about it: if you live next door to a Stargate, you're not going to be knee-jerk intolerant of other cultures, and/or people unknowingly doing something that's taboo in your culture, because you're going to have encountered different cultures *all the time*. Even if you *do* get mad at them for some reason, you're not going to risk pissing off some mysterious culture you don't know anything about (except that they seem to have advanced weapons and technology) by murdering their representatives-- you'll just escort them to the Stargate and make them LEAVE.

Which leads me to the second point, i.e. it is reminiscent of the cringe-worthy and racist cliche of "primitive, non-rational savages vs. European explorers" in adventure fiction.

I know. Spears? Seriously? When has the team EVER met an alien culture that carried spears around? This image doesn't come from canon-- it's clearly meant as shorthand for "those ignorant savages, you know, just like in the Tarzan movies," or whatever.

I made a post about this a while back where I pointed out that MOST of the cultures they've been to have, in fact, had near-Earth-level technology-- the Genii, of course, but also the native cultures in "The Brotherhood," "Poisoning the Well," and "The Ark." And I think you could even argue that many of the societies they've met (in "Condemned" and "Inferno," for example, not to mention the Satedans) are *more* advanced than Earth's current level of technology.

Then you have the "village" type cultures-- "Irresponsible," "Irresistible," "The Tower," "Instinct" -- where there's still obviously some industrialization going on, some agriculture, a complex society. They're meant to look medieval, or Victorian, with an appropriate level of technology-- didn't Elia's father in "Instinct" wear glasses?

The only actual "tribal," "hunting/gathering" cultures they've ever met are the planet of kids, in "Childhood's End," and one presumes that that's because they had a cultural taboo on creating new technology in order to complement their cultural taboo against population growth, and then there's the village that Ronon accidentally brought the Wraith down on, in "Sateda."

"Sateda," of course, is also the only episode in which they're actually chased down by angry "natives," but (1) they have a very good reason to be mad at Ronon, and (2) they are armed with bows and arrows and also knockout darts, and if anyone thinks these are primitive weapons, I'd like to see them make one. ^_^

Yeah, what gets to me is how little sense this particular fanfic shorthand makes, you know starting from some generic, faceless "natives" carrying out some random ritual (which is always more or less irrational in contrast to the enlightened team of course, rather than giving people fictional rituals that are there for a reason) to the off-hand references that the team got chased from yet another planet.

I never thought myself to be particularly sensitive, I mean, I've spend years in TS fandom, and there you get the actual hunter-gatherer tribe with poisoned arrows, complete with the white guy who gets stranded there and then proceeds to protect them and be the Great White Hunter action-adventure hero who saves them, while the natives are the exotic and mystical backdrop to the white protagonist's journey, complete with the wise magical indian shaman cliche... But cliched or not at least they were still acting like people with reasons to do things. And I can overlook that kind of thing as long as it all makes sense more or less on a fictional level, but it doesn't work like that with this kind of SGA fic shortcut.

Yeah. I mean, I myself have used the "the aliens require a sex ritual before you can go into their temple," as a plot device, but I at least tried to justify it with references to WHY it needed to be done and what their culture was like.

But yeah, I mean, if all you say about your "natives" is that they're angry and they have spears, you're basically just saying, "fill it in yourself, you know what those kind of people are like." Like anybody that hasn't invented the iPod is interchangeable.

And yeah, at least on TS Blair was there to be respectful and interested and open to learning from other cultures, so it sort of balanced out the part where Jim is totally appropriating all the "exotic" trappings of the culture that he lived with, etc.

Well, I for one would certainly love to read any recs you had with an alien culture theme. It's a topic most haven't explored, even though Ronon would have been a perfect excuse, since he's from a world that we almost nothing about and had a highly advanced technology level.

From what I can tell from devouring your AU rec list, we have pretty similar taste in fics, so sign me up.

And btw, Thank you so much and bless your kind heart for that AU rec list because during the four months I was working nights, the steady supply of fics helped me stay awake. =)

*throws rose petals in your general direction*

I'm glad to hear that you found my AU recs useful. :)

And yeah, it's kind of sad that SGA fic so often doesn't use the Pegasus galaxy unique situation to imagine what kinds of cultures there could beinbetween the legacy of Ancient tech and the Wraith presence. I mean, even the official tie-in novels do this. (I rather liked The Chosen for example.)

I never read the novels but I keep hoping that some day Ronon will throw a nasty curveball at the Earthlings just by making an innocuous comment.

Something like ...

John: "What do you mean, it wasn't like that? You said she was something like that."
Ronon: "Well, what I meant by that wasn't that we lived together. I loved her very much, but I wasn't in love with her. She was my breeding partner."
John: "Your what?"
Ronon: "My breeding partner. She had some traits that the Genegineering Council thought would be compatible with mine, which is how we got assigned together."
John: "Just like that? The government picked her up for you?"
Ronon: "John, I'm unusually tall, stronger than any Earther I've ever met, I have keener senses than anyone you know, greater physical stamina, wraith cannot feed on me, and my pain threshold is so high that it's lost somewhere in the clouds. How did you think it happened? Luck?"
John: "Didn't you ever want to pick the mother of your children yourself?"
Ronon: "No offense, but that's how animals behave. On Sateda, we knew that any civilization worthy of the name understands the importance of breeding."

Welcome to the wonderful world of Satedan eugenics! =)

And given the high mortality rate of a galaxy preyed on by the wraith, I could see how the populations of the Pegasus galaxy could develop some pretty weird behavior patterns when it came to the importance of having children.

Hmmm ... maybe someday I'll write that fic if no one does it before me.

I agree. I mean, the stories are going to be about the team, not, in general, some in-depth exploration of an original alien culture. And of course there's a lot of potential inherent absurdity in first contact--from *both* sides. But that's the thing, isn't it? It isn't from *both* sides. It's just those wacky aliens being "native" again, and the trope is really starting to seem a little creepy to me. Especially from a bunch of insular middle-class white women, which is still the dominant fandom demographic.

Also, for so many plot device purposes just using something else if there was no interest in giving the alien culture any depth or motivations would be so much easier. I mean, e.g. for h/c there's always the accident or natural disaster option, or you can trap them in a cave or strand them or choose some harsh climate, or an alien bug, whatever, those are all things that don't need motivation or some minimal world building hints to be somewhat plausible.

Or there are plenty of weird wild animals that could attack them or whatever. Like, there's that episode in season one where they're looking for possible planets to hide from the Wraith on and they find one with dinosaurs or something. That would make more sense than the angry natives.

As someone who loves to world-build, I can't understand why people wouldn't go into more detail about the cultures the SGA gang meets up with. I think there's a balance, of course; in some of the fics I'm working on, I've found myself trying to hold back and remember to make sure the focus is on the team and not on this cool race with these interesting rituals that I've created.

I suspect that part of the reason we don't see more developed alien cultures in fic is that we really don't get much of it on the show either. And it's a pity because this is one place where fanfic writers have so much more room to maneuver than a TV writer does.

I don't mind the lack of cultural details in some fic, usually in something that's supposed to be light, where the fact that they're getting chased back to the gate by guys with spears is a sort of "just another day in the Pegasus galaxy," and is not at all part of the plot. But if the tone of the fic is more serious and the role of the alien culture is more central to the plot, then yes, I want to see more of the culture and why they're doing whatever it is they do.

And the writer doesn't need to give me an essay. Of course, I want to know why, for example, the aliens wanted to see Sheppard go down on his team, because, yes, that's a plot point (mine in this case). But it's nice to have other almost throw away details like the way they speak or dress or whether the temple is open and airy, or dark and oppressive, and so on. It implies that the writer's thought it through and even if you don't see everything they know about their invented culture, you get an idea of how it hangs together.

One of the things that's making me so very happy to be in this fandom is that, after several years writing in a fandom solidly set on mundane Earth in the here and now, I'm in a science fiction fandom again. For me, inventing alien cultures is a big part of the squee of writing here.

I'd totally be interested in a list that expanded on your earlier list.

For me the offhand references are starting to throw me out of stories because they are not a reasonable "shorthand" for what we see on the show as such fanfic implies.

*nods* I think some writers forget that while they don't always tell us that much about the various alien cultures on the show, we do in fact see them, and so there's a whole layer of information that you don't get in a fic unless the author makes an effort to include that information.

Yeah, I agree with ratcreature-- the problem with the fact that they're getting chased back to the gate by guys with spears is a sort of "just another day in the Pegasus galaxy," is that it's *never happened* on the show-- it's total fanon, that actually contradicts what SGA has repeatedly shown us of Pegasus galaxy cultures. Half the time they're at least up to a 1700s-1800s level of technology, if not MORE advanced than Earth's current level of technology. Even Teyla's people are more advanced than they first appear, as Teyla makes sure to point out to John in the pilot. They're not a bunch of dumb superstitious cave-people, and it's kind of weird to have this fanon that the Pegasus galaxy is full of dirty savages with spears.

As I said in my previous comment to Ratcreature, they did actually get chased off a planet once in "Sateda," but that wasn't a case of them getting attacked because of a cultural misunderstanding, or savage violent natives who hated ALL outsiders-- the villagers had a very specific grudge against Ronon in particular that caused them to react like that. Also, the "chased off the planet with spears" fanon was pretty prevalent even before that. (It just gets into this uncomfortable implication-- is this what the authors really mean to say about less technologically advanced societies? Insanely superstitious, knee-jerk violent, this faceless, indistinguishable mass-- and just generally Not Like Us? It's kind of problematic.)

Fair enough; that's what I get for speculating when I haven't seen all the available episodes. I do seem to remember that kind of thing happening once in a while back when I watched SG-1 and I wonder if it's a holdover from that fandom. And I agree it does have problematic implications, although I think in most cases it's more a matter of lazy writing than anything conscious.

It could be an SG1 trope; I had a bit of meta a while back about why people tend to write a lot of stories where the SGA teams go camping overnight on strange planets, despite the fact that the puddlejumper makes that unnecessary, and the general consensus was "they did it on SG1, so we're doing it here too."

I think in most cases it's more a matter of lazy writing than anything conscious.

Oh, I agree with you-- I think if most people CONSCIOUSLY thought about the implications of the stereotypes they're using, they wouldn't use them, of course! I certainly don't think it's deliberate.

I can't recall the "spear-bearing angry natives" bit happening in SG-1 at all, but I may just not be remembering it. And it could have been a throwaway bit in another storyline. They had plenty of stories dealing with the team getting in trouble with people from low-technology cultures, but it was usually conflict over some real issue, not just a knee-jerk response to seeing strangers. And there are just as many if not more stories about the team helping or getting involved with friendly local people. They did do at least several stories about the team arriving on a planet that had a stargate but basically didn't know what it was/had never used it, and so had never seen aliens before. In some of the stories, the knee-jerk response to the team was fear and violence, but in all the cases I can remember, those were higher technology cultures, usually around or above Earth's current level.

Though I don't have all the episodes memorized, and I may be forgetting some big obvious example.

But yeah, I agree with you guys, the "angry natives who are evil for the hell of it" or "evil natives who sexually assault everybody who comes through the gate" are very overused in fanfic and I tend to avoid those stories. Not that they haven't been done well by some writers, it's just not something I want to read that much of. The overuse of that idea is something I had in mind when I started writing fanfic, and I wanted to do more stories about friendly or neutral aliens or local people, since it seemed more canon, and up to that point I literally hadn't seen hardly any stories like that.

I can't think of any specifics myself, but there were a couple of places where Teal'c got a knee-jerk response, didn't he? Of course, that's not proof of irrationality on the part of the "natives" so much as a healthy concern, considering that everybody "knows" that Jaffa are the servants of the gods and have scary powers-- really strong, you can't kill them, etc.-- so that's not superstition, it's just fact. *G*

In some of the stories, the knee-jerk response to the team was fear and violence, but in all the cases I can remember, those were higher technology cultures, usually around or above Earth's current level.

*nods* Again I think it goes back to familiarity-- the Gou'ald squashed technological innovation, so any high-technology culture they encountered would've been a culture who'd buried or lost their Gate and therefore totally wouldn't be expecting people to come visit them. Whereas any culture that was still under the Gou'ald's control would at least be familiar with the concepts of Gate travel and spaceships and so on.

Yep, that happened a few times with Teal'c, and it was always the "OMG, you have a Jaffa with you, you must be Goa'uld!" response, which is all kinds of rational. There was one episode in particular where they went to a planet where Teal'c had helped kidnap people for hosts for Apophis, so the village grabbed him and put him on trial.

I can only think of a couple of episodes where they ran into cultures that they basically labelled as too dangerous or evil to contact, and in both cases they were higher tech cultures.

Have you seen or read the description on the back of the DVD set, season 1 or 2?
Product Description
When a secret base, abandoned by the original builders of the Stargates, is found buried in the ice of Antartica, the newly formed Stargate Atlantis team is born. The team's discovery leads to a daring expeditiion to the distant Pegasus galaxy, where they encounter a primitive human civilization and a sinister new enemy that threatens human life everywhere. The Stargate Atlantis mission is headed by Dr. Elizabeth Weir, a specialist in diplomatic relations. Her political savvy is balanced by the bravado of her military counterpart, Major John Sheppard, a courageous pilot. Rounding out the crew are Lt. Aiden Ford, Sheppard's second-in-command, Dr. Rodney McKay, a clever and quick-witted astrophysicist and Teyla, a beautiful young leader among the primitive alien civilization that the Atlantis team encounters.
=(

I do like the vast chasm between what we are told of the alien cultures on the show, as in Rodney's comments "Conan and Zena" or the like, and what we see on the show. Teyla describes the Genii as "simple people", as in 'not as worldly as my people' and is totally wrong, we see Ronan's world and it looks just like ours.
Sometimes I think the writers are aware of the cliché and let their characters fall into it deliberately. It's interesting.

Have you seen the WaterGate (http://www.ltljverse.com/watergate/storyindex.htm) fic site?
Teyla shakes her head. "Whatever happens, it cannot be as bad as last time."
John and Ford wince, and Rodney claps a hand over his eyes. "Oh God, don't say that."
Teyla lifts her brows at him, oblivious. "What?"
"It's bad luck," Ford explains with a grimace, "If you say that, it guarantees that it'll happen. It's tempting fate to screw you over."
Teyla stares around at them all. "Surely you do not actually believe...." She takes in their expressions. "Sorry." (http://www.ltljverse.com/watergate/stories/hydrosphere.htm)

I haven't read those DVD blurbs (not a big miss it seems), but I am familiar with

ltlj's fanfic.

I don't mind first contact misadventures, misunderstandings, or nefarious aliens tricking them, and I don't even mind actual fanfic with hunter-gatherer civilizations, if they behaved with common sense for their situation rather than some cliche of irrational savages who are about to cook missionaries over their communal fire to eat them. But I mean, from a galactic perspective the Earth humans are the clueless isolated tribe of whom most never had contact to the outside world and the advanced civilizations.

That's the biggest reason I really didn't like The Game, Irresponsible or Irresistible, apart from massive other things. The Villagers were just a more advanced spear waving crowd.

Have you seen or read the description on the back of the DVD set, season 1 or 2?

I think that's possibly an issue with whoever wrote that up for Amazon. The DVD set I have itself says:

When SG-1 discovers what they believe to be the remnants of the Lost City of the Ancients - the originators of the Stargates - Stargate Command launches an investigation. A new team of explorers, headed by civilian Dr. Elizabeth Weir, travels to the distant Pegasus galaxy, where they discover an advanced but deserted city on the ocean floor, a group of nomadic humans ... and a deadly enemy that feeds on human flesh.

And the description from Chapters.ca (where I actually bought it from) is very similar.

*checks* Ah, I think I have seen that description somewhere official though.

Have you read The Lay of Celoni More (http://salieri.bonuspoints.net/Atlantis/celonimore.html)?

Possibly more coherent response later when it's not 7am. :D

Yeah, I've read that.

Word, word, word, word. I'm starting to get slightly flinchy when I see the word "natives" in a story. When I see "savages," I'm outta there, rolling my eyes all the way. I mean, seriously, who *says* that? (And who on earth thinks Elizabeth Weir says that? But I digress.) And it just seems like such a waste -- making up other cultures is fun! For uncomplicated pain without any underlying motivations, better to have a tree fall on them. (If a tree falls on Rodney McKay in the forest, does he make a sound? Yes.)

The truly ironic thing is that in the SG galaxies overall the Earth humans are the clueless isolated ones, of whom most never had contact to the outside world and the advanced civilizations, and the few who have only became aware a few years ago. Now I totally want to see the fic written from the alien perspective, talking about Earth humans like some early 19th century explorers who find their isolation quaint and fascinating while being completely condescending.

I completely agree with you that the frequency of this phenomenon in fic is a little annoying. I think it mostly comes from not wanting to get into the details of another culture. The more high tech the culture is, the more sophisticated the interaction between them and our team would have to be to be close to canon.

I also think people would be less likely to fall back on the idea of other cultures being "primitive" if there were fewer instances of it in canon itself. There are many cases of the set-up for an episode being essentially our team rushing in with their high-tech gadgets to help out because there's no way these people could figure it out on their own, regardless of the apparent technological achievements of the society.

Poisoning the Well wasn't too bad since they were close to being done their serum already, but certainly the second season episodes Instinct (aka. The planet where people live with a wraith feeding periodically for 10 years and don't do anything until our 4 person team shows up with a couple of guns and say "We'll deal with that for you" and even when the villagers try to help out all they do is wander around with torches and pitchforks) and Inferno (aka Our premiere scientist is so smart she's figured out how to hit a few buttons on the ancient devices but none of us have figured out what any of it means in all the time we've been here, so please Dr McKay spend half an hour to go far beyond anything we could do in generations)

I mean, there are definitely times when the writers elevate our heroes by making the other people stupid and inept. They just do it less often than fanfic writers sometimes do.

Plus I think we all have been exposed through the media that non-western civilisations are backwards and crazy even here on earth. It's not that often that we hear about computer companies in Saudi Arabia and things like that. Maybe bringing this up will lead to people deliberately trying to do the opposite and showcase that different doesn't mean dumb.

Good read :)

I can explain it to myself much easier that a group of Pegasus people is fairly fatalistic and lacks initiative about the Wraith after countless of generations of always being culled though, than that they randomly attack othe human visitors "just because", without any clear motivation. I think a big reason that Earth humans act against the Wraith is because they've been sheltered in their insular and protected corner of the universe and have not been worn down.

I just see it as being different aspects of the same thing: Lessening others to set up the story for the heroes. Whether they are portrayed as backwards and apathetic or backwards and violent doesn't matter to me. But I can see what you're saying I guess. It does affect the story more jarringly if the team is being chased by the locals with spears.

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