Dragon*Con Panel: Military in Science Fiction

[momebie]

Before I get started in on the panel I just want to say that the Psycho City Roller Derby season opener was awesome and everyone in Orlando should go out to at least one date this season. You can find the info here. My favorite derby name from last night was Erin Gobrawl. Roller derby looks like a lot of fun to be involved in. Too bad I can't

Comments

[momebie]

You can write A science fiction story without the military being present. There are quite a lot of them about. But it's very hard to write certain types of science fiction stories without that. I think it depends a lot on what kind of world you're building. Anything is certainly POSSIBLE in fiction. We're perfectly capable of writing a story without any kind of grounding in familiar military roles, but it takes more work to make it believable to an average audience. And of course, if you're working within a true to life frame then the military IS often part of negotiations and such. We can't just write them out of the story for the sake of being different.

We can take the BDESN, for instance, since I'm all for pulling my own things apart. How do I put the entire world under a police state without including a military? How do I make it believable that the heads of state wanted to leave their military out of it entirely? Would they make up an entirely new police type force? Would that not in some way be military-esque? It's not the same, I don't suppose, as your BSG's or Stargates or what have you, because my story isn't ABOUT the military, but it is a rather heavy presence throughout, and one of the characters is still in it. (He's actually research & design, which someone in the panel said you couldn't make interesting because it was such a boring job. Oh, I'll show you bitches.)