The book is curious to me. I guess I can't figure out why you'd
try to make a full skirmish wargame when the book makes the
actions so much more like it would be interesting as a warband
or squad level game. Perhaps the closest to the MI experience
was playing Tribes with the three suits of armor and whatnot.

I just can't imagine how you go from that book to the Mongoose game.

Can someone who's played explain?

I think it goes more like:

Book --> Movie (which is then disavowed by all, despite being a great commentary on American military industrial society) --> Cartoon --> Andy Chambers needs a job -->SST game.

You missed a step in your reasoning. I'll list them and let you figure out where you errored.

Step 1. Book.
Step 2. Movie that made lots and lots of money.
Step 3. Game.

The game is based more on the Roughnecks cartoon series, which was based on the movie, which resembles the book hardly at all.

Ah, I see.

So that's the thing then. A Starship Troopers game would be more
characterful, and therefore, less profitable.

There was, I believe, a board game from Avalon Hill in the '70s based on the novel itself, that was more in keeping with Heinlein's presentation. That game's been out of print for some time, though.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/670

People may criticise some of the Mongoose SST minis, but I'm pretty glad they don't look like the fatties on the cover of that game.

I think the Mongoose SST game was very playable and had good mechanics. And once they added in the Cougar & Grizzly battlesuits, it had much more of a Heinlein flavor.

I'm waiting to see how it changes when they release SST:Evo before I decide if I'm going to keep playing.

I've got the Avalon Hill boxed game. Very good game, played it a hell of a lot...

The novel is actually a political treaty on facism. As noted the game is based on the movie. In the novel the soldiers wear uber suits of power armor and are spread out about a mile apart from each other when attacking in formation. The soldiers have super jump packs that can cover far distances very quickly. Each soldier is fitted with nuclear missiles and very nasty flamers that can take out the occupants of an entire city block. I would love to see someone come up with a game that could closely follow along the lines of the novel. It would not be anything like Starship Troopers the game or even WH40k.

- Greenie

Posted By Green Bloater on 04/19/2007 3:47 PM
The novel is actually a political treaty on facism. As noted the game is based on the movie. In the novel the soldiers wear uber suits of power armor and are spread out about a mile apart from each other when attacking in formation. The soldiers have super jump packs that can cover far distances very quickly. Each soldier is fitted with nuclear missiles and very nasty flamers that can take out the occupants of an entire city block. I would love to see someone come up with a game that could closely follow along the lines of the novel. It would not be anything like Starship Troopers the game or even WH40k.

- Greenie

... Mechwarrior?

not really.

It could be Mechwarrior if you were restricted to Elemental size mechs. And had the overheating rule thrown out. And if it had been a thinly veiled treatise on fascism, instead of a nearly straight ripoff of Dune and Risk.

You're thinking too much about it, Felix. Roll the dice and say your mantra. Furniture polish...Furniture polish...

I had the Avalon Hill game but unfortunately lost it by leaving it in my student halls of residence.

There's a really old game called "Star Soldier" by SPI, out of print since early 1980s probably, in which you move around super-powered troops with flight packs, various weapons such as neutron bombs, ECM and so on. A very interesting game that uses simultaneous movement.

Another interesting super soldier game I've got buried somewhere gives you one man but he has weapons that can actually alter the landscape. For example, you can use the heat beam to create a pool of lava and plunge the enemy in. He can use an ice ray to cool the lava back to solid ground. That was a pretty cool game but I can't remember the name of it.

Another one worth a look is the Steve Jackson infantry game based on the Ogre/GEV series. It had powered armour, jump packs and so on, and forces where about a squad to a small platoon per side, with single man counters. It was a map and counter type game like all these others.

Any map and counter game could have its rules adapted to use with miniatures.

Posted By Green Bloater on 04/19/2007 3:47 PM
The novel is actually a political treaty on facism.

This old chestnut?

 

It’s still horseapples.  Heinlein never espoused Fascism.  He glorified the military a bit, and speculated on the idea of military service for full citizenship (inspired primarily by the Swiss).  Kind of how traditional sci-fi always took an idea or speculation about a possible future and built upon it.  Paul Verhoeven, who made the movie, and who publically admitted to having never finished the book, made a movie which distorted the book's concepts into a more Fascist form.

For a thorough debunking of this myth, and some nice rips on Verhoeven for his dumping on Heinlein's grave, go to:

http://www.kentaurus.com/troopers.htm

--------------

On the gaming subject, I have the Avalon Hill boxed game, though I’ve only played the first scenario or two.  It’s pretty darn cool.

 

I played a demo game of SST and quite liked the mechanics.  The units in the game are more based on the movie and cartoon than the book, though I understand the later addition of bigger suits gave more of the book’s feel.

There is absolutely nothing Fascist about the book Starship Troopers. Belief in that is either a misunderstanding of what Fascism is, a result of never having actually read the book, or the result of having a particular political viewpoint before having read the book.

Heinlein often wrote that his stories were based upon how he percieved the world might be in the future if the sociopolitical climate of the times continued unchecked without change. Troopers was published in 1957 during the middle of the Eisenhour (sp?) glory years of the cold war and America is great and the military is the best! Compare what he wrote in Troopers to what is written in Stranger in a Strange Land (published in the early 70's). You wouldn't believe the same person wrote the book if you just went by the theme.

Now, the idea in Troopers that many construe as "Fascist" is the idea that military service is required in order to have the right to vote. By that basis, both Israel and Switzerland are Fascist countries, since military service is mandatory in both countries. However, where this falls down is the fact that in Heinlein's fictitious future, the military service was voluntary, and the only "penalty" for not serving was lack of the right to vote. The idea behind this policy was simply this: you don't get to even partially dictate the course of the country's policies if you do not prove that the well being of the country is more important that your own self interest.

I actually wrote a fairly extensive paper on this novel in my 20th Century American Novel class when I was getting my literature degree, which was kinda fun considering some of the left leaning political views of most literature professors in major universities. I was actually surprised I got an A on it

Sal.

Your dates are a little off; he was writing Stranger first, and paused in the middle to write Troopers (1959); Stranger was finished (and published) in 1961.

The most interesting thing about Heinlein is trying to figure out what (if anything!) he actually believed in. Some of his autobiographical stuff is helpful in this regard, but mostly in a negative proof sort of way: "No, I didn't believe in this. No, I wasn't espousing that. No, I don't think you should start a religion based on Stranger in a Strange Land." (Contrast with, oh, say Hubbard.)

Thanks for clearing this stuff up for me, guys.

Way off topic but I always thought the more 'politco' book that Heinlen wrote was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Been awhile since I read it but the book drips with political and economic comentary (much more so the SST).

And yeah, people throw around facism without knowing the full definition of the word. It's why the term islamo-facism always cracks me up.

As far as the topic, I refused to play SST the game because it favored the movie and cartoon over the book. Although it sounds like a decent game system, I just couldn't bring myself to purchase the the thing.

Funny how people get all bent when you say that Heinlein wrote a novel eschewing a fascist regime in the near future. Israel and Switzerland really have nothing to do with the novel, but then again many people consider Isreal to be a fascist country. Do I think his novel was a political treaty - most certainly. After the first couple of chapters the main character spends the rest of the time explaining how their system works in great detail. The movie is really nothing like the book to be honest, so again you are comparing apples to oranges if you use this argument to support your case.

- Greenie

Simply stated, a fascist government has one class of citizens that is considered more valuable to another based upon service. It is possible to be both a republic and a fascist state. One class lives in a republic while the other class lives in a fascist state. Does this sound familar to what was espoused in the novel?

- Greenie

Umm...no. At best, that's a gross oversimplification; at worst, a blatant mischaracterization.

Setting aside, for the moment, the forests of trees which have died so people could argue what defines "fascism" (see, e.g., here), I'll follow you so far as to agree that Fascist governments tend to be anti-individualistic.


See, here's where you wander off into the same trap as the essay Ragnar linked earlier exposed - Starship Troopers is about ultimate PERSONAL responsibility.

Pls give examples to support your case. Thanks!

- Greenie

The point of the political concept expressed in the book is that the only people who can be trusted with authority to make decisions for the country as a whole(the vote) are those who have demonstrated through action that they are willing to put the good of the country as a whole above their personal self-interest.

If you want to be able to vote, you volunteer. They find a duty for you, which may be military or may not, though the non-military options are deliberately also made difficult and potentially dangerous. You sign up for two years or "as much longer as may be required", and you're not allowed to vote until you're out. Everyone 18+ who is mentally competent to understand the service oath is guaranteed the right to sign up and serve their term. Everyone who doesn't want to serve gets all the same rights and protections as those who do, except the right to vote. The book puts the voting population at about 3% on Earth, and 80% on Iskander.

It's not Fascism. Facism, according to Encarta, is a dictatorial movement: any movement, ideology, or attitude that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism

The government in ST is not described as dictatorial, there is no indication of centralized control of private enterprise (the only indication is to the opposite- Johnny's dad is not a voter and owns a very successful business), all opposition in the book is either ignored or responded to with carefully-reasoned explanations and arguments, and nationalism seems to be virtually nil.

If it were a Fascist government they'd limit who could serve, they'd suppress opposition to the government, and no doubt the military would actually be allowed to vote so they could actually wield direct political power.

Check out that site I linked earlier. It's a great analysis.

I'm not saying I agree with the book's idea, but then neither did Heinlein. At worst he might have leaned that way when he wrote it, when we were in the middle of the cold war and Congress had just voted to stop nuclear testing, which he saw as potential suicide for our country and for the long term hopes of Democracy over dictatorial Communism.

Mann, dunno how you missed it but...it's a trap! Green likes to be commended on his trolling I suppose. Grats Green.

Remember that only 1% of those that volunteer for military service actually pass the boot camp. It makes a difference.

- Greenie

Go read the article I linked Bloatie. He's already answered this one too.

1% of Mobile Infantry recruits pass their boot camp.

Do you judge the whole US Military (and every other form of civil service) by the standards of the SEALs?

It's also shown in the book that guys who physically can't hack it but refuse to quit are given alternate jobs.  One guy shown winds up a cook on a troop transport.

Even the cook fought in the wars.

- Greenie

Not the Navy cooks- unless you count being on a warship in combat as fighting. In the MI, everybody fights, from the chaplain to the cook to the Old Man's catamite.

How long has it been since you read Starship Troopers, Greenie?

The novel stressed being responsible for your own actions. The reason voting was limited to those who had performed some sort of government service is that these people would value their vote and therefore treat it more responsibly. That is why the "service" inevitably was hard and dangerous. He was attempting to show the flaws in direct democracy by comparison. He avidly hated socialism, where the state owns and runs everything, and communism, where the state controls everything. Needless to say those views don't sit well with most Hollywood writers and directors.

The MI wasn't the entire military. Military Service included research
positions and labor and the like. The MI was the hardcore cap troopers.

"In the MI, everybody fights, from the chaplain to the cook to the Old Man's catamite." That was the cook I was to referring to. I think Durandal has nailed it succinctly.

- Greenie

Oh, it's succinct you were looking for. Well why didn't you just say "Ragnar need not apply" right up front?!

I'm probably going to nail myself as a huge literature geek, but here it is.

I'm really enjoying the heck out of this thread

Sal

lol

Interesting read. Must pick that book up.
(Though I enjoyed the film as a brainless sci fi action flick, I can see the the book was very thoughtful and understand people being upset.)

It is a classic, though it's more of a story about the character, his training and development as a soldier and a person than it is an action story. That said, the combat scene which opens the book kicks butt.

The book has inspired a lot of other books by younger greats in Sci-Fi, including Brunner, Haldeman, and Steakley. Steakley's Armor, to me, is a perfect companion piece. Totally different while having superficially identical settings. Both of them are probably in my top 20 favorite books.

The odd thing about Starship Troopers is that the best parts of the book
aren't the actual combat scenes. There are only three or four described
action sequences in the entire book. The best parts, at least to me, are
the boot camp training sequences, and all the things that Rico learns
in his classes.

Good stuff.

It is a great novel and should be required reading for children in school. Stranger in a Strange Land is even more weird and I could never put my finger on what exactly Heinlein was trying to get across... it was also an excellent book as well.

Greenie,

The instant you make something "required" it becomes a chore.

Posted By malfred on 04/22/2007 2:45 PM
The odd thing about Starship Troopers is that the best parts of the book
aren't the actual combat scenes. There are only three or four described
action sequences in the entire book. The best parts, at least to me, are
the boot camp training sequences, and all the things that Rico learns
in his classes.

Good stuff.

You'll always be Mr. Dubois to me, Felix.

Does that make Hellfury Sgt. Zim?

Yes. I could never quit him.

Wait....

I agree, Greenie, Stranger in a Strange Land was just plain wierd.

But then, a lot of his "sexually liberated" books were, like The Cat who Walks Through Walls and Time Enough for Love.

Sal

Yeah um fellblade? Pretty much everyone counts 'being on a warship in combat' as fighting. Unlike say, the ground or air forces, everyone on a ship can be killed by a lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective) hit. And the cooks aren't making french fries while the missiles start piling in, they are manning machine gun pits, forming damage control parties, treating the wounded, etc. To say they don't fight is an insult to a great many Navy cooks who died in the line of duty.

Green, don't you think that making ST required reading would be at least a little, ironic?

If you think about the climate we live in currently here in the US then required reading of SST makes perfect sense to me. There were a lot of novels and short stories that I had to read in English class back in the day... I still am glad that is how I discovered authors such Edgar Allen Poe and Cicero.

As far as fighting in the MI goes everyone aboard the ship has a suit of power armor and has been trained thoroughly how to decimate the enemy.

- Greenie

Everyone but the Sailors? I'm pretty sure the squids weren't running around in uber power armor, but I haven't read the book in about four years so...

It isn't ironic in the context of the nation, it is ironic in the context of the book. Yes- required reading is a fact of life. In my high school English class, freshman year we had to read the following books: Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Elie Wiesel's Night. This is a completely white, upper class, western-European descendant demographic. In the deep south of the US.

We got pissed because what a 14yo of the demographic I described takes away from those books is that if you are a man, your a worthless savage, if your a wealthy southerner you are a merciless slaver at heart, and if you are American, it is really your fault that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust.  Ever since that time, I haven't been a fan of ordering the reading of books as topical as those, or as SST. It seems too politically motivated.

This topic came up on the strategypage boards a few years ago.

     Strategypage Forum

Enjoy,

ZF-

Posted By Green Bloater on 04/24/2007 7:00 PM
If you think about the climate we live in currently here in the US then required reading of SST makes perfect sense to me. There were a lot of novels and short stories that I had to read in English class back in the day... I still am glad that is how I discovered authors such Edgar Allen Poe and Cicero.

As far as fighting in the MI goes everyone aboard the ship has a suit of power armor and has been trained thoroughly how to decimate the enemy.

- Greenie

I'd disagree with that. The book was ok, but the poltics weren't that special. Little difference between military requirement for being a citizen and a mandatory draft. The writing itself was...ok.

Having said that, reading tomato can labels would be better than the horror of Great Expectations. Set barfometer to STUN. :S

Or you could avoid taking it personally, or learn how to.

Did we do those things? No. Did somebody? Yes.

Is it possible for us as people to continue doing those things?

Yes.

(Am I doing any of them now? Only in my dreams, and only with
your corpses.)

Thats a little weird Malfred

Posted By Silverthorne on 04/24/2007 10:18 PM
Everyone but the Sailors? I'm pretty sure the squids weren't running around in uber power armor, but I haven't read the book in about four years so...

It isn't ironic in the context of the nation, it is ironic in the context of the book. Yes- required reading is a fact of life. In my high school English class, freshman year we had to read the following books: Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Elie Wiesel's Night. This is a completely white, upper class, western-European descendant demographic. In the deep south of the US.

We got pissed because what a 14yo of the demographic I described takes away from those books is that if you are a man, your a worthless savage, if your a wealthy southerner you are a merciless slaver at heart, and if you are American, it is really your fault that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust.  Ever since that time, I haven't been a fan of ordering the reading of books as topical as those, or as SST. It seems too politically motivated.

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the book "A Politically Incorrect Guide to English Literature."  It speaks exactly to your experience in English class.

I have a degree in English Literature, with a dual major in Secondary Education.  I didn't follow through with that career specifically because of the political agenda that (seemingly) every English department in High Schools across the nation seem to think it is their duty to impart.  What ever happened to teaching the literature and encouraging the kids to think for themselves?  I remember having this discussion with one of my co-operating teachers during student teaching.  They just couldn't understand (or at least admit) that the selection what texts to study was just as bad as telling students what to think; especially when the texts were more works of socio-political relevance than anything of lasting literary value.

Sal

Well, as much as I'd like to be Nancy Atwell...

Posted By Saldiven on 04/25/2007 11:23 AM

Posted By Silverthorne on 04/24/2007 10:18 PM
Whole lotta stuff

...What ever happened to teaching the literature and encouraging the kids to think for themselves?

Education and educators have always had a political agenda, and 'encouraging the kids to think for themselves' has rarely been part of it (and when that was part of the curriculum, 'thinking for themselves' was usually very tightly defined).

Education in this country is largely about the warehousing of children so their parents can work, and acculturating them to function in a now defunct industrial society.

On topic: my wife is a big fan of Heinlein, and mostly Stranger In A Strange Land. While it may not stand to the 'whiz-bang' credentials of books like Starship Troopers, it is this book, along with Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Herbert's Dune, Bradbury's various works and before them, Azimov's Foundation that really set the tone for 20th century science-fiction; that is, as a tool of countercultural literary experimentation.

Of course, you couldn't have them without Wells rebuking Victorian mores, but that's for another story.   

It's unfortunate that many, many people equate Science Fiction with Star Trek (technogibberish cult following) or Star Wars (special effects, blowing things up, neat-o pop culture references) or their ilk, rather than seeing the medium for what it is/could be--a way of talking about today's issues in a different context. Battlestar Galactica does a good--albeit hamfisted--job of this, and of course the biggest complaints about the show is that not enough things go 'boom' . I like things to go boom (or 'chop' or scream 'SPARTA!' or whatever) as much as the next guy, but let's face it, t's the intellectual equivalent of Hockey-haired trogs yelling out to Karen O or Cat Power, "Show us your T!TS!" at a concert.

Okay, rant done.   

Well, I try to sell Star Trek as political allegory to my friend, but
so far he hasn't bitten.

Actually the first Star Trek series had many episodes that were political allegories (sp?). The x-Men also followed along these lines back in the 80s. The nice thing about scifi is you can explore things that would not possible in a conventional setting since most people do not take this genre seriously.

- Greenie

Posted By Silverthorne on 04/24/2007 5:12 PM
Yeah um fellblade? Pretty much everyone counts 'being on a warship in combat' as fighting. Unlike say, the ground or air forces, everyone on a ship can be killed by a lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective) hit. And the cooks aren't making french fries while the missiles start piling in, they are manning machine gun pits, forming damage control parties, treating the wounded, etc. To say they don't fight is an insult to a great many Navy cooks who died in the line of duty.

Yes, I know.  My uncle was in the navy during 'Nam.  Several of my friends are ex-navy.  Several of my former students are currently enlisted in the navy.  My next-door neighbor served on a minesweeper in the Pacific in WWII. (I keep trying to get him to come to school & show my students what their tattoos will look like in forty or fifty years).

However, in the context of this discussion, I was trying to differentiate between a navy rating, in the novel, whose primary duty is 'cook', and will certainly have other duties during battle stations, and a cap trooper, in the novel,  whose primary duty is 'mobile infantry trooper/angel of death', with other duties as assigned.  Kind of the way Heinlein was satirizing the modern American army (or as he may have seen it, the bloated military-industrial complex), with its huge logistical tail presided over by remfs and hobbits.

And before anyone else gets their panties in a twist: yes, I know that the huge logistical tail is the main reason for our military's success. Or any military, for that matter.

Perhaps 'satire' is not the correct term, but Heinlein did spend a lot of ink on the point.

Yeah, sci-fi is subversive! Lots of the counterculture/anti-Vietnam-War crowd loved Heinlein for Stranger, but then hated his guts because he 'betrayed' them by writing Trooper. It all depends on whose ox is being gored.

There was a discussion somewhere on the disservice of lumping everything under the catch-all term 'Science Ficition', when it could be more accurately 'speculative fiction' and 'space opera'. Star Trek is mostly speculative fiction (once you develop matter transmission, how do you not use it to solve every problem that crops up?), while Star Wars is straight-up space opera.

Fellblade, I agee with you on Trek (though I really enjoyed some of TNG), but you have your chonology backwards. ST was published two years earlier than Stranger, though he actually started writing Stranger first.

It doesn't much matter what their political orientation- mental midgets are always confused by the idea that a writer can espouse ideas in print that are not necessarily his own beliefs.

Bloater, I'm glad you're discussing other stories, because every time you post something about ST it's both wrong and something you woudn't have written if you had read the article I linked to the first time.

The military does not = the MI. The only ships we really see in the book are MI transports, and even those have plenty of Navy crew who don't wear power armor or deal death face to face. Of course their jobs are no picnic either, and even the cooks still run the risk of death. Hence they are earning their vote just as much as the MI are.

Just put yourself in the shoes, I mean tire-tread sandals, of some poor flower child whose first exposure to Heinlein was this 'grokking' book all his hippy friends were talking about. Then imagine him maybe looking for something else by the same author, and finding a heavy fascist trip/discourse on civic virtue instead of another counterculture mindblower.

But yeah, chronology wrong. Me 'shamed.

Except the Navy, in both SST and the RW isn't a logistical command. A lot of the MI's attitudes toward the Navy and the Merchant Marines in the book is tongue in cheek, considering that Heinlein was a naval officer himself. And I don't see how your use of ambiguous and potentially offensive statements is somehow rectified by your associates Naval service. Just own it, and move on. Nobodies panties are twisted, you just called out on something by someone who has been in the navy long enough to know about the worst idea ever is pissing off a cook. I'm not mad, hell, I'm not even offended, but in the future, I would exercise more caution when your discussing something like that. The CS rating is notoriously belligerent.

 

Which version of Trek? The TOS where American ideals were espoused and Soviet ones denounced?

TNG/Voyager/Ds9/Enterprise one which were politically correct propaganda for socialism and communism or at worst far left agenda's? ( all resources owned by the government and doled out according to ability/need, lack of individuality, etc etc).

TNG started in the late 80s; communism wasn't dead yet. Indeed, it provided a basis for the Borg (yes, Iknow a lot of people would prefer if they were corporate evil). DS9 had some lovely capitalism/economy stuff (how does the economy change, in light of cheap/free matter replication?), as well as competing imperialistic interests.

And so Voyager was...what now?

Posted By malfred on 04/26/2007 8:27 AM
And so Voyager was...what now?

Bad until Jerry Ryan showed up?


And really, even then...

Wait, that was the same show?

Yup DS9 and Voyager are racist and sexist compared to the orginal series. In TOS and TNG White male captains get the big new ships. In DS9 the black captain gets a run down second hand station in the ghetto part of the galaxy, in Voyager the female captain gets a second rate ship and gets lost in the first episode implying women can't drive.

Women can drive? When did this happen?

He also gets the best war scenes in any sci-fi show ever.

Adama in BSG and Sheridan in B5 would dispute that. They would be right.

Posted By fellblade on 04/25/2007 4:36 PM

 Kind of the way Heinlein was satirizing the modern American army (or as he may have seen it, the bloated military-industrial complex), with its huge logistical tail presided over by remfs and hobbits.

I could have swore Heinlein spent an awful lot of text *female dog*ing out the overbloated military command (massively huge problem today) and completely unqualified personnal becoming officers cause they went to a school and have zero on the job experiance.

Irony is the there wasn't too much of a problem with the quote "military-industrial complex" until Eisenhower stated they're the enemy. After that the companies were forced to close or merge until the remainder indeed became the bloated "military-industrial complex" everyone is worry about.

>>Women can drive? When did this happen?

They can't in Saudi Arabia.

Posted By Mannahnin on 04/21/2007 11:14 AM

Go read the article I linked Bloatie. He's already answered this one too.

It's also shown in the book that guys who physically can't hack it but refuse to quit are given alternate jobs.  One guy shown winds up a cook on a troop transport.

Didn't it had couple of examples [in the book] of extremely disabled people able to find jobs in the service because they're willing to serve?

BSG doesn't have anything like the scale of some of the Dominion war. B5 was a neat show, but I didn't like their last-generation computer graphics so much.

MI who can't drop anymore because of injuries often end up as instructors (because if you're able-bodied, you're doing drops, not teaching classes).

Posted By Janthkin on 04/26/2007 3:04 PM

Didn't it had couple of examples [in the book] of extremely disabled people able to find jobs in the service because they're willing to serve?

MI who can't drop anymore because of injuries often end up as instructors (because if you're able-bodied, you're doing drops, not teaching classes).

I was talking about disabled civilians with no prior service.

Disabled is not a politically correct term anymore, but impaired is still fine in DC (Washington that is).

- Greenie

Posted By Rubberanvil on 04/26/2007 2:28 PM

Posted By Mannahnin on 04/21/2007 11:14 AM

Go read the article I linked Bloatie. He's already answered this one too.

It's also shown in the book that guys who physically can't hack it but refuse to quit are given alternate jobs.  One guy shown winds up a cook on a troop transport.

Didn't it had couple of examples [in the book] of extremely disabled people able to find jobs in the service because they're willing to serve?

The recruiter says they'll find a difficult and unpleasant job for anyone who wants to serve and is able to understand the service oath.  If you were blind and unable to walk, they might give you a job counting the hairs on caterpillars by touch, for example.

This is one of the big things that makes it so clearly not a fascist system.  The right to serve and earn your vote is guaranteed to every citizen capable of understanding the oath and going two years of tough service without quitting.  There's no political litmus test or party requirement.  Disagreement with the system is perfectly tolerated- Ted Hendricks, the guy who winds up getting a field court martial for hitting his drill instructor, was described as being a guy who talked about wanting to run for office when he got out, specifically because he was interested in changing the system and changing the way politics work.  He was a character who disagreed with the status quo but was granted the same right as anyone else to serve and earn his vote.  Another thing that doesn't happen in a fascist government.

With the exception of Mannahin...

Do any of you think before you post? Or read aloud to yourself what you just typed before you hit the "submit" button?

Bananas are yellow.

True. I see the word "fascist" tossed around so much, that I actually went to an encyclopedia and looked it up.

Ironically enough, when you read the actual history and meaning of the word, it is actually only the association with Nazi Germany in WWII that gives it the negative connotage, and ironically enough, Nazi Germany was ridiculously extreme.

Anyway, what I pretty much learned is that when the majority of people say "fascist," they are just showing that they don't know what the meaning of the word is.

If you read further (I'm fairly sure I tossed the wikipedia link in earlier), you'll discover that there IS no agreed-upon meaning of the word. At best, there are some generally agreed-upon attributes of a fascist system.

Regardless, it isn't necessary or useful to descend into the "I know what words mean, and the rest of you don't" debate. We were having a productive thread here; let's abstain from semi-flames and demi-trolls.

Posted By whitedragon on 04/27/2007 1:58 PM
With the exception of Manly hands....

Do any of you think? Or read yourself?

Fixed

(apologies for the butchering of Mannahin's handle...)

@Killkrazy: 'cept for the Bedouin. They even get to wear brightly coloured burkhas instead of the usual black or navy. (there, that proves I read this thread )

I can't say much about the minis game as every time the fellow at our club has run it, I have not been able to bother myself to play it. Some of the large bug models look very good, however, and the baseless stackable design for the Warriors is very clever.

When I saw the preview for the film with my little brother, our first thoughts were, "oh, a movie about cadians and tyranids. We've played that scenario before." My problem with the movie - which I suspect it came by honestly due to the source material - was that I couldn't give a rat's ass about the troopers. Perhaps I am biased due to my gaming preferences in 40k, but the whole thing sort of felt like a House of Wax remake where they don't kill off Paris Hilton. The plot obnoxiously ignores the audience's desire to see the bug-eyed Aryan wunderkid as portrayed by Caspar van Diem ignominously eviscerated by a mindless mass of chitin.

This was a similar problem I had with Heinlein's books - I've tried to read Stranger, Starship Troopers and The Puppet Masters; but was stopped each time by his feeble characterization; and my prior exposure to the concepts that must have been, prior to the book's publication, quite compelling. I'd rate him as "important but not particularly good." Frankly, I have use for cookie-cutter Ken and Barbies only when they are being shredded by inhuman horrors. IMHO the film's makers would have done well to take a page from the zombie film tradition and had the expectation of a substantial body count of bipedal meatbags eliminated in ever more spectacularly stomach-turning sequences. Again, perhaps I am biased - us Canadians are notorious for demanding sympathetic characters in our popular literature, Dick-and-Jane sentences had all ready been done earlier and better by Hemingway, and I would consider having my chest exploded by an extrastellar parasite a better way to go than cancer or household accident - but I've never been able to muster any enthusiasm for the whole SST IP since watching the first movie years ago, nor for many of Heinleins less-perverted works since trying hack my way through them. To be fair, I have also lost interest in scifi outside of a gaming environment for several years now.

Posted By wight_widow on 04/28/2007 11:42 AM
The plot obnoxiously ignores the audience's desire to see the bug-eyed Aryan wunderkid as portrayed by Caspar van Diem ignominously eviscerated by a mindless mass of chitin.

But that's the point.  The human characters are not meant to be sympathetic.  Verhoeven wants to give you a choice: do you root for the fascists or the bugs?

To be honest, I don't know why everyone loves Stranger in a Strange Land so much. Jubal Harshaw is awesome , but aside from that, I just didn't enjoy the book that much. Oh, and Mike's powers were pretty cool. But I'd take Starship Troopers or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in a heartbeat over Stranger.

I must have been in a strange place when I read Stranger in a Strange
Land. I could not "grok" it. Maybe I was put off by the cult stuff at the
end. Another novel about "a stranger in a strange land" is the Dispossessed
by Ursula LeGuin, and I had the same reaction to the ending of her book
as I did to Stranger, so I don't think it's the writing that brought me down
about the book necessarily. I just could not find myself sympathetic to
conclusions both authors draw for their protagonists.

Posted By whitedragon on 04/27/2007 1:58 PM
With the exception of Mannahin...

Do any of you think before you post? Or read aloud to yourself what you just typed before you hit the "submit" button?

I like to shred paper.

Posted By Dice Monkey on 04/26/2007 9:24 AM
Yup DS9 and Voyager are racist and sexist compared to the orginal series. In TOS and TNG White male captains get the big new ships. In DS9 the black captain gets a run down second hand station in the ghetto part of the galaxy, in Voyager the female captain gets a second rate ship and gets lost in the first episode implying women can't drive.

Woah, hold on there feller. I don't know about the driving part, but Voyager, a second rate ship? Sorry, no real Trek fan will agree to that! Sure, it ain't a Galaxy-class ship, but it is a terrific ship technologically..

Posted By John on 04/30/2007 9:22 AM

Posted By Dice Monkey on 04/26/2007 9:24 AM
Yup DS9 and Voyager are racist and sexist compared to the orginal series. In TOS and TNG White male captains get the big new ships. In DS9 the black captain gets a run down second hand station in the ghetto part of the galaxy, in Voyager the female captain gets a second rate ship and gets lost in the first episode implying women can't drive.

Woah, hold on there feller. I don't know about the driving part, but Voyager, a second rate ship? Sorry, no real Trek fan will agree to that! Sure, it ain't a Galaxy-class ship, but it is a terrific ship technologically..

The Defiant was the first ship of her type and class.  "She's overpowered and overgunned. But she has teeth and i intend to use her."

Janeway's ship was an advanced type itself.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Intrepid_class

I've read Starship Troopers, Stranger, and the Number of the Beast. I came away with a few conclusions and I think I'll list them in the order that I came to them by.

1. Robert Heinlein really really liked to write about sex. Specifically, free sex. Admittedly, I haven't read all or even most of his work but I had a hard time finishing Stranger and Number because twice a chapter someone was getting their winky whacked. I understand that he was espousing or at least writing about free love, but come on - it seemed a blatant attempt at selling more books to the fan persons.

2, I was required to write a paper on Heinlein and wanted to write it on Troopers... but my teacher point-blank refused to let me write it on what he thought was trash, instead, I practically told me to write it on Stranger, which shows that even a guy who holds a ph.d in literature sometimes can't differentiate between a protagonist and the author espousing a philosophy.

3. Heinlein suffered from what I call Platoism -- the utter inability of his viewpoint to be challenged in any meaningful way. As Plato wrote the supposed conversations of Socrates where the greatest men in the land were reduced to agreeing dumbly with everything Socrates said, so to did anyone who listened to Dubois or Mike or that dude from Number of the Beast. There was no angst, no doubt, just a blind certainty that their way was the ONLY right way. Reminds me of Gee Dub.

4. Even after everyone on campus told me to read Stranger, I still like Troopers more which is why I'm writing this at Dakka instead of www.iread"seriousliterature"andhaveagiant poleupmyass.com

From the samples you've read, I can understand your conclusions. Number of the Beast, in particular, is a very strange book - while Heinlein dabbled with this idea of "world as myth" elsewhere, he rather clobbers you over the head with it there. And yes, many of his characters in there were...friendly. At the least, he wasn't inhibited in his writing by the societal rules he gew up with; good for him. He may have overreacted a bit in his writing (though not his personal life, from all accounts).

Lots of English professors don't like Heinlein; I had a discussion with one once, over his categorization of Heinlein as "hard" SF (e.g., focused on the gadgets/technology, rather than the characters), and I didn't especially agree.

Your third conclusion, while I understand where you got it, I don't agree with. Some of Heinlein's characters are more easily led than others, granted. Others? Less so.

Completely agree. My Dad had talked up SiaSL so much before I read it. The cult stuff at the end really ruined an otherwise interesting idea. Once I finished it I just couldn't understand how he could call it his favorite sci-fi book. It must be a hippie thing.


All his later stuff had -friendly- characters. It's too bad too, cause there's some great characters and ideas in those books that are kinda ruined by what I figured was classid dirty old man syndrome. Still, Lazarus Long is still one of my alltime favorite characters.

One thing that's always puzzled me about Heinlen is he's seemingly tied with the counter culture of the 60's but he's also a noted conservative (eg. I recall he was in a spirited debate with Clarke over the neccesity of Reagan's Star Wars initiative, so much so that they never spoke again.) That's why I can't buy into the post above, concerning him wanting to please his hippie fans.

by fellblade:

"Just put yourself in the shoes, I mean tire-tread sandals, of some poor flower child whose first exposure to Heinlein was this 'grokking' book all his hippy friends were talking about. Then imagine him maybe looking for something else by the same author, and finding a heavy fascist trip/discourse on civic virtue instead of another counterculture mindblower."

If you are referring to me or someone like me then you certainly don't know me or what I am about. I fell over laughing after reading that.

- Greenie

Don't know you at all, wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. Glad it made you laugh.

Imagine someone forming their opinion of Heinlien based on 'Stranger'.  Then imagine that person reading 'Tunnel in the Sky'.  I will say, I enjoyed 'Tunnel' more than 'Lord of the Flies', but still....

Posted By Janthkin on 04/26/2007 8:12 AM
TNG started in the late 80s; communism wasn't dead yet. Indeed, it provided a basis for the Borg (yes, Iknow a lot of people would prefer if they were corporate evil). DS9 had some lovely capitalism/economy stuff (how does the economy change, in light of cheap/free matter replication?), as well as competing imperialistic interests.

The Borg were a complete rip off of Saberhagen's Berserkers, which were as much a representation of the fears of communism as a fear of the dehumanization of technology.

 

I had to edit that. Grrr to posting so late at night.

I had a feeling that I kind picked up the wrong books. Time enough for Love sounds intriguing as I haven't read any of the Lazarus Long books yet.

By the way, has anyone compiled a Dakka Must Read List? I've read Herbert and some Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Haldeman, Asimov, and a few of the other "classics" of hard SF but I was wondering if anyone had put together the list.

"The Borg were a complete rip off of Saberhagen's Berserkers, which were as much a representation of the fears of communism as a fear of the dehumanization of communism."

That is one reason why the character 7 of 9 from the Voyager series was so interesting... plus that tight hugging body suit.

- Greenie

Posted By Sgt_Scruffy on 05/01/2007 12:08 PM
I had a feeling that I kind picked up the wrong books. Time enough for Love sounds intriguing as I haven't read any of the Lazarus Long books yet.

By the way, has anyone compiled a Dakka Must Read List? I've read Herbert and some Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Haldeman, Asimov, and a few of the other "classics" of hard SF but I was wondering if anyone had put together the list.

There has been threads in the past cncerning books or literature for the genre as must read, but I dont think a compilation has been made.

Not to throw this thread on any more of a tangent than it already is, but I find Herbert to be a MUST read. As well as Dick. Both are good enough to be considered actual literature in the sense of recognized intrinsic artistic value . Lovecraft could be considered mandatory literature as well, but some liberal use of selective reading must be used to tie in parallels to the 40K universe, as his ideas are spread throught 40K and not in any one single race. (necrons, tyranids, chaos, even the imperial state at times.)

Don't forget Arthur C. Clarke either! Ray Bradbury too...

Why not just start a new thread?

It happens all the time. I don't want to go through that Survivor stuff
to get the essentials either. Heck, I'll start one.

You just had to get yourselves all in a freakin' row, didn't you?!
My head hurts now...

Posted By Sgt_Scruffy on 04/30/2007 12:37 PM
...or that dude from Number of the Beast.

You mean Bruce Dickinson?  Wait, wha?

No... his name was Zebadiah Carter and I thought him and most of the characters in the book were giant turds.

I hated Number of the Beast. I felt like I'd been hit in the head with a hammer by the end. I usually love Heinlein, too.

It's a messed up book, but I liked it anyway. But then, I rather like reading about uberpeople. The fact that I've loved the Burroughs Mars books and several of the other stories he name-checks since I was a kid just added to my enjoyment.

For other Heinlein recommendations, Time Enough for Love is excellent. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is arguably his best. Most of his early "juveniles" are outstanding. I'm a fan of the previously mentioned Tunnel in the Sky.

I loved Heinlein's teeny novels...I still re-read them today.

Podkayne of Mars
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel
Red Planet
Space Cadets (I think)

I still have bunches of them.

Agree completely-- Moon is probably my fav of Henlein's. Time Enough for Love is one of the few socalled later works that I'd recommend (not a fan of 666, Cat, Sail beyond the sunset and thelike, well atleast wouldn't recommend them highly).

Citizen of the Galaxy is a pretty good one too, of his earlier stuff. Loved the first part of it, is kinda ok toward the end.

*sniff*