FWS Top 10: The Critical Elements of Good Military Sci-Fi

FWS spends time research what the other media outlets are saying about military sci-fi, and at times, FWS response with our own blogpost about the same subject raised. That is the origin of this blogpost. A few weeks ago, a Facebook page I follow, posted an link to an author, Laura E. Reeve, who explained the seven crucial elements of military science fiction. While I agreed with some of her points, but I also disagreed. So, here is FWS Top 10 list of the critical elements of "good" military science fiction. Enjoy!

1. An Convincing Enemy

In the real-world, wars and conflicts are fought between groups that have their own philosophies, society, culture, strategies, and point-of-view on the conflict. Rarely, are the parties involved in armed conflict irregular and loosely aligned..even street gangs, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS have their own interior culture and strategies. However, the same cannot be said of the "enemies" seen in science fiction. At times, they are paper-thin antagonists and merely targets for our heroes to shoot at. Creators will forge their protagonist and their side of the conflict in lavish loving detail, but nearly ignore the antagonist side of the conflict. In works like Enemy Mind, Footfall, ROBOTECH, HALO, Killzone, and even Star Trek we see well-developed antagonist to an conflict with the audience seeing more as a fully formed part of the work's interior universe. This only adds layers to your military sci-fi, making it more memorable and enduring.

However, we have works like Destiny, GI Joe, Armor, Starship Troopers, Edge of Tomorrow, and Oblivion; where we see that the story is mostly centered around the protagonist(s) and their side of the conflict. While Destiny answered some of the questions over the Darkness, the Fallen, the Vex, the Hive, and the space turtle Cabal via Gilmore Cards, they lack any real substance in the actual game besides being targets. And this lack of development leads to a less convincing setting for our military sci-fi universe and for the audience.
There are times, when the story is more about the "good" guys of the story than the enemy, like my book Endangered Species, but I still developed the enemy enough via my characters experiences with them, like the crew of the Nostromo in ALIEN. There has to be a careful balancing act in those kinds of stories. This can also be applied to stories and settings where the enemy is largely unknown for plot and dramatic purposes, like Space: Above and Beyond, ALIENS, and Predator. These types of stories allow the audience a sense of good mystery and wonder about the antagonists, allowing for the work to endure in the minds of the audience. This is the way I felt about the Xenomorphs, the Yautja (Predators), the Skinnies from SST, and the Chigs; I wanted to know more about them and that was compelling, making these enemies more convincing to the fictional universe. Also, an convincing enemy can say more about your protagonist and our fictional universe than you original thought.

2. "We Band of Brothers"
Since the dawn of the human race on this planet, we have worked together in nearly all affairs of human endeavors, and no more is that true than in war. Military organizations are completely dependent and constructed around teamwork to accomplish goals, operate machines, and complete missions. This means that soldiers fight together as a band of brothers and sisters, no one fights alone. Even Master Chief had Cortana and Jack Bauer had Chloe O'Brian. Good military sci-fi should incorporate this "band of warfighters" mentality and tactic into the DNA of the military units seen. Only during times of extreme combat or accident should soldiers be depicted alone in sci-fi, as we saw with the Master Chief on Installation 04 in HALO: Combat Evolved....but even then, he had Cortana in his local network. In some sci-fi works, the unit mentality is a key element in the story.

As we saw in Space: Above and Beyond with the USMC 58th squad, HALO: Reach had Noble Team, Commander Shepard had her band of badass fighters from around the galaxy, and even Juan Rico was part of "Rassczak's Roughnecks" and "Willie's Wildcats" in the SST novel. These military units allow the audience to attach to various characters and allow the creator(s) to have a wider net to cast stories and POVs with. This applies more in films, books, and TV series than in military sci-fi video games. Given the conditions and settings of video games, you can wage an entire war by yourself as I am doing with Destiny and most of the HALO games. This can even apply if we are talking about more cryborgs and military robots. We have seen Terminators, Cybermen, Daleks, the Borg, and Cylons work together to accomplish their goals and exterminate the meatbags. Even when these warmachines are seemingly operating on their own, they are depend on other machines and networks to help them in the fight.

3. The Iconic Piece of Military Technology

Technology is such a critical element of war, and every war has iconic pieces of technology that represent it like the Mark IV tank of World War One, the Atomic Bombs from World War II, the Huey helicopter of Vietnam, and the Colt M4a1 carbine of the War on Terror....and military science fiction is no different. Every good and even bad military science fiction work has them: the iconic pieces of military technology that becomes a karger symbol of the work to the general public. Take the powered armor from Starship Troopers, the Valkyrie transformable airplane mecha from Macross and ROBOTECH, the mecha from Battletech, the M41a1 Pulse Rifle from ALIENS, the Yamato from Space Cruiser Yamato, the phasers from Star Trek, the X-Wing/TIE Fighters from Star Wars, and the cybernetic bodies of Ghost in the Shell. All of these are iconic technological elements to the story and serve as a centerpiece of the fictional universe and their level of technology. This allows for an easily accessible element of an military sci-fi work that could attract people to seek it out. After all, what would Battletech or ROBOTECH be without their mecha?

4. Setting the Table with Proper World Building

As a social studies teacher, I teach the next generation about war, armies, governments, and the events that lead to the crash of arms and the spilling of blood. I have to set the stage for them, and any creator has to set the stage for their audience. As with any sci-fi work, one of the most critical elements is setting the stage via proper and thoughtful world building. Constructing that fictional universe for all of the characters, places, and events, to work within is one of the most critical jobs of the creator. What makes military science fiction unique (and complex) in that world building task is also designing a futuristic military organization and astro-political situation (that includes all of the elements listed here in this blogpost) for the space marines, space fleets, enemies, and the empires to occupy and fight in. This is largest and most critical element of good military sci-fi on this list, and as my grandmother told me: "if you set a proper table, the evening can go forth properly".

5. Life in the (Future) Military

Life in any military organization is very different than civilian life, and this will always be. Good military science fiction will show the hallmarks of military service: jargon, acronyms, training, the endless chains of command, talking shit about civilians, other military branches, and the government, cleaning your weapon, boredom, and the brotherhood/sisterhood bonds of soldiers. Of course, future technology, service on other worlds, future culture, and faster-than-travel will all impact the military culture you create and depict, but some elements of an soldier's' life have and always will exist...it is up to the creator to balance this equation.

6. The Careful Evolution of the Soldier: Balancing the Future and the Past

The life of a soldier is ever evolving via the influences of war, society, technology, and environment. The duty of the military sci-fi creator is to carefully evolve their warfighter of the future, balancing that future with the past to form something realistic and compelling. Military science fiction creators must, of course, evolve the battlefield and the technology, but keep the long-held universal traditions of all soldiers throughout time in mind. Move too far, and your soldiers and space marines are almost too aliens compared to the soldiers of today, and that can completely break any sense of realism for the audience. Move too little, and it looks like you lack any imagination or guts. The key word is balance to make your future soldiers have one boot in the traditions and mud of infantrymen that came before them and one boot in the stars.

7. Tactics and Strategy

Definition time: Military tactics is the art and science of organizing the elements involved in combat operations and non-combat operations on a macro level. The term can also be applied to the micro level of techniques used by soldiers in combat operations like shooting, moving, and positioning. Military strategy is the central ideas, philosophy, and concepts of any military organization applied to the overall war effort and goals. Or as Carl Von Clausewitz defined it "the employment of battles to gain the end of war". In any military sci-fi worth its salt, there needs to be tactics and strategy at least mentioned, if not mapped out. I enjoy writing briefing scenes and mapping out the tactics and strategies of my fictional warfighters quite a bit and I include them whenever proper to the text. This not only gives your audience a mental map to follow prior to the combat scenes, but a chance to flex your military creativity...even if the plan goes to shit the moment the shooting starts. It is also important to factor in how your future technology will affect the tactics and strategy of these future conflicts.

8. Realism

When we discuss the term "realism" in science fiction, we have to talk about realism in context. The vast majority of science fiction has elements of realism coupled with healthy doses of pure scientific fantasy. When it comes to realism in good military sci-fi, it is often expressed in certain ways, mostly dealing with the consequences of combat, loss, and emotions, despite the FTL drives, laser guns, and powered armor being alongside these realistic elements of war and combat.

Realism must be balanced, but without the element of realism, your military sci-fi can be too cartoony and too much like playing DOOM or Call of Duty. This is not just applied to your space marines, but also to the world they live in and the people they interact with; especially their families back home. Also, it is important to remember that if a character is too "god mode" for their own good, the lack of realism will lead to audience boredom and disconnection. This is why Spock dying in Star Trek II: TWOK was such a shocker and Game of Thrones really rejects the idea that core characters cannot die...all adding nice element of realism and the cost of war. There was even that scene in Star Wars: ROTJ during the battle of the shield generator when the one Ewok turns to wake up the other Ewok...touching. Remember, everyone is a Red Shirt in war. On of the best quotes I've ever read about war and its effect on soldiers was from Jose Narosky: "In war, there are no unwounded soldiers".

9. Humor

For those of us that work in stressful jobs and situations, humor is a key element to surviving and returning to work another day. For the last 14 years, I have worked in an Level-II Trauma ICU, and I have seen all manner of human suffering and injury. Humor (and coffee) is an important part of making it through the day and dealing with the horrors we see everyday on the floor. The same is very true of the military. Many of the people I've met the in military are funny fucking people with a great sense of dark twisted humor that often only other military members can fully appreciate. Take the guys at Article 15 clothing, Black Rifle Coffee, and Ranger Up! clothing; their Youtube videos are some of the funniest shit I've ever seen and their new movie: Range 15, is more of same: dark twisted military humor at its best. Even M*A*S*H (movie and TV series) are laced with humor in the middle of a shitty mess of a war. The only war movie my World War II/Korean War veteran Grandfather, Colonel Bregnard, saw and laughed through was the original M*A*S*H film. As Maximus said in The Gladiator: "Death smiles at at us all. All that man can do is smile back", If you are writing military sci-fi, don't make your badass space marines neanderthal barbarians with no sense of humor...it simply is not the truth...hell, even the Master Chief had a sense of humor.

10. Combat

I hate to say this because it is not an informed opinion, but an honest one: Human beings like to see combat in our movies, video games, and books that deal with military matters and topics. This even applies with war stories set in outer space. Nothing is worse than when you crack open an MSF novel and it lacks combat of any kind. Once again, I've never been into combat (besides teaching in an public high school and paintball), and some combat veterans have discussed how combat in media is only really enjoyed by those that have never been in the shit.

War is hell, and the actual specter of combat is a terrifying experience that can alter the mind and soul of the soldier forever. But, we humans seem to crave the opportunity of combat, and this has fueled thousands of years of war stories across all media forms and likely always will. From Homer to Blackhawk Down, this is one of those enduring elements of human storytelling. This tradition has shaped the need for any "good" military sci-fi to have some sort of combat scene within in it to be fully embraced by the audience and become an memorable work.
Next Time on FWS...

For over an hundred years, there has been the idea that one day, robots will be used in war. These computerized metal warriors with either fully replace flesh-and-blood soldiers or augment them on and off the battlefield. In the next blogpost for FWS, we will be diving into the massive topic of robotic soldiers. It is likely that this one will take some time, so there could be a delay. Until next time...