What Is Geekier, in light of recent admissions Options

[Sir Psycho Sexy]

Like Patrick Stewart has said in many an interview, the obsessive trekkies are a small minority which give the rest of the fan base a bad image, its always the case. I like alot of sci-fi, I wouldn't go to any conventions, but I still consider myself a fan. There are also different qualities of sci-fi, star trek and stargate (of the SG1 variety) are in my opinion generally better thought out than things like andromida which just seems to be one HUGE disaster after another yet they still manage to run a large vessel with 6 people and repair it for the next episode...aaanyway, yeah, not all trekkies are obsessive, I'm definately not....I'm just up on my Star Trek trivia

[acid_rain_child]

Sorry to spam, but SPS, let's not get technical about sci fi being realistic. I mean, come on, Andromida (I'm ashamed to say I've watched an episode *spasm*) isn't any worse than Star Trek. And to be sure, we don't even know if it's realistic or not. I'm just sayin...

[Tigersong]

Sorry to spam, but SPS, let's not get technical about sci fi being realistic. I mean, come on, Andromida (I'm ashamed to say I've watched an episode *spasm*) isn't any worse than Star Trek. And to be sure, we don't even know if it's realistic or not. I'm just sayin...

Naw, Andromeda defies the conventions of acifi realism A LOT more than does Star Trek. Well, if you excuse the GLARING MISTAKE that was Voyager. Plus, the storylines tended to be somewhat interesting, which is more than I can say for most of what I've seen with Andromeda...

But then, I'm a bit of a Trekkie myself. More of a Warsie, really, as long as you ignore Episodes 1 and 2...

[Tigersong]

"Oh and I suppose Elven doesn't have that same use? I suppose Tolkien is still alive to translate all that stuff he wrote in elvish for us? I can't wait till he comes out with his next book! [/sarcasm]"

*blink* *confused* (It's the last sentence that confuses me, really)

Uh... 'cause Tolkien is dead? And therefore couldn't write any more books?

[Sir Psycho Sexy]

Sorry to spam, but SPS, let's not get technical about sci fi being realistic. I mean, come on, Andromida (I'm ashamed to say I've watched an episode *spasm*) isn't any worse than Star Trek. And to be sure, we don't even know if it's realistic or not. I'm just sayin...

Naw, Andromeda defies the conventions of acifi realism A LOT more than does Star Trek. Well, if you excuse the GLARING MISTAKE that was Voyager. Plus, the storylines tended to be somewhat interesting, which is more than I can say for most of what I've seen with Andromeda...

But then, I'm a bit of a Trekkie myself. More of a Warsie, really, as long as you ignore Episodes 1 and 2...

Thank you geoff, but I'm not talking about which is more realistic, I'm coming more from a production values angle. When you watch an episode of star trek, especially Enterprise, it seems a lot less plasticy, to me at least. I don't know what happened with Voyager, the thing that seems to be with the newer Star Trek franchises, they get more established, both DS9 and Voyager sucked to begin with....actually, Voyager mostly sucked, the last episode was pretty fun though The war in DS9 made bloody good watching though...all the expensive CG space battles, I liked it...but anyway yeah.....waffling again

[Ikemook]

"Uh... 'cause Tolkien is dead? And therefore couldn't write any more books?"

Yes, I understand the sarcasm itself. I just didn't see what that last sentence had to do with Usagi's point. The first sentence was a reply to my main idea. The second sentence played off that. The third just seemed to shift direction. Maybe it was the sudden shift from a pair of negative sarcastic comments to a positive one...

Or maybe I just overanalyzed the damn thing.

*sighs*

On SciFi,

Personally, there are only two above average Star Trek series. The Next Generation, which was great (particle-of-the-week aspect aside), and Enterprise, which borders on "eh", except for occasional brillaint moments.

The DS9 battles were very cool, but the series itself was poor. Voyager...was Voyager.

Has anyone noticed an annoying tendency for non-Star Trek (or at least, non-Roddenberry Star Trek) SciFi series to just get stranger, and stranger, and stranger, ultimately sacrificing their better aspects for plain weirdness, and completely destroying the suspension of belief?

This specifically applies to those series that use humans predominantly with aliens, or at least a different variety of humans. Stargate SG1 is a great example. The first few seasons of this show were just incredible. But, starting around the time the US mysteriously built a giant spaceship to travel the stars with, the series just became too unrealistic to bear.

The cast is still good. It's just that the story, and some of the larger events, are bordering on silly. I mean, how did the US get the funding to build a spaceship? Or the friggin' knowledge? From what I understand, there was little alien help, so we somehow made leaps and bounds in technology (or at least, understanding alien technology) to not only build our on spaceship, but build it on another planet. And in complete secrecy. Without anyone noticing what must have been a rather massive money drain. It just seems too implausible, even for Stargate. And this is just the beginning. The show just kept getting odder and odder.

Is anyone else seeing this? Or am I just crazy? *_*

Maybe a better way to describe this effect is a gradual decline towards "epicness." SciFi series just keep wanting to get grander and grander, constantly raise the stakes some, and so end up bringing in all these crazy ideas that they just don't need.

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

On another note, if you all have the chance, pick up a copy of Firefly. It's an excellent SciFi series; in my opinion, it's the best there is. Granted, it's only 14 episodes long (Fox cancelled the show very early on), but given the time it would have definitely become a great.

David

[Tigersong]

"Uh... 'cause Tolkien is dead? And therefore couldn't write any more books?"

Yes, I understand the sarcasm itself. I just didn't see what that last sentence had to do with Usagi's point. The first sentence was a reply to my main idea. The second sentence played off that. The third just seemed to shift direction. Maybe it was the sudden shift from a pair of negative sarcastic comments to a positive one...

All he was saying was that Tolkien was dead, wrote a lot of stuff in Elven, and if we don't understand elven, we can't read those books. Therefore, it's just as useful as Latin, in that regard.

Plus, it's COOL to know artificial languages. Cool in the Geeky Way.

Maybe a better way to describe this effect is a gradual decline towards "epicness." SciFi series just keep wanting to get grander and grander, constantly raise the stakes some, and so end up bringing in all these crazy ideas that they just don't need.

Meh. They're all playing off the Space Opera genre. The more fantastic, the more weird, the more operatic, supposedly, the more people you can quickly hook in. Of course, it defeats the thinking audience.

Personally, some of my favourite sci-fi moments have come from Babylon 5 (if you ignore some of the bad acting, the writing for that show was amazing) and Farscape (which was like... scifi on drugs, at some points. )

On another note, if you all have the chance, pick up a copy of Firefly. It's an excellent SciFi series; in my opinion, it's the best there is. Granted, it's only 14 episodes long (Fox cancelled the show very early on), but given the time it would have definitely become a great.

Joss Whedon is a genius, Fox is an idiot.

[Ikemook]

"Personally, some of my favourite sci-fi moments have come from Babylon 5 (if you ignore some of the bad acting, the writing for that show was amazing) and Farscape (which was like... scifi on drugs, at some points. )"

Sadly, I lack cable, and so haven't seen much of those two shows.

"Joss Whedon is a genius, Fox is an idiot."

No disagreement here.

David

[{Gothic Angel}]

"Also, I believe that D&D has it's own variant of elvish, so knowing elvish doesn't necessarilly correspond to being a gamer geek for those of you who judge them, even though Gamer Geeks > all > elbow > people who make fun of gamers. "

Oh, for future reference (though I'm sure you're all aware of this already):

When you can speak Elvish and your DM can't, it's not a good idea to say your spells in Elvish when you cast them ^_~ Had someone almost try this once, not out of malice, but because she thought it'd be cool. And perhaps normally it would have been, if I had, ya know, been able to understand her.

On that note, I wasn't aware there was an actual D&D variant of Elvish. At least, one written out in full.

David

I love gamers

My DM is younger and smaller than me and also my best mate so i can pretty much get away with things like that.

[CommieBastard]

My DM is younger and smaller than me and also my best mate so i can pretty much get away with things like that.

DMs can get away with anything Other gamers pissing you off? "Rocks fall, everyone dies." Problem solved!

[DarkInferno]

sci-fi on drugs++ </spam>

[mooooooooooopo]

I always manage to either piss off the DM or get the other gamers to notice things that are gonna really piss me off. A prime example is someone reminding everyone that the lift door had been blown open, cue me falling down a lift shaft and not actually dying, just being paralysed. My mate had a fun situation involving someone reminding the DM that vampires falling out of trees would be really lucky to avoid being staked. Somehow he survived all the way down the tree then tripped and landed on a branch or something...doh!

[{Gothic Angel}]

DMs can get away with anything Other gamers pissing you off? "Rocks fall, everyone dies." Problem solved!

Exactly

And yeah, Firefly is pretty good (from the one episode I've seen lol)

[Galder Weatherwa...]

Hang on, girls play pen and paper RPGs? Why didn't anyone tell me, and me flaccid all night!

[Mr Fuzzy]

They have been known to. Unfortunately in my experience they tend to be:

1) Olympic gold mentalists,

2) Not at all interested in me,

3) Most commonly, a combination of the previous options.

Arse stoats, there is just no hope!

[spiffilicious05]

I think that being able to speak elven would be cool, Klingon on the other hand just sounds too choppy and it's all about death and gore and other wierd stuff.

Plus elven just sounds cool.

[Dreams On Hiatus]

I never even knew about Klingon before this thread. And the word just looks geeky, so I guess I'll have to say that Klingon is geekier than Elven. Besides, I'm teaching myself to write and speak Elven.

[{Gothic Angel}]

Oi! Many girls including me play D&D. And we like guys who also play it, or are some sort of gamer anyway. I met one of my ex's through FRP He was such a geek.

[jicama]

where do i start?

which is more geeky?

look. they're both intricate languages that were made up by clever people to add spice to a particular sci-fi/fantasy universe. people thought they were cool and began learning them. they are basically the same in origin, so neither is really geekier than the other.

Trekkies frighten me.

*sigh*. it's not trekkies that frighten you, it's trekkie nerds. every fan group has its share of socially inept rabid fans. since star trek has been around for so long, it has gathered many of these. lotr has them too, they just aren't as visible because until recently they haven't had the commercial backing for conventions or a lot of merchandise.

and yes, i know a bit of klingon and my knowledge of star trek trivia is extensive, but i don't see how that's any more frightening than the people who memorize baseball
stats or who know a lot about anything that they find personally interesting. i'm a geek and proud of it!

I just don't understand why *-*

because it's fun! because it gives me a feeling of geek pride! because it gives me a mark of respect amoung other trekkies/lotr fans! because it makes watching the show/reading the books even more interesting!

voyager, stargate, enterprise, blah blah blah

voyager sucked, enterprise is good except for the excessive fan service, the dominion war was a grOk'n story arc, tng and tos are comfort food for the brain, never got into stargate, couldn't stand the acting on babylon long enough to notice the writing, farscape was refreshingly realistic (from a psychological standpoint), and yes, joss whedon is a genius.

Hang on, girls play pen and paper RPGs?

yes. yes they do. i'm a girl and i'm rather fond of ad&d. also, it was my mom that taught my brother and i how to roll a character. she was also the oe that taught us that 50 feet of rope, a collapsible stick and a flint box are always handy things to have in your pack. ...and that blowing on a horn that you find in a dungeon isn't a good idea, but that's another story.

Klingon on the other hand just sounds too choppy and it's all about death and gore and other weird stuff.

me, i like a good guttural language! great for cussing and giving orders in! and yes, there's a lot about blood and guts and such, but that's not the whole of it. klingons are (or would be if we lived in the star trek universe ) a very passionate people. their songs are just as often about love, honour, and spirituality as they are about war and such.

but yes, elvish sounds prettier.

[Greeneyes]

*sigh*. it's not trekkies that frighten you, it's trekkie nerds.

I always thought of trekkies as the obsessive ones, and regular fans as just Star Trek fans. Otherwise i'd have to think of everyone who likes Lord of the Rings as a ringie. I don't want to be a ringie.

[gothictheysay]

this is sort of off topic, but

I went to Middle Earth...

Damn I want that T-shirt

I suppose there's a difference between trekkies (normal obsessives) and trekkie nerds (the ones who start with the numbers like "The ship would go exactly this fast in Earth's atmosphere" or something) but I don't think I've seen a full episode of Star Trek

[Sir Psycho Sexy]

Klingon on the other hand just sounds too choppy and it's all about death and gore and other weird stuff.

me, i like a good guttural language! great for cussing and giving orders in! and yes, there's a lot about blood and guts and such, but that's not the whole of it. klingons are (or would be if we lived in the star trek universe ) a very passionate people. their songs are just as often about love, honour, and spirituality as they are about war and such.

i have to say, klingons aren't all about war and such, they have opera as well as folk song, their culture is based deeply in religion, ritual and so on so nuts to you! though the most polite greeting in klingon roughly translates to "what do you want?"

and yes, i do like klingons, they rock

[CommieBastard]

yes. yes they do. i'm a girl and i'm rather fond of ad&d. also, it was my mom that taught my brother and i how to roll a character. she was also the oe that taught us that 50 feet of rope, a collapsible stick and a flint box are always handy things to have in your pack. ...and that blowing on a horn that you find in a dungeon isn't a good idea, but that's another story.

Oh, dear. Was it the one that summons chaotic evil warriors? I wish people wouldn't just piss around with things they find in dungeons, they keep getting killed. They shouldn't look into mirrors, either. Or read scrolls that suspicious NPCs give them that just might, just might have a Symbol of Death on them.

Me? A sadistic Dungeon Master? Nooo...

[Tigersong]

Oh, dear. Was it the one that summons chaotic evil warriors? I wish people wouldn't just piss around with things they find in dungeons, they keep getting killed. They shouldn't look into mirrors, either. Or read scrolls that suspicious NPCs give them that just might, just might have a Symbol of Death on them.

Me? A sadistic Dungeon Master? Nooo...

"You should know better than to pick up a duck in a dungeon."
- from Munchkin, a card game that parodies D&D and other tabletops, when you pick up the card entitled "Duck of Doom."

</spam>

[CommieBastard]

Hehehe...Randy Milholland illustrating one of the more disturbing Munchkin cards, the Redneck Tree.