To Space Opera or to Not Space Opera, That is the Question.

[Grav_Moped]

 

[Spinward Flow]

Pikers ...

Accept no substitutes when it comes to REAL SPACE OPERA ...

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Baroun Tardis]

Space Rock Opera:

My wife won't let me play Queen/Flash any more since she noticed that I can filk it to use my name instead.

(sigh)

I need someone that can really sing to record it that way for me, just to spring it on her.

 

[aramis]

Found an interesting description of the Genre of Space Opera

Space opera, oh where can we go with space opera? And what is it? It’s science fiction where the science takes a back seat to the fiction. It’s arguably fantasy but in space. It has science as gadgets and wonders but not equations. It’s aliens and laser swords and hyperdrives and blasters. You know it already because there are a thousand movies and a million books.

I've found that Brad Murray, the author, and I have similar senses of genre...

He goes on, delineating for EF,

This is not based on any one of those but rather its a synthesis of the ones that have affected me the most.

The universe of the Elysium Flare is an internally consistent world, but like most of the inhabitants of the real world, our characters won’t necessarily strive to understand and extrapolate from the physics of the universe. They have bigger fish to fry. They are absorbed with the politics and the battles and the terrors and the tragedies of their universe and will take the physics at face value. The cosmos is what it is, and when it seems to make no sense we will first assume that there is a sense and we don’t understand it yet, rather than try to interpret it as though it was the real world misbehaving.

I posit this approach is healthy as fiction.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Condottiere]

I haven't watched this season, but this popped up on recommended.

 

[bookwyrm]

You Tube has versions of this song with English lyrics for those interested.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Ok, I now have a bit of background fluff for my OTU-ish ATU: V-Pop -- Vargr pop/rock that's picked up a secondary demographic among the teens of the Marches.

 

[whartung]

Star Wars have systems I like better for medium to super soft Space Opera, and Star Wars is adjacent to Spelljammer, IMO, rather than to Trek or Alien.

So, I haven't read any of the SW stuff. I don't read the books (I've read Star Wars and Splinter in the Minds Eye, but that was, what, '78?).

How are the systems handled in the SW games? Do they even attempt to explain anything, or just take it as a given like we accept an internal combustion engine? "Give it gas, and it works".

I honestly don't try to second guess it, I just watch the movies and shows. But curious if someone has tried.

 

[Condottiere]

Space opera should be popular for Aslan males.

I'm guessing telenovelas for their female counterparts.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I'm guessing garment ripper telenovelas for their female counterparts.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Condottiere]

Let's not forget the original classic.

 

[Quint]

So, I haven't read any of the SW stuff. I don't read the books (I've read Star Wars and Splinter in the Minds Eye, but that was, what, '78?).

How are the systems handled in the SW games? Do they even attempt to explain anything, or just take it as a given like we accept an internal combustion engine? "Give it gas, and it works".

I honestly don't try to second guess it, I just watch the movies and shows. But curious if someone has tried.

Just wrapping up a very short 'campaign' using the old WEG d6 system, there is no explanation at all. Kind of refreshing actually.

D.

 

[aramis]

So, I haven't read any of the SW stuff. I don't read the books (I've read Star Wars and Splinter in the Minds Eye, but that was, what, '78?).

How are the systems handled in the SW games? Do they even attempt to explain anything, or just take it as a given like we accept an internal combustion engine? "Give it gas, and it works".

I honestly don't try to second guess it, I just watch the movies and shows. But curious if someone has tried.

Varies by edition...
WEG 1E was actually rather prone to limited explanation - Not to the physics level, but definitely to which McGuffin does what.
WEG 2E was more socially focused, and literally created the core of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (SWEU).
WOTC 1E and 2E were coming into a strong SWEU, and needed not explain the tech, and wasn't given that much room to do so anyway, as they were dealing with the now established literary SWEU, and a number of good games. The support books from 3pp for the SWEU made ones for the RPG counterproductive.
WotC's 3rd ed, Star Wars Saga Edition (SWSE) very much was showing the social structures and cultures better than their prior, and to every bit as good a set of info as WEG 2E...
FFG SW is sold in 4 lines, 3 having core books.

• Edge of the Empire (White with brown logos) is mostly crooks and tramp merchants. Characters like -pre-rebel alliance soundrels like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, bounty hunters, colonists, tramp freighters...
• Age of Rebellion (Red with White) is focused upon in-service rebel military; off-label use for Imperials is a known thing.
• Force & Destiny (Black with Gold): focuses on playing jedi, but also covers sith.
• Universal: (Black with Blue and White) - some of these provide a lot of background detail. Some bring forward little known bits of the SWEU (such as that Darth Maul survived Ep I... and became a mobster.)

The universals explain significant social structures, but not so much the physics-tropes of the setting's tech.

 

[willtron3030]

I haven't watched this season, but this popped up on recommended.

Story is, the producers legitimately tried to come up with some proxy for "Klingon Opera", but everything fell flat. So they pushed through in the opposite direction with the idea, "what would be the most humiliating to a Klingon's sense of honor?"

I was at a watch party, and those of use who were already expecting an SF take on Once More With Feeling" loved it. For the others, the eyerolls could be heard next door.

 

[Spinward Flow]

For the others, the eyerolls could be heard next door.

There is a cinematic tradition of lauding "so bad it's good!"

Imagine intentionally aiming to achieve that outcome and instead landing on "so bad it's game over for good!"

 

[whartung]

WEG 2E was more socially focused, and literally created the core of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (SWEU).

Again, I'm not that well versed in SW lore. So, did Lucasfilm give WEG the, well, "power" to develop SWEU, and 2E became the official core of SW? I understand that for 7, 8, and 9, the writers were not obliged to hold to the SWEU. I don't know about Mandalorian and the other projects.

But, I guess many of the books were meant to hold WEG 2E as canon and work for there? (I know we're getting a bit afield in the topic here...)

 

[aramis]

Again, I'm not that well versed in SW lore. So, did Lucasfilm give WEG the, well, "power" to develop SWEU, and 2E became the official core of SW? I understand that for 7, 8, and 9, the writers were not obliged to hold to the SWEU. I don't know about Mandalorian and the other projects.

But, I guess many of the books were meant to hold WEG 2E as canon and work for there? (I know we're getting a bit afield in the topic here...)

Not just the power, but it actively referred novel authors to WEG's books as the Setting Bible... but LFL still had an approval and veto process.
90% of the setting was created by WEG for the RPG; even LFL borrows from WEG in the prequels - albeit overriding a few other bits. Many bits of WEG lore got pulled in via the cartoons Clone Wars, The Clone Wars, and Rebels.

Only a few of the SWEU materials got borrowed back into the RPG... But the ones that did were on Lucas' '97 "canon list" on the LFL website. That list included Truce at Bakura, Courtship of Princess Leia, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command. (Those last three are also called the Thrawn Trilogy.) At that time, LFL was trying to secure funding for sequels, and not getting it. THe tentative plan, leaked by Mark Hamill, was to do the Thrawn Trilogy. But, as the 90's progressed, all the mains were too old for the Thrawn trilogy. And Fischer was in too unreliable at the time. Plus, Ford was busy as hell.

So, it wasn't pure WEG, but it was close.

Note that Disney's first public act on Canon was to totally decanonize everything but new Disney and the LFL films and 90's cartoons.

 

[whartung]

So, it wasn't pure WEG, but it was close.

That's really amazing they'd cede so much to "a game company". But if the quality was good, then why not -- someone has to write this stuff.

Adam Savage made an interesting side comment, it was a model making video, but he was contrasting SW models to Star Trek, and how SW was all dirty and patched together. I basically said the SW was a dystopian point of view, while ST was a utopian point of view.

There sure doesn't seem to be a lot of Middle Class portrayed in the SW universe.