Aberrant: Trans-Dimensional Explorations - The Mary Sue test

[BlueNinja]

Someone passed along this test to me, so I sat down and threw Michal into the mix. Some of the fun questions I actually wrote out answers for your amusement. ::biggrin

45. Does your character fly? Well, technically, anyone who gets on an airplane flies. So I didn't mark this one for Michal.

50. Does your character posess power that can take out cities/legions of soldiers/general all-around-evil? It's called an anti-matter bomb. ::devil Feeling safe yet?

60. Does your character use a sword-type weapon in a relatively modern setting for no logical reason? He built a lightsaber. I think this counts.

70. c. Was your character responsible for the death of his/her parents? Michal sent his dad to jail, where he got a shiv in the back, so I think this counts too.

86. Did you feel that this test insulted or attacked you or your character so far? Only that they imply I do some of the weird ones. Like being despised for getting so much attention. ::tongue

17. b. Do canon leaders see your character as a threat because of this? CoMA does, but I don't think they count for this question.

36. Does your character single-handedly accomplish what no-one has managed to do so far? Without Michal, there would not be space elevators on Earth in 2020. So, just like the novas who made hypercombustion, synthetic eufiber, and vitrium - yes.

... and my final total is 75??? Oh well, I suppose that's about par for the course for a nova who's a world-renowned expert in three fields. I can't believe they penalize you for knowing other languages. Though I suppose I could have unclicked the box for Klingon ... ::happy

[SkyLion]

I don't get it. ::blink Who's Mary Sue? ::confused

[BlueNinja]

I don't get it. ::blink Who's Mary Sue? ::confused

IIRC, the name comes from some extraordinarily bad fanfic, where the main character was named Mary Sue, and was basicaly the author with God powers.

[phoenix]

That's about right, but actually, the original Mary Sue was a parody of this kind of characters, in a story published in a Star Trek fanzine called The Menagerie. The story was "A Trekkie's Tale", and can be read here.

I'm doing it now for Joshua. I'll post the results when I get them. ::biggrin

59. Does your character have a weapon that...

is unusually ornate?

is Japanese in origin, even though your character is not Japanese?

I got a 39. "Role-players and original fiction authors, at this point your characters are likely to provoke eye-rolling and exclaimations of 'yeah, right!' from your readers. (Well, at least from me.)" ::blush

[Alex Green]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

[Blue Thunder]

I know I'm not a player in Trans-D, but I just have to say it since you guys brought it up: Mary Sues are the bane of my existence. They're the reason I avoid fanfiction and roleplay forums/chatrooms in general. I guess I've been here long enough to trust you guys though.

[Alex Green]

Puts a different slant on Mega-App and Mega-Chr.

[Blue Thunder]

There's a biiiiiiiiiiiiig difference between having Mega-Attributes like Mega-Apperance and Mega-Charisma, and being a Mary Sue. Mary Sues are mostly what they are because of the person behind them...in this case, the roleplayer. Someone could say Geisha or Totentanz or Divis Mal fall into this category, and if you look only at their powers, they would look like Sues. But given the context they're in, the setting itself, their actions in the books, their backstories and histories, and etc., they aren't Sues.

Novas are more of the "gods on Earth" type of characters. Mary Sues, on the other hand, make Baby Jesus cry.

[Bahamut810]

Wow...if I did this right Ash comes in at 13 points.

[Expendable]

Wow...if I did this right Ash comes in at 13 points.

I got 26 but a lot of it was points for being a translator and knowing so many languages.

[AnonCastillo]

I got a 17, I might have missed a couple though. Most of it was for talking to animals, I also got a couple for Jonathan being ugly (especially for a nova) and having bad fashion sense. However, it does give a disclaimer that if your powers are normal for the setting (ie. magic in a fantasy setting) that it doesn't count, so technically we were all supposed to leave most of those boxes blank.

[Centimane]

I got a 12....

[Alex Green]

Paul gets a 42.

Basically he gets soundly beaten for Psi-Link, Animal Mastery, (wingless) Flight, Healing, an App of 5, resources 4, having eufiber and speaking several languages.

[SkyLion]

I havent had time to go over the test yet, but arent all those things considered "normal" for Abbie???

[Centimane]

Yeah, I noticed the test was heavily weighted against people who like animals and have money. I mean, I'm playing a 116 year old chinese nova who came into the story straight from a Tibetan monastary, and who carries a sword strapped over his back when the team's in the field for no particularly good reason, but I scored only a twelve, which left me several points below the danger zone, so go fig....

[Alex Green]

I havent had time to go over the test yet, but arent all those things considered "normal" for Abbie???

Can all novas fly? Can all novas speak to animals? Heal? I think it's fairer to say they aren't abnormal.

With lots of exceptions made for the setting Paul still gets a 15... (I do think he has a cool job, he does speak several languages, we're both guys, etc) but those same exceptions make most of the test pretty meaningless.

[SkyLion]

add in to the fact that many novas erupt in specifically "wish-fullfillment" ways and it compounds the problem. Of course, it doesn't necessarily have to be the fullfillment of the *player*. For example, while I love Envy's powers, I don't envy his condition.

,,

Esteban is probably the closest to what Id want for actual powers in my suite of PCs right now, since Mega-Stamina and Peception would be my top pics (Eating and sleeping take up valuable time! And getting injured sucks!). His shapeshifting is less so, but who hasn't wanted to fly?!? ::happy

,,

On the other hand, Rama (over at Baalt) comes pretty close...Mega Mega Intelligent, Mega Mega Strong, Adaptability, Q-Attunement, Hyperflight and Warp...a man could get things done! ::laugh (and he has Blue Indigo skin!)

[metaphysician]

Oldish thread, but what the hell.

Ran my current Aberrant character, Hermes, through, and got a 14. Admittedly, I didn't check a bunch of boxes because they *aren't* unusual for a Chosen in the setting ( Linguistic Prodigy is extremely common, so knowing many languages can hardly be counted against him, for example ).

And yeah, that test hates people who are multilingual animal lovers.

[AnonCastillo]

And yeah, that test hates people who are multilingual animal lovers.

I think a lot of that is annoyance at characters who have no reason to be able to speak more than one language. In sci fi especially, you'll see 100 alien races come together, many of which can't even make the same set of sounds, let alone speak the same language, and they all understand each other perfectly without needing interpreters. I don't care how good the school systems are 500 years from now, no way are humans going to be able to learn 100 different languages with sounds they can't even pronounce, and unless the other species have far superior linguistic intelligences, neither will they. Some series at least attempt to make rational explanations (babel fish, for example (funny that one of the few good examples comes from a series that wasn't meant to be serious or realistic)), but most don't even try. How Luke understood R2 prior to his Jedi training is beyond me.

[Alex Green]

Universal Translators.

[AnonCastillo]

Universal Translators.

Which, realistically, would have to be programmed for each individual language, yet in a lot of sci fi characters from newly discovered worlds are given universal translators that work for a language the developers hadn't yet seen, that can be implanted perfectly in races they don't know the biology of. Even on earth there are creatures with multiple, separate brains - say it attaches to the wrong one? Now consider a species based on a completely different biological system. What happens when the material it's made from reacts badly with a chemical in the new race's body? Too many sci fis that attempt to be realistic gloss over details like these. Then again, too many sci fis that attempt to be realistic make almost every race look and act like humans with different skin colors or funny facial features.

[metaphysician]

No offense, but thats hardly Mary Suing. Thats "Not bogging down the story in endless communications difficulties."

[BlueNinja]

I remember part of the plot for one sci-fi story (though not the name) was that Americans, just because of all the science fiction that we've been exposed to, were more likely to pick up alien phrases in their own language and idioms. The human in question managed to forge a cease-fire between two races fighting over a planet by using their own phrases to convince them he was on their side.

The first Starbridge novel, by A. C. Crispin, goes into the language thing fairly clearly, when a human ship encounters an alien communication and follows it to its source. It takes them weeks, with several potentially-deadly verbal missteps, to get good communication. And that was with two or three linguists working their asses off. Eventually though, with a gathering of different species, they'll either turn to a common language (or two or three, depending on how everyone is physiologically capable of speaking), or telepathy (assuming it's real).

[Alex Green]

The problems Aliens present for SF TV creators is largely one of budget and audience.

Actors are cheap, pupets and other stand ins are expensive and hard to manage. Lots of people feel that Star Trek was good SF.

[AnonCastillo]

The problems Aliens present for SF TV creators is largely one of budget and audience.

Actors are cheap, pupets and other stand ins are expensive and hard to manage. Lots of people feel that Star Trek was good SF.

Lots of people used to think the earth was flat. Didn't make them right.

Admittedly, Star Trek had some good plot lines, but that didn't make it realistic. Star Wars at least had quite a few non-humanoid races, even if they were all still comfortable in the same atmosphere, gravity, and temperature range. I saw an interview with Joss Whedon about Firefly where he brought up some of the same complaints about the majority of sci fi, and that had a lot to do with why there weren't any alien races in his series. About the only sci fi I can think of that is fairly realistic on most counts is Starcraft, as the Protoss have personal shield generators that can keep the temperature inside at a reasonable level even when they're on worlds with extremely hot/cold atmospheres or no atmosphere, and the Zerg have a few thousand species worth of adaptations to choose from, and the Protoss communicate telepathically to get around the language barrier while the Zerg don't communicate outside their race much at all. That, and the Zerg are psychologically distinct, which is more than can be said for most alien races in most sci fi. 90% of the races in Star Trek are humans with one personality trait pushed to the extreme (logic for vulcans, aggression for klingons/romulans (early on, anyway), greed for ferengi, etc.). At least if they were doing a better job of displaying psychological differences between aliens from significantly different worlds, I'd forgive them for wanting to save a little money by using human looking aliens. Maybe I'm too picky, but turning a personality trait into an alien race just doesn't do it for me.

[SkyLion]

Having been an avid Trek fan for awhile, I can see where you are coming from Anon. They do tend to exagerrate personality quirks apart from the more neutral humans, though fanatsy does this as well, dwarves, elves, halflings etc.

,,

However there have been several examples of aliens with other-than-human psychologies...look at the Q, who only masqerade as humans. There was the episode where a race of beings made Barklay mega-intelligent so they would come to them. Another good one was when a telepathic species captured several people including Picard and replaced them with dopplegangers so that they could understand the nature of seperateness.

,,

The last thing I wanted to say is that Sci-Fi doesnt need to have aliens or even space travel. For an incredibly grounded, gritty, near future sci-fi, check out Children of Men in theatres now.

[Alex Green]

The annoying thing about Star Trek is they had potential, i.e. they could have been Babalon 5. Long term series could introduce different parts of alien culture. For example DS9 had a Klingon Merchant.

[SkyLion]

The annoying thing about Star Trek is they had potential, i.e. they could have been Babalon 5. Long term series could introduce different parts of alien culture. For example DS9 had a Klingon Merchant.

,,

DS9 had the advantage (as does B5) of a stable setting. The ship based episodes revolved more around the crew than the setting and were more static episode based. There was sometimes lasting consequenses and things that changed but often the next episode had things kind of "reset" back to ststus quo.

[BlueNinja]

DS9 had the advantage (as does B5) of a stable setting. The ship based episodes revolved more around the crew than the setting and were more static episode based. There was sometimes lasting consequenses and things that changed but often the next episode had things kind of "reset" back to ststus quo.

Especially with Barclay. He told the computer, step by step, how to build that chair-thingy that he could mentally interface with the computer to enhance his brainpower. So the computer could build another one. Yet ... we never hear anything about the research performed on those devices. To give just one example.

Farscape's "translator microbes" were a very babelfish method to talking to other races. But they used it to good effect in some episodes where they had to deal with people who didn't have them.

[SkyLion]

The other "fudged" part, in Farscape and Star Trek, is that aliens are supposed to be using translators. If thats the case, then all the dialogue should be dubbed so that their lips arent making english... ::glare

[Alex Green]

Interestingly there were some parts of Star Trek that made sense, but not in a good way.

Star Trek was a communistic state. Lots, and lots, and lots, of real oddities get explained by that.

1) Indifference to humans dying in transporter accidents or due to bad ship design.

2) Extemely few ships, only the millitary and the those with extremely good contacts can have one.

3) Existance of an open black market.

4) Bad science research, i.e. Barkley's mind probe and any number of other break through devices simply get lost.

5) Incompitence of officiers, of millitary design, of millitary stradigy and tactics.

6) Uniformity of thinking, of style, etc.

Mind you, I liked ST and enjoyed it when it was on.

[Blue Thunder]

Farscape is not a good example; it's not steeped in scientific logic, and it never tries to be. It puts more focus on 'fiction' than on 'science', and the series carries itself more on emotions, character relationships, and absolute absurdity.

Star Trek, on the other hand, puts 'science' before 'fiction'. You can see this is the "techno-babble" the characters use in every episode. But the shows put so much focus on trying to be scientifically accurate that they manage to completely ignore two glaring issues: first, that everyone on Earth would ever rally together to form one government and cooperate (and that Americans are *still* at the top of society), and second, that every alien in the galaxy not only looks like a human, but also feels emotions like a human would and communicates using vocal languages like a human would. There are exceptions, of course, but thats true for 99% of the aliens.

I find that Star Trek takes an unrealistically optimistic look at the future, where everyone holds hands and the galaxy's only fear is a bunch of easily-outsmarted Borg. Hmm...wait, let me rephrase that: Star Trek takes an unrealistically optimistic and *boring* look at the future. Voyager was the only Star Trek to ever catch my interest, but only barely.

I don't hate it though. Star Trek can be entertaining at times; those times when Farscape or Babylon 5 isn't on, or when your Star Wars DVDs can't be found.

[SkyLion]

Sorry guys but respectfully enough you're stating several falacies about ST.

Alex, for one...Its not communistic. People don't live on communes and can choose their enterprise. Communism is, like capitalism, an economic system. In ST, they no longer use money, which is how they got to what BT says is overly optimistic.

Towarss the end of your post BT you admit ignorance of much of the series but I will forgive you.

Essentially the world WAS at war and things were very very bad...worse than now.

Then first contact happend (like the recent discussion on self implanted time-loop eximorphism, also a product of the future intervention of the enterprise), where humans develop FTL warp drive and get noticed by vulcans. The confirmation of life on other planets is what brought mankind together under one planetary banner.

The advanced alien technology of matter energy conversion and synthesis (replicators) did away with the need to fight over scarce resources. People now work on what they *want* to do, rather than "making a living" or working at a job to subsidize survival. Likewise transportation technology did away with the need for private conveyances, though shuttlecraft are still in use.

As for some of the specifics...

Alex:

1.) I have never seen the characters act indifferent...trather they seem more compassionate about death than many I know. Granted its television here.

2.) There is actually a sizeable fleet and Starfleet is not a military, at least not the way we think of them. For one thing, the flagship of the fleet is an exploration vessel. Likewise, they have a mandate to defend the federation, but do not engage in conquest. Their Prime Directive even states a certain amount of isolationism and non-interfereance.

3.) run by aliens. As most Terrans dont even use money anymore, the black market is mainly for the smuggling of weapons (often WMDs in the show)and other contraband.

4.) more a function of the writing and plot needs than "bad science"

5.) Again, not actually a military. Could be called paramilitary for some aspects but not its primary mandate. Incompetencies will exist anywhere, regardless of the socio-economic system. IMHO, this showed that even in the future, individuals can still be screw-ups.

6.) Uniformity of style=a combo of starfleet uniforms, and having the same costume designer.

BT:

I already addressed several of your points BT. I will add that America no longer exists. Americans are not on top. In FACT, the President of the entire United Fedration of PLANETS happens to be of an alien species...

The other part which you would know if you followed the show is that the humanoid races were all seeded across the glaxy by a progenitor race, thus having similar enough biologies to feel emotions, and even interbreed (humans, romulans, vulcans, and klingons have all shown to be capable of interbreeding) Also, there are other non-humanoid beings that show up and ARE *very* different.

Changelings, The Crystalline entity, the black tar that killed Tasha Yar, shapeshifters and energy beings of all variations and several godlike races .

In short, I applaud Star treks vision of a humanity that has found peace, at least within our own species. Rather than finding it boring, I find it to be refreshing and it chalenges the jaded nihilistic cynicism that has become so prevalent today.

[Blue Thunder]

Hey, wait...why are we talking about Star Trek again?

[SkyLion]

Hey, wait...why are we talking about Star Trek again?

,,

cuz I happen to like the show and y'all said a buncha mean, untrue stuff 'bout it that's why. *sniff*

[Centimane]

"Look Mom! It's a Trekkie!! But you said they were dorkier!"

"Quiet Timmy! It's not nice to point! And they prefer to be called 'Trekkers', not 'Trekkies'."

"And I did *not* say they were 'dorky'!"

((Sorry Sky, I was compelled by my fictional character Zhenglai's alter ego, the villainous Fu Manchu, to write this. (no really). If it makes it the sting any less, I grew up watching the old reruns of Startrek, and I watched every season of Next Generation, and most of DS9 (until I moved out of the house and no longer had access to basic cable...or a television...or clean clothes...regular meals......Ugh! Sorry - was having flashbacks of a darker time.)))

[SkyLion]

Zhenglai has an evil alter-ego? ::ohmy ::scared

[AnonCastillo]

Interestingly there were some parts of Star Trek that made sense, but not in a good way.

Star Trek was a communistic state. Lots, and lots, and lots, of real oddities get explained by that.

1) Indifference to humans dying in transporter accidents or due to bad ship design.

2) Extemely few ships, only the millitary and the those with extremely good contacts can have one.

3) Existance of an open black market.

4) Bad science research, i.e. Barkley's mind probe and any number of other break through devices simply get lost.

5) Incompitence of officiers, of millitary design, of millitary stradigy and tactics.

6) Uniformity of thinking, of style, etc.

Mind you, I liked ST and enjoyed it when it was on.

I love it when you make posts about politics.

And having read the rest of the thread, let me weigh in on a couple points:

1) How often did a "red shirt" die and nobody batted an eye? (don't worry, I'm not going to keep the rhyming up for long) I mean, sure, the Enterprise has to have a rather large crew, but even on a larger military vessel with hundreds of crew members, a crewman's death is a somewhat major event that gets noticed (at least, if it happens outside of war). Considering that the Enterprise was primarily for exploration and not for military purposes, and that most of the series (other than DS9) didn't revolve around war, I'd assume that the deaths of dozens of crew members over the course of a few years would make the higher ups want to look into the incidents and hold someone accountable for so many unnecessary deaths. We never see that. We never even see Kirk/Picard holding a funeral for the crew members who are killed in action.

2) I think Paul might be assuming a little too much on this one. I've probably watched a lot less ST than the rest of you, but I can vaguely remember episodes where people had private shuttles. You have to consider, though, othar than shipping (and replicators make shipping a lot of goods unnecessary) and transportation, there's not a lot of use for interplanetary vessels. Most people wouldn't do enough interplanetary travel to need one. Think about it this way: most people today have a car to get around the city, but how many people own a plane or boat capable of crossing the ocean? Not a lot, because most people don't need one, and most people aren't willing to spend that much on something they don't really need. Even with warp drives and FTL travel, interplanetary travel wouldn't be like driving to the next state, it'd be closer to flying to another continent, and the majority of people don't have the need or desire to do that very often. If the majority of shipping is made obsolete by replicators, and interplanetary travel is no more common than intercontinental travel is today, the majority of ships built for that kind of travel are going to be military/exploratory.

[metaphysician]

Oi, trying to get into Star Trek economics, bad. They were trying for a post-economic society, but even if you grant that replicators and power supply are enough to achieve such, I have serious doubts whether such a society can exist alongside economic societies of equivalent power. . .

Though really, complaining about Star Trek using human-like aliens? Geez, even hard sci-fi occasionally uses that. Its called "having only human actors."

[BlueNinja]

1) How often did a "red shirt" die and nobody batted an eye? (don't worry, I'm not going to keep the rhyming up for long) I mean, sure, the Enterprise has to have a rather large crew, but even on a larger military vessel with hundreds of crew members, a crewman's death is a somewhat major event that gets noticed (at least, if it happens outside of war). Considering that the Enterprise was primarily for exploration and not for military purposes, and that most of the series (other than DS9) didn't revolve around war, I'd assume that the deaths of dozens of crew members over the course of a few years would make the higher ups want to look into the incidents and hold someone accountable for so many unnecessary deaths. We never see that. We never even see Kirk/Picard holding a funeral for the crew members who are killed in action.

Untrue, as far as Picard goes. I can think of two crew members whose deaths were somewhat of a big deal - Tasha Yar (admittedly, a continuing character, but a bit part), and a random crewmember in First Contact. There probably are more situations like that in Next Gen, but I haven't watched them recently enough to be sure.

Then again, the Federation has lost whole ships on exploratory missions, and never batted an eye. Why should they care if a couple of the danger junkies (ie, red shirts) take one for the team?