GENERAL: This video is sponsored by Skillshare
and victory! Earth needs you to write military science
fiction! Join today! The galaxy teems with deadly aliens from ever
replicating kill bots to insidious SUV sized insects bent on galactic domination. We need you to join the elite few writers
willing to put their very niche slice of the market on the line in order to craft only
the bravest military science fiction stories. So don your power armor as we write about
humanity’s heroic exploits as they journey through the stars. Service guarantees citizenship! Would you like to know more? Welcome to space boot camp fellow writers. It’s up to Terrible Writing Advice to help
turn aspiring military science fiction authors into hardened veterans willing to use any
cliché without thought. So remember, the enemy is gate is down and
the only good bug is a dead bug. Now where should we start with our military
scifi work? Now one of the distinctive features of military
sci-fi is its perspective is usually grounded with the soldier on the front lines rather
than that of a civilian. This allows for the story to take a humanistic
approach and dive deep into the horrors of war as well as explore the development of
a nuanced and interesting protagonist caught in the fires of conflict and carnage. So it’s only natural that we shove the main
character on the back burner and focus on power armor instead. My power armor is so cool that it renders
my story completely immune to even the most biting critiques from the audience. Oh, I guess it protects the characters as
well. My power armor is so amazing that it can generate
new abilities on the fly with zero drawbacks. Having power armor with consistent limitations
and an easy to understand ruleset that the audience can follow along with would add annoying
constraints to my creativity. I need my power armor to constantly generate
“get out of trouble free” cards for my characters. Never mind that real military equipment fails
all the time and often spends more time in maintenance than it does in use, but hey who
needs a high tension scene where the main characters are forced to think fast after
all of their gear fails? Or capture the desperation of a situation
as the characters must march off to battle in worn gear on the edge of breaking. Nah. I’m too busy going overboard will all of
the military tech to notice those story opportunities. Be sure to describe every weapon and piece
of machinery in an excruciatingly long info dump. I could introduce this tech through field
training mixed with characterization, or have two characters argue over which battlemech
is the best, but I think just blaring out all of this tech jargon, full auto, will work
best. Oh look, it’s my favorite tech info dumb,
long winded explanations about how faster than light travel works. Don’t you worry faster than light drive
info-dumps. I’m saving you for the hard sci-fi video. Now that we have pulled the Terrible Writing
Advice classic move of front loaded exposition, it’s time to move on to the least important
part of military sci-fi, the characters. It a writer really wants to save on effort,
then just rip off all of the characters from the film Aliens and make them hyper-competent
at the cost of their distinctive personalities. Nothing gets the audience invested quite like
a whole squad of people who all talk and act the exact same. We must distinguish our selves from the enemy
hive mind after all with its army of identical clones. These characters would normally be part of
a ridged chain of command. It most real militaries, chain of command
is everything! Modern militaries tend to be heavily structured,
requiring precision and discipline for even the most minor acts of daily routine. That sounds annoying so I’m just going to
ignore it, just like my characters. I’m sure the audience will buy these are
full space marines and not poorly disciplined conscripts or sit com characters. Also be sure to have the protagonist promoted
super fast, skipping several ranks in their climb to the top. Is there a wartime need for a lot of officers
to justify such rapid advancement? I don’t know. That would require me to actually do some
worldbuilding on the state of the war and I’m far too busy promoting my self-insert…
um I mean main character for being awesome. Now that my protagonist has went from private
to 5 star general in two days, I’m sure they’ll keep letting him go on missions
to the front lines. Using the chain of command as a way to generate
conflict isn’t worth all of the actual reading I would have to do in order to understand
how it all works! Never mind that for a lot of soldiers, they
fight the chain command more than their enemy. Since we are not going to fight with chain
of command, then who will our brave space troopers face on the battlefield? Well whoever it is, make sure they are a stand
in for COMMUNISM! That won’t be dated. We could also have them fight space fundamentalists
if we want to go with a post 9/11 feel. I guess since science fiction tends to represent
the fears and anxieties of the time in which it’s written so I suppose the next generation
of military scifi antagonists will probably be social media users and cancel culture. Whatever a writer goes with, just be sure
to ignore the weight and consequence of snuffing out another sapient being. Treat killing no differently than shooting
a video game enemy. This goes doubly so when the main antagonists
are humans. I mean why would military fiction explore
the ethics and morality of organized violence as well as the personal costs and psychological
toll soldiers must pay who endure these high stress decisions? No. We need to save that space for something far
more exciting like my political soapbox. That’s right. Everyone who disagrees with the author’s
perspective should be portrayed as a straw-man in the story’s lengthy political rants. Use scifi to explore competing ideologies? Since when has science fiction done that? No time for that because I have to portray
all civilians as weak, peace loving hippies who don’t have what it takes to make the
real hard decisions. They don’t know what we are fighting for! The only way to stop the evil hive mind from
forcing all humans think the same is to have everyone think the same as the author! I can always go to the other extreme with
an anti-war message that will in no way be undermined by all of the cool weapons and
high octane action drunk on power fantasy. Just be careful that these conflicts don’t
play out in a natural way that informs the audience on both the perspectives of the characters,
and culture of the setting. One would think that with all of this political
rambling that at least a writer could flesh out the actual politics of the war itself,
at least so the writer has an understanding of what’s going on the background even if
it never comes up directly in the story. But when has war had anything to do with politics? Could these long political and philosophical
discourses be done between characters instead, capturing the banter that fills the long,
malevolent boredom between combat missions? Could they at least be made really funny? Well no on both counts. I would rather the story be a messy vehicle
for my contradictory personal philosophy rather than chronicle the far more interesting space
war or explore the personal growth of the protagonist from soldier to officer. Next thing you know, people will be wanting
my soldiers to use actual tactics in combat or think in 3D during space battles. Small unit tactics? Organized fire teams? Flexible tactical doctrine to deal with a
variety of planet surfaces? Bah! My characters don’t need tactics. That’s what they have power armor for. All of my soldiers fight alone as individuals. Is this to contrast their heroic individualism
against the sinister collective nature of the enemy? Well no, mostly it’s just power fantasy. Who cares about capturing the anticipation,
stress, chaos, and confusion of combat? Nor does an author need to have the space
marines work as a team and show the bonds forged in combat between soldiers. I want to remove all adversity from combat
because its not like heroism can be found in the face of adversity. The greatest adversity in military science
fiction isn’t the political soap-boxing, the evil hive minds, or the lack of believable
tactics. No. It’s small niche market share. But hey, that’s okay. Military science fiction is all about sacrifice,
not for money, but for honor, courage, and country. It’s about the high calling of putting one’s
life on the line to protect humanity. To stand up for what’s right! To be a hero!… Besides, so long as the protagonist is still
young we can always rebrand to Yong Adult. MPERIAL TROOPER: All we have to do is to ship
this bomb to our rivals at the federation and send the sponsor back to the Emperor. We just shot all those rebels. We got this. IMPERIAL TROOPER 2: Perfect! 3 to 5 business days later GENERAL: What’s this? Ha! Those Imperial idiots have sent me this video’s
sponsor, Skillshare! SOLDIER: That’s good news, General. GENERAL: Finally. Now we can make up our budget shortfall and
take the fight to the enemy! At long last I’ll get my money’s worth
out of that giant robot. No more bowing to those penny pinching bureaucrats
in the Federation Senate who wouldn’t know a real war if it shot their conscientious
objector in the face! GENERAL: Hello? CEO: Hey. My money sense tells me the Federation Defense
Forces just got a budget boost. GENERAL: Yes, we just captured this video’s
sponsor, Skillshare, through a daring and clever raid on Imperial facilities and- CEO: They shipped it to wrong address again,
didn’t they? GENERAL: Well we are not giving it to you
regardless. Megacorp isn’t getting a single penny from
us! Not after that kill bot you sold us killed
all of my men when we turned it on and I still don’t know where that xenomorph’s wandered
off to. CEO: Megacorp is not liable for any damages
incurred by our products. GENERAL: Whatever. We are going to access Skillshare’s online
learning communities, and thousands of online classes in writing, technology, productivity,
and more with a premium membership. And with the sponsorship money, we’ll finally
be able to fund a full campaign. CEO: Well someone should have taken Skillshare’s
class on Bookkeeping for Freelancers: How to Handle Your Fiances because sponsorship
money isn’t going to cut it. GENERAL: What? CEO: Yeah. TWA fans can go to skl.sh/twa17 or click on
the link in the description below to get two months of Skillshare for free with a subscription
being only $10 a month after that. But even if they do it isn’t going to be
enough to make up the Federation’s plummeting defense spending. Not unless you want to be burning down blue
cat people world trees with generic brand napalm. GENERAL: Son of a war protester! This whole Sponsorship War is nothing but
a let down! I swear every time we almost have a real fight,
something stupid comes along and war crime blocks the whole thing! Everyone is fighting on twitter or over branding. Just once I would like a real stand up fight,
not a bunch of humanities major pencil pushers arguing over budget! KNIGHT COMMANDER: You must stop taking sponsorships. GENERAL: Oh great. Now the beatnik knights are here.
right when I'm in the middle of the starship trooper book!