Cool GUN, cool MECH, cool SPACE MARINE

 Science fiction is a genre where anything is possible- human beings travel the stars, we create artificial life, we transcend the binary notions of gender, achieve equality, cure all illness, cheat death, find alien life in the universe, unravel the very fabric of being, traverse dimensions, read minds, and if we're not wise we destroy ourselves. When anything is possible, why do so many stories seem to only focus on war, weapons, soldiers and war machines?   When I think about stories and authors that have stuck around my brain for years, I am not thinking about war for the most part- I am thinking about the worlds created by Ursula K Le Guin, Ted Sturgeon, Bradbury, Clarke, Vonnegut, Andre Norton, Sam Delany, etc.

I don't mean those stories which act as commentaries on war or on human nature. One of the best contemporary sci-fi stories I read to date is Isabel Fall's I Identify As An Attack Helicopter, which is an incisive and controversial commentary of the military industrial complex and the commodification of identity within that system, as well as a reclaiming and retooling of a bigoted internet joke. And, predictably, Fall was viciously attacked because people did not get it or had malicious intent because a trans woman wrote a story. Specifically, there is a lot of science fiction, especially in the contemporary, which is wholly unconcerned with making any sort of statement about war besides "imagine how cool it'd be if there was a space ship with cool guns and cool space marines and explosions". It's a small child's imagining of a space adventure, all the media they've consumed simplified into the most attention-grabbing pieces, but it's adults creating it.

I think a lot of what paints this idea of sexy forever war for people is not in novels or short stories, though there are certainly lots of books concerning war that are gleeful about it. Heinlein's Starship Troopers comes to mind, which Michael Moorecock wrote about in an essay discussing fascist and authoritarian themes in sci-fi in 1977. There is also Frank Herbert's Dune, which is an obtuse dinosaur of a thing, bloated prose that for some reason has captivated tons of people in spite of (or because of) being authored by a reactionary and a homophobe. Funny to mention that a lot of reads of Dune consider it as warning against authoritarianism, but plenty of reactionaries hate government control and police, that's nothing new. The ideologically muddled crossover between fascists and uh, dirtbag left or "post left" is very visible online, where these disparate and functionally illiterate groups can shake hands in agreement that they hate the rich elite and the government while guesting on each other's podcasts. You can find essays discussing the alt-right co-opting Dune but I think it is quite inherently reactionary in its intent too. And without Dune, there is no Star Wars, and Star Wars really is the big influence on all contemporary things sci-fi, having exited the realm of campy cult favorite to a functioning piece of monoculture. Which brings me to my main point- that film, television and video games have a broader influence on contemporary sci-fi than books.

Star Wars and Aliens feel like the two biggest influences on sci-fi in terms setting the stage for big sexy war. In Star Wars we have Storm Troopers, directly modeled on nazi Germany in both name and borrowed imagery. There's also plenty of war machines and space battles to enjoy. Then we have Aliens with it's (admittedly funny) hyper masculine space marines who- despite failing their mission- have still cemented an image of cool in the minds of many people. Perhaps the same crowd that doesn't realize Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is satire, or who think that Captain Rhodes in Day of the Dead is a cool guy. 

 Video games, with their focus on FPS style play and stories built around combat are also to blame for the war and gun focus. Video games, largely, are not known for good story telling either and again it becomes a matter of adults channeling child-like combinations of Cool Shit They've Seen. War and combat related tabletop gaming is also a big contender- notably Warhammer 40k, which is a hyperfascist forever war hellscape that many fascists unironically find cool. There are of course, plenty of people who just enjoy games as games- for entertainment and strategy, but there's no denying the connection.

Human beings like to borrow and emulate from things that we like and since so many of these things are also totally ubiquitous in pop culture, we end up with a focus on war. Add into that, especially in the United States, our strong military culture and troop worship (in all aspects except for actually caring for our veterans when they come back physically disabled and/or suffering from PTSD) compounds with all this media to create sci-fi that reflects these same values. Interesting that Soviet and East Bloc era science fiction is often more hopeful with its visions of the future. Their science fiction stories, films and animation carry both hope for a better future or at least, a warning against war. Cold war era sci-fi film in the US was much more focused on our anxieties about nuclear annihilation and expressed our xenophobia. Quelle surprise!

 In contemporary sci-fi art the gun and war plague is rampant too. Think about any time you've seen a so-called "bad" sci fi book cover- isn't it so often a piece that is surreal, colorful, inspired by modern art, fantastical, stylized and inventive? Perhaps playful and silly, sexy, maybe a bit homo-erotic or queer coded too.

 

 Yet somehow, sci-fi fans don't take issue with the muddy fast-turnaround concept-art that now is involved with all films and games. We can't have anything that looks gay, but we can have a lady holding a gun or a gray landscape fucked together with stock photos the photoshop clone stamp tool (and we can't really blame the artists as industry demands more work faster and for less pay!). Unsurprising that Soviet/East Bloc art could flourish because the government actually put money towards the arts. You're not going to see a lot of good stuff nowadays outside of independent work (which is either hobby, side-hustle, or funded by how good you are at self promotion).

  Anime, specifically mech anime, is also a part of the sci-fi obsession with guns and war machines. Would it surprise you if I said that Japanese (as well as international) reactionaries and nationalists obsess over mech anime? Would it also surprise you if I said that mech anime is also largely about selling toys? I don't really buy the narrative that these series are commentaries against war, or at least feel that any message seems largely subverted by the cultural space these series occupy online, but that might be my own damage lol. Hell, this entire blog post is about my own damage.

 At any rate, I am not saying "you're bad for enjoying whatever thing", who cares. I'm also not going to pretend we need to make morally robust fiction that reflects what good people we are- that's child cartoon and YA fiction thinking and is not sustainable. But I do hope that maybe we can self-assess what we like and what ideas we're putting into the world. Science fiction can be about anything you can imagine, do you just want to write about guns and soldiers?