I subscribe to quite a few marketing newsletters, in hopes of figuring out how to grow the readership for Stupefying Stories. Simply “publishing good stories” doesn’t seem to be sufficient; our readership numbers fluctuate wildly from day to day, and it seems as if it wasn’t published this week, it may as well never have been published at all. We have hundreds of stories out on SHOWCASE, but almost no one ever delves into the archives.
So, how to change that? Hmm…
One newsletter that showed up in my email this morning recommends “bother bonding” as a technique to draw in more readers. That is, rather than writing about anything positive, write about something negative, something that really bothers you, so that you and your followers can all join together in righteously hating it.
I dunno. I dislike the idea of focusing on negatives and working to stoke hate. I’ve seen it work far too well for political commentators seeking to build their audiences, and it always struck me as being the behavior of the mean girls clique in the junior high school lunchroom, only grown up into malignant adult form.
Nonetheless, it’s claimed that it works for fiction writers, so… Hmm. A controversial opinion. Something that really bothers me, that we can all join together in trash-talking…
Okay, how about this? The other night I was flipping through the channels and came across the second-to-last episode of Enterprise, “Terra Prime,” which has been claimed to be the best episode of the entire series. I settled in to watch it. I used to be quite fond of Star Trek, in all its many incarnations. But the longer I watched this episode, the more it really began to bother me.
Briefly, the plot is this: the reactionary terrorist organization “Terra Prime” has taken over the Gobbledygookium Array on Mars and is threatening to use it to vaporize Star Fleet headquarters in San Francisco, unless the diplomatic conference that’s being held there to discuss the founding of the Federation stops immediately and all non-human aliens leave the solar system forthwith. With all the resources at Star Fleet’s disposal it winds up being up to the plucky captain of the Enterprise and his stalwart companions to sneak into the terrorists’ command center, cripple the Death Star—excuse me, the Whatchamacallit Array—defeat all the terrorist minions in hand-to-hand combat, have a big boss fight in the control room between Captain Archer and the terrorist leader as the seconds to doom are ticking down, and once again to save the world, the future, the Federation, and all that crap.
Except…
Think this through with me. Mars is moving through space, and rotating on its axis. Earth as well is moving through space, and rotating on its axis. The two planets do not move in sync, in any conceivable way. Mars, at its closest, is about 38.6 million miles away from Earth, at its furthest about 250 million miles away, and on average about 140 million miles away.
So assuming this Interplanetary Megadeath Zap Cannon fires something like an enormous laser beam, which therefore travels in a straight line, the two points on the two planets—the point of origin on Mars and the target on Earth—will be in precise alignment for, what? Nanoseconds? Picoseconds? Even less? And only once every few days? And then, factoring in the velocity of c…
TRIPP: “Captain! They’ve fired the weapon!”
ARCHER: (checks his watch) “Okay, at light speed it’ll take the beam about 12 minutes to reach Earth. I’m going down to the galley to get a cup of coffee while we wait. You want I should get you something?”
Kind of cuts into the drama, doesn’t it?
Over to you,
~brb
7 comments:
Maybe you could draw in readers with a YA crossover cyberpunk serial story that is hyped on TicTok. You might need to bring onboard an "influencer."
Talking-head video or actual action? Or table reading type? (Is Henry out here?)
torainfor
Three thoughts.
1. Alistair Maclean must be spinning in his grave since the episode ripped off the Guns of Navarone.
2. The last episode of Enterprise, a show I never could stand, pretty much made the whole series pointless.
3. Star Trek has always existed in a 19th century tactical universe without air power. Almost two dimensional. Consider Balance of Terror where the Romulons are kept at bay with a line of bases. Never mind that the Romulons could simply scoot around the bases in almost an infinite number of ways. It's not a fort guarding a harbor in the Civil War.
You are completely correct, Bruce, but I still enjoy the quaint charm of Enterprise. Can't stand the God-awful intro theme though!
Now, if you really want to court controversy you should say how good Star Trek Discovery is...
@Richie -- That would require me to watch Star Trek Discovery, and I'm not willing to make that sacrifice. I had some hope when Star Trek Strange New Worlds came along, but gave up on it a few episodes into the first season. The Star Trek franchise is bankrupt. They have *no* new ideas. All they can do is turn on their own history, and produce ever more self-referential fanfic.
@Pete Wood -- The very last episode of Enterprise? "And it all turned out to be just Ryker running a holodeck simulation of a history lesson." Worst series ending EVER.
At least Newhart made the "it all turned out to be just a dream" ending _funny_.
The biggest problem I have with most of the Star Trek sequels is this. The TOS characters are my friends. I want to spend time with these people. Almost everybody in the sequels are relatives, people I have to spend time with, but I may not want to be around them. Take away the Star Trek name slapped on the title of most of the shows and I would spend zero time with these characters.
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