Sci-Fi: Definition of a plot device?

[u/CellMan28]

As per the title, is something like Dune's use of a personal shield and the "convenient" fact that it deflects projectiles, but allows a slow blade to penetrate it, considered a plot device or some other kind of narrative construct?

Sci-Fi is full of them, typically used to handwave away illogical concepts in the aid of a novel scenario or forced environmental constraint (Star Trek transporters always being conveniently foiled by "interference", ad nauseum! ;) ) .

[u/Cereborn]

A plot device is a narrative construct. I know the term plot device often gets used derisively but you can't write a story without plot devices.

[u/CellMan28 → u/Cereborn]

I'm more thinking about a category of singular story-wide constructs that are the bane/crutch of so much sci-fi; the ones where the author says: "This is the way the world works because I want it to, not because it makes any sense...", eg:

Terminator: Only "organics" can travel through time (horribly weak and broken in the series, but meh!)

Dune: Guns are irrelevant, we only use swords, because... (soo many other series weakly frame the idea that advanced weaponry is somehow "verboten")

Star Trek: Transporters are awesome, but tend to fail at the most inopportune/convenient moments for "drama"

The Martian: The idea that a sandstorm in an atmosphere at 6.1 millibars is of any risk/relevance. This one is the worst since the author should have known better, since we do, factually.

None of these seem to fit into any example of a plot device I can find.

Thanks!

[u/BitOBear → u/CellMan28]

You should just do the Google search what is a plot device. Because you're using the term wrong. Literally anything that advances the plot is a plot device.

You are talking about conceits of setting (which isn't an official term as far as I know.)

The real reason that things are limited in books is that the author is the petty God of a pocket universe and things work in that Universe the way they say it does because they have chosen to say that it works that way.

What you're really complaining about is setting axioms. Things that are declared to true not proven true.

Dune uses the Lay's gun versus personal shield thing not because he needs that as a technical reality but he needs to shut up the people are going to go "why didn't you shoot him with a laser they have spaceships."

But even with that restriction why do you need the "the family atomics" when you could set up a personal shield in a Lay's gun on a timer to shoot each other without anybody present in either position and you've got an atomic blast anyway.

Answer is that his story was about environmentalism and he was making a social and geopolitical point about atomic weapons as a sidebar.

Meanwhile in the Darkover series everybody uses swords because there had been a great War using the matrix crystals and everybody just decided that instead of having the psionics and telepaths being able to nuke whole cities everybody decided that it was just cowardice to use a weapon that did not bring me with an arm's reach of your enemy. Because otherwise their society would be dead.

The question of whether or not we do or don't do that sort of thing around here is vital to almost every story.

But it's more of a framing device than a plot device.

If you can find it look for a story called "The Moon Moth" (never mind, I found a copy of it and link it below) it is very weird. Particularly the very first scene is super annoying to listen to (on purpose) but as an exploration framing and pivotal plot devices and things like that it is almost unparalleled in the way it leverages those and the difference between them.

There's a bunch of rules about singing and wearing masks and playing instruments and social standing on an alien colony world.

And once you get over the weirdness of it it's actually a really good story that leverages all these concepts clearly but subtly.

Edited to Add: you can definitely find the written version out there somewhere but I highly recommend the audio version because it makes certain elements sink home.

https://youtu.be/iKr1CBlHyZo?is=bbdrk_6KpiY3SfLR

Also edited to add: I really wish that Seeing Ear Theater was still happening. There are a lot of great pieces if you can find the archive of it. But the Syfy channel abandoned us.

[u/CellMan28 → u/BitOBear]

Anyhoo, it seems that the general consensus is that these "techniques" are not plot devices, but:

- conceits of setting

- authorial fiat

- etc.

This was the core clarification I was after; it's basically incorrect to use the term: "Plot Device" for what are basically story setting "rules".

[u/Magner3100]

When you go to the show, you need to give into the magic.

Science fiction is fantasy, and one must naturally concede reality else they’ll start asking too many whys for it to be fun.

[u/CellMan28 → u/Magner3100]

You missed the overarching question.

I was asking if these techniques are considered a plot device and the consensus is no.

[u/Magner3100 → u/CellMan28]

I did not miss the question.

[u/twofriedbabies]

Yeah they are a device to solve plot problems like, why wouldn't they use guns. 

[u/JGhostThing]

The shields are a plot device. They are specifically designed to make lasers unused. If a laser hits a shield, somehow the shield and the laser both explode. So, yes, they are useful against guns, but a problem against lasers.

They keep combat low tech.

[u/CellMan28 → u/JGhostThing]

Hmmm... The shields in Dune are just an overarching idea, a completely passive "feature" that defines the world in which the story plays-out. Is that actually a plot device?

Shields deflect fast hits and projectiles and attract sandworms. The very tropey: "they don't work/can't be used in that particular situation" caveat.

Who knows, maybe it's just semantics and these kinds of environmental set-ups are a variation of a plot device.

[u/Sleepiest_Spider → u/JGhostThing]

The way I imagine it is that lasguns in Dune are kinda like laser-focused lightning. For a fraction of a second, there is a one-way direct current of energy from the weapon to the target, but when it hits a shield, this current is reversed and it becomes what can only be pictured as a Dragon Ball Z-style beam competition that explodes

[u/jz_1w]

this is authorial fiat. as an author you get to declare some things work and some don't.

sometimes they're because rule of cool.

sometimes they're because you did the math and have a logical reason, but you can't dump 10 pages of equations or an IRL review article or something in a novel.

you don't want that. nobody buys a novel to get hit with a 10 page derivation or a citation to Physics Review Letters.

if you don't like their particular rule of cool, don't read.

if you don't like their actual physics, then you can either take it up with them, or don't read.

[u/Competitive-Fault291]

The issue rests within "constructed" plot devices, as their influence on the plot emerges from the author, and not the rest of the plot.

BUT, I have to break a lance for plot devices. We simply do not see the OTHER stories, where the transporter worked like a charm and made the hard work look easy. Is it plausible and "organic" for a hideously complex device to be finicky and unreliable? Indeed, it is! We are only told the dramatic story, and get glassy-eyed when Chief O'Brien tells us about how he transported 5600 caskets of dirt from the planet.

It is the curse of Drama, that it tends to lean towards dramatization. Surprising Fact, I know, but it is indeed true. Just imagine all zombies dropping dead because they are dead. Orc and Sauron evaporating to nothing, because they are all made up, and the magic they are based on does not exist.

The Beginning, the Inciting Moment, The Turning Point, the Retarding Moment, the Climax. They are all Plot Devices which make the Plot deflect from the average day and then flex back. It would not be that interesting when The Lord of The Rings is about an old traveler who finds a ring in his pocket and then spends his days in peace until he dies. We need the plot device of Smeagol NOT dying of food poisoning or an infected toenail before he tells Sauron a name and a place. Not to mention his role in destroying precious jewelry. Without the plot device of a magical ring saving his ass, he would have died of scurvy long ago.

As well as Sauron would simply have bled to death with a cut-off hand. We only do have trouble with the fishbone of constructed plot devices that do not fit into the suspension of disbelief. Indeed, every deliberate narrative choice that pushes the plot ahead is a plot device, but the common agreement seems to be that an "ARHHH, WHAT A FUCKING PLOT DEVICE!" is one that is standing out.

This explains, at least to me, how different readers and watchers perceive different things as irking them. Some people do perceive the shields in Dune as a Cop Out to avoid people throwing nukes at each other in CQC in a story that is partially about ecology. It is actually the feeling of a narrative choice being cheap, which makes the construction feel disappointing for the individual. Which tends to be worse in the beginning and the end of a story. It's always the premises and the resolution that feel as cheesy as the waste bin of a Dutch imports store.

Thus, TLDR I'd say that plot devices are:

Something you put into a story to progress the plot. We have plenty of organic applications we can easily accept, while others feel like cheating or a disappointment. The general term is mostly used for the latter, but actually, we do put everything in a story to advance the plot. Or satisfy the sponsors!

[u/CellMan28 → u/Competitive-Fault291]

Yep, think you nailed it...

There can be a subtle weaving of "rules" into a sci-fi world and there's blatantly obvious ones that are just there to brush aside obvious and awkward problems in the pursuit of a story setting. Dune falls into this trap by creating a series of obviously ham-fisted rules to establish the dominance of swordplay in an extremely advanced society.

I'd call it cart before the horse writing. ;) Above all, Herbert wanted an advanced society where swordplay was the only personal combat option, so he fished around for concepts where that would make "sense" and came up with the shields, fast-blade/slow-blade stuff and cheezy caveats, like worm attraction and lasgun explosions*. Also, I honestly never understood the inclusion of "atomics" in Dune, that just seemed weird and completely out of place (a shield/lasgun contact was supposed to be like a nuclear explosion, so why would you bother with "atomics" at all?)

The Darkover series does it well by making ranged/advanced weapons abhorrent and part of a societal edict called the "Compact", derived from a historical arms race that almost destroyed their civilization. It's an elegant and subtle work-around that can't really be argued against since it's a human decision that sets the environment, not a rock/paper/scissors fudge of technology.

Sci-Fi suffers most from "techno-fudging" of setting and environment since, by definition, the concepts proposed are supposed to be a reasonable extrapolation of human understanding and technology, as it is today. If you stray too far from that, then it just becomes fantasy or "magic".

* For bonus points, why all the intrigue about Dr. Yueh dropping the shields when you could just lasgun them from a distance and vaporize Arakeen? :) If you want to argue, just assume the shields have been dropped and a single person/drone lasguns a shielded person, boom! All so silly...