# What kind of sci fi show would appeal to mainstream TV audiences who loved Game of Thrones?



## CmdrShepN7 (Apr 27, 2020)

It was long thought that fantasy was a genre once thought reserved for geeks but Game of Thrones has garnered a huge audience. 

What kind of sci fi story and universe would get the attention of the mainstream?

Would it have to have no aliens and futuristic tech until later seasons? Would the interstellar civilizations have to be allegories for modern and/or ancient human civilizations? Would there have to be a space battle in each episode?

What kind of sci fi universe, characters, and story would the mainstream want?

A combination of Iain M. Banks Culture and Mass Effect?


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## BAYLOR (Apr 27, 2020)

CmdrShepN7 said:


> It was long thought that fantasy was a genre once thought reserved for geeks but Game of Thrones has garnered a huge audience.
> 
> What kind of sci fi story and universe would get the attention of the mainstream?
> 
> ...



Any one of those , if done well.


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 27, 2020)

CmdrShepN7 said:


> Mass Effect



I appreciate that Mass Effect had a really big influence on you, but it wasn't a novel or a TV show, it was a computer game. If you're looking to write novels you are really going to have to start focusing your attention on reading novels - lots of them - and letting the _way _that these stories are told begin to inspire you.

I say this because it's one of the first pitfalls of writing that it's "all about the ideas", and that connecting these up with words should be easy because, you know, if you can write English you can write anything.

But writing fiction is a craft, and art and a science, and one that takes many years, even decades, of development to reach a competent standard. So if you're serious about writing, that's what you need to focus on.

Video games and TV shows are they are not going to show you how to _write_, and stories are not simply about the universe, character, and story - but in the telling of it all using words. You need the written word for that, and be able to begin to learn how storytelling works _in the unique medium of the novel_.

By all means, let what you've already experienced inspire you, but don't be led into a false sense of security that all you need is ideas - for writing you need writing skills. You need to learn the deeper meaning and use of words themselves.

Have I hammered the point home enough yet?


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## BAYLOR (Apr 27, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> I appreciate that Mass Effect had a really big influence on you, but it wasn't a novel or a TV show, it was a computer game. If you're looking to write novels you are really going to have to start focusing your attention on reading novels - lots of them - and letting the _way _that these stories are told begin to inspire you.
> 
> I say this because it's one of the first pitfalls of writing that it's "all about the ideas", and that connecting these up with words should be easy because, you know, if you can write English you can write anything.
> 
> ...



I would love to see them do a Warhammer  40k tv series .  There is so much potential   with something like this.


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## Astro Pen (May 1, 2020)

My feeling is that, although bundled here, SF and Fantasy are opposites and have different audiences. Fantasy is currently completely dominant. What SF there is tends to be space opera. You could write it with galleons instead of starships and the scripts/ plots would barely change. 
I think the last sci fi that really captured the public imagination was X-Files, decades ago. and even that had strong supernatural influences in the alternate 'non alien'  episodes.


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## .matthew. (May 1, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> I would love to see them do a Warhammer 40k tv series . There is so much potential with something like this.



I've always thought they should go animation for that (and the fantasy warhammer).


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## Guttersnipe (May 2, 2020)

I think a Dune series would be kinda cool.


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## Rodders (May 2, 2020)

I will always recommend Babylon 5. It is complete, it has multiple storylines and strong character arcs and it is extraordinarily well done TV.

Sure, it’s not without it’s down side. the acting can be a little ropey and people often complain about the effects, (although I always found them to be okay). It’s well worth sticking with. The haircuts will probably date it the most.  

I’m hankering for a rewatch, but I leant my DVD set to a guys I work with. That guy (and my best friend), who haven’t seen it before are in the process of watching it now. I am really looking forward to discussing it with them.

Although it was started in 1995, it remains my favourite science fiction experience.


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## paranoid marvin (May 3, 2020)

Something originally created by by Douglas Adams. Genius writer of books, tv, radio. Basically a genius.


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## BAYLOR (May 3, 2020)

Rodders said:


> I will always recommend Babylon 5. It is complete, it has multiple storylines and strong character arcs and it is extraordinarily well done TV.
> 
> Sure, it’s not without it’s down side. the acting can be a little ropey and people often complain about the effects, (although I always found them to be okay). It’s well worth sticking with. The haircuts will probably date it the most.
> 
> ...



Babylon 5  winner and still Champ.  The best science  fiction show of all time.  It upped the bar not only on science fiction  shows but every other genre television show as well.


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## JoanDrake (May 3, 2020)

The first thing that springs to my mind is Asimov's  FOUNDATION  series.   The story is unusual in hard SF in that the story hinges on a social science,  being mainly about competing theories of analytic historiography so that would get the politics/intrigue junkies and the big canvas people all together.  The story is also written in a manner similar to Martin's, but using actually separate short stories/novelettes widely separated in space and time.  The hard part would be somehow writing in all the sex, since SF in Asimov's day was fairly sanitized but I don't think that would be a real problem for modern writers.  (Naughty Isaac liked to throw in references which you have to be watchful to catch, but they were there)


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## JoanDrake (May 4, 2020)

And springing right up several hours after that is Roger Zelazny's  LORD OF LIGHT  but maybe not, as it's really Science Fantasy


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## Danny McG (May 4, 2020)

Something along these lines would be kinda shiny....

Set 500 years in the future after a universal civil war, the crew of a small transport spaceship takes any job so long as it puts food on the table. The disparate men and women just want to survive and maybe have better lives, but they face constant challenges on the new frontier, such as the Reavers -- flesh-eating mongrels who live on the fringes of the universe


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## BAYLOR (May 4, 2020)

Decades ago .author Michael Shaara did wonderful science fiction short story titled* All the Way Back.   *as far as I know , he never did follow up to it. I  Would love to see a tv show does based off od that short story.


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## Vladd67 (May 5, 2020)

Not a sci-fi book but I believe an *XCOM* and *XCOM 2* series would be interesting, as well as the military side it could cover the shady politics of 'The Council' with the double-dealing and collaboration with the aliens. Early seasons could cover the actual invasion,* XCOM*, and then later seasons could cover the resistance, *XCOM 2*. A spin-off could then cover the integration of the alien foot soldiers into earth society, which would then bring in *XCOM Chimera Squad.*


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## Guttersnipe (May 7, 2020)

Some planetary romance or sword and planet story. A better serial version of the Barsoom books, perhaps.


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## Murderfloof (May 11, 2020)

I really have no idea how to categorize _Outlander_, so I apologize if I'm going off-topic by mentioning it. It seems mainstream to me in that people who don't usually like any sort of SFF seem to like it. I've read others call it "sort of" sci-fi because of the time-travel involved but I don't necessarily agree with that. More like fantasy with time travel. I have read the first book and watched the show so far. Not my favorite thing ever, but it helped fill the GoT void for me.

I think _Star Wars _is the closest to mainstream that actual sci-fi gets. So something like that with enough big-name actors to attract mainstream, maybe?


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## .matthew. (May 11, 2020)

Murderfloof said:


> I really have no idea how to categorize _Outlander_, so I apologize if I'm going off-topic by mentioning it. It seems mainstream to me in that people who don't usually like any sort of SFF seem to like it. I've read others call it "sort of" sci-fi because of the time-travel involved but I don't necessarily agree with that. More like fantasy with time travel. I have read the first book and watched the show so far. Not my favorite thing ever, but it helped fill the GoT void for me.
> 
> I think _Star Wars _is the closest to mainstream that actual sci-fi gets. So something like that with enough big-name actors to attract mainstream, maybe?



I haven't watched Outlander but I always thought it was just a period drama with the premise being woman stuck in the past?

Also please no more Star Wars, the first trilogy was good (ish) but the rampant fanboyism surrounding it makes no sense. They haven't done a good thing since (excepting the clone wars animation and possibly though not seen it yet Mandalorian)


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## Murderfloof (May 12, 2020)

.matthew. said:


> I haven't watched Outlander but I always thought it was just a period drama with the premise being woman stuck in the past?
> 
> Also please no more Star Wars, the first trilogy was good (ish) but the rampant fanboyism surrounding it makes no sense. They haven't done a good thing since (excepting the clone wars animation and possibly though not seen it yet Mandalorian)



As for Outlander, I did see one other post on here calling it a "historical fantasy" which does seem fitting. I have read/watched maybe 80% of the existing material so far, so I don't know everything about it.


Spoiler:  about the time-travel



But I do see that rather than simply being stuck in the past for a historical adventure, the woman (and other people) travel back and forth in time. Someone's conceived in the past, born and grows up in the future then travels to the past as an adult. People meeting ancestors/descendents, etc. and it seems that the time travel is more magical/supernatural than science, but I don't know for sure. She hasn't yet published all the books.



Like GoT, plenty of sex, violence, political intrigue and good (or at least decent) acting all contribute to it being mainstream.  A space opera (for example) would need to really focus on these things and use them to get people hooked and invested in characters, before introducing any space battles or aliens. And then, not get cancelled after 1 season. 

As for Star Wars, well we are talking about mainstream!   I only watched the movies and didn't get especially engrossed in it, other than the  first trilogy being a special fixture of childhood for many people my age. I was always more of a Trekkie.


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## Vladd67 (May 13, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> I would love to see them do a Warhammer  40k tv series .  There is so much potential   with something like this.


Maybe a Horus Heresy prequel?


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## .matthew. (May 13, 2020)

Vladd67 said:


> Maybe a Horus Heresy prequel?



How about Starship Troopers: Tyranids?


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## Ravensirtis (May 14, 2020)

For me i really like to see the war over certain territories. I'd love to see a new space war against a dominion or federation for a system to liberate people


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## .matthew. (May 14, 2020)

Ravensirtis said:


> For me i really like to see the war over certain territories. I'd love to see a new space war against a dominion or federation for a system to liberate people



Maybe a marquis one? Gritty and violent like GoT, less of the preachy Federation ethics while still having them the power in the background.


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## Joshua Jones (Jun 10, 2020)

Well, if you count zombie apocalypse as a SF genre, _The Walking Dead_ is probably as close as you're going to get. 

Otherwise, I feel like _The Expanse, Westworld, _and _Altered Carbon_ are attempts on this... gritty no holds barred type SF which feature the underbelly of humanity pretty clearly... and nude actresses on a regular basis. To be frank, GoT is as popular as it was because is became an alternate form of porn for many (if you can ever get your hands on the website traffic analytics during its run, you'll see porn websites dropped in traffic substantially when a new episode aired and picked back up afterward. The things you learn during a marketing career...), but then got engrossed in the story. So, quite frankly, it would need to be some sort of sex soaked borderline porn series to be as effective, which also limits the networks it can air on to HBO and its clones. 

But other than requiring more square footage of skin shown on screen than square footage of actress wardrobe, it would probably need to be something gritty and dark, with a fair bit of political intrigue and plenty of violence. And a little person...


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## Richard-Allen (Jun 11, 2020)

Warhammer 40k would be a difficult to establish the people to know the details of their relationship with the hierarchy of the imperuim. It would be difficult to allow the public to understand the politics of the ruler or the people. He is willing to allow the viewer to learn these things, If the ship goes in warp the dangers of going there. They have brought out a roleplaying game called the Warhammer 40k, the volumes of the game are able to allow the players to be marines, or inquisitors  or traders.


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