"Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles" discussion

POSTED BY: CapnRahn
UPDATED: Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:17
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DANFAN

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 1:33 AM

A question came to me after that last post...

One of the strongest themes in the novel Starship Troopers was that the price of franchisement (in the society in his novel) was military service. That is, unless you were willing to put your life on the line for society, then you hadn't earned the right to decide that society's future.

No military service? Then no vote! No exceptions.

My recollection is that this theme earned just the barest mention in the first act of the movie.

Did that theme show up in any form in the animated series?

DBELL46

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 2:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
^^^ ? I haven't read any Heinlan but from what I'm told he often used Sci-Fi to portray a fascist society.

As a major fan of Heinlan in general and Starship
Troopers in particular, I feel I have to correct
some misconceptions you appear to have.

Heilein's basic political argument in the book went
like this :

1) In a society that votes, the vote is the greatest authority the individual can exert over
society.

2) In a just system there must be some natural
mechanism to bring authority into balance with
responsibility (authority with no responsibility
is despotism, while responsibility with no authority creates a scapegoat.)

So, what Heinlein proposed was that anyone wanting
to vote first demonstrate that they were willing
to place the welfare of the society above their
own personal interests, and the way they were to
do this was by volunteering for any public
service with special conditions. Any unpleasent
task with a predictable amount of personal,
physical risk involved would do. For example,
collecting and disposing of used syringes in a HIV
ward in a hospital or cleaning bedpans in an
infectous disease ward. Two years of this would
earn a person the right to vote.

The military was a special case requiring two years or one war whichever came LAST.

Heilein would be the first to admit he wrote a
war story because wars are inherently dramatic
and he was trying to sell the book. Its also ironic that he came close to being blacklisted for
this book even though he was a rabid anti-communist. (it was published in 1954 during
the McCarthey witch hunts}

Just as the colonial marines in Aliens were
scifi heliocopter assault troops from vietnam, his starship troopers were scifi paratroopers from the korean war with the "bugs" representing the
chinese (he has a comment about communism working
for the bugs because they're designed for it.)
If you read a lot of Heilein (and I have) you see
that politically he was a radical libertarian not
a fascist. Verhooven focused only on the military
aspects of the story because of his personal
background (occupied norway during WW2) whereas
heilein was a naval officer with a totally dfferent attitude and outlook towards war.

Sorry if I'm rambling, it was a late night followed by a long day. More often than not, I
find myself agreeing with you G'man, but you're
"dissing" one of the two books that got me thinking hard about politics and the
military when I was 15 or so. you should read it.

****************************************************
If history is remarkably clear on one point,
it's that people don't learn from history.
****************************************************

DANFAN

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 12:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dbell46:
Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
^^^ ? I haven't read any Heinlan but from what I'm told he often used Sci-Fi to portray a fascist society.

...but you're
"dissing" one of the two books that got me thinking hard about politics and the
military when I was 15 or so.

Actually, I didn't think he was dissing the book or the man. He had just heard (from an unspecified source) that Heinlein "often" wrote about fascist societies. I believe (and apparently so do you) that GM's source was wrong. That said...

Writing about fascist societies isn't inherently wrong. Nor does it imply any approval of such societies by the writer. Approval/disapproval would be indicated by how the author dealt with those societies in his stories.

Anyways, not looking to start an argument. I just didn't get the "dissing" part.

BARNEYT

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 12:41 PM

Haven't read that much Heinlein so am definitely not going to get involved in that part of this thread!

But on the subject of the Roughneck Chronicles - it's a 'children's series' in the same way as the Justice League animated series is considered a 'children's series' - ie, not really! Or definitely for older children at the very least.

For everyone hoping for a definitive and full series on DVD, don't hold your breath - most of the Homeland series of stories were never made because the company ran out of money. It has been hoped that purchases of the DVDs would fund them finishing the story off, so there is still hope...

I'm pretty certain (without having the DVDs in front of me - I'm at work, they're at home) that everything that was shown on TV has now been released on DVD. Yeah, they were released in a funny order, but they should all now be available.

Don't know about content being cut though... will have to investigate when I get home...

---
"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing

GHOULMAN

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 3:22 PM

Thanks for the info guys.

Seems Heinlan was all over the place and explored all sorts of sociological forms and stories. I enjoyed Starship Troopers but knew it was a subversive screed, on Paul Verhoevens' part I guess, to portray a fascist society battling an "evil" foe (they always are). ST followed the proto Nazi Youth plot rather closely. The elements of citizenship as privilage and nobility mixed with hero worship. Of course, these things always end with a noble death of a comrade while the heros go off into the sunset. The sunset of a "better, braver new world".

Paul Verhoeven understood this and it seems so did Heinlan. Just as Starship Troopers portrays a society where one must be a "citizen class" to enjoy basic rights, so did Nazi Germany.

Quote:
Originally posted by dbell46:
Sorry if I'm rambling, it was a late night followed by a long day. More often than not, I
find myself agreeing with you G'man, but you're
"dissing" one of the two books that got me thinking hard about politics and the
military when I was 15 or so. you should read it.

I didn't mean to imply Heinlan was an advocate of fascism. Paul Verhoevens' movie had been a sly portrayal of pretty people fighting a noble and heroic war (there's no such thing of course) in the tradition of completely unreal fantasy. Considering todays war movies, Starship Troopers at least winks it's eye to let you know that the society these pretty people are living in is, in fact, completely oppressive of human rights as we know them.

Sooo, it strikes me as scary that there is a CGI "childrens show" about war. Tell me, what genius though that was a moral thing to do?

That's great, and thanks for the indepth.

CAPNRAHN

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 6:27 PM

As moral as any show about conflict.

"Remember, there is only ONE absolute - There ARE NO absolutes!!!"

DANFAN

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 7:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BarneyT:
But on the subject of the Roughneck Chronicles - it's a 'children's series' in the same way as the Justice League animated series is considered a 'children's series' - ie, not really! Or definitely for older children at the very least.

I loved the book. I enjoyed the movie (as a completely separate entity from the book that shared nothing more than the book's name and a couple of story elements). I've never seen an episode of the CGI series... I didn't even know it was on until it wasn't. The series interests me, but I know next to nothing about it.

Perhaps you're the guy who could answer the question I posed earlier... From 30,000 feet, what is the show's character? Are the story lines basically a shallow shoot 'em up? Is it visually competent? Are the characters cardboard or do they have some real (realistic) personality? Does it explore the effects of war on its characters emotionally or mentally? Does it address any social issues (e.g., the concept of social service as a pre-requisite for franchisement)?

I know some of that stuff is pretty deep water for an animated show to swim in. I don't need for it to hit all those topics. But I'd like to know what the show's flavor is to determine if I'd like to add one of the campaign boxed sets to my Christmas list as a sampler...

CAPNRAHN

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 9:23 PM

It is deeper into character and character growth than the movie. It does have its "HooRah" shoot'em-ups, but the 'toon (actually closer to Anime) shows the results of reckless behavior.

We follow Rico's growth from a uncertain hot-dogger to the LT. of the Roughnecks.

They really dig into Dizzy's character and her underlying motovations.

Carmen is NOT with Rico and he moons at her from afar.

Carl is more of a lynchpin and very interesting to watch evolve.

Speakin' of 'evolving' - Heh, what they do to Zander...! Hee hee.

Shee-oot - One could say that ALL the voice talent really fleshes out their individual characters and the interpersonal relationships therein.

OK, I'll let sombody else jump in fer a bit!

"Remember, there is only ONE absolute - There ARE NO absolutes!!!"

CYBERSNARK

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 2:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by CapnRahn:
We follow Rico's growth from a uncertain hot-dogger to the LT. of the Roughnecks.

They really dig into Dizzy's character and her underlying motovations.

Carmen is NOT with Rico and he moons at her from afar.

And the Dizzy/Rico/Carmen soap opera gerts more and more complicated.

I liked Higgins' growth from nervous reporter to one of the team, expecially his friendship with, uh, the alien guy whose name I can't remember 'cause it's been years.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

NICKFRANCK

Sunday, November 14, 2004 8:11 AM

Hey, you guys, I never thought there are so many people talk about this movie, and I love this show too. However, I really wanna talk about the original works--the science fiction 'Starship troopers', and the great author of this novel whose personal Illustratration is right in the following website address: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~main/heinlein.html#Starship

By the way, I'm from the capital of China, yeah, right far away from you guys, I got a big question that where could I get this novel on line or anywhere, is there anyone could help me?
thanx!

My soul always gets far away from earth to another galaxy in my dream.

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