What are the essential elements of a good space opera?

What are the essential elements of a good space opera?

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It saddens me that Space Dandy isn't on that chart there.

To answer the question, there's a fuckload of stuff that goes into a good space opera, but I personally feel the biggest thing you have to do is character dialog. Everything that can possibly be done through person-to-person interaction should be. If you're playing a game at the table, don't let your players delegate shit that can move the story forward or provide an opportunity for something interesting to happen to an NPC or take the lazy way out and just say "I send a boarding party to take the enemy ship" or "I order two cases of fine wine for my private stock." Fuck that. Make them go on the boarding attempt themselves if they can and have anything better than a slight chance of not getting fucked. If they want their wine, they have to personally speak to their supplier and arrange the pickup next time they dock. For a space opera to be successful, everyone needs to engage with the characters and feel the same things they do. That sort of shit is what makes Star Trek and LOGH so fucking good.

>What are the essential elements of a good space opera?

Singing, obviously.

youtube.com/watch?v=NKFMWhxJask

Yes, even when it leads to grossly unrealistic situations where irreplaceable high ranking officers are needlessly put into very dangerous situations. And I'm not saying that sarcastically, the inability to delegate is a legitimate staple and peculiarity of the genre.

I should watch star Trek again.

Why would you be upset that a bait image doesn't have a show you enjoy on it

Man, I'd swap Star Trek Voyager with... hmmm. Bucky O'Hare.
Even furry fapbait is better than this shit:

youtube.com/watch?v=ZSuXtHpjI2s

>What are the essential elements of a good space opera?
A ship(or similar) and crew in space. BUT! Times have changed.

A lot of things from Star Wars and old SciFi just don't make any sense anymore. We have to actively ignore that a robot or AI could do a job much better, safer, and with less trouble than having humans do the job. Like a gunner on a Star Destroyer. Or a interpreter droid. In the 70's, droids were boxy clunky things. In RogueOne, no one blinked when a bot caught a grenade mid-air and casually tossed it back with perfect timing. Or perfectly aimed without looking and shot a guy. Of course robots can do that, they've seen the boston dynamic videos. But that raises the question of why the fuck don't droids do everything? Space-opera sci-fi these days is clinging onto a bit of retrofuturism.

But I can work with this. I've got a story setting gimmick brewing.

The characters are AI programs on a drone carrier deep in enemy territory. But we don't tell the audience. They're kept in the dark as much as possible about the nature of the characters and we just throw a TON of equivalents and euphemism at them. The actors/characters are all metaphorical. They need a pilot to fly ships, they need a gunner to aim the cannon, they need a navigator to plot the course. They're all AI running on the ship's mainframe, but in the show they're actors doing the job.

The main characters are AI while the hoarde of nameless crewmen are scripts. Lots of pilots that get loaded into fighter craft. There's a commisar that acts like a watchdog making sure the AI improve, but don't go rogue. He enforces worship to the mystical god-like entity they have on ice in the hold, an actual human (though you never tell the audience that). Lots of cheap disposable clones, although no one likes to die. Imply a near post-scarcity society back on Earth, but they're second class citizens that are expected to work to earn the right to breed. Genetic algorithms.

>Clone Wars in mid tier
>no TCW or Rebels
nibba

Someone take this bait back, it's like two years old now. It's really starting to smell.

>A lot of things from Star Wars and old SciFi just don't make any sense anymore. We have to actively ignore that a robot or AI

But we can't ignore cheap-safe-n-easy FTL?

>ds9
>above terrible tier
kek

A fapbait alien race of nothing but females who look 98% human but are maybe a different color.

>that pic

fucking Trekkies, I swear to god. Your shows are mediocre. The first couple of movies are good tho. Also, the original series and TNG have some good episodes and are respectable for their influence on culture and human society at large.

Not so much ignore, but explain. "Hey, there's this magic engine with fuckin' crystals that WARP SPACETIME making distances shorter!" People can buy that. Lots of people have a lot of faith in the potentials of scientific breakthroughs. It's kinda the basis of Sci-Fi in general.

But you have to be a fucking idiot to not question why they don't use that fantastic super-tech to go do dangerous stuff for them. This is called "suspension of disbelief" and the more a show needs it, the softer it is on Moh's scale of sci-fi hardness. And any space opera with a crew on a ship in space is below a 4.

>Star Wars clone wars
>Low tier
Wut?

>DS9
>Anything less than the best trek series

>What are the essential elements of a good space opera?
Passion.
Romance.
Intrigue.
Betrayal.
Murder. (see Passion above)
Long-lost people showing up again.
People going crazy. (and then sane again) (see Passion above)
Mad Science (totally optional)
and finally: SPACE!

tl;dr: threadly reminder that Space Opera is nothing but a Soap Opera IN SPACE!

>taking decrepit bait

archive.4plebs.org/tg/search/filename/space shows/type/op/

You've been had.

I'm not actually upset. I just felt like shilling my favorite weeb garbage for a sec.

Fuck ya sg-1 on the top baby!

>Star Trek ever that high (i mean, fine, high tier is reasonable, but three star treks in God tier?)
>LEXX in very low tier
>Bodacious Space Pirates isn't really space opera, but it deserves at least low-mid\
>Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy not in god tier
>Legend of the Galactic Heroes higher than Cowboy Bebop (i'm fine with same tier)

We can't be friends, user.

DS9 was the first Star Trek to try something new. That pilot was a hell of a hook. Its so terrible that Janeway was put in a mediocre series.

Space operas take place mostly in space and are usually required to have FTL travel and aliens. However, things that have both of these do not necessarily make a space opera.

Doctor Who is more science fantasy that occasionally dips into drama, horror, mockumentary, mystery, and thriller.
Men In Black COULD be a space opera... if the main character was an ambassador traveling to various other planets.
Futurama, even though it can have people go to different planets and has aliens, is NOT a space opera, as most of the episodes take place only on earth and the ficus is more on slice of life comedy.
And finally, anything that is Cyberpunk is NOT a space opera. The focus is more on transhumanism and toppling corrupt governments

Space operas take place mostly in space and are usually required to have FTL travel and aliens. However, things that have both of these do not necessarily make a space opera.

Doctor Who is more science fantasy that occasionally dips into drama, horror, mockumentary, mystery, and thriller.
Men In Black COULD be a space opera... if the main character was an ambassador traveling to various other planets.
Futurama, even though it can have people go to different planets and has aliens, is NOT a space opera, as most of the episodes take place only on earth and the ficus is more on slice of life comedy.
And finally, anything that is Cyberpunk is NOT a space opera. The focus is more on transhumanism and toppling corrupt governments

Either version of Space Battleship Yamato are quite conspicuous by their absence.

>Lexx in very low tier
Bad taste confirmed.

>Trek TOS god tier
There should be a "required watching for context but not all that great 75% of the time" tier.