From
YKTTW Working Title:
Tech Fu
This is a trope? Isn't it completely obvious?
Next up:
Gravity Makes Stuff Fall.
NoDot: It probably should be...
jtmmachine: I'm not quite sure what the above poster is talking about. This is about characters who fight entirely with technology, and who are
completely useless without it. When I came up with this trope (under a different name), I was thinking more along the lines of characters who fight using mechs, guns... more complex technology. Characters who specialize in knives, axes, and other weapons that require someone to actually exert themselves wouldn't count for this trope.
NoDot: Trolling with a side order of truth, courtesy of
Star Destroyer.net:
- REAL LIFE EXAMPLE - The 'entire recorded history of armed human combat, starting from the point where we asserted superiority over other animals by inventing the spear'. Shock and surprise, soldiers are obviously more dangerous with technological weapons and extensively rely on weapons to do battle. They can use guns, knives or sharp sticks (along with mechs and rayguns) and the main factor is that once a soldier is separated from his technology - i.e. unarmed, without body armor and completely naked - he can totally be taken down with relative ease by a one-eyed farmer with a flintlock. One of the reasons why so much people consider Prehistoric Cro-Magnon Warfare to be more dramatic is because nowadays warfare relies way too much on technology like muskets and knives and sharpened animal bones to leave anything to the human factor. This makes this trope "Older Than Dirt" or as Old As The Cavemen.
was deleted for trolling. Clean it up a bit and it
might be a good entry. Also, aren't soldiers also taught
some unarmed combat techniques? I'm sure medival knights were...
Alsadius: I tried incorporating the complaint into the description of the trope, to make it clear that it's more about being dependent on tech, not merely aided by it. It's a first attempt, but hopefully this is a workable definition of the article that makes it less flagrantly obvious, while still being a worthwhile trope.
NoDot: The beginning of the second paragraph says that they can still be somewhat dangerous without their
Weapon Of Choice, just not majorly so, so your marine example is bad.
I think it needs to emphasize the
Tech Fu user's uselessness without their tech. As most armed forces (real and fictional), mech pilots, and
Gadgeteer Geniuses would qualify, only subversions/aversions of those should be listed.
Alsadius: Thing is, the Stardestroyer criticism was entirely valid. Actually, that's the reason why I got pointed to this page at all. "Tech makes you fight better" is a flagrantly obvious trope, and really a stupid one. Aside from a few flagrantly unrealistic kung-fu-type settings, it's a universal fact. I'm trying to address the concern without just deleting the page outright. Maybe deletion is the right call, for just being too omnipresent to be a trope, but I'd prefer to repair it if possible. That's what I was trying to do. The best repair I can come up with is that this trope is limited to people who don't just benefit from tech, but are reliant on it. Dude with gizmo > same dude without gizmo is not
Tech Fu, it's just a gizmo being useful. Dude with gizmo > tank, dude without gizmo < small child is
Tech Fu, if the term has any meaning at all. I want the trope not to apply to RL fighter pilots or battleship captains, but to apply to fictional characters in some number of universes. "Completely useless without the tech" seems the closest we can get to that.
I guess there's two questions here. 1) Is my definition of the trope reasonable/agreeable? 2) If so, how do we best rewrite the article? Some of the examples will need to go, of course, for being too mundane. The intro will need some work. "With relative ease" is misleading, the bit about subversions just smacks of defining a subversion as "Anything that isn't a clear example", and my bit clarifying feels tacked-on(which, of course, it is), not organic. Thoughts?
NoDot: The thing is, I don't see how ship captains and fighter pilots
don't qualify under that, except under the most literal meaning of "small child." If you limit it to one person per "tech," the captains go, but that still doesn't disqualify the fighter pilot.
Alsadius: Maybe I'm going too far the other way here, but I just don't want to feel like we're deriving inspiration from the
Tropes That Will Never Happen page. Where do we draw the line? Battleships probably qualify, if we're going to say that it's the ratio and not the absolute difference. Do fighter pilots? Artillerists? Machine gunners? Musketmen? Spearmen? A monkey with a big rock? I'm not asking to be a jerk, I genuinely don't know. This is the sort of reason why I suggested it only be applied to dependence, not merely augmentation. It's not quite the same, but it feels far less absurd to me.
jorgath: IMO, your definition works. Here's a suggested paragraph for rewriting the article.
"This trope only applies to situations where Tech makes a character Invincible, and not having that Tech is the character's
Kryptonite Factor. For example, a modern fighter pilot does not qualify. Although that pilot is far more effective with Tech (a fighter jet), the pilot without any Tech is still a physically fit individual who likely has been trained in unarmed combat."
NoDot: I'd scale what qualifies according to the 'Verse. In the age of fighter jets, being physically fit means nothing, but it would be a huge advantage in the
Dung Ages.
jtmmachine: As the person who first came up with this trope (under a different IP address and name), I feel like I really half-assed the description of this article. This wasn't meant to be a "flagrantly obvious" trope that people using technology fight better than those without it. My original intention was exactly what
Alsadius said: these are characters who are DEPENDENT on technology, and who are completely useless without it.
It's relative to the setting. In a world of superheroes who have super strength, laser vision, force fields, and such, the character who is able to fight alongside or against them solely on the power of his robot suit fits this trope. In a world of robots that are able to shoot energy blasts and spit fire, the weak
Mad Scientist who is able to crush them in a machine that
he controls is this trope. If everyone in that setting fights only inside mechas, everyone is fighting with
Tech Fu. The important thing is that this person is only on equal footing with the other characters because of their technology, as opposed to any innate powers. He would quickly die without it.
Syndrome was actually the inspiration for this trope, and is the perfect example of it. He never fights in hand-to-hand combat. Instead, he uses the Zero-Point Energy in his gauntlet to throw objects at his enemies and throw his enemies around. He's also shown to use bombs and heat seeking tracking devices. He's able to beat Mr. Incredible and his family several times because of his technology, but we can imagine that Mr. Incredible would beat Syndrome to a pulp if he were ever separated from his fancy gadgets.
Iron Man/Tony Stark is another great example. The only reason he can defeat all of the people he fights is because of his suit. Though he, at least, is somewhat more active than Syndrome, actually physically fighting his opponents, Tony would stand no chance without it.
The technology in question should not require much physical prowess at all (and several examples of this trope don't bother to exert themselves at all). A character proficient with a sword, axe, or mace would not be using
Tech Fu, because those weapons actually require great strength and agility.
I hope that this helps explain what I had in mind, and again, I'm sorry for all the debate it's caused.
Krisnack: This is a rather pointless trope. See
here and
here.
rjung: I suspect jtmmachine was originally going for some kind of "Weapons Master" villain trope, a bad guy whose abilities come solely from machines. Syndrone, The Iron Monger, a
Gadgeteer Genius Mad Scientist villain. The problem is that the description is
way too broad, and it might already be covered by another existing trope (I'm too lazy to check). Unless someone wants to do the legwork to see if this trope — and re-focus this entry if it doens't — it might be best to cut it for now, with an option for a sequel on
YKTTW to reveal an upgraded version 2.0 of the trope...
jtmmachine: Yeah, that was the idea I had in mind. We're currently discussing in the forums how to fix this trope so that it actually makes sense. This should definitely be cut.
Janitor: When this has been moved/translated into the new title, I'll re-purpose this title to something about the
Fan Speak use of the term.
