"Old West Parallels Sci Fi" Topic

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Got me thinking about the parallels between sci fi and old west genres. Again.

Three questions:

1) What scifi setting do you think is most like the old west?

Me: The Mandalorian. Star Wars has several mixed motifs. But the old west stuff comes across visually and thematically the best in Mandalorian.

Serenity/Firefly is second.

2) Do you use scifi rules for old west or vice versa?

Me: Yes. From back in the days when Boot Hill and Gamma World were new, these two were inseperable to me. In some senses, you just need more accurate and destructive weapons with faster transport.

3) Do you use scifi scenarios for old west or vice versa?

Me: Yes. No matter the rules Seven Samurai plays well with many different kinds of guns and weapon availability. The Magnificent Seven brings a different flavor to the Bushido honor code. SciFi accuracy and power change the dynamic in a different way.

Outland – literally a remake of High Noon

Well, 20th, we could go for "Battle Beyond the Stars" and remake The Magnificent Seven instead. Or the original Galactica and do Shane.

But for me, I'd give up on the video and opt for REAL SF--the Mars of Northwest Smith (C.L. Moore) and John Eric Stark (Leigh Brackett)--gun-slinging adventurers, riding beasts, ghost towns, nomads in the Drylands, and treasure for the smart and ruthless. It's straight out of Judges--no king, and every man doing what's right in his own eyes.

My fallback is Kimball Kinnison in the Lensman books, bringing Civilization to the frontier with a DeLameter on each hip, or passing himself off as an addicted prospector.

At a skirmish level,something like Astounding Tales or the Chaos system works well enough for either. (I'm working on blending the two.) And there are a number of scenarios which would work for both. But I think it's fair to point out that most of those scenarios would work for Victorian adventure or ancients, too. You might get away with them in Prohibition as well. Try counting up all the remakes of The Magnificent Seven and Red Harvest.

Hmm. I see no one's gone with post-Apoc yet. Another SF setting with plenty of overlap with westerns. Not my favorite, though. I live in an odd blend of post-Apoc and Cyberpunk, and find neither one satisfying, fictionally or otherwise.

Human nature is a constant. And fronters are often similar.

If you consider "Necromunda" as science fiction, I've worked on a Wild West variant (Streets of Lamunda) to complement Verdunda (WWI) and Vietnamunda (Vietnam War). Skirmish/RPG designs.

Star Trek ToS — Gene Rodenberry hisself described the series as a Space Western, a Wagon Train to the stars.

And then quite specifically in Season 3, Episode 6: "Spectre of the Gun". Any Earth ship trespassing in Melkotian space may find themselves in a Space Western. (And that was DeForest Kelly's 3rd trip to the OK Corral, the first two being more traditional period pieces)

Please, miniMo! I've spent nearly 60 years now telling myself that 3rd Season Trek was just a rumor or a very bad dream. I refuse to call it SF--though it might just qualify as Sci-fi.

Pity that Dr. Who hadn't tapped DeForest Kelly for their OK Corral serial that aired in the spring of '66.
=^,^=

Cut and paste to the genre of choice, SOS, different costumes.

I'd disagree, Captain. Obviously it depends on what you think is distinctive about either "genre" but I think most of us would accept that the important thing about the Wild West is that it's Wild. The weak to absent central authority is what makes "High Noon" "The Magnificent Seven," "Shane" and--what was that Clint Eastwood take on "Yojimbo?"--transferrable, but only to places equally weak on central authority, like early Samurai Japan or certain types of space opera. Which is why I wince at "SF" let alone "SciFi" as a genre. These stories work with a wide open frontier in space or a post-Apoc setting, but those are not the sum total of science fiction. Think time travel. Think a future where the Authority's agents are everywhere. But most Wild West scenarios could be adapted to, say, western Europe after the fall of Rome, or the eastern Med at the start of the Iron Age--more or less, 1200 BC. "Yojimbo" began as "Red Harvest" in the Prohibition West, and showed up again as Bruce Willis' "Last Man Standing" and a Rutger Hauer post-Apoc ("Omega Doom") but could you see it as WW2? Or SYW?

Ah. The Clint Eastwood Yojimbo was Fistful of Dollars. I had to look it up. Not really an Eastwood fan. But if you watch authors stealing plots, you can generally see where you can steal scenarios from--or move them to. It would be pretty easy to do a post-Apoc "Seven Samurai" for instance. Probably work better than the Roger Corman space opera version. It would be a piece of cake for sword and planet--if anyone still did sword and planet.