Why sci-fi makes me better than you.

You might make fun of us, but it’s only because you know deep down that sci-fi geeks are quite simply a better class of person. When you think about it it’s obvious, but for those of you need the help, here are some pointers towards enlightenment:

1. Hotness
It goes without saying that sci-fi geeks are the hottest of all cult fan groups. Proof, if proof were needed:

Sci-fi geek	Period drama fan

2. Honesty
There are two ways to deal with sci-fi geekery: closet or pride. Most geeks choose the latter: I have yet to meet a sci-fi geek who wasn’t ‘out’. We might as well just be honest: we can’t hide it from ourselves and we can’t hide it from anyone else. Since lying is pointless, most of us front it out. Star Trek conventions are just Gay Pride weekends with beer guts and pubic hair. However, for all their faults, you can trust a sci-fi geek. You won’t marry one and find out three years later that he’s having an affair with a chiselled hunk in a jump suit: you’ll know that from day one. If you can share your man with Lee and Helo, you’ll be just fine.

3. Loyalty
There is no other group of fans like sci-fi fans; we are the german shepherds of fandom. Woe betide the dross: once the fangs are in we never let go. There’s plenty of sci-fi out there limping it’s way to the bargain bin at Forbidden Planet (Sliders, SeaQuest DSV, Galactica 1980). That said, if it’s worthy of the genre we’ll happily sit at its feet and warm its slippers. As with anything, there are some dogs who get too excited and piss all over the carpet (can you imagine a horror fan giving his home a Texas Chainsaw makeover to challenge this?), but on the whole we’re a pretty level-headed bunch. Get it right and a geek is a fan for life: get it wrong and you’re dog meat.

4. Faith in humanity
Believe it or not, science fiction is not all about spaceships and superheroes and transporter accidents that give Kirk a pair of tits and literally turn him into a ladies’ man. Underneath the fantastic stories, sci-fi often explores some of the more high-minded theories around life and living. Listen up: you could learn something. Isaac Asimov:

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

Yeah! Sci-fi will save the world! This is the cornerstone of science fiction: the idea that the human race is something special that deserves to survive. What other genre explores this in such stark terms? Ever since its beginnings, sci-fi has been asking questions about the nature of life: Metropolis did it in 1927 and Battlestar Galactica is still doing it today. Flying saucers and little green men are just the plot: sci-fi geeks are ‘people people’ and we’re here to save your asses from yourselves!

5. Invention and imagination
Let’s face it: you need an imagination to believe in sci-fi. Spaceships flying around faster than light? Alien invasions by multi-tentacled mutants? Replicators ( both kinds)? Getting the balance between suspendable disbelief and outright lunacy is a difficult job. However, what might be outright lunacy one day can quickly become commonplace and downright mundane. Asimov again:

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

Computer disks. Microwaves. GPS. All of them imagined on Star Trek long before they became the regular old shit we use every day. If the iPhone isn’t a tricorder by another name I don’t know what is. The things you say will never happen are the things some sci-fi fan is going to create in twenty years time, and, in an unusual contractual twist, if you can make a Star Trek fictional device work, you can use the ST name for it. Sound funny? When they finally do invent the sonic shower you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.

6. Hope
At the end of the day, sci-fi geeks are a happy bunch, because sci-fi is a happy genre. Yes, Children of Men spends its length in a hellish dystopia, but there’s still a message of hope in there. Sci-fi is all about where we are going and what we can become. If some of us get a bit carried away with it all whilst we’re doing all this good stuff, well, where’s the harm in that? So what if we still read comics? Who cares if we spend a fortune on kids’ toys that we never take out of the box? The next time you make fun of a sci-fi fan, show, comic or collectors’ item, remember the love that goes into it and the qualities that make sci-fi geeks better people all round. Oh, and watch Battlestar Galactica. It rules.