Fistfights and strength question

[Darth Wong]

This is a pop culture brainbug, not just a Star Trek one. In almost all movies, brute strength is treated as an almost irrelevant factor. Martial arts skill is elevated to an almost mystical status, so that a skilled fighter is almost invincible regardless of strength.

Just look at "Serenity", where a fucking 90 lb girl is kicking the shit out of an entire bar full of men. That's a load of bullshit, and it's incredibly common in movies and TV.

It's part of the mythology promoted by the martial-arts industry. Martial-arts certainly has its merits, but the martial-arts industry, in an effort to increase its market, has essentially convinced the public that physical strength and conditioning is completely irrelevant to fighting ability. This is a blatant lie.

[Bellator]

Although you don't see any character using BJJ in sci fi, that style of fighting is based around the notion that strenght has nothing to do with winning fights. See early UFC tournaments for examples of a physically much weaker fighter (but well trained), beating much bigger and stronger opponents (who are also well trained, just not in BJJ). Of course, BJJ isn't flashy and therefor never used in TV fights.

[Darth Wong]

Although you don't see any character using BJJ in sci fi, that style of fighting is based around the notion that strenght has nothing to do with winning fights. See early UFC tournaments for examples of a physically much weaker fighter (but well trained), beating much bigger and stronger opponents (who are also well trained, just not in BJJ). Of course, BJJ isn't flashy and therefor never used in TV fights.

BJJ is a wrestling style, not a complete fighting method.

[Stark]

One-on-one formal fighting isn't an indicator of performance in a free-for-all anyway. Sure, you can dodge strikes and go for the ground takedown, but when there's a room full of people you have no margin for error. It's hilarious in stuff such as Serenity when a tiny tiny girl gently moving her leg in a circle THROWS GIANT HAIRY MEN ACROSS THE ROOM. Just like in real life?

But hey most people think jumping at someone with your leg extended is sensible... so...

[Darth Wong]

People watch MMA and they actually get the idea that this is how people fight. How bizarre is that?

[Big Phil]

Although you don't see any character using BJJ in sci fi, that style of fighting is based around the notion that strenght has nothing to do with winning fights. See early UFC tournaments for examples of a physically much weaker fighter (but well trained), beating much bigger and stronger opponents (who are also well trained, just not in BJJ). Of course, BJJ isn't flashy and therefor never used in TV fights.

Which BJJ fighters were significantly weaker than their opponents? Name a couple...

[Darth Wong]

It would be nice to see examples of scrawny, weak champion wrestlers and boxers, to substantiate this belief that strength doesn't matter.

[Isolder74]

It would be nice to see examples of scrawny, weak champion wrestlers and boxers, to substantiate this belief that strength doesn't matter.

Only Mohammed Ali comes to mind. Even he was no wimp.

[Big Phil]

It would be nice to see examples of scrawny, weak champion wrestlers and boxers, to substantiate this belief that strength doesn't matter.

Only Mohammed Ali comes to mind. Even he was no wimp.

Are you seriously arguing that Muhammad Ali was significantly weaker than his opponents? The man won 56 of 61 professional fights, 37 by KO, for crissakes...

[Isolder74]

No I am not but his myth, which would be in the mind of trek writers, certainly portrays him that way. Ali was known for beating boxers bigger then him.

[Darth Wong]

No I am not but his myth, which would be in the mind of trek writers, certainly portrays him that way. Ali was known for beating boxers bigger then him.

Sonny Liston had a much longer reach, and Foreman was a one-man wrecking machine, but I think it's a stretch to say that he was much weaker than they were. Besides, I asked for examples of weak champion wrestlers or boxers. Ali was definitely not weak.

A 3x strength difference is huge. It approaches the strength difference between an adult and a child. There's no way we should see humans routinely beating the crap out of aliens 3x stronger than they are.

An across-the-board species strength advantage should also manifest itself in superior toughness. After all, these guys can punch each other in the face without killing each other.

[Isolder74]

No I am not but his myth, which would be in the mind of trek writers, certainly portrays him that way. Ali was known for beating boxers bigger then him.

Sonny Liston had a much longer reach, and Foreman was a one-man wrecking machine, but I think it's a stretch to say that he was much weaker than they were. Besides, I asked for examples of weak champion wrestlers or boxers. Ali was definitely not weak.

A 3x strength difference is huge. It approaches the strength difference between an adult and a child. There's no way we should see humans routinely beating the crap out of aliens 3x stronger than they are.

An across-the-board species strength advantage should also manifest itself in superior toughness. After all, these guys can punch each other in the face without killing each other.

In that case the only person that qualifies is little Mac from the NES game Punch Out. Of course that is a fictional character.

[Darth Wong]

Frankly, I hate the "aliens are always stronger than us" theme in science fiction. It also forces us to ask a lot of questions, like "where is the trade-off?"

Biology is not magic. In order to make a species stronger, you have to pay for it somewhere. Maybe they have much heavier musculature, which means they should also be heavier and require much more food. Maybe their muscles are attached farther up the bone for better leverage, which means that their fuel efficiency will be severely reduced (the effect would be like a car which only has first gear).

[Stark]

It's probably there to reinforce how awesome humans are; I mean, aliens are generally smarter, stronger, almost always live longer, often have psychic powers or some idealised philosophy of peace and calm OR a violent tribalist society of manly men... and HUMANS WIN ANYWAY HOO YAH!

I blame Tolkien.

[Isolder74]

In Lord of the Rings the Men basically lose. 2 tiny Hobbits are who wins because they are small and unnoticed.

[Bellator]

Which BJJ fighters were significantly weaker than their opponents? Name a couple...

Early UFC Gracie vs Shamrock/Kimo/Severn come to mind as prime examples.

[Crazedwraith]

It would be nice to see examples of scrawny, weak champion wrestlers and boxers, to substantiate this belief that strength doesn't matter.

This would seem to be a pretty poor example seeing as both fighters in a boxing ring will have roughly the same amount of training and technical expertise.

I think the implication of most martial arts stuff isn't so much "strength doesn't matter at all", but merely that a weaker but trained fighter is going to prevail against a stronger untrained guy by virtue of actually knowing how to fight. (for example it doesn't matter how much stronger than their opponent someone is, if they break their wrist the first time they try to throw a punch) Obviously films take this far too far.

[SCRawl]

This is way down the ladder of what is and is not canon, but I remember playing the Star Trek RPG -- the pencil and paper kind -- many years ago. When generating a character, I noted that humans lagged behind their alien counterparts in pretty much every attribute category, save one: luck. Humans had no modifier, while all other species were in the -30 to -70 range. (I forget exactly what luck was supposed to help you with, but I remember that Kirk's score was at the top of the charts.)

Just a point here: while I do recall figures for how much stronger the Vulcans (and therefore Romulans) are, and how strong Khan was, I don't recall such figures for any other species. To the best of my knowledge, Klingons were never quantified in this manner, and my assumption was always that while they were a little stronger than human normals, they weren't in the same league as the Vulcans. Worf appears to be an exceptional Klingon specimen; he looks like he has a body builder stashed under his uniform.

But yeah, as others have said, a three-fold strength advantage ought to make you pretty much unbeatable, IMHO. The obvious tactic would seem to be getting in close and then snapping the opponent's bones like those of a chicken.

[Darth Wong]

It would be nice to see examples of scrawny, weak champion wrestlers and boxers, to substantiate this belief that strength doesn't matter.

This would seem to be a pretty poor example seeing as both fighters in a boxing ring will have roughly the same amount of training and technical expertise.

No it wouldn't, since that training invariably makes them physically fit. There is no such thing as a trained and yet physically scrawny and weak boxer. Physical training is part and parcel of being a boxer. That's part of the point.

[Big Phil]

Which BJJ fighters were significantly weaker than their opponents? Name a couple...

Early UFC Gracie vs Shamrock/Kimo/Severn come to mind as prime examples.

Really? Royce Gracie was only as strong as a 7 year old boy vs. extremely physically fit adults? That's the gap we should be seeing - that's the gap that supposedly exists in Star Trek.

Royce Gracie was not a physically large man, but he was in superb physical condition, and was much, much stronger than you seem to be giving him credit for.


EDIT - to be fair, I suppose you could make an argument that he was significantly weaker than his opponents, but you really should quantify that, as opposed to me just accepting your word for it (for example, how much could Gracie curl/squat/press/lift vs. his opponents?).

[Darth Wong]

I don't think anyone was saying that technique is irrelevant either, so it doesn't prove anything to show that the stronger fighter does not always win. This is not the Black and White Fallacy Hour. We were talking about the foolishness of the pop culture belief that strength is essentially irrelevant, not trying to promote an equally absolute fallacy going the other way. Remember the examples given: people in Star Trek supposedly fighting opponents 3x their strength, a 90 lb girl in Serenity beating up entire bars full of men, etc.

[RedImperator]

You know, there's one possible explanation, at least for Vulcans and Romulans. Vulcan has stronger gravity than Earth, but there's no such indication the same thing applies to Romulus, and Federation starships canonically have the artificial gravity set to 1 G. Human muscles deteriorate after extended periods in low gravity, and there's no reason to assume the same doesn't apply to Vulcanoids. That would neatly explain why Tuvok, Vorek, and every Romulan we've seen don't seem to have the immense physical strength attributed to Vulcans--after years in a 1 G environment, Vulcans lose much of their strength, and Romulans never have it at all. As for Spock, maybe he just worked out a lot off-screen.

Of course, ENT blew this all up by having Archer beat the shit out of Vulcans on Vulcan, but fuck ENT anyway.

[speaker-to-trolls]

It's probably there to reinforce how awesome humans are; I mean, aliens are generally smarter, stronger, almost always live longer, often have psychic powers or some idealised philosophy of peace and calm OR a violent tribalist society of manly men... and HUMANS WIN ANYWAY HOO YAH!

I blame Tolkien.

That's unfair to Tolkien, as already pointed out, but otherwise, yes, I think you've pretty much got it. I think it's the same principle as the Spanish talking about how awesome and magnificent the empires they destroyed were, rather than the fact that the soldiers of those empires had pyjamas for armour and cricket bats with inset stones for weapons (and so on).

But I think there's also a need to play up the aliens strengths even when you're not going to show your manliness by beating them, it makes them that much more impressive, particularly if they're meant to be more advanced than humans. It doesn't actually make sense of course, that being physically stronger than humans should matter when everyone involved is in space.

[Isolder74]

FWI the Aztec war clubs had sharpened obsidian attached and they caused horrific wounds. They were not anything to poke fun at. They were downright nasty.

The next thing you are going to tell me is native american arrow heads were terrible weapons because they were made of flint/obsidian/rock.

[saurc]

Vulcan has stronger gravity than Earth

Except we've seen humans on Vulcan, and no adverse effects due to greater gravity ever mentioned.