Here’s the deal: post an outrageous plot point for a story, and see if anyone can come up with a completely rational (in-story) reason for it. The setting can be science-fiction or fantasy, but the proposed plot point has to be taken completely straight, not as a farce or satire. Also, you can’t just say “a wizard did it”, or the equivalent.
I’ll start with: explain how there could be an army of women with guns who for some reason have to fight in the nude.
ETA: ok, they could wear hats, boots, jewelry, gloves- but, you know…
The army is female because women fight harder when in defense of their homes and children. They are nude because by this time “smart clothes” are standard, with reactive nano-tech fibers for temperature and fit control. Anti-cybernetic jammers will cause intelligent cloth to stiffen or otherwise malfunction.
Would it be OK to say that they’re a sorceress’s personal army, and she casts invisibility spells on them before battle, but the magic only works on living creatures? Though I suppose then I’d still have to explain the guns…
They’re from a tropical tribe, where clothes aren’t needed for warmth, only decoration, and thus only the rich wear clothes. The tribe has been ravaged by years of warfare, so they’re all poor now, and the men have all been killed. But now, the remaining women have found a cache of weapons, and they’re out for revenge.
DC Comics used to work this way. Sometimes a cover would be fully drawn, inked, and lettered with an illustration based on a concept designed to appeal to the audience, and only then would the writers be told to work up a rationale for why Superman had become a mouse and Lois Lane a hungry kitten, or Green Lantern’s power ring was transporting the world’s bridges to Jupiter, or something.
That would work magnificently in explaining old Hollywood westerns or cop shows that showed gunslingers able to shoot at rival’s guns knocking them away. The weapons have no protection and the force field unfortunately funnels the bullets towards the metal.
Then the rivals have to make out!
My challenge:
Explain why is it that Outer space creatures just invade the USA.
Because they read our books and saw our movies/tv shows where “the leader of the free world” is portrayed as the pres. of the usa.
Mine?
Battlefield Earth(the movie) - How did the ships work after 1,000 years? Also, if they did run, how did our untrained cavemen selves defeat an evil army that easily defeated our well trained military 1000 years ago?
They’re all shapeshifters. They have to be in human form to use ranged weapons, but can take other forms for close combat or escape. Clothing gets in the way if they need to change forms quickly, and stripping in mid-combat is worse than just going naked to start with. As long as they’re going to be fighting as nude humans, they may as well take forms that are as distracting as possible to enemy combatants, so they’re all women…even the men. Bonus: this also explains why they’re all attractive women.
Since there seem to be several viable rationalizations for the first scenario in play, here’s a new one:
The McGuffin is a powerful weapon, capable of wiping out a small army with a single activation. It’s the key to the Empire’s grip on its vassal states. Rather than keeping this critical object in one of their conventional strongholds, however, the Empire keeps it in a small installation in an active volcano.
There’s the Footfall explanation; that America is even from orbit visibly the most well developed and powerful region, and it makes sense to destroy the strongest enemy first & grab the richest region.
The Psychlos had put them into a stasis field to keep the humans from using them. The stastis generator required gold to operate and Terl had dismantled it shortly before the humans found it.
As for the second, the Psychlos hadn’t had any real battles in a thousand years, so the military training was scrimped on. Plus there were budget cuts so that only a skeleton crew was on Earth.
Weren’t the ancient Scots supposed to go into battle naked to prove how brave they were? A good as an explanation as any. BTW you should throw in the idea from Sword Of Truth that the defeated warriors think it’s honorable to be the slaves of the victors.
About jewelry, I had the idea that in a society that considered nudity the norm other types of decorations might become popular, such as elaborate jewelery. Come to think of it Edgar Rice Burroughs does something like this in Princess of Mars
The aliens demand that one of the nation-states of Earth be punished as an example. The UN votes 190-1 to choose the United States (with Israel abstaining).
A completely rational, average man commits public suicide by hitting his head against a wall without apparent reason.
Gravity on Earth starts failing at random intervals.
An illness makes some random people start reproducing exact copies of themselves, like they were bacteria. For some unexplained reason each version feels the unstoppable need to kill the other/s
First: environment. The planet/area is extremely hot and humid. Wearing any additional (protective) clothing or “plating” would impair the wearer more than protect.
Secondly: biological. Through some strange mutation/virus, the males of the planet can only copulate a (very) small number of times. Once they exceed this number (varies from individual to individual), the male dies (but typically this last encounter will yield a pregnancy). So the society/culture has developed to encourage sex - for survival sake. Therefore the women have grown accustomed to being “most desirable” all the time - nude. “Rape” is no longer discouraged as there is a natural mechanism to inhibit this. And all pregnancies are handled with the greatest care to ensure birth (no, I am NOT a pro-lifer. Just necessary for my explanation).
