[The Galaxy Express is excited to present a series of posts by a Very Special Guest. Her name is Maybelle and she's here all the way from sweet home Alabama to give us her take on archetypes in science fiction romance. This is the sixth installment of a ten part series. Maybelle's posts will go live Saturday 9 am EST).] Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Type 7m: The Reckless Brother of the King of the Galaxy Who Turned Space Pirate and Has Little Desire to be King (aka the Swashbuckler): Used to be, the spare heir just played Galactic Yuffball or lazed around seducing women and stuck close to the home planet, but this new breed, Reckless, spends his time doing extreme planet sports to disguise his pirating habits.
Reckless can nail a kidnapped Earthling gal, sure, after he raids the ship and steals the box of diamilli she hid in, but once the anti-grav sheets are down, he’s Mr. Commitmentphobe. Can you believe that? You give him the time of his life, Earth style, and he's all, "It's Over."
He thinks women and other items stolen from the Ursa Major Police Force cramp his extreme pirating lifestyle. He swaps them for money and spends the credits on gear for his spaceship. Worse, he sells you back to the spaceman you were assigned to in the first place. Who ain't real happy you took off again, after the moonbase episode, but what's he gonna do? Kidnap another chick? Like he's got the clearance—or the transport beam—for that.
Type 8m: The Self-Righteous Bastard Who Thinks He Should Be King of the Galaxy So He Starts a War (aka the Warrior): This spaceman loves to fight. He wants to bust somebody’s asteroid on a regular basis. If he can’t get somebody to pay him to hop into his Stingray X5000 and blow stuff up, he’ll drum up a crusade, like dethrone the King, so he’ll have an excuse to heat up his laser gun.
Most members of the Bastard archetype is pure physical, but they’s a few scrawny ones who find other ways to fight, with their so-called brains. Ha, not like they’re Robots, am I right? How smart is fighting all the time?
Bastard is one of the only archetypes eager to mess with the King. The difference is this guy don’t care if his butt gets kissed once he wins. He is no King, my friends, no King at all. In fact, after he wins, he just takes off to stick his dog in another fight.
Ain’t that just like a man? He has no plan for how to fix a planet after his Death Star done shot it up. He ain’t a good choice to latch onto when you're trying to shed the dud of a space stud you were assigned to, what, three times now? Let me tell you, being a camp follower in the stars gets old fast, but luckily your supposed-to-be mate has just give up by now and let you have your own key.
That’s the last of the eight manly Martian archetypes. I think you probably see, like I do, that they ain’t so different from Earth men—they just got laser guns. I hope these archetypes help you come up with some realistic stories. I’m really just writing down what anybody would notice about the people she meets when abducted by mating-crazed space men.
Next week I’ll give you the low-down on some of the women you meet when you’re travelling the warpy star roads.
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