I agree to the general point and have used similar argument to why I don't really get involved in star wars or Star trek.
I think for layman (like me) a question to ask to make the distinction is just to ask "if we replace all the science element in the scifi with magic, would anything change?"
In star wars the force could simply be magic, light saber is the magic swords, space travel is portal between worlds, aliens is just magic species (yoda is a fairy), and almost nothing of the story or any core message would change.
Now can you say the same for say, Black Mirror? Not really, removing the "science / tech" from those stories will drastically change the meaning of the story and how the audience will relate to it.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" as Arthur C. Clarke said.
Core of good science fiction is to make that magic relatable and still somewhat convincing that "in the future, this might be something we would just call science"
Eh. I think that is backwards. Star Wars would not (and in some works, does not) work without the magic. Science Star Wars is bad. Star Wars worked because it operated under a backdrop of objective morality. Good guys who learned the virtues of being good. Bad guys who were kind of just evil.
When you choose to lean into the science you tend to start doing things related to practical consequences of the tech that frankly just make the universe a lot shittier. Things like Jedi blood, droids that have machine intelligence and perfectly calculated 360 no scope shooting instead of their goofy “organic” personalities and flaws, light speed kamikaze attacks, annoying characters asking if the bad guys are the ones self identifying as the dark side powered by hate or is it some dickish wealthy arms dealers?
The important difference imo is not realism but whether the ability of the tech comes from supposed ingenuity or does it come from moralistic fantasy willpower stuff.
Game of thrones is more sci fi than Star Wars. While the former has fantasy elements, a lot of it is deconstructed practical consequences of the premise of the tech and magic. Game of thrones is not by any means emblematic here of what I’m saying though*
The techification of Star Wars is just a slow grind of ruining a world with canon
I think the problem with Star Wars isn't the objective morality, but rather the simplistic morality. Stories with objective morality can still present complex moral situations, dilemmas in which the answer isn't clear cut despite morality being objective. It's been many years since I've read it, but IIRC I think Ender's Game is a good example of this. The author at least believes in objective morality (from what I understand) but the situation presented to Ender is morally complex.
Sadly, I've come to believe that any story with FTL in it must be classified as fantasy. I might be willing to accept natural wormhole travel. Even with generation ships, authors vastly underestimate the difficulties of traveling interstellar distances. When authors posit intergalactic travel, forget about it! Galaxies might as well be pocket universes because they don't interact. (Unless they collide, which will happen with the Milky Way and Andromeda in about 4.5 billion years. Oh man if we can make it that long and have even slow interstellar travel, what an opportunity for exploration!)
But yeah, thank god most of science fiction is actually fantasy because if any of those things were possible, they'd immediately be used to destroy planets. Ships going FTL could be collided into a planet. Teleportation and easily accessed anti-matter could be used to annihilate cities - or planets. Most authors don't even bother building in reasons why that can't happen, its just that no-one thinks of doing it.
I think the limits of the real world are quite fascinating. It's almost like reality was designed to support a huge array of civilizations that cannot interfere with each other. Interstellar travel is so hard that any civ capable of it is going to be capable of executing technologically advanced projects over centuries or millenia, and I daresay such a civ is not doing it for conquest, but to discover and explore. If the urge is militaristic, then such a civ would turn on itself long before the project succeeds. There's a kind of poetry to it.
Most scifi I've read with FTL usually has some explanation that isn't pure fantasy. For example, I just finished reading A Fire Upon the Deep[1] by Vernor Vinge, and the in-universe explanation for FTL in the novel is that different regions of our galaxy effectively have different laws of physics, which is (admittedly somewhat handwavingly) due to the density of the interstellar medium.
Sure, FTL travel is never grounded in our understanding of physics and the universe, but do you really think our understanding is anywhere near complete?
I don't have anywhere near the physics chops to debate this in detail, but the usual contention WRT FTL is that our understanding of physics actively precludes the possibility of FTL. Winchell Chung's Atomic Rockets website gives a good account of the basic argument here: https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.ph...
Love that book, but it's fantasy. It's a cool idea that is impossible to rule out without literally going to every part of the universe and doing experiments there. But that's impossible, so it's unfalsifiable. In fact, you could make the same claim about Earth. We aren't going to do every experiment at every place on and in Earth.
> Most authors don't even bother building in reasons why that can't happen, its just that no-one thinks of doing it.
Is it really necessary to spell out that a civilization capable of building a FTL starship is also capable of building a sufficient defensive technology?
> I daresay such a civ is not doing it for conquest, but to discover and explore. If the urge is militaristic, then such a civ would turn on itself long before the project succeeds.
I think this is much more complex. Consider a civilization so advanced that this is children's toys for them - and then that civilization falls. Then, on the scraps of it, a new imperialistic faction is built and they go for the conquest; they don't even need to understand the magic that powers their warships. I recommend you to read the full Foundation series in chronological order.
"Is it really necessary to spell out that a civilization capable of building a FTL starship is also capable of building a sufficient defensive technology?"
We have had ICBMs for a long time, yet no sufficient defensive technology as of yet.
Beyond the fact that using them would lead to MAD, that is.
I've read everything. I probably read the Foundation series before you were born (assuming you're 20-something). In fact, Asimov certainly knew that FTL was fraught - but he was writing for a living, and FTL was in vogue and he used the hyperspace version of it. It's unfortunate - I would have liked to see more grounded SF from him
I think FTL is reasonable cop-out. So just existence alone does not make something fantasy. At least if the implications are properly explored and things are consistent.
Neither Star Wars or Star Trek do things well. Some other material does things reasonably well explained and thus actually are on Fiction side.
Hardest possible take does not really leave too much room to go around. Some expectations make more interesting stories and explorations.
I feel that Event Horizon is the most effective science fantasy movie produced. I've seen it once, which was enough to leave an indelible mark on me.
Event Horizon combines the supernatural with some elements of vaguely plausible science fiction. The movie comes together in a way that traces back to the present-day with a pretty bright line, especially in prop and spaceship design. It keeps you connected and then dumps the fantasy element on you hard. Disturbing but well done stuff. Deeper nerd-cut, it's a 40K prequel, if only unofficially.
"Deeper nerd-cut, it's a 40K prequel, if only unofficially."
Yup. Horrors of the warp could hardly be better brought to cinematic form. The actors are surprising high profile as well. An excellent "B" movie that owns itself 100%.
The first time I watched it I was away from work, sick, by myself in a dark room with no other distractions. Watching it like that left an indelible mark on me too. I lived it.
If the distinction that we're after is Science Fiction vs Science Fantasy, then I think it should focus less on how the science is handled (since that appears in both labels anyhow) and more on whether the Fiction is Fantasy.
The soul of scifi, science aside, is that it's a commentary on the present. 1984 feels like sci-fi despite not really having much to do with the science that appears in it because its a cautionary tale about where we're going if we don't change our ways.
So yes it's about whether elements of the story are connected to reality somehow, but I don't think the relevant elements are the scientific ones.
The way I like to think about this is Rick Altman's Sementic/Syntactic approach to genre. (a short summary here: https://introfilmgenres.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/the-semanti... )
Basically there are stock elements like space, lasers, aliens, etc. and there are thematic elements like themes of futurism, exploration, paradoxes, what is live? (these are just the ones I came up with off the top of my head) and just because a work has one of these doesn't make it part of that genre. Apollo 13 is set (largely) in space but I don't think people would call it science fiction. Star Wars is set in space but I have seen it argued thematically it is a western.
(I think in the book Film/Genre Altman added a third category but I don't remember it and thought the book was pretty confusing compared to the initial article he wrote.)
> Soft science fiction takes scientific concepts and theories and bases itelf on their practical applications. Things such as warp drive, hyperspace / subspace and jump drive are all based in Einstein’s timespace and related concepts. Specifically, warp drive and jump drive are all based around gravitational bending of timespace being used to move the space ship is part of instead of the ship itself – the ship thus travels faster than light without moving faster than light. Hyperspace is based on moving from realspace into theoretical dimension where distances are significantly reduced, and then popping back up.
I don't consider warp drive or hyperspace travel "soft" sci-fi at all. These things are still in the domain of mere speculation, however much "theory" you throw at them. On the other hand, laser weapons can be considered "soft", since we already have working prototypes. Albeit, they still aren't practical in the sense that laser weaponry is portraited in movies.
I believe it's hard to write convincing science fiction. There are many required know-hows to write quality works based on futuristic science. Writers often jump into pit-falls trying to incorporate speculative theories and pseudo-science into their work.
Laser weapons as such would be "hard" sci-fi precisely because we have working prototypes.
Basically:
hard sci-fi: we have concepts and understand how to apply them, but it may not be practical (e.g. Orion drive)
soft sci-fi: we have concepts but no idea how to apply them (e.g. antimatter power plants)
science fantasy: anything goes, technobabble as a veeneer for lack of science
But yes, writing convincing science fiction is hard.
I’ve personally come to the conclusion that the vast majority of sci-fi is sci-fantasy for the simple reason that I can’t convince myself fleshy humans have any meaningful place in the exploratory parts of the future. Novels featuring human crews of spaceships doing more than maintenance, let alone humans in combat scenarios are increasingly laughable. It’s 2023 and humans on crewed SpaceX flights already don’t do anything. Humans 100 years from now will be even less necessary, not more.
Any sci-fi recommendations where the fleshy meat bags are mostly useless? I enjoyed the earlier Murderbot novels, thought the Bobiverse was interesting, and have already read all the Culture and Polity universe books.
Children of Time/Ruin handles the "what are the living things for?" decently well, although does skate towards the "maybe nothing?" conclusion over time. Haven't gotten the third book so will see.
One of the three manifold books (Baxter), I forget which one, has a very beginning with your exact conclusion (no meat bags at all), and later a subsection/ending that at least doesnt have human fleshy meat bags.
I think there are two axis there. An axis of "hardness" and an axis of realness. With hardness being how scientific the approach is, and the other axis is how close the world is to the real world.
For example:
- Hard science fiction: The Martian
Mars is real, the laws of physics are the same as in the real world and are followed as closely as possible.
- Soft science fiction (here called science fantasy): Star Wars
The setting is presented like an unexplored part of the world we live in rather than something completely made up. The difference with the real world is that there are no strict rules, the laws of physics can be broken at any time if the story calls for it instead of making the laws of physics a plot point.
- Soft fantasy: The Lord of the Rings
Not only the world is made up, there is unexplained magic, but it doesn't have consistent rules. You are free to do as you like, to tell a good story is the only thing that matters.
- Hard fantasy: Mistborn series
The world is made up, there is magic, but the magic is essentially alternate laws of physics. A dragon may be present, but expect its anatomy, biology and "power source" to be explained in great detail.
The limitation in the case of science fiction is that something could be hard, we just don't understand the underlying rules of the universe that would make it possible.
The authors of course don't know this, as they are limited by current human understanding, but they could inadvertently be writing hard fiction that sounds soft to us.
It is a scale, not a pigeonhole. It seems that Mistborn is veering towards sci-fi, so I guess it will become fantasy-ish sci-fi compared to the more pure fantasy of the first book. I didn't read the latter books, but I guess it will never be pure, since it involves a magic system that is taken as an axiom, and I don't think there is any intention to tie it to the real world.
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I think for layman (like me) a question to ask to make the distinction is just to ask "if we replace all the science element in the scifi with magic, would anything change?"
In star wars the force could simply be magic, light saber is the magic swords, space travel is portal between worlds, aliens is just magic species (yoda is a fairy), and almost nothing of the story or any core message would change.
Now can you say the same for say, Black Mirror? Not really, removing the "science / tech" from those stories will drastically change the meaning of the story and how the audience will relate to it.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" as Arthur C. Clarke said.
Core of good science fiction is to make that magic relatable and still somewhat convincing that "in the future, this might be something we would just call science"
When you choose to lean into the science you tend to start doing things related to practical consequences of the tech that frankly just make the universe a lot shittier. Things like Jedi blood, droids that have machine intelligence and perfectly calculated 360 no scope shooting instead of their goofy “organic” personalities and flaws, light speed kamikaze attacks, annoying characters asking if the bad guys are the ones self identifying as the dark side powered by hate or is it some dickish wealthy arms dealers?
The important difference imo is not realism but whether the ability of the tech comes from supposed ingenuity or does it come from moralistic fantasy willpower stuff.
Game of thrones is more sci fi than Star Wars. While the former has fantasy elements, a lot of it is deconstructed practical consequences of the premise of the tech and magic. Game of thrones is not by any means emblematic here of what I’m saying though*
The techification of Star Wars is just a slow grind of ruining a world with canon
But yeah, thank god most of science fiction is actually fantasy because if any of those things were possible, they'd immediately be used to destroy planets. Ships going FTL could be collided into a planet. Teleportation and easily accessed anti-matter could be used to annihilate cities - or planets. Most authors don't even bother building in reasons why that can't happen, its just that no-one thinks of doing it.
I think the limits of the real world are quite fascinating. It's almost like reality was designed to support a huge array of civilizations that cannot interfere with each other. Interstellar travel is so hard that any civ capable of it is going to be capable of executing technologically advanced projects over centuries or millenia, and I daresay such a civ is not doing it for conquest, but to discover and explore. If the urge is militaristic, then such a civ would turn on itself long before the project succeeds. There's a kind of poetry to it.
Sure, FTL travel is never grounded in our understanding of physics and the universe, but do you really think our understanding is anywhere near complete?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep
My favourites are from Futurama:
1. Scientists increased the speed of light in the year 2208.
2. "The [Dark Matter Engines] don't move the ship at all. The ship stays where it is and the engines move the universe around it."
Is it really necessary to spell out that a civilization capable of building a FTL starship is also capable of building a sufficient defensive technology?
> I daresay such a civ is not doing it for conquest, but to discover and explore. If the urge is militaristic, then such a civ would turn on itself long before the project succeeds.
I think this is much more complex. Consider a civilization so advanced that this is children's toys for them - and then that civilization falls. Then, on the scraps of it, a new imperialistic faction is built and they go for the conquest; they don't even need to understand the magic that powers their warships. I recommend you to read the full Foundation series in chronological order.
We have had ICBMs for a long time, yet no sufficient defensive technology as of yet.
Beyond the fact that using them would lead to MAD, that is.
Neither Star Wars or Star Trek do things well. Some other material does things reasonably well explained and thus actually are on Fiction side.
Hardest possible take does not really leave too much room to go around. Some expectations make more interesting stories and explorations.
Or it will pass through a planet like neutrino. How you know which FTL method will actually work?
Event Horizon combines the supernatural with some elements of vaguely plausible science fiction. The movie comes together in a way that traces back to the present-day with a pretty bright line, especially in prop and spaceship design. It keeps you connected and then dumps the fantasy element on you hard. Disturbing but well done stuff. Deeper nerd-cut, it's a 40K prequel, if only unofficially.
Yup. Horrors of the warp could hardly be better brought to cinematic form. The actors are surprising high profile as well. An excellent "B" movie that owns itself 100%.
The first time I watched it I was away from work, sick, by myself in a dark room with no other distractions. Watching it like that left an indelible mark on me too. I lived it.
The soul of scifi, science aside, is that it's a commentary on the present. 1984 feels like sci-fi despite not really having much to do with the science that appears in it because its a cautionary tale about where we're going if we don't change our ways.
So yes it's about whether elements of the story are connected to reality somehow, but I don't think the relevant elements are the scientific ones.
(I think in the book Film/Genre Altman added a third category but I don't remember it and thought the book was pretty confusing compared to the initial article he wrote.)
I don't consider warp drive or hyperspace travel "soft" sci-fi at all. These things are still in the domain of mere speculation, however much "theory" you throw at them. On the other hand, laser weapons can be considered "soft", since we already have working prototypes. Albeit, they still aren't practical in the sense that laser weaponry is portraited in movies.
I believe it's hard to write convincing science fiction. There are many required know-hows to write quality works based on futuristic science. Writers often jump into pit-falls trying to incorporate speculative theories and pseudo-science into their work.
Basically: hard sci-fi: we have concepts and understand how to apply them, but it may not be practical (e.g. Orion drive) soft sci-fi: we have concepts but no idea how to apply them (e.g. antimatter power plants) science fantasy: anything goes, technobabble as a veeneer for lack of science
But yes, writing convincing science fiction is hard.
Any sci-fi recommendations where the fleshy meat bags are mostly useless? I enjoyed the earlier Murderbot novels, thought the Bobiverse was interesting, and have already read all the Culture and Polity universe books.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...
For example:
- Hard science fiction: The Martian
Mars is real, the laws of physics are the same as in the real world and are followed as closely as possible.
- Soft science fiction (here called science fantasy): Star Wars
The setting is presented like an unexplored part of the world we live in rather than something completely made up. The difference with the real world is that there are no strict rules, the laws of physics can be broken at any time if the story calls for it instead of making the laws of physics a plot point.
- Soft fantasy: The Lord of the Rings
Not only the world is made up, there is unexplained magic, but it doesn't have consistent rules. You are free to do as you like, to tell a good story is the only thing that matters.
- Hard fantasy: Mistborn series
The world is made up, there is magic, but the magic is essentially alternate laws of physics. A dragon may be present, but expect its anatomy, biology and "power source" to be explained in great detail.
The authors of course don't know this, as they are limited by current human understanding, but they could inadvertently be writing hard fiction that sounds soft to us.
How do you square that when Mistborn become scifi?