Science Fiction: What is it really?

zehaeva

Here is your thread to argue about SciFi!

Is most of it just a Soap Opera set in space?

What does SciFi need and what can it do with out? Does the corny, hokey tropes make the genre or do they detract from it?

Okay, Go!

Rym

Speculative Fiction.

TheWhaleShark

Speculative Fiction.

Not all sci fi is purely speculative. I would argue, in fact, that the majority of William Gibson's works are not at all speculative; his novels were social commentary and predictive works. He wasn't speculating; he was really reporting.

Of course, most science fiction is speculative, for better or for worse. Some is just fanciful "what if" crap, and some, like The Difference Engine, use their speculative nature to make a meaningful point.

Apreche

First, let us avoid the argument of definition of science fiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_science_fiction


I like to refer to Heinlein's fan-mail solution for my preferred short and digestable sci-fi definition.

"stories that would cease to exist if elements involving science or technology were omitted."

The common theme in all of the definitions on Wikipedia is that for a story to be science fiction has to be about the effect of science, or possible future science, on humanity. This is why the term speculative fiction is also often used. It is fiction which speculated on what humanity would be like given science plus the passage of time.

The Surrogates and Ghost in the Shell are both science fiction. They answer the question "what would earth be like if we had mechanical bodies?" The central focus of both of these works is the effect that the scientific advancement of surrogate bodies or cyberization has on society. Galaxy Express 999 explores the idea of mechanical bodies, and the effects on society of immortal people. Despite that, the majority of the show is just action/adventure/suspense/mystery. The one sci-fi aspect is key to the show, but doesn't actually take a good percentage of the screen time. So is the whole work sci-fi just because it has one sci-fi element? I would think not. You wouldn't call an action movie a mystery simply because it contained one mysterious element.

Something like Star Wars isn't science fiction. It's not asking what the world would be like if X. It's a fantasy adventure. Being in outer space doesn't make something science fiction, and not being in space doesn't mean something isn't science fiction. Frankenstein, which has no outer space at all, is one of the earliest science fiction works. What would happen if someone created a monster in a lab?

Most of these live action "sci-fi" tv shows aren't actually science fiction. They are sitcoms, dramas, soap operas, or other genres that happen to have a setting in outer space or the future. Also, some of them simply contain fantasy elements that have a technological look and feel. Replacing monsters with aliens or robots doesn't turn your fantasy into a sci-fi.

Using these sorts of criteria, clearly some of the TV shows you people like so much are not science fiction. Star Trek is science fiction sometimes, but not too often, and it depends on the series. Babylon 5 is mostly drama in space. The new BSG is drama and suspense, in space.

Now, whether you agree or disagree with this, there is the additional argument to be made. Just because something is or isn't sci-fi, doesn't make it good or bad. There is plenty of good and bad sci-fi out there. There is also plenty of good and bad non-sci fi. The genre of a work has no correlation whatsoever to the quality of that work.

Whether these shows I dislike are sci-fi or not, that is not the cause of their lack of quality. The lack of quality is due to the fact that they are painfully corny and ham-fisted in a "I hit you, you little guy!" sort of way. At least for the really old retro shows, it sort of works in a midly entertaining sort of way. I can enjoy them the way I enjoy Rocky + Bullwinkle, which I enjoy greatly. The newer shows, it's just painful.

Cremlian

The Surrogates and Ghost in the Shell are both science fiction. They answer the question "what would earth be like if we had mechanical bodies?" The central focus of both of these works is the effect that the scientific advancement of surrogate bodies or cyberization has on society. Galaxy Express 999 explores the idea of mechanical bodies, and the effects on society of immortal people. Despite that, the majority of the show is just action/adventure/suspense/mystery. The one sci-fi aspect is key to the show, but doesn't actually take a good percentage of the screen time. So is the whole work sci-fi just because it has one sci-fi element? I would think not. You wouldn't call an action movie a mystery simply because it contained one mysterious element.

Couldn't the story be told by just replacing Technology with Magic and then you would have a fantasy story..... about what would earth be like if we all had magically created cloned bodies?

thaneofcawdor

Not all sci fi is purely speculative. I would argue, in fact, that the majority of William Gibson's works are not at all speculative; his novels were social commentary and predictive works. He wasn't speculating; he was really reporting.

Of course, most science fiction is speculative, for better or for worse. Some is just fanciful "what if" crap, and some, likeThe Difference Engine, use their speculative nature to make a meaningful point.

Speculative Fiction is just a recently coined umbrella term for fantasy, horror and traditional sci-fi. Calling it Sci-fi is unpopular among literary nerds these days, for reasons I don't really get.

But back to the original question, I think Sci-fi is about extrapolating what's possible in science and technology. Some of Tom Clancy's stuff should be considered sci-fi, whereas I see Star Wars as just fantasy set in space. It's less about the setting, and more about the approach to technology.

zehaeva

The Surrogates and Ghost in the Shell are both science fiction. They answer the question "what would earth be like if we had mechanical bodies?" The central focus of both of these works is the effect that the scientific advancement of surrogate bodies or cyberization has on society. Galaxy Express 999 explores the idea of mechanical bodies, and the effects on society of immortal people. Despite that, the majority of the show is just action/adventure/suspense/mystery. The one sci-fi aspect is key to the show, but doesn't actually take a good percentage of the screen time. So is the whole work sci-fi just because it has one sci-fi element? I would think not. You wouldn't call an action movie a mystery simply because it contained one mysterious element.

Couldn't the story be told by just replacing Technology with Magic and then you would have a fantasy story..... about what would earth be like if we all had magically created cloned bodies?

I was thinking the same, that you could replicate GitS with magic rather than technology. A lot of Sci-fi stories seem to fit in this category.

Which brings the comment that any technology, sufficiency advanced, is indistinguishable from magic ala Clarke. Does this mean that the science in the story has to be with in our current reasoning and not hand-waved into oblivion?

To me Sci-fi is inherently a story about people, not necessarily humans but sentient beings and all that. But with a thought like that I guess Sci-fi becomes nothing more than a subset of Drama.

I really like Heinlein's fan-mail solution, as it were termed, but I can't think of too many examples that can not have the technology be substituted for magical/fantasy elements.

Apreche

Couldn't the story be told by just replacing Technology with Magic and then you would have a fantasy story..... about what would earth be like if we all had magically created cloned bodies?

Nope. If you could magically transfer your mind and soul into a new body that was magically constructed, then that implies all sorts of other things about the world as well. If magic can do that, then how about all these other things? You could put restrictions on the magic, so that those other things aren't there. If you put enough restrictions, it's eventually the same as science. If it's the same as science, then it's science fiction! Just switching out the word science for the word magic doesn't make any difference.

WindUpBird

Speculative Fiction is just a recently coined umbrella term for fantasy, horror and traditional sci-fi. Calling it Sci-fi is unpopular among literary nerds these days, for reasons I don't really get.

Spec Fic holds credibility. When the unwashed masses hear "SciFi," they think of the TV channel with the original D movies, trashy pulp serials, and maybe the vague recollection of seeing 2001 and being really fucking confused. Sturgeon's Law means that we had to retroactively name the genre to avoid scorn, since scorn was all it received up to that point, even when Verne was writing it.

Also, to quote Harlan Ellison, "'Sci Fi' sounds like the sound of crickets fucking."

Omnutia

Magic = I need X to happen so I'm going to make up magic Y and ignore any inconvenient consequences.
Working backwards from the other end.
Science = Hey.. dude.. what.. what if Y was real. / I dunno dude *Draw*, you'd have like, X and stuff happening and people would be all like W.

Cremlian

Nope. If you could magically transfer your mind and soul into a new body that was magically constructed, then that implies all sorts of other things about the world as well. If magic can do that, then how about all these other things? You could put restrictions on the magic, so that those other things aren't there. If you put enough restrictions, it's eventually the same as science. If it's the same as science, then it's science fiction! Just switching out the word science for the word magic doesn't make any difference.

But that doesn't really answer the question. A movie like Surrogates is tightly controlled to just talk about that specific question and doesn't go into the fact that with that level of tech required to have a surrogate there would be a ton of other aspects of that technology that would change and influence the world. Surrogates just plays with that one concept and doesn't go into the other aspects of the world as much. You could of course do the same thing with Magic. (I.E. we found a artifact that provided the power to switch bodies) Surrogates does not go into the other aspects of what that technology would entail. Just as a story about a guy who learns he can toss fireballs doesn't necessarily research whether he can fly as well...

TheWhaleShark

But that doesn't really answer the question. A movie like Surrogates is tightly controlled to just talk about that specific question and doesn't go into the fact that with that level of tech required to have a surrogate there would be a ton of other aspects of that technology that would change and influence the world. Surrogates just plays with that one concept and doesn't go into the other aspects of the world as much. You could of course do the same thing with Magic. (I.E. we found a artifact that provided the power to switch bodies) Surrogates does not go into the other aspects of what that technology would entail. Just as a story about a guy who learns he can toss fireballs doesn't necessarily research whether he can fly as well...

The difference is that magic requires far more assumptions than science, and answers far fewer questions. That's the difference between literature which is speculative and literature which is escapist. If you speculate about a lot of major components in the world, and don't bother answering a lot of questions, then you've effectively just transported yourself to a different world.

Calling it Sci-fi is unpopular among literary nerds these days, for reasons I don't really get.

Well, "sci-fi" is a loaded word. "Speculative fiction" can sound better. I call for better distinction in terms, though, because one can speculate without actually saying anything useful. This is also why I use the term "science fantasy" to describe things like Star Wars.

I like to use the "science" descriptor to denote those things which make an attempt to establish some kind of systematic logic in the world. The fewer "miracles" that exist, the closer it is to being science.

EDIT: Escapist literature is not all bad, but it needs to have some sort of applicability in order to be worthwhile as anything more than cursory entertainment.

Apreche

This is also why I use the term "science fantasy" to describe things like Star Wars.

Star Wars isn't even science fantasy, it's just fantasy adventure. Where's the science? I don't see any.

TheWhaleShark

Star Wars isn't even science fantasy, it's just fantasy adventure. Where's the science? I don't see any.

I just edited that in, but "science" is used to describe literature with fewer "miracles" and more systematic explanations of things. It's more realistic than, say, a Dragonlance novel.

Apreche

I just edited that in, but "science" is used to describe literature with fewer "miracles" and more systematic explanations of things. It's more realistic than, say, a Dragonlance novel.

Star Wars has 100 times more politics than science. If you're going to pick two words to classify it, science isn't one of them.

TheWhaleShark

I just edited that in, but "science" is used to describe literature with fewer "miracles" and more systematic explanations of things. It's more realistic than, say, a Dragonlance novel.

Star Wars has 100 times more politics than science. If you're going to pick two words to classify it, science isn't one of them.

No, Dune has 100 times more politics than science. Would you say that Dune isn't science fiction? Star Wars has dichotomous morality. The politics are actually incredibly simple.

zehaeva

No, Dune has 100 times more politics than science. Would you say that Dune isn't science fiction?

Well, I were wondering about this. Where does Dune fall? There is a great deal of mysticism and philosophy within Dune. Other than some "Sciency" elements a great deal of Dune would work in almost any setting. The Science just isn't necessary for Dune to work as a story.

Apreche

I haven't read enough Dune to render a judgment.

Techparadox

Nope. If you could magically transfer your mind and soul into a new body that was magically constructed, then that implies all sorts of other things about the world as well. If magic can do that, then how about all these other things? You could put restrictions on the magic, so that those other things aren't there. If you put enough restrictions, it's eventually the same as science. If it's the same as science, then it's science fiction! Just switching out the word science for the word magic doesn't make any difference.

Hence Clarke's third law. If I've got a cloud of sparkly nanites that I can control via mental interface and said nanites can build someone a new body out of thin air and then suck the information out of their neurons and transfer it over to the new body, then to a casual observer of a lower-tech society, for all intents and purposes, I'm doing magic. The determining factor here is how the author frames it. While the specific set of rules under which magic works in that world could be considered "the science of magic", setting forth those rules doesn't transform it into sci-fi. When an author puts restrictions on the way magic works in a world, they're not turning it into sci-fi - they're turning it into hard fantasy, much in the same way sci-fi that tries to follow the established laws we know would be hard sci-fi. If the magic of the world works under the tropes of a fantasy story, then it's a fantasy. If the "magic" is produced by a thing of technology then it's sci-fi. If you've got a blurring of the two then you're treading into the realm of science fantasy.

TheWhaleShark

There is a great deal of mysticism and philosophy within Dune.

Mysticism and philosophy do not prevent something from being science fiction. You can have systematically explained mysticism and magic, which, as Scott pointed out, is just as good as science; on the flip side, you can have technology which cannot be explained at all, which is effectively the same as unexplainable mysticism.

Assertion: The Prince of Nothing series is a work of science fiction.

The "science" aspect boils down to the level of understanding (and control via understanding) that we can have with regard to the forces in the setting of a story, much in the same way that the validity of the science you do in a lab boils down to adequate control of the variables in an experiment.

Works of pure fantasy usually involve elements which we can't really understand in a discrete and systematic way. Things often just happen, beyond the control of the characters in the story, and it's up to them to deal with it. For example, in the original Star Wars trilogy, the Force is beyond anyone's understanding, and thus beyond any real sort of control. There is an overarching arbitrary system of morality (the Light Side and the Dark Side) whose rules are immutable and ethereal, and whether or not you can do anything with the Force is completely arbitrary. The degree of uncontrollable, unexplainable forces in Star Wars throw it into the fantasy genre. However, much of the world is still relatively discrete and explainable, so it should retain the "science" descriptor.

Dune is harder science fiction than Star Wars, even though it contains much more wide and varied mysticism. This is because the most magical thing in the entire series - the Spice - can be understood to a greater degree than can the Force. There is a more readily discernible and complete system, with far more control over its implications.

In The Prince of Nothing, magic is virtually a science. There are in-depth explanations of how the system works and what its limitations are. While much of the mysticism is unexplained, it appears to be explainable.

EDIT: Note to self: Don't use "ephemeral" where you mean "ethereal."

Luke Burrage

In the original Dune novel, there is nothing magical. All of the elements in the story are accounted for by science and world building. At no point is anything done that is beyond the understanding of someone. Or beyond the possible understanding of someone.

And this is the key, for me. If the workings of the event or object or whatever is said to be magical could be explained, it is not magic. Many stories don't care one way or the other, and it's not so important to question if it is science or fantasy fiction. But some present the mechanics of the magic/science as something understood and created by someone in the world, and I look at it as science fiction, or they present the workings of the magic/science as something not understood by anyone in the fictional world, and UNEXPLAINABLE too. They might say what steps you need to take to get there, and know those steps scientifically, but if at the core the people in the world know they can never know... magic.

Shiam

I was actually thinking about this last night, and basically the conclusion I came to was that sci fi as a genre(as viewed by large) is sort of a misnomer. Sci fi(and fantasy for that matter) is more of a description of the setting than the plot or writing. So while much of it is space battles, or hinged on technology, none of those are necessary to make something sci fi. Calling it speculative fiction gets to more of the core of what sci fi is about, but seems to be vague and excludes pulp sci fi. Even putting the technological requirement seems to over constrain and would exclude a lot of classic sci fi that only deals very lightly if at all with technology.

So, I would define scifi as a genre in which the setting is not in our present, past, or near future, often with fantastical or technological elements defining key parts of the setting. This does sort of end up including fantasy writing, which I'm not sure is bad because the line between the two is rather blurry.
Hopefully what I'm trying to say made some sense.

zehaeva

In the original Dune novel, there is nothing magical.

But the story won't suddenly cease to be if science were taken away from it and replaced by magic or replaced by stuff even less technologically advanced like steam or wind power. At its core Dune is a book about a limited resource and the politics and struggles for said resource. Further afield it becomes about the fate of humanity as a whole and its current/past/future enslavement to ideologies and dogma. I could be off base but you should be able to rewrite all of Dune and have it work in a medieval setting.

WindUpBird

In the original Dune novel, there is nothing magical.

I dunno. A drug that grants prescience seems like a case of Clarke's 3rd to me.

TheWhaleShark

I could be off base but you should be able to rewrite all of Dune and have it work in a medieval setting.

Well, there are only so many fundamental types of story. The differences come in the specifics of the settings.

No, the story wouldn't cease if you changed out the science for something else, but it would become necessarily different, or else it would stop being self-consistent. A science fiction story works by controlling variables in the setting through systematic explanations. Fantasy stories work by presenting unexplainable forces and forcing you to react to them. One deals with how we proceed in a world where we can understand how things work, and the other is how we proceed in a world where the most important forces in our lives are beyond our ability to comprehend. Those result in different specific stories with different specific points.

Luke Burrage

But the story won't suddenly cease to be if science were taken away from it and replaced by magic or replaced by stuff even less technologically advanced like steam or wind power. At its core Dune is a book about a limited resource and the politics and struggles for said resource. Further afield it becomes about the fate of humanity as a whole and its current/past/future enslavement to ideologies and dogma. I could be off base but you should be able to rewrite all of Dune and have it work in a medieval setting.

Bullshit.

The entire kwisatz haderach element is about the scientific manipulation of genes over thousands of generations. The mentats are also bred and trained from birth for remembering and calculating, as a replacement for computers, or "thinking machines", which were once used to run the businesses of the houses. The use of nuclear weapons against humans is banned by convention, and they are a key part in the power struggle.

I could go on and on, but if you think Dune is just about limited resources, and that somehow you could force the story into a medieval setting, I think you are missing the larger picture.

zehaeva

The entire kwisatz haderach element is about the scientific manipulation of genes over thousands of generations.

It's a selective breeding program, nothing more. I don't recall much in the way of the Bene Geserit in labs manipulating any genes.

The mentats are also bred and trained from birth for remembering and calculating, as a replacement for computers, or "thinking machines", which were once used to run the businesses of the houses.

A group of people bred to one sole purpose is not something that could not be done with out science, granted you do loose the history of the enslavement by robots but that could easily be replaced with "Once long ago humans used demons to run the world, those demons were then used to enslave humanity. Humanity then over threw the demons and developed magic on their own"

The use of nuclear weapons against humans is banned by convention, and they are a key part in the power struggle.

Kind of like Balefire in The Wheel of Time? Or it could even be applied to black powder.

Luke Burrage

It's a selective breeding program, nothing more. I don't recall much in the way of the Bene Geserit in labs manipulating any genes.

Wrong. They are using selective breeding, but with a goal in mind. Medieval "science" would result in nothing more than bigger cattle, or more abundant yield with a crop. They take the best stock and breed it together. In absolutely no way can you call a thousand generation guided experiment medieval.

Second, mentats replaced computers. Society is very, very advanced in Dune, and to get to that point would require computers. When the computers are taken away, special humans had to fill the job. Without first having the complexity of advanced computers, mentats would not be needed, nor might they be possible.

Also, that thinking machines once ruled over humanity is more than just a legend from long ago in Dune. It informs almost every aspect of society. Humans overthrowing demons is a lot different than humans overthrowing something that they created, and that also overthrew them. Look at my original post in this thread. Humanity KNEW computers, UNDERSTOOD them, CREATED them, etc. If it entailed magic, especially demons, we are dealing with entities outside of human understanding, and maybe out of their control.

Third, nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons. They have lots of properties, and all of those properties together, without any other properties, make them what they are. Many of those properties are exploited in Dune. Black powder wouldn't cut it. The only kind of magical device that would do the same job and play the same role in Dune as the family nuclears would be indistinguishable from nuclear weapons.

Cremlian

Analogous Luke analogous.

Luke Burrage

Medieval is not analogous to scientific inquiry, methods and progress.

Rym

Medieval is not analogous to scientific inquiry, methods and progress.

Aside from a conversation Emily and I were having: Romans discover steel. Steel leads to valves. Valves lead to steam power. Steam power leads to steam punk. There are no middle ages. Instead of falling, Rome industrializes.

I yearn for more non-Victorian steampunk.