What is Science-Fantasy to you?

[tzor]

The problem with a term like "science-fantasy" is that it combines two terms whose definitions many people argue strongly about.

Science-fiction in the purest sense is fiction where technology is logically extrapolated from modern science.

The problem with this definition that often there are "plot devices" in so called "science fiction" that are not always extrapolations from modern science. Star Trek, (especially TOS) for example is completely filled with plot devices more than extrapolated science. H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, also falls under the plot device model of Science-fiction.

Of course one can also argue that the genre should not be defined by placing a thin veneer of science over some other genre. One could argue that both Star Trek an Battle Star Galactica were just westerns with a thin veneer of science.

The same applies to fantasy as well. Placing a thin veneer of science over the classical fantasy is not per se science fantasy. Mixing fantasy and science is its own unique genre and might lay the claim to science fantasy in the same manner that Star Trek can claim science-fiction.

But I think the purest definition of science fantasy is any extrapolation of modern science that so pushes the borders and the imaginations to become fantastic. It is no longer science fiction, yet retains all of that genre's feelings.

 

[Agback]

G'day

I would suggest 'Star Wars' and 'Buck Rogers' as excellent examples of science fantasy. The setting is ostensibly SF, particularly in featuring space travel, but the writers plainly neither know nor care about science. And the stories are all about things that might as well be fantasy.

Next step back you get sci-fi like 'Star Trek', in which there is technobabble rather than science, but the structure and concerns of the stories are science fiction-y, ie. people and social institutions react to the setting, not act out fantasy stereotypes.

And another step back you get SF itself, where the writers are actually concerned with technological change and its effects on people and societies.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Dogbrain]

Of course one can also argue that the genre should not be defined by placing a thin veneer of science over some other genre. One could argue that both Star Trek an Battle Star Galactica were just westerns with a thin veneer of science.

Especially since Roddenberry explicitly pitched Star Trek as "Wagon Train in space".

 

[jdrake3]

Technically, we can say that each and every SF book that features a faster-than-light drive is more fantasy than SF but that's being overly picky to almost everyone.

Actually Einstein only said that mass would require infinite force or a finite force acting over an infinite amount of time to accelerate to the speed of light.

Today's Science Fantasy may be tomorrow's Science Fiction, and the next day's Science Fact.

 

[Agback]

In all seriousness, I really agree with China Mieville's sentiments- there is no difference between fantasy and science fiction. The simplistic definition is that one is plausible and the other is not falls somewhat flat.

Which only shows that that definition is missing the real distinction. That isn't to say that there isn't a distinction that defines a real difference.

Speculative fiction investigates how people, institutions, and societies would react if things were other than they are, how they might employ new or different possibilities. Particularly, science fiction is that branch of speculative fiction in which the differences from familiar are suggested by science.

Space opera tells stories with the trappings of science fiction (rayguns, spaceships, planets), but doesn't allow them to make any difference to the course of events, the nature of the institutions, or the way people think and act (the rayguns and spaceships might as well be firearms and aircraft, the planets foreign countries).

It seems from this thread that there is little consensus on the usage of the term 'science fantasy'. I have always previously used it as a less-perjorative synonym for 'space opera'.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

Actually Einstein only said that mass would require infinite force or a finite force acting over an infinite amount of time to accelerate to the speed of light.

He also showed that the sequence of the ends of a space-like interval is ambiguous. That means that any trip that is FTL in one inertial frame of reference is a trip backwards in time in another. If you had an FTL drive you could traverse a closed path in space-time. (Unless, contrary to Einstein, there is a privileged frame of reference. But that would completely undo all of Relativity.)

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

And as for the best science fantasy setting, I'd choose Fading Suns. Now that's a fun setting...

I played in a Fading Suns LARP for a while, and the setting made me miserable. There is no substance to it. It is as superficial as a stage set, with all the institutions standing in places cribbed from history, and no idea of how they work or why the people find it advantageous to act as they do. My character was a bishop, and everyone agreed that bishops are powerful: apparently I was just supposed to act powerful, because no-one had any idea of what my powers actually were, and when I tried to use them they turned out not to be there. No one seems to have any idea about how the contending groups actually achieve any of the things they do: how cults gain influence in the Church, how noble houses make people dukes.

Fading Suns is a montage of historical and fantasy pastiches, with superficial SF stage-dressing (and not even SF costumes). There is no coherency within its social and political structures, let alone there being any coherency between its basic assumptions and the personal and social responses to them. Take half a step from the intended point of view and the tromp l'oiel fails completely, it becomes clear that the structures are framework and canvas suspended by wires; seize any of the levers and it will twist and crumple in your hand.

De gustibus non disputandem est of course. Fading Suns is indeed the best example of science fantasy among RPG settings, clearly showing everything I hate about it. But it is not, IMHO, a good setting at all. (Which is not to say that other people, whose RP consists of aping stereotypal actions rather than pursuing the goals of characters in a fictitious environment, do not enjoy it. YMMV. YDWYDWP.)

Regards,


Brett

 

[Severion]

Have you considered "Iron Lords of Jupiter" from Dungeon/Poly (forget the number). Sounds like just what you are looking for.

Savage worlds is on my purchase list, but that is really not the feel I am going for.

Maybe I can explain it by some (tentative, none of this is for sure as of yet) ideas that I am rolling around with. Mybe I should have been more specific on the type of "sci-fantasy" I am thinking of.

Here goes:

Many, many races... think Tatoine on a global scale (need a reason for this of course)
Atmosflyers (skyships)
Beanstalks (in the sci-fi sense, but "grown" by magick)
Post-Nuke wastelands, with mutants et. al., but caused by magick
Leyser guns, powered by the presence of Ley Lines and Nexus Points
Arcanolgy, pseudo-technology created by magick
Psiberware, mentally controlled symbiotic "cyber" tek
Clockworks/golems
Landrovers, steam or magick-powered land vehicles, big and crude

Etc...

Basically a world based in magick and fantasy fiction, but with the trappings of various science-fiction ideals, blended together and served hot!

Hope that helps

P.S. do not compare this to Rifts, although there probably would be possible simularities as I want a kind of a mixture of ideas. I do plan on making this mish-mash internally consistant and make sense, no affront to Palladium intended.

 

[Impeesa]

Hrmm, by that definition...

Arthur C. Clarke = Science Fiction.

Frank Herbert = Science Fantasy.

Good enough for me.

Funny, I found Clarke's The Songs Of Distant Earth to be a very enjoyable read which didn't preach or drag at all, while Herbert's The Dosadi Experiment beat any moral it might have had into a bloody pulp before reaching the halfway point.

Of course, by my own loose definitions, those categorizations still hold... example A features a very realistic portrayal of sub-light-speed space travel, while example B features sentient psychic suns. Good enough for me.

--Impeesa--

 

[Halivar]

Funny, I found Clarke's The Songs Of Distant Earth to be a very enjoyable read which didn't preach or drag at all, while Herbert's The Dosadi Experiment beat any moral it might have had into a bloody pulp before reaching the halfway point.

Wow, you and I read copies of The Songs of Distant Earth from parallel universes!

All kidding aside, I might have become overly sensitive to his preachiness after reading Childhood's End. Not that I can't get past it; I've read every ACC novel I know about other than The Hammer of God (or somesuch title). I like his writing, it just seems like he's constantly pushing some kind of social agenda.

Frank Herbert, on the other hand, often seems to send deliberately conflicting social messages. His Dune series seemed thick with almost Randian social and moral pragmatism. Granted, that's all I ever read from him (other than Eye). In that sense, I feel like he just wants to demonstrate various moral philosophies in interaction, not preach one over the other.

Of course, by my own loose definitions, those categorizations still hold... example A features a very realistic portrayal of sub-light-speed space travel, while example B features sentient psychic suns. Good enough for me.

I love getting the right answer via the wrong (or improperly used) method. It always drove my upper-level math professors crazy.