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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Meatboy" data-source="post: 6129751" data-attributes="member: 40857">After a few days thinking about sci-fi and sci-fan I think I have a good way to spilt the two. Here goes.1. Science fiction is a genre that uses what if scenarios to examine philisophical ideas like the nature of man, technology or even politics. It uses these "what ifs" like a mirror so that we can more closely examine ourselves.In Frankenstein, Shelly uses the what if of "what if we can bring back the dead?" to create a discussion about who is the true "monster". 2. Science fantasy is really just fantasy but instead of using psuedo medieval europe as a back against which stories are told it uses near or far future settings as a back drop. The focus here is on the characters and the story and although there may be deeper themes in them they are not the focus the way they are in sci-fi.Star wars is a great example hear because it just re-skins what is for all intents and purposes a fairy-tale and throws it into space. Using these definitions something like Star Trek TOS is pretty much sci-fi but as the series progressed they drift farther from that and over into sci-fan. A lot of what is considered science fiction today is really science fantasy. Laser and spaceships don't mean sci-fi.</blockquote>