AniThyng wrote:i thought the defining line is wether a story is defined by the technology or not - Star Wars, for all the prominance given to the star destroyers and other tech on this board is more appropriately defined by the mysticism of the Force and the mythologycal themes. the technology is..just....there. it's not a plot device par se, just part of the setting that is taken for granted. the force is magic, in a slightly difference guise, threfore "science-fantasy"
LOTR in space, so to speak.
2001: A Space Odyssey. The prominence is given to a mysterious slab of opaque material that has mysterious powers and can affect massive change, possibly even propelling Bowman to the speed of light (or something, I don't fucking know what that goddamn lightshow at the end was supposed to be about).
So... uh, how is that different from the Force? Because it's an artifact? For that matter, who is the intelligence behind the monolith? They don't appear to have any corporeal presence, yet a presence can be felt (at least I can feel it when I watch the movie). SO what do you call a noncorporeal alien with supernatural powers?
"science-FICTION" on the other hand would be defined by the technology or scientific concept - i would put the foundation-verse here since the whole premise of the story rests upon the fictional mathematical concept of..eh..what was it, heri sheldon's work, the name escapes me.
Psychohistory. How is that a technological concept? Hell, how is it a mathematical or scientific concept when Asimov doesn't explain how it works (Thank GOD, otherwise the books would likely be boring and dull)?
The drama in Foundation concerns itself with the forces of history moving beyond the powers of individuals, the concept of psychohistory plays as a necessary background function, but nothing more beyond that. The actual story is about the Foundation rising from the ashes of the Empire.
star trek by comparision would be science-fiction because so much of its plotlines hinge on the technobabble. it's painful and bad, but it's still "sci-fi".
ST is scifi BECAUSE it has technobabble? Uh, bullshit. BULLSHIT.
Where's the technobabble in Asimov's Caves of Steel? Granted Heinlein's Starship Troopers has some technobabble in regards to the Power Armour's function, but it is
not the sole driving force behind the plot. Where was the technobabble in 2001: ASO? When did Bowman reverse the polarity of his space pods doohickey to create a subspace field between the pod doors and the emergency entrance of the Discovery in order to board the spaceship after HAL locked him out?
to make my example clearer...if i were arranging some typical books in a "sci-fi & fantasy" section from "fantasy" to "hard sci-fi" it'll look something like this:
LOTR&clones - warhammer 40k - star wars - Halo - star trek- Foundation - <hard sci-fi placeholder>
This is why I like Australian bookstores. We don't have separate 'scifi' and 'fantasy' sections; they're the same and are called 'scifi & fantasy'.
If it was hard sci-fi, we would have ships that take months to reach the outer planets of our own system, interstellar travel would be impossible, except for ships filled with frozen people travelling for decades or centuries, there would be no laser pistols, no force fields, ships would need to spend craploads of reaction fuel to reach anywhere LET ALONE leaving the atmosphere. The only mental powers possible would be telepathic communication (and that's stretching it).If it was hard sci-fi, we'd have mutants with telekinetic/telepathic powers, not Jedi and the Force. (Despite the stupid Midichlorian twist, though Lucas seems to have dropped that one again.)
