Is Star Wars "science fiction" or not?

[Kurgan]

I would tend to agree with the "themes" idea, and acknowledge that genres are not 100% solid in terms of one or the other.

The thing is though that people often harp on Star Wars using the "it's the heroic journey is it's a fairy tale!" thing, when you can just as easily say since it's about low tech vs. high tech, the "human spirit" vs. cold hard technology, man vs. machine, that it's as Sci Fi as they come.

But then is the tall tale of John Henry sci fi? Because there's an explicit tale of "man vs. machine" and an allegory for the industrial revolution.

Of course people could try to argue that Darth Vader or General Grievous is like Captain Ahab or Captain Hook (the literal loss of humanity thing). Maybe. But the Tinman in the Wizard of Oz is way over the top because his entire person is replaced by essentially magic metal (not even a clockwork robot).

[Covenant]

Industrial Revolution themes of the working man man looking for a place in a world of working machines really are the bedrock for a lot of science fiction stories, so in a wierd way you could say John Henry is a sci-fi story written back when steam drills were a new advancement. Replace "steam drill" with "robot" or "computer" and you've got a kernel of a science fiction story. I'd say it isn't though, as the story is told in the past at the time it's written, so it's a journey to the present through the story of a superhuman guy who fought progress and lost.

The thing is though that people often harp on Star Wars using the "it's the heroic journey is it's a fairy tale!" thing, when you can just as easily say since it's about low tech vs. high tech, the "human spirit" vs. cold hard technology, man vs. machine, that it's as Sci Fi as they come.

The language you use, "harp on" seems to make it sound like you're defending Star Wars as sci-fi because it would somehow be diminished as fantasy. That's really not the case, and it doesn't make the science any less rigorous either.

I suppose what keeps you from seeing Star Wars as possible fantasy (not that it is important for you to) is the belief that it's themes are about technology, which if it were true would be a good reason that it is science fiction. I don't think that's a proper reading though, as any reading of Star Wars as a struggle against technology falls apart when you look how evenly advanced technology (blasters, starships, droids, etc) is distributed between both factions--with the obvious exception of the Empire's amount of hardware that give the story a properly David versus Goliath feel of the plucky band of merry men overturning the evil kingdom.

The few instances of "Low tech vs. High tech," such as the Ewok fight, don't condemn the use of technology--it's just that the Rebels haven't amassed as much as their foes, despite a desire to. The idea of a more sparsely equipped rebel force harassing a well armed foe isn't an allegory to the evils of technology. And the danger the "human spirit" was facing was fear, not technology. The Emperor was an embodiment of fears, and the angers, lusts, doubts that arise from it. Adding in the prequels just made that more obvious, and the first movie didn't even really the Emperor doing anything, there it was Tarkin with his "fear will keep them in line" and the Death Star as a very literal "fear of this battlestation" symbol of that brutality. Technology steps in to help set the scene and give the story the appropriate amount of epic scale required to really blow you away, but those themes don't require it.

One of the few anti-technology themes in the entire series is Obi-Wan's assertion that Jedi aren't big into blasters, but that's nowhere stated as a luddite belief, and we also see that apparently Jedi have no qualms against using them in a pinch, or against piloting starfighters, and he did in fact own a droid despite his claims to the contrary. There's no solid theme of anti-technology in the book, and even if there was, would that alone make it science fiction?

Because The Lord of the Rings has a big "human spirit vs cold hard technology" message in it, by the way...

[Kurgan]

I'd say there's some "sci fi elements" in LOTR as well, especially in the movie versions. It's not 100% pure either. But I think the diversity of influences on Star Wars and what it shares in common with other acknowledged "Sci Fi" makes my case well enough.

I'm not intending to say Star Wars is "diminished" if it's thought of as purely fantasy. However I do think something of it's "essence" if you will, is denied, if people deny that it is Sci Fi.

Maybe "Sci Fi" is a meaningless term, but I think it can have meaning, and it applies to Star Wars, that's all. Some folks just repeat that because they buy into what Lucas has been saying since the '80's about it, others perhaps do indeed think that Science Fiction is "nerdier" and that somehow "fantasy" is a purer genre, which uplifts what would otherwise be a lower-brow franchise. I don't know, but I'm not assuming that's how everyone feels. I just think most folks haven't really thought the argument through. I'm also not arguing for "pure genres." I'm arguing with the folks who insist that Star Wars isn't Sci Fi at all, or is just "barely" it. The latter is meaningless to me, because nearly all popular Sci Fi would fall into this category. I think much of it is due simply to the propaganda that this is Joseph Cambell's "Magic of Myth" and all that.

[Kurgan]

There's also Yoda's anti-matter "Luminous beings are we" speech, Han's anti-Force/Jedi speech (vs. Obi-Wan's insistence on the spiritual side of things) and Luke's use of the Force rather than his targeting computer on the Death Star. Even Vader has an anti-technology speech of sorts in the Death Star boardroom. It's not that Star Wars itself is anti-technology, but it certainly contains some messages like that. I don't think that alone makes it Sci Fi or not Sci Fi, but typically you don't see those kinds of issues in ancient mythology, for obvious reasons.

I'd say there's some "sci fi elements" in LOTR as well, especially in the movie versions. It's not 100% pure either. But I think the diversity of influences on Star Wars and what it shares in common with other acknowledged "Sci Fi" makes my case well enough.

[Darth Wong]

Excellent point. WW2 can follow the mythical "heroic journey" quite well I imagine. I wonder if that makes movies about it "science fantasy"?

Why does the presence of a mythic "hero's journey" have any relevance at all to the question of whether something is sci-fi? Is there some underlying agreement that sci-fi must not incorporate a hero's journey? What kind of definition of sci-fi imposes that requirement upon the genre?

[Darth Hoth]

I'm talking about the themes that drive the story, which is something that the public definition of the term doesn't really make a distinction about, but which is a truer and more accurate understanding about what actually sets it apart from anything else.

That sounds like an odd standard to me. If I write about life in Nazi Germany, the social changes that came about with Party rule, and technologies used for propaganda and societal control, would that be science fiction just because it is a popular theme of the genre?

Does a romantic comedy become science fiction just because it takes place on a starship?

Is Firefly science fiction? Dump off the gang next to Zorro to make it a television Western and you would only need to revise dialogue, not plot points.

Does Lovecraft go best in Science Fiction because it deals with fantastic alien species and advanced technologies?

Some of his stories would, some would not. He wrote both science fiction and outright fantasy.

Where do you stick Frankenstein, even though the technology used was contemporary at the time and outdated now? Fantasy?

You mean, the technobabble was contemporary?

I'm saying that the level of technology displayed is less important than the themes revolving around it. I suppose you can just disagree and there's really not much I can say to convince you. I would like to assert that a genre should be defined by those themes that define the message and the story. This is how we distinguish a Mystery from a Comedy, or a Romance from a Horror. Only with regard to science fiction and fantasy do we allow the year and technology used to define the genre, and this seems foolish, and contrary to the idea that science fiction is a distinct literary form with themes of it's own.

I assert that these themes do exist, and are a superior form of catagorization, rather than say that all things within a setting of advanced technology are automatically science fiction, and all things within a contemporary context are not. Catagorized in this manner, one could logically pick up a science fiction book and expect to find a work that deals with themes similar to other science fiction books, as you should. Outside of this, it's no wonder people get confused. If it has robots, apparently it's science fiction. If it has magic, apparently it's fantasy. When it has magic and robots, apparently it's science fantasy? But I suppose I'm in the minority on this, so I won't flog the horse for nothing.

How would one, by your standard, classify historical fiction? Does it, too, have separate themes to distinguish it from Romances, War Stories, Coming-Of-Age stories and so on? Or is it defined by its historical setting, rather than its themes, and can be any of these as well, as well as any number of other things (Social Commentary and who knows what)? What about alternate history, which can be anything from Phildickian craziness to long-winded lectures on how the prize of cotton can affect a society? Some genres are defined by their setting, since otherwise they would not exist. If the fantasy background is not relevant to the fantasy genre, why not just ditch it and call the films Adventure Stories/Action/whatever, labels under which they would also fit?

[Kurgan]

Excellent point. WW2 can follow the mythical "heroic journey" quite well I imagine. I wonder if that makes movies about it "science fantasy"?

Why does the presence of a mythic "hero's journey" have any relevance at all to the question of whether something is sci-fi? Is there some underlying agreement that sci-fi must not incorporate a hero's journey? What kind of definition of sci-fi imposes that requirement upon the genre?

No, but the heroes journey and Joseph Campbell are often brought in by those who argue Star Wars is "not sci fi" in order to attempt to somehow bolster the claim that it is and was always intended to be fantasy. Presumably such people do believe that this is some kind of indicator of "fantasy" rather than something else. That's why I mentioned it here, because you could theoretically apply the heroic journey to anything, including actual history.

It's a bit like how someone might say that because a fable contains a moral, that then if another type of story contains a moral, it is therefore a fable.

So I'm still wondering where the notion that SW isn't Sci Fi comes from, other than Lucas' own propaganda since the 80's.

[Covenant]

Goddammit Darth Hoth, don't do one of these line-by-line shits, you're late to the party so just let it go.

That sounds like an odd standard to me. If I write about life in Nazi Germany, the social changes that came about with Party rule, and technologies used for propaganda and societal control, would that be science fiction just because it is a popular theme of the genre?

Including elements of another genre does not make it part of that genre, and especially not when these aren't core elements and just elements that happen to often find their way in. Science Fiction stories also include romance a lot, and often have a joke or two, does that make them Romantic Comedies?

The story defines the core themes of the book, and those literary and figurative themes define the genre. The setting is nearly irrelevent. So no, your Nazi book would be a bit of historical fiction, as you well know.

Is Firefly science fiction? Dump off the gang next to Zorro to make it a television Western and you would only need to revise dialogue, not plot points.

I think you've answered your question then. Firefly is a Western in space, for all intents and purposes. It could very easily be an age-of-sail crew of miscreants, dodging Barbary Pirates and staring up in to the stars while making a living trading up and down the coast. As Science Fiction go, Firefly is pretty light on the science. The only thing besides the Spaceships which give a sense of technology is the rare bit of special effects.

Lemme fire up Aftereffects and digitally insert some spaceships into the background of Robin Hood and automatically transform it into Science Fiction. Huzzah!

Some of his stories would, some would not. He wrote both science fiction and outright fantasy.

Excellent, you've shown the ability to distinguish an author's works between themselves. Apply that reasoning to everything, and stop taking the presence of starships for granted to make it science fiction. We have spaceships in real life nowadays, it's not like everything set in the future is science fiction, is it?

You mean, the technobabble was contemporary?

Hey dumbass, at the time of the writing the full use of electricity was just being explored, and it was not going to be something incredibly well known of--including the relatively recent discovery of the effect electricity had on making nerves fire, muscles expand and retract, and so forth? And that electricity had actually been used throughout the area in a few beginnings of medical experimentation, such as the unsuccessful attempt to zap Harriet Shelley back to life after a suicide? Not only that, but we do use electrical pads to restart hearts nowadays, so this technobabble is a hell of a lot more accurate than most of anything else I can think of.

That sound like some fucking contemporary sci-fi shit to me, with future-tech extrapolations of what would happen if a Sufficently Intelligent scientist got his hands on enough experimental data to, as it seemed feasible, not just restore the momentary illusion of life but the actual reality of life. Now, you may chuckle and go "ho ho, it is to laugh, bringing dead bodies back to life is silly!" But they hadn't yet found what the difference really is between a stopped heart and a brain-dead individual, and for the purposes of the sci-fi story about the danger of man coming into the power to create life in his own image, it was irrelevent. But the technology itself was important, and the exploration adn maturation of the technobabble takes up a large amount of the book. That makes it more Sci-Fi than Firefly, to be sure.

How would one, by your standard, classify historical fiction? ...is it defined by its historical setting, rather than its themes, and can be any of these as well, as well as any number of other things?

How would you? How do you distinguish between a comedy set in the past, and historical fiction? Does all contemporary fiction literature become historical fiction in time? If you've got the balls to ask me how to classify it, you better fucking know yourself.

Or could it just be that historical fiction is a broad genre that can encompass a variety of stories, but the defining characteristic of it is the dramatization of an actual, real-world historical event with effort being put into realistically capturing the ramifications of that event on people of that time and often themes of how they differ from us, and how their aspirations lead to our day? Of course not, that would be too much work. Indiana Jones, taking place within WWII with real Nazis and real Hitlers must therefore be Historical Fiction. Or, if we judge the Ark too fantastic, Historical Fantasy.

I can tell you found this last arguement very clever, but sorry, it doesn't jive. You don't need to continually wedge prefixes into things just because "Oh, this takes place in a goldrush town? Now it's a Western Historical Fiction War Story! (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly) And this is a Historical Fiction Romantic Coming-Of-Age! (Pride and Prejudice) And this is a Science Fiction Alternative History Romantic Military Fantasy Epic!!! (Lord of the Rings)

If the fantasy background is not relevant to the fantasy genre, why not just ditch it and call the films Adventure Stories/Action/whatever, labels under which they would also fit?

*sound of clapping from the last episode of Evangelion*

That would be more accurate, yes. If you assume there's a core theme to the book, a message being conveyed, or large bits of messages and themes without which the story is fundamentally altered in meaning, then that's something to look at when you define the genre. Nearly all stories include comedic, romantic, and character growth elements to them just as part of a normal story progression full of emotional content. If you've got a 200 page book, you're going to have a kiss in there somewhere. But there are indeed fantasy books, it's just not that fantasy must always be in an ancient world of magic and dragons. WH40k would give that fits.

Fantasy is a bit of a catch-all, just like it is here. The Fantasy forum is a bit of a dumping ground for anything that includes Elves, Magic or Superheroes--essentially. Fairy Tales are by their nature allegorical, and I would like to state that genres do sometimes end, the same way musical movements sputter to an end and new styles of that old genre are at times hard to place, because they're morphed in many ways. And it becomes increasingly difficult to interpert when you ask people if fantasy literature can be accidental, in the case that they contain brainbugs, old pantheons like the Greeks, or things like the Hollow Earth theory, which at one time had big names attached to it like Edmund Halley, of the cometary fame. In such a case you have to be quite confused as to the setting--is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? Is it... just... unintentional fantasy or what?

That's why it's hopelessly muddled to dwell too long on the setting. Look at "A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." It's got some kind of magical time travel accomplished without a machine, Merlin's wizardry, King Arthur and so forth, but it's also got comedy and is certainly played for laughs on the screen--and the book contains a great deal more science fiction, with a lot of alternative history of knights on bicycles and gatling guns hosing down Mordred's army and similar things. Some things really do throw a monkey-wrench into the gears. It's never easy, and the classifications are really unimportant. But if you get back to the first question, "Is Star Wars Science Fiction?" it comes down to a question of what science fiction is. For those who claim it is a setting and not a theme, then yes, it would be--and so would many other things, and so would not many other things. And you need to ask yourself what objective merit a definition has if it can't adequately be applied without a great degree of soul-searching first.

I'm really done with this literary wordplay though, so please don't reply if I've just got to repeat myself over and over again. Having elements of a genre does not automatically make it that genre. Having a spaceship does not automatically make it science fiction.

[Kurgan]

So Covenant, in your view, is Star Wars "Science Fiction" or not?

[Stark]

This is the sort of idiocy that my mother does when she asks me to advise her what movies she should look for. She called the NBC series Kings science fiction because it was like an alternate reality--and obviously therefore it was science fiction, which made me almost hang up right there in a moment of sheer frustration.

Generally, most of these themes fit into a general catchall concept of Fantasy. Science Fiction is a mostly pointless term, since it's a sub-catagory rather than a rigorously defined box. You can blur the line quite a bit if you want, but even if Science Fiction is mostly pointless, Science Fantasy is an entirely pointless term.

What do you think? He thinks this thread is as dumb as I do.

[Kurgan]

All I wanted was a simple yes or no (or else "I haven't decided yet")...
maybe I'm getting tired, too?

Amazing how the "dumb" threads get the most text applied to them though, huh?

[Covenant]

I'll take the bait, and hopefully end my place in this debate. I must give two answers though. If I owned a Movie Store, I would sort Star Wars into science fiction, as your average person doesn't try to think about the themes in a piece anyway. If I was a liteary scholar in a University, I would call it fantasy, and do my best to explain why this is valid and still noble. Imagine the author, who upon being questioned why he considered his story a science fiction novel, responded "Well, it has spaceships and lasers in it, doesn't it? What else do you need?" I'll use a quote by someone whom I do not agree with, and who runs a relatively shlocky website, and who says Star Wars is SF, but who raises at least one good point:

Science fiction is a form of fiction which deals principally with the effect of actual or possible science upon society or individuals. In this world of rapidly changing technology, ethical questions raised by developments in biology and medicine and by increasingly sophisticated mass communication, serious science fiction may be better equipped than any other kind of literature to contemplate the predicament such changes present.

It's not just because of the mysticism, or any of the other minor things, it's because the themes I see in Star Wars are most common to the ideas that Fantasy and Myth ask of us. Less so a Fairy Tale, in that it isn't really about your interactions with the mystical but about being part of it, and it presents a mythic and fantastic tale that at many points is most consistant with regard to the theme of mystic corruption and redemption.

I don't see the technology in Star Wars explored in any thematic sense, nor do I see any specific technological concept as pivotal enough to the story, not even the Clones or the Droids, to sort it as science fiction. It merely exists in lieu of the set dressings of any other time period. The characters or actions of the movie do not ask us to question the humanity of the clones, for example, or if they have rights, or what their role in society is. In this way, even Star Trek handled technology--especially the Original Series, in the abusive way it does--more in line with Science Fiction. But in many ways I still see this as more noble than literary hand-wringing about being replaced by AI's, so I have no emotional basis for not putting it where I think it's themes lie.

[Stark]

At risk of repeating myself the way Cov just did, I agree. Scifi is a form of fantasy (duh) and fantasy isn't a bad word. Having a hero or an archetypical story doesn't make something one genre or another. Having magic doesn't make something not scifi (ffs magic = scifi tech ANYWAY). I agree with almost all of Cov's reasoning with reagrd to to genre, in particular his emphasis on the utter futility or being concerned about something like this and resisting the idea that there's a silent 'only' in front of fantasy.

[Kurgan]

My view is that Star Wars is Science Fiction with some fantasy elements (as most Sci Fi has some fantasy elements). Sci Fi largely speaking is related to Fantasy, even a subset of it, no problem. I don't think it diminishes Star Wars to talk about it as fantasy, but it should not be denied the title of Science Fiction, since it's as Sci Fi as they come. If the category has no meaning, then why bother using it? Nobody is losing sleep over this.

I've greatly enjoyed this discussion, more so than many I've had on SD.net, so thanks Covenant.

I think I'll take the time here to provide a quote that adds a little something:

Wired: At one time you said, "Technology won't save us." Do you think technology is making the world better or worse?

Lucas: If you watch the curve of science and everything we know, it shoots up like a rocket. We're on this rocket and we're going perfectly vertical into the stars. But the emotional intelligence of humankind is equally if not more important than our intellectual intelligence. We're just as emotionally illiterate as we were 5,000 years ago; so emotionally our line is completely horizontal. The problem is the horizontal and the vertical are getting farther and farther apart. And as these things grow apart, there's going to be some kind of consequence of that. (Wired interview, Feb. 1997).

[Isolder74]

Almost every Sci-Fi show can be pushed into another setting if it is tried hard enough. Forbidden Planet is a monster movie where the monster is from inside a man's head brought forth by technology. Star Trek is Horatio Hornblower with a warp drive instead of a sail and who has a Vulcan, more or less an Elf, as a first mate. The Day The Earth Stood Still is a cleric with a robot.....shall I go on?

Science Fiction it not intended to be only one kind of story or be only one type of setting. The important thing is that the setting includes technology as a core element.

[Formless]

Science Fiction it not intended to be only one kind of story or be only one type of setting. The important thing is that the setting includes technology as a core element.

Its a terribly obvious question, but how does steam punk fit into this classification?

[Isolder74]

Science Fiction it not intended to be only one kind of story or be only one type of setting. The important thing is that the setting includes technology as a core element.

Its a terribly obvious question, but how does steam punk fit into this classification?

The Technology is Steam powered. so steam punk uses old tech in new ways or ways that never really existed. It is a falacy that Sci-Fi has to take place in the future.

[Darth Wong]

Steam punk is the most retarded genre of fiction ever developed. I've tried to watch some of that crap before, and I can never get over the mind-bending stupidity of it. Victorian-era steam-powered robots, for fuck's sake.

[Isolder74]

Steam punk is the most retarded genre of fiction ever developed. I've tried to watch some of that crap before, and I can never get over the mind-bending stupidity of it. Victorian-era steam-powered robots, for fuck's sake.

I never said it was any good.

Fans often mistakenly put the works of Jules Verne into the category of Steam Punk when it clearly isn't. Verne in a large part invented the idea of Science Fiction. His stories are mostly based in his own time rather then the future. Some of his stories aren't even Science Fiction like Five Weeks In A Balloon.

[Stark]

Steam punk is the most retarded genre of fiction ever developed. I've tried to watch some of that crap before, and I can never get over the mind-bending stupidity of it. Victorian-era steam-powered robots, for fuck's sake.

Ironically that kind of thing is relatively new; the idea of 'Victorian gentlemen + technology' isn't always bad. But once they plopped a stupid term like 'steampunk' to define it, the mass-market stuff certainly took over. The Difference Engine is 'steampunk' too, but it's just 1893 + difference engine completed = 80s information economy in Victorian era, not magic balls of infinite steam or whatever.

I want to hear Kurgan say that Star Wars is 'science fiction' with 'elements of fantasy' again, though - it's like the entire discussion has bounced off his skull.

Isolder, the idea of Verne being steampunk is pretty funny; he didn't intentionally place his action in the Victorian period, because that was the modern setting for him. Turns out genre whores are idiots.

[Isolder74]

Isolder, the idea of Verne being steampunk is pretty funny; he didn't intentionally place his action in the Victorian period, because that was the modern setting for him. Turns out genre whores are idiots.

They like lumping Verne into Steam Punk because they know he is regarded as one of the greatest writers of science fiction ever. Add H G Wells and they finish up their masters pie to somehow validate their stories and concepts somehow. You can call steam punk stupid!...You then have to call Verne's writing stupid!...You can't call his stuff stupid now can you.

See it gives them the perfect defense doesn't it. You can't call steam punk stupid if Captain Nemo is grouped in with them now can you? Steam Punk doesn't even work either. A steam tech robot wouldn't be able to carry the boiler and coal bunker big enough to make it go.

[Kurgan]

You see, like I've been saying, Star Wars is 'science fiction' with elements of 'fantasy'...

[Darth Wong]

Yeah, but frankly, the entire genre of science fiction is a subset of fantasy.

Fantasy = fiction with unrealistic elements.
Science fiction = fiction involving futuristic (read: "not realistic") technology.

People who claim otherwise tend to act as if these tech fantasies are actually realistic based on some vague extrapolation into the future, of the same sort that once led authors to claim we'd be flying around in hovercars by the 1990s.

At the end of the day, the term "science fantasy" was invented by nerdy fanboys who wanted to pretend that their particular sci-fi is more realistic than yours. Trekkies are notorious for this, even though they have one of the most unrealistic sci-fi franchises of all.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, but frankly, the entire genre of science fiction is a subset of fantasy.

In practice the two often overlap. However, I would not classify hard sci-fi as fantasy, since at least in theory it would be writing about things which are an extrapolation of existing scientific knowledge and could actually happen.

Fantasy = fiction with unrealistic elements.

And that definition is based on what? Its pretty damn vague to say the least. Name any fictional movie ever and I could probably point out a load of "unrealistic elements."

Science fiction = fiction involving futuristic (read: "not realistic") technology.

"Futuristic" isn't doesn't nessissarily mean "not realistic."

People who claim otherwise tend to act as if these tech fantasies are actually realistic based on some vague extrapolation into the future, of the same sort that once led authors to claim we'd be flying around in hovercars by the 1990s.

What does that prove? That some of the predictions were wrong does not means that the genre is merely a subset of fantasy.

At the end of the day, the term "science fantasy" was invented by nerdy fanboys who wanted to pretend that their particular sci-fi is more realistic than yours. Trekkies are notorious for this, even though they have one of the most unrealistic sci-fi franchises of all.

The fact that some Trekkies behave like idiotic fanboys also doesn't mean that science fiction as a whole is merely a subset of fantasy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Almost every Sci-Fi show can be pushed into another setting if it is tried hard enough. Forbidden Planet is a monster movie where the monster is from inside a man's head brought forth by technology. Star Trek is Horatio Hornblower with a warp drive instead of a sail and who has a Vulcan, more or less an Elf, as a first mate. The Day The Earth Stood Still is a cleric with a robot.....shall I go on?

Science Fiction it not intended to be only one kind of story or be only one type of setting. The important thing is that the setting includes technology as a core element.

What about stories that feature mysterious or poorly understood scientific phenomena, but not technology, or stories that feature technology as a core element, but in which the technology being featured is completely ordinary?