What are you tired of in Science Fiction?

[Bakustra]

For some people, the technobabbble is one of the draws. I don't really think it's fair to say that any intrusion on the story with it is necessarily bad - sometimes things happen in your story that will need some kind of explaining other than "The X Machine did it". Since we aren't familiar with the tech base of this far future society, if you just pull something out of your ass and treat the audience as you would a functioning member of that society with a working understanding of everything, then everything is going to seem like a Deux Ex Machina. You can only build tension if you know the possibilities involved, and you can't know the possibilities without some kind of explanation if we're setting it in a high tech society.

The trick is avoiding As You Know Bob exposition, but sometimes having a character briefly reflect on some technological aspect is not only not a bad thing, but completely necessary to avoid everything seeming like an asinine ass pull.

I'm talking about authorial intrusion with hobbyhorses. Also, technobabble is bad, because it is necessarily nonsensical. Tech-speak that either makes sense or is at least not nonsense is called jargon.

[adam_grif]

I guess that depends on the definitions you're operating under, but if that's what you mean by technobabble then fine.

[Coyote]

Technically, all science fiction is "fantasy" but I think what irritates most people is literary fantasy in a science fiction setting. Basically, actual magic --inexplicable as anything but-- rearing it's head in an otherwise technology-based setting, even if that technology is basically "fantastic". Let's face it, the Force (for example) is just flat out magic.

In science fiction, I can take a guy wearing, say, a mechanical exoskeleton or powered armor that enhances muscles, allowing him to jump higher, run faster, and life enemies by the neck with one hand. It's harder if it's a guy with a "mystical power", especially if everyone else in the setting needs the exoskeletons to do the same thing. Ripley takes on the Alien with an exoskeleton --more believable than if she'd come out waving her hand and arbitrarily choking the beast.

Purists can argue that "FTL is essentially magic with a technologically-sounding explanation" and that there is no difference between an FTL hyperdrive and Aladdin's flying carpet. On an intellectual level I know this. But in the science fiction genre (which common usage tends to include "hard" SF, space opera, and science fantasy) you expect certain literary devices to be used, and certain literary devices to not be used. Unless you specifically set out to create a techno-mage setting where magic and technology are mixed.

[adam_grif]

Fantasy has technology in it. Sometimes they even have magic operating with their tech in consistent ways. If scifi writers can make up physical principles on the fly, then there is no difference between high fantasy with consistent magic and handwavium filled space opera except for aesthetics.

[Formless]

Technically, all science fiction is "fantasy" but I think what irritates most people is literary fantasy in a science fiction setting. Basically, actual magic --inexplicable as anything but-- rearing it's head in an otherwise technology-based setting, even if that technology is basically "fantastic". Let's face it, the Force (for example) is just flat out magic.

In science fiction, I can take a guy wearing, say, a mechanical exoskeleton or powered armor that enhances muscles, allowing him to jump higher, run faster, and life enemies by the neck with one hand. It's harder if it's a guy with a "mystical power", especially if everyone else in the setting needs the exoskeletons to do the same thing. Ripley takes on the Alien with an exoskeleton --more believable than if she'd come out waving her hand and arbitrarily choking the beast.

Purists can argue that "FTL is essentially magic with a technologically-sounding explanation" and that there is no difference between an FTL hyperdrive and Aladdin's flying carpet. On an intellectual level I know this. But in the science fiction genre (which common usage tends to include "hard" SF, space opera, and science fantasy) you expect certain literary devices to be used, and certain literary devices to not be used. Unless you specifically set out to create a techno-mage setting where magic and technology are mixed.

Oh, come off it. Anyone who thinks that just because its technology it automatically gets a pass on being something that is otherwise magic or speculative in general needs to get their hands off their genitals. If it doesn't yet exist in real life, there is a reason for that. It means that there is a chance that it may not exist at all. The materials science may not exist to create powered exoskeletons or the engines you might see strapped to any given star-/space-ship. Our understanding of the world may be more complete than we give ourselves credit for. The mechanisms described for any given piece of sci-fi tech are de facto bullshit. Even those few cases where a historical piece of sci-fi tech did happen to correspond to a real life development were coincidental, and if you took the time to look at the original descriptions of them I guarantee that almost none of them work in real life the way the fiction says they do. Like someone said, the assumption that technology will always advance in capability is ludicrous. What is important is that the technology/magic is consistent in description, theme, aesthetic, and effects on the plot. In that respect sci-fi and (high) fantasy are no different from each other. Where the two differ are in theme, aesthetic, and the motifs they utilize, but to say that sci-fi is superior in terms of believability is pure nerd pretentiousness.

[Samuel]

The materials science may not exist to create powered exoskeletons

When was that a problem for making power armor? I thought the problem was cost.

Even those few cases where a historical piece of sci-fi tech did happen to correspond to a real life development were coincidental, and if you took the time to look at the original descriptions of them I guarantee that almost none of them work in real life the way the fiction says they do.

Really, no cases what so ever? I'm positive there is at least one disproof of that.

[Formless]

The materials science may not exist to create powered exoskeletons

When was that a problem for making power armor? I thought the problem was cost.

Well, okay, but the only way I can think of to make "powered armor" cost effective would be to make some sort of super strong but ultra light material. Otherwise all the energy of the powered assist goes into hauling around the extra weight of the fancy armor.

Even those few cases where a historical piece of sci-fi tech did happen to correspond to a real life development were coincidental, and if you took the time to look at the original descriptions of them I guarantee that almost none of them work in real life the way the fiction says they do.

Really, no cases what so ever? I'm positive there is at least one disproof of that.

I said almost. I wasn't making a blanket statement here, because like I said, even when the prediction came true it was pure coincidence. At the time the fiction was written you might as well have considered it "magic."

[Zixinus]

The materials science may not exist to create powered exoskeletons

When was that a problem for making power armor? I thought the problem was cost.

Even those few cases where a historical piece of sci-fi tech did happen to correspond to a real life development were coincidental, and if you took the time to look at the original descriptions of them I guarantee that almost none of them work in real life the way the fiction says they do.

Really, no cases what so ever? I'm positive there is at least one disproof of that.

Does it really make a difference whether there is a specific case where a sci-fi author made a good prediction or not? The fact doesn't change that they are still engaging in fantasy, and no one really cares whether he engages into a technically correct fantasy or one that is slightly technically incorrect.

[Tanasinn]

I'm sick to fucking death of meaninglessly evil thinking computers.

Skynet had an excuse (up until the shitty third and fourth films) - the first thing humans tried to do to it was murder it, and it was a fucking defense computer to begin with. HAL had an excuse - he was given conflicting sets of instructions by fucking morons and shit the bed trying to work through it. Increasingly, it seems like AI are intentionally written to be completely psychotic just because -it's old; it's boring.

[Junghalli]

If it doesn't yet exist in real life, there is a reason for that. It means that there is a chance that it may not exist at all. The materials science may not exist to create powered exoskeletons or the engines you might see strapped to any given star-/space-ship. Our understanding of the world may be more complete than we give ourselves credit for. The mechanisms described for any given piece of sci-fi tech are de facto bullshit. Even those few cases where a historical piece of sci-fi tech did happen to correspond to a real life development were coincidental, and if you took the time to look at the original descriptions of them I guarantee that almost none of them work in real life the way the fiction says they do. Like someone said, the assumption that technology will always advance in capability is ludicrous. What is important is that the technology/magic is consistent in description, theme, aesthetic, and effects on the plot. In that respect sci-fi and (high) fantasy are no different from each other. Where the two differ are in theme, aesthetic, and the motifs they utilize, but to say that sci-fi is superior in terms of believability is pure nerd pretentiousness.

Oh come on, this is similar to arguments that are used to defend God or solipcism, and poor logic for the same reason. It relies on throwing out notions of probability and parsimony so you can arrive at the conclusion that all things that aren't proven are equally plausible (if it can't be built right now it's all equally believable). While we can't be certain that any hypothetical technology will be possible we can look at what we know about the universe and from that make meaningful conclusions about whether some technologies are more plausible than others. AI is more plausible than FTL because the former does not require rewriting the physics textbooks to make it work and the latter does. Ditto human brain emulation and fusion drives capable of propelling a million ton ship to .5 c at 50,000 G. Yes, it's possible that there are ways to achieve both those "impossible" things that we just don't know about, and those "plausible" things will turn out to not work because you need a living body to have a soul (or something like that), but it's not parsimonious to assume so. Parsimony says you start from the assumption the physics textbooks aren't wrong, and if you do that then you can make meaningful conclusions about what is and isn't plausible.

Fantasy and soft SF obviously are presumed to take place in universes where the physics textbooks really are wrong and and are believable in that context as long as they are consistent, but denying the idea that there is such a thing as hardness (which is what you seem to be doing) is simply a black-white fallacy.

[adam_grif]

IIRC Arthur C. Clarke put geosynchronous satellites being used for communications in a story. However, he did the science for it, and his work led directly to a discovery. So really, it wasn't so much speculation eventually coming true as it was designing something that will work and be useful, then putting it in a book before it gets built.

[Formless]

Oh come on, this is similar to arguments that are used to defend God or solipcism, and poor logic for the same reason. It relies on throwing out notions of probability and parsimony so you can arrive at the conclusion that all things that aren't proven are equally plausible (if it can't be built right now it's all equally believable). While we can't be certain that any hypothetical technology will be possible we can look at what we know about the universe and from that make meaningful conclusions about whether some technologies are more plausible than others.

Except that I'm not making any existential claims. Apples and bannana's, Jung. In fact, quite the opposite: the people who claim that any given sci-fi tech is "plausible/probable/parsimonious/[insert pretentious label here]" are the one's making such claims. I'm simply calling bullshit. Just because its "more probable" doesn't mean shit in terms of believability. Your argument resides on the assumption that the relative plausibility of something actually makes a difference, and more importantly makes for a better story without ever giving a reason why other than one genre happens to conform to your personal tastes. In the end, if there is no evidence that one technology is in fact possible in reality you can't rely on parsimony or probability to save it from being fantasy by any other name.

AI is more plausible than FTL because the former does not require rewriting the physics textbooks to make it work and the latter does. Ditto human brain emulation and fusion drives capable of propelling a million ton ship to .5 c at 50,000 G. Yes, it's possible that there are ways to achieve both those "impossible" things that we just don't know about, and those "plausible" things will turn out to not work because you need a living body to have a soul (or something like that), but it's not parsimonious to assume so. Parsimony says you start from the assumption the physics textbooks aren't wrong, and if you do that then you can make meaningful conclusions about what is and isn't plausible.

That Herring you're cooking smells nice, but let me tell you why its an irrelevant argument: it does not make for a better story when both concepts require a suspension of disbelief at some level to make them work. Either way the audience is still forced to suppress their urge to call bullshit, and the point at which someone is going to give in to that urge is arbitrary. Personal. Subjective. To claim that one genre is better or more believable is to put your ego on display for all to see. In the end, if you want to be objective, parsimony is not what makes for better, more believable stories; internal consistency is what makes for better, more believable stories. Without the first, you still have a story. Without the second, you have nothing (except maybe surrealist comedy).

Fantasy and soft SF obviously are presumed to take place in universes where the physics textbooks really are wrong and and are believable in that context as long as they are consistent, but denying the idea that there is such a thing as hardness (which is what you seem to be doing) is simply a black-white fallacy.

I was not denying "hardness" exists. But just because something is described as technology does not make it immune to rational skepticism, and does not stop it from being fantasy by any other name. It just means a different kind of geek will eat it up like crack.

[Shroom Man 777]

Mang, thank goodness Coyote doesn't watch Doctor Who or something. He'd end up getting a brain aneurysm.

I for one don't really give a crap about the differences between "magic" and "technology", since as whatshisname said, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and when you confront crazily advanced aliens then their tech is probably going to be incomprehensible to ya. Like how a whole lot of the stuff in Doctor Who doesn't make sense at all!

But, like Doctor Who, and stuff like Star Wars or 40k, it really depends on the presentation and when it's done right, and when the story and the plot and the characters and all those DRAMAs STRAK mentioned are played right, really the magic won't really be that bad or annoying or grating - when done right, anything can be presentable. Unless you really mind that stuff and get allergies whenever you see it done regardless of the presentation or story.

[Junghalli]

Just because its "more probable" doesn't mean shit in terms of believability.

How is "believability" being defined? Plausibility does matter to the definitions of believability that immediately come to my mind, but I don't want to make any assumptions about what you mean by this rather vague term.

Your argument resides on the assumption that the relative plausibility of something actually makes a difference, and more importantly makes for a better story without ever giving a reason why other than one genre happens to conform to your personal tastes.

I didn't say hard SF necessarily makes better stories, I disputed the idea that there was no real difference between it and fantasy besides genre conventions, which is what you seemed to be implying. Hard SF is about logical extrapolation from real life, whereas in fantasy and soft SF the author gets to set his own rules, with the main challenge being keeping them internally consistent. One is not inherently better or worse than the other, but they are different games (of course, some, probably most authors who are concerned with hardness will still mix both approaches).

[adam_grif]

As an aside, a brief discussion on Clarke's law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I see people mostly translating this to mean:

Anything magical can be done with sufficiently advanced technology.

When they should be getting the following out of it:

Any technology seems magical to a sufficiently primitive culture.


If anything, it's a reflection on the tenancy for lay people assume that anything you don't understand after looking at it for about five minutes can't be understood, not a demonstration that anything is possible if you can think hard enough about it for a while.

[Formless]

Just because its "more probable" doesn't mean shit in terms of believability.

How is "believability" being defined? Plausibility does matter to the definitions of believability that immediately come to my mind, but I don't want to make any assumptions about what you mean by this rather vague term.

When I talk about believability in the context of fiction I mean "I can actually see this happening to someone somewhere in the real world." Unfortunately, whenever (hard) sci-fi tech or magic is involved I cannot realistically make that claim so I have to default to skepticism until real world evidence comes along that says otherwise. So any speculative fiction story regardless of which side of the "science/magic" divide it rests is automatically unbelievable in this context. Luckily its perfectly acceptable to ignore breaks from reality for the sake of whatever is realistic about the story (like the characterization of the characters).

Your argument resides on the assumption that the relative plausibility of something actually makes a difference, and more importantly makes for a better story without ever giving a reason why other than one genre happens to conform to your personal tastes.

I didn't say hard SF necessarily makes better stories, I disputed the idea that there was no real difference between it and fantasy besides genre conventions, which is what you seemed to be implying. Hard SF is about logical extrapolation from real life, whereas in fantasy and soft SF the author gets to set his own rules, with the main challenge being keeping them internally consistent. One is not inherently better or worse than the other, but they are different games (of course, some, probably most authors who are concerned with hardness will still mix both approaches).

Actually, a fantasy author does NOT have the option of playing all by his own rules. There are still certain rules that they cannot break if they do not want to lose their audience, such as the characterization of the people in the story, or the way human societies work, and so on. The game is exactly the same in both genres: making the setting and plot flow logically from the theme and premises of the story. Your premises in "hard" sci-fi simply include "this is assumed to be earth and must conform to the rules the scientists tell me I must use."

[Patrick Degan]

Generally, war SF. It seems to be the only thing anybody (with few exceptions) writes anymore. Not even trying to examine war philosophically or how thoroughly it fucks up anything resembling an ordinary life for it's main character (as Joe Haldeman did with The Forever War) but just as a general setting for battle porn, or strategy wank, or cheap propaganda. Even when the intent is just a motif for Boys Own adventurism with pretensions to significance it's been so overused now that it's just tedious.

Series. Trilogies, quadrologies, quintologies, howevermanydamnvolumes to tell essentially one story and endless bullshit to wade through before you can pick up anything resembling the main plot thread again.

From what I'm seeing there is very little imagination in SF these days and hasn't been for at least a couple of decades now. What actual gems in the genre there are get buried under tons of the drivel which fills the bookshelves these days and it's put me off. Fantasy's even worse: essentially the same cheap LOTR or D&D knockoffs written ad-nauseum.

[adam_grif]

Generally, war SF.

That's a pretty broad thing to be tired of. On par with being tired of having romance in stories, or having stories set in outer space.

If you just mean the poorly written ones, then that goes without saying anyway, not just for war stories but every story.

[Shroom Man 777]

He's tired at their prominence. I mean, back in the day we had science fiction with actual exploring or actual cyberpunking or actual science-fiction or actual human stories set in some vast backdrop. But now, perhaps due to the prominence of sci-fi videogames or some stuff, we've got loads of franchises dedicated to nothing but just war. It's less of exploring themes and less of exploring character or drama and more of, well, stylized depictions of violence that just get boring be it in settings based on Haloid (squawk), 40k, or Star Wars, or a whole buckload of other popular franchise-based sci-fi. Bleh.

[Gramzamber]

The war thing can be placed on any medium really, from sci-fi to fantasy to modern day to historical drama.
Hell my mom has recently been upset at some historical drama series she was watching, which used to be about the interaction between the various characters, their lives and dramas is now increasingly focused on war and revolution and some other crap like that.
It's just what sells today I guess.

[Coyote]

Formless, you weren't paying attention. I was talking about the literary devices of fantasy vs. science fiction, while admitting that technically speaking from our modern standpoint, they are both "fantasy" (at least when dealing with certain sci-fi staples such as FTL).

Take Lord of the Rings. Fantasy story. I love it. It's fun. But it's fantasy. It has wizards and magic and power basically comes to these guys from nowhere, focused by innate powers. I expect horses, knights, swords, trebuchets, bows & arrows, and wizards. I would not expect to see the armies of Mordor attack across the plain towards Gondor in AT-ATs and AT-STs, firing blasters. That's not fantasy, you've now switched gears to science fiction.

To me, and I realize this is subjective, but having Luke, the Emperor, and Vader running around choking people, shooting lightning from their fingertips, throwing things around with telekinesis and being able to super-jump or use limited personal flight, is no different from taking Gandalf and Sauron and plunking them down in the middle of it, or putting them in nBSG.

Maybe it's just a personal bugaboo with me, but in a science fiction story I expect fantastic stuff to come from machinery that is identifiable and can break or be stolen, rather than "mystical power" from a guy who waves his arms and chants something in Elfin. Likewise in fantasy, I expect the fantastic stuff to come from a wizard or witch who can be interrupted, wounded or killed, rather than from a super machine.

This is probably all just personal taste on my part, now that I think about it.

[Shroom Man 777]

Would the fantasy warriors getting killed by a super-machine like a giant catapult hurling bigass rocks at Minas Tirith, or an Uruk-Hai becoming a suicide bomber armed with a bigass gunpowder explosive conceived by Saruman, be a negative-thing for the Fantasy-perspective?

Or would having sky pirates led by a crossdressing Robert Deniro, harvesting lightning on their flying airship, be similarly unexpected and bad because they're riding on a technological machine that uses fictitious science to fly?

What's your thought on very-very soft (nigh-elastic) sci-fi like Doctor Who?

[Oni Koneko Damien]

So then what's the judgment on Babylon 5's technomages? Allegedly they rely on technology to fuel their powers, yet what they do is indistinguishable from magic even to other people in the same universe.

The point is 'fantasy' is at its base a story about things that, as far as we know, do not exist in this universe. All of sci-fi will fall under this. There's a quote that goes something like, "Any technology sufficiently advanced will be indistinguishable from magic", and I think that applies perfectly to sci-fi. It doesn't matter how much you try to cloak it in 'believable' technology, you're still dealing with things that are impossible, or do not exist in the universe as we know it. And when you try to draw a line between what's acceptably believable and what isn't, you're either going to end up with a huge gray area, or on closer examination you're eventually going to realize practically everything can eventually be reduced down to 'unexplainable magic'.

[Coyote]

If something starts out as sci-fi/fantasy crossover, some sort of techno-mage setting, I'm fine with it because usually the writers have thought up some sort of balance between the two.

In Lord of the Rings, the machinery being used and built, including the gunpowder, is presented in a context. People treat the gunpowder like a magical poof-powder, even though Saruman knows better he lets them think that because it enhances his power in their eyes. The machines are complex rope-and-pulley devices, and trebuchets, crossbows, and the like are part of the advancement from a medieval-style world into a late-Medieval/pre-Renaissance world. What would have been jarring would have been Saruman instantly making flintlock rifles or Gatling guns from the get-go.

But after my last post I thought about what annoys me with having mages in an otherwise sci-fi setting, and it is because the story gravitates around those mages and what they do. In the one Star Wars fanfic I wrote it was about a random Scout Trooper, a regular infantry sergeant, who found out that not only was he unemployed, but that he'd been on the wrong side of things for all his life, and he was cut adrift. He's not a mover or shaker like those hand-waving uber-guys, he's a guy at ground level who has to carve out a niche for himself in a dangerous universe, without the benefit of magic powers or heroic legacies and ghostly mentors to guide him. But a guy like him has no chance against a Jedi. None. Even a dozen guys. It would be easier to take if a "Jedi" was just a well-trained commando, at least he'd be "mortal".

As for Dr. Who, I admit I've never seen it. A guy who's basically a sort of policeman that hopes dimensions setting things right when they go wrong? Magic and tech intermixed from the get-go? They must be doing something right for him to survive as a series for so long and have such a fan base, I can only guess they have really good characterization, and that despite his uber-power he is still affected by decisions he makes, and has to deal with loss and the like. I am in no position to comment on Dr. Who, though, due to my ignorance of the series. The premise never sounded interesting to me, really.

[Gramzamber]

So then what's the judgment on Babylon 5's technomages? Allegedly they rely on technology to fuel their powers, yet what they do is indistinguishable from magic even to other people in the same universe.

I don't see how Technomages are much different to advanced versions of modern day magicians. They purposefully shroud their knowledge under a veil of mysticism and fanfare that it becomes like magic.
While advanced races may know that technology fuels it, if the Technomages can keep a lid on just exactly how they do it, it is in a sense "magic".