Degrees of science fantasy

[Einzige]

I suppose this thread could have gone into either the 'Science Fiction' or 'Fantasy' boards, but being that this seems to be the more frequented of the two, I'll post it here.

Everyone here knows what 'science fantasy' is; I would define it as being nothing more than the opposite of 'hard' science-fiction, in which any scientific elements are consigned to the background, as flavoring, in favor of a story that could happen with only superficial modification in a more traditional storytelling setting.

But it does seem to me that there are degrees to which this is true. I'd like to make a rough list here, and if anyone can point out where I might be wrong or add to it, that'd be great.

(A.) 'Soft' science fantasy - e.g., Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5. In this degree most 'fantastical' elements which are derived from classical fantasy - magic, deities, psychic powers, etc. - tend to take a backseat to a technology-driven plot. In "Who Mourns For Adonis", for instance, Apollo is revealed to be nothing more than a powerful alien entity with some knowledge as to Greek mythology on Earth. The Force exists in Star Wars, but is ultimately reducible to a semi-physiological explanation in midichlorians. While the supernatural and the unexplainable certainly occur within these universes, they rarely interact with most characters, and most conflicts are resolved through recourse to technology.

(B.) 'Hard' science fantasy - e.g., Warhammer 40,000, Dune. With this degree, both 'science' and 'fantasy' become virtually indistinguishable, and drive the plot in equal proportions. Faster-than-light travel occurs within the context of a mystical netherworld; the Kwisatz Haderach derives his mental powers through a selective eugenics programme. Neither 'scientific' nor 'fantastical' elements are distinguishable at this stage, but instead compliment one another and are used together to solve problems.

(C.) 'Pure' science fantasy - e.g., the Might & Magic game series, The Dragonriders of Pern. This style of science fantasy derives most elements from classical sources - golems, gryphons, dragons and demons are all accepted as run-of-the-mill elements of the fictional world. What 'scientific' characteristics belong to the story are mostly relegated to existing purely as world-building devices: the Thread which threatens Pern is clearly an organic entity of extraterrestrial origin, but this explanation matters little within the context of the world itself, and is explained away by the native mythology. Might & Magic traces a conflict between 'Guardians' of a dying interstellar empire fleeing from world to world in pursuit of one another, but this serves only to introduce the worlds on which each respective game is set and to add character to an otherwise purely fantastic story.

Now, these definitions are hardly set in stone, and there is a great deal of interplay between each degree, but, at least to me, this serves as a useful categorization system.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. I see where you're going with this, and it's kind of interesting, I think.

I tend to classify "pure" science fantasy as just plain fantasy. The fact that a setting features other planets doesn't make it science fiction, any more than the fact that it features cliffs or trees or other naturally occuring objects does.

Likewise, the fact that events in-story have a scientific explanation doesn't make a story science fiction either. In Middle-Earth, people breathe oxygen that is presumably released into the air by photosynthesis- a scientific explanation for a very common (if normal) phenomenon. But Lord of the Rings isn't a work of science fiction.

On the other end of the scale, "Soft" science fantasy blurs seamlessly into what we normally call soft science fiction. The 'fantastic' elements are often indistinguishable from the kind of unknown super-science that figures so strongly in soft science fiction. Star Trek has psychics and energy beings that defy the laws known to modern science, but hardly more than FTL travel, seemingly reactionless drives, and energy weapons with a stun setting do.

Ditto with Star Wars. Which is actually a greater violation of the principles modern science knows and loves: the Jedi and their Force powers, or the routine use of near-instantaneous FTL drives to hop across the galaxy without creating causality violations?

I'd restrict the "science fantasy" category to what you call "hard" science fantasy, because it has both enough fantastic elements to be fantasy and enough scientific elements to be science fiction.

[Batman]

Err-since when has Star Wars near-instantaneous FTL? A few hours to cross the galaxy is pretty damn fast but it's definitely NOT near instantaneous.
If you were talking about near-instantaneous FTL COMMUNICATIONS I naturally withdraw the objection because Wars definitely has THAT, at least at intragalactic ranges, but when people mention FTL with no further qualification they usually mean FTL TRAVEL.

[Simon_Jester]

Err-since when has Star Wars near-instantaneous FTL? A few hours to cross the galaxy is pretty damn fast but it's definitely NOT near instantaneous.

Near-instantaneous compared to the actual spacetime separation between two points. If I can jump from the core to the rim in a few hours, and from the rim to the core in a few more... the difference between, say, "twelve hours" and "zero" is negligible compared to the hundred thousand years or so it would take for light to travel the same distances.

My wording was incautious, but I think my point is clear: It should be trivially easy to set up causality paradoxes in Star Wars, but this never ever seems to happen. Now, this ability to travel at high FTL speeds without suffering accidental causality breakdowns is not a "fantasy" concept, whereas the Jedi powers are. But in this case the technological marvel of fast FTL is, if anything, a more egregious physics violation than the Jedi. Their abilities are not at all out of line by the standards of what can exist in "soft science fiction" setting, as opposed to a "hard science fantasy" setting as Einzige names it.

[Samuel]

Does magic make something more "science fantasy" like? I know alot of stories that billed themselves as science fiction had psychic powers, which are softer than actual magic.

[Einzige]

I believe it largely depends on how the magic or 'psychic' powers are framed or explained within the story. The Force from Star Wars is an obvious example: in the original trilogy at least, and before the release of The Phantom Menace, it was something purely unquantifiable, bordering on 'fantasy' magic. When I was a boy, for instance, I pictured the Jedi as being basically a cabal of wizards, as opposed to the pseudo-samurai they became in the prequels: a view possibly influenced by the character of Joruus C'Baoth in the Thrawn trilogy. With the introduction of midichlorians to ground it at least in some level of physical possibility, however, I'd suggest it changed the nature of the Force and, with it, the entire setting.

[Broomstick]

Where a work of fiction is on the continuum can change as well - for example the Pern Dragonriders started out much more fantastical, with no explanation of where they came from, but were later retconned as genetically engineered creatures. This would, in my mind, tend to move them towards harder science though, of course, there are still many fantastical elements involved.

[Batman]

Err-since when has Star Wars near-instantaneous FTL? A few hours to cross the galaxy is pretty damn fast but it's definitely NOT near instantaneous.

Near-instantaneous compared to the actual spacetime separation between two points. If I can jump from the core to the rim in a few hours, and from the rim to the core in a few more... the difference between, say, "twelve hours" and "zero" is negligible compared to the hundred thousand years or so it would take for light to travel the same distances.

My apologies. I was assuming we were talking about 'near-instantaneous' in SciFi terms, where FTL travel is a given, some of which make Wars hyperdrive look like they're standing still.

[Simon_Jester]

Does magic make something more "science fantasy" like? I know alot of stories that billed themselves as science fiction had psychic powers, which are softer than actual magic.

How are psychic powers softer than magic when they're practically identical?

I agree with Einzige. I think whether psionics (or magic) push the story into science fantasy territory depends heavily on how they are treated. If psionics (or magic) is a science, but happens to be one we don't yet understand, then you can keep the science fiction label quite recently. Sciences we have yet to master are a common feature of SF.

If such subjects are treated more mystically (as they very much were in the original Star Wars movies), then that's different. Then you get into science fantasy, and the focus tends to shift towards the magic and away from the mastery of science and technology.

[Samuel]

Because psychic powers are tied to intelligence... for some reason. Magic generally makes a bit more sense- you have rituals you do and they give you power. Psychic powers are much more arbitrary. For example, if you have psychic powers that are genetically based, the obvious question is how does different protein or tissue structure allow you to manipulate your surroundings? Apologies if I am not making sense.

[Caiaphas]

Because psychic powers are tied to intelligence... for some reason. Magic generally makes a bit more sense- you have rituals you do and they give you power. Psychic powers are much more arbitrary. For example, if you have psychic powers that are genetically based, the obvious question is how does different protein or tissue structure allow you to manipulate your surroundings? Apologies if I am not making sense.

How in the hell is this not making sense? You're making more sense than most of the half-hearted explanations most people give. Although Mass Effect did provide a very good in-game explanation of it...

[Junghalli]

Personally I've always had the opposite reaction. The idea that there might be organisms with known physics breaking natural abilities (psychic powers) always struck me as less ridiculous than the idea that you could make somebody's head explode by the right combination of words and gestures.

I guess it's a subjective thing, because for the most part they're both pretty ridiculous.

Actually, come to think of it, you can read people's brainwaves with things like MRIs, and concievably if you knew enough about how the brain works you could read their mind that way ... how plausible would it be for an animal to have such a sense? The big problem that occurs to me is that I imagine the electrical impulses of neurons firing in the brain are pretty weak and you'd be trying to read them at a distance and through the skull. To do it with technology I'm pretty sure requires huge machines, so how good a resolution could a sense organ capable of fitting into a humanoid body get?

[Bakustra]

Personally I've always had the opposite reaction. The idea that there might be organisms with known physics breaking natural abilities (psychic powers) always struck me as less ridiculous than the idea that you could make somebody's head explode by the right combination of words and gestures.

I guess it's a subjective thing, because for the most part they're both pretty ridiculous.

Actually, come to think of it, you can read people's brainwaves with things like MRIs, and concievably if you knew enough about how the brain works you could read their mind that way ... how plausible would it be for an animal to have such a sense? The big problem that occurs to me is that I imagine the electrical impulses of neurons firing in the brain are pretty weak and you'd be trying to read them at a distance and through the skull. To do it with technology I'm pretty sure requires huge machines, so how good a resolution could a sense organ capable of fitting into a humanoid body get?

You're making an unfair comparison. Telepathy is the one psychic power that most closely approaches plausibility, but there are systems of magic that are similar in plausibility. However, the majority of psychic powers are about as plausible as making an arrow deadlier by writing someone's name on it.

When it comes to your suggestion, MRIs require surrounding the skull with very sensitive and powerful magnets. If you cleverly folded a small apparatus, you could fit it into a human body and get marginal resolution, but for any and all practical purposes, you wouldn't be able to get anything at all with an organic entity.

[Teleros]

Realistic telepathy (that is, telepathy that obeys little things like conservation of energy etc, however it actually works) also does offer the possibility of micro-telekinesis or whatever you want to call it. If you can influence the cells in someone's body so as to, say, communicate with them, what is preventing you from also influencing say the flow of electrons in a CPU? More noticeable telekinesis could possibly be done this way, but I'd've though that it would burn up the ATP in the cells at a very high rate, and would likely be quite limited (more like pyrokinesis - "heat the lightbulb filament" rather than "screw the lightbulb in").

Plus of course machines could do the same, and probably better (at least by achieving a more powerful result, fine control would presumably depend on the AI or whatever is controlling the machine, sensors, and so on).

[Junghalli]

You're making an unfair comparison. Telepathy is the one psychic power that most closely approaches plausibility, but there are systems of magic that are similar in plausibility. However, the majority of psychic powers are about as plausible as making an arrow deadlier by writing someone's name on it.

Oh I think you're pretty much right about the second point. I just find the idea that there might be an organism that has the natural ability to make people's heads explode for no apparent reason more intuitively plausible-seeming than the idea that you could do the same by shouting a spell and pointing at him or whatever. I am (genuinely) curious to have some examples of these relative plausible magic systems you speak of though.

When it comes to your suggestion, MRIs require surrounding the skull with very sensitive and powerful magnets. If you cleverly folded a small apparatus, you could fit it into a human body and get marginal resolution, but for any and all practical purposes, you wouldn't be able to get anything at all with an organic entity.

I suspected as much. While I doubt you could get a classical telepath with realistic biology, I do wonder if a creature with sufficiently fine senses could be something like an empath. I'm thinking something like having a very fine instinctive eye for body language, being able to read things like sexual arousal or stress by the changes they cause in body odor, being able to hear somebody's heartbeat and breathing and notice when they become stressed by it becoming faster etc. Possibly this could be combined with the brainwave-reading idea; I imagine detecting the probably relatively large-scale activation of brain regions corresponding to simple emotions might be much less challenging than reading specific thoughts.

[Bakustra]

Realistic telepathy (that is, telepathy that obeys little things like conservation of energy etc, however it actually works) also does offer the possibility of micro-telekinesis or whatever you want to call it. If you can influence the cells in someone's body so as to, say, communicate with them, what is preventing you from also influencing say the flow of electrons in a CPU? More noticeable telekinesis could possibly be done this way, but I'd've though that it would burn up the ATP in the cells at a very high rate, and would likely be quite limited (more like pyrokinesis - "heat the lightbulb filament" rather than "screw the lightbulb in").

Plus of course machines could do the same, and probably better (at least by achieving a more powerful result, fine control would presumably depend on the AI or whatever is controlling the machine, sensors, and so on).

Ah, but this is far divorced from the common psychokinetic throwing furniture about a room. Even Luke Skywalker straining to pull his lightsaber from the snow on Hoth would be godlike in comparison to a plausible telekinetic.

My thoughts were more along the lines of a structure in the brain that served as an antenna for fictional telepathy waves. Most people would have a weak "antenna" that could only transmit and receive faintly, while telepaths would have a stronger antenna that could transmit strongly and receive the broadcasts associated with the average person.

You're making an unfair comparison. Telepathy is the one psychic power that most closely approaches plausibility, but there are systems of magic that are similar in plausibility. However, the majority of psychic powers are about as plausible as making an arrow deadlier by writing someone's name on it.

Oh I think you're pretty much right about the second point. I just find the idea that there might be an organism that has the natural ability to make people's heads explode for no apparent reason more intuitively plausible-seeming than the idea that you could do the same by shouting a spell and pointing at him or whatever. I am (genuinely) curious to have some examples of these relative plausible magic systems you speak of though.

Tolkien's is one of the better examples, since most of it can be rationalized (as can most word-based systems) if we assume a somewhat animistic universe, wherein the magic words are directed against the spirit of the pinecone, or door, to use several prominent examples within Lord of the Rings. This is no more or less plausible than the inclusion of telepathy; it merely introduces a single concept that has definite consequences. Said spirits are presumably not very intelligent, as they do whatever the speaker commands. Other magic is simply a matter of superhuman engineering and materials science, such as the Elven cloaks. The only oddballs are the palantiri and telepathy. I'm sure that other people could come up with better examples, of course, but this is one that people are likely to be familiar with.

When it comes to your suggestion, MRIs require surrounding the skull with very sensitive and powerful magnets. If you cleverly folded a small apparatus, you could fit it into a human body and get marginal resolution, but for any and all practical purposes, you wouldn't be able to get anything at all with an organic entity.

I suspected as much. While I doubt you could get a classical telepath with realistic biology, I do wonder if a creature with sufficiently fine senses could be something like an empath. I'm thinking something like having a very fine instinctive eye for body language, being able to read things like sexual arousal or stress by the changes they cause in body odor, being able to hear somebody's heartbeat and breathing and notice when they become stressed by it becoming faster etc. Possibly this could be combined with the brainwave-reading idea; I imagine detecting the probably relatively large-scale activation of brain regions corresponding to simple emotions might be much less challenging than reading specific thoughts.

Asimov used this in Nemesis, although there it verged far closer on telepathy/empathy.

[Samuel]

I don't think that would work for telepathy- any attempt to read other people's minds would be drowned out by your own. And you can't have it as a constant backround because the only time your mind isn't changing is when you are dead. To pull it off you'd need to be able to distinguish the patterns of your mind, those of another (much fainter) and what they mean- not exactly easy.

As for that level of empathy I remember Dead Man's Switch (something like that was the title) that had people trained to do that. You could distract them with a schizophrenic.

[Junghalli]

I don't think that would work for telepathy- any attempt to read other people's minds would be drowned out by your own. And you can't have it as a constant backround because the only time your mind isn't changing is when you are dead. To pull it off you'd need to be able to distinguish the patterns of your mind, those of another (much fainter) and what they mean- not exactly easy.

Yes, but I don't see why designing such a filter would be impossible. Brute-force solution, you could wrap your own brain in a material that would dampen its emissions (probably either as a lining between the brain and the skull or integrated into the skull itself). This would also have the benefit of rendering yourself opaque to other mind-readers.

Edit: it occurs to me that if you combined the read body language-odors-heartbeat-breathing idea with synesthesia you might be able to get something close to the usual cheesy sci fi idea of an empath (like Counselor Troi).

[Bakustra]

I don't think that would work for telepathy- any attempt to read other people's minds would be drowned out by your own. And you can't have it as a constant backround because the only time your mind isn't changing is when you are dead. To pull it off you'd need to be able to distinguish the patterns of your mind, those of another (much fainter) and what they mean- not exactly easy.

As for that level of empathy I remember Dead Man's Switch (something like that was the title) that had people trained to do that. You could distract them with a schizophrenic.

Explains why telepathy wasn't part of human society from the start well, doesn't it? My idea would be to have telepathy be a learned skill that was discovered accidentally, perhaps with a chance mutation that created a defective "antenna" that couldn't broadcast.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I don't think that would work for telepathy- any attempt to read other people's minds would be drowned out by your own. And you can't have it as a constant backround because the only time your mind isn't changing is when you are dead. To pull it off you'd need to be able to distinguish the patterns of your mind, those of another (much fainter) and what they mean- not exactly easy.

As for that level of empathy I remember Dead Man's Switch (something like that was the title) that had people trained to do that. You could distract them with a schizophrenic.

Explains why telepathy wasn't part of human society from the start well, doesn't it? My idea would be to have telepathy be a learned skill that was discovered accidentally, perhaps with a chance mutation that created a defective "antenna" that couldn't broadcast.

Eh, you can hear people while you are talking; you could probably hear people while you are thinking too. Especially if the telepathic broadcasting organ can more or less send in a beam instead of omnidirectionally.

As for why telepathy isn't everywhere; one idea I've come across that I like is that we have evolved away from it. At one point our ancestors were all telepaths; then they lost the ability because it had some major disadvantage*. Which is why a sophisticated faculty like telepathy can just pop up in a single generation instead of evolving over millennia; it already evolved, the telepath is just an atavism.


* An example of this is Spider Robinson's Callahan's place books. Everyone is a potential telepath; yet actual born telepaths are nearly unknown. The protagonist comes to the conclusion that telepathy must have such major drawbacks that we evolved away from it, and speculates that losing telepathy may have been the cause of the "Great Leap forward", where after millennia of Neanderthal-like stagnation humans started advancing. His speculation IIRC was that being born telepathic in a society of telepaths would mean that individuality and thus creativity would be impossible.

[Simon_Jester]

Because psychic powers are tied to intelligence... for some reason. Magic generally makes a bit more sense- you have rituals you do and they give you power. Psychic powers are much more arbitrary. For example, if you have psychic powers that are genetically based, the obvious question is how does different protein or tissue structure allow you to manipulate your surroundings? Apologies if I am not making sense.

It's all right, but this seems to me like a purely intuitive feeling on your part.

To me, the idea that I can make a screwdriver move by thinking happy thoughts at it is no more absurd than the idea that I can make a screwdriver move by convincing a spirit to do it for me... by thinking happy thoughts. In either case we're looking at something that flat out isn't real.

[Teleros]

Realistic telepathy (that is, telepathy that obeys little things like conservation of energy etc, however it actually works) also does offer the possibility of micro-telekinesis or whatever you want to call it. If you can influence the cells in someone's body so as to, say, communicate with them, what is preventing you from also influencing say the flow of electrons in a CPU? More noticeable telekinesis could possibly be done this way, but I'd've though that it would burn up the ATP in the cells at a very high rate, and would likely be quite limited (more like pyrokinesis - "heat the lightbulb filament" rather than "screw the lightbulb in").

Plus of course machines could do the same, and probably better (at least by achieving a more powerful result, fine control would presumably depend on the AI or whatever is controlling the machine, sensors, and so on).

Ah, but this is far divorced from the common psychokinetic throwing furniture about a room. Even Luke Skywalker straining to pull his lightsaber from the snow on Hoth would be godlike in comparison to a plausible telekinetic.

Yeah, pretty much my point, although even "microchip pyrokinesis" or however you want to describe it could make a neat plot element. Your guards all have telepathic shields... but the guy instead hacks his cell lock via the delicate computer systems that control it.

To me, the idea that I can make a screwdriver move by thinking happy thoughts at it is no more absurd than the idea that I can make a screwdriver move by convincing a spirit to do it for me... by thinking happy thoughts. In either case we're looking at something that flat out isn't real.

Moving a screwdriver through magic is not realistic, but magic generally never claims to be. Moving a screwdriver through gene-dependent psychic powers or something similar however is on some level trying to claim that it's based on science. In this sense, I think 40K has one of the least objectionable means of regular psychic powers (ignore the daemon prince battling the primarch over there for a minute please ) out there - psykers in it often don't do stuff themselves so much as channel the Warp to do it for them, which let's you avoid issues like where the hell the power to flip tanks with your mind comes from.

[Axiomatic]

Brute-force solution, you could wrap your own brain in a material that would dampen its emissions (probably either as a lining between the brain and the skull or integrated into the skull itself)

Or you could wear a hat.

[Simon_Jester]

To me, the idea that I can make a screwdriver move by thinking happy thoughts at it is no more absurd than the idea that I can make a screwdriver move by convincing a spirit to do it for me... by thinking happy thoughts. In either case we're looking at something that flat out isn't real.

Moving a screwdriver through magic is not realistic, but magic generally never claims to be. Moving a screwdriver through gene-dependent psychic powers or something similar however is on some level trying to claim that it's based on science. In this sense, I think 40K has one of the least objectionable means of regular psychic powers (ignore the daemon prince battling the primarch over there for a minute please ) out there - psykers in it often don't do stuff themselves so much as channel the Warp to do it for them, which let's you avoid issues like where the hell the power to flip tanks with your mind comes from.

But to take this back to my original point, I'm not sure how this makes psychic powers "softer" than magic in science fiction, as Samuel seems to think they are. The fact that something is not claimed as realistic, but merely as an objective in-setting reality, changes nothing for me. FTL drives aren't realistic; FTL drives that don't lead to causality breakdowns aren't realistic at all. But we still accept FTL drives as a viable concept in science fiction...

[Teleros]

I guess I'm just saying that moving the screwdriver with happy thoughts is more absurd than by getting the spirit to do it for you, if the former is psychics and the latter magic, for the reasons outlined in my previous post. Or to put it another way, I can accept the X-Men being magic users more than I can their abilities being down to genetic mutation technobabble masquerading as something vaguely scientific. I mean, if Jean Grey is going to lift up that X-Men aircraft at the end of the 2nd film, just WTF has she been eating to gain the fuel to burn to do that? What's she got in place of her stomach, a total-conversion reactor?

Or to use the FTL drive example, an FTL drive that just works is fine (look at the SW hyperdrive in the films), but I'll bang my head on the wall if it's claimed to work through some mechanism that clearly wouldn't allow it to do so under the in-universe laws of physics.