Should Star Trek be considered Science Fantasy?

[Baffalo]

I've kinda asked this question of myself for quite some time but it's only now that I've thought about actually asking the community at large: Is Star Trek better considered as Science Fantasy, such as Star Wars, or is it an actual, viable Science Fiction program? And this applies to any series, including the new Abramsverse.

Examples of why it would classify as SciFan:

• Dilithium crystals, a fictional crystalline structure that is matter, yet can channel matter/anti-matter reactions.
• Disastrous engineering failures with a complete disregard for safety to satisfy the need for story convenience.
• Phase cloaking, the ability to phase through matter without interaction.
• Subspace, an unknown dimension of space/time that behaves in a strange manner that is inconsistent.
• Transporters, the ability to ignore the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle when transporting atoms across space.

Examples of why it would classify as SciFi:

• Logical progression in current scientific advancements.
• Scientific advancement and research on the edge of the known galaxy.
• Stories involving the human condition even in the advanced future.
• Theoretical explanations for the science to explain why it works.

[Crazedwraith]

You're an idiot making stupid distinctions. Star Trek is Star Trek.

[Stark]

Science fiction is science fantasy that makes nerds feel clever by using magic words.

I think the real distinction that should be changed is scifi/fantasy. Just call it all 'fantasy' or break it down by theme instead of 'has ray gun' vs 'has dragon'.

[Batman]

I never really understood why Star Wars is SciFan instead of merely soft SciFi. Sure, it has the Force. So what? Stargate has the Ancients, the Ori, the Nox, Trek has quasiomnipotents up the wazoo, B5 has the Great Old Ones (or whatever they were called) and Talia's ex evolving into an energy being yet nobody ever tries to declare those SciFan. What is it that makes Wars more fantastic than those?
And I think breaking it down by 'has ray guns' vs 'has dragons' is breaking it down by themes. 'Has ray guns' means the theme is mostly technology-based (most of it twisting the laws of physics as we know them into a pretzel and eating it notwithstanding), while 'has dragons' tends to be magic-heavy (as in magic actually called and, as far as anybody including the audience knows, BEING magic rather that sufficiently advanced technology).
Or maybe I have no idea what Stark means by 'themes', that wouldn't be a first time either.

[Stark]

Dude, nobody thinks Star Wars is a made up genre except nerds. :V

And I mean like non-dragon, non-laser books. Is it a thrilling tale of romance and danger? Maybe it's a romance novel and not a 'scifi' novel. Does the brilliant detective catch the deadly killer BEFORE THERE'S STILL TIME? Maybe it's a crime novel and not a 'fantasy' novel.

Face it - scifi and fantasy don't exist to help nerds define anything - they exist as leper camps where everything involving dumb shit like wizards and space ninjas gets put so normal people don't have to read it. Imagine if you picked up a crime novel and suddenly laser swords everywhere! You'd be appalled.

[Batman]

No, I'd be wondering 'why the hell did I pick up a crime novel' and then think 'hey, it has laser swords! Maybe this is going to be fun to read afterall!'

[Stark]

If you can accept that people who aren't you exist, you can be cured. Most people simply dislike the trappings of scifi and fantasy and don't want to see it unless they consent. There are some people however who love that shit and thus bookstores need to keep the content organized as they do.

This business decision does not impact the content of fiction. Well, it shouldn't, but yknow nerds.

[Connor MacLeod]

The important question to ask is a.) why do we need to 'classify' it, and b.) why are we limited to those two definitions? Classifications as a rule tend to be pretty arbitrary (Hard vs soft sci fi, for example) and even then they tend not to adequately or accurately depict the depth OR complexity of a work.

I mean you could probably more accurately depict 40K as 'science fantasy' and it would still not adequately fit it because there are plenty of examples where it doesn't.

And in tying in with point b.) I would submit there is nothing that requires it to fall into either one category or the other, or strictly just those two. Star Trek had all osrts of different stories that broke beyond those two definitions- there were plenty of 'mystery' stories or stories with mystery elements in Trek for example. AT the very least it coudl be both 'science fantasy' and 'science fiction' (whatever those terms mean.) equally.

[Batman]

If you can accept that people who aren't you exist, you can be cured.

I know people other than me exist. The problem is, one of them is you. And I don't think I'm the one who has to be cured, really.

Most people simply dislike the trappings of scifi and fantasy and don't want to see it unless they consent.

And yet you are here, posting in a thread about SciFi. I'd say that counts as consent But feel free to leave anytime you want to.

There are some people however who love that shit and thus bookstores need to keep the content organized as they do.

Yeah. Valen forbid bookstores store books that actually sell organized in a way that works. Um-you do know most bookstores do it for the money, right?

[Connor MacLeod]

So are you saying that Star Trek must fall into specifically one category or another, but nothing else? You do realize that is something of a false dilemma, right?

(No criticism on you Baffalo, but I think you didn't think this one through quite enough before you asked the question. Sorry if I'm coming down hard on ya.)

[Stark]

Dude did he just snip out me explaining how business realities are distinct from literature content and then make a smug joke about LOL A BUSINESS?

I'm done here.

[Batman]

On hindsight, it rather seems I did.

[Connor MacLeod]

Maybe you should have been more careful rather than jumping in LOL CRUSH THE OPPOSING VIEWPOINT.

Hostility to an opposing viewpoint is one of this forum's biggest problems when it comes to discussing ideas. If you're going to approach every discussion like its a combat, no ideas can be exchanged and no discussion can occur.

The point of this thread should be to explore the idea, for example, of why classifications may be arbitrary or why it may be a bad idea to try to pigeonhole it into some idea. Heck even saying 'its a mix of both' is limiting, because it still disallows any possible other idea than just those three. And THAT assumes that such distinctions actually exist to begin with. I'm not sure I'd classify Star Wars as JUST science fantasy either (nevermind what each classification is supposed to MEAN...)

[Baffalo]

So are you saying that Star Trek must fall into specifically one category or another, but nothing else? You do realize that is something of a false dilemma, right?

(No criticism on you Baffalo, but I think you didn't think this one through quite enough before you asked the question. Sorry if I'm coming down hard on ya.)

No worries, I should've put more thought into it but I only thought of those two at the time. I'm more than willing to expand my horizons to more than two possible entries.

The important question to ask is a.) why do we need to 'classify' it, and b.) why are we limited to those two definitions? Classifications as a rule tend to be pretty arbitrary (Hard vs soft sci fi, for example) and even then they tend not to adequately or accurately depict the depth OR complexity of a work.

The question of why we would need to classify it is simply because it's more of a question of whether the science outweighs the more fantastic elements that could be defined as fantasy. In that regard, it's similar to the question, is the claim that Star Trek is based on fact and thus is superior to other works of fiction? Or is it just as guilty of Wars of making up elements that have little to no bearing on reality?

And your second question is, again, mostly my fault for not thinking the question through adequately. Sorry folks.

No, I'd be wondering 'why the hell did I pick up a crime novel' and then think 'hey, it has laser swords! Maybe this is going to be fun to read afterall!'

That actually happened one time and now I'm mad I can't find it again.

[Stark]

PS all the trappings of everything but the very hardest scifi is 'fantastic'. The 'science' is literally nothing but familiar tags put on the fantasy to give it a certain tone.

And anybody saying a work is 'superior' because of it being 'based on fact' is an idiot who doesn't understand fiction (or is watching a documentary).

I've heard SW is a documentary, by the way.

I think its important to note that scifi is particularly rigid and anal, becaue if you have a series of crime novels one might be 'more crimey' or 'more romancey' than another book in the series, and people don't mind. In a scifi series the LESS SCIENCE one might be condemned, removed from 'personal canon' or otherwise rejected because it doesn't fall inside the extremely small comfort zone of people who only read books that make them feel smart.

[Batman]

To anybody thinking Trek is more science-y than Wars I give toxic anti-matter waste and the crack in the event horizon. At least outside the EU, Wars managed to avoid giving allegedly scientific explanations that were complete garbage.

[Guardsman Bass]

Why not just call fantasy series that are set in space "Space Fantasy"? That seems like a far more useful term than calling it "Science Fantasy", which is just weird and confusing. It also opens the door to calling movies like Alien and Event Horizon "Space Horror", and so on and so forth.

After all, the key elements are that it's a fantasy/horror/crime story, except in a space setting with spaceships and interstellar empires/societies/whatever. Space Fantasy always felt like a bridge term by fans who didn't want their stuff clumped in with the rest of the fantasy genre of elves and magic, even when their series includes magic and fantastical elements (such as destiny) - and possibly vice versa, with fans of more "conventional" fantasy who didn't want the Star Wars books lumped in with their stuff. "Science Fiction" feels different from that, since the key elements are that it's usually about a story in a world that's been changed by some type of technology, even when "exploring the effects of this technology a la Isaac Asimov" is not the main thrust of the story.

Whether or not you think particular bits of technology are "scientific" doesn't have any bearing on the classification. You can have a Space Horror story, for example, with space technology no more advanced than anything we know of, like with Apollo 18. And even in stuff that strikes me as undeniably "Science Fiction", all the technology that doesn't currently exist is speculative - we have no idea if it will actually work out until it actually exists in real life.

[Prometheus Unbound]

It's science fiction.

If you're going to say that because some tech in the show is unexplained (dilithium crystals, Subspace, Transporters etc) but just works, then you may as well classify the Xeelee sequence or Foundation series as fantasy as well because they have "Star breakers" and "atomic pistols". It's just as unexplained when it gets down to it.

I don't care about some stupid dictionary definition here, but fantasy is generally dragons, shields, swords, elves, bows and arrows and what-not. Scifi is generally spaceships, technology, FTL etc.

Both cross over and have similarities - Humans among many races - be it Klingons or Elves or Wizards or Q, on a World (or Sector of space or whatever) fighting it out, making alliances, politics and all the rest.

Magic can bring the dead back to life and so can a Sickbay. Transporters can move someone from one place to another and so can a spell. Romulan Warbirds have cloaking devices and Harry Potter has literal invisibility cloak. It's how they approach it.

At the basic level, fantasy tends towards "magic did it" whilst scifi tends towards "tech did it".

That's the separation.

Then you have "hard scifi" and "hard fantasy" and it goes from there.

No, Trek is Scifi, it'll be found under "scifi" in the video store, on amazon, on ebay and on the shelves of your local book store. The public accepts it as scifi, it is scifi... it is scifi. scifi all the way.

[Stark]

That's some pretty bad reasoning. Where do you out fiction with dragons and consistent application of imaginary science? Isnt a Gorn a dragon? Half and half? Demilitarised zone?

Lets just accept terms like science fantasy are efforts to exclude works from scifi to make scifi more exclusive (and thus 'better') so people who talk about or like scifi can feel smarter.

[Zwinmar]

its all fantasy, just the mode of transportation it takes is a bit different.

[Prometheus Unbound]

That's some pretty bad reasoning. Where do you out fiction with dragons and consistent application of imaginary science? Isnt a Gorn a dragon? Half and half? Demilitarised zone?

Lets just accept terms like science fantasy are efforts to exclude works from scifi to make scifi more exclusive (and thus 'better') so people who talk about or like scifi can feel smarter.

whatever

[Stark]

Well I stand corrected.

[Batman]

Like hell the Gorn are dragons. They neither have wings nor breathe fire.
[color=red[/i]Ahem[/color]
Or at the very least we never see Gorn with wings or breathing fire. To my knowledge, anyway.

[Lord Revan]

I always took Science/Space Fantasy to be a sub set of Science Fiction (on the softer end of scifi to be sure but still scifi)

[Prometheus Unbound]

Well I stand corrected.

It's late, I'm tired, I can't be arsed to argue over something this pathetic.


If you want to think Star Trek is fantasy, go ahead. You're wrong, but I don't even know the name of the person I'm replying to. Nor do I care.

Insert Venn Diagram. Game of Thrones or LOTR is the one in red, 2001 Asimov in blue. If you want to make it totally red, you're a moron and I can't even think of how to talk to you about this issue. I have better things to do.

If you want to make Star Trek purple, cool. Whatever. I say it's "mauve". Maybe you don't. v0v