Quote

Originally posted by Commander Arashi:
**To sum up; the base structure of EV is more science-fictional than not but it needs a push to be either hard science fiction or space opera. It more than anything is reminiscent of the "Solar Queen" novels by Andre Norton and the "Commodore Grimes" stories of A. Betram Chandler. Martin, I salute you for bringing in the depth and emotion to coax a true space opera out of the beast. It would be a noble experiment to try to do the same for hard science fiction. Just adding scientifically accurate mission texts wouldn't do it. Somehow, the plotting would have to permit extrapolation and change, test and hypothesis. Perhaps some Beowulf Schaeffer situations could do the trick? (The Puppeteers have asked you to go to the neutron star at RC 3824, and find out what killed the previous expedition...)
**

Actually, it was supposed to be science-fiction - hence the puzzles about decyphering ancient languages and other bits and pieces. Likewise, the mathematics for tachyonic travel actually does work. The politics also 'works'. Unfortunately EVO was limited in the levels of choices you were able to make, so most of the puzzles involved you having to select which world you were going to fly to. There were also some scientifically based piloting puzzles, although these could still be solved by brute ignorance if you really went for it.

I suppose at the end of the day Frozen Heart (the novel) was about moral philosophy, and Frozen Heart (the game) was about political philosophy — I'm not sure what these would have qualified under given Aldiss's definition. On the other hand, on my definition, which is that SF focusses on the application of science (as opposed to merely technology), FH does still qualify.

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I recall the term "Science-fantasy" being bruited about in the decade that the first Star Wars movie came out. I like it as a general term for something that has the look and feel of science fiction (aka, future worlds, spaceships, technology et al) but uses this merely as a setting for plotting that is unabashadly romantic.

We agree more than we disagree, omeomi. For all practical purposes "Science Fiction" is the name on the shelves in the bookstore. It is science fiction because it is marketed as science fiction. And, for all practical purposes, most of what is even in a "hard" SF book like Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity" is travelogue, and dialogue, and action; in short, story, with the scientific or science-fictional element rarely touched upon. To turn Frodo's stumbling over the volcanic rocks around Mordor to Kip Russel's valient trudge across the barren moonscape in "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" you need only change one word in ten. It is that one word -- whether what is pressed to the hero's temple is a blaster or a flintlock -- that often defines what genre pile the work gets thrown on to.

It is useful within more academic circles to have a working definition of science fiction, however. And despite that the "Science Fiction Writers of America" accept and invite writers of Fantasy equally, the membership would frown upon admitting someone on the strength of a "The Truth About Atlantis and the Government Conspiracy" book, or a college textbook on organic chemistry. And it is useful to writers, marketers, academics, and so forth to be able to sort a book as being more like fantasy, or high fantasy, or historical romance, or techno-thriller, or military SF, or urban fantasy, or hard SF, or space opera, ad nas.

And these are useful distinctions even here. When you get right down to it, during an EV adventure you fly somewhere, you shoot at things, you land, you read a mission text. The mechanics make the smoothest fit if we call it "spaceships" flying from "star to star" and landing on "planets," but this isn't mandatory. Ninety percent of what even an ambitious TC does is, basically, color commentary. The game plays the same if you have a warp drive, a twin-tokamak fusion reactor generating power for a cesium ion drive, an iron sphere painted in cavorite, or a wooden ship with caskets filled with the Ninth Ray.

For the purposes of designing a plug, if I fly out on a quixotic mission into wild uncharted space to rescue my lady love and save my home planet, I'm playing space opera. If I jockey my battered tug around the backwaters of the civilized galaxy trying to earn enough to make a living, I'm in science fiction. And if I'm in combat from the moment I launch, well then, it's military SF. What interests me most here is not nailing down genre definitions, but asking how to go deeper into the EV engine to more accurately provide the feel of a genre. It won't always be appropriate to ferry cargo, or to have an unchanging universe, or to have an unexplored frontier. The very nature of play would, I think, want to change to better ape certain styles of SF.

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Great to hear about Sephil Saga! How's it going? Looking forward to its release.
About sf and whether setting of plot takes precedence, it depeds on who you ask. Hard sf is generally hyperfocusing on setting, while things like space opera and other forms of sf generally focus more on plot or fun and less on the hard sf front. EVNova, for example is space opera, in my opinion for sure. The technology, while cool, is very... theoretical sometimes, and there is a whole conspiracy thing, etc. Asimov would often write hard sf but more often other types, where he will talk about people as much as technology. Sephil Saga sounds to me like it is firmly grounded in technology, which some people will really enjoy and others will definitely loathe. Likewise with the story of epic proportions, where some will enjoy it and others wish for a more scientific bent. Often they will be the same people on different days. You can't make everyone happy, I guess, but i am very eager for its release (got my converter all fired up, other than compatibility with other progs I wish i had a mac).
sf is very open. Apply my definition or one of your own, and you will find that it is very open and reasonably vague. You can be almost pure science and have little plot or have lots of plot and little science. From what I've seen, SS should have no problem either way, from what I know of sf.

Arashi, i agree with what you say. I'm trying to think of something to add, and I will at some point, but you've pretty much stolen the words out of my mouth.

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'truly, if there is evil in the world, it lies in the heart of mankind.'
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I've come up with an alternative definition of SF. Science-Fiction is fiction where science (or the scientific method) explains. This is by analogy with detective fiction, where the explanations come from the forensic method, and psychological fiction, where the explanations are found in the motivations of the characters.

Ursula Le Guin's new novel (or is it really a collection of short stories?), 'Changing Planes' is definitely SF. There's a list of where the chapter's originally appeared - Amazing Stories, (url="http://"http://www.scifi.com")www.scifi.com(/url), Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Orion, Red Shift. All pedigree stuff. It's about travel between planes. The proferred explanation is that this is a natural phenomenum open to scientific analysis. The premise of the C.S. Lewis classic 'The Magician's Nephew' is also about travel between planes. However, in this case the proferred explanation is magical or spiritual.

Likewise, the conclusion of Asimov's 'Second Foundation' could be seen as a detective story, except that the explanation is not based on crime, but on the (pseudo)-science of psycho-history. The fact that the setting is a technologically advanced one is essentially irrelevant.

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Good to see this topic didn't die.

I agree with you on the 'science explains' part, but only that would actually INCLUDE forensic science, etc. I would simply add that the science still must be in some way more advanced than our own, either in itself or in natural phenomena (wormholes, planets, etc). Would you accept that?

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'truly, if there is evil in the world, it lies in the heart of mankind.'
-Edward D. Morrison

But why does it have to be more advanced than our own, when, palpably, so much SF isn't about that? Eg, The Difference Engine, Nightfall, the Man in the High Castle, the Inheritors?

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Those are valid forms of Science Fiction as opposed to Space Fantasy. Now, how would you implement something like Difference Engine into an EV/O/N plug-in without turning it into Space Fantasy?

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Perhaps I was misunderstood. I'm finding it very hard to explain what I mean by technology. Every science fiction story I can think of has either high technology, high technology in the past playing a key story role or a different setting where science plays a key role (such as the alien world on Nightfall). Do you still disagree?

As for putting sci-fi without space fantasy into evn, it could probably be done. Simply make everything logically forseeable from the present and base the story purely on science. It's be hell to write though, and difficult to make fun. If done well, though in my opinion it would be very interesting and enjoyable.

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'truly, if there is evil in the world, it lies in the heart of mankind.'
-Edward D. Morrison

noooo! Someone started a literary discussion and didn't tell me? blast... if only I had time. And made more than very periodic contributions here...
Just to throw a wrench in ya'll's works: "Frankenstein" - SF or no? And an interesting specimen, if it is, as I believe. (My forte is 19th century literature, so at best I'm familiar with the Sci-Fi of Verne and Wells...)

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I think so, Brain, but if they called them sad meals, kids wouldn't buy them.

Can I just say first that this is definitely not a case of gravedigging? This topic is still well worthy of discussion. I applaud it's continuation.

Martin, a question for you, if I may. Given our earlier comments from four years ago, did Nova live up to the "Science Fiction" moniker, or did it devolve into Space Opera?

Please note that there were two distinct writing styles: Wild Geese, Pirate and Auroran threads were written by Luke Smart, while the Federation, Rebellion, Vell-os and Polaris threads were written by Jason Cook.

I had a hand in editing and revising all storylines. I wrote the ship, outfit and escort descriptions. Planet descriptions were written by me and Jason.

best always,

Dave @ ATMOS

Nova definitely moved EVx's centre of gravity from the space opera end towards the SF end. Just quite where it landed is - I suspect - still susceptible to the as yet unresolved question of 'what is SF'.

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Quote

Originally posted by Martin Turner:
Nova definitely moved EVx's centre of gravity from the space opera end towards the SF end. Just quite where it landed is - I suspect - still susceptible to the as yet unresolved question of 'what is SF'.

We'd better work out exactly what Sci Fi is, then, eh?

Dave @ ATMOS

(quote)Originally posted by pipeline:
**We'd better work out exactly what Sci Fi is, then, eh?:p

Once I believed that if it (a story) took place with machines, it was science fiction. And if you had mythical creatures in it, it was fantasy.

Then I read a few books of the Dragonflight series, where Dragonriders rode dragons and rode through time fighting Thread...

...ah, fantasy, I hear you say.

Well, these dragons were genetically engineered in "the mists of time". And that led me down a philosophical path.

Now I suspect that "Science Fiction" is more widely applicable than before. Even Fantasy can be called Science Fiction (after all, Fantasy and Sci Fi has been grouped together before...F&SF;, anyone?)

Remember, Ursula K. Leguin's Earthsea Saga had a specific, organized magic with a university on Roke Island, a research tower, and a teaching staff. Perhaps they didn't understand the "magic", but their approach to it was certainly modeled on scientific principles.

Harry Potter? Same deal. Magic, but certainly dealt with on scientific principles. (Potions class, Charm practicals, Transfiguration, and even a bureaucracy to regulate magic.)

Even the Three Witches in Macbeth were using previously learned recipes: eye of newt, toe of frog, and following what appears to be established procedure in casting spells.

Is that not science, Dear Reader?

Space Opera, methinks, is simply a subset of Science Fiction, in that all stories are tragedies, comedies, romances, or even allegories.

Although, speaking of Allegories, who would argue with the fact that the Flying Island of Lapunta was explained in entirely rational terms?

And returning to Sci Fi, Isaac Asimov's "Pebble in the Sky" had someone flung into the future due to reasons unknown...Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee never knew how he got sent back in time either. (Sure, a blow on the head, but that's it.)

So, in a nutshell:

All Space Operas are science fiction, but not all science fiction is a space opera. And Fantasy is Sci fi.

Cheers,
Guapo
(ps: that means EVN is sci fi. The Polaris String is Philosophical sci fi, Wild Geese/Auroran/Pirate is romantic, Bureau is philosophical, rebellion (i think) is also philosophical.)

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**

No, I'm sorry, I can't agree with the idea that Fantasy is a branch of SF. This takes us back into 'everything is a branch of everything else' territory.

There's a big difference between LeGuin's fantasy and LeGuin's SF. Both work by rules, but the difference is that the rules in the fantasy are made up by LeGuin and worked through to be compatible with each other. The rules were actually introduced in earlier short-stories, most particularly 'The Rule of Names', which is in 'The Wind's Twelve Quarters', and they were introduced in order to make the stories work. In the SF, LeGuin rigorously takes on the laws of relativity. Faster-than-light travel is impossible for humans, which makes LeGuin's universe unique among the big, coherent SF universes - most other SF authors never experiment with this for more than a single novel. Again, the implications of this were first worked out in short stories, most particularly 'Semley's necklace', which becomes the precursor to 'Rocannon's World'. 'Semley's necklace' is a sort of SF-isation of Rip Van Winkle, a mythological story created according to the laws of hard science.

All literature has to work according to premises. 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' begins with the unlikely premise of a man selling off his wife. However, within that premise it follows itself logically through to the end. This doesn't make it science-fiction.

LeGuin is actually quite an unusual writer. Tolkien, by contrast, didn't work out the rules of magic at all, and detested Science-Fiction (he got very cross with CS Lewis for writing his SF trilogy). On the other hand, he worked out completely the laws of linguistics and philology. I'm not sure you can claim that the magic in Harry Potter is worked out. Rowling writes with her tongue firmly in her cheek pretty much all of the time. A lot of the 'rules' of magic are introduced because they are funny. In Alan Garner's world, laws of magic get picked up from whereever he could find them.

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Ok, I'll concede the point.

Thinking back, you're right. I shouldn't have used DragonFlight as a premise for my theory - after all, the dragons were specifically stated to be genetically engineered creatures, not magic. There wasn't a bit of magic in those books. Ergo, the entire theory was flawed.

So yes, using the scientific principle doesn't make it sci fi, I guess. I withdraw my contention. My premise was in error.

But the scientific method does indeed rule.

Cheers,
Guapo

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I believe part of the problem is the 'sterotypes' that people hold about science fiction and science fantasy work. Because Tolkien's works (and derived knock-offs) are so prevalent today, many people automatically associate such entities as elves, dragons, medieval settings, as integral parts of fantasy. On the same vein, science fiction to most people is characterized by spacecraft, aliens, laser weaponry, etc. But how important are these entities to a story's genre?

It seems that the difference between some definitions is the theme of the story, as opposed to the setting. Many authors take the former as the determining characteristic, while laypeople may be drawn more towards the latter when determining the genre/subgenre of a work. MT makes the point in his first post that sci-fi and space opera are characterized by their plot and theme, and the discussion has been focused until lately around 'speculation', which is more of a plot element than a setting element.

I really do not know what to say about this. Theoretically, anyone could take a story, change the names and settings to place it in a sci-fi-esque 'future' universe, and leave the plot relatively unchanged. This leads to an interesting question: if the plot remains the same, does the genre change? Is the genre categorized by the plot/theme, the setting, or some combination of the two? The layperson might say, 'I don't care if the story is about a warrior named Beowulf who slays a monster named Grendel, kills Grendel's mother, and later is slain by a Dragon: Beowulf is wearing Powered Combat Armor, Grendel and his mother are space-bound parasitic organisms terrorizing space colonies in the region and destroying military fleets, and the 'Dragon' is really a top-secret weapon created by the Neo-Danish Protectorate to defeat Beowulf: therefore it's science-fiction'. But has the work really changed? Assuming that the conversion is only cosmetic, the thematic elements and plot remain the same. The 'heart' of the literature remains identical to the unaltered version, it is only the 'skin' that is changed. Does that really merit a genre-change? As an opinion question, this is more or less unanswerable in an incontrovertible way. I can only say that I agree with MT's original definitions (or at least the spirit in which he made them), and leave it at that.

Any thoughts?

As an interesting side note, I found this web site, which lists quotes from various people (including Ray Bradbury, the author of Farenheight 451) which are personal opinions as to the definition of science fiction: (url="http://"http://www.panix.com/~gokce/sf_defn.html")http://www.panix.com...ce/sf_defn.html(/url)

(Okay, I know it's not the Danes that (will) eventually conquer Beowulf's nation at the very end of the epic, I'm sorry, but my Seamus Heaney translation is somewhere in the living room, and I don't feel like getting it right now.)

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(This message has been edited by UE_Research & Development (edited 04-20-2004).)

I liked this one:
John W. Campbell, Jr.

The major distinction between fantasy and science fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses one, or a very, very few new postulates, and develops the rigidly consistent logical consequences of these limited postulates. Fantasy makes its rules as it goes along...The basic nature of fantasy is "The only rule is, make up a new rule any time you need one!" The basic rule of science fiction is "Set up a basic proposition--then develop its consistent, logical consequences."

Regarding Beowulf, my only comments are:

Hwćt! We Gardena in geardagum,
ţeodcyninga, ţrym gefrunon,
hu đa ćţelingas ellen fremedon.

and, indeed,

Swa begnornodon Geata leode
hlafordes hryre, heorđgeneatas,
cwćdon ţćt he wćre wyruldcyninga
manna mildust ond monđwćrust,
leodum liđost ond lofgeornost.

Ah - 'lofgeornost' - that takes me back.

Actually, though, there's a long and honourable tradition of taking a traditional fantasy story (or even a Biblical theme, or the death of Lincoln) and turning it into an account where the plot turns on science-fiction principles. Roger Zelazny has written a fair few of these kind of stories. These tend to be the hardest of hard-core SF according to the John Campbell definition, above.

On the other hand, the techno setting doesn't make Star Wars into SF, although I would suggest that Star Wars is really a mixture of SF with mystical fantasy. These kinds of mixtures are easy in films and TV, because things that look plausible automatically seem plausible, whereas in fiction plausibility is created by consistent context and explanation. It's possible to bring off fusion in fiction - notably 'That Hideous Strength' by CS Lewis - but it's much less easy to just chuck in extra ingredients the way that TV/film can and expect to get away with it. Consider that a lot of the length of the book 'Dune' is taken up with the need to convincingly explain the science behind the Bene Gesserit without losing the mystique. In both the film and the TV versions, most of the explanation was lost on the cutting room floor.

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Quote

Originally posted by Martin Turner:
**I liked this one:
John W. Campbell, Jr.

The major distinction between fantasy and science fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses one, or a very, very few new postulates, and develops the rigidly consistent logical consequences of these limited postulates. Fantasy makes its rules as it goes along...The basic nature of fantasy is "The only rule is, make up a new rule any time you need one!" The basic rule of science fiction is "Set up a basic proposition--then develop its consistent, logical consequences."

**

I like that one. At least it takes care of the "Practical Magic" or psuedo-science -- it also seems to frown on Star Trek and Star Wars, both which madly create but rarely develop. However, it doesn't rule out alternate histories (which are nothing if not developing from a single postulate). I have heard that the first rule of "Hard" SF is that you have to take the best available knowledge of your day. No fair putting canali on Mars, unless you make it clear that these are invisible to Earth, missed by Mariner, and have little to do with what Schiaparelli thought he saw. But that's hard SF...we are talking general definitions.

This discussion has brought my attention back to the EV work I was attempting. I believe I've decided my "BSOD" plug is now deceased; I'll try to box up the usable parts and put them up for others to use or merely mock. I put a lot of effort into such quixotic tasks as creating new interface graphics (you think that's easy in EVO?) Anyhow, it makes more sense and I could do more of what I intended within Nova. Plus, I now have a Mac that can run Nova without gasping for breath.

So I still don't know about the Space Opera/SF question. I'm fairly sure that EV isn't particularly "Hard" SF -- it just doesn't seem to tell that kind of story (on other hand, Niven was thought of as hard SF in his day, and the Beowulf Schaeffer stories read quite a bit like EV missions...)

As a sort of intellectual exercise I got to thinking how EV looks against standard game forms. It could make a fair first-person shooter (levels and easter eggs both plausible). It could stretch to a real-time strategy (hard, tho; you can only control investments and constructions via missions and landings. Not very flexible). What it really looks like, though, is an RPG. Playing EV is a lot like playing a better version of Pillars of Garendal. You are doing the same old cycle of kill the monsters/gather gold/buy better weapons/kill bigger monsters but the AI's are much smarter, the fights are a lot more interesting, and the game feels much more open-ended. Actually, the big difference is that in P.O.G. you are the only creature with free will. The shops never seems to sell to anyone but you, the NPCs never lend a hand in fighting, so on and so forth. Whereas in EV the AI's seem to be playing in the same economic universe, facing the same conditions as you whether they are using the hypergate or launching fighters.

Anyhow. Many strange and wondrous thoughts and I'm working late every night this week. I was trying to think tangentially, stepping around some of the paradigms, and it struck me that Haldeman's "The Forever War" would make a very strange little plug-in. The idea here, EV-wise, is that you DON'T flit back and forth between systems. Every time you take a jump the universe changes. Every time you return to Earth the place has changed almost beyond recognition, (even the outfits are so different you can't even use them in your old ship.) So you fit up with new stuff you barely understand, and with barely a chance to train you head out on another sub-C trip a hundred more years into the future -- there to face an enemy that might be decades behind you in tech level or decades ahead... ((The other, sneakier paradigm shift here is that you don't win this one. Your only realistic goal is to survive until the end of the war.))

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