I was having a conversation with my friend awhile ago. He dislikes playing in Sci-fi RPGs as a general rule. As a joke I prompted the idea of playing a Flash Gordon RPG. Surprisingly he was into the idea because to him Flash Gordon is basically fantasy.
At the time when Flash Gordon came out it was Sci-fi, and overtime it's been considered "pulpy Sci-fi" but does there come a point when the scientific assumptions a Sci-fi story bases itself are proven so untrue that the story morphs into Science Fantasy or straight up Fantasy? For example, in a thousand years will shows like Babylon 5 , Star Trek, Stargate SG-1, and The Expanse be considered fantasy stories about characters with primitive technology depending on magical artifacts to solve problems?
If people are intellectually honest with themselves, then yes. If they belong to some science cult, then no.
I like how you are assuming humans will be living in space a 1000 years from now though.
Well I think extremely soft SF can transition to fantasy. No one will ever see War of the Worlds as fantasy, though. Hard SF depends on scientific concepts (which may be wrong) and scientific thinking, it's not just a surface patina. So Flash Gordon & Star Wars that use their era's SF surface patina for pulp adventure may be considered fantasy, but not HG Wells or Arthur C Clarke I'd think.
Yes, absolutely. I was looking for a certain Russian artist's depictions that I remember of future technology in a sort of "here's what we will be capable of in x years" fashion, but couldn't find any (my google skills are not ideal). But suffice it to say during the earlier 20th century "hard" scifi could have been anything up to, and including, paperboys flying around on atomic jet cycles, all sorts of stuff (at least, according to speculative fiction writers). Then you've got zany predictions and tech that very-well-could-have-possibly-been-real ala Nicola Tesla, much of which we regard as fantasy today but serves as great inspiration for pulp novels and games. Then again, scientists and other people in well-regarded positions have a very wide margin of error in terms of prediction; some way overly optimistic, others saying things along the lines of 'computers will never be anything more than a useless curiosity'.
In any case, I would absolutely say that as our scientific knowledge grows certain things are pushed further into the realm of fantasy.
I also think the opposite is possible. Early Star Trek being a great example. There was an interesting documentary on it, I believe hosted by Shatner, which was about how Star Trek inspired new technological innovations to be created by scientists, pushing us further into Star Trek's "science fiction reality."
Anyway, here's an image just for fun: Gotta get to work on time! (https://i.redd.it/9djbn4bxy1qx.jpg)
I would not even now consider Flash Gordon Science Fantasy.
It has fantastical elements. But it is all presented as some form of super-science. Same with Buck Rogers.
Problem is. There are people who dismiss ANYTHING that is not hard SF as fantasy.
Got aliens? Fantasy!
Got ray guns? Fantasy!
Teleporters that dont kill you? Fantasy!
Teleporters at all? Fantasy!
Got mind powers, even as simple as hypnosis? Fantasy!
Got space travel that doent take decades or centuries? Fantasy!
Got space travel outside the solar system? Fantasy!
And on and on ad nausium.
Quote from: Omega;1106271Problem is. There are people who dismiss ANYTHING that is not hard SF as fantasy.
True, and I agree that just because something seems fantastical by our current technological and scientific understanding of the universe doesn't mean it's inherently impossible or "soft" scifi. I still think most of it comes down to individual perspective, even if there do exist some games or settings we can all agree on. As evidenced by the "sci fi v. sci fantasy" thread, it can be hard to reach an agreed-upon definition for either let alone agree where on the spectrum a given setting lies or when it has crossed the invisible genre threshold.
Hmm. As you say, Flash Gordon is presented as a sort of super-science setting; now, if by going by my individual tastes/interpretation I would absolutely say it's now become science fantasy just because it seems so... implausible, far-fetched (my brain is not doing articulation well today)? At least by today's metrics, it would be
so incredibly advanced technologically that it would to me, indeed, be indistinguishable from magic (so, fantasy). But if as you say, the superscience presentation/explanation and "authorial intent" so to speak matters or is the metric with which something should be measured by, then that's a really interesting view.
Although from a literary perspective rather than a setting perspective, I would probably agree that Flash Gordon can still be considered sci-fi. From a gaming/setting standpoint, it's utterly fantasy to me(read: composed of fantastical/barely explainable elements).
Not sure what my point is exactly, I'm just rambling.
I could see "science fiction" based on completely erroneous science maybe becoming science fantasy - exploring a geocentric universe in an open flying ship that obeys Aristotelian physics. But maybe not; the line for me is mostly whether it feels like the science, right or wrong, exists in the made-up world and stuff happens, or whether it exists entirely for the convenience of the story or themes or moral (with stuff that doesn't even try for a veneer of science being very far on that side of the line). I expect that my judgement of this line could shift for a given work; The Time Machine might be an example - is it "what would you find if you had a time machine?" or is it that the time travel exists in the story just to bring someone from the present to a world of Eloi and Morlocks?
As there's no consensus on the dividing line between Science Fiction and Science Fantasy, its gonna be very subjective where a Science Fiction story or setting becomes Science Fantasy. As rawmna said, erroneous science will hasten that transition.
Rawma brings up another interesting point. The Time Machine might be very fantastical, but its the device to bring the character to the other world which is not fantastical, so where does that fall in the Science vs. Fantasy spectrum? AKA, does one Fantasy element invalidate your Science Fiction status?
As long as the game is fun (or the show is entertaining, or whatever), I don't care if it's "sci-fi" or "science-fantasy." The labels are fuzzy at the edges, in any case, so they're only useful for a kind of broad impression of what the game is like.
Quote from: rawma;1106304The Time Machine might be an example - is it "what would you find if you had a time machine?" or is it that the time travel exists in the story just to bring someone from the present to a world of Eloi and Morlocks?
For me HG Wells' Time Machine is notably more sciencey than almost any subsequent version, since almost all future versions simply open magic portals to a convenient time & place, whereas HG Wells' machine *remains where it is* and simply has time pass (forward or back) at a quicker rate for the machine, and the effects of this are discussed. This deals with a lot of issues time travel stories rarely address.
Wells' science may not be possible, but he definitely addresses the questions of time travel & evolution in scientific terms.
Flash Gordon was never really "science fiction" in the way you mean. Physics and astronomy hasn't really changed much since the 1930s, it was just as breaking the laws of what was understood then as it now.
By contrast, When Worlds Collide, the novel from which he stole the basic idea from, was science fiction. Only in that the Earth was destroyed and a few rockets landed on rogue planet that entered a stable orbit, not a fantastical world with hawkmen and lion people and all sorts of silly things.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1106249I was having a conversation with my friend awhile ago. He dislikes playing in Sci-fi RPGs as a general rule. As a joke I prompted the idea of playing a Flash Gordon RPG. Surprisingly he was into the idea because to him Flash Gordon is basically fantasy.
At the time when Flash Gordon came out it was Sci-fi, and overtime it's been considered "pulpy Sci-fi" but does there come a point when the scientific assumptions a Sci-fi story bases itself are proven so untrue that the story morphs into Science Fantasy or straight up Fantasy? For example, in a thousand years will shows like Babylon 5 , Star Trek, Stargate SG-1, and The Expanse be considered fantasy stories about characters with primitive technology depending on magical artifacts to solve problems?
Yes, it is possible. Asimov's robot stories are great, but the depictions of the other planets in our solar system are horribly dated. Same with Heinlein's future history stories. Although, they are awesome sources of ideas for current games, I've lifted Asimov's Mercury from
Runaround whole cloth for several
Traveller games.
Some times though, the science fiction can be modified before technological advancement or the error finding capabilities of millions of fans catches up to it. Larry Niven originally created his famous Ringworld without attitude jets (which was pointed out at the 1971 World Science Fiction Convention by MIT students chanting "The Ringworld Is Unstable" in the hotel hallways) and was able to add those and other necessary systems to the Ringworld in his sequel
The Ringworld Engineers.
Sometimes science that has been disproven gives the material needed flavor.
Space: 1889 wouldn't be nearly as fun if it was scientifically accurate and did not have ships travelling through the ether.
Quote from: JeremyR;1106341Flash Gordon was never really "science fiction" in the way you mean. Physics and astronomy hasn't really changed much since the 1930s, it was just as breaking the laws of what was understood then as it now.
Yeah, I would tend to class FG and Star Wars as science fantasy, whether space opera or planetary romance. They are 'romances' (in the older sense) using SF trappings. I'd put John Carter in there too.
I think these are fundamentally different from SF in attitude.
Quote from: jeff37923;1106347Sometimes science that has been disproven gives the material needed flavor. Space: 1889 wouldn't be nearly as fun if it was scientifically accurate and did not have ships travelling through the ether.
Yes. I would say Space:1889 is not SF, but it uses the early SF material of the era for inspiration. This is pretty common these days. A bit like how the Superhero genre is not SF but frequently takes stuff/patina from SF.
Soft SF tends to raise questions about the human condition, in relation to new technology & scientific concepts, rather than hard SF's primary focus on the tech itself. So TOS Star Trek is very much SF, as is ST The Next Generation. It's hard to see Abrams-Trek as much different from Star Wars, though, being pulpy adventure with an SF patina.
In general RPGs tend to the same approach as Abrams, being more about the patina than the questions raised by the original works. So eg Cyberpunk RPGs rarely raise any questions about the nature of humanity the way something like Neuromancer or Blade Runner does.
Quote from: S'mon;1106353Yes. I would say Space:1889 is not SF, but it uses the early SF material of the era for inspiration. This is pretty common these days. A bit like how the Superhero genre is not SF but frequently takes stuff/patina from SF.
Soft SF tends to raise questions about the human condition, in relation to new technology & scientific concepts, rather than hard SF's primary focus on the tech itself. So TOS Star Trek is very much SF, as is ST The Next Generation. It's hard to see Abrams-Trek as much different from Star Wars, though, being pulpy adventure with an SF patina.
In general RPGs tend to the same approach as Abrams, being more about the patina than the questions raised by the original works. So eg Cyberpunk RPGs rarely raise any questions about the nature of humanity the way something like Neuromancer or Blade Runner does.
I agree that soft SF like
Star Trek is more amenable to questions of ethics or morality and technology, but hard SF has many "cautionary tales" as well, just not as many. For RPGs, while you can do hard SF and gaming, the number of people who will engage in that kind of play is definitely smaller than the number that will engage in soft SF gaming. The morality play type of adventure is an even smaller number of people playing than those doing hard SF gaming.
The games I run with my fiance and her sons illustrates this. She loves questions of ethics and morality in RPG form, but she is also finishing up her Masters degree in Psychiatric Counseling and is in her 40s. Her two sons are ages 11 and 12, and get bored to tears at those kinds of thought problems, but love to go murderhoboing. Our
Far Trek games have been a hoot because their ship plays like it is crewed by Spock, Harry Mudd, and Gowron.
Quote from: jeff37923;1106355She loves questions of ethics and morality in RPG form
IME I think most players enjoy these questions when they're emergent in play, and often dislike them when they're mandated by the scenario/GM. In my 'Rise of Neo-Nerath' campaign I took inspiration from the collapse of Yugoslavia and there was an emergent question of how best to deal with inter-ethnic conflict, but the PCs could have ignored the question all the way through. In practice they ignored it until it was too late, when they were looking at the blood on their hands and realising they weren't the good guys, that (as one player said) there were no good guys here.
Quote from: S'mon;1106353Yes. I would say Space:1889 is not SF, but it uses the early SF material of the era for inspiration. This is pretty common these days. A bit like how the Superhero genre is not SF but frequently takes stuff/patina from SF.
Soft SF tends to raise questions about the human condition, in relation to new technology & scientific concepts, rather than hard SF's primary focus on the tech itself. So TOS Star Trek is very much SF, as is ST The Next Generation. It's hard to see Abrams-Trek as much different from Star Wars, though, being pulpy adventure with an SF patina.
In general RPGs tend to the same approach as Abrams, being more about the patina than the questions raised by the original works. So eg Cyberpunk RPGs rarely raise any questions about the nature of humanity the way something like Neuromancer or Blade Runner does.
The original series varies a lot; all but unexplained introduction of whatever they had the props or costumes for, sometimes, and superpowers that might as well be fantasy. If the "science" is rigged to make a certain story work, then it's just patina.
SF convention panels back when had an unfortunate tendency to fall back on Star Trek episodes as examples, because everyone had seen them; unfortunately many episodes were not good SF.
(I keep reading Space:1999 instead of 1889 and then wondering what people are talking about. Probably worse in any cases where the comment still made perfect sense and I never noticed.)
Quote from: rawma;1106446The original series varies a lot; all but unexplained introduction of whatever they had the props or costumes for, sometimes, and superpowers that might as well be fantasy. If the "science" is rigged to make a certain story work, then it's just patina.
I'll disagree with that - my thinking is that non-rigged science is a feature of Hard SF, whereas rigging the science in order to address a question, eg assuming sentient androids or godlike aliens in order to address the nature of humanity, is a feature of soft SF like Star Trek and Blade Runner.
Quote from: S'mon;1106554I'll disagree with that - my thinking is that non-rigged science is a feature of Hard SF, whereas rigging the science in order to address a question, eg assuming sentient androids or godlike aliens in order to address the nature of humanity, is a feature of soft SF like Star Trek and Blade Runner.
By that definition, The Expanse is soft Sci-fi because of the Epstein Drive makes the initial setting possible and the series is mainly about political drama.
Quote from: S'mon;1106554I'll disagree with that - my thinking is that non-rigged science is a feature of Hard SF, whereas rigging the science in order to address a question, eg assuming sentient androids or godlike aliens in order to address the nature of humanity, is a feature of soft SF like Star Trek and Blade Runner.
There's a huge difference between rigging the science to pose an interesting question which is then explored and rigging the science to make a story that's just an adventure that happened. Too many original series Star Trek episodes are the latter, especially when a previous better episode already addressed whatever question you might think they are reaching for: Captain Kirk arguing yet another computer into destroying itself, the clumsy "multiple Earths" which all need Federation assistance to get them back on track, the super aliens who just need the crew of the Enterprise to bring them up to college freshman level in ethics and philosophy.
Quote from: S'mon;1106339For me HG Wells' Time Machine is notably more sciencey than almost any subsequent version, since almost all future versions simply open magic portals to a convenient time & place, whereas HG Wells' machine *remains where it is* and simply has time pass (forward or back) at a quicker rate for the machine, and the effects of this are discussed. This deals with a lot of issues time travel stories rarely address.
Wells' science may not be possible, but he definitely addresses the questions of time travel & evolution in scientific terms.
And that last part is really the crux of the question (not forgetting that we already discussed this (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41078-Science-Fiction-vs-Sci-Fantasy-Where-do-you-draw-the-line)). The more Handwavium and Unobtanium the softer the Sci-Fi. So in the spectrum where the boundaries between the types are really fuzzy some Sci-Fi can and will become Science Fantasy,
But not finished works, HGW The Time Machine is what it is, a point in that spectrum and you can't move it from there, but you can make a game/show inspired by it that starts Sci-Fi and becomes Science Fantasy.
It's not (as rawma also correctly points) if the science is valid or not it's about if the questions are being answered in a scientific manner.
Any Sci-Fi will have some Handwavium or Unobtanium, they need to in order to have a setting, but is this just to make the setting possible and the rest is scientifically minded?
Again HG Wells' The Time Machine, it's pure Handwavium, needed to make the history possible, but then the rest is logically explained trying to adhere to scientific explanations.
Where Star Wars and Star Trek both swim in Unobtanium and explain everything with Handwavium. FTL travel and communication is needed for the story, fine, but then you have green blooded Vulcans having children with Humans WTF? and then the Romulans are an offshoot of Vulcans and then you have Klingon/Human hybrids, WTF to the Nth power.
I love the series but it's not Hard Sci-Fi by any stretch of the imagination as it resorts to Handwavium constantly to push the story further. At least in Ringworld you have an explanation to all the humanoids in the Engineers, their maturation process and then evolution. But ST just says here, there's a new humanoid species and we can interbreed! And that's not the only or most egregious example of Handwavium in the series.
Quote from: rawma;1106620There's a huge difference between rigging the science to pose an interesting question which is then explored and rigging the science to make a story that's just an adventure that happened. Too many original series Star Trek episodes are the latter, especially when a previous better episode already addressed whatever question you might think they are reaching for: Captain Kirk arguing yet another computer into destroying itself, the clumsy "multiple Earths" which all need Federation assistance to get them back on track, the super aliens who just need the crew of the Enterprise to bring them up to college freshman level in ethics and philosophy.
Sounds like typical Soft SF to me! Even 'bad soft SF' is qualitatively different from pulp sci-fantasy like the Abramsverse Trek.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1106607By that definition, The Expanse is soft Sci-fi because of the Epstein Drive makes the initial setting possible and the series is mainly about political drama.
Whether hard or soft, it's definitely SF.
Quote from: S'mon;1106658Sounds like typical Soft SF to me! Even 'bad soft SF' is qualitatively different from pulp sci-fantasy like the Abramsverse Trek.
Not seeing the distinction; you just seem to have a bias against Abrams Trek versus original series. The latter can claim originality that Abrams did not demonstrate, but not in every episode where they operate off of largely the same ideas.
Quote from: rawma;1106668Not seeing the distinction; you just seem to have a bias against Abrams Trek versus original series. The latter can claim originality that Abrams did not demonstrate, but not in every episode where they operate off of largely the same ideas.
I dunno, Abrams Trek is no less SF than Buck Rogers in the 25th century after all. :D
Quote from: S'mon;1106669I dunno, Abrams Trek is no less SF than Buck Rogers in the 25th century after all. :D
But you seem to think it's less SF than TOS, but without explaining why.
Quote from: rawma;1106670But you seem to think it's less SF than TOS, but without explaining why.
TOS Trek and TNG Trek mostly tried to address questions. They're 'speculative fiction'. Abrams Trek and Buck Rogers don't do that.
Quote from: S'mon;1106673TOS Trek and TNG Trek mostly tried to address questions. They're 'speculative fiction'. Abrams Trek and Buck Rogers don't do that.
Rather a subjective assessment; I fail to see what question Space Seed addressed that Into Darkness did not, for an obvious parallel. "How well does Ricardo Montalban or Benedict Cumberbatch play a villain?" is not really an SF question.
(Movies do tend to demand more stuff happening in general with less focus on one idea, and Star Trek has accordingly done worse with movies in general and better with television episodes, but not enough to cross the SF to not-SF line. In my subjective assessment.)
Quote from: rawma;1106684Rather a subjective assessment
You are correct!
Quote from: Omega;1106271I would not even now consider Flash Gordon Science Fantasy.
It has fantastical elements. But it is all presented as some form of super-science. Same with Buck Rogers.
Problem is. There are people who dismiss ANYTHING that is not hard SF as fantasy.
Essentially, "Hard Sci - fi" do not exist and has never existed, as Asimov, Heinlein etc never were sci fi then, and as "true sci-fi" in that case would at best be "5 years into the future" ....
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1106645I love the series but it's not Hard Sci-Fi by any stretch of the imagination as it resorts to Handwavium constantly to push the story further.
Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.
Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.
The Expanse.
I disagree with 'Hard Sci-fi' definitions that exclude The Expanse from it.
Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.
The Martian is probably the most well-known right now.
It's definitely an uncommon genre, but not completely unknown.
Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.
Space Odyssey
Ring World
The Martian
Planet of the Apes
Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.
2300AD if you want to talk RPGs.
Quote from: jeff37923;11068132300AD if you want to talk RPGs.
If we're doing that, both Nova Praxis and Eclipse Phase to some extent are Hard Sci-fi.
Quote from: jeff37923;11068132300AD if you want to talk RPGs.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1106845If we're doing that, both Nova Praxis and Eclipse Phase to some extent are Hard Sci-fi.
I think these are questionable cases, which are better talked about as being on a spectrum between hard sci-fi to soft sci-fi, rather than as a lumped group of "hard sci-fi" as a binary quality.
Games like Twilight 2000, Millenium's End, and The Morrow Project are definitely hard sci-fi.
In the case of 2300, I think the FTL drive is an insertion based on what is desired, rather than an extrapolation of current science or technology. It's unquestionably more hard sci-fi than Traveller or Star Trek, but it still has an important insertion as a central element.
Quote from: jhkim;1106849I think these are questionable cases, which are better talked about as being on a spectrum between hard sci-fi to soft sci-fi, rather than as a lumped group of "hard sci-fi" as a binary quality.
Games like Twilight 2000, Millenium's End, and The Morrow Project are definitely hard sci-fi.
In the case of 2300, I think the FTL drive is an insertion based on what is desired, rather than an extrapolation of current science or technology. It's unquestionably more hard sci-fi than Traveller or Star Trek, but it still has an important insertion as a central element.
Well that is the point of the thread. Could this status be transient in nature? Does it matter if it was an extrapolation if it is later proven right or wrong? Like many consider any psionics as Soft Sci-fi, but if by some chance psionics are actually discovered and someone predicted how it worked correctly, then that suddenly becomes a hard Sci-fi element.
Likewise, FTL based on current physics (stable wormholes) is arguably a lot more Hard Sci-fi than something like Stars Without Number's Spike Drive.
2300AD's stutterwarp drive is based on the Tunnel Diode Effect, a real world example of teleportation as it was understood when the game was written. So it isn't as unscientific as you portray it jhkim.
As far as Eclipse Phase being hard SF? All I need to say is "Meathab".
Quote from: Rhedyn;1106856Well that is the point of the thread. Could this status be transient in nature? Does it matter if it was an extrapolation if it is later proven right or wrong? Like many consider any psionics as Soft Sci-fi, but if by some chance psionics are actually discovered and someone predicted how it worked correctly, then that suddenly becomes a hard Sci-fi element.
Likewise, FTL based on current physics (stable wormholes) is arguably a lot more Hard Sci-fi than something like Stars Without Number's Spike Drive.
Hard Sci-Fi isn't what the futurists do, it can have impossible elements as long as it's not most of it, as long as your game isn't swimming on Unobtanium and instead of scientific explanations lots of Handwavium it can be Sci-Fi and not Science Fantasy.
Again, elements like FTL travel can be in the hardest Sci-Fi (it's where the fiction comes), as long as the explanation for it is scientific (or trying to). So Traveller is not Science Fantasy, unless you have Dragons from mythology, with magic fire and shit.
Having lots of humanoid sentients who can interbreed needs to be explained in a scientific way, so colonies from a central Imperium. Discovering a new species who didn't also know about humans and has green blood but can interbreed with humans? Fantasy, evolution doesn't work like that.
Same goes for Psionics, you explain it in a sorta scientific way? Sci-Fi but if your explanation is that the gods gifted some species with it? Fantasy.
And again, a done work is a fixed point in a spectrum, unlike an ongoing tv show or campaign, the last two can start as Hard Sci-Fi and become fantasy by the writers (or GM) introducing more and more unobtanium and handwavium.
But there are no hard frontiers really, it's a spectrum and the limits between the "points" on the hardness scale are fuzzy.
If it's for a campaign you're asking I wouldn't worry too much, unless you really want to stay firmly in the realm of Sci-Fi (or Science Fantasy) then you do need to veto from the start some elements or not (magical dragons for example).
For a long campaign of hard Sci-Fi I would recommend as a setting Ring World or the Kzin-Humanity wars. The first is the most perfect endless dungeon you can imagine and you can have (and there are several) humanoid sentient species scientifically explained (that can't interbreed) and lots of room to make new ones. A human variant on a snake or varano ecological niche? Maybe a Human variant that became totally aquatic and lost it's legs? A really small human variant that lives underground? And for the final bosses you have bandersnatch, the Engineers, Kzin, Martians, Pierson pupeteers, and lots more. An ocean so big models of Earth, Mars, Kzin and several other planets fit in it. And another ocean just as big on the opposite side of the ring to balance it.
With unique weapons, no need to steal from SW or ST.
I just convinced my self of running such a campaign! :cool:
Quote from: jeff37923;1106857As far as Eclipse Phase being hard SF? All I need to say is "Meathab".
You don't like the idea of a habitat made of sapient transbacon (can "trans-" just be applied to everything in EP)?
EP also custom-designed biological life that can exist in astoundingly harsh environments, like coronal space whales that "swim" around the outer reaches of the sun.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1106856Could this status be transient in nature? Does it matter if it was an extrapolation if it is later proven right or wrong? Like many consider any psionics as Soft Sci-fi, but if by some chance psionics are actually discovered and someone predicted how it worked correctly, then that suddenly becomes a hard Sci-fi element.
Likewise, FTL based on current physics (stable wormholes) is arguably a lot more Hard Sci-fi than something like Stars Without Number's Spike Drive.
I guess I can accept stable wormholes like in 2001 or Contact, where they're created over eons by vastly superior non-human technology. The only RPG I can think of that uses something like that is Blue Planet. In general, FTL drives are inserted because the author wants to have fast travel to other stars. I don't think there has been any significant change in the science regarding psychic powers or FTL between 1930 and today. General relativity was well-established by 1930.
Regarding the OP, I haven't read the original Flash Gordon comic book - but from what I can gather, I don't think it was plausibly based on the science of the 1930s. i.e. It was never hard sci-fi. There is some sci-fi that was more plausible at the time and got dated - like predictions of robots and flying cars from the 1930s. Some of those really were predictive sci-fi at the time, but I don't think Flash Gordon was in that group.
Quote from: jhkim;1106861like predictions of robots and flying cars from the 1930s. Some of those really were predictive sci-fi at the time, but I don't think Flash Gordon was in that group.
My dad is still bummed that he never got to own a flying car.
I grew up wanted a job with a ray gun! Early on in nursing I got to scan meds with a barcode laser scanner. The future is not what I pictured it to be...
Quote from: HappyDaze;1106860You don't like the idea of a habitat made of sapient transbacon (can "trans-" just be applied to everything in EP)?
I just wondering why the habitat doesn't digest it's inhabitants when it gets hungry.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1106860also custom-designed biological life that can exist in astoundingly harsh environments, like coronal space whales that "swim" around the outer reaches of the sun.
Coronal space whales..........Yeesh!
Quote from: jeff37923;1106865I just wondering why the habitat doesn't digest it's inhabitants when it gets hungry.
Because it's a vegan meathab. Duh!
Quote from: jeff37923;1106865Coronal space whales..........Yeesh!
And those are options for PCs too! Admittedly, bodies are equipment, so you'll only be wearing a coronal space whale body when everyone else is wearing one too for some wild-ass mission near the sun.
Quote from: jhkim;1106861In general, FTL drives are inserted because the author wants to have fast travel to other stars. I don't think there has been any significant change in the science regarding psychic powers or FTL between 1930 and today.
I think if the author is using Alcubierre Warp Drive with some explanation of how current issues have been dealt with, I'll buy it as hard SF. If copper-blood Vulcans are interbreeding with iron-blood humans but there is a 'scientific' explanation, I'll buy it as soft SF. If a magical Force permeates the Galaxy, it's probably sci-fantasy.
For 'very hard SF' I'm probably looking at a setting with no FTL, no time travel into the past, no psychic powers, and sticking to extrapolations of known technology.
Yet I know that in 50 years that super-Hard setting won't really look any more realistic than a pulp fantasy.
QuoteIs It Possible for Sci-fi to Become Science Fantasy overtime?
It's exactly what happens in Sid Meier Alpha Centauri. The technology begins firmly on hard sci-fi territory, then crosses into the fantastic by endgame.
Nanites = Magic
Speaking as someone familiar with Starcraft...
It started out seeming like typical soft scifi with zerg bio-ships and protoss psionics as the most unrealistic aspects, but it quickly became inundated with unnecessary space magic deus ex machina. For example, the zerg leaders were immortal unless you killed them with a specific form of space magic.
The obnoxiously bad writing killed most of my interest and now all I can do is complain about how much better it would have been in some alternate universe with a better writer at the helm.
Quote from: Omega;1106997Nanites = Magic
That is a pet peeve of mine. Especially when you have assemblers creating instant tools without generating any heat while doing so.
Quote from: jeff37923;1107004That is a pet peeve of mine. Especially when you have assemblers creating instant tools without generating any heat while doing so.
I think it depends what you do with the nanites.
Grey Goo can be hard Sci-fi, same with the T-1000. Numenera nanites are in-lore Soft Sci-fi, but for all intents and purposes, magic.
Quote from: Omega;1106997Nanites = Magic
[video=youtube_share;aKcEwUcVBHs]https://youtu.be/aKcEwUcVBHs[/youtube]