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Post #1262624

Author
yotsuya
Parent topic
Science Fiction or Space Fantasy - what is Star Wars
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1262624/action/topic#1262624
Date created
4-Jan-2019, 12:58 PM

There are three levels to science fiction. Possible science, plausible science, and pseudo science. After that there is the rest of the speculative fiction overarching genre and you get into magic and it becomes either something in the tiny cross over area or fantasy. If you get too far over you get into horror. Star War is a mix of plausible science (hyperdrives, blasters, bacta tanks, droids, etc) and pseudo science (where the Force is an extension of nature much as the mental abilities of the Robots and citizens of Gaia were in Asimov’s Robot/Empire/Foundation universe). ESP has long been a staple of science fiction even though it is pseudo science. Some believe it really exists while other think it is illusion. I don’t know anyone who thinks magic is real. That possibility that such things are real is why the Force is firmly on the sf side of the divide between sf and fantasy. That is why Star Trek is hailed as great science fiction even though it is full of the same pseudo science mental abilities and energy being as Star Wars. If you stick to Clarke’s definition, only hard science fiction can be called science fiction and that is not what the readers, writers, agents or publisher limit it too. You have to stretch science fiction to the plausible and near impossible to accurately describe what science fiction is. The entire science fiction genre is based on what science can predict or imagine being real, not just on what is possible now. That’s how writers before space flight had ever happened were able to predict what micro-gravity is like. Just because modern science poops on the ideas of telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation does not mean that we can’t imagine that at some point we unlock a new door in science that makes it possible.