Does SciFi always mean Hard SciFi

[Argonor]

Rick Priestley said something along the lines of "Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is a fantasy game set in the far future".

I think the Mutant Chronicles/Warzone depiction 'Techno Fantasy' is very fitting for all kinds of orcs, elves, demons, and undead in space settings.

But, clearly, Sci-Fi (of SF) is a broad term that can be used for a lot of sub-genres.

[Drachenklinge]

in my opinion the reason for some sort of stagnation in sci-fi (hard or soft or real or speculative, etc) is, that we ARE at a stage, where most of the things are the very top-noth of science anyway.

beam me up? warp? worm-holes? dooms-days? force-fields?
heck, there are articles with discussions, that these things REALLY were possible somehow. At the worst, people discussing it are maybe not so stupid as we thought the are

Laser? that IS NOT sci-fi any more!

Right at the moment I just only cannot remember any discussion about "real" anti-grav ... but ... look at these magneto-trains ... they at least look pretty close to it ... so ... what is left there to "imagine" about the future? ISS? Mission to Mars? That is either not imaginative anymore or at least more or less just a technical question!

So, if YOU can think about some "discussion" where most fans would say ... nuts! that's just plain stupid to even think about! ... THEN You will have some real "sci-fi, yeah"-feeling again. After that You may seperate this into hard or soft SF, again.

So ... the distinction between hard and soft SF is made possible just because so many things are actauly "explainable" today - at least to some theoretical (or lets but it more correct) hypothetical base!

Some of Jules Verne Novels are SciFi to me, still. Journey to the middle of the earth? There MAY be some caves like that (thoug most movies end up with stupid horror-shit) But THINK ... a population of a few hunderd thousend entities somewhere INSIDE the earth hidde from our time?? why not?!? Not likely, but possible! But thiese things are .. like one said here already ... more pulpy now.
I think, there ARE to many possibly themes where former SciFi could be sortes in ... even in real: technical, genetical, chemical, etc.

If You "know" something which is just not "explainable" (at all) ... and it is neither religious, magic nor paranormal ... THAT might be sci-fi ^^

best wishes
Drachenklinge

[Earther]

Brigade Games has the old London Warroom Parroom stuff:

http://www.brigadegames.com/Of-Mars-and-Martians_c_87.html

Quite a bit of Sword & Planet stuff mixed in with more 'traditional' VSF/Space:1889 fare.

And Gary Mitchell's Space Vixens From Mars range has a not-John Carter, Deja Thoris and a big martian guy:

DW12 Red Martian princess - from 25A 'Mars Alternam'
DW13 Human adventurer, gone native - from 25A 'Mars Alternam'
DW14 Green Martian warrior - from 25A 'Mars Alternam' (40mm tall)

Here: http://homepages.tesco.net/mitchellsmith/gazfssv.html scroll 2/3 way down…

[Connectamabob]

I have no problems with stuff that mixes fantasy with science as long as it's honest about it. Dr. Who and Star Wars clearly have no pretensions to being scientifically correct, and if you referred to them as "fantasy" in the presence of their creators you'd probably get no argument.

When someone uses it as a justification though is when it goes screwy. Saying "It's sci-fi, it doesn't have to be scientific" or something similar is kinda like saying "oral sex isn't really sex": it's right there in the bonkin' name. If you're not picky about the content, then being picky about genre identity is just hypocritical.

I have to agree with what others have said about the current games not being hard sci-fi at all. They're mostly balls-out space operas that simply borrow some of the aesthetic style of hard sci-fi.

...Which, ironically, is actually one of the least hard things about the hard sci-fi they're borrowing from. Just like how national militaries are always preparing to fight the previous war, hard sci-fi's ultra-conservative mindset tends to use the cutting edge of today to represent the cutting edge of tomorrow, resulting in a pictue of the future that's going to be about as hilariously inaccurate as VSF is the modern day. In this way so-called "diamond hard" S-F is IMO arguably less hard then the levels immediately below it.

My personal observation has been that reality is usually way more imaginative than most authors. Full on fantasy has the potential to match it, but science fiction is too often defined by the scientifically illiterate, resulting in the idea that using real science is more about "don'ts" than a rich, deep mine of ideas so batshit and so spectacular that no sword-swinging, naval-battleship-in-space pulp can ever come close. People who perceive science as being about limitations IMO aren't doing themselves or their audiences any favors by insisting that they're writing science fiction, since by their own definition science fiction is just fantasy with ankle weights. Better to let go of the pretenses and embrace fantasy whole hog than willfully subject yourself to wishy-washy worst-of both-worlds half-genre.

That doesn't mean giving up the ray guns, it just means acknowledging that the ray guns are part of the fantasy, and not something that makes the fantasy more sci-fi by their inclusion.  

[Drachenklinge]

hm ... to me three things in sci-fi/fantasy are important:

1. are there some "type mismatches" in the story?
2. how are they explained? (psi-forces are sci-fi, magic is not, both "enables" you to "telekinize" things)
3. the "explaining it" in relation to the time when it is written

@ 1.
e.g. medievial knights and indsmen are historical put in the same time and age ... but not the place. So mixing them, NEEDS an explanation of SOME sort, so ...

@ 2.
... warpfields would be sci-fi ... magical drawings would be fantasy

But this kind of type-mismatch is related to Your actual knowledge. even the IDEA of "beaming" 200 years ago would be pure magic, today it is barely sci-fi, because we can base it technically. We would be hard pressed to base "breathing life into mud" technically.

Sure You can see the movie "the time-machine" as some sort of fantasy, too, because in the end it is somewhat of a story from a knight rescuing its lady (without the balads ^^), but the technical aspect makes it sci-fi. Not the explaining itself (actualy there is none, which can explain such a time-machine - though I would LOVE to hear it ^^) but the PRESENSE of it.

What I do NOT like, too, is (does anyone knows "costigan's needle"?) some pseudo sci-fi starter warping people into a medieval realm, where from now one, our heros have to face just plain normal knighty-business. THAT is fantasy to me, too.

@ 3.
Then again technical aspects in itself are not automatically sci-fi. Because to the stone-age wildwest would be purest high-end high-level top-noch sci-fi! It is NOT for us today for obvious reasons. So there HAS to be at least SOME futuristic part in the story, but RELATED to the day, when at least it is written. The "wildwildwild west" movie is showing this direction a bit - I think, it is steampunk TODAY, because it is not written in THOSE days. If Mark Twain would have written it, it would be sci-fi, won't You think?

So ... maybe it is not important to seperate fantasy from sci-fi at all, but as genres there need to be some "criteria" to it.

best wishes
Drachenklinge

PS
got another example ^^

a laser is technically still sci-fi, though "every" oculist (not ocultist ^^) has one ... so a laser does not really need an explanation anymore (heck, everyone can build one in theory, just put together some coherent light-beams) but a laser in the hands of a 15cntury knight is VERY sci-fi/fantasy, because You would have to explain HOW the laser would come from us to them ... IF we would suddenly had some archeological founds about lasers in medieval ... maybe that won't be so sci-fi anymore - much less fantasy ... if we in additon would find a dead professor in a time-capsule inside an old "never before opened" tomb ... now ... THAT would be pulp
So ... the list of elements does qualify the genre to me.

[Doomsdave]

There's no good figure options for Masters of the Universe gaming.  This makes me sad.

[wolfgangbrooks]

Any fantasy barbarian + putty. Easy.

Oh, and Skeletor: http://www.amazon.com/Heroclix-Arkham-Asylum-Doctor-Destiny/dp/B003NYCVZ2

[Eldorf.Dragonsbane]

hm ... to me three things in sci-fi/fantasy are important:

1. are there some "type mismatches" in the story?
2. how are they explained? (psi-forces are sci-fi, magic is not, both "enables" you to "telekinize" things)
3. the "explaining it" in relation to the time when it is written

@ #2- It all depends. Someone with Psi-forces could be claimed to have magic powers and to be a witch or a wizard/warlock. Imagine a setting where a seed ship crashes on a planet (take the world of Trigun as the example), before the crash it wasn't uncommon to have psykers openly workign along side "normals," now after the crash most tech is lost, maybe they knwo who to build something like a laser, or have working radios (getting rarer each generation as more and more break beyond the point of being able to be repaired), maybe a few of the psykers also survived, but due to the small number of them surviving, future generations view them and any current psyker as magical beings. Or say a couple generations after the crash, a rescue party full of psyckers comes to the planet, the residents of the planet will likely view the psykers as being witches and wizards, if psykers didn't survive the crash and no new ones were born.


As the old saying goes "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," what might seem like magic to one might jsut be common place tech for another. Even today in some of the more remote locations of the world such as deep in the Amazon Jungle or the Congo, there are still tribes that view modern technology as magic, granted these situations are getting scarcer and scarcer, as more and more of them are introduced to technologies out there today.

[Drachenklinge]

@ Eldorf
I agree ... to a degree^^

You are right, that our technic is magic to people 500y ago (and mabye not that distant a history even), BUT since WE NOW actually KNOW and it is also a bit about "what is sci-fi and what not", then this argument of "point of view" is not really counting.
As I said ... no one would say, that "wild west" is sci-fi, just because stone-agers would surely think so. Our point of knowdledge is what counts. Or - more precise - the point of knowledge of the story-teller.

Also, I like to add, that maybe BECAUSE of all these different genres it is hard to qualify this here and that there. Frankenstein was sci-fi at its time, but its pulp today, isn't it? Maybe because we nearly COULD do it (and maybe had already done so ... harhar) ^^

So ... apart from "point of view" (and I'd generally agree, cause if You like it, you like it) if someone WANTS to make sci-fi and he does not know what to put in, to give the "proper" feeling, then we have all the problems shown here ... sometimes lousy sci-fi, because the movie-maker thought a laser might be enough!
The newest "Alien vs Predator" ... is just an action-novel with some guys in latex-suits. But "Sky Captain" is a far better sci-fi to me!

You said, that if "psi" is explained with brainpower and telekinese ... it IS modern and therefore sci-fi. You are right! And You argue for another story, that if psi is explained with endles studys in ancient catacombs (never using the word "paranormal" or "telekinetec" etc ... just "monastry, wizard and old books) ... then it is fantasy. All right here, too. But You cannot argue "both" - StarWars is fantasy and Dungeon&Dragons is sci-fi. That just doesn't fit the argument.

You cannot twist the words, the world is using - so to speak. IF You have technical explanations for magic it is just not magic. And just to be astonished, because You could not explain a flying car ... is not non-sci-fi, too.

I am coming back to the list:
some type-mismatch in a story (a historical "disharmony" of some sort) and HOW you are describing it at the time of writing, THAT is qualifying sci-fi/fantasy (and likewise all the other genred).

best wishes
Drachenklinge

PS
some of my thoughts are actually based on a book I have read years ago ... it was about "how to write sci-fi" or so ... really good explanations, which makes me think about the terms itself.

PPS
I LOVE this discussion! I started a poll-disussion in my home-club, too ^^
Thanks a lot, folkes, 'n I hope I do not walk on Your nerves?!

[Brummie]

Sci fi is about not explaining the real science behind what your showing.

Lots of things still have noise in space or spaceships zooming about in space like fighter jets (when in reality you can only go in straight lines in space due to no wind to buffer on) plus a lot of things we stick in sci fi, many of us can think we are capable of but actually the technology is way of, or no ones bothered to actually invest in it.

Like they believe they can actually create a space ship that can travel to other planets pretty darn quickly (like instead of two years to get to a nearby solar system will take a month or so) but the costs and logistics of such a ship are so IMMENSE it would takes years upon years to build, and no one on Earth at the moment has the capacity or will power to actually begin such a project.
Furthermore its only theory no one knows if it could work.

[Drachenklinge]

Sci fi is about not explaining the real science behind what your showing.

again, for my part I do not agree, thought I think I got Your meaning!

But "not explaining the real science" could NOT be the only criteria for sci-fi. Not ANY fantasy does explain the real sci-fi. That is the whole point. In sci-fi things are possible which MIGHT be possible in real (and making noise in space is movie-crap). Conjuring magic is not - by definition.

Because to actually DO magic, one need to by a magician ... as long as You do NOT use any technical equippment (like anti-grav, etc.). IF the technical things (whatever crazy stupid theoretical basement behind it) one is using - when it is new! from our point of historical view - it is sci-fi ... that is one definition to me.

best wishes
Drachenklinge

PS
the noise from the space-ships are explainable ... it always comes from the "anti-grav"-systems ... muahaha

[Commander Vyper]

Moving away from the long drawn out answers. In my book I've never been a fan of pulp/fantasy s-fi, just leaves me cold in a mixed genre void.

I have to confess, like my sci-fi hard and dirty, more future modern than fantastical, as many people have already commented, we're already there with a lot of things and it seems that much more believable if you know what I mean. The likes of Aliens, Halo, space: above and beyond, battletech, mechwarrior, Dark star, even starwars to a certain extent.... etc seem to sum it up for me.

The Commander

[Powered Armored Stooge]

I've always been partial to bullets over lasers and swords but hey I also like star wars but really I would prefer to game Post Apocalyptic (perhaps over-the-top but not fantasy in the John Carter of Mars sense). I like Halo over games like Call of Duty though so I guess I am some sort of odd mutt. 

[Brummie]

Yeah fantasy in space isn't 100% my thing, stuff like flash gordon though enjoyable for what it is isn't really for me. I like near future gritty sci-fi, believable etc.

[Drachenklinge]

well ... comming to that, it is difficult for me to specify, what I like and what not ... I REALLY like to read these space-opera thing from Weber: Harrington! (all the more, because there is a clear relation to the Hornblower books! ^^), but I would not like to see this in TV, because I am sure, they would simply blow it up.
Then I like most of the beginnings of deep-space sci-fi movies, because You get some impression how it really MIGHT be. Endless maintenance-corridors, cold dark machine and suit-storages, never visited for aeons, etc. I almost always do not like the pseudo-horror endings (we will never understand the perils of space, blahblah).
And I really like these classic like time-machine and such ... I already mentioned the Verne-novels. Great stuff!

If the setting is right, I nearly like all this phantastic stuff. As long the explanations are fitting within the storyline! In general I like good thought-through novels! I do not care for the reality of the background told - as long as it is fitting within the authors own laid-down-idea and setting!

to make it short(er) - best wishes  
Drachenklinge