December 5, 2020 - aa6424a

Science Fiction, Fantasy or Not?

Good morning my fellow nerds, geeks, and all in-between. I come to you in a time of great need as I have once again stumbled upon a question that won’t leave my poor mind be until I satiate my thirst for trivial knowledge. In a sudden bout of nostalgia I revisited my favorite TV show, Star Trek: The Next Generation, only to be interrupted by my, quite frankly, uninspired little brother. He took one look at the screen before sighing and asking me why I was watching that “stupid fantasy TV show” again. Heresy, I know (what are they teaching kids these days??). While I crafted a lovely rebuttal, saying that not only was this show monumental in terms of popular culture but also strictly science fiction and not fantasy, my brother simply replied that they’re both the same thing. Absolutely incensed, I tried to explain to him that sci-fi and fantasy are NOT the same, after all I don’t see any magic in Star Trek, only for him to point out that faster than light travel and “warp speeds” are as good as magic when it comes to the scientific world (okay, maybe they are teaching these kids something). While I undoubtedly won that argument by slamming the door in his face, his response still irks me because… well… is he right? What are the differences between sci-fi and fantasy?? Is one an umbrella term that encompasses more sub-genres??? Is Star Trek Fantasy???? Please, I need your help to quiet my racing mind (and, just maybe, give me some ammunition if my brother makes the same comment again).

 

                                – A Confused Nerd

 

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Comments

  • trekkie4life says:

    @A-Confused-Nerd
    Ah, the age-old question has finally reared its head. Fear not my fellow Trekkie, for I have the answers you seek. I believe the best place to start is in the basics, we want to understand the difference between science fiction and fantasy so it seems prudent to define them both. That being said, let us begin with fantasy. To find a compelling definition of ‘fantasy’, I believe we have to delve deeper into the tropes surrounding the genre as a whole. In her book The Tropes of Fantasy Fiction, author Gabrielle Lissauer takes the frankly confusing and general fantasy definition given by the Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, that fantasy is a group of texts that share commonly identifiable tropes that typically give credence to the impossible, and brings it into layman’s terms by sharing some tropes that encompass this such as “… Chosen Ones, … a race that is always evil, … evil kingdoms… a secret magical society, … fairly lands, talking animals, magic swords, magic in general, and the quest”. Now, I can see your brother’s confusion as some of these tropes seem like they overlap (especially the ‘race that is always evil’ trope — we did after all have the Borg) but this leads us directly into the definition for science fiction. Similar to fantasy, or any genre really, sci-fi is determined by a large amount of tropes that can be recognized as sci-fi when put into context. In this case, the context is more important than it might be for fantasy because sci-fi, according to the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction, “is the literature of the human species encountering change, whether it arrives via scientific discoveries, technological innovations, natural events, or societal shifts.”. In easier terms, it is what humanity’s future could look like if our current technologies and societies continue to evolve in unprecedented ways. Bringing this back around to Star Trek, you and your argument on the intrinsic differences between fantasy and science fiction were absolutely correct, The principle of Star Trek and its many iterations from the original TV series in 1966 all the way to the companion novels and currently airing episodes have focused on the exploration of what humanity could look like if we do away with war and strife and look up towards the stars instead. For the heck of it, let’s compare this to a major series that falls under the fantasy genre, Tolkien’s stories of Middle Earth. A series that is rife with classic fantasy tropes (and even began some itself) such as ‘magical kingdoms’ (the elves of Mirkwood and Rivendell), ‘magic swords’ (Bilbo’s Sting), all the way to just ‘magic’ in general (our good friend Gandalf). Look at the differences, one story focuses on our humanity and how the forward march of time could lead us all the way into the cosmos while the other are a delve into a fantastical realm with dragons and orcs that are immersive to read about but impossible in a way that science fiction isn’t.

    • queendany says:

      @trekkie4life @A-Confused-Nerd
      Now hold it right there — I’ve got a bit of a bone to pick with your argument in that, well, I think you’re wrong! It’s finally time… I get to make an um, actually rebuttal! The obvious disclaimer to begin with is that writing in itself is highly subjective and meaning can change depending on the reader so defining entire genres is a nigh-impossible task. Second, I feel as if you totally looked over some valid points made by OP’s brother. Before I go into more detail there, I would like to dive further into the genre of science fiction itself to see how much more similar it is to fantasy than you’ve made our dear Confused Nerd believe. Science Fiction itself can be broadly categorized into two types of sciences, namely “Hard sci-fi novels are based on scientific fact. They’re inspired by “hard” natural sciences like physics, chemistry, and astronomy,” and “Soft sci-fi novels can be two things: Either they are not scientifically accurate or they’re inspired by “soft” social sciences like psychology, anthropology, and sociology.”. While I would like to agree with you, trekkie, that your more rigid definitions of sci-fi fit within the ‘hard sci-fi’ category, a board majority of well-known science fiction stories, yes, including Star Trek, fit into the second category of ‘soft sci-fi’, the one I would like to argue is barely different from fantasy. From the same Masterclass article there is a list of classic elements of sci-fi that I want to quickly construct to show how the definition of ‘plausible future’ doesn;t hold up to much scrutiny. Namely, “time travel, teleportation, and alternative histories… ” are common staples seen through many impactful science fiction stories. Now, if we stay true to the idea that science fiction is rooted in reality and our hard natural rules, we run into the problem that… well… they just aren’t possible! It is currently a scientific fact that time travel is impossible based on how we understand the molecular universe to function; this is also true with teleportation. While the argument can be made that perhaps, some day, we might have these technologies I would refute that and point out that using logic like this, where would we draw the line? Why are magic systems considered fantasy when in reality they could just be a form of technology we haven’t harnessed yet. I would also like to point out that all of these inconsistencies are present in Star Trek. There have been very famous time travel episodes, most well known would be the season finales “Parallels” and “Timescape” (1993) and, of course, Scotty shouldn’t be able to ‘beam me up’ since teleportation is a scientific impossibility. OP’s brother and his example of the ‘warp-core’ function is also in the right — faster than light is a scientific impossibility. We, of course, see this across other “sci-fi” examples from Back to the Future to Doctor Who which are considered science fiction but rely quite heavily on fantasy tropes. All of this is to say, I don’t believe that the particular type of science fiction we are discussing here is at all any different from the fantasy genre.

      • aa6424a says:

        @trekkie4life @queendany
        Whoa whoa — okay guys, lets all calm down… I’ve been on the internet long enough to see how arguments like this fly off the rails! I didn’t think that this would be such a hot button issue but wow am I surprised, I expected two sentence answers and I got an entire essay! Now, I have a little bit of a confession to make… while the two of you were going off on your points I think I’ve come to a bit of a conclusion in regards to these two genres of literature. It seems like the line delineating fantasy and science fiction aren’t as rigid as I thought they would be. Now, I don’t want to leave it at just that because that would mean my brother won the argument and we can’t have that now can we. I found some brilliant articles describing the tonal difference between the hard science fiction trekkie4life was talking about and the loose one that queendany was. According to tvtropes.org, another sub genre has been growing in popularity since the divide between fantasy and science fiction, namely science fantasy. In their words, “Science Fantasy works, on the other hand, by taking traditional Fantasy and Science Fiction tropes and throwing them in a blender, purposely creating a setting that has the feel of both.” I believe this best describes what we have found here today — an all encompassing term that can mean everything from the Enterprise in Middle Earth to the (perhaps not so subtle) fantasy elements we see in Star Trek proper. While I highly doubt this topic is far from finished in terms of internet discourse, I can safely say that at least our section of this battle is complete and I don’t have to give full credit to my brother.

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