posted
The only real example we have of science fiction within Trek is actually the "Captain Proton" game. And from the various ways in which the Voyager people treated it, it seemed to me as if science fiction was basically a dead genre in the 24th century.
Now, in "real" life, I suppose it's possible to believe that humans of the 24th century will imagine even more fantastic things than what they actually have.
One could argue that science fiction is a way for human imagination to consider ideas and situations that are otherwise impossible. Consider: hundreds of years ago, there were stories about flight -- like flying dragons, witches on brooms, and so on. (Yeah, that's not scientific, but it's imaginative.) In the 1890's with Jules Verne and H.G. Wells we got into the idea of mechanical flight, and then space flight, and all sorts of other technological ideas.
Today, we have the idea of traveling to distant stars in weeks or hours, sentient robots that are built to look like humans, and so on. But a LOT of these ideas have been realized in some form or other. Computers are already faster and more "streamlined" than people in the sixties imagined... remember the classic "clakety-clack" interface with Majel's monotone "Working..."? How about Kirk's handheld communicator, or the Day-Glo removable media disks?
The fact is, that in some ways we're reaching the limits of imagination for now. I'm not saying that imagination has reached a brick wall, of course. But consider that we've got ideas of traveling across the galaxy... what after that? The main premise of sci-fi is (in a way) space travel -- what would happen when humans actually ACHIEVE space travel? If we meet intelligent extraterrestrial life? If space is "the final frontier," and in Trek's case specifically, there's plenty of unknown -- the frontier is virtually infinite. So the unknown then involves meeting strange, new lifeforms, etc. But technology will have caught up to expansion.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I think that is very unfair. Science fiction is, among other things, simply a story set in some place that is decidedly not here. It's also, or so I will be quick to argue, a story in some way dependant upon science. And since everything is science...
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Speculative fiction is how I choose to think of it.
For me, the best SF is that which deals with "Mad Ideas" (quoted from a certain British writer who seems to demand it be quoted as such.)
The last bit of good original SF I read was Baxter's Manifold Time...wherein the best parts for me were the descriptions of life for a genetically enhanced squid culture living on an asteroid in NEO.
The book ended (SPOILER WARNING, I guess) with the squid running away from a new big bang created by super smart kids on earth...
I would argue that it's pretty unlikely that that sort of thing will ever occur, but it was fascinating nontheless.
Speculative fiction is like that. It doesn't necessarily have to have events init that are possible. It simply has to have a logic to it that hold consistant.
The internal logic of Speculative Fiction is what separates it from fantasy, where Magic can do anything as long as you get the spell right...fantasy is guided by a logically inconsistant Deux ex machina.
Eh...I had a point I was going for, but I lost it. *tsk*
Oh, I have it: If there is still speculative fiction in the Star Trek universe, it would be as alien to us today as cyberpunk would be to Jules Verne...it would still be logically consistant, but it would have issues in it that would be near incomprehensible to us.
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
There are plenty of Sci-fi genres that doesn't necessarily involve warped technology (no pun intended). Utopias and dystopias are sometimes created through technology (apocalypses, golden ages), but science does not always equal tech.
"Anoraky", Liam, were you thinking of little Kenny, pulling his straps? Sounds like a new entry for Oxford. We got "d'oh" past their goalkeepers, now they've been softened up!
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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