9/29/2008
She blinded me with science...
....Well, not really. But here's what I'd like us to start out thinking about this week (and of course you're welcome to go wherever you want to go with comments and discussion, as long as it's related to science fiction and isn't x-rated). What relationship do you think "real" science has to the science that supports the ficitonal worlds of science fiction?
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I think that "real" science has a very big influence on scifi, and vice versa, using star wars as an example, the tech behind luke's prosthetic hand is being used today, there are sensors that can be put in the prosthetic to simulate the feelings of the lost limb
Also during the cold war we put up the star wars satellite system to intercept and destroy ICBM's with lasers in the event any were fired at us
I believe that science fiction often reflects the technologies, and ideas and politics of the time it was written in, like how in A Martian Odyssey they are using a nuclear powered space craft but are still only using pistols. But on the other hand, science fiction can also explore the technologies we have only imagined.
Technologies we use today have been predicted in older science fiction books too. I think in Fahrenheit 451, which was written in 1953, where they used ATMs, which weren't invented until the 60s. I think.
I agree with James. As science advances, so will technology in science fiction. Science fiction, with some exceptions where writers are truly creative, has always been based on reality and current inventions.
I'd imagine that if science fiction writers today knew the evolution of the kinds of weapons we'll be using in 75 years we would see very different science fiction.
Basically, real scientists and inventors are applying their creativity to new ways to do things. Once those ideas come to fruition, science fiction writers will then expand on them and take them to their logical extremes.
I think the only absolute necessary correlation between real science and the topics in science fiction writing is that whatever scientific idea the writer is trying to involve in the story has to be presented with some kind of basic knowledge. This is not to say that the writer must then follow up any presented idea with pages and pages of fact and proof, but to rather incorporate the idea into the story with some sort of believable flair.
Many people seem to have applied mostly technology to the science aspects in science fiction. I think some other "real" scientific aspects that has helped suppor the fictional worlds of science fiction is things like Astronomy and even types of animals or organisms that would appear on various planets. For example, in Star Wars and even Star Trek, with the knowledge of Astronomy, writers can determine what other solar systems and their planets would be like. For us here on Planet Earth, we have come used to seeing the Sun in the daytime and the Moon at night. This sort of scene would change if you lived on a planet that had multiple moons (like Saturn) or may have multiple "suns" (like Tatooine from Star Wars). Not to mention the changes in climate - the climate of the Star Trek planet, Vulcan, is much different from the climate of the planet Qo'noS (pronounced Kronos; home of the Klingon). Vulcan is more a desert-like climate, where at Qo'noS is more mountainous and is dominated by agricultural usage.
- A scene on Coruscant from Star Wars where you can see the sun and moon: http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/tpm/dusk.jpg
- A scene on Tatooine's binary sunset: http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/laserdisk/sw4/sunset2.jpg
- Terrain of Planet Vulcan: http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/e/ed/Bounty_leaves_Vulcan.jpg
Another random tidbit is the common "weapon" used during Laser Tag games was created in 1979. It had been based off of the phasers from Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969).
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Guinness World Records lists the original Star Trek as having the largest number of spin-offs among all television shows in history.
Science fiction writers address issues of science and technology, but also focus on many moral and ethical issues of humankind. I have always found it interesting and disturbing that the original Star Trek series continually encountered alien beings and ended up detroying them. Even while the crew was multi-cultural, the unknown or "other" was still deamonized mirroring much of the cultural and racial unrest of the time. Not only that, but the way that women were represented in that series has always bothered me. Women were largly (although not completely) shown as objects of lust and sex. The one's that did not get that distinction were shown to be plain and uninteresting.
Does anyone know where I can find the short story Star Trek Suddenly Human?
I agree with recovery, especially the alien women whom kirk always finds appealing, seriously the only episodes where kirk doesn't get the girl are city on the edge of forever and the methuselah complex, in the case of city mccoy falls for a woman from the past and in methuselah the woman is an android
Also I believe that in the next gen series the Q served the purpose of showing the true errors of the colonial way of thinking that was prevalant in the past, just as the klingons were based off the vikings
Recovery Roxx (by the way, what's your real name....I need to be able to check off that you're participating), "Suddenly Human" is a video that we are (hopefully) watching on Wed.
So, let me ask this. Does science fiction need science and technology? Is being futuristic enough? If I set a story in space, but have no aliens and don't refer to technology, is that "science" enough for science fiction?
Science fiction, I think, seems to be a extension into the future of what "real" science can become. As bryson said prosthetics are also becoming more and more like what we see in movies only they are real. Also artificial intelligence and other robotics technologies have become more sophisticated. I think it is amazing that writers and movie makers decades back had thought up these things before anyone had actually tried making them.
Adding to the statement about how women were portrayed during the Star Trek series, you have to remember the time eras that each of the series came out. During the earlier years, women were often considered insignificant and had less power as men did. Alot of those views can be seen in Star Trek The Original Series. But, you can see the changes in time and how women are portrayed as years go by and new series occur - for example, Captain Kathryn Janeway of Voyager (the first female captain of a Star Trek series who holds the main character position).
Recovery Roxx - I believe that the Star Trek Suddenly Human is going to be a movie clip we're watching in class.
Nancy - I think that if you set a story in space that it would still be considered Science Fiction (depending on what the storyline of the story is). Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005) is considered to be a Science Fiction movie, and as far as I remember, there were no aliens and the closest to "technology" it got was what we have today - space shuttles and astronauts (no futuristic technology).
What kind of relationship? A close one. It seems you cannot pick up a book about time travel without stumbling across mention of Einstein's theory of relativity or the debunking thereof. You hear of using lasers to correct vision and then laser scalpels in Star Wars novels, for another example.
Well, if you set a story in space, but didn't mention technology, I think it would still be implied. Even without the mention of technology, the situations and the actions of characters (i.e. walking on the deck means they're not floating and must have some sort of artificial gravity) would imply futuristic devices.
Going in back to Nancy's recent question about whether science fiction "needs" science and technology. In my opinion, I would say it does need that aspect to be consider part of this genre. The reason being that science fiction and fantasy refers to a world that the readers are not familiar with, a world with devices and setting that we can only imagine about but never think they'd happen. Without the exagerated advancement of technology and science in these stories, there probably wouldn't be much imagination and creativity to them in order to set the story in a futuristic setting.
Question -
Does anyone think that psychology, sociology and other kinds of science like architecture's involvement in a novel make it a science fiction novel? It would involve science, right?
this was something odd i thought of that had to do with the 9 Billion Names of God.
Could the monks in the story have been imposters? a group (fanatics, communists, radical ex-monks, or something like that) that imprisoned/killed the real monks, took their place, and then convinced the creators of the Mark V to build one for them. all so they could finish the project of finding all the names of god asap.
little things the the "monks" did throughout the story may have blown their cover, but the they were dealing with americans that seemed to know little about their culture.
AlishaJudge - I'm sure there are plenty of psychology, sociology, and other similar social sciences that become involved in science fiction, whether the author purposely put it in or not. But if it was simply just social sciences, rather than technological sciences, in a story similar to the scenario Nancy mentioned... I do think that it would probably be considered Science Fiction. Not just because of it containing "science" in it... but just because of it being out in Space.
I think bringing up that question brings up a very important subject. Whenever someone thinks of Science Fiction, it's pretty common for them to think of techonological science. Probably because more people are familiar with that sort of science, rather than social sciences than Psychology, Sociology, etc. I think some people tend to forget (or are unaware) that Psychology, Sociology, etc. are considered sciences as well.
Real science has a large impact on Sci-Fi because without real science there would be no genre called Sci-Fi. Even if the technology and science is fictional and doesn’t exist on this planet, the author still had to imitate one of our own sciences as a model to help him/her make their own fictional science seem real, detailed, and interesting. Also, an author sometimes doesn’t make up his/her own science and just uses the knowledge of our world. For example, in the Martian Odyssey, the author used nuclear power as the energy for the character’s technology (which in this time and age is even a little outdated). But Sci-fi wouldn’t be Sci-Fi without something out of the ordinary, whether it is the technology or the biological aspects of another race. Remember biology is a science as well and in the Martian Odyssey there was a creature that was not a carbon life form, but this thing was completely made up of silicon. Now that is a veer off the life of our planet!
scifi always has something to do with the real world... as discussed in class sci-fi includes not only modern technology but better forms of it... as bryan paramorefan 2 said sci- fi also has the ability to impact the real world too...
I agree with a lot of the other answers I think Science and Sci-Fi can be sources of inspiration for each other. I think that Sci-Fi takes things that already exist sometimes and elaborates on it or tries to make it better. I think that it also takes possible holes in science and come up with a semi-reasonable possibility. It takes tough questions like cloning and such and attempts to answers them. Science as well can gain new ideas and new creative in sight into fixing and improving science. I think that alot of new technology can in some way be linked to an idea that has already been thought up in Science Fiction. I think they both work very well with each other.
Alisha brings up a good point. Can you have science fiction based solely on social sciences or other things not usually looked at as being "scientific" despite being a science?
I mean, you can have a sci-fi story that's heavy on sociology and commentary on today's story, but but it'll probably be set in the future, with new technology and all that other stuff we already associate with sci-fi.
If we took out the obvious technology based science in that story, would it still be science fiction?
I have no idea.
Alisha, what a great question. I think architecture, sociology and psychology (and philosophy) are all vital parts of science fiction. But could we have a science fiction novel or movie jsut based on those, with no aspects of the future, with no technology? Nope. Look at Stephen King. Some of his work is considered fantasy, some is purely horror/thriller, but are books like Cujo or Pet Semetary science fiction? I'd argue no, and argue pretty loudly. I'm going to agree with Britttany's idea that there has to be something beyond the ordinary, and maybe beyond the currently possible. 1939- travel to Mars? Silicon based life? Communciation with aliens? All beyond the realm of 1939 possibility.
Andrew, could the monks have been imposters? Sure. This was a story written during the Cold War. The monks certainly weren't stereotypical Tibetan Buddhist monks. I'm not saying all Buddhist monks are saints; go to Thailand and yeah, you'll see some monks wearing expensive watches, hanging out in bars and smoking. After all, in some countries, joining a monastery is a way to relative prestige, and more stable food and housing than one would otherwise have, despite the poverty aspect. But was Clarke writing about the hypocrisy of Buddhist monks? Probably not in particular, but he's certainly exploring religious themes. And let's keep in mind (no offense, anyone), that there are some Christian fundamentalists today who are looking forward to the end of the world for a variety of reasons, and aren't opposed to things that hasten that end.
By the way, Clarke says in an interview that he got a letter from the Dalai Lama about that story. I'll post a link to the interview separately.
Wow I feel like I'm kinda gettin in over my head on this one (there's allot here). But, I do like Alisha's question and I agree with Nancy's answer. There does have to be some kind of futuristic advancement in technology.
If you have a story just solely set in space (i.e. the tale of a child or some being just floating out in the cosmos--I wrote a story like this once) without technology how could it be there? I think usually when technology fails in such cases our second-resort answer is magic. Thus, we get back into the world and genre of fantasy. Haha. I hope I'm conveying my thoughts clearly here.
i think that science fact and science fiction are symbiotic twins each dependent in some way on each other and each using the others advances to advance themselves. yes, some of what was already in existance was used by sci fi writers, but on the other hand many new and "useful" items in science came from the imaginations of many sci fi writers and used in their work first which led to many scientists saying can we do that and if so, how. i am sure that arthur c clarke, gene roddenbury kurt vonnegut, and george lucas have accumilated many unacknowledged credits for much of the post modern scientific inventions.
I think science and the science of science fiction have a give-and-take relationship.. They bounce ideas off each other and work with what the other has to advance. Science fiction is a forum where wild new ideas can start to take shape and experiment with the impossible. "Real" science uses these as a springboard, working them until they reach the realm of reality. Once something exists, science fiction can start the process again from the next level up and create something even more advanced.
I have been enjoying this class alot.
Enjoy learning new things, it will help out if life!
Real science I would say has a big influence on a lot of sci fi things such as video games and movies. I think most people think about what is possible and try to either interpret it in a new way or come up with something that most people havent though of.
if you look through out history, stories have been told that can or could have been considered science fiction even if it didnt have that title yet, and through those stories one might just get an idea, and want to start experimenting, and attempt to make it a reality, as far as the technological side of it is concerned. yes that one person may not succeed but it will eventually become fact, whether it be 10yrs or 100yrs in turn most things if not all things that were "scifi" in the 60's and earlier have become some sort of a reality. whether it be pure fact/reality or a thesis of a fact (aka teleportation, flying cars). through this blog there have also been several other examples of things that "are" instead of "might be". i am surprised nobody has mentioned cloning yet.
question: do you think it is possible that "real" science fact can actually be based off of science fiction?
oh i forgot i dont know if nancy wrote down who i am but i am josh cheves
Science has a huge inclusion in most science fiction books. If its set in another world, astrology would lend itself. Other species, here again. With something like Frankenstein, which was medically science fiction, i mean i could go on for days.
wow. the comments and disagreements about the issue of family, motives of victor, and the meanings behind the settings were so thought challenging that i am going to re-read the book with the new ideas and insights i gleaned from class in mind. I came into the class as a writer hoping to learn more about the craft of sci-fi/fantasy writing and as a reader interested in the backstory of sci fi/fantasy. This class is helping me develop on both of those fronts, is challenging me to change the way i see myself and my world, and is encouraging me to see myself anew as a person and a reader/writer. Plus i now have a new list of must read books and must see films/shows/youtube videos!!! ;) have a great weekend- see you in class monday. hannah
my thought is that most science fiction usually is based on some sort of real world science theory. as others have said, this also includes social science, psychology, and many others. the sci fi books i have read have been mostly about technology of some sort but in some of them they will mention something of psychology or other such sciences.
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