I certainly hope so, since that's more or less what I'm trying to do in my spec novel.
I certainly hope so, since that's more or less what I'm trying to do in my spec novel.
I could see something like that maybe fitting within Space Opera though I'm not so sure about a story of the actual colonization process itself. Don't get me wrong, I certainly think an intriguing story could be told within those parameters. I just don't know if it would fit the definition per se.
What that definition though may be a lost cause. There doesn't seem to be any one solid measure as to what is and isn't Space Opera.
Space opera doesn't need aliens, but it does need scale, conflict, and usually some type of FTL to get between planets. (cf. Blakes 7, Firefly, NuBSG, etc)
It's set in a fictional system with five stars and dozens of planets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Firefly_planets_and_moons
This is pretty much the definition I'm familiar with. Space opera as a genre need not - and often doesn't - have any hard sci-fi elements.
I haven't heard anyone refer to Sunshine or Moon as space opera. If it's become generic, it's probably become generic for extrasolar space SF.
But there's a profound difference between "doesn't need" and "doesn't have at all." I agree that space opera doesn't require hard-SF or speculative elements, but I've never heard a definition that entirely excluded them.
And who said that hard SF was the only form of speculation?
Agreed. The Tleilaxu were weird, but they were just (de)volved Humans. Most of my favorite SF books don't have aliens and are set in space.
And a further difference between 'may have' and 'is focused on'. Space opera may include hard sci-fi elements but the focus of the concept is typically on, as Dennis said, action/adventure or drama.
But that's not the part of his definition that was unfamiliar to me.
J
Jetfire
Guest
So a grand adventure of Sol colonies and mining mixed with space pirates and those who would stop them...the heroes of the story...wouldn't be "BIG" enough?
Plus, aliens are more expensive than humans.
That's the real obstacle.
Technically, Space Opera does not need aliens. Firefly had no aliens and was fine. In the literature, the (real) Foundation series had no aliens, although that was done specifically to dodge Campbell's ethnocentrism. Arthur C Clarke wrote The Songs Of Distant Earth specifically to create a Hard SF Space Opera; others of his books, such as Imperial Earth, could qualify as well. Ben Bova's Solar System books have no aliens as far as I know, except for some ruins on Mars (I may be wrong about that-- I haven't read them all).
Exactly. In fact, this is the premise of my own Space-Opera-in-progress.
I've also scaled my space opera down to a single system (when it began it spanned several systems). Though I do have a different method of travel based on some made-up physics which are a feature of later books, it's not on the order of FTL-like/wormhole/warp travel.
Also, no aliens, though my humans don't know they're humans.
I don't think it needs aliens--I was going to cite Foundation but Dennis and RJDiogenes beat me to it.
It just needs to be interesting.
It just needs to be interesting.
I've always been a fan of near-future, hard sci-fi the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and Ben Bova, so I definitely think that something like this could fly, if someone with real vision was the driving force behind it. As Christopher pointed out, people tend to forget the sheer vastness of our own solar system. The possibilities for dramatic stories are endless and to answer Jet's original question... No, I don't think it would need aliens to be interesting. In fact, the lack of them would most likely make the show seem a bit more realistic, IMO.
Heck, if anything, that already seems to be the default view. What have we had in space-based SF in recent years? Firefly, Galactica/Caprica, Defying Gravity. Shows where aliens have been scarce or completely absent. Then we have The 4400 where what initially looks like a series of alien abductions turns out to be the work of time travellers. Even Stargate Universe has focused far less on aliens than its predecessors. We do have V and The Event (so I gather, having never watched it), but they're a minority. So if anything, I think we've had too many space shows without aliens lately.
I think the problem is that Star Trek filled the airwaves with so many bumpy-headed humanoids for so long that people got tired of the contrivance. The backlash is a bunch of shows without aliens at all. And it's only recently that the technology allows a TV series such as SGU to design nonhumanoid aliens on a reasonable budget -- and even then, they can only make occasional use of them.
Of course, that's just television. There's no reason why aliens in prose have to be unrealistic, because they don't have to be humanoid.
Good point. One of my favorite group of literary aliens were the 'Ganymeans' from James P. Hogan's 'Giants' series. Back when he first wrote them, it would have been extremely difficult for Hollywood to have pulled them off with any degree of believability, IMO. Now, of course, it wouldn't even require film-budget CGI to render them. But aliens in science fiction literature have the upper edge in not being limited to conventional, earthly forms.
They have better agents.Plus, aliens are more expensive than humans.
That's the real obstacle.
