Is Voyager really Star Trek?
- Thread starter mahler5
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I'd assume 'realistic science fiction' is that which treats science accurately and its projections as to future science are reasonable. It certainly exists, Arthur C. Clarke considered himself essentially an author in that field, though I think that could be debated.
I'd assume 'realistic science fiction' is that which treats science accurately and its projections as to future science are reasonable. It certainly exists, Arthur C. Clarke considered himself essentially an author in that field, though I think that could be debated.
Hasn't Trek also used real scientific ideas & theories in many of it's stories and plots, such as the spliting of matter but not anti-matter as in "Deadlock" for example?
..or the use of plasma based technology to create such things as TV's in modern times. It's that combo use an example of science and technology. Such things are early examples of veiw screnes or crystals in cell phones as another example of future communicators.
Yes, Star Trek has used a lot of real science. But it's also used a lot of essentially fantastic ideas. Case in point: Doppler effect. You shouldn't be able to communicate at real-time from one edge of the solar system to another, let alone thousands of stars away (or even, to use a VOY analogy, when at the other end of the galaxy).
..and much like the Transporter beaming up people that would fall under the "fiction" part of science "fiction", it still doesn't negate the fact that Trek uses ideas that do pertain to science.Kegek said:
A communicator does not violate the laws of physics as we understand them. For the Doppler effect to be negated, well, one would have to. That's the key difference.
They communicate through subspace, just like their sensors work on subspace bands. Subspace is bullshit and we have no reason to believe it is associated with any kind of Doppler effect. Or maybe it has an equivalent but it's so insignificant it only effects communications over super-long distances, hence the need for ground communicators to be boosted by a starship for planet to planet communications or a subspace relay for interstellar communication.
Kegek said:
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Subspace is a rather handy, scientific-sounding excuse, no doubt about it.
No, it doesn't. But realistic science fiction would only have that kind of hard sci-fi.
Sure it would, but who in their right mind would claim that ONLY hard, realistic science fiction was science fiction. That's the argument here. Someone above claimed Trek was NOT science fiction, and that's just not true.
:Whispering: It is... since you're very right we've not found any monoliths on any of our systems planets - unless the government hasn't told us some stuff... 2001 is as much a fantasy as Buck Rogers it just happens to contain more of a realistic tone.
Sharr
Sharr
FordSVT said:
A bunch of Big Black Stones shouldn't be able to ignite Jupiter. We've never found any such stones on the moon, either. I guess 2001 is a fantasy story.
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Well, we have no idea how the Monoliths work. They appear to follow Clarke's principle: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Conceded that this can be argued as an element of science fantasy, but this is certainly not the case with the human technology in this film.
The latter objection - that there is no monolith on the Moon - is something else. This is the fiction part of science fiction, even in the realistic genre. You make stuff up. It may be consistent with the physical laws as we understand them, but it's still made-up.
A bunch of Big Black Stones shouldn't be able to ignite Jupiter. We've never found any such stones on the moon, either. I guess 2001 is a fantasy story.
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Well, we have no idea how the Monoliths work. They appear to follow Clarke's principle: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Conceded that this can be argued as an element of science fantasy, but this is certainly not the case with the human technology in this film.
The latter objection - that there is no monolith on the Moon - is something else. This is the fiction part of science fiction, even in the realistic genre. You make stuff up. It may be consistent with the physical laws as we understand them, but it's still made-up.
Well, we have no idea how the Monoliths work. They appear to follow Clarke's principle: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Conceded that this can be argued as an element of science fantasy, but this is certainly not the case with the human technology in this film.
The latter objection - that there is no monolith on the Moon - is something else. This is the fiction part of science fiction, even in the realistic genre. You make stuff up. It may be consistent with the physical laws as we understand them, but it's still made-up.
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You keep drawing the line thinner and thinner, parsing definitions, making excuses and squirming around the issue. Star Trek is science fiction. Period. Whether or not it contains a level of scientific accuracy to satisfy you is a completely separate matter.
I wouldn't say there was realistic sci-fi, but "hard" sci-fi. Star Trek is certainly not "hard" sci-fi, but pretty soft as all hell, with pointless techno babble...
Well, we have no idea how the Monoliths work. They appear to follow Clarke's principle: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' Conceded that this can be argued as an element of science fantasy, but this is certainly not the case with the human technology in this film.
The latter objection - that there is no monolith on the Moon - is something else. This is the fiction part of science fiction, even in the realistic genre. You make stuff up. It may be consistent with the physical laws as we understand them, but it's still made-up.
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Certainly you make stuff up, otherwise why bother writing it at all? I mean otherwise entertain yourself with a text book.
I've never been comfortable with the notion of "hard" or "soft" science fiction as terms. One confers an undeserved level of respectability on a work of fiction well the other carries a derisive tone toward others.
The minutes you introduce otherworldly/alien elements it stops being "hard" and then are just as justified as including a FTL drive or transporter or beings from other dimensions - or machines becoming "one with their creator and ascending" [looking at supposedly more "realistic" TMP!] though it doesn't follow you need to engage in empty technobabble to use it...
Clarke's law is many ways is a convenient bit of rationalization so as not to become consumed with "How this alien tech might work" since no one would come across very well trying to explain it anyway. That is its an all encompassing bit of technobabble so we can move on with our story.
Like I said above: 2001 is as much a fantasy as any other scifi that it contains "realistic" [read: what we know we can do currently] human tech doesn't in and of itself elevate it in my view and has allowed for a subgroup of fans to engage in pretension. GR suddenly "wanted one of those", it didn't work so well.
Sharr
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