Why is there no pure Sci-Fi on TV today?

[jefferiestubes8]

I've yet to read even a half-hearted attempt to explain transporters that wasn't scientifically absurd

In Star Trek the Transporter is described as

transports matter from one location to another with an intermediate state of the matter as energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_(Star_Trek)

That description is not scientifically absurd. It may require highly advanced technology but the science is not impossible.

This idea of transporters is not so mathematical or scientific that the average American public could not understand it in September of 1966.

 

[Crystalline Entity]

As I said, there's no way to draw a meaningful dividing line between different categories such as SF and fantasy. They're segments of a continuum, and a lot of fiction blends elements of both. It's not really useful to try to draw arbitrary cutoff points between one and the other, because they're not exclusive of one another. All SF contains some degree of poetic license, and the amount thereof can vary hugely across the entire spectrum from rigorous hard SF to technological fantasy. There is no "point" at which science fiction ends and fantasy begins, any more than there's a "point" where blue ends and green begins on the color spectrum. It's a continuous transition, and there are countless intermediate shades. The labels are just meant to be rough guidelines, and they overlap rather than excluding each other.

Just so, but I bet a lot of sci-fi fans here and elsewhere would vehemently disagree!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I've yet to read even a half-hearted attempt to explain transporters that wasn't scientifically absurd

I recommend: Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku.

I was surprised at how far teleportation experiments have gotten in the real world.

 

[Christopher]

I've yet to read even a half-hearted attempt to explain transporters that wasn't scientifically absurd

In Star Trek the Transporter is described as

transports matter from one location to another with an intermediate state of the matter as energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_(Star_Trek)

That description is not scientifically absurd. It may require highly advanced technology but the science is not impossible.

Well, phrased that way, it's perhaps not impossible but absurdly impractical. Converting a typical-sized human body to energy would release an amount of energy equal to maybe 70,000 Hiroshima bombs. That's why TNG's technical people (Rick Sternbach & Mike Okuda, both TrekBBS members) retconned it so that it merely broke a body down into its constituent particles and sent them through subspace.

These days, fiction about teleportation is more likely to fall back on quantum teleportation theory, which is actually about "teleporting" information, but which is close enough that it can be used with a few minor fudges to justify teleporting matter as well. The Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda episode "Banks of the Lethe" was an excellent example of fictional teleportation grounded in solid quantum-teleportation theory (its writers, Zack Stentz & Ashley Miller, know their science better than 99% of the TV writers out there). I've also had some success integrating quantum teleportation theory with Trek transporters in a couple of my ST novels. Basically they can be interpreted as the same thing except that quantum teleportation imposes the defining information of the teleported body onto a new set of particles, discarding the originals, whereas Trek transporters actually send the original particles along with the information.

As I said, there's no way to draw a meaningful dividing line between different categories such as SF and fantasy. They're segments of a continuum, and a lot of fiction blends elements of both. It's not really useful to try to draw arbitrary cutoff points between one and the other, because they're not exclusive of one another. All SF contains some degree of poetic license, and the amount thereof can vary hugely across the entire spectrum from rigorous hard SF to technological fantasy. There is no "point" at which science fiction ends and fantasy begins, any more than there's a "point" where blue ends and green begins on the color spectrum. It's a continuous transition, and there are countless intermediate shades. The labels are just meant to be rough guidelines, and they overlap rather than excluding each other.

Just so, but I bet a lot of sci-fi fans here and elsewhere would vehemently disagree!

You can find a segment of any fandom that will vehemently disagree with practically anything. Vehemence is not a standard of correctness; more often the opposite, I'd say. But a great many scholars and authors would agree with that assessment.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Sci-Fi writers for TV

The Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda episode "Banks of the Lethe" ...(its writers, Zack Stentz & Ashley Miller, know their science better than 99% of the TV writers out there).

Zack Stentz and Ashley Miller are now both working on "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (executive story editor) (9 episodes, 2008)
from imdb.com

Yes, Science Fiction.

 

[Starbreaker]

Pure scifi? Like Waldrop? Or Asimov? Or Ellison? Even science fiction has it's different styles, it's sub-genres if you will. What is it you are looking for? A show about a spaceship? ST:Universe is coming.

You mean SG (Stargate), not ST (Star Trek).

Give it a rest. There's no way that was intentional.

 

[Christopher]

^My intent was not to criticize the poster, but to clarify the information for the benefit of readers who might be confused and wonder what Star Trek: Universe would be. So you give it a rest. You're the one who's making it personal; I'm just trying to help the readers of this BBS get clear information.

 

[stonester1]

The line of demarcation between science fiction and fantasy is a continuum, rather than a border state.

I think you are on the money, Mr. Bennet.

 

[Deckerd]

I just think that all that something for nothing magic: time travel, teleportation, replicators, holosuites and faster than light travel all at the flick of a switch and virtually no power source or machinery is just bunk. People can and have written science fiction which doesn't use magic.

 

[Christopher]

I just think that all that something for nothing magic: time travel, teleportation, replicators, holosuites and faster than light travel all at the flick of a switch and virtually no power source or machinery is just bunk. People can and have written science fiction which doesn't use magic.

Yes, they have, but they have also written science fiction that does use such fanciful ideas. "Science fiction" is an inclusive label, not an exclusive one. It's not about being an elitist snob and saying that certain types of storytelling aren't allowed to eat at the same lunch counter. SF is the literature of ideas. It's about exploring possibilities, not rejecting them. It's about exploring the consequences of hypothetical science on human existence, but having the science be plausible is optional, not mandatory. Because the effect on humanity, the effect on the characters, the ideas and adventures and philosophical conundrums that arise from the science, are more important than the technical details of the science itself.

Nobody's claiming that time travel and FTL and transporters are likely to happen. That's not the point. The point is to tell stories. Yes, there is a subgenre of SF that grounds its conjectures in plausible science and technology, and that kind of "hard" SF often inspires real scientific innovation just as much as it's inspired by it. But that's just one of the many approaches that exist to speculative fiction, and it coexists alongside the others rather than being at war with them. And sometimes those more fanciful speculations can inspire real science as well. People used to assume FTL drive was total fantasy, but Star Trek's warp drive inspired physicist Miguel Alcubierre to devise a "warp" solution to the equations of general relativity, and his work has inspired a whole new branch of theoretical physics which, while it's unlikely to bring about actual FTL propulsion, has provided a new avenue for gaining insights into general relativity. And I'm sure that the theorists behind quantum teleportation, which has many practical applications in computer science, were inspired to some degree by ST transporters, The Fly, and the like. Just because a fictional idea is fanciful doesn't mean it can't inspire worthwhile thought in the reader, whether that thought is scientific, philosophical, or character-oriented.

 

[Deckerd]

Yes, they have, but they have also written science fiction that does use such fanciful ideas. "Science fiction" is an inclusive label, not an exclusive one. It's not about being an elitist snob and saying that certain types of storytelling aren't allowed to eat at the same lunch counter. SF is the literature of ideas. It's about exploring possibilities, not rejecting them. It's about exploring the consequences of hypothetical science on human existence, but having the science be plausible is optional, not mandatory. Because the effect on humanity, the effect on the characters, the ideas and adventures and philosophical conundrums that arise from the science, are more important than the technical details of the science itself.

You misunderstand me. I enjoy most of these magical elements but I object to people pretending that any of it is possible. I don't think it should be labelled 'science'. Where did you get 'elitist snob' from? That's a bit harsh.

 

[Christopher]

You misunderstand me. I enjoy most of these magical elements but I object to people pretending that any of it is possible. I don't think it should be labelled 'science'.

Within the context of the fiction, why not? Fiction isn't meant to make claims about the real world. Within the fictional universe, these things are the results of science as it applies there, even if the laws of nature there are different than they are in reality. If The West Wing or 24 can show a fictional US president and still call him the US president, then why can't a work of science fiction postulate fictional laws of science and still call them science? It doesn't matter whether the term is valid in the real world, only whether it applies within the fictional context. The whole point of it is to pretend it's possible -- within the story.

Besides, even if there were magic, there would still be science. Science is not a fixed and exclusive set of premises. It's a process for discovering how the world works. If there were a world in which magic actually existed, there could be a science of magic, a field of research dedicated to observing and experimenting with magic, deducing how it functioned, and making testable predictions about how it could manifest or be applied. No matter how different the laws of a fictional universe may be from our own, it would still have its own science devoted to understanding those laws.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I just think that all that something for nothing magic: time travel, teleportation, replicators, holosuites and faster than light travel all at the flick of a switch and virtually no power source or machinery is just bunk. People can and have written science fiction which doesn't use magic.

I'd say the true difference is just the writer's intention.

A show where characters can rise the dead could be sci fi if some technobabble explanation for it is attempted - sure it will make no sense but TV sci fi explanations never do - but if there's no explanation, then it's fantasy.

The former example is Heroes, the latter is Pushing Daisies. The fundamental difference is if the writer intends to be writing about a rational universe, that can be explained, or an irrational one, where explanations are beside the point.

 

[Mistral]

Yes, they have, but they have also written science fiction that does use such fanciful ideas. "Science fiction" is an inclusive label, not an exclusive one. It's not about being an elitist snob and saying that certain types of storytelling aren't allowed to eat at the same lunch counter. SF is the literature of ideas. It's about exploring possibilities, not rejecting them. It's about exploring the consequences of hypothetical science on human existence, but having the science be plausible is optional, not mandatory. Because the effect on humanity, the effect on the characters, the ideas and adventures and philosophical conundrums that arise from the science, are more important than the technical details of the science itself.

You misunderstand me. I enjoy most of these magical elements but I object to people pretending that any of it is possible. I don't think it should be labelled 'science'. Where did you get 'elitist snob' from? That's a bit harsh.

Didn't I hear that scientists recently teleported a few molecules? It's not ST transporters but it could be a step in the right direction...What was Clarke's Law again? Something about any sufficiently advanced technology would look like magic to the uninformed? I guess my love of Science fiction stems from the possibility, however slim, that anything is possible. I am not pretending-but I'm not holding my breath while waiting for it to happen, either.

 

[I Grok Spock]

I think the Red Dwarf episode "Stasis Leak" puts this all nicely in perspective (@ 0:43):

CAT: [to RIMMER] What is it?

RIMMER: It's a rent in the space-time continuum.

CAT: [to LISTER] What is it?

LISTER: The stasis room freezes time, you know, makes time stand still. So whenever you have a leak, it must preserve whatever it's leaked into, and it's leaked into this room.

CAT: [to RIMMER] What is it?

RIMMER: It's singularity, a point in the Universe where the normal laws of space and time don't apply.

CAT: [to LISTER] What is it?

LISTER: It's a hole back into the past.

CAT: Oh, a magic door! Well, why didn't you say?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Didn't I hear that scientists recently teleported a few molecules?

Yeah that book I cited above has a whole chapter on teleportation experiments. And stuff like time travel, parallel universes, FTL travel and mind reading - pretty much everything you can think of is theoretically compatible with real world physics except for perpetual motion machines (outlawed by the 2nd law of thermodynamics) and precognition (would require a predestined universe, although isn't it the other way around? prove precognition and you realize the universe is predestined - there's no way to know otherwise).

 

[Christopher]

^Well, I'm not sure I agree that mind reading is compatible with real physics. If we're talking about technological neurotelemetry, it should be possible to decipher a fair amount of information about cognitive activity and perception, perhaps even memory, in a brain that's subjected to a detailed scan. But it's unlikely to be feasible from a distance or with a moving target due to signal/noise issues, and it would be unfeasible to read detailed activity down to the individual neuronal level, so reading detailed thoughts might be impossible. Then there's the coding problem: each neural network stores memories and concepts in a unique associational web, so there's no fundamental underlying language of thought, and telepathy couldn't be used as an instant translation tool the way it is in fiction; if anything, it would be harder to decipher a person's detailed thoughts by reading their brain activity than it would by asking them to tell you what they're thinking.

And if you're talking about telepathy as a psychic power, there's not a shred of reliable scientific evidence for that and no theoretical model for how it could work. The coding and noise problems would apply just as much there, along with numerous other problems besides.

 

[RyanKCR]

I kinda described what I'm looking for in Sci-Fi or how I see it here:

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue135/letters.html Look down page for letter entitled Leave Soap Opera Out Of SF

And here:

http://trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=2808745&postcount=62

I wrote both. I've been planning on writing an essay about what I think of sci-fi and what I get out of it and my examples of the best sci-fi.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I agree that believable characters are important, but when character interaction, relationships, etc., become more important than the SF element, then the story has failed as good SF.

And when the SF becomes more important than the characters, the story has failed as a story.

 

[Christopher]

And when the SF becomes more important than the characters, the story has failed as a story.

Historically, a lot of SF has been more about the ideas than the characters. Just look at anything Hal Clement or Robert L. Forward ever wrote. SF is somewhat unique in its tolerance for that, the elevation of setting above character, because the ideas it explores can just be so rich and interesting in their own right (at least in the hands of a writer who's good at exploring and developing such ideas, and in the eyes of readers who have a taste for such things). Essentially, the "main character" in such a story becomes the universe itself, or the specific world or phenomenon that the writer is focusing on, and that "character" can be developed very richly in a way that an ordinary, everyday setting cannot. Although that tendency to sacrifice characterization did make it hard for SF to be seen as respectable literature for decades. Since the '60s and '70s, it's increasingly become a more "literary" genre with more of a balance between concept and characterization, but there are still subgenres that tend more toward one or the other.

My favored approach as a writer is to emphasize both equally, but as a reader I can get into a novel that's just an exploration of a fascinating world or concept even if the characterization or writing is weak, because I enjoy learning about the science that drives the story. It's the kind of entertainment that appeals to the intellect, like reading Scientific American or doing the New York Times Sunday crossword, rather than the kind that appeals to the emotion.

So I wouldn't call it failing as a story; it's just telling a different kind of story. I mean, there's no substantial characterization in "Little Red Riding Hood;" it's just a series of events. But no one would deny that it's a story, and one strong enough to endure through generations.