You might want to play Shadowrun and then get back to us on that :P

Sounds intriguing, I shall have a look.

Although, I have not played it yet, I can't help but feel that if it incorporates both elements, it is still just fantasy.

If it incorporates both it's a mix of both, that's rather obvious. Why would the fantasy elements invalidate the sci-fi ones?

Hard sci-fi to me refers to stories written for the purpose of explaining a scientific concept and the story must adhere as closely as possible to science as it is known at the time of the story's writing. The Cold Equations is a good example: A spaceship pilot must eject a stowaway because math says her extra weight is jeopardizing the ship.

"Soft sci-fi" or science fantasy or whatever pretty much just covers everything else. You might explain how the stuff works, but it's not entirely necessary and the explanation might even be based in some kind of pseudo-science that sounds nice but might as well be magic (e.g., pretty much every time machine story ever).

Because once fantasy is injected into sci-fi, it has become purely that- fantastical- there becomes no need for the sci-fi element to even be involved.

A cyborg is still a cyborg. It doesn't become magical just because there is also a mage in the story. And it is very much not the same whether we are dealing with a future where advanced technology coexists with magic, or with a classic fantasy setting.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke

That being said holds a lot of truth to me. For a story it is not necessary to explain every detail of a technology as long as you keep Clarke's quote in mind. Personally I like science fiction stories a lot and I can enjoy stories without giving too much thought on it about how it could work. However if an explanation fits and could technically be possible it can make the whole story a lot easier to follow. The problem is that there should not be a Deus-Ex-Machina-moment that ends a story, like they did in Mass Effect 3. It is just lame story telling.

For example Frank Herbert's "Dune": I would consider it quite a lot of fantasy and the concept of the Spice is hard to believe. Nevertheless I think it is a great story and I like the Dune-Universe. If you take a look at Dan Simmons "Hyperion" on the other hand, it seems pretty equally hard to believe in the beginning. However with the story progress over thousands of pages, I thought that in the end the technological concept behind it was actually quite believable. Although with its time travel concept, it could always easily be misused as some kind of Deus-Ex-Machina-moment.

I would consider Isaac Asimov (Foundation or Robots series), Iain Banks (Culture-series), Joe Haldeman (The Forever War) or Sergej Snegow (Humans as Gods) and maybe especially Stanislaw Lem (Solaris) some of the more serious writers that took a look in our far future. Just to drop some names that come to mind first.

Science fiction that plays in the nearer future usually has it easier because it rarely builds on something we cannot imagine nowadays. Take James Corey (The Expanse series) as a prime example, Philip K. Dick (Ubik, Total Recall, Bladerunner) or William Gibbson's (Neuromancer) work for example. The art of the author is to imagine something at their time that will be established in the future, maybe not even on the grand scale, but more like the details Orwell or Clarke have in their stories without them existing at their time, or like Gibbson with the Cyberspace long before our Internet.


Wall of text in short: I think it is not so much the point of looking at something if it is hard, soft or fantasy focussed as long as they get the story right in the first place. If you should classify science fiction it makes more sense to me to divide it between near or far future or maybe dystopian and utopian vision of the future.

Science fiction requires non of any of the things you have just mentioned.

Fantasy would accommodate them all.

I'm sorry, I really didn't understand that at all. Require? What?

god I hope this doesn't turn onto a fight.

If this thread falls apart there is no hope for the rest of the forum.

Nerd fight!

Seriously though, I don't think we're in any danger here :D Honestly, I'd say the Star Wars discussions and this is actually the forum being in better shape then it was in while. For a time there was barely any discussions of anything fun.

I guess I'm just paranoid.

I blame the Sith.

It's called Space Opera, don't mix up fantasy into this.

I like em all. I'm getting a little tired of dystopia though.

This

Wish I could be as eloquent.