Why isnt there a Star Gate videogame, of any genre? Seems like a no brainer. Werent they funded by the Military, for advertisement or something? A shooter would be obvious choice but a BG style rpg would be cool. Heck there's even a Farscape rpg thats isometric party based. But no Star Gate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stargate_games
There exists a subset of sci-fi that is dedicated to exploring consequences of changes in fundamental laws of physics and the like - in other words it deals with stuff that is inherently implausible.
It nevertheless is sci-fi, and contains some of the hardest, most monocled stuff I have ever read - Egan's "Orthogonal" trilogy and "Dichronauts" for example - because it focuses on scientifically rigorous worldbuilding and exploring the consequences of the changes. Both examples I listed deal with universes based on different metrics of spacetime which in turn messes up pretty much all the physics (Orthogonal) or even basic geometry (Dichronauts), the plots being build around those changes, and thus not really replicable in any meaningful sense without hard sci-fi basis (the events could happen, but without the logic bridging them the resulting story would be meaningless), so no:
Can add Dragon's Egg to that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Egg
Personally though this definition of Scf-Fi dealt with in the thread so far isn't what I find myself interested, which has more to do with people and societies reaction to changes, like how they developin Dune as a result of the Butlerian Jihad.
In my opinion - both Star Wars and Dune treated science the same and took a very story-prime, fantasy approach to sci-fi. I love Dune, so don't think I am knocking it or anything.
Issue is how one uses vaguely scientific things to show what society might develop into without AI and a tight rein on technological development that also has mind to the fact that this state is not a constant - eventually, as a result of Leto's death, the Imperium collapses and scientific develop continues, which results in computers that do away with Navigators.
The other sets up tech that, whether explained or not, is meaningless and is just aesthetic choices, which is why KOTOR has almost no development in tech or a reason to explain why non has happened between it and the movie era.
*at least the original book: Dune which is the one I'm talking about.
It's not just that - the worm IS the ecosystem. Every stage of the worms development is a part of it, from Sandtrout which live and trap water that then create the Spice in Blooms that are then fed upon by Sandworms, of which any surviving Bloom then develops into Sandworms, who when they die, then decay into Sandtrout.
The Mankind introduced Earth-based ecosystem is a rival it fights that eventually destroys most of the Sandworms, which is why the Fremen in Dune Messiah or Children of Dune are shown dealing with an infestation of Sandtrout that attacked a canal of water trying to encapsulate the water, effectively maintaining the desert climate. By the time of God Emperor most of the planet is terraformed into an Earth-like world with only Leto's desert remaining with the surviving worms and himself.
That I'll add ties into the sociological impact of this that is the thing I like in Dune and other works - the Fremen get to imagine their dream of a lust Arrakis, and as a result they as a people stagnate and become a joke of themselves, reduced to hawking souvenirs to tourists because they didn't realize that the planet made their people, and by destroying the desert world they destroyed themselves.
In my opinion - both Star Wars and Dune treated science the same and took a very story-prime, fantasy approach to sci-fi. I love Dune, so don't think I am knocking it or anything.
They're similar, but the key is they have things backward.
Take the Star Destroyer and why it's wedge shaped. It was made that way because it looked cool and it was only later that reasons were scraped together to explain why it was, which resulted in the "designed to concentrate all fire forward" excuse that isn't even a good reason for building a warship that way.
Dune instead may have developed in that way, but much of it was focused on the consequences of things being a certain way and much of the appeal began with "What would society look like if Mankind had no AI, but nonetheless possessed
FTL space travel and had tens of thousands of years to spread across the galaxy?
It is what separates Tolkien too from many other fantasy authors in that he looked with a historians mindset towards writing his world that left both room to work with an rules to follow. That shows in such rules as Elvish names being unique, then realizing he had to Elves with the same name, but instead chose to expand his world by mulling over the implications and settling on introducing reincarnation to his world rather than arbitrarily renaming the one Elf.
BTW, this is why the prequel Dune books are so terrible, as they work to shoehorn shit in retroactively and it ruins the vague, historical vibe Herbert had. Like the Harkonen no-ship in Heretics that was brushed off as the creation of a later Harkonnen left to spiral into degeneracy under Leto's rule showing the House went out in a whimper. Instead, one of the prequels has de Vries and the Baron be the inventors of the no-ship and they did so to create that ship for reasons that are tenuous at best, because one of the two authors wanted to tie that no-ship into the prequels for the very reason why prequels are typical so bad (everything becomes connected, nothing lays outside the focus of a work of fiction to allow it a sense of being a part of a wider world).
It is fantasy because it's full of derpy shit (genetic memory, prescience, etc.) and dubious, usually nebulous technologies (and also technological restrictions) transparently serving entrenchment of fantasy tropes.
Take shields, for example. If Dune was sci-fi, the interaction of shields and lasguns wouldn't lead to near elimination of ranged combat. Rather it would be engineered around and ruthlessly exploited in a way that should be immediately obvious to anyone with IQ greater than room temperature (and that's in Celcius) - using small single shot lasers as warheads/mines and quickly nuking shields along with their users into oblivion of complete obsolescence.
"Muh ecology!" doesn't make Dune any more of a sci-fi series than well researched swordplay would turn a fantasy novel also featuring magic and dragons into a historical one.
But it doesn't because such things developed around a society already dominated by House Corrino, the Landsrad and the Jihad - They wanted to limit warfare just as much as scientific develop because of the human cost and the threat to their mutual powerbase ala "the Pope banned crossbows". Hence Kanly and War of Assassins, hence why the use of old fashion artillery by the Harkonnens is part of the dangerous ploy they and the Emperor are using to defeat the Atreides.Because if became known they built and deployed those weapons to gain an unfair advantage it would add to the deadly scandal of the Emperor working with one House to bring the other down that would unite the rest of the Landsrad against the Emperor. It's for that reason that they are immediate scrapped and forgotten as part of the cover up to make it seem like House Harkonnen simply ambushed the Atreides on Arrakis and got lucky through conventional means in a typical War of Assassins.
And it's for that reason that warfare changes when the Imperium collapses with Leto's death. The ending of Heretics of Dune revolves around the defending side doing exactly what you described, laying out a minefield of floating glowglobes armed with shields that the defenders shoot with lasguns as the enemy advances.
This is an issue that is sadly ignored too much by Sci-Fi in that writers don't fully realize the consequences of tech on society because they're more interested in the tech than the impact it has on people. Oddly in a way, it's the reverse of a Star Wars situation where the science is ignored to fit the societies shown.
Edit: wasn't the idea of genetic memory in scientific circulation when Dune was written? Honestly don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.
It's an interesting take on psychology from a Sci-Fi perspective, that many mental health conditions are the result of it, Abomination and the the like are what we'd call today Schizophrenia while the connection between the two isn't made or pointed out by Herbert because we are so far in the past to those of Dune's time that our ideas around mental health are long forgotten.
It's also neat to think too that the Kwisatz Haderach may have developed naturally in the past, but the poor person became dominated by other personalities. That or how many nature failures close, but not close enough have happened.
It's one that is way off, but it has a kernel of something in that the human mind is not just consciousness driving a vehicle around but multiple aspects of a mind working and conflicting with one another with consciousness stuck in the middle, just as Alia is with all the personalities of her ancestors vying for dominance until she surrenders to the Baron's.
The psychological aspect of the human condition stands out all the more in Dune because it's also such a neglected part of Sci-Fi.
You know what?
I don't care.
SW should have had decency to keel over and die after the third movie (which was still ok, but already stunk in a few places - and that's accounting for it being a popcorn space fantasy adventure flick, lowering the expectations quite a bit) as far as non-interactive media are concerned, and after exhausting the material and potential outlined in the movies when it comes to interactive ones (including odd few remakes and revisionist/ironic stuff).
It has definitely never justified an army of rentawriters churning out piles of glorified fanfics.
It couldn't have even if Lucas wanted to because of Skywalker Ranch. He turned more towards sales of toys and shit during Empire to get that funded and then went overboard with it with Last Jedi when his wife got sick of him being wrapped up in the Ranch and left him. He sold out to get that made pushing merchandise only to realize the Ranch was a failure, but that left the toys and crap stuck in his mind.
There was one thread on here a while ago about how fantasy was inherently conservative/reactionary, which was kind of an epiphany for me. Fantasy is usually about returning to or restoring some past pure, superior state, whereas sci-fi is usually more progressive and about moving into a different, better future. The best sci-fi makes as few assumptions as possible and tries to extrapolate realistic scenarios from it's few "magic" technologies. Like how Mass Effect was all based around one impossible thing (element zero) and tried to stick to that. The problem is it's hard to fit stuff like fireballs and healing spells into a framework like that. With fantasy you have an easier time setting up diverse gameplay and characters, it can all be waved away with "a wizard did it."
It isn't a progressive/reactionary dichotomy, it's that both deal with different things. One being the possible and the other being with what has come before. It's for that reason that they are the two extremes of speculative fiction.
The foundation of Tolkien writing his Legendarium was his realization that the English had no national story of their own. Beowulf was the closest and that came from the Danes and Swedes.
It is ultimately what fantasy and folklore are about, and why something like the Western, has very little to do with the material realities of life in 19th Century North America, but is the distilled spirit and outlook of America on its ancestors that encapsulates things about their people more than anything else does.
(2) Planetary romance is basically just fantasy only elves are called something alien and orcs are called something alien and magic is less fun. There is hardly any meaningful distinction to be drawn between Planet of Adventure (Vance) or John Carter of Mars (Burroughs) and Conan or other pulpy S&S. I like planetary romance to read, but I'm not really sure why you would distinguish between them. Dark Sun strikes me as being as much a "planetary romance" as a fantasy setting (reduced magic, thrikreen, renaming fantasy classes, alien landscape, etc.).
This ignores the sociological and cultural aspects of Sci-Fi that are misunderstood. Most fantasy and sci-fi races are interchangeable because they represent the same things - different aspects of Mankind and human nature pulled out, hyperfocused and exaggerated to reflect upon ourselves.
It's why Roddenberry always insisted that the audience could always see a human face in his aliens, because humanity was his focus (and even when they were hidden, that was to highlight his point, like the rock alien episode and it not being a monster).
The thing is fantasy has no problem with this, it's only the pretenses of Sci-Fi that can result in it being mixed up, and this is coming from someone who feels that too much Sci-Fi focus' on this aspect and ignores speculating on how humans would react and deal with aliens that are literally alien.
Lem stands out because of this, but there's room in between him typical alien races to explore, such as going over what logic and reason actually are and how they could differ widely in aliens and come off as irrational even if their base motivations are understood (which is where Lem departs from this thread).
Actually, Star Trek Deep Space 9 is space opera. A fixed location (more or less), an ongoing mythology and an evolving epic story arc that encompasses multiple seasons.
DS9 has its roots in Westerns. Star Trek itself has roots in it, and no surprise, Roddenberry wrote Have Gun Will Travel episodes before he started developed TOS. That and the Age of Sail vibes along with the thinly veiled races being human ethnic groups shows how much Star Trek was built upon an archetype of 19th Century sailors on a US Navy warship sailing around the world running into Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Turks, etc.
DS9 is Dodge City with different groups of Indians, foreigners and immigrants passing through. The only difference is that Westerns focus more on cultural differences without trying to separate them from their humanity due to modern sensitives to race (such as the differences in honour and decency between whites and Indians, having Chinese go on blood feuds over a cowboy cutting off their pony tail, how differently hillbillys and other strictly speaking whites like immigrants are from mainline Americans).
Because that isn't all that Science Fiction is about, nor is Speculative Fiction as a whole.
It's very neat he does that and how he can reflect upon things, but that doesn't mean it's the end all be all of Sci-Fi.
And like so many things today, I feel like this is coming down more towards differences in left brain/right brain thinking and perspectives that come from them.
I really have some beef with magic that allows one to screw conservation laws.
It's really hard to build any sort of workable setting without conservation laws.
The issue with magic is the issue with many writers not being able to establish and follow rules they set up in their worlds that also includes Sci-Fi. This is again where Dune and Tolkien stand out and where Star Trek sabotaged itself with technobabble.
IMO, it comes down to a base human problem, that we love to act and explain and it's very hard to keep something really vague and unknown to the writer without spilling it onto the pages. Worse is when it passes out of the creators hands and sucessors are desperate to explain these things.
We love mystery, we love to solve mysteries, but we hate when a mystery is solved.
In practice you can pick up a random SF book and you'll have no idea what the setting or plot will be beforehand.
Pick up a random Fantasy book, and if you guess that it takes places in some alternate medieval world and that there is a war going on, there's a 99% chance you will be right.
The problem comes from so many in fantasy seeing the great and drastic take Tolkien made to fantasy in his work, and instead of being inspired to make their own different takes on it, just took his as the archetype to ape.
The sad fact is, by doing so I think they've completely missed what fantasy is about, and that is to reimagine the past and the essence of things in a way way to bring a new perspective to it, which in Tolkien's case is Christianity and Western civilization. People either dilute that essence, if outright ignore it to put out their own imitation, or they hate it and seek to thumb their nose at it, in the end always resolving around what he built.
