04-18-2012, 04:20 AM | #111 |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
I don't think there's a single continuum with Hard Sci-Fi at one end and High Fantasy at the other, with Space Opera in the middle. It's a lot more complicated than that. Each genre is marked by a number of common tropes, but they can be mixed and matched to a great degree, resulting in settings that don't fit any one category. Saying "pick one" is excluding a lot of other settings. Also, a large part of this thread has been discussion of what these distinctive genre conventions actually are - such as the prevalence of thinly justified superscience (Star Trek) or magic (Star Wars), the focus on the personal, political and/or societal scale, etc. Let's not be too hastily in making sweeping generalizations.
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04-18-2012, 04:20 AM | #112 | |
Join Date: Dec 2009
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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2) Hitler was a huge fan of Hitler Youth. 3) Constitutions are not followed. |
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04-18-2012, 04:25 AM | #113 | |
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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04-18-2012, 04:29 AM | #114 |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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04-18-2012, 04:33 AM | #115 |
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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04-18-2012, 04:54 AM | #116 | |
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Location: Oregon
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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In fact, my long-time favorite science fiction series would probably have to be Ghost in the Shell. Again, it makes optimistic assumptions about cyber technology, and exercises some cinematic liscense with the narrative and action, but there's little in it that could be considerd superscience. |
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04-18-2012, 05:38 AM | #117 |
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
I guess I have been out of the loop on modern sci fi books.
Transhumanism often comes off as insulting with how easy they think radical genetic engineering is and will be. They are still learning new things about basic inheritance that keeps adding complexity to the "system". |
04-18-2012, 07:35 AM | #118 |
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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04-18-2012, 08:07 AM | #119 | |
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Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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For example, let's say we allow disintegrators and force swords in our "Space Pirates With Laser Cutlass Space Opera." What you'll actually find, before long, is that people who use force swords will die while people who use disintegrators will thrive and win. So you can tell people what your intentions are, but unless you make your mechanics support your intention, you'll have a problem. And the problem here is that Ultra-Tech mechanics tend to favor long-ranged combat, push-button warfare, and high levels of automation which tend to eliminate the "personal" and immediate element so common in the popular conception (or, more specifically, the definition of space opera for the purpose of this thread) of space opera. Thus, the thread. Telling me "Just call it space opera" is useless if you don't have mechanics to back up the space opera label (or better, suggestions for the sorts of mechanics that support space opera). Unless you mean to suggest that space opera cannot possibly have the same level of verisimilitude as hard sci-fi, in which case I disagree with you.
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04-18-2012, 08:28 AM | #120 | |||
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Re: Space Opera vs Hard Sci-Fi, personal vs realistic
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