Let's Talk Sci-Fan

[HGohwell]

Hello Tapas Forums! I am HG, I'm new here, soon going to be publishing a Sci-Fan webcomic (finishing up the buffering phase) and wanted to get talking.

Sci-Fan isn't hugely recognised as a genre of it's own, it's not even got a strict definition. Some people consider it to be where Sci-Fi meets Fantasy (robots vs dragons) and some people use the definition others call Soft Sci-Fi (it's a fantasy of science, there's not solid scientific basis but it's got the right feel like most giant robots and pretty much anything including FTL). My comic falls into both versions.

But this got me thinking. You probably know lots of media that falls under those definitions of Sci-Fan too. So where do you draw the line? Where does Fantasy become Sci-Fi? When is Sci-Fi become Fantasy? Robots can be magical, how is a suit of armour magically animated not a robot? And what's the difference between a fantasy beast and an alien? Dragons could have evolved on alien worlds, just look at the insane stuff that's involved in the deep oceans for pretty insane animals.

And this is I think where Sci-Fan comes in. Where the lines start to blur. And I'm curious what other people think. Where do you draw the line between Sci-Fi and Fantasy personally? Have you ever even heard of Sci-Fan as a thing? What about when worlds try to explain magic with vaguely plausible science when it clearly is just magic? Do you like the blending of the two genres and world views? Discuss with me, man.

P.S. I'm not some super science nerd, I just quite like it as a hobby so I'm not saying anything that isn't 110% scientifically accurate or Hard Science can't be called Sci-Fi and has to be Futuristic Fantasy/Sci-Fan. Nor am I saying I think Sci-Fan should be more recognised as an "official" genre. I mostly use it as an easy short hand so people understand quickly what they're in for. I'm just curious what other people think.

[antimekii]

I've read about a lot of different genres under sci-fi and science fantasy is one of them. One of the easiest example would be the Star Wars saga, it blends the space and science with an unexplainable magic also known as the "force".

Personally, I use the (Lord of the Rings - Star Wars - Star Trek) meter in determining where the series falls into. Medieval/Otherworldly setting, dragons and magic = Fantasy. Post apocalyptic/space setting, machines and a dab of ethical philosophy= Usually sci-fi.

[HGohwell]

Haha yes Star Wars is definitely the most well known version of the Fantasy in a Sci-Fi universe version (oddly the Sci-Fi elements in a Fantasy world seems far less common). The Force is definitely magic.

I think part of the problem with drawing lines in that more traditional way is the trend for explaining typically Fantasy things with science. Vampires, zombies and werewolves ect having started getting (admittedly flimsy but does that matter? Is it just attempting to sciencey hand wave that gets you into Sci-Fi) attempts at explaining them scientifically. Often as a virus or similar. And there's a trend for Alchemy to be explained as simply reshaping things on an atomic level (which is also flimsy but at least reasonably based in science) and simply appears as magic (because Clarke's 3rd Law). Which all leads into what I think is the main need for Sci-Fan, the point where it's incredibly blurred and it's not clear where science becomes magic.

[shazzbaa]

I like the term "Speculative Fiction." It covers basically anything where you're asking "what if this were true?" and finding a story in that world, whether the "what if this were true" is a speculation of What Could Be or Something That Could Never Be.

Ultimately where you draw that line depends on whom you're drawing the line for, I think. In a literary sense, I consider the difference between sci-fi and fantasy to fall more in the purpose of the work. Like.... sci-fi is often about society. It's a projection of where our technology and social changes will take us. What kind of world might we build if we're not careful (a warning), what kind of world could we build with the knowledge we have (a vision). There's science advances involved, but sci-fi is really about right now -- it's very obvious that Star Trek is about the 60s and 70s and not the 2200s.

Fantasy, by contrast, feels to me like an attempt to remove that specificity. When I was talking to a sci-fi loving friend about Why I Write Fantasy, I struggled to explain it in words, but the best I could come up with is that I want to write about people, in general. I want to write about shy people or people with a horrible past or people who feel alone or people who meet and manipulate and hurt and apologise and forgive each other. But if I write about a kid in Chicago, I have to know a lot about Chicago, and if I get it wrong, or if you already have feelings about Chicago, you'll get distracted and you'll miss the Person inside that I'm trying to write about. So a fantasy world is a way to remove that, to remove the specificity of Time and Place and Exact Situation, and to focus on other elements you wanted to focus on without distraction.

So, in a Literary sense, I'd see Fantasy as something that seeks to resonate with people in an internal way, while Sci-fi is a more external exploration of our society through the lens of the future and of where that society might take us. But of course, seen that way, you might get some.... weird categorisations. You might end up with a world of magic that's actually an examination of society. You might end up with a fully scientific world that it turns out had nothing to say about society at all and just wanted to see aliens smooch.

So then, if you're drawing the lines for readers, that's different -- if you're interested in fantasy, will you like this work? In that case, I find the trappings end up actually being more important. Is there a bunch of sciency stuff? It's sci-fi. Is there a bunch of fantastical magic? It's fantasy. Is the aesthetic futuristic? It's sci-fi. Is the aesthetic rustic or medieval? It's fantasy. That feels too simple but like......... I dunno man, if I'm looking for a fantasy story that's what I'm looking for. It's okay if the fantasy story has robots in it, but I want them to be fantasy robots. If I'm looking for sci-fi it's okay if there's some handwavium in there, I just want it to handwaved competently and to fit. Star Trek and Star Wars both have handwaving, but one has a mystical aesthetic while the other doesn't, and that means one of them feels more sci-fi than the other.

Because, I feel like 9 times out of 10 it's not really "I'm looking for a story with a lot of scientific explanations" or "I'm looking for a story with a more universal, fairytale sort of plot" -- you're looking in that genre because it's easier for you to relate to that world, for whatever reason; the trappings of that world resonate with you when the trappings of the other don't. And so once you get riiiiiiiight on the line between the two, you might as well just call it "sci-fi/fantasy" because it's going to be super individual -- folks are gonna have to look at the story to determine whether it hits the tropes that turn their brain off or if it hits the tropes that resonate with them.

s-so uh, this got long but, thanks for reading my new novel about the contrasts of sci-fi and fantasy that I apparently decided to write today, i hope iT MADE SENSE,

[DokiDokiTsuna]

As someone who took two fun-but-mostly-useless courses on "science fantasy" in my freshman year, just thinking about answering this topic is giving me flashbacks...
I decided that it was easiest to think about it as fantasy elements being expressed in a futuristic context. Most of what we consider to be "sci-fan" falls neatly into that description. Star Wars, for example, is pretty much a knight/samurai tale with laser swords. If you insert futuristic technology into any stereotypical fantasy setup, you'll probably end up with science fantasy.
Check out the flowchart I made for my final project in that class ^^:

And before I go...

The Force is definitely magic.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MIDICHLORIANS??

[Strontium]

I really like science fantasy books and stories! I like the idea of what we'll be doing in the future combined with mythology and magic.

[HGohwell]

@shazzbaa A great novel 10/10 would definitely recommend lol. It would be a lot easier if I could just stick things in the Speculative Fiction section to stop me having to narrow it down but they don't have that on many sights as an option. But that's definitely an interesting way to look at it from a literary standpoint, and one I've never really heard before. It definitely makes sense and of course any categorization has issues but that's definitely one of the more interesting and sensible ways I've seen.

Drawing the line for readers is definitely the trickier part. Readers definitely look for more specific tropes and themes so as I use both it definitely feels like the blended name is useful but it does then become harder for people to tell if it's for them, of course.

@DokiDokiTsuna First of all I'm very jealous you got to take Science Fantasy courses. I'm lucky to find courses of creative writing/media let alone more specialized courses. That's definitely an easy to follow definition. Very cool flowchart too (who doesn't love a chart) and ended up on Sci-fi for my lack of robot dragons (which let's be honest all worlds need more of anyway).

@Strontium Blending the two is definitely something I enjoy a lot. Especially looking at how technology would change if there was magic competing with it.

---

So I thought I'd offer up my own worldbuilding as a bit of case study because it definitely falls into more of the blurred lines and blended world. I'll try to keep it brief so I'm not going into a huge ramble but feel free to discuss and let me know what you think:

To start the story takes place in another star system where travel between planet is part of normal life. Magic is also a normal part of life. The system orbits a magic star. One of the creator beings, seeing the worlds struggling became one with their star, so everywhere the sun's light touches there is life and magic. And this where their technology came it. Their magic is essentially solar powered so at night or when the planet is eclipsed or even on reasonably cloudy days, magic levels can drop significantly meaning their worlds also developed a lot of technology to try and live comfortably even in times when magic wasn't accessible. There are giant robots and other war machines powered by mini-quasars and planets with giant orbital ring space stations combined with genuinely reality warping magic, every day acceptance that there are essentially gods out there and people working to find ways to combine magic with technology in more and more ways (such as fuelling engines and magical solar batteries).

[hisstidine]

I like science fantasy, and it can be fun trying to classify existing fiction as science fantasy. I went down the rabbit hole a while ago trying to decide whether one could argue that Mass Effect involves space magic.

From a worldbuilding perspective, whether something is science fantasy depends on the person writing it. I would say that my own stories start out fantasy but head towards science fantasy. In my worldbuilding, magic exists but has a biological explanation and is something that people research at academic institutions. My background is in science, so I can write some reasonably convincing and grounded junk about how it actually works.

Science fantasy doesn't have to be that grounded though. I have a soft spot for robots and dragons in the same story, as well as for space magic like the Force. I like your worldbuilding and the idea of magic stars.

[HGohwell]

It is definitely a lot of fun to look at existing series and seeing how they mix the two and to what level.

I definitely agree world building is important to where it fits. Sometimes Fantasy elements sneak into Sci-Fi just to help ease the plot along and sometimes like me people set out to merge the worlds. I'm definitely always interested in stories where magic has more grounded explanations so I'll definitely check that out.

Thanks! The star came from necessity of the world. I needed a reason why they world would have high level technology when magic could do everything, since I wanted the tech. And while I was thinking about limitations on the magic system to balance it, sometimes it just fading out because it was solar powered made sense and isn't something I remember seeing before unlike a lot of the more common limitations. And so the magic star was born.

[lil-sea-salt]

Sci Fi for me is more galactic or space themed with robots or aliens.
Fantasy is more creature based with magic abilities and mythology.

I think there is a lot of Sci-Fan in Horror.

I think it's pretty rare in a case when both sci fi and fantasy are in something together in equal measure. and if it is it's often supernatural. I've never really even considered them to be the same thing as they are both so distinct in my head. I think the things sci fi is based on is so different from what fantasy is based on.

I think there are often elements of one in the other, but one always dominates as they each have their own common story arcs which are mutually excluding of each other.

[HGohwell]

I definitely agree there's a lot of Sci-Fan elements in the Horror genre, which has equally blurred lines with Sci-Fi and Fantasy (I feel like I'm building a complicated Venn diagram here). Particularly the Lovecraftian and Cosmic Horror flavours. A lot of these ancient beings have a sense of alien that fits with Sci-Fi while at the same time matching a lot of the Fantasy tropes for ancient magical beings.

I agree that there's very rarely an equal measure of both, and perhaps it's more common in anime/manga than in western media, which is interesting in itself, but I don't think it's fair to say one always or even nearly always dominates. Just a few I've recently seen with friends that definitely include good measures of both and don't really hit heavily on either (disclaimer: I've not seen all the way through all of these and am not claiming they are good they're just examples that work) include:

• Cross Ange: Pretty girls in giant robots fight dragons because a gene that lets you use the magic in the world make you vulnerable to dragons. They also fight a guy who some people call God but who claims to be just a scientist but did create several Earths and did give Humans magic and is pretty magical and immortal.
• Symphogear: Magical girls but with armour powered by science (and singing vibrating on in a certain way) fight extra dimensional beings (and potentially God who built the moon as a super computer to keep Humans under the Curse of Baal).
• Magical Girls in general are leaning more towards alien advanced tech and less magical magic.
• Rinne No Lagrange and Valvrave The Liberator: Both giant robot shows that while set in mostly Sci-Fi worlds (one in space in dyson spheres in the future, the other in a only mildly futuristic Japan only 10 years or so ahead fighting with aliens) but then throw the entire thing for a loop when there are things like telepathic robots, space vampires who are definitely using magic and don't even try to call it otherwise, reincarnation and possession.
• Pretty much anything Power Rangers/Super Sentai or similar.

I'd also mildly disagree on Sci-Fi generally being space or robots and aliens. Things like Steampunk (anything-punk really) is generally considered Sci-Fi, as are many dystopian pieces.