Talk:Science fiction themes

Is it just me or is this page very similar to Science Fiction concepts? Any objection to the idea of folding them into each other (this page is certainly better wiki-ed than t'other) and redirecting concepts here? --Bth

Sounds good to me, go for it. --Brion

I've made a few value judgements that some of the things in concepts were ... well, a bit minor. I'm listing them here for the record, and so that anyone who disagrees can restore them:

• Humanoid aliens/non-humanoid aliens. In media SF, humanoid aliens are a budgetary necessity more than anything else. And by listing both of those, you're just coming back to "aliens"
• Aliens interfering in human history i decided was a subclass of Secret History
• Flying cars; they're a prop, I would contend, rather than anything more significant.
• Ditto for spray injections
• Ditto videophones, esp. since we have them now.
• "FTL signature"? I assume this refers to how you can tell where an FTL ship's been, but it doesn't strike me as a major SF theme/concept
• I took out "Spacecraft" and "Space Stations". They probably want to be restored; perhaps we need an "exploration of space" section, with "interstellar travel" folded into that
• Religions (anti-science/anti-spaceflight/anti-computer) I took out because I don't think that's a balanced view of SF's view of religion. A lot of SF does like to bash religion, true, but not all of it. Off the top of my head I can raise the following objections: Cordwainer Smith, the Superet Light Church in Stephen Baxter's Ring, who are the prime movers of a big project to fly a spaceship to the end of time, Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, about a Catholic first contact mission, and I'm sure there are many many others. I would like to see religion in the list, but I don't have the time/energy to treat it properly at the moment.

I also removed space opera and techno-thriller, 'cos they're subgenres rather than themes (maybe that logic could be applied to alternate history too, but I'm not claiming to be consistent). And I changed the text at the top about how "new writers should avoid these", since a) it wasn't NPOV, b) it was badly written and c) this has turned into a fairly comprehensive list of everything in SF, and it would be a bit difficult for new writers to write an SF story without at least some of these components. It's "science fiction themes", not "science fiction cliches"

--Bth

FTL Signatures have been widely used, most promenintly in Star Trek, but also in Asimov's Foundation series, Cambell's The Idealists (where he calls them "Wakes"), and in the Elite computer game series.

--Imran

Right so. I still don't think they're a major theme/concept, rather just a part of whatever invented FTL technology the writer contrives. --Bth

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Does "Uplift" qualify to be listed on this page? (The fact that it's been linked to a specific author article suggests that it's going to fail the "re-used by many authors" criterion.) -- Paul A 04:03 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

Point taken. I've seen it in several places (Orion's Arm being another) but haven't done the research to compile it. I suspect it's a growing theme but you're welcome to remove it. Samw

It occurs to me that "uplift" as seen in Brin's novels is arguably the intersection of two more common science fiction themes: "earthlings enter wider galactic society" and "technological tinkering makes animals smart". I can think of multiple examples for either of those, but not many that combine both. -- Paul A 05:08 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

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I removed the link to the Galactic Empire because the link refers to that Galactic Empire in Star Wars. Perhaps a link to Galatic government would be more appropriate. -- Two Halves not logged in

I resolved this, and restored the link, by making Galactic Empire a (short) article, rather than a redirect to Galactic Empire (Star Wars)