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How would Fantasy survive a Sci-Fi Future?

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
(Note: Whether or not you're a future optimist, try and go along with the world I'll lay down)

If in the future certain folks such as Aubrey De Grey and David Sinclair turn out to be correct and immortality will be a reality (fingers crossed), and If CRISPR and other possible future technologies will allow us to edit our own genome as we please after it has been fully mapped, and If a thousand and one more incredible things will happen in the future.... Do you think this will invalidate Fantasy? If all that is incredible in stories can be replicated in real life, will it lose its significance?

My own thoughts on the matter are that Fantasy would still retain its place in fiction, even if we could replicate every single thing within it. I think this because the narratives themselves will still not be replicable. You might be able to buy a sword that would have been magical in the time of Arthur, but you still wouldn't stumble across it by a lake and be given it by a magical woman who happens to be part of your mystical, magical journey. You might be able to... I don't know, grow your own dragon-knock-off, but you still won't be the dashing knight who saves the conveniently placed prince(ss) from it.

So what are your thoughts? And how would Fantasy have to evolve in a theoretical world where its aesthetics and worldbuilding are no longer exclusive to it, but shared by us? Feel at liberty to ramble.
 

Slartibartfast

Minstrel
Nice discussion starter. I think the core of fantasy is that it lies beyond any plausible mechanism that we understand: A flashlight isn't fantastic because we know how it works, the lumos spell in Harry Potter is fantastic because we don't know how it works. I'm sure I'm not the first to say it but I think a lot of what gets called 'sci-fi' is actually just fantasy in a future setting rather than fiction based on a realistic prediction of where modern science will end up: If there's no plausible mechanism it's fantastic, even if we're looking at a starship engineer repolarising graviton particles rather than looking at a wizard calling the spirits to banish the nadia. The swords and sandals aren't required to write a fantasy and even if nothing is written in the magical-pseudo-medieval style ever again I think we'd be able to class this beyond-reality type of writing as fantasy.

The question this post has got me asking myself is: Will we ever get to a point where there is nothing beyond possibility? I don't think so. I don't harbour any belief that the universe was created specifically for humans and therefore I have no expectation that we should be able to understand it in full or that we will ever have that capacity (others' views may differ on that). In any case we are already world-builders at the moment, socially and in terms of infrastructure to start with. Has this diminished the place of fantasy? Not at all, it's enhanced it. We invent the idea of countries and for millennia writers and storytellers have be enthralling us with tales of epic campaigns and battles between said countries. We invent social classes and an economy, the rags to riches story springs into life etc. etc. Stories feed on the world we build and the fantasy genre simply takes the real and goes one extra step - enough to for the reader to let themselves believe for a moment, but still... well, fantastic. The more world we have the more 'real' there is to base your fantasy on.
 
Hi,

The question for me is, what will science be able to reproduce from the fantasy realm? Some things I suspect will always be beyond the realm of scientific discovery - eg time travel. Others are perhaps possible but a very long way off - eg teleportation. So these sorts of things will likely be good fodder for fantasy writing. So, I suspect, will be elves and dwarves, because I don't see us ever discovering these oddly humanish races. Humans and aliens yes, but sylph?

There is however a clear merging of the genres as technology advances and it may well become a genre - possibly science fantasy like Star Wars, in itself. Just think of the technomages from Babylon 5.

Whatever comes, it will be fun to explore.

Cheers, Greg.
 
Hi,

Others are perhaps possible but a very long way off - eg teleportation. So these sorts of things will likely be good fodder for fantasy writing.
If you can imagine the technology, then it's no longer fantasy.

For me the more relevant question is: to what extent are sci-fi or fantasy likely to remain as fiction genres as humans continue to lift their horizons? Could even fiction itself disappear (as literature) and exist only as a movie, or virtual reality game, or deeply immersive blend of the two?
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
The question this post has got me asking myself is: Will we ever get to a point where there is nothing beyond possibility? I don't think so. I don't harbour any belief that the universe was created specifically for humans and therefore I have no expectation that we should be able to understand it in full or that we will ever have that capacity (others' views may differ on that).

Perhaps, perhaps not. I think that long before that scenario would even arrive (if it is possible at all), humans would no longer be. By that time in the future we could be many cycles into post-humanity, and who's to say a post-human would desire fiction at all? Brew a natural chemical cocktail of feel-good... whatever, seeing as by then we might not even be made of regular old human goo anymore, and no more fiction is needed. The sensation of discovery, relaxation and escapism can be replicated every moment of the day.

Before then, while humans are still humanish enough, some regular old form of trans-human, I think you have a good point that there will always still be something out there beyond possibility, and with each new discovery and invention a new world opens that we might not conceive of now. I do have to wonder whether those things beyond the possibility of even the most senior age of trans-human would make for good stories though, and what sort of strange fantasy would people have to invent in a world like that? Begone Dragon, welcome flying, sapient black hole?
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello everyone!

Yeah, I am not gone from Mythic Scribes. I still sign in almost everyday, it's just that I rarely join the discussions around here anymore. This thread in particular gives me an opportunity to share some of my views regarding Science versus Magic, or at least Magic as it is defined in my Fantasy novels, so here I go.

To start with, I strongly believe that in order to exist and work the universe (real world) needs laws, and these laws are very strict limits, unbreakable. Science and technology are all about learning the rules of the universe and giving them various uses, for either good or evil purposes, and they are limited by these unbreakable limits of reality.

In my reasoning, technology has limits and it cannot create infinite advances. There is a point somewhere when it stops, and that is probably a very good thing.

These days, people admire their expensive smartphones and giant TVs and wonderful video games and whatnot, and some believe that we are just steps away from living in Star Trek or something like that. And yet technology remains hopelessly stranded in other aspects of life, and few people think about that.

What, you think that your latest smartphone is as unbelievable as Magic?

Well, give me a flashlight capable of instantly transforming water into whatever wine style that I want and I'll be impressed. Give me a flying broomstick that easily hits hypersonic speeds without any kind of energy source behind it, a leather belt that allows me to become a giant wolf whenever that I want or perhaps the ability to create anything out of nowhere simply because I say so.

Good luck with that!

The beloved Star Trek and other similar works are good examples of this, as well. Inertial Dampener technology? Energy shields? Warp Speed? Artificial Gravity? Imaginary particle beams that can do anything that the episode in question requires?

All of that is simply Harry Potter in space, you know.

Actual Science is a very different thing, beautiful in its own way and terrifying too, but real after all. The universe is unbelievable, but it has limits, and I believe that when these limits are reached by your technology, you cannot go beyond that no matter what you do.

Technology can create many great and wonderful achievements, but in the end, Fantasy and Reality will always be very different things.

On top of that we have the great power and beauty of imagination and storytelling, so I believe that Fantasy literature shall always have a special place in our hearts.

Let's love the unreal!
 
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Hi Sheila,

Oddly some of the things you mentioned are potentially possible. Inertial dampeners - sounds like magic but create the right field - electromagnetics / strong or weak nuclear, aim it in the right direction and you may be able to resist acceleration of variously charged particles which are part of matter. Warp drive - theoretically possible - it's the brain child of a French physicist Alcubierre. And artificial gravity - if Relativity is to be believed gravity is a function of the distortion of space time by matter, so again it could be possible. It's not Harry Potter in space at all. (But it is close!)

Cheers, Greg.
 

Yora

Maester
Fantasy is not about magic powers. Fantasy is an aesthetic.

I'd also love to say that magic is about the supernatural, but I feel that element has largely disappeared in the last 20 years. Magic as alternative physics is totally a thing now, and any sufficiently explained magic is indistinguishable from science.
But I am pretty sure the supernatural will make a comeback, even if it might remain a niche interest.
 
Magic as alternative physics is totally a thing now, and any sufficiently explained magic is indistinguishable from science.
Maybe from the perspective of a pre-scientific thinker, but not from the perspective of any scientist worth the name.

IMHO fantasy writers need to avoid science like the plague. Don't try and make magic explainable or plausible, it will only lead to scrutiny. It will only lead to scientists picking your premises apart.

Magic never works when it's explained.
 

Gospodin

Troubadour
(Note: Whether or not you're a future optimist, try and go along with the world I'll lay down)
... If a thousand and one more incredible things will happen in the future.... Do you think this will invalidate Fantasy? If all that is incredible in stories can be replicated in real life, will it lose its significance?
....
So what are your thoughts? And how would Fantasy have to evolve in a theoretical world where its aesthetics and worldbuilding are no longer exclusive to it, but shared by us? Feel at liberty to ramble.

No, I don't because I don't engage the purpose of the genre in a literal fashion, for either Fantasy or for Science Fiction.

Heretical as it may sound, the props of the two respective genres are not - to me - the genres themselves. In the same way that Science Fiction is never actually about the future, I don't think Fantasy is about exploring alternate realities with alternate rules.

William Gibson, arguably the father of the cyberpunk genre, said the following in an interview with The Paris Review when asked about his stance that Science Fiction is never really about the future:

"There are dedicated futurists who feel very seriously that they are extrapolating a future history. My position is that you can’t do that without having the present to stand on. Nobody can know the real future. And novels set in imaginary futures are necessarily about the moment in which they are written. As soon as a work is complete, it will begin to acquire a patina of anachronism. I know that from the moment I add the final period, the text is moving steadily forward into the real future."

It's an idea I agree with, and one I often employ in the reading of older science fiction works, and also in my engagement of Science Fiction art from decades past. It's interesting to me to view that work and wonder what the driving impetus was for the artist, what inspired the work, and what it's meant to portray since it was meant for the audience of that time, not necessarily for us, these many decades in the future. Retrofuturism, which attempts to re-engage with those long ago aesthetics and idea intrigues me as a method with which to interact with that time."

I feel a similar sentiment is true for Fantasy. The motor of the genre is not the props. The idea that we could bring the narrative props of Fantasy to life in our 3D world doesn't invalidate the reason for writers to engage the idea of writing a Fantasy story, just as ever more realistic effects on the big screen have not served to extinguish the flame. The reason for wanting to explore that venue, to go that route has nothing to do with swords and castles and halflings and magic. It has to do with the lens this realm brings to bear on the real world of the writer and the way that lens allows a certain focus that is not present in our mundane, quotidian engagements.
 
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There is the real dividing line between what we can imagine and what we'll actually do.

Both fantasy and science fiction are on one side: what we can (and will!) imagine.

What we'll actually do is something else entirely.

If all that is incredible in stories can be replicated in real life, will it lose its significance?

Can be replicated is not the same as will actually be replicated.

You might be able to buy a sword that would have been magical in the time of Arthur, but you still wouldn't stumble across it by a lake and be given it by a magical woman who happens to be part of your mystical, magical journey. You might be able to... I don't know, grow your own dragon-knock-off, but you still won't be the dashing knight who saves the conveniently placed prince(ss) from it.

Plus, getting off our VR-entranced butts and actually saving princesses or anyone else....Or spending enough time exploring a lakeside—perhaps, multiple lakesides—to have a chance of finding something wonderful left behind by someone else....meh.

Right now, there are people alive who dream, or fantasize, about being a Hollywood celebrity, or at least about being in a romantic relationship with a Hollywood celebrity heh. This isn't because those are authentically impossible things. They are doable. But not for most people. Similarly, becoming a major pop star or world-influencing politician or multi-billionaire philanthropist playboy: all doable. Many won't do these things; these require a lot of effort, perhaps decades of effort. People might still fantasize about being one of those things.

So this is the answer. Fantasy is a bit like smoking tobacco, as described by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco."

Now, perhaps the tropes will change. Perhaps when anything and everything imaginable can be done (if ever), then the fantasy tropes in vogue will be different than what they now are. Something like steampunk or ... carbonpunk? ("Yes, Tommy. There once was a time when humanity polluted their home planet and created horrible climate change. This is a story about a young man who endeavored to change his world....")

Would that last example be historical fiction instead of fantasy? I'm not sure the genre definitions matter much. I recently watched the Netflix miniseries Godless, and I thought several times while watching it, This is the kind of fantasy tale I'm missing. It's a Western. (And then: Westworld is a fantasy sort of sci-fi western....)
 
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Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Good answers all around, but one thing I would emphasize is that the question isn't whether fiction will lose ground, but whether fantasy will.

A story about an everyman becoming a major politician is certainly A fantasy, but it is not fantasy. A series about living large in Hollywood is A fantasy, but also not fantasy. All of this is fiction, but importantly not fantasy. So where is the line between fiction and fantasy? I'd say (and this is just my definition feel free to offer another) that fantasy is that which lies outside of the possibilities of our time. Thus, if we will live in a world where the aesthetics of fantasy as we know it are replicable, is any fantasy made in that light still fantasy? If it is possible in theory to fight the dragon and save the prince(ss), is it not just A fantasy just like the before-mentioned Hollywood series or the politician underdog tale? And if so, where will fantasy go if other fiction takes what was once its domain?

I think it is fair to shrug your shoulders at that if someone is so inclined, for ultimately it's just a matter of semantics, but... well I like semantics :p I want to imagine fantasy beyond fantasy, but it's sure a hard thing to imagine. Perhaps impossible until we live it, by Gibson!
 
A story about an everyman becoming a major politician is certainly A fantasy, but it is not fantasy. A series about living large in Hollywood is A fantasy, but also not fantasy.

My point with those examples was to show that being able to do something, or having the potential at least, doesn't mean people stop dreaming about doing it.

So in the future world you propose, do all people have access to all the technology? Or are there have-nots? If some people are not able to do some things, they may still like stories about those things. So genetic engineering alloys you, Mr. Ban, to become a sort of tall pixie with golden skin and pointed ears. Potentially, some kid living in Albuquerque won't be able to do these things, either because his family lacks the income or...he's just a kid and not allowed to make such decisions. He might enjoy reading tales about tall pixies with golden skin and pointed ears.

But are those tales still fantasy
, you are sure to ask? For the kid, yes. Yes they are. Heh.

I'd say (and this is just my definition feel free to offer another) that fantasy is that which lies outside of the possibilities of our time.

Well let's use actual science in our exploration of this topic. There is no such thing as "our time." :sneaky:

Doesn't your definition also describe science fiction?

I take your meaning, but I suspect time and possibility are relative. Young children, for instance, may not know all the science yet. Even in that future world you imagine, a three-year-old will still see magic everywhere. (And probably, theists will as well....)
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I can see the argument, but I don't think I agree with this.

If I were to become a tall pixie with golden skin and pointed ears (sure I'll take it, sounds fun), then that becomes a thing within the realm of possibility. To a child it can still be magic, but that does not make it magic does it? It's a very real thing at that point. If a child dreams of becoming the King or Queen of the World, is this fantasy? Their fantasy sure, but I'd argue that it is not the genre of fantasy, for it is feasible albeit minisculely so. In that same sense, if the child dreams of becoming a glorious tall, golden pixe like me, this is their fantasy, but not fantasy, no matter how magical the experience is to them and their minds.

To put it in more silly terms, if I were to fall on my head and come to believe that gravity were magic, a story with gravity in it would still not be fantasy. My perception of reality does not change the consensus of the genre. Now you could write a wonderful story for me where gravity is presented as magic, and it could be a grand and sweeping journey for my addled brain, but the 'Magic' of the journey does not make the substance magic, does not make the subject fantasy.

Doesn't your definition also describe science fiction?

It does. I'm of the opinion that Sci-Fi and Fantasy are functionally the same, only divided by a somewhat arbitrary distinction of what 'seems' to be akin to the past and what 'seems' to be akin to the possible future. This would be a topic unto itself and I do believe we've had a few of those already on this site.

Edit: This does bring up the issue of how much fantasy fantasy needs to be fantasy? If the individual components are all not fantasy, can the whole still be fantasy? Like my original post I'd suggest it's the narrative that makes it fantasy. The uncanny events making up a magical journey make the work fantasy, even if the components are mundane. This way I suppose the stories laid out before can be fantasy in some sense, from the politician to the hollywood hopeful, but importantly not by virtue of their components.
 

Yora

Maester
Interesting. My perception is that fantasy and sci-fi have really nothing in common except that they are set in imaginary settings.
 

Aldarion

Archmage
Fantasy would survive sci-fi future just fine - as our understanding of universe increases, we discover more limits, not less. So there will always be things outside the realm of possible. In fact, I would not limit definition of fantasy and sci-fi merely to understanding of magic/technology (which are functionally one and the same), as there are many other differences besides. So even if we discovered magic, there would still be place for fantasy.

Let's see the list:

TECHNOLOGY
  • Hard Sci-Fi: technology limited by current understanding of what is technologically or else physically possible
  • Soft Sci-Fi: technology not limited by current understanding of what is technologically or else physically possible
  • Fantasy: technology (magic) not limited by current understanding of what is technologically or else physically possible
  • Historical Fiction: technology limited by current understanding of what was technologically and physically possible
SOCIETY
  • Hard Sci-Fi: society usually based around society as it was at the time work was written
  • Soft Sci-Fi: society can range from "actually existed" to "no sense whatsoever"
  • Fantasy: society can range from "actually existed" to "no sense whatsoever"
  • Historical Fiction: society usually based around society as it was at the time work was written
TECHNOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY
  • Hard Sci-Fi: looks forward, and is usually optimistic about technological development of society
  • Soft Sci-Fi: looks forward, is optimistic about technological development of society if not its consequences
  • Fantasy: technology outside magic usually limited to what has historically existed
  • Historical Fiction: technology outside magic usually limited to what has historically existed
SOCIETAL PHILOSOPHY
  • Hard Sci-Fi: often but not always optimistic about social development of society (we will be better in the future)
  • Soft Sci-Fi: often but not always optimistic about social development of society past "humanity will continue to exist"; utilizes full range
  • Fantasy: usually looks at past as something worth remembering, and often shows nostalgia towards society of the past
  • Historical Fiction: looks at past as something worth remembering
PHILOSOPHY OF SUPERNATURAL
  • Hard Sci-Fi: supernatural does not exist, there are merely things which science has not explained yet
  • Soft Sci-Fi: apparently supernatural things do exist, but are in the end always explainable by science
  • Fantasy: supernatural does exist and cannot ever be explained by science
  • Historical Fiction: belief in supernatural exists, but that is the extent of our knowledge of it
 

Vaporo

Inkling
Actual Science is a very different thing, beautiful in its own way and terrifying too, but real after all. The universe is unbelievable, but it has limits, and I believe that when these limits are reached by your technology, you cannot go beyond that no matter what you do.
And then humanity said:
Anyways, personally I'm a believer that trying to predict where science and technology will go and what will be discovered in more than the next five or ten years is an exercise in futility. If you could predict what will be discovered, then there wouldn't be a reason to go and discover it. That said, I also think that there will always be something that is impossible. Some limit that we can't break, some physical rule we always have to follow. Fantasy answers the question of "What if the universe worked this way instead? What if that impossible thing we can't do actually were possible?"

It doesn't even have to be that advanced. If you want, you can just ignore real world physical laws altogether and base your fantasy around breaking the laws of the universe as we perceive them. In a story I'm working on now, there is magic that can perfectly predict the future thousands of years in advance. Physics says this is impossible, due to the random nature of subatomic particle introducing an uncertainty factor into the universe. But, I've chosen to ignore this bit of physics for the sake of writing a better story. Maybe in your fantasy all the electricity and electrical devices in the world stops working one day. Not realistic if you want to have main characters, since our very bodies rely on electrical impulses to survive and even collision between physical objects can be considered an electrical interaction, but it's fantasy. You can break the rules however you like, so long as you break them consistently.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello everyone!

Hi Sheila,

Oddly some of the things you mentioned are potentially possible. Inertial dampeners - sounds like magic but create the right field - electromagnetics / strong or weak nuclear, aim it in the right direction and you may be able to resist acceleration of variously charged particles which are part of matter. Warp drive - theoretically possible - it's the brain child of a French physicist Alcubierre. And artificial gravity - if Relativity is to be believed gravity is a function of the distortion of space time by matter, so again it could be possible. It's not Harry Potter in space at all. (But it is close!)

Hello Greg!

I thought Alcubierre is Mexican? Whatever, I have done some research on the Alcubierre drive every now and then. I still remember some parts of a discussion about it at the Wattpad forums, in which I participated some time ago. It was fun, but I was in disagreement with some people that believe it will somehow become reality in the near future.

I have kind of a love and hate relationship with Theoretical Physics at the moment.

They are studying some very cool ideas, but I believe that they have ventured too far into the territory of things and concepts that cannot be verified at all and yet we are supposed to take them seriously. There is a lot of controversy going on these days with plenty of people that criticize the Theoretical field, and even this acclaimed physicist Roger Penrose has gone as far as saying that Fashion, Faith and Fantasy play an important role in the Theoretical Physics of today.

To be honest, I agree with his point of view very much.

The theoretical ideas that they work with often have a lot in common with Fantasy, and believing that they will actually result in something useful like interstellar travel requires a good dose of near religious faith. The Alcubierre Drive is highly imaginary, and it presents so many potential complications that I just cannot take it seriously anymore.

In one hand, science tells us that things like ghosts, demons, mysterious cryptids, witchcraft and the Afterlife are not real simply because they are not fully verifiable. In the other hand, we have scientists that truly believe in things like parallel worlds, the Multiverse, the Strings theory and the Alcubierre drive, all unverifiable too, thanks perhaps to the fact that those are some of the favorite (or perhaps even fashionable?) ideas today in the Theoretical field.

I believe in black magic because my family has been gravely sickened by it, and my theory is that it consists of some kind of electromagnetic pulse that can be used to hurt living things from a great distance. I believe in Shadow People because my sister and my father have seen them in person, and I believe in ghosts because we have experienced hauntings too.

There is plenty of evidence that supports the existence of such mysterious things, but mainstream science just ignores this kind of phenomena because most of them do not like such concepts. At the same time, all of those weird, unverifiable and often eerie concepts in Theoretical Physics are elevated from Fantasy to plausibility, because they say so, and a lot of people are starting to seriously question the whole thing.

I like Star Trek and its many examples of Magical technology, and a part of me wants fast interstellar travel to be real, but then just like in Star Trek, who knows what nightmarish dangers could be hiding up there.
 
There is plenty of evidence that supports the existence of such mysterious things, but mainstream science just ignores this kind of phenomena because most of them do not like such concepts. At the same time, all of those weird, unverifiable and often eerie concepts in Theoretical Physics are elevated from Fantasy to plausibility, because they say so, and a lot of people are starting to seriously question the whole thing.
No proper scientist supports any idea which has no basis in mathematics or physical theory. And nothing is ever claimed as fact unless it can be verified and replicated by others.

That said, some weird and inexplicable things have happened to me over the years. I always try to keep an open mind to any possibility that isn't an obvious attempt to exploit people.
 
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