# Does Sci Fi Rely on Real Life? – Thesis Question, participation appreciated!



## Alienweirdo (Jan 26, 2007)

Dissertation Title: How the Real World Affects Mainstream Science Fiction

Hi everybody, I have here one of my thesis questions, which I sincerely hope you can participate in. By Sci Fi, i meansci fi in film, literature and comics. i understand Sci fi has an incredibly huge range, which is why i have opted to leave TV out. This is a generaly question. If you have a point to make about Television, please say so.

*Do you think that mainstream sci fi relies on real life events for inspiration*?


   -Predominantly *Yes*, Science Fiction takes aspects of the real world and makes them more interesting.
   -Predominantly *No*, Sci Fi Writers imaginatively create their characters and worlds without much influence from their surroundings.
   -*Both Yes and No*. Sci Fi typically takes influence from equally imagination and reality.

Please Vote in the poll, and if you could add your own opinions and thoughts on the matter, that would also be appreciated. If you have any suggestions of potential modifications (not including spelling =P), or even questions you think may be a good idea to ask, please tell me! Thanks again! -ian-


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## The Ace (Jan 26, 2007)

It's a tricky one.  Science-Fiction relies on the imagination and thus should not be influenced by real life, but writers live in the real world and the writer's attitudes and morals as well as his social conditioning, all contribute to the finished work.  As long as Sci-Fi is written by humans on Earth, it cannot be divorced from reality, nor should it be as its speculation of future human societies is a major part of the human experience.


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## j d worthington (Jan 26, 2007)

Well, I vote "yes" because no creative work comes out of a vacuum, essentially. It's all based in what the person experiences and that their own particular mind transmutes into material for a story. On the more restricted level of "being about" things in the real world ... there's a great deal of that, too; numerous writers have used robots, androids, alien life forms, etc., as symbols for slavery, exploitation of immigrants or lower socioeconomic classes, and so forth. A great deal of the American sf of the late 1940s through the 1950s dealt with McCarthyism from one side or the other. Race riots, economic ills, issues dealing with overall social trends (extreme and repressive forms of religion, politics, philosophies, etc.) have all been and continue to be addressed, in sf. The threat of war, of nuclear annihilation, biological warfare... these are common themes explored, as well.

Essentially, if the writer is anything higher than a very low-grade romance writer, the real world enters into their work; but sf is particularly given to such because it does extrapolate on trends in knowledge and human behavior, looking at the different paths we may take and their possible consequences; and these are generally fueled by what is going on around the writer at that particular time. Simply look at what was happening societally, and you'll see a trend in sf that tends to reflect that in one way or another.


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## Urien (Jan 26, 2007)

Yes science fiction relies on real life, it's often an extrapolation of trends.

Sometimes it's simply a transposition of attitudes prevalent at the time into the future. Look at Star Trek: Next Gen. They had a counselor sitting on the deck next to the captain, a very 80s notion. Or TOS... the uniforms.

Occasionaly sci fi can be predictive; Wells, Verne, Clarke, Gibson all speculated about science that became reality. J.D. has an encyclopedic knowledge of Sci fi and would know much more.


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## Winters_Sorrow (Jan 26, 2007)

^ 
|

What they all said 

Basically, in my opinion, science fiction takes an existing idea and then takes it to extremes using technology as an enabler.
e.g.
Ok, so we have computers - what if we could put ourselves _inside_ a computer? What would we see? How would it change us? And would we lose our humanity as a result?


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## Joel007 (Jan 26, 2007)

The Ace said:


> It's a tricky one. Science-Fiction relies on the imagination and thus should not be influenced by real life, but writers live in the real world and the writer's attitudes and morals as well as his social conditioning, all contribute to the finished work. As long as Sci-Fi is written by humans on Earth, it cannot be divorced from reality, nor should it be as its speculation of future human societies is a major part of the human experience.


 
I agree totally, Ace 
Saved me some writing effort there!


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## palooka (Jan 26, 2007)

Winters_Sorrow said:


> Ok, so we have computers - what if we could put ourselves _inside_ a computer? What would we see? How would it change us? And would we lose our humanity as a result?




Big Tron fan?


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## Parson (Jan 26, 2007)

I vote both. It is axiomatic that no one writes in a vacuum. If there is to be any humanness in a character it has to be drawn from life. The very best characters in all fiction (yes, even romance novels) draw inspiration from the author’s life experiences and acquaintances. But only SF, to my knowledge, gives an award (Campbell?) for the best portrayal of alien life. In some of the very best SF, you have alien races doing things for reasons that are nearly incomprehensible in a human frame work, but totally fitting in their’s. If you would like a taste of these C. J. Cheryth’s Foreigner series, especially book one does this well.


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## Sibeling (Jan 26, 2007)

Of course sci-fi relies on human experiences - it is humans who write science fiction, what other experince could they use? It's not like they know how it is to be an alien..


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## HappyHippo (Jan 26, 2007)

I vote for BOTH;

on the one hand, anyopne who writes draws from the events and people around them, but on the other hand there's always going to be an element of 'genius'.

Sorry, badly worded.


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## Quokka (Jan 27, 2007)

I voted yes, similar to whats been said above a writer has to create even the most alien world from inspiration from real life, allowing readers to use their experiences/ knowledge to interpret the story/film etc. The use of the authors imagination is critical but that itself is based within a framework of their own experiences.

I also thought that if a writer was able to create that impossibly 100% alien world, that did not link in any way to the universe as we understand it and forcing the audience to expirience it soley on its own merits then this would have completely crossed the murky middle ground and placed itself firmly as fantasy as opposed to sci fi.

I dont know how correct it is but I tend to think as Fantasy and Sci Fi as two ends of  a spectrum, with most works containing aspects as both but there is still that point at either ends where its pure Sci Fi or Fantasy.


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## PTeppic (Jan 27, 2007)

Covering a slightly different angle, the technologies that appear in sci-fi are frequently from either solidly imagination or from a mix of reality with extrapolation. Take, for example, ST:TOS. Hand held communicators, electronic notebooks, ear-piece audio transceivers, even transporters... all surely based on entirely imagination or possibly a far extrapolation of existing equipment or working practices. (And now they're all real - would a better question be: does advanced research rely on sci-fi for it's ideas?)

Plot wise, inevitably the themes of the day get re-hosted to a sci-fi setting. Or classic, famous, traditional plots re-used in those locations, e.g. something from Shakespeare, pared-down, and shoved in space.


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## Winters_Sorrow (Jan 27, 2007)

palooka said:


> Big Tron fan?


 
Well yes, but at the time I was actually thinking more of the cyberpunk subgenre following on from the likes of Neuromancer and films like The Lawnmower Man


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## red_temple (Jan 27, 2007)

Both.

Most Sci-Fi comes from the imagination, but real life events and experiences almost always shape our imagination.  A lot of this is done on a subconscious level, so we may not really be "aware" that we are being influenced by an event from our past.


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## HappyHippo (Jan 27, 2007)

PTeppic said:


> Covering a slightly different angle, the technologies that appear in sci-fi are frequently from either solidly imagination or from a mix of reality with extrapolation. Take, for example, ST:TOS. Hand held communicators, electronic notebooks, ear-piece audio transceivers, even transporters... all surely based on entirely imagination or possibly a far extrapolation of existing equipment or working practices. (And now they're all real - would a better question be: does advanced research rely on sci-fi for it's ideas?)
> 
> Plot wise, inevitably the themes of the day get re-hosted to a sci-fi setting. Or classic, famous, traditional plots re-used in those locations, e.g. something from Shakespeare, pared-down, and shoved in space.


 
I watched a really good documentary last year, showing which modern inventions are directly attributed by the inventors to having a Trak inspiration. I-pod, Microsoft, the mobile phone... some very brainy guy's even working on a scanner-like xray machine for detecting and treating (I think) cancer. It's a very symbiotic relationship.


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## Talysia (Jan 28, 2007)

I voted for both.

Imagination comes from the writer, and that drives the story to new levels.  However, without a basis of some sort in reality, it's often difficult to relate to.  That's what I've found, at least.


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## Pyan (Jan 28, 2007)

Both.
Yes, writers draw on "real life" for inspiration- but it's the ability to transcend this and let the imagination break free of it that makes them a _Science Fiction _(or Fantasy) writer.


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## Ian Whates (Jan 30, 2007)

The way the question is framed, I had to vote 'Yes'. Of course imagination is a vital ingredient in anything science fiction, and in many stories it's far and away the most important ingredient, but the initial inspiration invariably comes from something encountered by the author: be it something experienced first hand, or something seen, heard, read, or a combination of such things, reality has to have played a part. 

What the imagination then does with that inspiration is all important, but somewhere buried beneath the fiction, an element of real life will have formed the seed around which any SF story is constructed.

After all, to take things literally, _science _is defined as "the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world" to quote the Oxford English Dictionary. So by definition, Science Fiction is the excercise of imagination based on such study.


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