Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
So... we could consider easy communication with aliens as akin to fantasy. OTOH, it also ranks as being an accepted part of the convention, no matter how unlikely.
Maybe our SF rules need a subcategory of conventions that, strictly speaking, do not fit the accepted rules of SF, but have been accepted nonetheless:
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Er, I wasn't aware we had codified "accepted rules of SF".
Quote:
- Star Drives
- Time Travel
- Psi Powers
- Communicable Humanoid Aliens
Anything else for this list?
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Quite possibly. The basic rule of thumb I apply is that you can postulate whatever you like about things we don't know/things we can't do now, but you have to get the "things we
do know" right. Like, you can't have domed cities under the oceans of Venus ala Henry Kuttner, because we now know Venus doesn't have oceans.
You can certainly postulate that all of the above are fantasy, because they
aren't possible, and you may be right, but that hasn't been conclusively proven, so they are still grist for the SF mill.
If you want, you can base your story on the idea that what we
think we know is wrong, like a variety of stories that suggested the speed of light was a local limitation that did not hold elsewhere, and suggest that a wholly new paradigm of How Things Work will be developed that will make the impossible possible, but that's a
much harder row to hoe.
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Dennis