Poll of the Day > Science-fiction or Fantasy?

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I prefer Fantasy because there's more room for imagination.
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I really love both sooo much. Especially ones that are a mix of both. If I absolutely had to choose just one, I guess fantasy.
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Mix of both but I like to call it Fan-Fiction
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Science Fiction just feels like there is more room for experimentation. Fantasy would seem like the winner in that respect, but pretty much all Fantasy just feels like it is Tolkien based. I don't think there has been a lot of experimentation in Fantasy in the last 30 years or so.
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Hard Science Fiction. I am talking about stuff like Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, The Expanse, Dark Matter, The X-Files, anything with some crazy "well it could be possible" tech. Bonus points if there are space ships. The Lost in Space reboot was frikkin' amazing.

I do not like "Space Magic" (Star Wars, MCU) at all, with exception to maybe the X-Men film franchise.
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Mixed. Games I prefer Zelda to Metroid for instance. Although movies I prefer Star Wars to LOTR. And tv I prefer Game of Thrones to Westworld. It just depends on the work itself more than the genre
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Dikitain posted...

Science Fiction just feels like there is more room for experimentation. Fantasy would seem like the winner in that respect, but pretty much all Fantasy just feels like it is Tolkien based. I don't think there has been a lot of experimentation in Fantasy in the last 30 years or so.

Harry Potter was certainly not Tolkien based. Game of Thrones is highly original with their magical aspects. There are a lot of cool fantasy aspects in the Marvel movies that are very much not Tolkieny. There's plenty of creativity and possibility left. :)
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I think I endlessly alternate between them
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Both are good. I prefer fantasy though.

Moonjay posted...

Dikitain posted...

Science Fiction just feels like there is more room for experimentation. Fantasy would seem like the winner in that respect, but pretty much all Fantasy just feels like it is Tolkien based. I don't think there has been a lot of experimentation in Fantasy in the last 30 years or so.

Harry Potter was certainly not Tolkien based. Game of Thrones is highly original with their magical aspects. There are a lot of cool fantasy aspects in the Marvel movies that are very much not Tolkieny. There's plenty of creativity and possibility left. :)

zombies, people controlling animals, people talking to dragons, and some wizard living in a tree are all unoriginal.

biggest part of fantasy in marvel movies is thor. thats certainly not original
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Judgmenl posted...

Hard Science Fiction. I am talking about stuff like... Doctor Who

Not sure I agree with you on that one. I think of hard sci-fi as having a basis in scientific theory and some model of how their technology works. Too often Doctor Who feels like they made stuff up as they went along and flat out ignore when it contradicts why something supposedly happened in another episode. They can try to explain stuff in scientific terms but when you have episodes like Kill The Moon where their science is clearly wrong you might as well drop the pretense.
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Fantasy for the most part.
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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Judgmenl posted...

Hard Science Fiction. I am talking about stuff like... Doctor Who

Not sure I agree with you on that one. I think of hard sci-fi as having a basis in scientific theory and some model of how their technology works. Too often Doctor Who feels like they made stuff up as they went along and flat out ignore when it contradicts why something supposedly happened in another episode. They can try to explain stuff in scientific terms but when you have episodes like Kill The Moon where their science is clearly wrong you might as well drop the pretense.

But at least there is some established universe where things make some sort of coherent sense (and an overarching lore). They usually don't throw out random "lolspacemagic" plots out thin air, but the exmaple you provided was a really weird episode that rubbed me the wrong way.

It would have been very easy for someone along the line to have said the time lords are space wizards, but in fact we learn they are a highly advanced species with technology far beyond what Earth has.
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Fantasy makes better stories. SciFi makes better movies.

Mixing the two is dangerous, because you end up creating movies that have names you can't remember that you don't talk about because you're not entirely sure you didn't just make it up because of how insane it would be, and you're sure not going to try and describe what sounds like a fever dream to someone.
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Mix.

We need more proper games with a fantasy setting that has advanced to the point of magical spaceships already.

Star Ocean almost counts but its mostly Star Trek ships with fantasy mages here and there and the rare instance of someone getting a particularly well-learned mage to enchant a starship's warp core.

Xenosaga wasn't too bad because it effectively wound up with technology so advanced that "magic" was effectively possible (via "ether" technology), combined with the fact that supernatural stuff was also a thing.

World of Warcraft is actually the BEST game at this so far, honestly. The interstellar starships in it are all powered directly by magic. However, the universe of Warcraft is remarkably unlike our own (stars are actually crystal deity things, space doesn't really match up with our concept of space and might possibly not even be a vacuum, etc)

But honestly, I'd love more settings where humans, elves, and dwarves are flying around their solar system in magic-powered ships or something, and maybe just a little before the point where they figure out how to make a jump drive equivalent.
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waterdeepchu posted...

Fantasy makes better stories. SciFi makes better movies.

Mixing the two is dangerous, because you end up creating movies that have names you can't remember that you don't talk about because you're not entirely sure you didn't just make it up because of how insane it would be, and you're sure not going to try and describe what sounds like a fever dream to someone.

Mixing the two is fine if you don't act like Square Enix when you do it (of course, they will sometimes do it even when its NOT a super high tech setting too...).

Just because a ship is made with and powered by magic doesn't mean you have to call the engines something other than "___ engines." You can use simple enough terms to name and describe components and parts, with the occasional technician or engineer type character sometimes using a bunch of "formal" names for each specific part they yap about that frankly a lot of the game's cast wouldn't even know the meaning of.

People name things based on what they do. Whether its powered by magical circles and gemstones or highly advanced artificial gravity technology, a warp drive can still be called a warp drive because, well, it WARPS. A sublight engine can still be called a sublight engine (though this would imply that there is also a FTL one of some sort).
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