Talk:List of science fiction themes

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Science Fiction concepts

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
since this was posted, concepts was merged into Outline of science fiction.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 07:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removals and additions

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


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)


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)
Yes, that works well. Thank you for doing that. -- Two Halves

Category

I reckon we could do with a Category:Science Fiction Concepts - it would contain most/all of the items on this list, plus also the ones which aren't widespread or generic enough to appear, but are still noteworthy. Just thought I'd ask whether there are any similar categories, or any other reasons why it might be a bad idea, before going ahead and creating it. Chris Thornett 13:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I just noticed Category:Science fiction themes... Chris Thornett 20:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Im not for the last change

Hi AKR

I am not for the last change you did about politics. You should be less accurate or more general, speaking about the 2 extreme, as well as to involve just alien views.. I suggest. --Despres (talk) 14:42, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I don't understand, could you see if you can make your point more clearly. --AKR619 (talk) 03:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

on wikia

on the wikia called future there is a saving of this page if users delete the page on wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Despres (talkcontribs) 14:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AKR619 I meant it's way too political

your stock you puted on the page is way too political and not enough science fiction, I would say and I suspect. We all know politics has many allure but does it make it science fiction? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Despres (talkcontribs) 06:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The future of female/male

hi

anybody know the future or some science fiction stories or any particular topic related to the battle if there is one, of female/male. We know that with robotics, women wont need to make children anymore, robots will do them, so Im asking if female will disapear or will fight over men. or just partner as the origin of our species.

--Jon —Preceding unsigned comment added by Despres (talkcontribs) 04:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or vice versa. There are stories in which everyone is hermaphroditic (Schild's Ladder, Oceanic); stories about colonies where only one sex exists (Virgin Planet, Spartan Planet, War with the Yukks, Ethan of Athos) for various reasons ... —Tamfang (talk) 03:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See alsos

I've moved these here so they can be discussed. Why is thier link to SF, that makes it so interesting for readers that they might want to read these articles?

  • Disruptive technology
    - a term from real life economics. Itz means any (real) technology that disrupts existing markets. This is more likely to be found in mainstream fiction than SF.
  • Exploratory engineering - is a real discipline of engineering. Why is it here, but mathematical modelling isn't? or computational chemistry? or xeno-geology? See also shouldn't be the place to list ALL sciences that have ever been in an SF book-
  • List of emerging technologies - similarly, these are real technologies - all because they have sometimes been in SF books does make them appropraiate for the see also. How is wireless internet of major importance to SF themes?
  • Fictional technology
    .

Tags

Removing the uncited tag is clearly in bad faith. Who thinks this article is cited? anyone? This is not an opinion, everyone can see that it clearly has no references!Yobmod (talk) 08:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Merge info:

The following is a list of science fiction topics.

Topics

Lists

Science fiction by country

Media

Information sources

See also



Protected

The page has been protected.

Please discuss here on the talk page.

Incidentally, there have been edit summaries that are simply inappropriate. Further attacks or incivility may lead to further sanction. - jc37 11:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Upon further investigation, I've changed it to semi-protection. However, if this ends up hindering discussion, full-protection will be re-enabled. - jc37 17:13, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Need greater clarity per WP:LIST#Lead section or paragraph

"If the title does not already clarify what the list includes, then the list's lead section should do so. Don't leave readers confused over the list's inclusion criteria or have editors guessing what may be added to the list." and Wikipedia:Featured list criteria recommends that "[a list] has an engaging lead section that introduces the subject, and defines the scope and inclusion criteria of the list."

Currently the lede is very vague which is perhaps one of the factors leading to the recent edit war.

Is there some way that we can more clearly define the expected content and organization of this list article? -- The Red Pen of Doom 17:53, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If no one gets to it before monday, i'll take a stab at adapting parts from the Science fiction articles intro - that has some cited stuff on general themes. I'm currently pushing 2 lists through to featured Lists, so will see if the leads i wrote for them are ok with reviewers.Yobmod (talk) 18:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just what is this article's focus?

I don't suppose anyone has thought through the distinctions and overlaps among and between theme, motif, trope, concept, novum, and (sub)genre--? These are all category terms relating to content, but not all category terms serve the same function in SF criticism--or are even used in exactly the same way. First job: figure out exactly what is being described here and get a grip on the appropriate critical terminology.

Then there's the OR issue: Much of this article strikes me as being just that, rather than a report on or digest of what various authorities in the field have to say about the conceptual building blocks of SF (which is what the article seems to be trying for). There is a literature that deals with this, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel or make up new terms.

As it stands, the article is a straggling list of "ideas some people find in SF," peppered with nonce terms and links to WP articles of dubious relevance or usefulness. (Paradise engineering? Quantum suicide? Nudity in science fiction?!) In fact, I wonder whether the project is a reasonable one, since the "ideas" (themes, tropes, motifs, concepts, novums) that SF can address is endless--essentially, any scientific or pseudoscientific notion or area of study. There are hundreds of books and essays that grapple with exactly this problem, a body of scholarship not easily reducible to a Wiki list. RLetson (talk) 17:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think i merged 3 very similar lists into this one. The problem with making separate articles for themes, tropes etc is that the boundary between is impossible to police. But i agree the whole list looks like OR at the moment. Next step will be to maybe split the lists into sections for tropes that make something SF from the themes that can occur in any genre that SF has notably tackled. Btw, the nudity in SF article was redirected as being a cruftlist, and some of the other tpics should have similar things done to them.Yobmod (talk) 12:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reverts

Why are people reverting to the poorly formatted and organised version - have they even looked at the changes? A list of SF character types exists as a seperate article, completely sourced; why revert to a version of this article with a redundant unsourced coipy of that? And why to the version before the themes were sorted into relevant sub-headings?Yobmod (talk) 08:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In order to get protection removed, here is what i propose the article should be:

changed back to the version in which the themes are organised by topic, instead of being randomly ordered, and the improvment templates are put back, and the uncited original research that i disputed and removed according to policy be removed unless someone finds some cites.Yobmod (talk) 14:02, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is the rationale for constantly deleting the lead, with all it's citations, and the improvment templates? We could make an RfC, which would certainly support the version more in line with policy (ie, less OR and more cites), but as the only person reverting has "retired" from wikipedia and ignores talk pages, it seems dispute resolution would be useless.Yobmod (talk) 09:07, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As no talk is happening, despite repeated requests, i'll reply to the last edit summary: "All what you're doing is deleting themes that aren't exclusive to science fiction, yet every theme in science fiction can be used in fantasy, horror, even surreal comedy, this is vandalisim".
It is not vandalism, as none of these themes have any sources, therefore are original research. Themes that can be used in SF and any other genre are not appropriate for this page, as this includes every theme ever used in fiction. However, continuous removal of the improvement templates, and the lead along with all citations does constitute vandalism, particularly when no reason is giving for doing so.Yobmod (talk) 09:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And the reverts continue. If a version of the article exists that is more than just a list, we should stick to it and amend piecemeal rather than revert wholesale to an agreeably inferior version.
talk) 12:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply
]

Stock characters

There is cited list of SF stock characters linked in the this list. Can anyone give a reason that this article should have another such list instead of the link to the subarticle?Yobmod (talk) 13:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Same reason why we can't have links to the subarticles like domed city, walking city, floating city as well as many more. What kind of idiot refuses us to have those things on this page, oh that's right, you. --AKR619 (talk) 05:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Floated TOC

Any reason the TOC is now floated left? AFAIK this is recommended against as it interferes with text readers for blind people (? or some reason), so should only be used with a specific reason. I'll unfloat it if no-one has objections. Hmmm, but maybe this is the reason "If the TOC is going to be placed in a long list page, it should be floated." Is this page long? I'll leave it for now.Yobmod (talk) 13:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What to include?

What about imdb.com links with movies and television with those science fiction themes, and come on we got to include something like "this doesn't need a citation" to themes like alien invasions and time travel just in case some retard comes on and demands citation to where such things as alien invasions and time travel can be used in science fiction. Oh and don't complain about my choice of words for them, because they have to be if they demand citation to where of all such things alien invasions and time travel can be used in science fiction. --210.49.251.226 (talk) 06:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Time travel and aliens have citations. IMDB is not a RS. Thank you.

IMDB trivia may not be a reliable source, but pages for the movies and television pages are, especially the ones with posters, because those movies and television shows DID happen. --210.49.251.226 (talk) 23:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Revamp of list

In line with RLetsons comments above, about these not all being themes, i'm thinking of arranging the tropes that obviously form parts of the themes under each theme, then if the tropes have sub-article, making them into collapsible lists. This way the list is maximally useful for people just browsing, without looking like a long mess. I think a (sourced) paragraph explaining how and why the theme is important in SF should be written too, some of which will simply be condensations of the articles we have.

Eg:

Main heading - Advanced technology (with cite)

sub-heading - Space travel (with cite)
Sub-heading - Military (with cite)
collapsible list with : weapons in SF, Rayguns etc etc

Main heading - Alternative societies (with cite)

sub-heading - Politics in SF (with cite)
collapsible list with: libertarianism, Robocracy etc etc.
sub-heading - Religion in SF (with cite)
collapsible list with: Religious ideas in SF
sub-heading - Sex and gender(with cite)
collapsible list with: Sex in SF, Gender in SF, Homosexuality in SF, etc etc.

Any opinions on ordering, or problems with using collapsble lists? Also, does this page therefore need a rename to List of SF themes and concepts or somesuch?Yobmod (talk) 10:49, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts

First, I agree with the idea of keeping this to the more "strict"

sci-fi, rather than try to include those of the several overlapping genres (such as horror or fantasy). This being a wiki
, after all, we should easily be able to have several such lists, and simply "see also" them.

Also, my recollection is that the inclusion of "

science-fantasy
".

Sci-fi tends to relate directly to differences (I'll shy away from calling them necessarily "advancements") in

norm
", to whatever the author may be describing/presenting in their work.

That said, the philosophical change to the person/group/society must be science/technology related for it to be called more than just a work of philosophy, and to instead be sci-fi. (There have been arguments about Thomas More's Utopia for years - whether it should be called sci-fi or not. I'll shy away from that debate as well : )

And all of the above would obviously need to be cited from various sources.

(I not so recently read an old article where they were discussing the various works of Arthur C. Clarke, and analysing whether they fell into philosophy, sci-fi, or sci-fan.)

Good luck on the ReOrg. (I may join in myself if time and energy permit : ) - jc37 03:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alright so I'll take you agreeing not to include alien invasions and time travel and stuff like that in this list because it can be included in science fantasy as a vote to delete the page, or stuff it up some more --210.49.251.226 (talk) 06:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This list sucks

I don't mean this as a slight to the authors. I just mean that when I have time, I'm going to completely redo this list to be A. less indiscriminant B. Cited and C. give more context to the sublists. i kan reed (talk) 18:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Curious. Did you ever redo this list? :) Misty MH (talk) 07:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dimensions. Interdimensional Concepts.

I noticed that the word "dimension" isn't found in the Article or on Talk. Neither then are Interdimensional concepts directly mentioned. These are, of course, major concepts in much sci-fi, and even discussed in theoretical physics. I went over the list a couple of times, thinking about where to add such, but couldn't decide. Ideas? Consensus? Misty MH (talk) 07:54, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Content of the list

Everything is a science fiction theme, The Sun, Life, the Universe, 42 and even 193. Lists are navigation tool in wikipedia. Therefore this list either has to list wikipedia articles, or, as colleague Gorthian pointed out to me, have references to scholarly sources which specifically discuss a certain topic as a SF subject. Otherwise I can put the whole English vocabulary of nouns into this list.

talk) 18:41, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply
]

P.S. And as I see, this was already discussed, see also section

talk) 18:43, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply
]

It's about the themes that are unique or characteristic to science fiction and those which are featured frequently. This is of interest e.g. as science fiction often allows for novel inquiries into various topics, also often brings forth new topics and because many topics make out entire subgenres of science fiction. Also it's not about random occurrences in the works but about central themes. While science fiction can be seen as an approach / a imaginative "way" it can also be properly analyzed for its contents (much of which is so characteristic that it gets a mention in the first sentence of the science fiction article). --Fixuture (talk) 21:15, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agreed. However in order to make it in a wikipedia article it must be a subject of a
talk) 23:23, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply
]

No objection to a need for sources. A long list with no sources at all does seem a bit fishy. However I doubt that every science fiction theme is unique or peculiar to the genre. For example, I see that the list includes as a science fiction theme the topic of human nature. I have trouble thinking of any literary or theatrical genre that has not dealt with the subject. I see the list also including matters of philosophy, religion, and sexuality. How is this different than the treatment of the same matters in fantasy, historical fiction, philosophical fiction, crime fiction, or even the misnamed "literary fiction"? (I personally hate the latter term as it is not descriptive at all).Dimadick (talk) 13:03, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

re: "I doubt that every science fiction theme is unique" -- Please don't forget that lists are navigation tools in wikipedia.
talk) 19:21, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply
]

OK. As I see, the discussion sizzled. So I am going

talk) 22:51, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

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