FANDOM BRACKETS: SEMIFINAL

[melannen]

Down to the last four fandoms in the SEMIFINALS! A very classic batch of fandoms that made it through.

This will run 24 hours, and then the actual final I will probably leave up at least 48 hours. There will also be a third place contest running at the same time.

Poll #27301 Fandom Brackets: Semifinals

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 154

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Explore the galaxy in this groundbreaking science fiction fandom about adventure in the stars!

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Star Wars
51 (34.2%)

Star Trek
98 (65.8%)

Any story, any setting, and genre, any time period - you can find it here!

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Doctor Who
58 (38.7%)

Yuletide
92 (61.3%)

Comments

[melannen]

Star Trek started out trying to be very hard science fiction, but was severely limited by budget and effects. Even the stuff like vast psychic powers were firmly in the range of scientific inquiry at the time. And even then though, it was always more social science fiction than technical science fiction (I will fight you over whether social science speculation counts as hard SF!) But the stories were generally set up as hard SF, and at least tried.

Lately though they seem to have completely given up. There's not much in Disco I would call even trying to be hard SF.

[extrapenguin]

I will fight you over whether social science speculation counts as hard SF!
I actually think this is a trichotomy for me between hard, soft, and social SF? Hard SF looks at natural/non-anthropological sciences and looks how they could impact a story or what it would be like if they were different (e.g. "the speed of light is now 40 km/h and you get relativistic effects when you run"), social SF looks at social/anthropological sciences and asks equivalent what if-questions based on those instead, and soft SF is interested in personal stories on a SF backdrop, usually. From my POV Star Trek is mostly soft SF with occasional/past forays into social SF, and I keep running into people who insist it's actually super hard SF. (One of them is, unfortunately, a coworker.)

I will give you that it might've been less soft in the past, but they seem to have been very willing to abandon that basically as soon as possible. And the space battles are so bad I cry in physicist, but that's a problem it shares with literally every SF TV show/movie I've watched save for Babylon 5.

[melannen]

Fair enough, although by the really strict definitions of hard SF I can only think of half a dozen or so books that might meet it. (Even the ones that are "what if this new technology" are often mostly about the social ramifications of it, whether they realize it or not.)

I feel like Star Trek was trying very hard to be hard (or at least Social Science) SF up until at least most of DS9, but the later series do seem to be falling very much on the side of "Space Opera, specifically as in a soap opera in space". I am just stuck in a time when Voyager was the "new Star Trek" and it's hard to remember there's now been more series since Voyager than before it.