Star Trek is fantasy

[Greger]

Ok. So we are all aware that sci-fi and fantasy are two genres that offen gets clumped together. And why not? they do have several simularities. They both take place in a unreal enviorment, they offen use simular plots; The lone hero agianst the evil overloard ect, theres offen some fantastic way to do things, read magic/technology, and there are wierd creatures: goblins/aliens/chekov ect..

So what I am saying is that Star Trek is not beyond this. Lets take a few things from star trek and try to convert them in to fantasyterms.

Starships
The mighty steed our hero(usaly heroes) ride in to battle. I guess the shuttles can be ponys.. I dont know..

Technology/Science
Magic. Many times used as a "get out of jail for free"-card.

The Crew
More offen then not its about the officers. Kinda like the knights/noblemen sent out by the king to do good.

Prime Directive
The hero code of honor. Every good guy needs one, right?

Planets
The different villages/towns/cultures our heroes visits. Everyone with its own traditions/rules/quirks.

UFP
The kingdom/empire. duh..

so far so good, now lets look at the different species of trek.

Humans
Humans...ehmm yeah.. probably of an anglo-saxin origin.

Vulcans
Elves. Kinda arogant, thinks they are better then everyone else, doesnt show much/any emotion, but they do make up for it by beeing good at magic... I mean technology.

Romulans
Dark Elves. The evil cousins of the vulcans. They share some traits with them, like being arogant, but all in all they are just a mean version of them.

Klingons
Orcs. Brutish, warlike and quick to anger. The only thing that doesnt fit is the honor code. the orcs rerly bother with things like that, so maby halforcs or barbarians? Possibly dwarfs..they do have the beards for it anyways..

Ferengi
Goblins. Small, greedy and big ears. Kinda cowardly, but will be mean if they have you at a disadvantage.

Cardassians
Lizardfolk. Evil, territorial, rules with a iron fist and they look the part.

Borg
Undead. Soulless minions that that work without any emotion for a single goal: turn you in to one of them. They even got the same colourscheam as the undead.

Dominion
Demons. Evil beeings from a far of place that want to destroy or corrupt you. Jem'hadar are the brutish warrior cast with horns and big muscles that wanna smash you in to a pulp with there big fists for the glory of there dark gods. The Vorta are the twothounged manipulators that wispers lies in your ears and the founders are the dark gods with the whips.

Q, Prophets, Organians or anyone else with allot more power then our heroes
Gods. Selfserving, petty or good. Etherway they medle in the world of men, for good or evil.

So how about the diffrent series?

TOS
All about a bunch of knight riding around in the kingdom trying to do good. Sometimes they need to fight evil monsters(doomsday machine, nomad ect), sometimes they need to help out citizens of the realm and sometimes they need to fight off invading barbarians and sometimes they just explore far off lands.

TNG
Basicly the same as TOS, only with a bald dude..

DS9
All about a garison of knights in a keep in a far off land trying to do the same as the TOS and TNG guys...oh and they found a magical portal to a far off place where demons live.

Voyager
Lost at sea! Our heroes are trying to get home after a terrible storm at sea. They meet strange creatures and people and have to face allot of trails. Simbad, Odysses and so on..

Enterprise
Kinda like TOS and TNG, but with more ploholes and YATI....plus a dog. (btw, this is my standard description of Enterprise)

I could go on...so I will. How about the diffrent roles on a federationship then?

Science
The mages. Smart people who use technobabble...ehh I mean spells to do fantastic things.

Security
Swordmen. With there mighty swords(phasers) they defend the ship and upphold the law.

Engineering
Blacksmiths. Maintaning and augmenting the machines. Also they work around the forge(warp core).

Command
The Lords. Like noblemen with abit higher noble-rang then everyone else. They are the guys who get the orders from the kings.

Medical
Healers, herbalists, clerics. Mending broken bones and so forth..

So we can see that Star Trek has alot incomon with fantasy. Is this a bad thing? I dont think so. Its a good way to tell a story and its been around along time. And originality doesnt nesaseraly mean a good thing. Sometimes i wish trek would go more outside the box, but all in all I love it.

So what do you guys think? can you think of any other fantasy reference in star trek?

[Sionnach Glic]

Virtualy any sci-fi, whether it's BSG, Star Wars, 40K or Trek, all share a lot in common with fantasy.

In Trek we've seen people with what amounts to magic powers, gods, ghosts, people changing into animals, and all sorts of weirdness that, on its own, would be considered part of the fantasy genre.
In Star Wars the fantasy conotations are even more obvious.
BSG also has a load of mythical similarities.
40K is blatantly obvious, and even has such things as daemons and zombies.

Let's not forget that pretty much any sci-fi series has tech whose capabilities are waved away with the science-sounding equivelant of "it's magic". Pretty much every sci-fi series is just fantasy in space. I've yet to see one that isn't.

Welcome to the site, by the way.

[Mikey]

With the right wording, that kind of analogu could probably be drawn between any two genres. I'm not disagreeing with you; the key word in the term "science fiction" is certainly the latter. For a closer analogy, however, I would go to the Burroughs Mars stories, or Star Wars, which was always intended to be a "space opera" in that vein.

[Graham Kennedy]

Try this... I declare that cop shows are like fantasy shows.

Cars : The mighty steed our hero rides in to battle.

Forensic Technology/Science : Magic.

The Police force : Kinda like the knights/noblemen sent out by the king to do good.

The Law : The hero code of honor. Every good guy needs one, right?

Precincts : The different villages/towns/cultures our heroes visits. Everyone with its own traditions/rules/quirks.

The City : The kingdom/empire. duh..


You could do it for virtually any genre.

[Mikey]

Exactly my point. There's nothing inherently incorrect in Greger's point; but the same point could be made for almost any genre.

[Sionnach Glic]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was trying to point out. You can find similarities in basicaly everything. In some cases those similarities are well-founded, while in others you're just looking a bit too hard.

[Graham Kennedy]

An idea like this was responsible for Star Wars. IIRC, Lucas read an idea that basically said almost any story about a hero had the same basic elements in it - the same events, the same characters. I don't remember too many details, but some of them :

The hero should be from a simple background, but should have some unique aspect - magical power, often.

The hero should be reluctant to take on the baddies; in the end he should be forced into it when the baddies attack his home.

The hero will fall in with sidekicks including : a strong yet cynical warrior who will be slowly won around by the hero's belief in right and wrong. A priest/magician, once powerful but now old and beaten down by the world. A beautiful woman, often the daughter of the bad guy or special in some other way. A comedy sidekick or sidekicks.

There's more to it, but that's enough for a taste. It's easy to see how this fits Star Wars, but the same basic story also fits Conan the Barbarian, for instance. If you ever get the chance to watch Beastmaster, it's a really good fit to that. And so on.

[Sionnach Glic]

Yeah, I heard something like that myself.

[Mikey]

I had always thought that Lucas completely intended for that sort of allusion.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

An idea like this was responsible for Star Wars. IIRC, Lucas read an idea that basically said almost any story about a hero had the same basic elements in it - the same events, the same characters. I don't remember too many details, but some of them :

The hero should be from a simple background, but should have some unique aspect - magical power, often.

The hero should be reluctant to take on the baddies; in the end he should be forced into it when the baddies attack his home.

The hero will fall in with sidekicks including : a strong yet cynical warrior who will be slowly won around by the hero's belief in right and wrong. A priest/magician, once powerful but now old and beaten down by the world. A beautiful woman, often the daughter of the bad guy or special in some other way. A comedy sidekick or sidekicks.

There's more to it, but that's enough for a taste. It's easy to see how this fits Star Wars, but the same basic story also fits Conan the Barbarian, for instance. If you ever get the chance to watch Beastmaster, it's a really good fit to that. And so on.

I've seen Beastmaster, but it was a while ago. I saw a documentary on the story of Star Wars which basically said all of this, including comments from Lucas himself IIRC.

On the other hand, I've read a criticism of SW by David Brin, arguing that SW violates the principles of true sci-fi by backing up old myths, not questioning them and breaking the boundaries.

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature ... index.html

NOTE: Don't want to get into a ST v SW battle. I'm posting this as a commentary on science fiction; if this is unacceptable, it will be removed.

[Mikey]

Who told that guy that he gets to decide what true sci-fi is?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Just posted for the sake of conversation.

I'd say there is no such thing as a definition of "true" sci-fi in the manner Brin suggests. Science fiction is fiction which occurs in a different world, but there is no limit on what the theme can be. I'd just take this as a comment on the different themes possible.

[Tsukiyumi]

I'd say, I prefer my genres like my genealogy: mixed. Every story I write professionally has elements of any number of genres.

[Aaron]

Who told that guy that he gets to decide what true sci-fi is?

I dunno but I've heard a fair bit in regards to him just being pissed off because his sci-fi doesn't do well.

[Deepcrush]

If it isn't the God-Emperor's will then it is a lie!