If there's a manifesto, is it online somewhere?
Also, for the record, stuff I considered adding before deciding it didn't fit or that I didn't know enough about it, plus stuff I can't decide whether to add because I'm up too late:
- Film: The Prestige (magic teleportation), Gattaca, possibly some of these
, Armageddon (fundamental inaccuracies regarding space), Deep Impact (not sure if sci-fi).
- Anime/manga: Mobile Suit Gundam (psychic powers), Serial Experiments Lain, Dennou Coil, Texhnolyze, Patlabor (does having mechs make it sci-fi?), Appleseed (same), Aria, Bubblegum Crisis, The Sky Crawlers.
- Literature: John C Wright's The Golden Age (interplanetary teleportation by laser transmission IIRC, and an extrasolar colony and a starship), one or more of Greg Egan's novels, Vernor Vinge's The Peace War duology and Rainbows End.
- Live-action TV: Caprica (ignoring the FTL, gods and prophecies in the wider universe).
- Video games: probably one or more Infocom games, Metal Gear, Snatcher, Neuromancer, Blade Runner, Beneath a Steel Sky, I Have No Mouth, Oni, Red Faction, Bioshock, Prototype.
- Web original: Freefall (takes place on an extrasolar colony of Earth), one or more of Sam Hughes' stories, Ultimate Finale (allow on the grounds of everything taking place in a simulation).
It's a lot harder to evaluate possible examples for a trope about what *isn't* found in a work.
Edit: Also, doesn't the original manifesto also exclude AI and transhumanism? I remember something to that effect.
Edited by DocumentN Hide / Show Replies
Gattaca definitely fits, but anything you put parentheses on probably doesn't.
Yes, having mechs makes it sci-fi, and doesn't disqualify it.
Golden Age probably fits, as long as there's no FTL.
Freefall is disqualified because it has FTL. It's slow and expensive, but it's still explicitly stated as being FTL.
'Cross my heart, strike me dead, stick a lobster on my head.'
Would Avatar qualify? It doesn't feature anything from this list apart from the aliens of Pandora — which is only reachable by very expensive slower-than-light travel over five years.
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I don't know, space bamboo and space horses in a space jungle with space indios seem too soft to me. The alien environment should have been more original. Also unobtainium.
I agree with Sikon. The rules of Mundane Dogmatic don't preclude basing alien life loosely on terrestrial life.
Edited by jagillette 'Cross my heart, strike me dead, stick a lobster on my head.'
Oh wait, never mind. Avatar is disqualified because it has FTL communication (teleportation of information) in the background material (All There in the Manual), which also happens to be a Fundamental Innacuracy Regarding Physics
Edited by jagillette 'Cross my heart, strike me dead, stick a lobster on my head.'
The line "Ryman and his collaborators worried that escapist Space Opera works about casual FTL travel to distant galaxies could make readers feel blasé about ruining the Earth, as there is a sense in much sci-fi that there's lots of other Earth-like planets we could move to if we ruin this one due to pollution" makes them seem like Moral Guardians who think other SF readers/viewers Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality and created the Mundane sub-genre as The Moral Substitute. There's also no source mentioned.
I'd recommend rewriting it to make them seem less moral guardian-esque, unless this is what they actually believe.
Edited by tyrannobubs3110