7 ms·

star trek vs star wars is the clear distinction for me. Not sure I agree with the premise that star trek has elements of science fantasy because the idea of hu

star trek vs star wars is the clear distinction for me. Not sure I agree with the premise that star trek has elements of science fantasy because the idea of humanity working together flawlessly is unrealistic. I mean he is right it is unrealistic, but by that token any fiction piece is technically "fantasy".

krapp 3y ago
>Not sure I agree with the premise that star trek has elements of science fantasy because the idea of humanity working together flawlessly is unrealistic. It is, but the author didn't base their argument on that entirely. More so, Star Trek has never cared about science except as set-dressing for drama. People say Star Trek's warp drives are based on the Alcubierre drive but they really aren't - they don't behave the way an Alcubierre drive should. Along with all other Trek technology it's basically magic, nothing is bound by realistic physics. You have immortal, godlike beings like the Q, you have people coming back from the dead, psychic phenomena, time travel whose rules change with each episode. In the last episode of SNW, you had a weird space anomaly that made people sing like a musical. I mean, you could put that in a D&D campaign and call it magic and it would work. Really, all science fiction is a subset of fantasy. "science fantasy" is just science fiction that isn't actually about the science, which is the bulk of the genre.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  "Really, all science fiction is a subset of fantasy. "science fantasy" is just science fiction that isn't actually about the science, which is the bulk of the genre." All fiction is fantasy. Fantasy is the root of all fiction. As soon as one starts to change reality, by lying about what someone said or thinking about what you could have said, that's fantasy. All labels are either useful fuzzy groupings or non-useful groupings. "High fantasy" is a label that gets you works closer in some conceptual space to The Lord of the Rings than to The Manchurian Candidate. "Isekai" is a very definite label that applies to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and does not apply to Space Quest, but it applies more to Space Quest than to most episodes of Star Trek (except The City On The Edge of Forever, which is definitely isekai, and some similar episodes.) "Science fiction" is a marketing promise that if there are elves, there will be an evolutionary heritage for them and a reason that you don't notice them walking to your local pub (no guarantees about the walk back.) Spock is a kind of half-space-elf. The space elves split into two groups a long time ago -- the ones who subscribed to a rationalist approach, and the ones who had a religion based on passion.
milesvp 3y ago
It sure was fantasy to believe star trek universe wouldn’t have currency. It’s the one thing that irked me about the st universe, and part of why I loved Quark. He allowed the show to explore some of the ramifications of a universe that clearly still has scarce resources that need to be allocated. He almost managed to convince me that the federation could exist as a centrally planned militocracy without money, by showing where economics breaks down at the edges of the federation.
- throwaway60707 3y ago
  IMHO the premise of Star Trek economy is that all needs of an ordinary person can be fulfilled so cheaply it doesn't make sense to meter. The replicator uses a relatively minimal amount of energy. They still need to allocate resources - and even trade them among themselves and with others - but there's no need for an internal currency, they can power entire planets with their antimatter reactors using just a very small amount of fuel. Even the starships that are bending spacetime itself all the time are refueled only very occasionally, synthesizing some food and houses is nothing compared to that. The only time when their economy breaks is when they're in an active warzone - and frankly, currency as we know it breaks down in a warzone too, you better have some cigarettes, food or weapons if you want to trade.
  - krapp 3y ago
    It's weird that so many other species in Star Trek also have replicators, antimatter, transporters, warp drive, etc. But somehow only humans managed to create a post-scarcity utopia out of it.
    - throwaway60707 3y ago
      At least all the other species within Federation did the same, many of them before the Federation even existed or before humans did it, though many of them got Federation help after they developed the warp drive, thus eliminating the Prime Directive limit. Then you have the species whose backstory is imperialism or fascism, that control many other species that only have lesser technology. In some episodes, but especially in the books that are considered canon, you can see them influencing (slowing or outright destroying) the development of sufficient technology of their vassals so they remain dependent on the masters. But the masters themselves (Romulans, Cardassians, Klingons...) have the same post-scarcity economy as the Federation for their "full citizens". What's interesting is the case of Bajor in DS9, which is developing the post-scarcity utopia after the Cardassians left them in ruins; with Federation help but not too much of it because they want to be independent.
throwaway60707 3y ago
Star Trek doesn't even show that. There is a fair share of human thieves, racketeers, slavers and other criminals.
User23 3y ago
Star Trek is science fantasy with technobabble. It’s kind of like Rick and Morty really. The writers yell “science!” from time, but nothing that can actually be confused for it appears. Incidentally when Star Wars started inserting technobabble explanations for fantasy elements like the Force (“midi-chlorians”) it was jarring. Nevertheless we can’t really say there is a difference in kind anymore and maybe never really was.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  > Nevertheless we can’t really say there is a difference in kind anymore and maybe never really was. There is a basic difference between Star Trek and Star Wars; but you're right, the level of technobabble deployed before using FTL is not it. The difference is that whereas Star Wars is basically about a "hero's journey" - a young hero rises from obscurity, travels, learns, trains up and defeats the bad through their courage and skill, and lone derring-do (and inborn hero-quality). Star Trek is basically about a Team. They might have a strong leader, but (almost always, leaving Michael Burnham plots aside) the victory is not achieved until they pull together as a crew, relying on each other, combining their talents and respecting each other's skills. Star Wars has a single "evil empire" as the easy-to-spot antagonist. Star Trek has many political factions, each with their own outlook and self-interests. The second is IMHO a little more "grown up" than the first.
  - ramblerman 3y ago
    > Michael Burnham I should have clarified I was talking about TNG. Not the Netflix mess
    - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
      I tried to be general enough to cover all of both sagas, even if the fit is approximately 90%. I suspect that where Star Trek falls down (in the eyes of fans) is also where it does not adhere to the expected "success as a team" template, notably in ST:Discovery. When Trek tries to be more like Wars, it doesn't work.
  - 3y ago
maxerickson 3y ago
Warp drive that somehow doesn't shatter causality is fantasy.
- throwaway60707 3y ago
  Is that because of the currently accepted equations for space-time, or is there some experimental proof of that?
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    It's just mechanistic. If you travel somewhere faster than the light from where you left, you can watch yourself leave. Now do it twice.
    - throwaway60707 3y ago
      Ok, so I'm watching myself watching myself leave. And so what? My "past selves" are just reflections of myself, I am not there anymore, it's just light that looks like me. The light is not going to change anything about the past, it's going to follow me to my next location until I stop and let it catch up. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding you or the problem - feel free to correct me, please. I'd really like to understand how causality is broken by FTL but could never grok it.
      - btilly 3y ago
        Yeah, that explanation was dead wrong. Here is the real one. The phrase "at the same time" means different things in different inertial reference frames. So what is FTL to one observer, is traveling backwards in time to another. If you can warp from any reference frame, you can therefore travel backwards in time. As for why "at the same time" changes meanings, let's adapt Einstein's example. I'm in the middle of a moving train. You're on the train station. As we pass, lightning strikes right between us. Will the light from the lightning arrive at both ends of the train at the same time? According to me, obviously. In my reference frame the train is not moving. Light has a constant speed. It will reach both ends at the same time. According to you, obviously not. Light travels at constant speed, but the train is moving. Therefore the back of the train is moving towards the light, and the front is moving away. So the light gets to the back of the train before the front. So when the person on the train says that an event in front and behind happened at the same time, the person not on the train says that the event behind happened before the event in front. Now consider this. I'm on a spaceship with a warp drive. This is a great warp drive, travels instantly in whatever reference frame I'm in.. I warp forward a long distance - like a light year. I accelerate forward. I warp backwards and arrive back a bit behind where I started at. I decelerate, and I'm in my own past! That's the causality problem.
SonicScrub 3y ago
There's no hard boundary between the two categories, since nearly every sci-fi is going to have fantastical elements to them. For example The Expanse authors have paid careful attention to the physics of space-flight, which they then use create their vision of "realistic" space battles. But they also have interdimensional stargates that instantly transport you across the universe. So hard sci-fi or fantasy? People can argue endlessly about which category a book belongs in. Personally I think the most useful metric is "would my non-science geek fans like this?". Or to put it another way, is one of the primary appeals of this novel the extrapolation of realistic science. An appreciation that may be lost on someone who isn't as interested in that subject. My fantasy loving friend has been an interesting barometer in this way. Didn't like The Martian therefore, it's Hard SciFi. Dune: sci-fantasy Star Wars Sci-fantasy Three Body Problem: Hard sci-fi The Expanse Book 1: Hard sci-fi The Expanse Season 1: Sci Fantasy
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  > Expanse authors have paid careful attention to the physics of space-flight, which they then use create their vision of "realistic" space battles Yes and no. I'm told that if you do the math on the "Epstein Drive" fusion rockets that are in use throughout The Expanse, they are actually _impossibly_ effective regarding reaction mass. Still, unlike the star gates, they don't take you across light-years in less than actual years, so they're "harder" than the later books. There is indeed no hard boundary.
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    When asked on Twitter how the Epstein Drive works, the authors responded: "Efficiency"
    - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
      Alternative answer: blackmail
    - amalcon 3y ago
      Reminds me of the time a Star Trek writer was asked how the Heisenberg compensator works. The response was that "It works very well, thank you!"
SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
My opinion is that "star trek has strong elements of science fantasy" because everyone cruises around the galaxy at many multiples of the Speed of Light. There is routine FTL, with not even a nod to the effects on causality known since 1907 (1) The shows plots are optimistic, promoting teamwork and an utopian social structure, IMHO that is far secondary to the "easy FTL" issue. 1 ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyonic_antitelephone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyonic_antitelephone
- uncletaco 3y ago
  I love how “science fantasy” has shifted to the point where it is anything that includes FTL. Really shows what happens when we give nerds the internet.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    Well, to put the above more compactly: my opinion is that FTL is a fantasy. Not only does FTL ignore physics established since 1910, it is lazy to pretend that it's the same only faster: the truth of relativistic physics is far more complex, interesting and just plain weirder than that. If you're aiming at "sci-fi" not a horse opera in space, why not embrace that?
    - uncletaco 3y ago
      Because it’s not that deep and the realm of the possible shifts differently for scientists and writers and the general public. For a lot of people science fiction is defined by tropes and trappings but not so much the possibilities. For instance when I was a kid Star Wars was still considered sci-fi because it had lasers and spaceships. For a lot of people that’s all sci-fi means. But language evolves and so does our understanding of what a genre should include. Like my favorite novel accelerando is about the singularity, a concept many nerds were interested in about 20 years ago. These days we’ve all kind of accepted it’s a silly thing that doesn’t make sense but does that mean we should reclassify all of the fiction written around it as a concept as science fantasy? At one point tech has advanced to the point where they’re cloning humans so cheaply that politicians are cloning multiple versions of themselves to go campaigning. Does this impossible scenario make those books science fantasy, even though they get a lot of the science right elsewhere? Because if the answer is yes then we’d probably need to rename all sci-fi sections in bookstores to science fantasy because that’s the majority of what’s in them: fun shit with a veneer of science behind it.
laputan_machine 3y ago
DS9's first episode has a space alien organism living inside a permanent wormhole and it speaks to you through mind visions, exists at all points in time and can read your mind, put you in your own memories, etc. That happens in the first episode, the whole Star Trek universe is full of absolute fantasy. Q, anyone?
- XorNot 3y ago
  Technically DS9 never say they exist at all points in time. DS9 says that they don't experience linear time. One way I thought you could interpret that is that the wormhole aliens in fact only exist when the wormhole is open - their existence is only in those blinks of reality that they perceive, and as a result to handle the universe they have a vast predictive ability that looks like future-knowledge.
- throwaway60707 3y ago
  > Q, anyone? A robot with an advanced electromagnetic mind-control device... Or just a hacker hooked to Picard's Borg implants/bio-receivers. Or mental illness. > DS9's first episode has a space alien organism living inside a permanent wormhole and it speaks to you through mind visions, exists at all points in time and can read your mind, put you in your own memories, etc. They might be lying, or just think it's true. Or again, mental illness. Perhaps we're just seeing Sisko tripping balls.
amalcon 3y ago
Where I've landed on this one is that the difference is whether the characters understand the plot device (or investigate if they don't understand), not whether I understand it or whether it comports with my notion of what is possible. In Star Trek, the characters understand the unrealistic elements (warp drive, Heisenberg compensators, space communism, etc). In Lord of the Rings, they don't. In Star Wars, they understand some of the unrealistic elements (FTL travel, lightsabers, etc) but not others (everything Jedi or Jedi-adjacent).

krapp 3y ago

>Not sure I agree with the premise that star trek has elements of science fantasy because the idea of humanity working together flawlessly is unrealistic. It is, but the author didn't base their argument on that entirely. More so, Star Trek has never cared about science except as set-dressing for drama. People say Star Trek's warp drives are based on the Alcubierre drive but they really aren't - they don't behave the way an Alcubierre drive should. Along with all other Trek technology it's basically magic, nothing is bound by realistic physics. You have immortal, godlike beings like the Q, you have people coming back from the dead, psychic phenomena, time travel whose rules change with each episode. In the last episode of SNW, you had a weird space anomaly that made people sing like a musical. I mean, you could put that in a D&D campaign and call it magic and it would work. Really, all science fiction is a subset of fantasy. "science fantasy" is just science fiction that isn't actually about the science, which is the bulk of the genre.

dsr_ 3y ago
"Really, all science fiction is a subset of fantasy. "science fantasy" is just science fiction that isn't actually about the science, which is the bulk of the genre." All fiction is fantasy. Fantasy is the root of all fiction. As soon as one starts to change reality, by lying about what someone said or thinking about what you could have said, that's fantasy. All labels are either useful fuzzy groupings or non-useful groupings. "High fantasy" is a label that gets you works closer in some conceptual space to The Lord of the Rings than to The Manchurian Candidate. "Isekai" is a very definite label that applies to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and does not apply to Space Quest, but it applies more to Space Quest than to most episodes of Star Trek (except The City On The Edge of Forever, which is definitely isekai, and some similar episodes.) "Science fiction" is a marketing promise that if there are elves, there will be an evolutionary heritage for them and a reason that you don't notice them walking to your local pub (no guarantees about the walk back.) Spock is a kind of half-space-elf. The space elves split into two groups a long time ago -- the ones who subscribed to a rationalist approach, and the ones who had a religion based on passion.

milesvp 3y ago

It sure was fantasy to believe star trek universe wouldn’t have currency. It’s the one thing that irked me about the st universe, and part of why I loved Quark. He allowed the show to explore some of the ramifications of a universe that clearly still has scarce resources that need to be allocated. He almost managed to convince me that the federation could exist as a centrally planned militocracy without money, by showing where economics breaks down at the edges of the federation.

throwaway60707 3y ago
IMHO the premise of Star Trek economy is that all needs of an ordinary person can be fulfilled so cheaply it doesn't make sense to meter. The replicator uses a relatively minimal amount of energy. They still need to allocate resources - and even trade them among themselves and with others - but there's no need for an internal currency, they can power entire planets with their antimatter reactors using just a very small amount of fuel. Even the starships that are bending spacetime itself all the time are refueled only very occasionally, synthesizing some food and houses is nothing compared to that. The only time when their economy breaks is when they're in an active warzone - and frankly, currency as we know it breaks down in a warzone too, you better have some cigarettes, food or weapons if you want to trade.
- krapp 3y ago
  It's weird that so many other species in Star Trek also have replicators, antimatter, transporters, warp drive, etc. But somehow only humans managed to create a post-scarcity utopia out of it.
  - throwaway60707 3y ago
    At least all the other species within Federation did the same, many of them before the Federation even existed or before humans did it, though many of them got Federation help after they developed the warp drive, thus eliminating the Prime Directive limit. Then you have the species whose backstory is imperialism or fascism, that control many other species that only have lesser technology. In some episodes, but especially in the books that are considered canon, you can see them influencing (slowing or outright destroying) the development of sufficient technology of their vassals so they remain dependent on the masters. But the masters themselves (Romulans, Cardassians, Klingons...) have the same post-scarcity economy as the Federation for their "full citizens". What's interesting is the case of Bajor in DS9, which is developing the post-scarcity utopia after the Cardassians left them in ruins; with Federation help but not too much of it because they want to be independent.

throwaway60707 3y ago

Star Trek doesn't even show that. There is a fair share of human thieves, racketeers, slavers and other criminals.

User23 3y ago

Star Trek is science fantasy with technobabble. It’s kind of like Rick and Morty really. The writers yell “science!” from time, but nothing that can actually be confused for it appears. Incidentally when Star Wars started inserting technobabble explanations for fantasy elements like the Force (“midi-chlorians”) it was jarring. Nevertheless we can’t really say there is a difference in kind anymore and maybe never really was.

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
> Nevertheless we can’t really say there is a difference in kind anymore and maybe never really was. There is a basic difference between Star Trek and Star Wars; but you're right, the level of technobabble deployed before using FTL is not it. The difference is that whereas Star Wars is basically about a "hero's journey" - a young hero rises from obscurity, travels, learns, trains up and defeats the bad through their courage and skill, and lone derring-do (and inborn hero-quality). Star Trek is basically about a Team. They might have a strong leader, but (almost always, leaving Michael Burnham plots aside) the victory is not achieved until they pull together as a crew, relying on each other, combining their talents and respecting each other's skills. Star Wars has a single "evil empire" as the easy-to-spot antagonist. Star Trek has many political factions, each with their own outlook and self-interests. The second is IMHO a little more "grown up" than the first.
- ramblerman 3y ago
  > Michael Burnham I should have clarified I was talking about TNG. Not the Netflix mess
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    I tried to be general enough to cover all of both sagas, even if the fit is approximately 90%. I suspect that where Star Trek falls down (in the eyes of fans) is also where it does not adhere to the expected "success as a team" template, notably in ST:Discovery. When Trek tries to be more like Wars, it doesn't work.
- 3y ago

maxerickson 3y ago

Warp drive that somehow doesn't shatter causality is fantasy.

throwaway60707 3y ago
Is that because of the currently accepted equations for space-time, or is there some experimental proof of that?
- maxerickson 3y ago
  It's just mechanistic. If you travel somewhere faster than the light from where you left, you can watch yourself leave. Now do it twice.
  - throwaway60707 3y ago
    Ok, so I'm watching myself watching myself leave. And so what? My "past selves" are just reflections of myself, I am not there anymore, it's just light that looks like me. The light is not going to change anything about the past, it's going to follow me to my next location until I stop and let it catch up. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding you or the problem - feel free to correct me, please. I'd really like to understand how causality is broken by FTL but could never grok it.
    - btilly 3y ago
      Yeah, that explanation was dead wrong. Here is the real one. The phrase "at the same time" means different things in different inertial reference frames. So what is FTL to one observer, is traveling backwards in time to another. If you can warp from any reference frame, you can therefore travel backwards in time. As for why "at the same time" changes meanings, let's adapt Einstein's example. I'm in the middle of a moving train. You're on the train station. As we pass, lightning strikes right between us. Will the light from the lightning arrive at both ends of the train at the same time? According to me, obviously. In my reference frame the train is not moving. Light has a constant speed. It will reach both ends at the same time. According to you, obviously not. Light travels at constant speed, but the train is moving. Therefore the back of the train is moving towards the light, and the front is moving away. So the light gets to the back of the train before the front. So when the person on the train says that an event in front and behind happened at the same time, the person not on the train says that the event behind happened before the event in front. Now consider this. I'm on a spaceship with a warp drive. This is a great warp drive, travels instantly in whatever reference frame I'm in.. I warp forward a long distance - like a light year. I accelerate forward. I warp backwards and arrive back a bit behind where I started at. I decelerate, and I'm in my own past! That's the causality problem.

SonicScrub 3y ago

There's no hard boundary between the two categories, since nearly every sci-fi is going to have fantastical elements to them. For example The Expanse authors have paid careful attention to the physics of space-flight, which they then use create their vision of "realistic" space battles. But they also have interdimensional stargates that instantly transport you across the universe. So hard sci-fi or fantasy? People can argue endlessly about which category a book belongs in. Personally I think the most useful metric is "would my non-science geek fans like this?". Or to put it another way, is one of the primary appeals of this novel the extrapolation of realistic science. An appreciation that may be lost on someone who isn't as interested in that subject. My fantasy loving friend has been an interesting barometer in this way. Didn't like The Martian therefore, it's Hard SciFi. Dune: sci-fantasy Star Wars Sci-fantasy Three Body Problem: Hard sci-fi The Expanse Book 1: Hard sci-fi The Expanse Season 1: Sci Fantasy

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
> Expanse authors have paid careful attention to the physics of space-flight, which they then use create their vision of "realistic" space battles Yes and no. I'm told that if you do the math on the "Epstein Drive" fusion rockets that are in use throughout The Expanse, they are actually _impossibly_ effective regarding reaction mass. Still, unlike the star gates, they don't take you across light-years in less than actual years, so they're "harder" than the later books. There is indeed no hard boundary.
- throw0101a 3y ago
  When asked on Twitter how the Epstein Drive works, the authors responded: "Efficiency"
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    Alternative answer: blackmail
  - amalcon 3y ago
    Reminds me of the time a Star Trek writer was asked how the Heisenberg compensator works. The response was that "It works very well, thank you!"

SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago

My opinion is that "star trek has strong elements of science fantasy" because everyone cruises around the galaxy at many multiples of the Speed of Light. There is routine FTL, with not even a nod to the effects on causality known since 1907 (1) The shows plots are optimistic, promoting teamwork and an utopian social structure, IMHO that is far secondary to the "easy FTL" issue. 1 ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyonic_antitelephone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyonic_antitelephone

uncletaco 3y ago
I love how “science fantasy” has shifted to the point where it is anything that includes FTL. Really shows what happens when we give nerds the internet.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  Well, to put the above more compactly: my opinion is that FTL is a fantasy. Not only does FTL ignore physics established since 1910, it is lazy to pretend that it's the same only faster: the truth of relativistic physics is far more complex, interesting and just plain weirder than that. If you're aiming at "sci-fi" not a horse opera in space, why not embrace that?
  - uncletaco 3y ago
    Because it’s not that deep and the realm of the possible shifts differently for scientists and writers and the general public. For a lot of people science fiction is defined by tropes and trappings but not so much the possibilities. For instance when I was a kid Star Wars was still considered sci-fi because it had lasers and spaceships. For a lot of people that’s all sci-fi means. But language evolves and so does our understanding of what a genre should include. Like my favorite novel accelerando is about the singularity, a concept many nerds were interested in about 20 years ago. These days we’ve all kind of accepted it’s a silly thing that doesn’t make sense but does that mean we should reclassify all of the fiction written around it as a concept as science fantasy? At one point tech has advanced to the point where they’re cloning humans so cheaply that politicians are cloning multiple versions of themselves to go campaigning. Does this impossible scenario make those books science fantasy, even though they get a lot of the science right elsewhere? Because if the answer is yes then we’d probably need to rename all sci-fi sections in bookstores to science fantasy because that’s the majority of what’s in them: fun shit with a veneer of science behind it.

laputan_machine 3y ago

DS9's first episode has a space alien organism living inside a permanent wormhole and it speaks to you through mind visions, exists at all points in time and can read your mind, put you in your own memories, etc. That happens in the first episode, the whole Star Trek universe is full of absolute fantasy. Q, anyone?

XorNot 3y ago
Technically DS9 never say they exist at all points in time. DS9 says that they don't experience linear time. One way I thought you could interpret that is that the wormhole aliens in fact only exist when the wormhole is open - their existence is only in those blinks of reality that they perceive, and as a result to handle the universe they have a vast predictive ability that looks like future-knowledge.
throwaway60707 3y ago
> Q, anyone? A robot with an advanced electromagnetic mind-control device... Or just a hacker hooked to Picard's Borg implants/bio-receivers. Or mental illness. > DS9's first episode has a space alien organism living inside a permanent wormhole and it speaks to you through mind visions, exists at all points in time and can read your mind, put you in your own memories, etc. They might be lying, or just think it's true. Or again, mental illness. Perhaps we're just seeing Sisko tripping balls.

amalcon 3y ago

Where I've landed on this one is that the difference is whether the characters understand the plot device (or investigate if they don't understand), not whether I understand it or whether it comports with my notion of what is possible. In Star Trek, the characters understand the unrealistic elements (warp drive, Heisenberg compensators, space communism, etc). In Lord of the Rings, they don't. In Star Wars, they understand some of the unrealistic elements (FTL travel, lightsabers, etc) but not others (everything Jedi or Jedi-adjacent).