I Just Realized The Elder Scrolls can be considered Sci-Fi

[RedDeadFred]

No, no it can't. Scifi uses science (or at least made up science in the case of Mass Effect and mass effect physics) to explain the world and what happens in it.
Fantasy uses magic to explain the world and what happens in it. This is very much the case with TES.

Sorry, but you are completely wrong.

 

[norashepard]

actually in the case of dragonage the original poster might be onto something . in the kasumi dlc for mass effect there is an ancient statue of a troll from DAO. so theoretically that world exists or existed in the mass effect universe

I KNEW IT! Those demons were just different types of Reaper husks and dragons were actually an ancient prothean technology (or result of genetic tests)!!!!

And don't forget the Lyrium Idol from Dragon Age 2. Where else have I heard about people going madder and madder, almost as if they were... indoctrinated?

 

[Zakarath]

Aye, to be sci-fi means, generally, either no magic or very minor 'magic', usually by another name. Often, "The Power of The Mind". Either way, it probably won't be in the foreground. Example: Dragonriders of Pern. The dragons are (telepathic) genetically engineered beings, and society is surviving on another world after their spaceship from earth landed there. (Additionally, the stories are much more focused on the systems of society and the lives of its inhabitants than epic adventures and good vs. evil)

The Elder scrolls, however, have magic very much in the foreground, are centered around epic adventures, and basically have all the elements of fantasy, not sci-fi.
...

They key to this is that there is having a Sci-Fi setting, and a Sci-Fi tone, and these are two different things. Are there spaceships, advanced technology, etc.? Then the setting is Sci-fi, and if instead the strange or fantastical elements of the setting function on a 'magic' then the setting is more fantasy. If the setting is then assessed, its implications and intricacies worked out and explored, often with a heavy focus on the human condition and not good vs. evil, the Tone is then more Sci-fi. If it appears at first to be good vs. evil, but the 'evil' is then found to just has a different system of morals, or a problematic communication barrier (the Ender series, for example) this also works.

There are works aplenty, however, of Sci-fi setting stories with more of the themes or tone of fantasy; Star Wars is a common example (after all, the Hero's Journey that Lucas used is a Fantasy staple since time immemorial), and the somewhat rarer bird of a Fantasy-set series with more of the tones traditionally associated with Sci-fi (I would argue that A Song of Ice and Fire and The Kingkiller Chronicles are a couple examples of this); This murky middle ground is what leads to the conception that sci-fi and fantasy are the same creature dressed up a little differently, but I disagree. As you leave this area, headed one way or the other, they become very different ways of discussing the not quite real.

(in my humble opinion anyway)

 

[Doom972]

If you keep an open mind about it, many sci-fi and fantasy games/books/films/etc can be classified as fantasy.
If the story takes place in a completely imaginary or an alternative version of our universe, it could be considered Fantasy.
In order to be considered sci-fi, however, the story's main plot must have something to do with science and technology that are advanced beyond our own - which is also a part of some fantasy stories, like the one told in The Witcher.

 

[J Tyran]

Fantasy does not bother to justify itself in our universe, so you get magic and situations that are never explained or justified, they just are the way they are.

Skyrim is chock-full of unscientific stuff that is never reasoned or justified. It's just possible because 'magic'. This is pure fantasy.

A lot of Fantasy does provide an explanation for the existence of magic and other strange stuff, sometimes its powers granted by gods and things like that. In the Elder Scrolls its down to the way that the physical world, Nirn (in the plane of Mundus) is actually a magical construct within the wider non coperoral universe called Aetherius and saturated in its energy.

 

[Trull]

Just so everybody knows,

LotR is alternate history,
Elder Scrolls is Science Fiction,
and they are still technically both fantasy.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Snip.

Close, but no cigar.

Consider the way Nirn's cosmogony and genesis are organized in Tamrielic lore. Remember why Nirn has two moons? Initial observation might make someone who takes these two moons at face value to say "binary system, duh" and move on. You have to remember, though, that Nirn wasn't created out of thermodynamics and convection. The entire process behind the universe's existence rests on one of the standard lynchpins of Fantasy storytelling: the Creation Myth. In comparison, we humans are able to look to Earth and observe the creation of our planet without NECESSARILY bringing religion into account.

We can, of course - if we're theists - but Nirn and Tamriel's natives don't have that option. Their take on physics allows things like magic and distortions of the space-time continuum (see "The Warp in the West") without bringing math into account. Faith, to them, is Science. Science is Faith, in a roundabout sort of way. This is why magicians, alchemists and priests can be considered as the learned folk of this set of cultures.

Purists will say that even Frank Herbert's "Dune" doesn't really count as Science Fiction, because of the way House Atreides comes to have fairly messianic undertones. Dune feels more like techno-Fantasy to coin a term, seeing as it presents a situation where people who seriously look like humans have managed to travel to and colonize other planets - but while adopting and supporting an extremely developed religious dogma. If you want to slip somewhat more technical considerations into the Elder Scrolls' lore, then this is where Tamriel would be closest to sitting in the same ballpark as Sci-Fi. Even then, that'd be pretty far.

It's not because the Dwemer had flying steam-powered ships and that their tombs are chock-full of pistons and automated guardians that you can bill them as Steampunk, after all.

 

[Onyxlycan]

I know this is a pretty late comment to the party but after going back and playing TES again i've noticed things that blend sci-fi and fantasy so hard it seems to be something new.
Like iamLEAM stated above, their faith is their science. But more than that the way it is presented it seems that their magic is their science as well. Scientists do experiments and research to find out why things happen. In TES wizards do this all the time. Thinking of Mass Effect, the things that happen there are readily accepted because of technobabble and handwaves. And the handwavium is Eezo, as another user said of we were to find such an element we could reasonably do the same things. Well, to the residents of Nirn, Magicka is such an element. It just happens to be infused into every being so they have the inate ability manipulate it, mind of like the Asari dont you think? Perhaps Magicka can alter the state of the basest perticle of existence itself which would explain the fact it can practically do anything. Speaking of Nirn, it was created by the fusion of what was once the solar system into one planet. The different races were actually all aliens to each other. Noted in a book is the story of a wizard who traveled to all the planes of Oblivion, each one created and ruled by a Deadric Prince. In the game Redgaurd it was observed that the planes of oblivion appeared as other planets in the solar system, also we know that every one of the Aedra(nine devines) sacrificed their corporeal forms to form the other planets. In Oblivion itself the oblivion gates were possibly just stargates to the planet created by Mehrunes Dagon. In line with our actual physics is the law of conservation of energy, the Deadra cannot die as stated in a book their souls simply return to oblivion and they reform. I don't know if this makes any sense or whether these thing were already dealt with i was just trying to point out some interesting facts that made me look at the series in a new light.

 

[Saelune]

Sci-fi means -science- fiction. Fantasy means fantasy. Now if TES was dominated by the dwemer and their advancement, it would be arguably sci-fi. But they are dead and everyone runs around with swords and sorcery. Not Sci-fi.

 

[Muspelheim]

Personally, I think the lines fantasy and sci-fi are much blurred and interchangable than people think. And it doesn't, in all honesty, matter in slightest what is which.

Unless you have sworn yourself to one or the other and declared the other one simple and beneath you, perhaps. I imagine some people do.

But I would say that The Elder Scrolls are decidedly more on the fantasy side, rather than sci-fi. For instance, the stars in the Elder Scrolls universe are, according to myth, holes punctured through reality into Aetherium, the dimension of magical forces. These were made when the Adrea, the gods who traded their power for the good of Creation (The Daedra are different in that they did not), and thus escaped into Aetherium.

It could be a religious mythos, and the stars could be huge orbs of burning elements like in an universe more closely modelled after our own. But many myths in the Elder Scrolls universe tends to be true, at least partially. It's built on fantastic ideas, rather than modelled on scientific ideas conforming to our own reality.

There are certainly sci-fi elements in that universe, though. What is a sorcerer, if not a scientist trying to explore and explain a source of power that change the surrounding world when channeled properly? A sorcerer exploring teleportation magic isn't terribly different from a scientist developing warp travel, when it comes down to it.

One is just more closely resembling of the rules we've got in the real world than the other.

EDIT: I would also like to make it clear that neither option is worse or better. It is different ways of setting up the basic rules in a universe that has been made up.

EDIT-EDIT: We are now Necromancers. How Fitting.

http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/wowpedia.org/thumb/0/0b/Orcnecromancer.jpg/485px-Orcnecromancer.jpg

"Arise, Forgotten Thread. Arise, and do my bidding!"

 

[Evonisia]

It's an interesting theory, I don't think Sci-Fi is defined by that, though.

However how can all these people be aliens when Earth doesn't exist (as far as we know) in The Elder Scrolls? They're all native to the planet Tamriel is on (besides the demons). At least in Star Wars (I know it's Science Fantasy) the place they're is described as "far, far away" and it's set "a long, long time ago" so Earth does exist (or maybe it will?) in that universe.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I can kind of see it that way if you exchange the word "magic" with...something to represent psychic powers...like Focus. I really dislike how Sci-Fi and Fantasy are seldom put together when they really nicely compliment each other.

 

[lacktheknack]

No.

Sci-fi is fiction using high-end technology with semi-solid concepts backing them to do their "magic".

Fantasy makes no effort to explain magic as anything other than a "higher-power" thing.

If it does both (like Myst and prequel-Star Wars), then you've got science-fantasy.

At no point do sci-fi and fantasy, as separate genres, overlap.

EDIT: Oh God, we necro'd the poor thread! D:

 

[Muspelheim]

No.

Sci-fi is fiction using high-end technology with semi-solid concepts backing them to do their "magic".

Fantasy makes no effort to explain magic as anything other than a "higher-power" thing.

If it does both (like Myst and prequel-Star Wars), then you've got science-fantasy.

At no point do sci-fi and fantasy, as separate genres, overlap.

EDIT: Oh God, we necro'd the poor thread! D:

Well, magic and its mechanics doesn't neccessarily have to be lazy, if written and explained well. That will also help the situations you get with badly written magic, where you are left wondering why a wizard couldn't just come along and sort everything out.

 

[lacktheknack]

No.

Sci-fi is fiction using high-end technology with semi-solid concepts backing them to do their "magic".

Fantasy makes no effort to explain magic as anything other than a "higher-power" thing.

If it does both (like Myst and prequel-Star Wars), then you've got science-fantasy.

At no point do sci-fi and fantasy, as separate genres, overlap.

EDIT: Oh God, we necro'd the poor thread! D:

Well, magic and its mechanics doesn't neccessarily have to be lazy, if written and explained well. That will also help the situations you get with badly written magic, where you are left wondering why a wizard couldn't just come along and sort everything out.

It's not a question of "badly written".

In Myst, for instance, there's an extremely precise and brutal science behind the book-writing, and if you make even a tiny mistake, it has a butterfly effect that's well demonstrated and explained.

But there's no explanation as to how the link itself works.

Thus, science-fantasy. It thoroughly explains its magic scientifically, but a key component of it continues to have no adequate explanation.

 

[JazzJack2]

Science Fiction has always meant to me something that discusses the implications that future technology, science or societal-ideals would have, things like BladeRunner or Star-Trek, Skyrim doesn't really fit that.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I'm pretty sure that technically, if a novel explains how shit works it's science fiction, and if it doesn't then its fantasy. I'm generalising of course, but I'm lazy.

 

[Muspelheim]

It's not a question of "badly written".

In Myst, for instance, there's an extremely precise and brutal science behind the book-writing, and if you make even a tiny mistake, it has a butterfly effect that's well demonstrated and explained.

But there's no explanation as to how the link itself works.

Thus, science-fantasy. It thoroughly explains its magic scientifically, but a key component of it continues to have no adequate explanation.

True, very good point. But I suppose they have their reasons to leave that blank. I can imagine that no explanation can be better sometimes than an inadequite explanation.

I do think that it does matter wether magic is badly written or not, though. If it is, then suspending the disbelief and rolling with the rules that's been dealt becomes much easier. If it's badly written, it will stand out rather terribly, and make it much harder to simply accept the new rule sheet.

EDIT: Sorry, I borked up the quoting lines. And took me sweet time noticing.

 

[piinyouri]

In narrative/story style and structure, no I'd say not.

In the fact that behind the scenes there's a lot of fantasy science going on, yeahsureok.

It's kind of like how the old Ultima games were, with little bits of sci-fi interspersed with the rest of the fantasy setting.