Steps forward in Sci Fi

[Rob Lang]

Being a Sci-Fi nut, I thought I'd write a post about what I think are the big steps forward in Sci Fi. Totally my own opinion all this so feel free to argue!

1. Jules Verne
was a French fellow who wrote about all sorts of fantastical things. Submarines, space flight, journeying to the centre of the earth and terraforming. I think he really kicked things off.

2. HG Wells
was another Science fiction writer who came after Verne. He wrote about time travel, space flight, atomic war and the evolution of the human race. All pretty standard stuff.

3. Fritz Lang's Metropolis
is about a mad scientist who makes a robot woman who then leads the working classes to revolution in a near future setting. I think the impact of this film is difficult to understand now but then it was a shocking thought - that machines could be just like people.

4. Amazing Stories
For years between Lang's Metropolis and the next epoch, it was the turn of the magazines to keep the stories coming. was one such magazine. Featuring well known writers (Verne, Wells, Poe), they were packed with what we would call Science Fiction.

5. Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke
I'd like to pick out Asimov and Clarke as examples of a swathe of writers who tried to attach Science Fiction back into its Science roots. They gave reasonable explanations for things and I think that was an important thing to do.

6. Star Wars
Love it or hate it, Star Wars brought Sci Fi to the masses. I won't say much about it here because you know what I'm talking about.

7. Star Trek
A good example of an Evolving galaxy that moved with the times to suit the social outlook of the day. Kirk would fight with the villains because strength was important. Later, Picard would be more about negotiation. It's important to show that Sci Fi has the ability to have great continuity over the years - something that other genres rarely manage.

8. Modern Film
Sci fi is rooted deeply in film now. Although series do get reasonable ratings, it is film that is shown to be long lasting. Modern films worth mentioning for their hard Sci Fi content are Blade Runner (showing off Gibson-infused Cyberpunk), A.I., The Matrix and Serenity.

As for Roleplaying, there are a few landmark games out there to be mentioned.

was the original Space RPG. Blithering about between the stars, alien races and all good Sci Fi elements.
was the Gibson inspired game of megacorporations, bionics and street cool.
does exactly what it says on the tin. It's Star Wars. It's d20.
covers most Sci Fi topics quite well.
is a brave-new-world/1984 game set in a humourous future with robots, cloning and lots of deaths.
a mix of Cyberpunk and Fantasy. Magic, guns and the like.
you might argue is a multigenre RPG but it is set in post-apocalyptic world and certainly has some elements of Sci Fi.
a cyberpunk/1984 type game where the players are operatives for a massive corporation.
roleplaying in the aftermath of WW3. A semi-realistic game of survival.

Any more that really belong on a list of landmark games or Sci Fi media? Please do post and I'll update this one. If you have a suggestion, please give an argument why it should be included here.

[jeffmoore]

I think both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon deserve mention. As newspaper strips they brought Sci-Fi to the attention of the common man long before Star Trek or Star Wars spawning many early movie serials in the 1940's. Flash Gordon was beautifully drawn by Alex Raymond whose art style was an inspiration to many a great fantasy illustrator such as Frank Frazetta or Boris Valejo. Buck Rogers was not as pretty to look at but contained many great "science fiction" ideas (the atomic bomb... time travel...) that may not have been new to the science fiction reader, but these concepts were certainly ground breaking for your average reader of the Sunday paper.

That being said, TSR produced a Buck Rogers RPG written by Mike Pondsmith which deserves mention because it was to my knowlege the first time someone had tried to build a non-D&D game on the D&D game platform (the birth of D20.)

Also, the first Science Fiction RPG I ever played was, the original "Gamma World." It was an innovative and interesting game at the time. I feel it deserves mention as well.

[jasonthedesigner]

Don't forget about Robert Heinlein. Out of all of them he can probably be considered the godfather of Sci-fi. From Starship Troopers to Man who sold the Moon he has probably done the most for science fiction. Not tomention a good chunk of his ideas spawned the NASA we know today.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Freeman Dyson, Gerard K O'Neil, and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky deserve mention for their efforts to bring the dreams to life.

Dyson envisioned means to capture all the possible energy from a star and worked on project Orion. At the moment, nuclear pulse propulsion appears to be our best hope for interstellar exploration in our lifetimes.

O'Neil designed and planned out mega colonies in space.


Tsiolkovsky is one of the pioneers of space flight - he figured orbital velocity in 1903 and conceived a space elevator in 1895!


I don't recall the name, but a German film from 1935 is where we get the concept of a countdown for rocket launches.

Also, in 1929, Karal Capeck, a playwright in Checklosvakia wrote "Rossum's Universal Robots". Its the first appearance of the term robot - derived from robota, the chezk word for slave.

[tonilovekelly]

At this point one guy had already shot his load in my wife’s mouth, and was now eating her pussy like it was his last supper and we have a second guy getting a blow job that’s cock can barely fit in her mouth. To make matters worse a third younger guy saw what was going on ?C he was in teens and a pre-cum was on his dick by the time his pants came off.