The Know just posted another Destiny video, this time about Bungie's plan to build a universe to last 10 years.

Go watch!

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

It's like they reached inside my brain and made a video game out of my hopes and dreams! This could be the most beautiful cross-genre game of all time...

- III

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

It's like they reached inside my brain and made a video game out of my hopes and dreams! This could be the most beautiful cross-genre game of all time...

- III

Yeah I've often said to my friends that it feels like Bungie took my childhood fantasies and made it into a video game that the adult me will love.

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

It's like they reached inside my brain and made a video game out of my hopes and dreams! This could be the most beautiful cross-genre game of all time...

- III

Yeah I've often said to my friends that it feels like Bungie took my childhood fantasies and made it into a video game that the adult me will love.

But the teenager me will pretend to hate it because its so popular, and things that are popular are totally for posers and sheeple and conformists.

-signed me a little over a decade ago.

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

I feel like fantasy and science fiction are at odds.

With fantasy, you codify the ignorance of the past, whereas science fiction strives for understanding an knowledge. This is why science fiction is often dealing with interesting philosophical issues, and fantasy rarely so. (Also why science fiction is better).

It's sort of a contradiction if you ask me.

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

I feel like fantasy and science fiction are at odds.

With fantasy, you codify the ignorance of the past, whereas science fiction strives for understanding an knowledge. This is why science fiction is often dealing with interesting philosophical issues, and fantasy rarely so. (Also why science fiction is better).

It's sort of a contradiction if you ask me.

How does fantasy codify ignorance of the past? Can you give an example? I'm just not sure what you mean here.

I get where you're coming from, but I think the confusion stems primarily from the non-exactitude of the terms used.

It's sci-fi because it is in space, has lasers, ships and stuff. However, it also has magic, mysticism and soul-stuff, so it's also fantasy. IMO, it is, by-the-book, just fantasy with hi-tech things.

Still, I'm very excited.

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

I feel like fantasy and science fiction are at odds.

With fantasy, you codify the ignorance of the past, whereas science fiction strives for understanding an knowledge. This is why science fiction is often dealing with interesting philosophical issues, and fantasy rarely so. (Also why science fiction is better).

It's sort of a contradiction if you ask me.

Genres have always inspired and informed one another. The moment you have a very clean cut of what can or can't happen based directly on the parameters of other creations, you're potentially creating something uninspired - you're playing into the "consensus universes" of what are generally the agreed upon happenings in each genre.

But we see examples of genre-fusion all the time, they're fun and often just as intelligent. Things don't have to be exclusive. You can take the furnishings from different genres and they can look and feel great together.

Yes, you moment you apply contradicting tropes from "opposing" genres, things can get messy, but that's something a team of writers with a coherent vision would be working around.

For the record, I don't think Destiny is that genre bending. I think it's more parts sci-fi than fantasy, and Bungie is upfront about that - it has fantasy were it counts: There are adventurers crawling dungeons together for old relics whilst in fancy armour, literally blasting the souls out of opposing forces with magic bestowed onto them by a sphere.

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

I feel like fantasy and science fiction are at odds.

With fantasy, you codify the ignorance of the past, whereas science fiction strives for understanding an knowledge. This is why science fiction is often dealing with interesting philosophical issues, and fantasy rarely so. (Also why science fiction is better).

It's sort of a contradiction if you ask me.

How does fantasy codify ignorance of the past? Can you give an example? I'm just not sure what you mean here.

In the most basic ways, conquesting rich white dudes, racism, classism, all sorts of issues surrounding sexism, tokenism, actually here (BE GOT SPOILERS) this covers one of the more recent examples of "codifying the ignorance of the past".

Though I don't think that you shouldn't do Fantasy because most of it's implementations are problematic. I think that means there is an opportunity to shatter our perceptions of the past by not falling prey to it's ignorance. Frankly incorporating fantasy elements into sci-fi seems like a great way to avoid "codifying the ignorance of the past".

I love that Bungie is continuing what they started in Reach and are providing us an enormous opportunity to define the guardian that we want to be. This is becoming a digression, NEW THREAD!

For the record, I don't think Destiny is that genre bending. I think it's more parts sci-fi than fantasy, and Bungie is upfront about that - it has fantasy were it counts: There are adventurers crawling dungeons together for old relics whilst in fancy armour, literally blasting the souls out of opposing forces with magic bestowed onto them by a sphere.

Mass Effect is a good example of this blending, and yeah it's more "fantasy informed" sci-fi. Element zero is the magical force that lets the crazy things happen, but the writing team bases it in our understanding of space time and dark matter.

Sounds like Destiny will be doing a similar kind of thing with the Traveler and whatever the heck it has going on. After all, advanced enough technology is basically magic.

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

I feel like fantasy and science fiction are at odds.

With fantasy, you codify the ignorance of the past, whereas science fiction strives for understanding an knowledge. This is why science fiction is often dealing with interesting philosophical issues, and fantasy rarely so. (Also why science fiction is better).

It's sort of a contradiction if you ask me.

But it actually makes perfect sense. The game begins at a point in time where humanity is seemingly quite ignorant of its past and is looking to explore those unknowns to reveal the truth and progress into the future.

"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

I feel like fantasy and science fiction are at odds.

With fantasy, you codify the ignorance of the past, whereas science fiction strives for understanding an knowledge. This is why science fiction is often dealing with interesting philosophical issues, and fantasy rarely so. (Also why science fiction is better).

It's sort of a contradiction if you ask me.

Those are pretty simple, textbook definitions of these styles. I've never viewed fantasy and science fiction as opposing, and in fact, viewed them as two of the most in-bred genres out there.

And "genre" itself is a loose term and both "fantasy" and "science fiction" can contain an infinite number of styles and worlds and stories. "Genres" are only really helpful in organizing a library, and in my opinion, it's not even helpful in that regard. The biggest thing it seems to do is help people stick to the styles they're used to - assisting them in avoiding huge swaths of the library they deem below them.

For example, I lump Kafka and Gogel and other absurdists in with my own vision of "fantasy", as I personally can't tell a difference between fantasy and the stranger literary classics, except that they've ended up on different bookshelves.

Most people's science fiction, from my experience, often turns out to be just fantasy wearing science fiction jackets. Star Wars is the biggest, most known example - it's a classic fantasy set in space. But as I've been watching every episode of every Star Trek in the last year and a half that, though many seem to put the show on a mantle, many episodes, perhaps 30-50%, perhaps even more, tends to be more fantasy than science fiction. These episodes often employ nonsensical technobabble solutions in the last five minutes of the show that measures up to be the same as magic.

Of course, there ARE some great science-fiction episodes, but going in, I thought they'd be a lot more. It's a lot closer to Doctor Who's ratio than I expected...

Anyway, the point is, science fiction can often be escapist nonsense in disguise and by the same token fantasy can delve into deep philosophical issues in ways no other style can, by casting off modern conventions, and potentially have more meaning in your real life than a grounded realistic literary story can. About every time I pick up a Neil Gaiman novel or comic, I tend to look at my own world a little differently. Hell, I can't count the vast number of times that the Lord of the Rings have given me hope and enthusiasm for this life since I first them in middle school. Gaiman and Tolkien both helped me survive that hell called "high school" - not because they took me away to a far off world, but because they showed me new ways of looking at THIS one, and showed me what I can really do in it! :)

There's a lot of fantasy written by people from the margins, fantasy that does anti-oppressive work. Ellen Kushner, Catherynne Valente, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Ursula LeGuin...just a few names off the top of my head.

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"It's Mythic Science Fiction. It comes with a very healthy dose of Fantasy, and we believe that is ultimately important..."

I feel like fantasy and science fiction are at odds.

With fantasy, you codify the ignorance of the past, whereas science fiction strives for understanding an knowledge. This is why science fiction is often dealing with interesting philosophical issues, and fantasy rarely so. (Also why science fiction is better).

It's sort of a contradiction if you ask me.

I definitely see where you're coming from here, but would ultimately have to disagree on several counts pure based on my own reactions to some of my favorite fantasy universes and franchises and what they represent:

Tolkien's works are literally filled with allegorical historical knowledge, be it Biblical in the example of Aragorn's becoming ME's "savior", Illuvatar v. Melkor in the Silmarillion, etc., or racially charged in the examples of the Thorin/Thranduil and Legloas/Gimli relationships, or perhaps the most obvious of historically accurate inspirations; how Saruman and his Orthanc industrial revolution that came out of John Ronald's own horrific experiences in WWI.

Bioware's Dragon Age series is also an extremely historically aware franchise, many of the plot cruxes being based on conflicting moral choices dealing with kingdom politics, royal family feuds, racism, sexism, war-mongering, public distrust, national betrayal, and the contrasts of Monarchies and Theocracies, etc.

Martin's Game Of Thrones (like someone else already mentioned) Is i think the most obvious example of a fantasy universe that is actually hyper-aware of the realities of humanity's brutal and complicated past, with an overwhelming amount of moral, social, economical, political, and religious subplots that can beautifully and sometimes gruesomely capture the true essence of true historical human behavior.

- III

Sigh.

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Martin's Game Of Thrones (like someone else already mentioned) Is i think the most obvious example of a fantasy universe that is actually hyper-aware of the realities of humanity's brutal and complicated past, with an overwhelming amount of moral, social, economical, political, and religious subplots that can beautifully and sometimes gruesomely capture the true essence of true historical human behavior.

As much as I like Game of Thrones, viewers are not concerned with those larger issues. They are concerned with who kills whom, who has sex with whom, and who betrays whom.

Even so, everything you said has proved my point: it is looking back instead of forward.

Martin's Game Of Thrones (like someone else already mentioned) Is i think the most obvious example of a fantasy universe that is actually hyper-aware of the realities of humanity's brutal and complicated past, with an overwhelming amount of moral, social, economical, political, and religious subplots that can beautifully and sometimes gruesomely capture the true essence of true historical human behavior.

As much as I like Game of Thrones, viewers are not concerned with those larger issues. They are concerned with who kills whom, who has sex with whom, and who betrays whom.

Even so, everything you said has proved my point: it is looking back instead of forward.

I'm sorry my friend, i must have misunderstood you - i thought you were saying Fantasy is ignorant of the actual historical truth of the past.

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For the record, I don't think Destiny is that genre bending. I think it's more parts sci-fi than fantasy, and Bungie is upfront about that - it has fantasy were it counts: There are adventurers crawling dungeons together for old relics whilst in fancy armour, literally blasting the souls out of opposing forces with magic bestowed onto them by a sphere.

Mass Effect is a good example of this blending, and yeah it's more "fantasy informed" sci-fi. Element zero is the magical force that lets the crazy things happen, but the writing team bases it in our understanding of space time and dark matter.

I really think we can do better to distinguish between "Don't got to explain nothin'" magic and science fiction concepts that follow rules and draw from our understanding of the universe.

I'm sorry my friend, i must have misunderstood you - i thought you were saying Fantasy is ignorant of the actual historical truth of the past.

It was a little ambiguous. Here is clearer:

Fantasy codifies the ignorance that the human race had in the past.

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Fantasy codifies the ignorance that the human race had in the past.

This statement strikes me as every bit as wrongheaded as "video games cause violence."

Mass Effect is a good example of this blending, and yeah it's more "fantasy informed" sci-fi. Element zero is the magical force that lets the crazy things happen, but the writing team bases it in our understanding of space time and dark matter.

This and the tactical politics are what make it so great.

I really think we can do better to distinguish between "Don't got to explain nothin'" magic and science fiction concepts that follow rules and draw from our understanding of the universe.

Eh. Destiny looks poised to strike a nice balance between forward-thinking tech that we're familiar with, and the awe and mystery that fantasy imparts. I think we're in for a pretty good time.

One example I keep coming back to in my own head as a good example of how the concepts can coexist well is resurrection. What power would be greater than any (or most) technology? The power over life and death, or to sponatenously be able to create it outright.

I like the leeway that blame-it-on-Space-Magic gives the writing crew, and by all appearances, what we're seeing so far not only has it's own distinctive flavor; but preserves all the tropes Bingle seems so fond of. A particular favorite of mine is the notion that a fast enough spaceship and a tiny, highly-lethal ground team are all that's needed to turn the tide of major events. Something that Marathon, Mass Effect, and Halo all have in common.

Matter of fact, one could say the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

~m

Fantasy codifies the ignorance that the human race had in the past.

This statement strikes me as every bit as wrongheaded as "video games cause violence."

I agree. There needs to be more on this. It's an interesting idea that I think has merit, but I'm not yet convinced.

I would say it's more about the characters and the plot with regard to what Cody is talking about, and I think that's simply a result of outmoded thinking. As others have said here, there are lots of aware authors out there that are doing some pretty cool stuff in fantasy that are a lot more forward-thinking than plenty of SF I've read.

~m

Fantasy codifies the ignorance that the human race had in the past.

This statement strikes me as every bit as wrongheaded as "video games cause violence."

The fantastical is by very definition ignorant (It literally means 'removed from reality'). The moment you put a fantasy element into your story, you are turning a flawed understanding of the world into art's reality.

If you're looking for good books by her, for Sci-Fi try out Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed.

For fantasy, A wizard of Earthsea is the intro to that series and it is very cool. The TV/movie adaptations are terrible so try to avoid those.

She's a really interesting writer that explores a lot of cool gender & race themes.

She also has a few short story collections that are quite good.

To repeat EffortlessFury's post:

"But it actually makes perfect sense. The game begins at a point in time where humanity is seemingly quite ignorant of its past and is looking to explore those unknowns to reveal the truth and progress into the future."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "

The moment you put a fantasy element into your story, you are turning a flawed understanding of the world into art's reality.

BWAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA *gasp!* HAHA HEHahaha... heh...
Stop it, man, you're killing me.

I like the leeway that blame-it-on-Space-Magic gives the writing crew, and by all appearances, what we're seeing so far not only has it's own distinctive flavor; but preserves all the tropes Bingle seems so fond of.

Who is Bingle? ;)

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I don't disagree with your disdain for much of fantasy, but you're throwing the baby out with the elves.

Fantasy can also challenge our ignorance of the past. Because we build our models of the future from data on the past, this is an important task.

As a trivial example - years of Ren Fair history and shallow fantasy tripe have taught us that medieval Europe was a monoculture dominated by white straight Christians. This, in turn, fosters a kind of grim naive realism - people genuinely believe that women were only prostitutes, housewives, and noble ladies; that POC lived in Africa and the East and never became part of European society; that being gay was a ruthlessly prosecuted pathology.

This, in turn, feeds back into the false belief that women never fought or held power, that gay people were closeted throughout history and only 'came out' on a global level in the last 50 years, and that great civilizations rarely interacted.

Fantasy can challenge this ignorance by writing about the world as it actually was - or by creating fantastic worlds that draw on a broader, more sharply researched vision of history. Game of Thrones is an example of something popular that's not great at this - but then you have fantasy like Hild, Earthsea, NK Jemisin's work, Ellen Kushner's Riverside, all of which force people to confront and update their models of the past. When those models update, so do their heroic fantasies about the past. When Ged, the hero of Earthsea, was off-handedly described as a black man from a civilization of black people, it meant something enormous to a lot of readers.

And they're also very compelling, well-written stories. People shouldn't shy away from them out of the erroneous thought that they're 'message fantasy'.

I should declare a bit of a conflict of interest here: I just sold a fantasy trilogy (first novel sales, woo) to Tor Books, about a revolutionary who falls in love with the woman she'll have to betray. Although they're 'fantasy' because they're set in a world that isn't Earth, they don't have any magic - unless you count economics, neuroscience, and game theory.

So I have a selfish reason to disagree with your assessment of fantasy, too.

And they're also very compelling, well-written stories. People shouldn't shy away from them out of the erroneous thought that they're 'message fantasy'.

My opinion is that if the "message" is the purpose of your art, then it's not art--it's propaganda. (And ultimately less effective.)

I should declare a bit of a conflict of interest here: I just sold a fantasy trilogy (first novel sales, woo) to Tor Books, about a revolutionary who falls in love with the woman she'll have to betray. Although they're 'fantasy' because they're set in a world that isn't Earth, they don't have any magic - unless you count economics, neuroscience, and game theory.

Fantastic news. Congratulations!

I should declare a bit of a conflict of interest here: I just sold a fantasy trilogy (first novel sales, woo) to Tor Books, about a revolutionary who falls in love with the woman she'll have to betray. Although they're 'fantasy' because they're set in a world that isn't Earth, they don't have any magic - unless you count economics, neuroscience, and game theory.

There's nothing Fantastical about life on a world that isn't Earth. Science tells us that this is not only possible, but in fact pretty likely.

There's nothing Fantastical about life on a world that isn't Earth. Science tells us that this is not only possible, but in fact pretty likely.

Fabricating another world to set your story in is an act of fantasy. Building the demographic, geopolitical, and ideological systems that govern that world - even the ecologies and biomes that populate it - is an act of fantasy. The physical plausibility thereof is almost irrelevant.

Cosmology right now favors a flat, open, infinite, isotropic universe, which means all physically plausible worlds exist (in infinite permutations) in Hubble volumes well past our universe's event horizon. But that doesn't change the fact that this is an act of imagination.

Let's refocus this conversation on the central question: whether fantasy is inherently regressive. I've pointed out that it doesn't have to be.

To repeat EffortlessFury's post:

"But it actually makes perfect sense. The game begins at a point in time where humanity is seemingly quite ignorant of its past and is looking to explore those unknowns to reveal the truth and progress into the future."

I appreciate the effort, dude. (No pun on my name intended :) I really feel invisible here sometimes. XD

I appreciate the effort, dude. (No pun on my name intended :) I really feel invisible here sometimes. XD

You look familiar. Have I seen you around here before?

I appreciate the effort, dude. (No pun on my name intended :) I really feel invisible here sometimes. XD

You look familiar. Have I seen you around here before?

I've gone by DHalo on HBO since '03. I've just not been super active in posting here or there in a long time. There's a lot of negativity a lot of the time and many attempts at constructive speculation have fallen flat more often than not.

I appreciate the effort, dude. (No pun on my name intended :) I really feel invisible here sometimes. XD

You look familiar. Have I seen you around here before?

I've gone by DHalo on HBO since '03. I've just not been super active in posting here or there in a long time. There's a lot of negativity a lot of the time and many attempts at constructive speculation have fallen flat more often than not.

Thanks for reintroducing yourself. Still getting used to your new handle. I don't find DBO very negative--although there are some folks that don't seem to think we're negative enough, or maybe I should use the word "skeptical."

I've gone by DHalo on HBO since '03. I've just not been super active in posting here or there in a long time. There's a lot of negativity a lot of the time and many attempts at constructive speculation have fallen flat more often than not.

Heh. I was joking, but I'm glad you introduced yourself. EffortlessFury means nothing to me, but I do remember a pretty cool guy named DHalo who used to lurk on HBO.

I appreciate the effort, dude. (No pun on my name intended :) I really feel invisible here sometimes. XD

You look familiar. Have I seen you around here before?

I've gone by DHalo on HBO since '03. I've just not been super active in posting here or there in a long time. There's a lot of negativity a lot of the time and many attempts at constructive speculation have fallen flat more often than not.

Thanks for reintroducing yourself. Still getting used to your new handle. I don't find DBO very negative--although there are some folks that don't seem to think we're negative enough, or maybe I should use the word "skeptical."

Admittedly, this place could use a lot more negativity so that Destiny's evil will start to reveal itself more to us. At least I think that's how this works. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, right?

I've gone by DHalo on HBO since '03. I've just not been super active in posting here or there in a long time. There's a lot of negativity a lot of the time and many attempts at constructive speculation have fallen flat more often than not.

That clears that up, then. You're an old timer. :)

Matter of fact, one could say the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

~m

Marry me. We'll have little baby Titans all over the place.

I've gone by DHalo on HBO since '03. I've just not been super active in posting here or there in a long time. There's a lot of negativity a lot of the time and many attempts at constructive speculation have fallen flat more often than not.

That clears that up, then. You're an old timer. :)

Right? HI DHALO