What are the defining traits of Science Fantasy?

What are the tropes?

the expectations?

The plot devices and plot hooks?

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Star Wars, Star Wars, and star wars.

Being unrealistic and therefore wrong.

Pretty women in skintight spacesuits with massive fishbowl helmets.

>What are the defining traits of Science Fantasy

White villains.

Alien race / parasite / experiment gone wrong that assimilates and/or resurrects living beings and links them up to a hive mind.

That's really more of a Retrofuturist aesthetic

Science fantasy will virtually always abide by Clarke's Three Laws:
>When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
>The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
and third, but *most important*:
>Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

As far as setting and plot structure goes, handle it like your fantasy subgenre of choice and just shift the trappings of things away from whatever rarefied sorts of mysticism and belief systems that RPGs usually pillage to half-assedly justify magic.
Instead, half-assedly use technology, which will circumstantially also introduce more interesting and immediately understandable limits to not-magic.

Sigil as a space station.
Conan as a human displaced to Mars.
Gollum as a man warped and kept alive by a psionic energy field generator that was infected with a fragment of a sentient AI.

You mean pulp science fiction?

Still a branch of scifi as far as I am concerned.

That you don't give a damn about actual science. Whatever scientific concepts or information you like are to be used as mythology is in fantasy, i.e. as springboards for an entertaining story or setting

That partly depends on how much your setting tilts one way or the other. Modernization, technology, scope, etc.

Pic related: WildStar is a sci-fi fantasy setting that tilts a bit more towards sci-fi but still has what it internally classifies as "magic."

Right, but it is not in particular associated with science fantasy

I don't recall a single skin-tight suit and bubble helmet combo in Star Wars, por ejemplo

Skyforge is a bit more nebulous. There's sci-fi trappings (fully modern cities and hamlets, holo-decks, miniguns, ablative armor, etc) and fantasy trappings (witches/warlocks, mages, paladins, elements, etc), but the main draw from a player's perspective is the nature of immortality and godhood, where faith in an immortal directly translates into power and can lead to apotheosis, where you have access to all kinds of powers you can freely access and are orders of magnitude more powerful than any mortal.

>Sci-Fi: fantastical things are explained through science.
>Fantasy: fantastical things are explained through magic.

Even if magic exists in the Sci-Fi setting, magic is usually explained by science or a scientific method, and sometimes they're both combined to be technomancy.

I hate Starwars so FUCKING much.

I prefer shit with lizard men, crystal castles, and a bullshit mix of noble savage societies barley using swords existing alongside an evil empire with crazy space tech and frikin laser beams.

And the lone human hero fights to liberate the noble savages from oppression, then bangs the alien princess, who somehow looks like a hot human chick and isn't evil like her fu-manchu looking father.

star wars is more like space opera

Combination of Science fiction and fantasy. If it has magic or a "force", it's probably science fantasy.

space opera can be pure sci fi, or science fantasy. Traditional space opera tends to be on the sci fi side rather than incorporating magic or any other fantasy elements.

Asimov's Foundation series is considered space opera.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera

Think of the future, Think of new tech
Think of how new tech can affects lives and write stories in settings with this tech.
That is Sci Fi at it's core.
How will science affect the future.

So Masters of the Universe

I would say how science affects humanity and how humanity affects science. It doesn't have to be necessarily in the future.

>tropes
fantasy tropes, farmboy turns to hero, wizened hermits, forces beyond mere humans, sword fights, good vs evil, etc.

>expectations
a lot like star wars

>plot devices and plot hooks
ancient relics passed down through the generations, fighting the evil empire, defending against the alien hordes

Don't forget rocket tits

>Tropes
Single-biome planets
Melee is viable when guns exist
Huge beasts
FTL-travel
Chosen one

>Expectations
Kingdoms in space, warring between each other or united against a common, galaxy-wiping threat. Main characters come from humble origins and go on to become the saviors of the galaxy. Lots of flashy stuff like Holograms, glowing weapons and light creating powers of any sort.

>Plot devices and plot hooks
See: Fantasy
Village was burned to the ground
Princess got abducted
Only the true king can wield this sword
Barbarians attack

Science fiction is rooted in asking questions and exploring them in the story. It's like running a fictional experiment. It explores philosophy, technology, sociology, and the like.

Fantasy is rooted in mythology, ritual, ceremony, symbolism, culture. Proper science fantasy is fantasy with an eye for futuristic aesthetics.

Good luck actually blending the two together.

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Fantasy IN SPACE!

Typically a sci-fi setting with a fantasy plot. What do I mean by that?

Sci-fi settings are usually some vision of our future predicated on one "big lie", a giant "what if" that asks a question about human nature. For example, Star Trek, Starship Troopers and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep are examinations of contemporary human nature through the lens of an advanced technology.

Fantasy plots are usually predicated on demonstrations of morality or philosophy. This has been written to death so just stuff your face with the Hero's Journey and shut up. Lord of the Rings, for example, is about the nature of control and subjugation as it relates to ideas of good and evil.

Let's look at two science fantasy properties, Star Wars and Dune. Both settings ask pretty similar questions: what is some few humans were able to rise above what we currently consider the limits of the human condition? Star Wars has a plot that demonstrates a black and white moral philosophy and lessons of selflessness and restraint. Dune pontificates on ideas of "greater good" and, in an inversion of LotR, subjugation as an ultimate (if ulterior) good.

Aesthetically, sci-fi usually goes out of its way to explain HOW things happen, while science fantasy tends to align with fantasy insofar as it gives a WHY things happen (though sci-fan differs from fantasy insofar as it gives you a really big smile and hopes you'll be satisfied with a WHY instead of a HOW).

I don´t "hate" Star Wars but yeah ... I am down for that.

Is book of the new sun science fantasy or straight sci-fi?

Contact 1997 is a science fiction.
Rest are Science Fantasy.

>I prefer shit with lizard men, crystal castles, and a bullshit mix of noble savage societies barley using swords existing alongside an evil empire with crazy space tech and frikin laser beams.
So you love Star Wars? Because literally all of that is in there.

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I love science fantasy as well as fantasy with modern elements in general but I have noticed that too many people get hung up on the minutia of how the fantastical elements and technological elements interact in the setting

No one can just sit back and accept that rayguns and rockets exists alongside magic and monsters

Depends on what definition of "science fantasy" you're using.

For example, the definition I've always used is basically Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Blackmoore or Numeria: it's a fantasy world in which science fiction elements, like crashed alien space ships or androids, have been incorporated.

I've always thought pic related fits the science fantasy genre, it's a pretty typical fantasy setting but you can find modern weapons and crashed airplanes and it ends with a lich driving a tank

I don't remember crystal castles.

youtube.com/watch?v=WFrHOCwrMYQ

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Science and Fantasy.

That's about it.

One of the biggest indicators is melee weapons being the primary weapon of choice of a major faction.