"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4ad4c199$1@news.povray.org...
> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/why_i_hate_star_trek.html
>
> This pretty much says why I consider science fiction to only be that where 
> you couldn't write the story without the technology. Could Star Trek be 
> written as a western or a Spanish Armada kind of story? Yes. Could 
> Ringworld? Not hardly.
>
> If you can still tell the story without the technology, it's not SF. Oddly 
> enough, most of the original Star Trek series that people liked the best 
> (say, the one with the Horta) were ones where you couldn't take out the 
> tech and tell the same story.
>

Couple o' things... technology isn't science, it's an application thereof. 
Arguably the most visible application, to be sure, and most SF stories take 
place in some sort of future where technological enhancements are almost 
inevitable. However, I think there's some wiggle room there.

Also, I'm not sure "Devil In The Dark" is the best example of the point... 
the only important technology to the plot were A) what the miners were 
digging for, and B) the silicon cement used to bandage the Horta. If the 
creature were found in a Welsh coal mine in 1872 and one of the government 
folks sent in to investigate were a telepath, you could tell the same story. 
I think if you gave a logical enough explanation for how a silicon based 
life form could exist (and in Wales, no less) and let the telepathy go as an 
unexplained-but-taken-for-granted miracle (as it is in Star Trek) it would 
be still be science fiction. No gadgets, but still scientific.

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