SPACE SETTING – A BALANCING ACT

MAX ROTHMAN - Writer, 3rd Year, Philosophy and Biology

Clarke’s Third Law is, in my opinion, often the wrong way around.

There are countless series, anime and otherwise, that concern themselves with the final frontier. From A Trip to the Moon to The Expanse, the cosmos presents a wide canvas on which to paint a narrative. Despite the void being as such, space itself requires worldbuilding. It is not merely a barren highway between narrative setpieces, but a stage itself. The depiction of how individuals interact on and with this stage is important, and a hard choice presents itself. Unlike most other places, the void is hostile to all life. Answering the question of where and how people live is a delicate one, where the answer dictates whether a piece of media leans to science fiction or science fantasy. I assert that through the challenge of balancing the two, a creator can achieve a setting that feels thought out and believably realistic, but still leave room for fantasy that can sit supported by the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

Worldbuilding sets the characterization of environments and the background populating it. If the narrative and events wildly contrast the setting’s flavor, the whole story can start to disjoin itself. To this end, space must be dealt with. Often, the answer to space in sci-fi is handled simply. It is in that merely a space between places of interest, an equivalent of an ocean crossing between continents. With various modes of transport, characters traverse it, and the details of this are effectively wrapped and done. Any concerns are usually addressed with fantastical means – hyperdrives cut travel to nothing, ships just have perpetual air and gravity, etc.

However, the more grounded a piece of media is supposed to feel, the more attention must be paid to this. Even if fantastical elements cut it, real questions suggest themselves to the audience. The care put into this – in writing and presentation – can show an informed writer from an uninformed one. Properly illustrated vehicles, living conditions depicted with mindfulness to the setting, and so on, all contribute to push a world that much closer to ours.

But what of series that sit in the middle between futurism and fantasy? In these, the balancing act becomes the most challenging to sell best. Enough care and attention must be paid to make aspects feel plausible and real, but left open enough to not over-answer granularly and ruin the higher aspects of a world. With all the bias I can muster as a writer, I can use Mobile Suit Gundam as an example of doing it right in this regard. The broad setting and the background are well designed to balance real astrophysics and fictional designs. O’Neill cylinders are existing concepts closer to reality than fiction, with aspects such as food procurement, gravity, and society being addressed to push the narrative home. By having believable life in space, and realistic (enough) means of getting to and from space, the narrative has to keep these in mind while managing to change enough rules to get around the square-cubed law. To my biased self as someone who greatly enjoys good science fiction, this is the most savory setting. It (or any other equal example) shows care to truly think how we could live in the future, however far flung, but can stay inspired enough to show fantastical things.