40k and WHF are really, really similar

[Madness]

I had a personal theory that is not backed up by anything, to me WHF earth is sort of a sandbox where old ones threw stuff to see how it worked before going full production, or before releasing "patches" for the races they created. A sort of PTR server.

Also, Dune is Sci-fi, fiction and fantasy are pretty similar, but I get you see a difference between hard sci-fi and more liberal stuff. Also, iinm navigators don't do the space folding, they only plot the course, and they wouldn't even be necessary if there wasn't a computer ban in act.

[gorepants]

Wikipedia's entry on sci-fi is a little missleading, since the second sentence talks about 'scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature'. This is a bit of diversion, since sci-fi's science content can be whatever, so long as it is (mostly) internally consistent. The key element is that it is a "literature of ideas", that is it is idea (sometimes technological, but more commonly psycho- or sociological) that drives the story. Sci-fantasy and space opera tend to be driven by action, romance, adventure and (especially in bad 70s sci-fantasy) follow similar plots to swords-and-sorcery fantacty novels. This is why sci-fi lends itself so we to short stories (using the formal defination of being driven by idea rather than character - also why most of Phil Dick's early novels seem too long: they are very long short stories with very poor character development). A lot of modern sci-fi treads a fine line between space opera and hard (eg Asimov robots) sci-fi.

I'd argue that in this context Dune is sci-fi - it is the story of a man given the ability to predict the future and how his fear of who he feels he must become constrains him. The later books do get a little silly (and Herbet just isn't a very good writer). The modality of the fantasty (or if you prefer the modern parlance, speculative) elements is not that relevent. In the original book Paul's (and the navigators') powers are described as precience, but are also a function of probabilty analysis, so are not actually seeing the future, but being very good at predicting it. This gets muddy in later books. But in the end it doesn't actually matter to the message of the book, since it is a device to cause him to be trapped.

So do I think 40K is WHF in space?

Yes and no. It shares the same themes (eg, Man vs. Himself, thak you wikipedia), the same factions and races, and psuedoscience (give or take). Not surprising given it was made by the same people. But, even from the beginning it had its own character, since many of the designers worked with AD comics (this explains why 40K is hella more dystopian the WHF). But given that 40K was concieved as fantasy in space, there are lot of similarities too. But once you strip away a few of the cosmetic and short term plot differences, most sci-fi and fantasy stuff starts looking pretty similar since there are only so many things to write about. And if you strip away a bit more, all fiction starts to look the same (just some stuff about people and stuff).

That and reducing the product divergence to make the brand image more cohesive (hmm... undead in space anyone?).

Is it sci-fi?

No, I'd put it in the sci-fantasty bucket - it certainly isn't hard sci-fi, and lacks any great cohesiveness of ideas. Some of the black library stuff kind of make pretence to this, but I don't think it quite has the polish to come through with the goods.

Is this good or bad?

Personally (and as much as I like good sci-fi), I think having 40K presented in the sci-fantasty mode is a good thing. It doesn't get too bogged down in ideas, though it makes it obvious when the designers try too hard when the designers attempt to explain too much (*cough* sensei knights *cough* old ones *cough*). It does make it easy to push little men around and make up stories and pretend to blow things up without worrying too much about the moral issues, or how come they haven't explained the economic model of the Imperium with enough clarity for it to make sense.