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Well, actually, I'm about to ask a question that raises issues about the GW's team's knowledge of science and warfare, but you will care so little that I went with a flashy thread title.

The Avatar, as I understand it, is immune to flamer and melta weapons, because heat cannot harm it as it is a literal avatar of magic molten lava to whom the concept of a melta weapon's heat causing damage to it is impossible.

Yes, this provides a very good reason for it to be immune to flamethrowers and melta weapons, since obviously they do their damage through heat, but wait a minute, flamer and melta weapons are not the only weapons in WH40k tabletop that cause all of their damage through heat, and some of these are extremely common weapons to face on the tabletop but which will actually cause damage to an Avatar and even kill it.

The two very, VERY general examples I am thinking of, are plasma weapons, and anti-tank rockets, as both of these weapons cause all of their damage in real life through imparting so much heat to the target that it dies.

And then you ask me, well, that's absurd, right? Anti-tank rockets just cause a big explosion that blasts armor away like it's nothing and plasma weapons are science fiction magic that melts through anything.

You're wrong on both counts. Plasma weapons are something humanity has been using in real life since the Second World War, as plasma streams are how anti-tank rockets have defeated tank armor ever since the Munroe Effect was discovered. Scientists in real life have recently created a way to propel plasma through the air in a coherent form that actually lasts a couple of feet, which is essentially the creation, in real life, of a very crappy and useless plasma gun that actually functions as a projectile weapon, so calling something "magic sci-fi bs" when you have one in real life is completely absurd.

An anti-tank rocket uses a shaped charge to boil a copper lining into a plasma that then melts through any physical armor humanity has conceived of, and upon entering the tank's interior compartment, raises the internal temperature to the point where the crew are turned to liquid, the electronics are ruined, and maybe even the ammo dump cooks off. Literally all of the damage an anti-tank rocket uses to destroy a tank is through imparting too much heat for it to survive, the explosive only serves to create that plasma stream because of the physics of having a hollow area in an explosive. The only visible damage from an anti-tank rocket that you will see on a tank it has destroyed, from the outside, is a tiny hole in one part of the armor. Then you look at the inside of the tank and it is all completely and utterly melted to gak. If the tank's ammo doesn't cook off, it won't even blow up spectacularly, as the big explosion from an anti-tank rocket killing a tank isn't from the rocket, it's from all that heat detonating the tank's own ammunition, which creates the kind of explosion you would've seen in the Pearl Harbor when that bomb lands in one ship's ammo dump, surrounded by the ship's own shells, and then the next thing you see is an enormous capital ship literally jumping out of the water from the force of its entire ammunition supply detonating simultaneously within its own hull. Which is actually the reason why the Navy wanted railguns for its ships so badly - railguns require no explosives whatsoever to use, either in the projectile or the means of propelling it, and anyone who has seen Pearl Harbor can appreciate the difference between what happens when a bomb goes off surrounded by a crapload of even more powerful bombs, and a bomb going off surrounded by inanimate tungsten rods. The latter is what a railgun's ammo supply literally is, so they are MUCH safer to have on a war vessel than weapons whose own ammunition requirements mean your choice of weapon could be responsible for sinking your own ship if you get hit in the wrong place, like the equivalent of a Zelda boss' weak spot from a video game, but in real life with a fething SHIP.

Enough about railguns, this is about heat weapons. Plasma weapons are not actually magical science fiction bs, since as you may recall from the paragraph above, we invented them in real life before we invented the nuclear bomb. A plasma gun doesn't kill its target through a magic fluid that can eat through any known material, no, that description would be completely wrong since plasma is not even a liquid, it is a gas that is ionized, meaning something about its electrical charge that I don't understand. Being an ionized gas is literally what plasma is defined as, since plasma is a state of matter like solid, liquid and gas, not an actual substance in and of itself. And a plasma weapon, under all circumstances, would deal its damage through literally melting the target by providing too much heat for it to withstand, because that is the exact property of plasma that makes it a useful weapon - the fact that for a gas to become a plasma, it usually has to be way too hot for fething tank armor to not literally melt and then boil into a gas due to how much heat is being imparted into it. We would probably be calling plasma weapons something not related to the state of matter they were if gases could get that hot, because "gas weapon" evokes images of weapons of mass destruction from World War 1, not a weapon that uses heat to melt its target.

Now, if you've read this entire post, you'll remember that this is about the Avatar and why it is not immune to anti-tank rockets and plasma weapons, since it is immune to heat damage. Okay, the former is a specific type of the latter if we're being honest, but expecting people to not understand that the concept of a plasma weapon also encompasses how krak rockets probably work, is exactly my point. GW's developers and most of us, including me until less than an hour ago, didn't even question the fact that plasma weapons somehow can hurt a being immune to heat damage, given the fact that plasma weapons are literally heat weapons. There is zero other way for a plasma weapon to deal damage to a target other than heat, since you sure as hell aren't getting a huge kinetic impact by shooting something with an ionized gas, since the amount of force it would take to treat a gas as being solid enough to jump off of would probably crack the planet's crust from the unprecedented planet-ending explosion you just caused by double-jumping in a video game.

The concept of an anti-tank rocket (SABOT) round still being able to inflict damage on the Avatar is pretty straight forward. yes its translating a lot of its kinetic injury into that depleted uranium rod, however your forgetting that it still has a lot of kinetic force left over which pushes that molted mass of metal through the tank. In regards to the avatar think of it as a bullet going straight through a opposed to burning through. Same effect. It wont ignite the avatar but it will still punch a hole in him.

SemperMortis wrote:
The concept of an anti-tank rocket (SABOT) round still being able to inflict damage on the Avatar is pretty straight forward. yes its translating a lot of its kinetic injury into that depleted uranium rod, however your forgetting that it still has a lot of kinetic force left over which pushes that molted mass of metal through the tank. In regards to the avatar think of it as a bullet going straight through a opposed to burning through. Same effect. It wont ignite the avatar but it will still punch a hole in him.

First of all, what depleted uranium rod? Have they actually provided enough information on how Krak Rockets work for you to tell me that Imperial Guardsmen have been firing kinetic energy anti-tank rockets at tanks instead of plasma stream anti-tank rockets, with enough detail to tell me they defined it as a "depleted uranium rod" in the lore?


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I looked it up on Lexicanum, yes they have provided enough information for us to know what kind of anti-tank rocket they are, and they are plasma stream rockets, not kinetic energy rockets, because this is what Lexicanum defines Krak Rockets as:

"Krak Missiles are primarily designed as anti-vehicle weapons, but are also very effective against heavy infantry, bunkers and other armored targets. Krak missiles contain a high strength, low blast shaped charge, causing massive damage to anything it hits with minimal collateral damage.

A "shaped charge" could also be imparting a great deal of explosive force, blowing chunks of magma from the Avatar. There could still be a shock wave involved.

Likewise with Plasma, since it (at least the cannon) has a blast.

I was sort of surprised you didn't mention the Lascannon, actually, since lasers impart a lot of heat. The case could be made that the instantaneous buildup of heat in each case is the cause of the explosive damage. The heat itself doesn't damage the Avatar, but the explosively rapid expansion of mass does, as each weapon could be instantaneous.

So if Las, Plasma and Krak are doing their damage through instantaneous explosive expansion, maybe Melta just takes more time, and is therefore not explosive. The Avatars "physiology" can handle it.

Or total handwavium, it's a daemon, therefore it's vulnerability has more to do with the "spirit" of the weapon. As a matter of ceremony, Fire Dragons are equipped with Melta, and therefore "Melta energy" is just an inherent part of their war god.

Is there a Pouncey's Nitpicky summary ?

Pouncey's nitpicky summary is basically "why are 'heat-based weapons' so much more narrowly defined in the rules than they are in the lore?"

GW has chosen not to introduce a typing system by which each weapon has an attack/damage type, mostly because it'd enable exactly two effects in all of 40k (the Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon in the Inquisition, and the Avatar). The Avatar's immunity to flamers and melta weapons is a fun/wacky holdover rule that dates back to the same period when someone decided to write "Amphibious" in the Chimera's special rules entry; it's still around for flavour reasons, even if it doesn't really add much to the game (beyond making Sisters use Exorcists, Rending Heavy Bolters, and Repentia to kill an Avatar if they see one rather than melta weapons).

 Insectum7 wrote:
A "shaped charge" could also be imparting a great deal of explosive force, blowing chunks of magma from the Avatar. There could still be a shock wave involved.

Likewise with Plasma, since it (at least the cannon) has a blast.

I was sort of surprised you didn't mention the Lascannon, actually, since lasers impart a lot of heat. The case could be made that the instantaneous buildup of heat in each case is the cause of the explosive damage. The heat itself doesn't damage the Avatar, but the explosively rapid expansion of mass does, as each weapon could be instantaneous.

So if Las, Plasma and Krak are doing their damage through instantaneous explosive expansion, maybe Melta just takes more time, and is therefore not explosive. The Avatars "physiology" can handle it.

Or total handwavium, it's a daemon, therefore it's vulnerability has more to do with the "spirit" of the weapon. As a matter of ceremony, Fire Dragons are equipped with Melta, and therefore "Melta energy" is just an inherent part of their war god.

So thermal shock instead of melting? Because, uh, plasma weapons in real life don't cause thermal shock on tank armor, which is much less heat-resistant than an Avatar immune to a meltagun, so no, that's wrong.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Pouncey's nitpicky summary is basically "why are 'heat-based weapons' so much more narrowly defined in the rules than they are in the lore?"

GW has chosen not to introduce a typing system by which each weapon has an attack/damage type, mostly because it'd enable exactly two effects in all of 40k (the Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon in the Inquisition, and the Avatar). The Avatar's immunity to flamers and melta weapons is a fun/wacky holdover rule that dates back to the same period when someone decided to write "Amphibious" in the Chimera's special rules entry; it's still around for flavour reasons, even if it doesn't really add much to the game (beyond making Sisters use Exorcists, Rending Heavy Bolters, and Repentia to kill an Avatar if they see one rather than melta weapons).

If you add "and also real life weapons that have existed since before Games Workshop was a thing at all" to that first sentence, yes, that basically is my question.

Also, uh, if there's already a list of what is and is not a plasma weapon, as defined by the game having other things that also only affect plasma weapons, then this issue is easy to solve. Take the list of plasma weapons you already have to have because of other things that exist, and simply add them to the Avatar's list of things it is immune to. Job's done with a 10-second copy/paste. Then also add laser weapons to it, since they are also heat weapons, then come to the conclusion that this would probably make the Avatar god damned unstoppable since it is now immune to pretty much everything that can reliably kill it, and do away with the rule about its heat immunity entirely since you apparently can't make something heat-immune in WH40k without almost making it invincible to anyone who doesn't have poison weapons.

Also stop calling WH40k science fiction. Like, everyone. Including GW. It is science fantasy, not science fiction, and the difference is worth respecting.

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On a side note, I did just look up shaped charges on Wikipedia, and Krak Weapons are off the hook since a shaped charge does not necessarily mean a plasma stream weapon, I was wrong, I'm sorry, but plasma weapons are still in play.

Uhh...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge wrote:A typical modern shaped charge, with a metal liner on the charge cavity, can penetrate armor steel to a depth of seven or more times the diameter of the charge (charge diameters, CD), though greater depths of 10 CD and above[1][2] have been achieved. Contrary to a widespread misconception (possibly resulting from the acronym HEAT) the shaped charge does not depend in any way on heating or melting for its effectiveness; that is, the jet from a shaped charge does not melt its way through armor, as its effect is purely kinetic in nature.

Some shaped charges create a jet of plasma. Yes, it's plasma, but it's the stupidly high velocity of said plasma that allows it to smash through the armour. Other types of shaped charges use explosively formed penetrators to breach armour - these penetrators aren't plasma-based.
So... protection from fire won't prevent the above weapons from cutting into the target. I'm pretty sure that heat would inflict damage on the inside of the target, but don't know how much of the thermal energy comes from the thermal energy of the initial plasma jet, and how much comes from kinetic energy (cf the way that asteroids / railgun slugs create high-temperature explosions, despite not being made of explodium).

And then you ask me, well, that's absurd, right? Anti-tank rockets just cause a big explosion that blasts armor away like it's nothing and plasma weapons are science fiction magic that melts through anything.

You're wrong on both counts. Plasma weapons are something humanity has been using in real life since the Second World War, as plasma streams are how anti-tank rockets have defeated tank armor ever since the Munroe Effect was discovered. Scientists in real life have recently created a way to propel plasma through the air in a coherent form that actually lasts a couple of feet, which is essentially the creation, in real life, of a very crappy and useless plasma gun that actually functions as a projectile weapon, so calling something "magic sci-fi bs" when you have one in real life is completely absurd.

Except, as you've said, the real-life version is "a very crappy and useless plasma gun". The fictional plasma weapons are far, far more dangerous.
That's like pointing to the existence of laser pens to argue that the fictional laser death rays don't use magic sci-fi BS.

TL;DR: OP doesn't understand how anti-tank weapons work, makes a long post nitpicking based on their misconception. HEAT rounds are purely kinetic weapons, the name is an acronym not a description.

Also, nothing in 40k makes sense anyway. The Avatar being immune to heat is "a space wizard did it" nonsense, as heating liquid things even more can still damage them. And plasma weapons don't work at all like they should. Since plasma is an ionized gas a plasma gun should effectively be a short-range flamethrower, with damage quickly dropping off to nothing as the gas disperses. 40k plasma weapons don't work like that, so there's no justification for using their (hypothetical) real-world properties in 40k fluff analysis.

 Pouncey wrote:

So thermal shock instead of melting? Because, uh, plasma weapons in real life don't cause thermal shock on tank armor, which is much less heat-resistant than an Avatar immune to a meltagun, so no, that's wrong.

I don't know how plasma weapons work in real life, I think the closest thing I can think of was a ground based weapon that was intended to sort of EMP a satellite from afar. So IRL plasma weapons aren't really what 40K is doing. In 40K a Plasma weapon could have some sort of explosive force (since the big ones do have a blast), so maybe not thermal shock, but just matter expanding rapidly as the magnetic containment disrupts.

I feel like description of plasma weapons in the fluff have often described something like "many times hotter than the sun" types of detonation. Maybe that's just hotter than an Avatar can take, since perhaps he's only as hot as lava. (several thousand degrees, rather than hundreds of thousands/millions of degrees). Seems like there's plenty of room to work with.

Mallich wrote:
Uhh...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge wrote:A typical modern shaped charge, with a metal liner on the charge cavity, can penetrate armor steel to a depth of seven or more times the diameter of the charge (charge diameters, CD), though greater depths of 10 CD and above[1][2] have been achieved. Contrary to a widespread misconception (possibly resulting from the acronym HEAT) the shaped charge does not depend in any way on heating or melting for its effectiveness; that is, the jet from a shaped charge does not melt its way through armor, as its effect is purely kinetic in nature.

Some shaped charges create a jet of plasma. Yes, it's plasma, but it's the stupidly high velocity of said plasma that allows it to smash through the armour. Other types of shaped charges use explosively formed penetrators to breach armour - these penetrators aren't plasma-based.
So... protection from fire won't prevent the above weapons from cutting into the target. I'm pretty sure that heat would inflict damage on the inside of the target, but don't know how much of the thermal energy comes from the thermal energy of the initial plasma jet, and how much comes from kinetic energy (cf the way that asteroids / railgun slugs create high-temperature explosions, despite not being made of explodium).

Yeah, I already took it back because I looked up "shaped charge" and read the exact thing you quoted and admitted I was wrong.

Still, plasma weapons and laser weapons should also be affected by the Avatar's heat immunity.

The easy way to solve it though, just say the Avatar is immune to fire, not heat. Fire isn't simply heat, it's a chemical reaction of which heat is only one component. Give it immunity to flamers, remove the immunity from melta weapons since I play Sisters of Battle and having my only option outside of Repentia and Exorcists (Exorcist missiles don't have the melta rule, they are only the same strength and AP as melta weapons, because having the Exorcist's missiles obey the melta rules would be absurd since you would be telling me a ballistic, indirect fire artillery tank's (in Dawn of War 1 you see how it looks when it shoots at stuff) missile's warheads's melta tech suddenly become better against armor when the target is within half range, would be absurd since the source of that melta blast you would logically measure the range from to determine its effectiveness isn't the tank, but the rocket itself.


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Mallich wrote:
Except, as you've said, the real-life version is "a very crappy and useless plasma gun". The fictional plasma weapons are far, far more dangerous.
That's like pointing to the existence of laser pens to argue that the fictional laser death rays don't use magic sci-fi BS.

And saying that WH40k's plasma weapons wouldn't operate by imparting heat to the target because they're not that powerful yet in real life, is like saying that calling something "a fictional laser death ray" would make sense even if its operation didn't involve any form of light because we don't have lascannons IRL. Could a similar weapon operate without light? Probably. But why the hell would you call it a laser if it doesn't even use light?

Actually from what I understand, Plasma weapons in 40K could be hot enough to incur the splitting of atoms, which would be pretty explosive. This is like tiny nuclear explosions consisting of relative handfuls of atoms being split.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

So thermal shock instead of melting? Because, uh, plasma weapons in real life don't cause thermal shock on tank armor, which is much less heat-resistant than an Avatar immune to a meltagun, so no, that's wrong.

I don't know how plasma weapons work in real life, I think the closest thing I can think of was a ground based weapon that was intended to sort of EMP a satellite from afar. So IRL plasma weapons aren't really what 40K is doing. In 40K a Plasma weapon could have some sort of explosive force (since the big ones do have a blast), so maybe not thermal shock, but just matter expanding rapidly as the magnetic containment disrupts.

I feel like description of plasma weapons in the fluff have often described something like "many times hotter than the sun" types of detonation. Maybe that's just hotter than an Avatar can take, since perhaps he's only as hot as lava. (several thousand degrees, rather than hundreds of thousands/millions of degrees). Seems like there's plenty of room to work with.

I am clearly in over my head.

Here's a video made by a guy who tries to figure out the consequences of things in sci-fi video games, if they existed in real life, by taking real science and trying to do the same thing. Unsurprisingly, his videos will tell you that many sci-fi video games have things that are complete bullgak, and/or horrifically terrifying due to what would happen when you recreate something you see in a video game in real life. This video is specifically about plasma weapons in Fallout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBEYl1l5E0

 Pouncey wrote:
Fire isn't simply heat, it's a chemical reaction of which heat is only one component.

Err, what? Fire is a chemical reaction that produces heat, its entire damage mechanism (outside of breathing damage from smoke in enclosed spaces) to things that aren't directly consumed by the fire is from that heat.

Anyway, the real problem here is that you're trying to come up with a scientific analysis of something that is literally "a space wizard did it". The Avatar is not immune to "heat" weapons because there's some reasonable explanation for it based on their damage properties, it's immune because a space wizard cast a "protection from melta/flamer weapons" spell on it. Trying to explain it as anything else is doomed to failure.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Actually from what I understand, Plasma weapons in 40K could be hot enough to incur the splitting of atoms, which would be pretty explosive. This is like tiny nuclear explosions consisting of relative handfuls of atoms being split.

I think the danger from that would vary. If it's not sufficient to cause a noticeable explosion, it still might be creating enough radiation that it would endanger the firer even if their plasma gun didn't blow up in their hands.

So basically you have a choice between plasma weapons causing nuclear blasts, or plasma weapons bombarding you and everyone else nearby with gamma radiation when you fire them, or nothing discernable happening, depending on how much splitting of atoms is going on.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Fire isn't simply heat, it's a chemical reaction of which heat is only one component.

Err, what? Fire is a chemical reaction that produces heat, its entire damage mechanism (outside of breathing damage from smoke in enclosed spaces) to things that aren't directly consumed by the fire is from that heat.

Anyway, the real problem here is that you're trying to come up with a scientific analysis of something that is literally "a space wizard did it". The Avatar is not immune to "heat" weapons because there's some reasonable explanation for it based on their damage properties, it's immune because a space wizard cast a "protection from melta/flamer weapons" spell on it. Trying to explain it as anything else is doomed to failure.

Then why do people call WH40k a sci-fi game and not a science fantasy game?

In a sci-fi game, the explanation of, "a space wizard did it" would be unacceptable. In a science fantasy game, that explanation would be totally fine, and the less they try to explain, the better, because those actual explanations would be as horribly bad as pretty much everything I said in this thread.

Because obviously WH40k is a science fantasy game, because no one could defend calling it a sci-fi game, yet so many people call it a sci-fi game.

Haven't you answered your own question here though?

Also stop calling WH40k science fiction. Like, everyone. Including GW. It is science fantasy, not science fiction, and the difference is worth respecting.

Like others have said, the immunity to flame weapons is a relic and should not be taken to mean that all weapons that create heat (as byproducts or as a direct result of their operation)
Back when this rule was implemented Flame and Melta weapons used the same basic fuel in fluff (promethium) essentially the Avatar is only immune to being petrol bombed.

As it stands its immunity is justified and the Avatar can still fulfil its intended role, dying in droves to Primarchs, marines, guardsmen and whomever BL want to see feth over this living aspect of an ancient god.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Actually from what I understand, Plasma weapons in 40K could be hot enough to incur the splitting of atoms, which would be pretty explosive. This is like tiny nuclear explosions consisting of relative handfuls of atoms being split.

I think the danger from that would vary. If it's not sufficient to cause a noticeable explosion, it still might be creating enough radiation that it would endanger the firer even if their plasma gun didn't blow up in their hands.

So basically you have a choice between plasma weapons causing nuclear blasts, or plasma weapons bombarding you and everyone else nearby with gamma radiation when you fire them, or nothing discernable happening, depending on how much splitting of atoms is going on.

Well we "know" Plasma is effective as a weapon, and explosive, so there's at least one clear solution.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Haven't you answered your own question here though?

Also stop calling WH40k science fiction. Like, everyone. Including GW. It is science fantasy, not science fiction, and the difference is worth respecting.

Like others have said, the immunity to flame weapons is a relic and should not be taken to mean that all weapons that create heat (as byproducts or as a direct result of their operation)
Back when this rule was implemented Flame and Melta weapons used the same basic fuel in fluff (promethium) essentially the Avatar is only immune to being petrol bombed.

As it stands its immunity is justified and the Avatar can still fulfil its intended role, dying in droves to Primarchs, marines, guardsmen and whomever BL want to see feth over this living aspect of an ancient god.

Yup. Science fantasy means you don't need to ask questions about how things work.

But GW insists on calling it science fiction, and in science fiction, questions about how things work need answers that are backed up by real science.

So the two options are, "Stop calling WH40k science fiction" or "Keep calling WH40k science fiction, and then rewrite the lore so that everything in the fiction is backed up with real science." The option you do not get is, "Keep calling WH40k science fiction, but then treat it in every way as though it were science fantasy" because the two terms are mutually exclusive.

It's science fiction in a classic sense, like 'green people from mars with heat rays taking our women' science fiction.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Haven't you answered your own question here though?

Also stop calling WH40k science fiction. Like, everyone. Including GW. It is science fantasy, not science fiction, and the difference is worth respecting.

Like others have said, the immunity to flame weapons is a relic and should not be taken to mean that all weapons that create heat (as byproducts or as a direct result of their operation)
Back when this rule was implemented Flame and Melta weapons used the same basic fuel in fluff (promethium) essentially the Avatar is only immune to being petrol bombed.

As it stands its immunity is justified and the Avatar can still fulfil its intended role, dying in droves to Primarchs, marines, guardsmen and whomever BL want to see feth over this living aspect of an ancient god.

Yup. Science fantasy means you don't need to ask questions about how things work.

But GW insists on calling it science fiction, and in science fiction, questions about how things work need answers that are backed up by real science.

So the two options are, "Stop calling WH40k science fiction" or "Keep calling WH40k science fiction, and then rewrite the lore so that everything in the fiction is backed up with real science." The option you do not get is, "Keep calling WH40k science fiction, but then treat it in every way as though it were science fantasy" because the two terms are mutually exclusive.

Or, GW can call it what the hell they want to, I'm okay with space wizards, Horrifically disfigured equine faced giants in powered armour, and huge box like 'fighters' that cannot fly. And tank engines that draw enough operational power from burning wood.

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's science fiction in a classic sense, like 'green people from mars with heat rays taking our women' science fiction.

That's not how it works though. Science fiction, and science fantasy, are two entirely different things. Science fiction is basically imagining the future in real life, and science fantasy is basically high-tech fantasy.

Star Trek is/was science fiction, Star Wars is science fantasy. In Star Trek, if you look into the lore to figure out how something works, you end up getting a science lesson. In Star Wars, if you look into the lore to figure out how something works, you get "Rule of Cool".

The thing is though, most fiction that calls itself "science fiction" is actually science fantasy, and that is a thing society allows to happen and has actually embraced as a concept.

 Pouncey wrote:
Then why do people call WH40k a sci-fi game and not a science fantasy game?

Because it's largely a scifi game with some fantasy elements included. But really, I don't see your point here. Why does the label matter so much, and why do these labels have to have rigid boundaries?


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 Pouncey wrote:
Star Trek is/was science fiction

Uh, no. Star Trek had just as much "a space wizard did it" nonsense, blatantly unrealistic "science", etc, as Star Wars did.

In Star Trek, if you look into the lore to figure out how something works, you end up getting a science lesson.

And usually that lesson takes the form of "here's how this thing Star Trek mentioned actually works, and why Star Trek's science is garbage". Calling a space wizard a "quantum frequency energy being" instead of a space wizard doesn't make Star Trek's technobabble realistic science.

I'm no scientist (even if you count my psychology studies as sciences) but I would have thought that setting your universes very far into the future is meant to explain boundaries being broken to end up developing technologies that defy the laws of physics.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Then why do people call WH40k a sci-fi game and not a science fantasy game?

Because it's largely a scifi game with some fantasy elements included. But really, I don't see your point here. Why does the label matter so much, and why do these labels have to have rigid boundaries?

Why do these labels have to have rigid boundaries?

Because if you tuned into a show listed and advertised as an action-adventure, and it was actually a very serious documentary with neither action or adventure, you'd be confused, since there is no way a documentary of any sort should be listed as an action-adventure, because words mean things, and the words being applied to the thing you just saw, do not apply to that thing whatsoever. Then, when you go, "What the hell?" people tell you that doing so is okay since "labels don't have to have rigid boundaries".


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Then why do people call WH40k a sci-fi game and not a science fantasy game?

Because it's largely a scifi game with some fantasy elements included. But really, I don't see your point here. Why does the label matter so much, and why do these labels have to have rigid boundaries?


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 Pouncey wrote:
Star Trek is/was science fiction

Uh, no. Star Trek had just as much "a space wizard did it" nonsense, blatantly unrealistic "science", etc, as Star Wars did.

In Star Trek, if you look into the lore to figure out how something works, you end up getting a science lesson.

And usually that lesson takes the form of "here's how this thing Star Trek mentioned actually works, and why Star Trek's science is garbage". Calling a space wizard a "quantum frequency energy being" instead of a space wizard doesn't make Star Trek's technobabble realistic science.

Duly noted. Star Trek is science fantasy, and I will stop calling it science fiction.

 Pouncey wrote:
Because if you tuned into a show listed and advertised as an action-adventure, and it was actually a very serious documentary with neither action or adventure, you'd be confused, since there is no way a documentary of any sort should be listed as an action-adventure, because words mean things, and the words being applied to the thing you just saw, do not apply to that thing whatsoever. Then, when you go, "What the hell?" people tell you that doing so is okay since "labels don't have to have rigid boundaries".

There's a difference between not having rigid boundaries in defining sub-genres and applying a label to something it doesn't fit at all. Like it or not the term "science fiction" does not apply only to things with 100% perfect realism and real science. In the conventional use of the word things like Star Wars are "science fiction" because they have spaceships and laser guns and all that "future" stuff. For most people if they watch a movie labeled "science fiction" and get something like Star Wars they're going to say "yep, exactly what I was expecting".

And as for the idea of defining "hard scifi"/"soft scifi"/"space opera"/etc as sub-genres of science fiction those terms have soft boundaries because making a precise label is impossible. Even relatively realism-based science fiction still often handwaves away science problems with "a space wizard did it", with things like FTL travel, aliens that look like humans with pointy ears for budget reasons, etc. So the dividing line is drawn by individual people based on what they feel is "too much" handwaving and space magic, and reasonable people can disagree about which sub-genre a given work fits into.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's science fiction in a classic sense, like 'green people from mars with heat rays taking our women' science fiction.

That's not how it works though. Science fiction, and science fantasy, are two entirely different things. Science fiction is basically imagining the future in real life, and science fantasy is basically high-tech fantasy.

Star Trek is/was science fiction, Star Wars is science fantasy. In Star Trek, if you look into the lore to figure out how something works, you end up getting a science lesson. In Star Wars, if you look into the lore to figure out how something works, you get "Rule of Cool".

The thing is though, most fiction that calls itself "science fiction" is actually science fantasy, and that is a thing society allows to happen and has actually embraced as a concept.

First and as an aside: Pouncey I'm surprised, usually I feel like your tone is more generous. Maybe I'm projecting though.

I say "science fiction in a classic sense" because in it's beginnings, that's really what "science fiction" referred to; Princess of Mars, flying saucers, radioactive monsters, etc. The term "science fiction" was the blanket term for all that stuff. Kubrick said his 2001 was his attempt to make a "serious" science fiction movie, since the genre at the time was popularly understood to be mostly b-movie schlock.

What does "science fiction" mean now? I think those of us that are well versed in it understand that there's a definite "hard sci-fi" realm that is more grounded in science as we understand it. Larry Niven was a go-to for a long time for more serious science, I think of The Expanse as more serious sci-fi. But then what do we do with stuff like Dune? I think of Dune as science fiction, and scientifically it's completely bonkers. But I would hate to kick it out of the pantheon of "sci-fi" since it's such a landmark work.

In the end I think genres are A: malleable, and B: artificial. They help to quickly categorize, but beyond a really abstract scale they're sort of useless. I'm only vaguely interested in what sci-fi means nowadays, and I think everyone has their own definition. Also, I feel like as a genre it's better for "science-fiction" to be more loose, as it frees the author up in some ways to do more interesting things. The idea that once telepathy (or whatever) is introduced into a story that it's no longer sci-fi is silly to me.


Anyways, back to the "science" 40K. Volcanic lava, which the Avatar is supposedly comprised of, naturally comes in at between 1500 and 2200 degrees F. Which is hot, but it's not star-hot. Plasma and Lasers might be bringing things to star levels of temperature very fast. The sun ranges from 10,000 deg F to many millions of degress F. It's hard for me to think that wouldn't have some sort of effect.