2.1 The Ontological Property: Plausible Science-Fictionality
Our twenty-first-century world is built on science and technology. Calling the present a “scientific age” would probably cause little controversy. Interestingly, though, the central scientific images in works of fiction are often not images of our own age. They range from the Space Battleship Yamato setting out for Iscandar to the humanoid robots exemplified by the Mobile Suit Gundam series. Even an apparently contemporary story such as Steins;Gate has at its core an image such as “time travel,” something all but impossible in the present day.
In short, if scientific images in anime and similar works share anything, it is science-fictionality. Yet the distinction between science fiction and fantasy is sometimes far from clear, and there are frequent arguments about whether certain kinds of “soft science fiction” count as “real science fiction.” A more precise expression would therefore be plausible science-fictionality. The notion of plausibility invoked here has occasioned much debate in the history of logical empiricism. For now, we will understand plausibility in a very weak sense. If most people intuitively think that an image might be explicable within our existing system of scientific knowledge and beliefs, we can say that it possesses plausible science-fictionality, regardless of how such an explanation might actually be possible.
This plausible science-fictionality runs through almost all scientific imagery. The concept is easy to understand if we think of some of the most famous images in these works. One question comes round like clockwork on forums, Baidu Tieba, Zhihu, and other platforms: “Would humanoid robots like Gundam have any value in actual combat?” By now, in 2018, of course, there is a consensus on such questions: no combat value; their only advantage is helping the “Bandai conglomerate” sell plastic model kits. Still, a brief look back at the debate will help clarify what plausible science-fictionality means.
At least on the Chinese-language internet, the standard answer in earlier years ran roughly as follows. According to the official worldbuilding, the discovery of Minovsky particles restricts combat to visual range; since most fighting takes place in the vacuum of space, the humanoid form is best suited to close combat. This answer is plainly full of holes. A machine does not become easier to control simply by taking human form, and it is hard to see what advantage that form offers in close combat. On the contrary, it has inherent shortcomings in structural strength and other respects. Later, some people invoked the fictional AMBAC maneuvering system to explain the need for limbs: a machine can change its orientation by swinging its limbs, saving propellant and increasing agility. But this is merely an application of the conservation of angular momentum. Limbs are not the only means of putting that principle to work, nor are they even the most sensible means. The final defense of humanoid design rests on an idea about possible worlds: “We can’t build humanoid robots now because technology isn’t advanced enough. Once technology progresses, we’ll see the advantages of the humanoid form.” Yet this is a counterfactual conditional. Its antecedent—technology reaching a sufficiently advanced level—is a counterfactual situation, so we could also derive the opposite conclusion from the premise that ‘technology is sufficiently advanced.’ Such a claim is empty and useless.
This debate illustrates very well what kind of characteristic plausible science-fictionality is. On the one hand, the scientific images in these works receive explanations that make them seem reasonable, and these explanations draw on common impressions of science. On the other, if we examine these explanations closely, most do not stand up to much scrutiny.
Scientific imagery in most works may lack the detailed worldbuilding of the Mobile Suit Gundam series. This does not mean, however, that it lacks the explanatory resources needed to possess plausible science-fictionality. In the vast majority of cases, that property is conveyed through a broader way of explaining and understanding. This usually does not account for the imagery’s plausible science-fictionality through explicit specifications, exposition, or description. Viewers, readers, and players can nevertheless often sense the characteristic within the work.1
2.2 How Scientific Imagery Acquires Plausible Science-Fictionality
Scientific imagery in fiction is often more directly connected with the public’s mnemohistory of science. To put it more precisely, perhaps, its plausible science-fictionality comes from concrete impressions of science rather than abstract ones such as “the conservation of angular momentum.” It is difficult to give an exhaustive account of what scientific imagery comprises in these circumstances. We can, however, begin with some well-known works and discuss the forms it takes. Here we will concentrate on two particularly typical forms: visual presentations and mechanisms.2
2.2.1 Imagery as Visual Presentation
Scientific imagery conveyed visually may be the most common kind. Apart from purely verbal forms such as novels, all works inevitably use visual presentation to convey some scientific imagery—and even novels, in most cases, cannot avoid describing appearances. Examples are everywhere, including the Mobile Suit Gundam series mentioned above. Ever since Karel Čapek coined the word “robot,” robots have been among the most characteristic cultural symbols of modern science and technology. They not only demonstrate humanity’s astonishing control over the external world but, more importantly, seem to hint at the allure of transcendence: we humans can create an artifact resembling ourselves. In terms of immediate visual impact, this allure may be best expressed not by industrial robots in their assorted odd shapes—not everyone appreciates industrial beauty, after all—but by humanoid robots that look more like us. The real world we inhabit further intensifies the visual impact of humanoid robots as scientific imagery. If humanoid robots are not a viable option at our present technological level, this further suggests, to some extent, that the meaning implicit in this scientific image includes a world where “science and technology are sufficiently advanced.”
Yet humanoid robots have appeared countless times in countless works over several decades. That broad category alone cannot adequately explain how their plausible science-fictionality has been conveyed across time. In Tetsujin 28-go, for example, Japan’s first giant-robot anime, broadcast in 1963, the humanoid Tetsujin 28-go looks very “rounded.” Seen today, both its mechanical design and its movements suggest not so much an advanced giant robot as a living, breathing person in a Tetsujin suit. The same goes for Mazinger Z and Getter Robo, which, together with Mobile Suit Gundam, make up the “big three” of the Super Robot Wars games. This style of mechanical design and combat may, however, have helped give rise to what some people later saw as the division between “super robot” and “real robot” works.
By contrast, the angular mechanical design of the original Gundam, the RX-78-2, seems closer to people’s general impressions of high-tech equipment. So do visual details such as the movement of its vents before it rises to its feet, or the need to consider heat shielding during atmospheric entry. These concrete visual details express impressions of science shared by creators and audiences. This is how scientific imagery acquires its plausible science-fictionality. Many works from the 1980s onward went further in using visual detail to convey these shared impressions. Machines such as the Scopedog in Armored Trooper VOTOMS have long enjoyed a reputation among fans as “the most realistic mecha,” in large part because of such efforts. Our man Chirico and the rank-and-file pilots alike keep switching among the three sighting lenses on their machines’ head-mounted cameras to suit changing battlefield conditions.
Scenes in which these machines land after aerial combat also convey a typical shared impression. The Scopedog’s legs fold along sliding rails to absorb the impact. This detail accords with everyone’s everyday experience, while also playing on the difference between machines and people: rather than simply bending the robot’s joints, why not use a design more in keeping with mechanical “common sense”? Macross Plus, a classic of its generation, went further still. This was largely because its “humanoid robots” spend more of their time in fighter-jet form, and the real-world contest of the century between the YF-22 and YF-23 had taken place shortly before its 1994 release. Its exploration of shared impressions of science thus extended beyond visual detail alone.
2.2.2 Imagery as Mechanism
Scientific imagery need not be formed solely through the pursuit of plausible visual detail. In many cases, constructed mechanisms also convey plausible science-fictionality. A fictional mechanism communicates not merely isolated details of worldbuilding but a network of interactions within a fictional world, supported by innumerable such details. The mechanism provides explanatory resources, to varying degrees, for the characters’ actions and the story’s background as they appear within this network. On the one hand, this network of interactions is intelligible to both creators and audiences. If we know that an event causally leads to a person’s action, then that causal relation is necessary: the event can fully explain the action. In some cases, the same causal relation even applies to other characters in the work. Exceptions, when they occur, are usually due to some additional circumstance accompanying the event; that circumstance often also serves as foreshadowing or a turning point in the story. On the other hand, this network of interactions differs from reality. It is largely governed by a collection of scientific images embodied in specific elements of worldbuilding, ranging from a new form of society brought about by some future technology to a particular action brought about by a particular technological device.3
The Ghost in the Shell series exemplifies these fictional mechanisms, offering networks of interaction on every scale, from the macro to the micro. Let us take the 1995 Ghost in the Shell film. At the most macroscopic level, the very existence of Public Security Section 9, the very existence of the Puppet Master, and Section 9’s entire pursuit of the Puppet Master must all occur within a wholly new form of society. At the simplest level, we can see that this society contains both serious cybercrime and law-enforcement bodies that deal with it. This establishes a network of interactions that is at once extremely broad and extremely simple: serious cybercrime causally leads to action by a specialized law-enforcement body. Substituting the film’s particular characters and groups, we can express it as follows: the Puppet Master’s crimes causally lead to action by Public Security Section 9. Further analysis shows that this network itself arises from specific features of the near-future setting: mature cybernetic-body technology and highly developed networks. The same holds at the most microscopic level. For example, during her pursuit of the sanitation worker, Motoko uses her cybernetic body’s thermoptic camouflage. This is precisely an action causally brought about by a technological device, namely her cybernetic body. We can therefore express this microscopic network as follows: Motoko’s possession of a cybernetic body with thermoptic camouflage causally leads to her using that camouflage while pursuing the sanitation worker.
Of course, the actual situations in these works are more complicated. A network of interactions usually involves more than two objects, and cannot be summed up in a single causal proposition. However complicated the actual situation, the point is this: a mechanism conveys plausible science-fictionality through a network of interactions governed by a collection of scientific images. In this sense, scientific imagery in the form of mechanisms is derivative. Although we can abstract a mechanism’s network of interactions into causal conditionals, a mechanism functioning as imagery within a work must be presented in more concrete forms, especially visual ones.4
“As we conclude our analysis of scientific imagery, one point needs to be made. Since works often share paradigms of science-fiction creation, especially visual creation, these concrete impressions of science may appear homogeneous. In fact, however, they depend heavily on context and need not become homogeneous at all. This is particularly apparent when we look at them across time.”