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'perfect' society.

Technology

Technology, the gross effective product that emerges when scientific knowledge is put to work, is a necessary staple for almost all science fiction. Science fiction authors imagine what our world may look like as knowledge accumulates, and then put that into their stories in a way that is believable.

Sometimes, as in alternate history science fiction work, human beings don't have any special technologies. Alien visitors have them instead, using them in warfare, communication, or exploration, completely puzzling human beings who have just invented the tank or the machine gun.

Jules Verne was especially creative with technology - a hundred years ago, he speculated about many technologies that we have by now developed, for space, air and marine travel, as well as amenities we find completely common today, like air conditioning.

Science fiction technologies include hover-cars, faster than light travel, artificial gravity, infinite probability drives, time travel, supercomputers, laser weaponry, and robots. Arguably, the most interesting of them all is AI: artificial intelligence.

Philosophy

Soft science fiction and philosophical science fiction are close cousins. Technologies like AI may be used in a science fiction story to explore philosophical questions about who we are, what it means to be a conscious being, whether machines can have feelings, and why the mind-body problem (kudos to Rene Descartes) is so puzzling.

Why are we here in these very bodies? If people's minds can be recreated artificially, what relative value do humans have? Would it be good or bad to be ruled by specially-intelligent machines, or should human beings be the ones to take the reins? Why?

Science fiction is also a great way not only to think about what is, but what ought to be. Moral problems can be explored in great depth, as science fiction addresses right and wrong through extraordinary analogy. Although it is really a work of philosophy, check out Judith Jarvis Thompson's essay, 'A Defense of Abortion,' to gain perspective on just how effectively a point can be demonstrated by strange analogy.

Superheroes

Although superheroes probably aren't the first thing to come to mind when you think of science fiction, almost all of them came to be by science-fictional means.

Superman is an alien from the planet Krypton. Spider man gained his powers by being bitten by a radioactive spider. Batman, physically a normal human being, uses expensive, advanced technology in his crusade to do good and ease the pain of having lost his parents so young. The X-Men are special due to genetic abnormalities. Dr. Bruce Banner became the Hulk after being caught in the blast of a gamma-bomb.

Almost all superheroes originated by scientific means, and many use technology in their good-doing quests, as do the villains who try to thwart them.

While a few categorical science fiction stories probably slipped through the cracks of these categories, all the main elements of science fiction have been covered above. Hopefully you've found a new road to take your reading experience or, better yet, gained an idea or two for your own sci-fi-writing endeavor.

Learn more about this author, Currie Jean.
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