Fictional Universes

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Introduction

A common thing that comes into question when dealing with the Codex Statistics side of profiles is how does one dictate how physics work in a fictional universe, and where is the limit? This issue exists in other communities too, most notably battleboarding sites and powerscaling wikis, today we will be discussing how we treat a fictional universe and where we create concessions we at times have to accept.

The Original Idea Behind a Fictional Universe

While there is no true original idea, we do have an idea of a promintnent one indirectly utilized. This came from a user called Mike Wong, who made a post on stardestroyer.net titled "How to Analyze Sci-Fi", written on August 1, 1998 and later revised on Ocotober 13, 2003. The article can be read here.

To explain this article in briefly, it makes the assertion that one can analyze sci-fi through the lenses of the literary approach and the scientific approach, which can also be called the Suspension of Disbelief approach. Mike Wong explained the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches in the following table, though through reading the article he very clearly was pushing for people to use the Suspension of Disbelief angle:

	Literary	Suspension of Disbelief
Basic approach:	Treats the films and TV shows as a mere "depiction", or "dramatic re-enactment" of a world which exists only in the author's mind.	Pretends that the fictional universe is real, which means that the films and TV shows are considered documentary footage and books are treated as if they were real stories, historical records, official spec sheets, etc.
Asks the question:	"What do you think the author was trying to say?"	"If you saw the shows in real life with your own eyes and found the books in real life in non-fiction section of your local library, what would you think?"
Treats source as:	Subjective data. We concern ourselves only with what we believe the author's intent to be. Films and TV shows are considered a mere "visual representation" of the "real" fictional universe in question, which is assumed to exist only in the creator's head.	The aliens in the hilarious sci-fi satire "Galaxy Quest" considered the TV shows depicting Tim Allen's NSEA Protector to be "historical records", in which they assumed they were documentary footage and analyzed them as such. We copy this approach. In the case of books, we would treat them as history books. Think of it as being dumped into a parallel dimension in which the rules still generally apply (eg- humans still breathe oxygen and iron is still heavier than wood), but there are extra phenomena which are unknown to us (eg- subspace, hyperspace), and which you must now research based on what you see and read.
Handling of contradictions:	Since it regards the visuals as a mere "depiction" of the "real" universe, it diminishes their value to that of mere hearsay, or dramatic re-enactment. Therefore, the literary method is not perturbed at all by inconsistencies in visual effects. However, this method does not gracefully handle inconsistencies in narrative or dialogue. Given two contradictory lines of narrative or dialogue which cannot be rationalized away, we must decide which one the author really "intended", and which one was a "mistake" on his part (a task made rather difficult by the fact that many sci-fi authors have absolutely no idea what they're talking about when it comes to technical matters, and many of them just "make it up as they go"). Normally, this choice is made by trying to determine which line makes more sense relative to the bulk of the evidence or relative to actual science (by temporarily applying scientific methods).	Since it disregards the author's intentions and treats the films as first-hand observations, it handles dialogue contradictions more easily than the literary method. After all, we treat the character as if he's real; as far as we are concerned, there is no author pulling his strings. So if he says something that grossly contradicts other established facts, we can simply treat that as we would in real life (by calling the character an idiot), while the literary method does not really allow for the author to be wrong, per se. However, this method does not gracefully handle errors in visual effects. Given a shot which makes the Defiant appear to be half its normal size (for example) and which cannot be rationalized away, we must decide whether it is an "error" on the part of our imaginary documentary cameraman. Normally, this decision is made by looking at the bulk of the evidence (similar to what scientists do with highly anomalous data points in a real experiment, where the errant point is assumed to be the result of procedural or equipment error unless it is consistently repeated).
Pros	By focusing on the subjective concept of "author's intent" and completely rejecting the empirical study of visuals, the literary method is extremely flexible, and can produce endless, lively debate. By its ambiguous nature, it appeals to people with a liberal-arts mindset (remember that in liberal arts, the only wrong answer is to say that there's a right answer). Well-suited to novels. Good for thematic analysis, dissection of social messages, etc.	By ignoring "author's intent", the "suspension of disbelief" method removes a huge source of ambiguity and subjectivity, so it can be far more objective. It is actually possible to convincingly defeat someone in a debate where all participants use this method, since the endless stalemates over semantics and speculative interpretations of the author's intent are removed. By allowing us to make verifiable direct measurements of things, it permits scientific analyses. As a result, it appeals to people with an empirical mindset (eg- scientists, engineers). Well-suited to movies and TV shows. Is not limited to the author's scientific comprehension (most sci-fi authors, after all, do not know anything about science).
Cons	Poorly suited to movies, which are mostly visual. In fact, it is so poorly suited to movies that its practitioners tend to sneak in "suspension of disbelief" methods when convenient. Heavily dependent upon semantics. Its inherent ambiguity tends to create endless debating stalemates (this might be considered a good thing if you think debates are for entertainment rather than resolution of disputes). Poorly suited to scientific analysis of any kind, since the notion of scientific analysis of an author's intent requires that the author himself must be scientifically competent. An author cannot intend to convey a message beyond his own comprehension. Is limited to the author's scientific comprehension by its very nature as an attempt to divine his intentions. If the author is an ignoramus, then there are many intelligible explanations for phenomena which become off-limits because the author wouldn't understand them. Has a penchant for explaining things by going "out of universe" for an explanation based on the author's motives and literary conventions. For example, the argument that "the good guys have to win" is a classic example of literary analysis.	Not good for novels (where the nature of the source is inherently subjective, you cannot directly observe anything at all, and you are restricted to a particular observer's testimony). In real life, stories written in an entertaining style are considered a rather poor historical source when compared to official documents or diagrams. Poorly suited to thematic analysis, dissection of social messages, etc. Historians try to figure out what happened and scientists try to figure out how things work. Neither is out to assign higher meaning to anything, so their methods are simply not geared to doing so.

In this case what Mike Wong asserts that instead of subscribing to literary belief, one should subscribe to scientific belief, we disagree on this proposal and instead believe both should be meshed together.

How a Fictional Universe Is Treated

A fictional universe is assumed to be the equivalent of our real life universe with some leeway. While we assume all laws that exist within our real world to generally apply to the fictional universe, there are some greivances we ignore to try and keep some form of a consistent basis. For essence, we mesh both the liteary side and suspension of disbelief side together, where the film and TV shows are a depiction or dramatic re-enactment of a world which exists in the authors mind while also assuming the fictional universe is rea in the context of the profile to make a basis for anything they do.

Thus we do not assume lesser known theories should immedieatly be followed within a fictional universe. As an example, we don't assume by default the universe in question will enter a state of heat death because the setting is around or over 1.7×10¹⁰⁶ years into the future, even though that's scientifically the timeframe assumed for it. We do not assume by default if a universe is destroyed, there will be a second big bang that has formed and re-created universe. Though we do acknowledge and accept that gravity does exist as that's a universal constant everyone knows about, things like infamous scenes of ships falling in space in Star Wars are dismissed.

Along with this, one hearing sound in space we dismiss as another simple outlier of fiction.

We also at the same time acknowledge that authors will not know many of these theories and cannot fully visualize an entire universe with every single atom in their head, however we are looking at a fictional universe in it's most macroscopic and simplistic level with only the lower smaller levels being touched upon in fictions that mention it.

Essentially the reason behind why one doesn't want to asusme a fictional universe to be relative to the real world is that we must both use and dismiss things, however fiction itself is not a constant but malleable, and thus there is no true objective answer for how a fictional universe should be treated.

Illogical Universes

Universes that are completely illogical or run under completely illogical rules. A common example are universes from slapstick series or gag series. For these it is much harder to gauge how they operate, but the assumption remains they are still relative to the process of how our real life universe works.

The reason for this is due simply to simplicity. While it is agreed that a universe like would have completely unknown parameters, linking it as the same as our real life universe gives us a basis of where to start. This is doubly due to the Codex Statistics portion of a profile being heavily hypothetical, subjective, and opinionated, thus there will never be a true answer.

Fiction Breaking Rules of Physics

There are many times where a fictional universe will break the rules of physics, similar to illogical universes, though in these cases we instead refer to universes that are much more like our irl universe but have some contradictions. While the contradictions also serve to show fiction is not one to one with reality, the system we incorporate itself is not one to one with reality.

Narrative

While authortial intent is connected to this, it is slightly different. The narrative itself is another way of saying the story. Normally one should strive for whatever is being said about a world or character to fit the story being told. As an example, the Yakuza series consists of a very wacky yet serious universe with the casts consisting of superhuman levels of feats not only in gameplay but in cutscene and story too, though for more emotional scenes at times the characters will be brought back into realism and be human. This brings the question, are the characters truly superhuman or is it a rule of cool? Well this brings in the idea of meshing two realities together, God of War creator Cory Balrog parrots this sentiment perfectly, where he explains that the reason why some things exist that doesn't make sense for a series is that fiction adheres to mulitple realities, one where Kratos struggles to lift a chest yet he's a god that takes down giant creatures.

Authorial Intent

Above all else one of most important thing in any fiction beyond anything else is what the author intended to be within the work. As the author made the material itself, they will naturally have the most say. The common argument against this is the idea known as Death of the Author, which while a usable thing for some cases, is in essence misunderstood in its usage.

Death of the Author in itself is not a logical fallacy nor an official utilized thing to "disprove" or "debunk" an author's word, it is a proposal that one can use and does not need to use if they don't subscribe to it. Thus it cannot be forced upon one.

Along with this, what Death of the Author proposes is that questions not explictly answered by the text of the work cannot simply be resolved by Word of God or by trying to guess the author's intentions.

Even with the issue of death of the author however, this does not mean the wiki subscribes to the idea that the author is completely omniscient on their work. Perfect exmaples being if an author claims a character is not superhuman, while the narrative itself through story shows the character is indeed a superhuman, then we must abide by what the narrative says and disagree with the author on the character not being superhuman.

The Two Realities Ideology

The two realities ideology as briefly explained from the Cory Balrog video above is the idea that at times mechanics or story beats that seem far higher or lower then what's normally shown in the story is due to get certain dynamics within a series. Comic Book authors do this quite often, for example someone like Spider-Man, who is an outright superhuman, being handcuffed to the ground even though he should easily be able to break them. Does this exist because the author thinks Spider-Man is not superhuman? Or does it exist because the author wanted to make a tense scene and didn't care about strength in the first place? While one can say it is wrong to assume what the author thinks, there is plausible reasoning behind it.

The Issues With Mike Wong's Article

One of the major issues with Mike Wong's article is solely that there's no actual evidence for a lot of his claims. He just says the literary analysis side argues like how he portrays them in the article without actually showing at least examples where there's been arguments like this that completely show this is what the literary analysis side believes.

This could be interpreted that this was done in order to push the reader to agree more with his side of suspension of disbelief.

As an example: "TIE fighter solar panels
We all know that TIE fighters have big black panels on each side of the cockpit pod. In some of the early literature, these panels were written up as "solar panels" and implied to be the fighter's only power source. However, recently released cross-section diagrams (in the original ICS, or "Incredible Cross-Sections" book) show that TIE fighters have an integral fuel tank in the underside of the pod, so they obviously have some source of power besides solar energy. On the other hand, the recently released Visual Dictionary still states that the ion engines are "energized" by solar panel wings, and even the ICS labels them as solar collectors.
But solar power at Earth's orbit around the Sun only provides a meagre 1.4kW for every square metre of receiving surface even at a perfect angle of incidence, so those panels simply aren't big enough to provide more than kilowatt-range power (we're talking about a few horsepower here, to use more familiar units). That's not even a tiny fraction of what a TIE fighter would need in order to achieve orbit from the ground: a feat which TIE fighters can accomplish quite easily.
Literary analysis: the authors obviously don't know anything about the limitations of solar power or the energy requirements of achieving orbit. Therefore, TIE fighters do rely heavily on solar power, but it must generate much more power in the Star Wars universe. It's a different universe, with different rules from ours.
It should be noted that the "rules" alluded to in this common argument are never explained in any consistent manner by anyone. The author obviously doesn't know what they are, and neither do the fans. And if their only means of rationalizing a sci-fi universe is to conclude that even the most fundamental rules of reality do not apply and they make no effort to replace them with new, equally consistent, intelligible versions based on the show, then they can't generate predictions about what would happen in some hypothetical crossover scenario (or any other event for that matter), because such predictions require extrapolation based on ... the rules.
Suspension of Disbelief: solar power would be a mere drop in the ocean of a TIE fighter's power requirements, and not even remotely worth their negative impact on visibility, construction cost, deployment flexibility, etc. The panels make far more sense as radiative heat sinks than solar energy collectors. The bad information in the official literature is probably due to incredibly poor New Republic intelligence-gathering and/or a deliberate campaign of New Republic propaganda against the TIE fighters (remember that under "suspension of disbelief", all official literature is presumed to be published by some in-universe entity with his own agenda, just as it is in real life)."

Here it's very clear that he's trying to push the reader into agreeing with the suspnesion of disbelief side by making the literary analysis side have weird assumptions and arguments, when in reaity, the literary anaylsis side realistically ends at "the authors obviously don't know anything about the limitations of solar power or the energy requirements of achieving orbit."

Due to this, while it is in some ways an informative article, it's bias does show.

An agreed upon segment from Mike Wong's Suspension of Disbelief

While it's overall a very biased source, the suspension of disbelief analysis does have one thing we somewhat agree with and even use on the wiki.

The part we somewhat agree with: "How do you know which laws of physics apply and which ones don't?
All laws of physics apply unless it is absolutely impossible to rationalize events with them. Remember that in real life, if we saw an antigravity vessel, we would try to generate scientific theories which explain this new phenomenon while simultaneously remaining consistent with thousands of years of scientific observations prior to its discovery. We would not say "hmmm, I guess none of the laws of physics apply any more" and start over from scratch. Instead, we would do something like the following:

1. Try again to rationalize it within existing scientific theories. This must not be understated; people are often far too eager to assume that something violates physical laws when it does not.
2. Attempt to modify an existing theory or select between two previously equal competing theories to account for the new observation, while still maintaining consistency with previous observations and general scientific laws such as the first law of thermodynamics.
3. Attempt to generate an entirely new theory to account for the new observation, while still maintaining consistency with previous observations and general scientific laws such as the first law of thermodynamics. Quantum mechanics is an excellent example of this methodology in action: they needed a theory which would explain the odd behaviour of particles at quantum scales while simultaneously maintaining consistency with classical physics at macroscopic scales, so they invented one. It worked, and it has since been applied in order to design many technological devices.

We agree mostly with the idea that physical laws are usable through rationalizing it with existing scientific theories, while contradictions may apply, the level of severity can either have it be dismissed or still used if it doesn't mess too much with what the narrative is trying to push.

Though even then we do not fully agree with his assessment here and only agree with the portion that we should try and rationalize it if possible, the other parts of his create pure headcanon and don't support the narrative or story, beyond even the argument of author intent.