Science fiction is the genre par excellence when it comes to imagination. Distant worlds, alternate realities, parallel universes, alien species, fantastic technology — SF has it all.
Yet the genre is often guilty of ignoring the advancement of technology in favor of telling a captivating story. Concerning fiction, the story comes first, right? There’s nothing wrong with that — science fiction depends on the suspension of disbelief as much as any genre — but there’s usually an effort to remain within the bounds of reality as we understand it. Which leads me to this list of four science fiction tropes that modern technology has rendered obsolete.
This is far more common in visual rather than written mediums. SF films, television shows, and video games often eschew physics and believable technology altogether in an effort to impress the audience. Prose fiction and comics, on the other hand, are likelier to adhere to a more credible presentation of their imagined worlds.
Slave Labor
Using living, sentient beings for labor, rather than machines, is all-too common in SF. If a civilization has robots, starships, and such, there is absolutely no reason why slaves should be working the mines/farms/asteroids/ etc.. One cannot claim the cost would be cheaper when you must feed, clothe, and house said…
