Science and Technology in Science Fiction
Maybe it's a bit of a no-brainer to say that science is a big part of science fiction. We'll also add technology to the mix, because science and technology are big in this genre. Hey, just because it's obvious (we hear you saying "Technology in sci-fi?! Really, now?!") doesn't mean it's not true.
What makes sci-fi works sci-fi is the fact that their settings, their plots, their characters, their conflicts, all center around science and technology in some sense.
After all, we wouldn't have all of those great Sci-fi works set in outer space if it weren't for the fact that science and technology allows characters to travel to outer space in the first place.
There's no way to get to Mars without a spaceship, is there?
Chew On This
So how does science and technology figure in Sci-fi works? Check out Gulliver's description of how the Laputians move their flying island around with a giant magnet in these quotations from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
Those Sci-fi characters love calculations. Here are Gaal Dornick and Hari Seldon, the protagonists of Isaac Asimov's Foundation, working out the probability that civilization will be destroyed within the next couple of centuries.