Science fiction is very difficult to properly define. So before I take a crack at defining it I will attempt to properly describe it's characteristics. Science fiction, in it's basic form, is a story about an average, normal person that is placed in an unusual world. Whether that person is a human, alien, android, or otherwise does not matter. Likewise, that person can have any number of abilities as long as those abilities are commonly found. The unusual world that most science fiction is set in can be nearly identical or wildly different to our own. However, it will always have some point of divergence, whether in the past, present, or future, something will have happened to 'derail' the course of history.
While these are all excellent points that are commonly found in science fiction, do they truly define the genre? I do not believe so. I believe that the true definition is simply that science fiction allows authors to take an idea, technological, philosophical, or theological, and take it to it's furthest logical conclusion. The beauty of science fiction, in my opinion, it that it lets the writer ignore the usual limits of time, societal standards, and technological advancement. It basically allows the author to create a world that, while built on logic, can literally allow anything to take place.
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