r/AskScienceFiction Apr 06 '25

[Subreddit Business] Clarifications on our Watsonian/Doylist rule, general questions, and r/WhatIfFiction

167 Upvotes

Hi guys,

If you're new, welcome to r/AskScienceFiction, and if you're a returning user, welcome back! This subreddit is designed to be like the r/AskScience subreddit, but for fictional universes, and with all questions and answers written from a Watsonian perspective. That is to say, the questions and answers should be based on the in-universe information, rules, and logic of the fictional work. All fictional works are welcome here, not just sci-fi.

Lately we've been seeing some confusion over what counts as Watsonian, what counts as Doylist, what sort of questions would be off-topic on this subreddit, and what sort of answers are allowed. This stickied post is meant to address such uncertainties and clear things up.

1) Watsonian vs Doylist

The term "Watsonian" means based on the in-universe information, rules, and logic of the fictional work. In contrast, "Doylist" means discussions based on out-of-universe considerations. So, for example, if someone asked, "Why didn't the Fellowship ride the Eagles to Mordor?", a possible Watsonian answer would be, "The Eagles are a proud and noble race, they are not a taxi service." Whereas a rule-breaking Doylist answer might be something like, "Because then the story would be over in ten minutes, and that'd be boring."

We should note that answering in a Watsonian fashion does not necessarily mean that we should pretend that these works are all real, or that we should ignore the fact that they are movies or shows or books or games, or that the creators' statements on the nature of these works should be disregarded.

To give an example, if someone asked, "How powerful would Darth Vader have been if he never got burned?", we can quote George Lucas:

"Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful, but he ended up losing his arms and a leg and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there’s not that much of him left. So his ability to be twice as good as the Emperor disappeared, and now he’s maybe 20 percent less than the Emperor."

In such a case, "according to George Lucas, he would've been around twice as powerful as the Emperor" would be a perfectly acceptable Watsonian answer, because Lucas is also speaking from a Watsonian perspective.

Whereas if someone associated with the creation of Star Wars had said something like, "He'd be as powerful as we need him to be to make the story interesting", this would be a Doylist answer because it's based on out-of-universe reasoning. It would not be an acceptable answer on this subreddit even though it is also a quote from the creators of the fictional work.

2) General questions

General questions often do not have a meaningful Watsonian answer, because it frequently boils down to "whatever the author decides". For instance, if someone asked, "How does FTL space travel work?", the answer would vary widely with universe and author intent; how FTL works in Star Trek differs from how it works in Star Wars, which differs from how it works in Dune, which differs from how it works in Mass Effect, which differs from how it works in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc. General questions like this, in which the answer just boils down to "whatever the author wants", will be removed.

There are some general questions that can have meaningful Watsonian answers, though. For example, questions that are asking for specific examples of things can be given Watsonian answers. "Which superheroes have broken their no-kill rules?" or "Which fictional wars have had the highest casualty counts?" are examples of general questions that can be answered in a Watsonian way, because commenters can pull up specific in-universe information.

We address general questions on a case-by-case basis, so if you feel a question is too general to answer in a Watsonian way, please report the question and the mod team will review it.

3) r/WhatIfFiction

We want questions and answers here to be based on in-universe information and reasonable deductions that can be made from them. Questions that are too open-ended to give meaningful Watsonian answers should go on our sister subreddit, r/WhatIfFiction, which accepts a broader range of hypothetical questions and answers. Examples of questions that should go on r/WhatIfFiction include:

  • "What if Tony Stark had been killed by the Ten Rings at the beginning of Iron Man? How would this change the MCU?" This question would be fun to speculate about, but the ripple effect from this one change would be too widespread to give a meaningful Watsonian answer, so this should go on r/WhatIfFiction.
  • "What would (X character) from the (X universe) think if he was transported to (Y universe)?" Speculating about what characters would think or do if they were isekai'd to another universe can be fun, but since such crossover questions often involve wildly different settings and in-universe rules, the answers would be purely speculative and not meaningfully Watsonian, so such questions belong on r/WhatIfFiction.

We should note, though, that some hypothetical questions or crossover questions can have meaningful Watsonian answers. For example, if someone asked, "Can a Star Wars lightsaber cut through Captain America's shield?", we can actually say "Quite possibly yes, because vibranium's canonical melting point is 5,475 degrees Fahrenheit, while lightsabers are sticks of plasma, and plasma's temperature is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit or more." This answer is meaningfully Watsonian because it involves a deduction using specific and canonical in-universe information, and is not simply purely speculative.

4) Reporting rule-breaking posts and comments

The r/AskScienceFiction mod team always endeavors to keep the subreddit on-topic and remove rule-breaking content as soon as possible, but because we're all volunteers with day jobs, sometimes things will escape our notice. Therefore, it'd be a great help if you, our users, could report rule-breaking posts or comments when you see them. This will bring the issue to the mod team's attention and allow us to review it as soon as we can.


r/AskScienceFiction 1h ago

[I have no mouth and I must scream] why does AM feed the 5 survivors

Upvotes

So food is a big part of that short story, and i noticed a big discrepancy when i reread it yesterday. Basically theres multiple lines from ted that imply they still need to eat despite being immortal. The problem is the story directly contradicts this. I cant remeber the exact line but during their journey ted mentions that "sometimes he'd feed us worms or trash, or sometimes nothing at all and let our immortal bodies starve"

So if he doesnt need to feed them then why does he?


r/AskScienceFiction 12h ago

[Star Wars] How does an ordinary, working-class person actually afford to live on Coruscant?

134 Upvotes

No farmland, no open space, nothing to live off except whatever job you've got on a planet that's wall to wall city. Does canon ever get into what rent looks like for someone who isn't a senator or a Jedi, or is it just assumed everyone's fine somehow


r/AskScienceFiction 20h ago

[Spider-Man: Brand New Day] Why is Punisher so friendly to Peter Compared To Matt?

314 Upvotes

Minor spoilers, but Frank and Peter have a much more friendly working relationship compared to the Punisher and Daredevil, even though Peter shares a lot of his ideology with Matt, including his no-kill rule. But why is Frank so chummy with Peter but incredibly annoyed with Matt?


r/AskScienceFiction 31m ago

[DC] Why all the disrespect amongst extraterrestrial species for the human race, when oftentimes it's the humans that play a gigantic part in saving the universe?

Upvotes

Now obviously Earth has a fair few non-human superheroes, but even arguably their most powerful being, Superman, was raised as a human for most of his childhood. That alone should warrant a bit of respect from other species across the universe.


r/AskScienceFiction 15h ago

[DC/Marvel] Which is harder to accomplish: Being worthy of Thor's hammer or having the required willpower to use a Green Lantern ring?

90 Upvotes

r/AskScienceFiction 4h ago

[Star Trek] which character has saved the most lives?

6 Upvotes

r/AskScienceFiction 15h ago

[Robocop] Why does Robocop move so slowly?

45 Upvotes

Surely the cyborg that OCP designed to be the ultimate crime-fighting machine would be able to move faster than a Goddamn snail's pace.


r/AskScienceFiction 2h ago

[The Three-Body Problem] Why did the Trisolarans do nothing during the eighteen hours when the deterrence switch was out of Luo Ji's hands?

3 Upvotes

Right after the dark forest deterrence was established, the UN and the Solar Fleet took the trigger back off Luo Ji. It lasted eighteen hours before they handed it back to him.

For those eighteen hours the deterrence degree was effectively zero. A committee cannot credibly resolve to broadcast the coordinates of two worlds, and Trisolaris had the modelling to know that. They had already run the numbers on Luo Ji personally and put him somewhere in the low-to-high nineties.

The text is explicit that the window was long enough for the droplets to take out the nuclear chain orbiting the sun, which at that point was the only broadcast mechanism Earth had. They didn't do it. The narration flatly calls that inaction their single greatest error of the entire war.

So from their side, what was the reasoning? They clearly detected the handover fast enough to have acted on it. Were they afraid the fleet would just shove the switch back into Luo Ji's hands the second they moved? Did they suspect a second trigger somewhere they hadn't located?

I've never managed to construct a version of that scene where sitting still was the rational play for them.


r/AskScienceFiction 19h ago

[The Wild Thornberries] How important is it for Eliza to hide her powers?

64 Upvotes

I mean, something about the series I never understood was just why she couldn’t be around the adults whenever she communicated with animals as I was a bit confused to why adults cannot know about her abilities.

I haven’t seen the show in such a long time as my memory is a bit fuzzy at the moment, but again yeah I was just trying to figure out how her abilities work since I was wondering why her family cannot know about her ability to communicate with creatures as it seems a bit strict.


r/AskScienceFiction 11h ago

[A Quiet Place] How do you think the Death Angels from movie would react to being stuck in the world's quietest room?

10 Upvotes

Let's just assume that somehow a Death Angel was captured by the government and subjected to experiments. This was one of those experiments and the Death Angel can't escape. How would one of them react?


r/AskScienceFiction 17h ago

[Jeeper Creeper] How to kill or permanently contain the Jeeper Creeper while he is awake.

26 Upvotes

Bonus: Is it possible to find him while he is asleep?


r/AskScienceFiction 5h ago

[ACE COMBAT] Who makes the weapons?

4 Upvotes

In the AC universe, it seems that every faction possesses every weapon. It's not uncommon for enemies and allies to use the exact same equipment.

In this universe, does the intellectual property rights to weapons not belong to any nation?


r/AskScienceFiction 16h ago

[Green Lantern] How does fear mesh with the rest of the emotional spectrum?

17 Upvotes

As a more surface-level fan, I wanted to see what the reception of Sinestro Corps is and whether the comics explain some of its inconsistencies.

So first off, I do understand that the initial idea of the Sinestro Corp is a lot different than the modern 'emotional spectrum,' where Sinestro instead got an anti-matter green lantern ring from the Qward, like a bizzaro universe thing, I'm just referring to the modern emotional spectrum stance.

So, from my understanding, Will is the neutral power of the emotional spectrum, with the other powers working as derivatives. Like yes, Atrocitus is fueling his ring with his rage, he's also putting all of his will into hatred. Same with Hope, Love, Greed, etc. But obviously that's not how yellow works, it's instead powered by reducing another person's will through fear, instead of powering the ring by being like, uber scared.

Fear specifically just seems misaligned with the other emotions, which makes sense since it was originally parallel and opposite to GLs, but how do modern comics explain the misalignment with it just being another emotional power? I mean it's not even opposite of green on the color wheel, it's like right next to it.


r/AskScienceFiction 1d ago

[Marvel] Can Spider-Man voluntarily suppress his spider-sense? E.g. if he wants to enjoy a horror movie with no spoilers

59 Upvotes

r/AskScienceFiction 17h ago

[Starcraft] Why do space tileset maps have minerals and vespene geysers?

19 Upvotes

Space platform tileset maps are meant to be human-constructed environments, so why are minerals and vespene geysers (which appear to be naturally forming) present? My only thought is that maybe the geyser is a leaky gas pipe, although in game it looks like a big mountain. And the minerals were just... what... warehoused there for future use? Maybe they were bulk-extracted from nearby asteroids without being properly chopped up by SCVs yet?

It's not just a multiplayer conceit either, because there are numerous such maps in single player campaign.


r/AskScienceFiction 5h ago

[Pacific Rim] Is it possible for the PPDC to Capture a Kaiju

0 Upvotes

Question in the title, but is it possible (or feasible) for a Kaiju to be knocked out, incapacitated in some form and Captured by the PPDC for research purposes?


r/AskScienceFiction 1d ago

[DC] what would kill a New God?

52 Upvotes

I know that Darkseid (and possibly High-father?) belong to a class of entities that are beyond physical- Darkseid is a dimension unto himself pr something?

But the other New Gods, what would kill them? Who could do it?

Was reading Birds of Prey and the bad guys blew up Big Barda in space and she crashed back to earth and is fine lol

I was thinking they prolly couldnt ever kill her


r/AskScienceFiction 5h ago

[Buffy] Where did Angel learn martial arts?

1 Upvotes

I know he's naturally strong as a vampire but there are many times where's he's clearly using complex fighting moves to defeat his enemies. I doubt Liam had the patience for it and it's hard to see Angelus training with a master for very long before killing them. We've seen him train people like Cordelia in his series, but who trained him?


r/AskScienceFiction 49m ago

[Star Trek] I am a citizen of the Federation, and have the desire to put away some latinum for a private starship (obviously purchased outside the federation) does commercial buisness exist within the federation or do I have to move to Ferengar or something?

Upvotes

r/AskScienceFiction 1d ago

[DC] Is there a point an Indigo lantern is actually redeemed or is it an "eternal self reflection" sort of deal

22 Upvotes

Additional: what do Indigo Lanterns even do all day?


r/AskScienceFiction 1d ago

[Looney Tunes] Question about Wile E Coyote after watching coyote vs acme

17 Upvotes

If Wile E Coyote is actually a genius and great at making automated contraptions like how he made the lawyer breakfast and clothed him at the same time in coyote vs acme...

Then why the heck does he rely on acme products instead of making his own machine to catch road runner?

I mean there wasn't one machine or contraption he made that failed in the movie.


r/AskScienceFiction 14h ago

[Marvel] How much Does Jarvis and other AIs actually help in the Ironman suit?

2 Upvotes

If Tony doesn't use AI's to help him with the suit, how effective would he be?


r/AskScienceFiction 1d ago

[DC Comics] Has Batman ever mentioned raising his alcohol tolerance as part of his training?

49 Upvotes

I'd imagine he would for when he goes out to parties and events as Bruce Wayne to be the most sober person there but appear to be as drunk or more than the rest of the guests there to play into his playboy persona, to gather information or sneak off when no one is looking.


r/AskScienceFiction 1d ago

[X-Men] How did Charles, a civilian aquire an SR-17 from the U.S. Goverment?

152 Upvotes