# Are all sci-fi sports/games modelled on extant sports/games? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 9, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895 "2008-07-09T21:23:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/1 "2008-07-09T21:23:37Z")
I was watching ST:TNG earlier and they were playing a version of squash with dartboard/target yokeys. It seems most or all sports you see in sci-fi tv are based on real sports, except with neon yokeys or dodgy uniforms. I don’t read enough sci-fi to know whether this is also true of written sci-fi. Any original sports/games in sci-fi telly in particular but other forms also? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/2 "2008-07-09T21:38:30Z")
As near as I can tell, **all** sports are variations of either War, Keep-Away, or “I’m a better hunter than you are.” To be truly original would likely be so alien (sorry) to the viewer as to cause a disconnect, which is bad for the story. Better in story-telling terms to just change an existing sport, or warp it to an extreme to illustrate a point. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/3 "2008-07-09T22:19:02Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] As near as I can tell, **all** sports are variations of either War, Keep-Away, or “I’m a better hunter than you are.” To be truly original would likely be so alien (sorry) to the viewer as to cause a disconnect, which is bad for the story. Better in story-telling terms to just change an existing sport, or warp it to an extreme to illustrate a point. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure I understand what “I’m a better hunter than you are” means. Would this apply to player versus environment sports like rock climbing, or surfing? Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/4 "2008-07-09T23:08:42Z")
[QUOTE=Mtgman] I’m not sure I understand what “I’m a better hunter than you are” means. Would this apply to player versus environment sports like rock climbing, or surfing? [/QUOTE] Presumably, where you don’t interact directly with other players but compete by score instead. Rock climbing, surfing, golf, bowling, darts, etc. War, obviously, is where you have two teams directly competing against each other. Keep-Away is games with an ‘It’, or a small team competing against a larger force, with different rules for each side? This one I’m not sure on. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/5 "2008-07-09T23:09:36Z")
All sports are the same: you move an object in an advantagous manner in accordance with the rules and prevent your opponents from doing the same. Everything else is details. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/6 "2008-07-09T23:11:07Z")
Fizzbin, for one, is not modeled on anything existing. 🙂 It is difficult to come up with a new sport from scratch that doesn’t have anything to do with an existing one. And for TV, anything new would involve a lot of explanation of the rules. Better to model it on existing games. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/7 "2008-07-09T23:16:42Z")
Ah, but Fizzbin is not a sport. It is a game. “I am a better hunter than you” sports would be those that involve accuracy of shooting, for example, be it a bow, or a ball, or whatever. Ditto chasing sports like racing and everything that derives from it. “Keep away” games are my term for any sport that involves “Hit it where they ain’t.” Tennis, baseball, volleyball, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/8 "2008-07-09T23:22:45Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] All sports are the same: you move an object in an advantagous manner in accordance with the rules and prevent your opponents from doing the same. Everything else is details. [/QUOTE] I think that’s all this question amounts to. The term ‘sport’ has bounds of meaning, within which, the space has been quite thoroughly explored. It isn’t a failure of imagination that no entirely novel sports have been invented, it’s just that the territory has been more or less mined out. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/9 "2008-07-09T23:23:08Z")
I would think that basketball or soccer would be examples of “keep away games”. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/10 "2008-07-09T23:26:04Z")
Those two, too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/11 "2008-07-09T23:41:18Z")
I give you the world’s only [Kosho match](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTqAfJYWe58), thanks Number Six (or is it Number One? :dubious:), err Mr. McGoohan. CMC +fnord! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-sci-fi-sports-games-modelled-on-extant-sports-games/455895/12 "2008-07-10T03:34:29Z")
The game “Dazzle Dart” from Malcolm Jameson’s story “Bullard Reflects” isn’t obviously based on anything. It’s a game played in zero G in which participants wear reflectors on various parts of their bodies. The captains each have a light source (we’d probably specify something like a laser pointer today, but the story appeared in the pre-laser 1940s) that could be triggered to go on for a set number of seconds. Players had to reflrect the beam from person to person to person into their goal, while the opposing team tried to block this. Of course, it’s similar in broad outline to games like Basketball and Hockey and Soccer, in that each time tries to get the McGuffin down to the other side of the field. But Dazzle Dart has no obvious, immediate antecedents. It’s not like “zer-G Football”, for instance.