The Value of Science Fiction

First off, I'm defining science fiction as any fiction in which some aspects of future technology or science is so integral to the plot that the story would fall apart without it. Ergo, I'm not counting movies/ television shows such as Star Trek/ Star Wars because of how easy they make FTL travel seem and because of other reasons. I'm mainly talking about literature.
So my question is, if the Golden Age of Science Fiction hadn't happened, would history have been different in any meaningful ways, and, if so, how?
 
History writing & Science Fiction are the mirror images in the use of current evidence to speculate. That is when writing history we take existing evidence and attempt to understand what might have happened in the past. With Science Fiction current evidence is used to try to understand what might happen in the future. Of course there are endless complications in this, the use of current evidence to advance agendas about both the past and the future is common, as is the use for the basis of story telling vs analysis. But, at the core of it we are attempting to use our present PoV & understanding to divine what lies in either direction. This seems to be supported in that the best English language Sci Fi writers have had a fair understanding of history.

Not sure which period you are describing as the Golden Age. The early pulp era can be waived away, but I suspect the general genre would still develop, even if uninfluenced by Campbell & his editorial & publishing peers. Probablly a stronger division between the Fantasy & Sci Fi genres.

If the publishing industry fails to pick up on Sci Fi in the 1950s & bring it closer to mainstream then this is a major change. authors like Azimov or Chrichton never become wealthy from fiction writing & remain in the sciences, their fiction writing remaining a hobby & far less prolific. Azimov would be near forgotten as a writer of some good medical education text in the latter 20th Century.
 
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