That question is the true engine of science fiction. It opens doors that seem closed in the present. It takes an idea, a scientific possibility, a social development or a moral danger – and extends it into the future. There, under the pressure of imagination, the hidden structures of the present become visible.

The beginning of modern science fiction is often linked to Mary Shelley. In 1818, she published Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and created not only one of literature’s most famous creation myths, but also a foundational text of science fiction. Victor Frankenstein crosses a scientific boundary. He creates life. Yet the decisive question is not whether he can do it. The decisive question is whether he accepts responsibility for what he has made. That is why Frankenstein remains so powerful. It is not merely a story about a monster. It is a story about a creator who refuses moral responsibility for his creation. This motif still echoes through stories about genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and posthuman futures.

From the beginning, then, science fiction was more than technical fantasy. It was the literature of responsibility. It did not merely ask what could be done. It asked what price might be paid for doing it. It asked what happens when progress moves faster than ethics. And it placed humanity exactly where science fiction still loves to place it: at the threshold of a future it has created, but may no longer be able to control.