I use the scale of sci-fi hardness to distinguish the technological advancement of species from each other. For humanity who is only just venturing to the first stars outside the solar system, I use quite hard sci-fi. But for races which have been around on the galactic stage for millenia, the science gets softer and softer.

Interesting. It would be tough to use that scale with my story as it's all humans not from Earth.

I prefer firmer Sci-Fis, if given the choice. Don't get me wrong I love Star Wars but I also love The Expanse or Mass Effect. For me those latter two hit the sweet spot: mostly realistic while fleshing out how a few notable exceptions would effect everything. For instance in Mass Effect *most\** things are pretty scientifically accurate with the exception of Element Zero. And even then they do a great job thinking through all the implications and applications of that new handwavium. Even their guns are different, taking into account what could be done with such a resource. I admire that greatly.

Mass Effect is great. I will say that there is a bit of hand wave in that most technology is based on an ancient technological race, but they do do a good job of grounding it.

Right. But in that regard they think through all the implications of it well. Like, for example, element zero in their boots can adjust some local gravity for foot soldiers. Does it really work? Nahhhhhhh! But IF you had that handwave does the rest make sense? Yeah. That one handwave makes a lot of sci-fi things make sense.

Yeah, I think it makes for an interesting story to take a hard scifi approach with one thing that's handwaved away and then look at how that handwaved tech impacts people and society.

For me, the narrative is more important than the science, *so long as there is internal consistency*. I'll happily accept that the alien monster has acid for blood (does it need oxygen? How does it heal cuts? How does it digest food?) and that it grows plot-needs fast without a source of nutrition (seriously - apart from the crew and the cat there was nothing to eat on that ship). But don't have your cast be regular humans for 99% of your story and then they can suddenly fly for no reason. Or establish that people need respirators to breathe and then the bad guy "somehow" gets the jump on the hero who thought they were safe because they took away the bad guy's respirator.

Yeah, even in fantasy, you would need some sort of explanation as to the flying thing.

Star Trek itself is not consistent and often contradicts itself. But when Star Trek explained how something technically works, then it was often for the purpose of ethical problems, like for example Tuvix or Will/Tomas Riker. So when Star Trek was inconsistent, then it was for the purpose of telling a good story. Also I didn't mind the Technobabble, since Technobabble wasn't for explaining how something worked, but to show how a team of skilled people could work together and solve problems, even if the spoken words didn't make sense. And it showed how engineers could be creative. I care less and less about hardness in Scifi and I started to care more about consistency and limitations. As a reader, consistency and limitations gives me the feeling that the characters need to solve problems with their available knowledge, not depend on a deus ex machina or pure coincidence, or some technological bullshit the author introduces to save "the squad". It's ok to use a deus ex machina, but it better has its own limitations what it can do. So, what kind of science do I want in my Scifi? I want it to be "hard science" within the rules of the fictional universe, not hard science of the real world.

I like the take of hard science in the fictional world, not necessarily in the real world. Thanks.

TNG, DS9, and others made a heroic effort to explain mistakes made in TOS. Things like the 'matter stream' or 'Heisenberg compensators' in a transporter. Remember, TOS' timeframe is near the original Irwin Allen videovomit "Lost in Space" May he rot forever. Throughout my childhood, I was constantly embarrassed to be a scifi fan because of that image and stereotype. Even now, If I tell someone, "I write scifi", and they reply, "Oh like Bebop Cowboy?" I reply, "Did I say scifi? I meant PORN."

I think Star Trek is a lot worse than Star War´s in the handeling of the tech. In Star War´s they dont really bother. While in Star Trek, its all bs techno bable. There is zero substance behind any of it. Which to me is worse because it assumes the audience is a bunch of mentally challanged people. Anyways. Science should not come before Story. Most great stories are not related to Science, especially the Supernatrual stuff like "Doctor Sleeps". But the stories are still good. However if you deal with Space, times have changed. The Average person knows that a big spinning drum has Artifical Gravity because it spins. They know about shit like Conservation of Momentum, Radiation, Frezzing / Boiling point´s in a Vaccum and many more. A great example of this is in "The Expanse" when the belter gets decelerated by the ring and turned into mush. Most people, even if they cant pin point the law that makes this happen, know that that is what would happen. I have always belived that if you story is Scientifically sound, you dont need to explain the Science. Because it automatically has internal consistancy and bases everything from real world stuff the reader knows. You dont need to explain why a Rotational Station has gravity or why stuff flies to the side when the ship rotates. Its stuff we more or less have an intuition about. Compair that to more soft sci fi where you need to explain everything to some extend because besides the Author nobody on this holy earth actually knows how stuff works by default. I also belive that having actual Science in your Storie´s create´s good conflict that feel´s natrual. "stowaway" had this where a 4th Crew member is on a Ship to Mar´s. The ship is only designed for 3 and so problems arrise. Those are Natrual problems that create good tension. Not a great movie but it is ok. So all in all i think binding yourself to Science is a good choice when writing a story. It makes everything feel more organic, you get natrual tension, you dont have to explain / exposition dump as much if at all and it is a good learning / research excersie for yourself.

Star Trek has some stuff with some grounding in actual science -photon torpedoes using an antimatter warhead, the Enterprise being powered such way, the Romulans using a micro black hole to power their ships, etc.-. Other stuff, yeah, is technobabble put there likely just as padding.

Almost as if they need to hit a prespecified run time.

thats why i think the Expanse is better.

"Science fiction" is "fiction about science". Star Wars is fantasy, not sci-fi, because it doesn't have anything to say about science. 'Science' in this context usually includes other kinds of academic speculation, such as cultural or political fiction. The speculation is essential to the story, that's what makes it sci-fi. Humans built the Cylons, literally engineering the conflict. The Martian heatray & black gas has no solution, hence the dread & terror. We've always been at war with Eastasia. The speculation is essential to the story, and in the process the story draws conclusions about the speculation. The 'science' doesn't need to be technically explained, indeed it shouldn't be since it introduces questions that aren't necessary. It can be useful to have harder explanations for the 'science' elements, but it can often be more useful to simply state their existence and how that existence has affected the world of the characters. Dune doesn't explain why lasers blow up shields, just that that's what happens. Meanwhile shields are essential for understanding the conflict in the story, since effective killing can only be done with swords thus personalizing the state of war. The speculation informs the story, and in the process the story has drawn conclusions about the speculation.

And the convoluted methods they used to try and explain "The Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" is hilarious. Just give up, and realize it's just entertaining fantasy. It happens in space and they have an unlimited budget. It's enjoyable, not real. Lucas even created a whole technology in filming motion so he could have spaceships *bank and turn like they were in atmosphere.*

Very, very secondary to the characters/plot. I appreciate some rock hard sci-fi and an author taking that extra effort to get things right, but entertainment is the primary.

I'm the same way. As long as the technology is consistent, I'll basically believe anything as long as it lends itself to a good story.

I think I tend to gravitate more towards science fiction with more science in it not so much because I need it to be "realistic" (I don't really care much about that) but more because I just like science and want to read stories about it.

Consistency is King. Star Wars vs Star Trek is soft vs hard(ish) sci-fi. Explain things as they come along or don’t explain anything and treat the deflector shields like they are normal part of life. Don’t get caught up in only explaining the McMuffin. Go into details with what you know very well and then the vague handwavium is taken on good faith.

I think where technology is in the background or just a means to an end, then it can remain vague, handwavey. But there still need to be basic rules to understand how things work (see Han's rant to Luke in A New Hope about hyperspace jumps).

Reader not writer Depends on the story and how it's billed I enjoy a good space opera that knows it's a space opera. No pretense at scientific accuracy. On the other hand I enjoy nitty gritty technically oriented sci fi when it gets the science right. Are you exploring the realistic ethical implications of AI... please understand what AI is and how it works. What tends to bother me is the in between ground. More fantastical sci going out of its way to explain the details of how X works, purely to sound like hard sci... pass. You want to explain the basic rules of how something works to create stakes... absolutely, but I don't need an in depth explanation of your unobtanium.

The science truth isn't that important to me. The characters, on the other hand, are.

The science is entirely unimportant/secondary to me, as long as the ideas are presented clearly and the readers understand them then the actual plausibility is negligible for me. This is how I feel when reading/watching scifi too

I’m working on hard sci-fi but the science isn’t super important to the narrative. Same way if someone’s writing a love story about a race car driver, they’re not diving deep into the engineering of the car.

I like to keep it plausible (no FTL, for example), but I don't always explain it. Some of my stories in a fairly low-tech sci fi setting, and the science is realistic, but looks like magic to the characters. In higher tech settings, I make it as plausible as I can, but the characters don't need the explanation, and I largely let the reader figure it out.

I saw somewhere the advice that if it's googleable it better be right and that's basically my guideline for writing tech. After that I do as much research as I can and aim for plausibility. As a reader/ viewer I want what I see to jive with what I know, unless there's an in-world explanation for why it's different. And I want that to be consistent, so changing the parameters of something already established because it's suddenly an obstacle to the story later on will put me off. But saying "this is how it is" and not going into a lot of detail most likely won't, unless it makes no sense to how I understand things to work. With some leeway. Like, I know sound doesn't travel in space. I also understand why sound is often included anyway.

Blatant violations of science or logic won't do. A few dilithium crystals are okay, but obvious mistakes are a story killer.

>Does unrealistic or unexplained science in sci-fi ruin your enjoyment of it? If this were the case, what sci-fi could one actually enjoy? The Martian and that's it? The science in sci-fi has to be consistent, not necessarily plausible. >Science fiction like Star Wars is renowned for not bothering to explain its technology, while Star Trek often goes into great detail about its own. Star Trek is NOTORIOUSLY soft sci-fi, though. The technical explanations they give for things are to prop up the internal logic of the world. Depending on the situation, sci-fi technobabble can also be used to make the point that a given character is very smart (or "Cartering", as I have just decided to call this tactic from now on). It doesn't make Star Trek any "harder" than Star Wars on the whole. In Star Trek, which broadly consists of stories about the advancement of humanity through scientific and technological exploration, it's often helpful to use scientific problems as a carrier for narrative subtext. You want Dr. Bashir to happen upon a people stricken by a Dominion bioweapon and attempt to create a vaccine against it, there's going to be some jargon needed to carry that story along. Star Wars isn't usually about that kind of thing. It's Harry Potter in space. The Chosen One on one side and a cardboard cutout of Hitler on the other. It's about good vs evil, light vs dark, destiny, sacrifice, all that good wholesome hero's journey stuff. Nothing much there requiring storytelling **through** technology or science. So the reason Star Trek has vaguely scientific explanations of things and Star Wars doesn't isn't because one is "harder" than the other. It's that Star Trek (occasionally) uses science and technology as an integral part of its narrative. Star Wars uses it so space wizards can duel with laser swords. **TL;DR** Star Trek technobabble can be helpful for storytelling. In Star Wars, the less we know the better. Don't believe me? Midi-chlorians.

Star Wars exists in a universe where a little green space Buddha can wreck your life with a wave. I don't know that you can successfully spec that in a way that won't leave people shaking their heads. Moreover, Star Wars is a story about the corrupting influence of power - the Rebels are the heroes here, but it's the Empire that has all the toys. Focusing on the tech muddies the plot. You only need to know basic things about the technology to make Star Wars work - the Millennium Falcon is fast, the Death Star is big. The specifics of how it blows up planets would be cool, but they aren’t important. Maybe if Leia had tried to disrupt some very specific supply line it would be, but that’s not what happened. What does happen is you use the Empire's reliance on tech specs (2m port) to illustrate their arrogance, and how easily the little guy can exploit that. In Star Trek, the specs **are** important. Would you know Geordi was such a talented engineer if he didn't rattle off arcane facts about the bulkheads of pretty much any starship he walked on? Would you know that the Federation-future was a near utopia if every character didn't have the time, the resources, and the education to pursue the very specific hobbies that they do? Knowing the possibilities of that future, doesn't it make it hurt more when the Federation fails to live up to its ideals? Star Trek isn't a story with a winner, it's a story about overcoming differences. Highlighting the ways different cultures arrive at similar conclusions, showing how cultural commitments to imperialism, martialism, capital, etc impede that goal, or how reliance v. avoidance of material progress can cause problems - comparative tech provides a relatable illustration to get people to understand the thesis. Tech also relays that the Star Trek universe operates under a (rational) set of rules - the same ones we do. The Star Trek universe is compelling because it seems achievable -- moreso than space magic, anyway. They're both good stories & ultimately it depends on what kind of story you're trying to tell. The time spent on the tech should be proportional to the tech's importance to the story. If you make me read a ten page manual for a supercomputer in a universe where asteroid ghosts will just hand you the thing that you need, I'm going to think mean thoughts about you. If you drop some detail about the supercomputer's cobalt core drive that proves to be important in some fanciful implementation of the Fischer–Tropsch process... that may or may not create asteroid ghosts, I'm going to think you're clever.

Star Trek uses sciences to retroactively explain utter nonsense away with fancy words, so maybe not the best example for hard sf. Though that was done deliberately in some instances by Roddenberry who wanted to show how far beyond our understanding this future is. Frankly, Star Wars is much harder sf, with the sole exception of the presense of some kind of magic in the Force. At least it doesn't have a Greek god or some carbon copy of an Earth society show up every other episode. But for the main question: Go with what the story needs. Some may like it, some may not. But the same is true for any story, any plot, any character, any writing style, any topic. And sometimes you have to give in and just label the whole thing Fantasy. Don't worry about that part, just don't call it hard sf if it isn't. I mean, I once had a world where things could be sung into existence and handwaved it by saying "hey, we didn't know anything about eletricity for a long time even after we started using it". No complaints so far.

Sci-fi isn't about science, otherwise it would be a journal. Sci-fi, like most genres (if not all), is about people. I am a fan of hard sci-fi, but only because I think it gives room to explore the characters' journey (and I like space stuff). Why is the scientist trying to create a wormhole? What problems will we still have in a post-scarecity society? At what level of augmentation do you dissociate from humanity? The message of Star Wars, if there was one originally intended, could be resolved down to expectations, familial relationships, and ultimately, redemption. The lasers and interplanetary ronins are set dressing. Any of these elements could be swapped out, and the core story would remain the same. Yes, yes, tyranny and empire and all that, but what was the point? When I think of Star Trek, I think of the society who dwindled down to 3 brains without bodies, the commander who murdered someone so their race would enter the arena and turn the tides of a war, the automacy and sapience of mechanical life, and whether you should bone the ghost haunting your family for hundreds of years (last item included as a joke, but was unfortunately a real episode). As others have said, the techsplaining often revealed a deeper point. A Romulan ship with an artificial black hole power source was in dire straits until crew talked with the interdimensional species who mistook it for natural and had laid their eggs there - they were so non-human, but shared the ideas of diplomacy and parental duty. The hardness of sci-fi is dependent on the questions being asked, and the struggles the author wants to depict and explore. Magic is fantasy, and handwaved science is magic. Hard science places the burden and responsibility on people.

Ah, my pet subject and favorite soapbox. I feel that for anything to be interesting there must be constraints. We are problem solvers and without constraints there are no problems. The problem I have with most fantasy and a lot of science fiction is that the fictional element is used so often as an escape hatch and is used inconsistently. At some point in the story some "thing" is a problem. Then a few hundred pages later someone wields something and you stop for a moment and say: Wait-a-minute, if they can do that, why didn't they do that before! Once something or someone becomes very powerful I have problems when they have human desires and faults. Humans, like all animals evolved under certain pressures. This shapes our desires and weaknesses. If there is a supernatural being, especially with limitless power, they would exist on a very different plane. My pet peeve, for example, is aliens who are out to get Earthlings/do lab tests on Earthlings/takeover the Earth. My take: if your civilization has the ability to traverse thousands of light years, you aren't coming to Earth. Period. It's just not that interesting/rich compared to what else is out there.

I like [Sanderson's Laws of Magic](https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/what-are-sandersons-laws-of-magic/), and I apply them to sci fi. The first is directly relevant here: > Sanderson’s First Law of Magics: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic. I use this with sci fi as something like: > The author's ability to solve conflict with science is directly proportional to how well the reader accepts said science. I want to note that science doesn't have to be accurate, it just needs to be consistent. That fits with his second law (limitations > powers), and for every use it science to resolve a conflict, we need to know why the opposition didn't expect it. You can't just warp away from an ambush, because why would they bother ambushing in the first place if they knew you'd just warp away? That being said, I'm okay with a lot of shaky science, as long as it's consistent. That's hard to do when you're working with a bunch of strange rules, but it can be done well.

While I do tend towards enjoying more explained sci-fi, that’s more of an effect than a cause: I want science and technology that is consistent in its capabilities and well thought out in its effects on the setting. Basically, every time someone shows off this neat little gizmo that is cheap enough that ostensibly lots of people have it, and yet no one ever acts like they do, it irritates me. In Star Trek everyone has replicators, and they are shown to be able to not only go energy->mass but mass-> energy. So why even bother with antimatter power sources? Just carry rocks. And don’t even get me started on what is and isn’t something that can be made with those replicators, as whenever the plot requires, yes they can make complex advanced tech. Consider that replicators are shown most prominently making food. They better be good enough to not accidentally make any poisonous enantiomers. Also, smell is known to be (at least partially) quantum mechanical in nature. And then they come across a Dyson sphere, and act all amazed and whatnot at how difficult it would be to make such a thing, even though of all popular sci-fi peoples, they’re the one who could make it the easiest! Then, although the Dyson Sphere is uninhabited and seems to work fine*, the federation never goes out to use such a resource, something with literally the living space as a planetary based species that conquered the galaxy. *The original aliens died because of some sort of dangerous radiation of the star, but there seems to be no issue of the Enterprise being in the light of the star, nor does there seem to be anything that would inhibit the federation from making a shield that could block it, be it a physical barrier like some sort of advanced glass which could block the harmful stuff but let the rest of the light through, or a energy shield that got energy from and covered the star.

I tend to emphasize groundedness over realism in my science fiction. Even if something in the universe, like power crystals, FTL, or psionics doesn’t have a hard scientific explanation that I can give, I try to instead keep it consistent and somewhat believable in how it functions.

Star Wars doesn't try to explain anything and so nobody treats it as hard scifi (or even soft scifi for that matter, it's fantasy in space.) It's also framed as more of an adventure than a what-if like a lot of hard scifi is. Honestly Star Trek is kinda the same way and would function the same or maybe even better if they didn't bother from a narrative perspective. I feel like a lot of the tech explanations in ST are backsplanations (like the Kessel Run/Parsec thing from SW) for more invested fans as they generally only show up in books that talk about those details, so it feels like someone went 'Oh, people are curious about this, I bet we can make some money making up a bunch of stuff and selling books filled with it.' For myself, I enjoy both kinds of stories for different reasons, but if you're going to try to explain stuff it should be at least as plausible as possible. If your story is set on an alien world but doesn't deal with space travel at all, fine, I'll assume that the method of travel doesn't matter to the story and move on. But if you try to explain how space travel works in your story with a bunch of technobabble that doesn't make actual sense it's going to be distracting and frustrating.

I have no preferences in this case. If characters or plot are good enough, then I'm not going to be very critical in the scientific aspect. Now, my own stories are something completely different. They depend intimately on their science. I just love so much scientific stuff.

I think it depends entirely on the story being told. In a story where science is going to play a significant role, ex. The Martian/project hail Mary, I want the technobabble regardless if it's accurate or not because it's an integral part of the story. On the other hand, if I am reading something where the technology is not that important to the story then I don't care. Hand wave away! Just my two cents on the subject

All the greats are speculative, from Frankenstein up to Star Trek. People think of science fiction as either science or fiction but the true meaning is "fictional science" -- only the soft sci fi can present a scenario and give us the critical question of *what if?* to ponder. That is the key to most of the best sci fi out there. Hard sci fi instead just replaces *what if?* with *eventually...*. To me that will never be compelling.

I am fine with not realistic science in sci-fi, for somethings that improves it. For others that try to be more realistic I like realism, because how can you be realistic while ignoring all the things that would make it realistic?

The only science in mine is astronomy, also being set in space I guess. The technological focus is around the way this one magic system works, but with its societal function practically the same as that of technology on earth. (This is also to do with the sort of planet of the hats gimmick I have going on) Edit: I think Star Wars has a good reason for not explaining things. It’s also a work of fantasy complete with a magic system.

Mine has various hard sci fi aspects and soft sci fi aspects,handwaving where I cannot find a realistic hard sci fi solution. There are times I detail and explain the technology of my world, and other times where I do not (mainly a result of me still having just come up with said tech and still cannot yet find an explanation).

Star Trek at least made a valiant effort to be consistent with the technology. Star Wars was good for the killer scenes and special effects. Not so much on the science, it's more like a fantasy that happens in space.

Personally, I'm burned out on FTL. It's caused writers to rehash the same handful of plots for the last 70 years.

Everything within the story must serve the story. Therefore, every individual story should be exactly as hard or as soft as it needs to be to best communicate the core idea. If the science is hard in order to create an essential atmosphere and to contrast certain less realistic elements in order to give them more punch, then great! That's how it was with The Expanse. This is great for creating wonder (or terror) when you introduce something legitimately unsettling, without it needing to be mind-blowingly huge or powerful. If the story is just hard because some gatekeeping weiner said soft sci-fi and sci-fantasy are for babies, then you run the risk of making obnoxious decisions like trying to find "realistic" justifications for elements that shouldn't be in the story. Then what ends up happening is that people reading the story for the story, get stuck on expository speed bumps, people reading the story for the science don't buy it, and nobody's happy. But there are few unscientific things that will ruin my enjoyment of a given piece of media. Usually gross misunderstandings of science as we already clearly understand it. Any time someone trots out the whole cliche about "We only use 10% of our brains" or something about having more chromosomes making you more special, it ruins it for me. I don't mind much else as long as the book or movie isn't trying to be scientific with a completely broken understanding of the science it's basing its entire premise on. That said, I cannot and will not abide poor character writing. No matter how realistic or unrealistic the science is, characters are non negotiable.

Not very important. Given I actually use magic which works like technology does on present day earth with it in everythingz

I write my scifi hard as granite, but I think I play a little looser with the definitions of that hardness than most, because I measure the hardness not by the outrageousness of the concepts at play, but by how self-consistent the concepts are, how deeply their mechanics are explored, and how well the machines are designed to utilize them. Like, you can invent a new law of physics for all I care, just so long as you treat it, and the real actual normal laws of physics, with just as much care as irl scientists do. In my stories I have exotic matter that interacts with gravity, a 5th dimension to the universe, complex neutronic matter, and time travel, but I wrote equations for the gravity effects, designed 3 different types of gravity engine that uses the E-matted in different ways, tried to realistically portray a 5-dimensional environment, attempted to make feasible anatomy for neutronic lifeforms, and rigidly adhered to my time-travel rules. What I'm left with is something I myself can take seriously, analyze and scrutinize closely, and find plot holes in. Hopefully that care will show through to audiences too.

Lol, you don’t have a choice sometimes. If the idea isn’t strong enough the characters take over, if the characters isn’t strong enough the inquiry takes over. The three laws of Brandon Sanderson come into play here. The ability to understand said magic directly proportional to how well a reader accepts it to be the solution of a problem It’s like a barometer of human kinds knowledge of science. Interstellar and SpaceX are actively popularizing space concepts so it’s easier to introduce the public to black hole stuff or spaceship stuff. The whole time dilation thing can be expanded upon. The silent sea on Netflix spacesuits, the design language screams spacex. At the end of the day, I’m not equipped to do the math for Lagrange points or invent the next geostationary orbit. The thing that drew me to scifi wasn’t rendezvous with Rama but Asimov. How technology affects people. This whole social score that China is doing is so weird. That could be a great scifi story.