# Is there really such a thing as "hard science" fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [December 4, 2020, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170 "2020-12-04T03:25:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/81 "2020-12-06T17:55:48Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Why is dilation-less FTL not fantasy, but the Force is? I don’t see any distinction. Do’h! I picked a particularly poor example; that’s why you see no distinction. As I was writing about Star Wars I was thinking entirely about the ambient tech throughout their society and almost every scene in the movie. I totally spaced it (heh;) ) about the Force, the Jedi, and all that stuff. :smack: In fact the Force is exactly the kind of magic wand waving I had in mind when thinking of and writing about Harry Potter. As you and @GreenWyvern rightly say, Star Wars is as much SF as fantasy. Arguably more fantasy since all the real “Cavalry saves the day!” drama involves the magick defeating the tech. The tech dominates much of the visual, whereas the magick dominates the story. I really need to stay out of literature threads; I just show off my blinkered ignorance. But at least I’m polite about it. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/82 "2020-12-06T18:00:44Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Why is dilation-less FTL not fantasy, but the Force is? I don’t see any distinction. This was discussed in several posts upthread. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/83 "2020-12-06T18:02:15Z")
But when Heinlein writes about psychic powers that are rooted in the brain, and evolved with humanity, and can be trained and strengthened, wasn’t that considered science fiction? why is it science fiction if you tie it to human evolution, but fantasy if it’s in Star Wars, presented as an observable, measurable force? > **[Lost Legacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Legacy)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Lost Legacy (1941) is a novella by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. Originally published in the November, 1941 issue of Super Science Stories, it was collected in the book Assignment in Eternity (1953). > The novella is an exploration of the possibilities that humans, with the proper training, have the potential to make use of a wide range of telepathic and telekinetic abilities. It is based on the presumption that most, if not all, huma... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/84 "2020-12-06T18:06:39Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I linked to the source above. I’m sorry, I’m not seeing it. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/85 "2020-12-06T18:08:37Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > an observable, measurable force Measureable? ‘The Force is strong with this one. Almost 34.7 kilo-midichlorians!’ 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/86 "2020-12-06T18:09:01Z")
When Han Solo gives that summary of the Force in _The Force Awakens_, he’s speaking as a sceptical empiricist who is convinced that the Force is a real and observable something. He doesn’t know how it works, but it’s there, he’s observed it. Why is it that postulating that something exists and is observable and measurable, even if the mechanism isn’t known\*, is considered fantasy? - we skip over the midchlorians, but if that is accepted, why doesn’t that provide a scientific explanation for the Force, on par with hand-waved explanations about hyper-space FTL? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/87 "2020-12-06T18:10:37Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’m sorry, I’m not seeing it. The word ‘here’ is linked. It’s probably not very visible. Perhaps I should have underlined it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/d45i3h/sff\_publishing\_demographics\_in\_the\_3rd\_quarter\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/d45i3h/sff_publishing_demographics_in_the_3rd_quarter_of/) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/88 "2020-12-06T18:10:54Z")
Yes, but I’m still not following the distinction. You’ve stated that the Force is fantasy, suggesting there’s a clear boundary. What is that clear boundary? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/89 "2020-12-06T18:15:40Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Yes, but I’m still not following the distinction. I agree with posts 31 and 34 above. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/90 "2020-12-06T18:41:44Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I agree with posts 31 and 34 above. As far as I can tell from those posts, by convention FTL is considered hard, even though it’s usually just hand-waved, but mental powers are considered soft or fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/91 "2020-12-06T18:42:44Z")
It’s a story-vs.-setting issue, as described above. Star Wars is a fantasy story in a science fiction setting, which according to your personal definition can mean it’s either, or both. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/92 "2020-12-06T18:43:57Z")
what makes it fantasy? it’s got blasters and light sabres instead of phasers and pulse cannons. It’s a got a hitherto unknown mental force, attributed to a certain units in the bloodstream. where’s the fantasy? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/93 "2020-12-06T18:50:11Z")
Missed edit window: Jedi mind tricks instead of Vulcan mind meld ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/94 "2020-12-06T19:00:46Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > what makes it fantasy? > > it’s got blasters and light sabres instead of phasers and pulse cannons. > > It’s a got a hitherto unknown mental force, attributed to a certain units in the bloodstream. > > where’s the fantasy? It has knights and princesses and prophecies and places of power. It has all the trappings of fantasy, and the story structure of a fantasy saga. It also meets my own personal definition of fantasy: subjectivity. The mental forces it portrays have inherent morality - a “light side” and a “dark side”. That, to me, is one defining difference between science and magic: science is objective, magic is subjective. There’s no such thing as “evil” science, only science used for evil, while “dark” magic is inherently dark no matter what you do with it. Science doesn’t know right from wrong; magic does. The Force is magic. Why do you think the SW fandom completely rejected the concept of Midichorians, so much so that Lucas never mentioned them again? Because they knew he shoving getting science fiction into their fantasy story, and they didn’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/95 "2020-12-06T19:09:15Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > As far as I can tell from those posts, by convention FTL is considered hard, even though it’s usually just hand-waved, but mental powers are considered soft or fantasy. That’s because, in principle, FTL and wormholes are allowed by Relativity. It doesn’t contradict known science to imagine that future advances in physics and technology might make FTL travel possible. @Half_Man_Half_Wit explained this clearly, early in this discussion. Mental powers, on the other hand, do not have any scientific backing whatsoever. Hard and soft are not rigid categories. It’s a gray scale, not black and white. 90% or 95% hard is usually considered hard enough to be classified as hard SF. Asking the same question again and again is not going to result in a different answer. You may disagree, but that’s how many people see it. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/96 "2020-12-06T19:12:54Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Vulcan mind meld Star Trek is soft SF, not hard. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/97 "2020-12-06T19:35:59Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Mental powers, on the other hand, do not have any scientific backing whatsoever. Back in the 40s and 50s, serious sf writers seriously believed in psi powers. It was hard to get a story into _Astounding_ without them. (Others thought they were nuts, of course.) A probably even larger number of authors thought that other planets in the solar system would be livable and that easy travel to those planets would become routine. And everybody assumed that atomic rockets were the next step. That baked a lot of concepts into hard sf. The numbers from Tor are interesting, but even though Tor is huge, it’s a small part of the whole field. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/98 "2020-12-06T19:41:25Z")
And then there’s even “hard fantasy”, like Master of the Five Magics, written by physicist Lyndon Hardy. It’s magic, but all of the magic follows rigid rules and constraints, such that there are some things that thaumaturgy, say, or alchemy, simply can or cannot do (though there are some things that thaumaturgy can’t do but alchemy can, and so on, and so a master, or even dabbler, of all of them has a decided edge over a master of only one). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2020, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/99 "2020-12-06T20:15:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And then there’s even “hard fantasy”, like Master of the Five Magics, written by physicist Lyndon Hardy. It’s magic, but all of the magic follows rigid rules and constraints I’ve heard less about “hard fantasy” per se than about [hard vs soft magic systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Sanderson's_Laws_of_Magic). ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170/100 "2020-12-07T09:30:47Z")
What’s the difference between artful nudity and pornography? You know it when you see it. I think some of you are trying to get overly litigious about what constitutes “science-based” fictional elements and and stories. For 95% of the world, if it takes place in a fictional world that looks vaguely like a specific period in the Earth’s past…it’s fantasy. If it takes place in a world that looks vaguely like a potential version of Earth’s future, it’s Sci-Fi. It’s imprecise and unsatisfying, but I’m not sure there’s ever going to be a definition that’s really useful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-hard-science-fiction/927170.md?page=6)