Quote from: GeekyBugle;1106645I love the series but it's not Hard Sci-Fi by any stretch of the imagination as it resorts to Handwavium constantly to push the story further.

Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.

Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.

The Expanse.

I disagree with 'Hard Sci-fi' definitions that exclude The Expanse from it.

Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.

The Martian is probably the most well-known right now.

It's definitely an uncommon genre, but not completely unknown.

Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.

Space Odyssey
Ring World
The Martian
Planet of the Apes

Quote from: Catelf;1106733Try to mention ONE well-known sci-fi that is "Hard Sci-Fi".
I doubt you will find even one.

2300AD if you want to talk RPGs.

Quote from: jeff37923;11068132300AD if you want to talk RPGs.

If we're doing that, both Nova Praxis and Eclipse Phase to some extent are Hard Sci-fi.

Quote from: jeff37923;11068132300AD if you want to talk RPGs.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1106845If we're doing that, both Nova Praxis and Eclipse Phase to some extent are Hard Sci-fi.

I think these are questionable cases, which are better talked about as being on a spectrum between hard sci-fi to soft sci-fi, rather than as a lumped group of "hard sci-fi" as a binary quality.

Games like Twilight 2000, Millenium's End, and The Morrow Project are definitely hard sci-fi.

In the case of 2300, I think the FTL drive is an insertion based on what is desired, rather than an extrapolation of current science or technology. It's unquestionably more hard sci-fi than Traveller or Star Trek, but it still has an important insertion as a central element.

Quote from: jhkim;1106849I think these are questionable cases, which are better talked about as being on a spectrum between hard sci-fi to soft sci-fi, rather than as a lumped group of "hard sci-fi" as a binary quality.

Games like Twilight 2000, Millenium's End, and The Morrow Project are definitely hard sci-fi.

In the case of 2300, I think the FTL drive is an insertion based on what is desired, rather than an extrapolation of current science or technology. It's unquestionably more hard sci-fi than Traveller or Star Trek, but it still has an important insertion as a central element.

Well that is the point of the thread. Could this status be transient in nature? Does it matter if it was an extrapolation if it is later proven right or wrong? Like many consider any psionics as Soft Sci-fi, but if by some chance psionics are actually discovered and someone predicted how it worked correctly, then that suddenly becomes a hard Sci-fi element.

Likewise, FTL based on current physics (stable wormholes) is arguably a lot more Hard Sci-fi than something like Stars Without Number's Spike Drive.

2300AD's stutterwarp drive is based on the Tunnel Diode Effect, a real world example of teleportation as it was understood when the game was written. So it isn't as unscientific as you portray it jhkim.

As far as Eclipse Phase being hard SF? All I need to say is "Meathab".

Quote from: Rhedyn;1106856Well that is the point of the thread. Could this status be transient in nature? Does it matter if it was an extrapolation if it is later proven right or wrong? Like many consider any psionics as Soft Sci-fi, but if by some chance psionics are actually discovered and someone predicted how it worked correctly, then that suddenly becomes a hard Sci-fi element.

Likewise, FTL based on current physics (stable wormholes) is arguably a lot more Hard Sci-fi than something like Stars Without Number's Spike Drive.

Hard Sci-Fi isn't what the futurists do, it can have impossible elements as long as it's not most of it, as long as your game isn't swimming on Unobtanium and instead of scientific explanations lots of Handwavium it can be Sci-Fi and not Science Fantasy.

Again, elements like FTL travel can be in the hardest Sci-Fi (it's where the fiction comes), as long as the explanation for it is scientific (or trying to). So Traveller is not Science Fantasy, unless you have Dragons from mythology, with magic fire and shit.

Having lots of humanoid sentients who can interbreed needs to be explained in a scientific way, so colonies from a central Imperium. Discovering a new species who didn't also know about humans and has green blood but can interbreed with humans? Fantasy, evolution doesn't work like that.

Same goes for Psionics, you explain it in a sorta scientific way? Sci-Fi but if your explanation is that the gods gifted some species with it? Fantasy.

And again, a done work is a fixed point in a spectrum, unlike an ongoing tv show or campaign, the last two can start as Hard Sci-Fi and become fantasy by the writers (or GM) introducing more and more unobtanium and handwavium.

But there are no hard frontiers really, it's a spectrum and the limits between the "points" on the hardness scale are fuzzy.

If it's for a campaign you're asking I wouldn't worry too much, unless you really want to stay firmly in the realm of Sci-Fi (or Science Fantasy) then you do need to veto from the start some elements or not (magical dragons for example).

For a long campaign of hard Sci-Fi I would recommend as a setting Ring World or the Kzin-Humanity wars. The first is the most perfect endless dungeon you can imagine and you can have (and there are several) humanoid sentient species scientifically explained (that can't interbreed) and lots of room to make new ones. A human variant on a snake or varano ecological niche? Maybe a Human variant that became totally aquatic and lost it's legs? A really small human variant that lives underground? And for the final bosses you have bandersnatch, the Engineers, Kzin, Martians, Pierson pupeteers, and lots more. An ocean so big models of Earth, Mars, Kzin and several other planets fit in it. And another ocean just as big on the opposite side of the ring to balance it.

With unique weapons, no need to steal from SW or ST.

I just convinced my self of running such a campaign! :cool:

Quote from: jeff37923;1106857As far as Eclipse Phase being hard SF? All I need to say is "Meathab".

You don't like the idea of a habitat made of sapient transbacon (can "trans-" just be applied to everything in EP)?

EP also custom-designed biological life that can exist in astoundingly harsh environments, like coronal space whales that "swim" around the outer reaches of the sun.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1106856Could this status be transient in nature? Does it matter if it was an extrapolation if it is later proven right or wrong? Like many consider any psionics as Soft Sci-fi, but if by some chance psionics are actually discovered and someone predicted how it worked correctly, then that suddenly becomes a hard Sci-fi element.

Likewise, FTL based on current physics (stable wormholes) is arguably a lot more Hard Sci-fi than something like Stars Without Number's Spike Drive.

I guess I can accept stable wormholes like in 2001 or Contact, where they're created over eons by vastly superior non-human technology. The only RPG I can think of that uses something like that is Blue Planet. In general, FTL drives are inserted because the author wants to have fast travel to other stars. I don't think there has been any significant change in the science regarding psychic powers or FTL between 1930 and today. General relativity was well-established by 1930.

Regarding the OP, I haven't read the original Flash Gordon comic book - but from what I can gather, I don't think it was plausibly based on the science of the 1930s. i.e. It was never hard sci-fi. There is some sci-fi that was more plausible at the time and got dated - like predictions of robots and flying cars from the 1930s. Some of those really were predictive sci-fi at the time, but I don't think Flash Gordon was in that group.

Quote from: jhkim;1106861like predictions of robots and flying cars from the 1930s. Some of those really were predictive sci-fi at the time, but I don't think Flash Gordon was in that group.

My dad is still bummed that he never got to own a flying car.

I grew up wanted a job with a ray gun! Early on in nursing I got to scan meds with a barcode laser scanner. The future is not what I pictured it to be...

Quote from: HappyDaze;1106860You don't like the idea of a habitat made of sapient transbacon (can "trans-" just be applied to everything in EP)?

I just wondering why the habitat doesn't digest it's inhabitants when it gets hungry.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1106860also custom-designed biological life that can exist in astoundingly harsh environments, like coronal space whales that "swim" around the outer reaches of the sun.

Coronal space whales..........Yeesh!

Quote from: jeff37923;1106865I just wondering why the habitat doesn't digest it's inhabitants when it gets hungry.

Because it's a vegan meathab. Duh!

Quote from: jeff37923;1106865Coronal space whales..........Yeesh!

And those are options for PCs too! Admittedly, bodies are equipment, so you'll only be wearing a coronal space whale body when everyone else is wearing one too for some wild-ass mission near the sun.