Poll: hard of soft sci-fi?

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Either one is good as long as I'm in the mood for it. I tend towards hard more often, but the utterly madcap goings on of soft sci fi are always fun for a laugh. Also, truly hard sci-fi tend to get bogged down in minutiae if they run on for long enough, which can get very boring (I'm talking more literature here.)

 

[cheese_wizington]

As long as it's good I really don't care.

 

[Shurikens and Lightning]

2001: A space oddysey is some of the hardest sci-fi I know. While Mass Effect and star wars are soft.

So I am in between.

 

[Dyp100]

Whoa... What people here define as "hard sci-fi" makes me depressed. Warhammer? Mass Effect? come on people, that is soft sci-fi, nothing else, for example, Mass Effect has FTL travel, whilst they have handwaved pretty much everything in a very consistent manner, it is still not scientifically possible. What ever happened to Arthur C. Clarke? Asmiov? Even Dune is hard compared to what you've said here. (ok, perhaps not, but it's a great book so I felt the need to mention it anyway).

I think everyone knows Warhammer is as hard as butter, but ME FTL travel is kinda plausible, there testing out stuff like that to see if it acts in a similar way to the way described in ME, of course, they soften it a little to work.

Some, ME is harder then it is soft, IMO.

But...Yeah...Warhammer uses AU dimensions for space travel and pyskers, so soft. XD

To OP: IDK, don't really care, but I seem to enjoy soft a bit more, just not really into "hardcore sci-fi shows", (other then ST:TNG and DW) even if I am a hardcores sci-fi nerd.

 

[BonsaiK]

Sci-fi can basically be divided into two categories: hard and soft.

Soft sci-fi is the kind that will introduce a new technology every week (it uses stand alone episodes) and will place less emphasis on plausibility.

Hard sci-fi usually defines what its technology is capable of and what it is not capable of. Its technology must follow certain rules the writers lay out. It?s not so much about plausibility as much as believability. Once what the technology can do is established no matter how weird it will come to no longer break the audiences suspension of belief. This is the kind of sci-fi that is most likely to "just happen" to take place in the future. It often involves politics or wars.

Anyway, which do you prefer?

Is this hard/soft thing something that actually exists, or did you invent it just now?

Anyway I really don't think it matters. Amelie is my favourite sci-fi, I'm not sure where that falls. It's such an unconventional sci-fi that most people don't even recognise the sci-fi element in it.

 

[Always_Remain]

I prefer hard sci fi. very. very. hard. sci-fi.

Soft and wet sci-fi is pretty fun to fuck watch too.

Damn my immaturity.

 

[WayOutThere]

Is this hard/soft thing something that actually exists, or did you invent it just now?

You can look up the terms youself. Even if they weren't real, they should be.

 

[elemenetal150]

Hard Sci-Fi.....
Favorite Sci-Fi series is Battle tech novels, it was a long series but the technology was well established and didn't sway from that central them, even the "new technology" was just improvements on what was already established

 

[BonsaiK]

Is this hard/soft thing something that actually exists, or did you invent it just now?

You can look up the terms youself. Even if they weren't real, they should be.

The problem with your terminology is that there's an inherent value judgement in the language favouring "hard" sci-fi, as "soft" is a pseudonym for "weak" in Western culture. The language you're using is going to skew your results significantly.

 

[BakaSmurf]

Hard. Hard very, very much.

Yes, I just loooove it hard.

...What!? I'm talking about Sci-Fi you sickos!

...
.
...

*shifty eyes*

 

[Sad Robot]

I prefer soft (which I gather pretty much all the examples here mentioned would count as. It's a sliding scale and Star Wars is probably at the very "soft" end while something like Mass Effect would probably count as slightly harder but still quite soft. I assume "hard" sci-fi means science fiction that's presumably realistic in terms of technological achievements regarding our future or what could exist elsewhere in the universe.

The problem with such "hard" sci-fi is that it's incredibly difficult to write since you can't see in to the future, and most writers aren't even physicist or cosmologists or even engineers so they'd have to do loads and loads of tiresome research. Another problem would be that were it extremely realistic, it would undermine what people in general want from sci-fi: fantasy in space - to how plausible a degree, varies according to taste.

For one definition on the matter, see here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness?from=Main.MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness

 

[Zildjin81]

I find that I enjoy hard sci-fi more. I do enjoy an episode of Eureka every now and then though.

 

[Altorin]

Depends.. I like them both.. I like to geek out with Hard, and just escape sometimes with Soft.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

See, I'm not really sure you're using proper examples of each - Star Trek is about as far from hard sci-fi as you can get without being ridiculous about it like Dr. Who might - the writers would just use a word to stand in for any technobabble and leave it to consultants to come up with something - Babylon 5 is a much better example of hard sci-fi.

What I'm looking for in television and films is mostly just a sense of internal consistency, I don't really care how implausible the technology is or how well they explain it, just so long as they aren't making it exceptionally hard to suspend my disbelief.

In literature, I tend to find hard sci-fi to be too clinical, give me the pulpier soft varieties any day.

 

[DarkLordofDevon]

I'm confusing myself a bit. I hope this helps:

There is a myth that we use 10% of our brains. This is demonstratebly false. Any sci-fi that uses this as a basis for its technology cannot be hard sci-fi by either our definitions.


In Stargate Atlantis The Wraith are capable of stealing life from people. Is there a scientific basis for believing you can be made to age in moments to provide substinence for another being? Probably not, however, we cannot claim it entirely impossible. Because such a thing happens in sci-fi does not automatically make it soft sci-fi by my definition but it does by yours.

Warp travel does have a scientific basis and a sci-fi that includes it by either definition can be hard sci-fi.

So, there is overlap but our definitions are different.

Okay, firstly - Merry Christmas.

Second - Life isn't a solid object or energy you can steal from someone. It is possible TOO age, and it is possible extract sustinance from another being - eg eating its flesh. However to simple 'extract life' or enducing naturally occuring 'forced aging' and getting energy from that is all fantasy. As you age you do not produce energy that another can feed off since humans do not make enrgy, we simply process it from things we eat. Only plants truely produce energy in a form we can use, and even then they get most of that from the sun.

Warp Travel can work if you assume its an Alcubierre Drive, but as far as I know that requires negative mass particles which we have never discovered so far.

And I would have 'levels' of soft sci fi rather than just 1 sweeping statement.

 

[Xeros]

I prefer hard sci-fi for its consistency. I absolutely loved Firefly... 'til it got canceled... *grumble*

 

[Bobbovski]

Hard. But soft is pretty ok too.

 

[veloper]

I don't want sound in space and other soft SF idiocy, but I don't want galactic spacetravel at subluminal speed bullshit from hard SF either.

I like the authors who understand space as the huge empty vaccuum it is, but who also realize it takes incredible technology bordering on magic to make instellar space wars possible.

 

[GundamSentinel]

I like my movies soft, but my books hard.