Hard science fiction

Hard science fiction, or hard SF, is a subgenre of science fiction characterized by an interest in scientific detail or accuracy. However, there is a great deal of disagreement among readers and writers over what exactly constitutes an interest in scientific detail. Many hard SF stories focus on the natural sciences and technological developments, but many others leave technology in the background.

Hard science fiction in other media

Hard science fiction used to be largely a literary genre, as the complexities of physics were initially perceived to be poorly suited to other media. This perception has been somewhat modified in the latter parts of the 20th century and early 21st century.

Related Topics:
20th century - 21st century

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One notable early exception is ', though the movie still left out much of the physics, computer science, and other scientific analyses present in the novel. Its sequel, , was also fairly faithful to the laws of physics and the practicalities of space travel when compared to other mainstream SF movies.

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Television

Babylon 5 and Crusade

One science-fiction television show which has consciously attempted to portray physics correctly is J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5, albeit inconsistently especially in later seasons of its half-decade run. The sequel series, Crusade, went so far as to formally enter into a working partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to ensure scientific accuracy. Certain dramatic elements such as sounds in space, visible lasers in a vacuum, etc., are probably to be expected or even demanded by the casual viewer not deeply familiar with the real science involved, and any television or film SF producer must tread a gray line between pleasing the lowest and highest common denominators in his audience. However, even in these cases, the producers came up with explanations which attempted to produce a consistent physics (i.e. the sounds in space were background music and the lasers were not lasers but plasma bolts).

Related Topics:
Television - J. Michael Straczynski - Babylon 5 - Crusade - NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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The revised Battlestar Galactica

The so-called "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica also utilizies some of the precepts of hard SF in order to make the series more-realistic than previous entries into the SF genre.

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For instance, extraterrestrial life doesn't appear to exist, thus rendering the story conflicts more internal than external.

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The Cylons of the original series, which consisted of the robotic soldiers of a nearly-extinct repilian alien race, have been revised as android servants of humans who later rebel upon gaining some form of artificial sentience. Since an armistice, the Cylons evolved from their original series' robot stylings into a form mimicing humans down to the cellular level, which add drama by espionage, manipulation, and suspense since anyone in the series could turn out to be a Cylon agent in disguise.

Related Topics:
Cylon - Android - Artificial sentience - Armistice - Original series - Cellular - Agent

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Additionally, technology deployed on Battlestar is similar to present day technologies: the Cylons and humans use projectile weapons and all ships utilize reaction control systems similar to those seen on the NASA space shuttle. However, the rule focusing on sounds in the relative vaccum of space is bent; sounds in the space dogfights are mostly muted.

Related Topics:
Projectile weapons - Reaction control system - NASA - Space shuttle

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All of the ships in the rag-tag fleet accompanying Galactica have faster-than-light ability, although at sub-light speeds the fleet moves only as fast as the slowest ship. Lightspeed physics appear to avoid violation of General Relativity principles by using the wormhole concept of apparent FTL travel, instead of using fantastic energies or materials (à la "anti-matter" or "dilithium crystals," respectively) for FTL travel. Likewise, the science fiction clichés of energy shields and non-sensical technobabble are disused.

Related Topics:
Faster-than-light - Sub-light - General Relativity - Wormhole - Anti-matter - Dilithium crystal - Science fiction cliché - Energy shield - Technobabble

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Manga

Masamune Shirow is a manga artist who works in the hard SF genre. His works often examine the impact of advanced future technology in society, particularly cybernetics and information networks. He is known for going into great technical and scientific detail, to the point of using numerous captions and footnotes to explain technical aspects to the reader or even suggest possible theories/implementations for fictional technology. This extends to his drawings, where he will sometimes make a note to explain the function of a stylistic feature of a weapon or robot. He has also created the Neurohard project, a world in the hard science fiction style to be used by him and other artists. Shirow's work is unique in that it develops in equally great depth the social/cultural aspects in a 'hard' style, again providing notes on ideas, philosophy, etc. and using a somewhat technical approach in discussing ethics and social issues. The Ghost in the Shell manga (but not the anime) is a good example of his serious work. Appleseed is another story featuring heavy use of advanced technology.

Related Topics:
Masamune Shirow - Manga - Cybernetics - Neurohard - Ghost in the Shell - Anime - Appleseed

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Anime

Also in anime, Mobile Suit Gundam marked the maturation of the giant robot genre. Giant warrior robots were initially depicted as colossal superheroic metal giants with inexplicable (sometimes campy) superscience that bordered on magic. Gundam turned these robots into high-tech military hardware that were later given background stories based on a modern understanding of robotics, hydraulics, and military hardware. This gave rise to the real robot subgenre (known in English outside Japan as mecha) which also spawned classics such as Votoms, Macross, and Robotech. (The creators of the first Macross series do note that this robotic mecha story is not hard science fiction, but a combination of elements from hard science fiction and other science fiction sub-genres.)

Related Topics:
Mobile Suit Gundam - Real robot - Mecha - Votoms - Macross - Robotech

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