Reinvent the scale?: Mohs Scale Of Science Fiction Hardness

In my view, Green Rocks has at least a semblance of consistency, while Rule of Cool doesn't even bother pretending to care about it. For example, Kryptonite would count as a Green Rocks example, because even though it can do basically whatever the writers want it to, at least they explain it. Spiral energy from Gurren Lagann, on the other hand, would be Rule of Cool because the writers don't even try to make it realistic — Spiral Energy Did It.

Anyway, we seem to have concensus here. Do we want to go ahead and start revamping the article? It'll probably take a while...

I don't think we have complete consensus — I still think we should separate worldbuilding SF from futurist SF. That said, I would expect everything softer than Imported Alien Phlebotinum to stay in whatever our softest bin is and everything in Imported Alien Phlebotinum to stay in the second bin, and I'd expect everything in I Want My Jetpack and Next Sunday A.D. to fit into the hardest box — I think the rearranging is going to be concentrated in the range Minovsky Particle to Unobtainium.

I still think we should separate worldbuilding SF from futurist SF.

What does that even mean? What's "worldbuilding SF" and what's "futurist SF" and why do they necessarily differ in hardness?

I mean separate near-Earth-future hard SF - 20 Minutes into the Future - from more speculative stuff like Mission of Gravity, where Hal Clement invented an entire fictional planet, populated it with an alien species, and explored the consequences of their laws of physics on their culture and technology.

I don't see why we need to distinguish between those in hardness-level. If they're both equally plausible in terms of science, then why separate them?

Because they aren't equally plausible. One of them needs a touch more suspension of disbelief than the other.

Also, because the hard end of the scale will be buried in books which are barely SF if you don't make that kind of distinction. The separation between what Gary Westfahl calls microcosmic hard SF and "world-building'' macrocosmic hard SF is stylistically important, even if it fools a little bit with scientific rigor.

edited 13th Dec '10 2:04:14 PM by RobinZimm

I think the distinction in the above that actually relates to the hardness scale might be this:

Uses only known science: What it says. This is probably already the high level on the scale. The tech may be in the future, but modern-day scientists may well be working on it now.

Uses plausible but speculative science: The story relies on theories and concepts that we don't know to be true, but are based on and extended from existing scientific theories. The idea that another universe might have different laws of physics than ours, that an undiscovered loophole exists in Einstein's theories that allows faster-than-light travel, that alien lifeforms might be based on other substances than carbon, etc.

No, no, no, that's different. Hal Clement didn't use any speculative science in Mission of Gravity, and he invented an entire planet — what you're talking about is like the difference between Minovsky Particle and the next step down. New physics is Minovsky Particle. What I'm talking about is the step between "let's take the present and move a little forward" and "let's take physics and build an imaginary and new world within known physics".

The second is not Mivnosky Particle. It's "well this esoteric theory that already exists might be right but we don't know yet." A Mivnosky Particle, IMO, is invented from whole cloth, not something that current scientists theorize about. It's given a description that isn't scientifically implausible (but as far as we know, wrong) and follows Magic A Is Magic A.

edited 13th Dec '10 3:10:00 PM by Elle

Like Robert Charles Wilson's "Divided by Infinity", where the many-worlds interpretation and the idea of quantum suicide are used in a story? MWI is speculative - not everyone believes it - but RCW didn't invent it.

edited 13th Dec '10 4:51:09 PM by RobinZimm

Yes! That's the word I've been looking for. Speculative Fiction. It's Sci-Fi based on emerging research instead of research that we already understand well. It's still very hard, but it's a little more squishy than just 20 minutes into the future.

Ignore what I previously wrote here.

I somewhat agree that there is a difference between entirely hard SF and speculative hard SF. The main issue is:

1. Our interest at TV Tropes is more in the author's intent then on grading every part of their work for scientific accuracy. This was one of the problems with the original scale in the first place.

2. It seems like most of the entirely hard SF will stop being SF at and just be straight fiction. I think someone alluded to this before. It's very rare in my experience for SF authors to avoid any form of scientific speculation.

edited 13th Dec '10 6:19:10 PM by nrjxll

Side note: I dug up Minovsky Particle on the Wayback Machine. The definition has changed but the archive cuts off at 2008 so we can't see it's evolution. The original definition was:

Any fictional subatomic particle, molecule, element or form of energy which has rigidly-adhered-to physical properties. Minovsky Particles are quite rare in fiction, as having more rules to follow tends to make things harder for the writers. A form of microscopic Unobtainium.

By that token, Unobtanium in a story could certainly be a One Big Lie element, but it's not made explicit here.

edited 14th Dec '10 6:36:51 AM by Elle

Because they aren't equally plausible. One of them needs a touch more suspension of disbelief than the other.

So it's the difference between "things that everyone agrees is possible but hasn't been confirmed yet" (like habitable planets besides Earth) and "things that we've actually confirmed, even if they haven't been used yet" (like high-efficency space drives)? I guess I can see that, but I'm not sure if we want to bother making the distinction — the idea is to make the scale simpler, isn't it? But if there's concensus that we should make the split, then I'll go with it.

No, it's a split between science which might be right and science which is almost certainly right.

I've heard Speculative Fiction as an umbrella genre for sci-fi and fantasy since the two get more similar every year.

Call the levels "cold hard facts" and "speculative science"?

Make the next two levels "one big lie" (wether it's Unobtanium, Mivonisky Particles, the existance of FTL flight, but all follows Magic A Is Magic A), a combination made-up science (Magic A Is Magic A still applies), and the softest level being blatent handwaves, A Wizard Did It, etc.

It's more levels than some people were proposing, but it is a cleaner, smoother progression, I think, while still offering considerable granularity.

I'm still not getting the distinction between the two hardest levels... Robin Zimm, by your own description, all the science in Mission Of Gravity is "almost certainly right" — it's just that the setting is purely speculative, in that the actual planet and alien race described probably don't really exist outside of the world of fiction. This doesn't seem to reflect a difference in terms of the actual hardness of the science involved.

Frankly, I still don't think we need this distinction. It would be better to either accept some barely-sci-fi examples at the hardest end, or just prune them by hand, removing anything that's obviously not science fiction. Having a category for stuff that's incredibly realistic and set on mundane Earth in the near future is like asking for an entire section of things that barely qualify as sci-fi, but someone uses some mildly high-tech gadget somewhere so it goes on the list...

But I guess I can see a category dedicated to science that's more or less certain to be true versus science that's actually supported by some scientists, but is not certainly true. Like, for instance, if a writer creates a story that has a faster-than-light drive, but it's based entirely on the Alcumberre (sp?) drive, which is an actual — but very speculative — scientific idea, and the actual scientific ideas around it are explored, then that could be, like, one step harder than just having "one big lie".

However, there's a risk here in focusing too much on real-world science. There will be arguments over how speculative or how certain a particular theory is. At the end of the day, most tropers are not scientists, and are not the most qualified people in the world to sort stories judging by what actual science they use. Also this puts the focus on the science rather than on the writing style. So I'd prefer every work that is based entirely on actual scientific theories to just go in the hardest category, and then be sorted within that category. (Though the Alcumberre (sp?) drive would be a bad example here, actually, as it's not just speculative — even if the theories are entirely right, it's still practically impossible to actually build. So... stuff like that could go on the hardest end of "one big lie" or something, and then stuff that is not just based entirely on real-life science, but is actually possible and practical to do according to real-life science would be on the hardest end).

As to the breakdown Elle suggests above, I'm still wondering if there's too big a leap between "a combination of made-up science" and "one big lie." Basically, I can imagine there being approximately ten bajillion works that fit into "a combination of made-up science" but with the made-up science being used with some consistency, and a relatively small number of works based entirely on just one big break from real-life science. If there's going to be an extra category added in, I'd rather it be here, rather than on the hardest end.

edited 17th Dec '10 5:47:26 AM by girlyboy

All right. Comments on the following? (Better examples? Clearer descriptions? Wittier category titles?)

Edits: Removed Minovsky Particle pothole, struck through "Unobtanium" as name, added notes reflecting girlyboy's concerns.

1. Rule of Artistic License The work is unambiguously set in the literary genre of Science Fiction, but scientific it is not. Applied Phlebotinum is the rule of the day, Green Rocks gain New Powers as the Plot Demands, and both Bellisario's Maxim and the MST3K Mantra apply.

Examples include:

• Futurama
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
• The DC and Marvel universes.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

2. Indistinguishable From Magic: The world is full of Applied Phlebotinum, but the Phlebotinum is dealt with in a fairly consistent fashion and, in-world, is considered to lie within the realm of scientific inquiry. [Split off a harder category between this and One Big Lie?]

Examples include:

• E. E. "Doc" Smith's Skylark of Space and Lensman series.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion. We think.
• Star Trek: The Original Series.

3. One Big Lie: The author invents one (or, at most, a very few) counterfactual physical laws and writes a story that explores the implications of these principles.

Examples include:

• David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
• Schlock Mercenary.
• Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series.

4. Unobtanium ???: Stories in which the "one big lie" is (or was) genuine speculative science or engineering — i.e. a hypothesis or set of hypotheses of disputed veracity. [Is this within the capacity of tropers to distinguish? If we remove this category, how do we decide which works go up and which go down?]

(This would include stuff like stories about the Alcubierre drive or, possibly, nanomachines.)

Examples include:

• Robert Charles Wilson's "Divided By Infinity", which uses the many-worlds interpretation.
• Early works in Larry Niven's Known Space series.
• Possibly, if you do not count the psychic powers, Firefly.

5. Real Within Physics: These stories are entrants in Hal Clement's simple game: stories in which the author seeks to make as few errors with respect to fact as currently understood by science as possible.

Examples include:

• Gattaca
• Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg and the first two books in his Rocheworld series.
• Robert A Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

edited 17th Dec '10 10:41:55 AM by RobinZimm

I personally think One Big Lie doesn't work that well in the way you've tried to use it because a lot (most) examples would have a lot more than just one big lie. The whole point of the "one big lie" concept is to make one break from realism and then everything works based on that. But, say, Schlock Mercenary is really just Indistinguishable From Magic, but with more serious consideration given to the Applied Phlebotinum than would be found in something like Star Trek. I feel a lot of works would find their way into One Big Lie that would be a little harder than something like Trek, but wouldn't really fit the spirit of the category.

In addition, we really need a One Big Lie trope. Don't pothole it to Minovsky Particle; from the discussion in this thread it really does seem like they're two distinct, if related, concepts.

I suggest, as before, splitting up what you call Indistinguishable From Magic into two categories, one being the category you've described, and the other being something between this and One Big Lie, a category into which things like Schlock Mercenary would fit more closely. I'm not sure what the exact requirements would have to be, but I feel it's needed. Something like, say, there isn't necessarily a limited number of breaks from reality, but those breaks that are made are explored more logically and thoroughly than they would be in the category you describe as Indistinguishable From Magic. Then maybe we could have a One Big Lie category a notch harder than that on the scale, for works which fit the concept of "One Big Lie" more closely.

My concern with category 4 is, again, that we don't want this to turn into a science discussion where tropers debate how plausible Alcubierre drives and nanomachines and other such things would be. In addition, "Unobtanium" might not be a great name because it is a trope referring specifically to impossible materials and substances that make phlebotinum work, and doesn't connect directly to what this category is supposed to be about.

Them's just my views on all this. Sorry, I feel like I ramble a bit too much when I try to explain what I mean.

edited 17th Dec '10 10:37:00 AM by girlyboy

(a) For the Schlock Mercenary category, how's this for a lazy name: Distinguishable From Magic.

Stories in this class once again have numerous forms of Applied Phlebotinum, but in contrast to the prior class, the author aims to justify these creations with real and invented underlying physics. Details may not be immediately justified within the work, but if you asked the author, they would be able to tell you how any specific thing might work.

(b) ...yeah, I can see that we wouldn't want to argue about what was sufficiently justified by modern science. How about saying that if modern science currently rules it out, it has to go to One Big Lie or above?

(c) What with the number of works that are going to fall into these classes, how do we feel about subcategories? Possibly we should have a SFHardness namespace, and each of the (five, I'm guessing) subpages will have internal divisions. (This would also allow for potholing to the specific degree of hardness indicated.)

New revision, submitted for comment:

1. Rule of Artistic License: The work is unambiguously set in the literary genre of Science Fiction, but scientific it is not. Applied Phlebotinum is the rule of the day, Green Rocks gain New Powers as the Plot Demands, and both Bellisario's Maxim and the MST3K Mantra apply.

Examples include:

• Futurama
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
• The DC and Marvel universes.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

2. Indistinguishable From Magic: The world is full of Applied Phlebotinum, but the Phlebotinum is dealt with in a fairly consistent fashion and, in-world, is considered to lie within the realm of scientific inquiry.

Examples include:

• E. E. "Doc" Smith's Skylark of Space and Lensman series.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion. We think.
• Star Trek: The Original Series.

3. Distinguishable From Magic: Stories in this class once again have numerous forms of Applied Phlebotinum, but in contrast to the prior class, the author aims to justify these creations with real and invented underlying physics. Details may not be immediately justified within the work, but if you asked the author, they would be able to tell you how any specific thing might work.

Examples include:

• Schlock Mercenary.
• David Brin's Uplift series.

4. One Big Lie: The author invents one (or, at most, a very few) counterfactual physical laws and writes a story that explores the implications of these principles.

Examples include:

• David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
• Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series.
• Robert A Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold.

4.1 Minor FTL: These stories include as their only significant violation a mechanism for faster-than-light travel, and this mechanism is not a major driver of the plot.

Examples include:

• Many Hal Clement novels, e.g. Mission Of Gravity, Close to Critical.
• Freefall.
• The Alien series.

5. Speculative Science: Stories in which there is no "big lie" — the science of the tale is (or was) genuine speculative science or engineering, and the goal of the author to make as few errors with respect to known fact as possible.

Examples include:

• Early works in Larry Niven's Known Space series.
• Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg and the first two books in his Rocheworld series.
• Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
• Robert A Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

5.1 Futurology: Stories which function almost like a prediction of the future, extrapolating from current technology rather than inventing major new technologies or discoveries. Expect Zeerust in older entries.

Examples include:

• Gattaca.
• Max Headroom.
• Moon.
• The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster.

edited 17th Dec '10 12:46:47 PM by RobinZimm

I'd call the "minor FTL" sub-level something line "One Minor Fudge" perhaps, if we keep the One Big Lie concept.

edited 17th Dec '10 5:37:31 PM by Elle

It may be just me but levels 1 and 2, would work better with switching each other's names. My reasoning would be that artistic license usually pops up as "did the research but decided to ignore it anyway" while magic is, well, magic and doesn't lend itself to explanations much beyond that's what it does.