History MediaNotes / MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness

* '''In soft SF:''' "You sit in this seat, set the date you want, and [[Film/BackToTheFuture accelerate your DeLorean to exactly 88 miles per hour]]."

Beginning with the first question: "Hard" ScienceFiction is firmly grounded in reality, with only a few fantastic flights of fancy not justified by science, or with the technology being nonexistent in today's world but probably scientifically possible at some point. "Soft" SciFi is more flexible on the rules. Even the fantastical aspects of the story will show a divide -- in hard SF, they operate through strict, preferably physical, laws, where in soft SF they work in whatever way suits the story best. What this leads to for hard SF is a raised bar for the amount of scientific research the writer must put into the story, and usually [[ShownTheirWork this is shown quite clearly]].

SpeculativeFiction fanatics are always raving about how "hard" the science is in various stories -- but it's not like you can rub ''a story'' with a piece of quartz and see if it leaves a scratch on ''the plot''. So what is "hardness" in SF? Why do some people want it? And [[SortingAlgorithmOfTropes how do we put a number to it]]?

Unfortunately for analytical purposes, this pattern is not universal - hard SF stories can skip over the details as long as the basic explanation is correct [[MagicAIsMagicA given what's been established so far]]. Therefore, regardless of the [[http://archive.is/9HERI typical stylistic flourishes]] ("If all stories were written like science fiction stories" by Mark Rosenfelder, a [[ConLang conlanger]]) of hard SF, the only way to define it is self-consistency and scientific accuracy.

* '''Note 2:''' Contrary to what one might expect, there is no apostrophe in "Mohs" -- the name is a reference to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness Mohs scale of mineral hardness,]] named for Friedrich Mohs. Grammatically speaking, you ''could'' put an apostrophe in the title in the sense that it's ''someone's'' scale, but if you did that, it would read "Mohs' Scale". And that's apparently not the way the original "Mohs scale" is named, so we're not going to do it here either. This also means that in dialogue, it should be referred to as "''[[SpellMyNameWithAThe the]]'' Mohs scale".

* '''Note 4:''' Also remember that Administrivia/TypeLabelsAreNotExamples. Don't just put down the number and force the reader to visit this page to decipher what it means -- you're free to list the number on the scale, but ''please'' add an explanation.

# '''Mohs/PhysicsPlus:''' Still multiple forms of AppliedPhlebotinum, but here the author aims to justify these creations with natural laws both [[ShownTheirWork real]] and [[MinovskyPhysics invented]] -- and these creations and others from the same laws will [[ChekhovsBoomerang turn up again and again in new contexts]]. Works like ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series, David Brin's ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series, and ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' fall in this class. Most {{Real Robot|Genre}} shows fall somewhere between Classes 2 and 3.

# '''Mohs/SpeculativeScience:''' Stories in which there is no "big lie" -- the science of the tale is (or [[ScienceMarchesOn was]]) genuine speculative science or engineering, and the goal of the author to make as few errors with respect to known fact as possible. The first two books in Creator/RobertLForward's ''Rocheworld'' series and Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'' fall in this class.\\

A subclass of this (5.5 on the scale) is ''Futurology'' -- stories which function almost like a prediction of the future, extrapolating from current technology rather than inventing major new technologies or discoveries. Naturally, {{Zeerust}} is common in older entries. ''Film/{{Gattaca}}'', ''Manga/{{Planetes}}'', ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' and the more [[SpeculativeFiction speculative]] works of Creator/JulesVerne fall here. ''Literature/TheMartian'' is famously about as hard as science fiction can go, falling at the hard end of this subclass. The [[MundaneDogmatic Mundane Science Fiction]] (MSF) genre/movement, which was developed in 2004, calls for plausible science fiction using existing science and technology. MSF is typically set in our Solar System and it has no aliens, FTL spaceships, or telekinesis.

* '''Note 3:''' Remember that Administrivia/TropesAreTools. A story being on any given end of the scale doesn't make it any "better" or "worse", especially because different people prefer different ends of the scale, and [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement we don't want any fights like that here]].