Lord High Munchkin
Mongoose
... And OTU has "rubber-suit" aliens, elves, centaurs and lizardmen in SPAAAACE!
Hard Scifi. What is it and why Traveller is Hard Scifi
- Thread starter Nerhesi
- Start date
Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
Robert Forward postulated a few ways of generating gravity fields One way was to pump white dwarf material through coils at half the speed of light, thus inducing an artificial gravity field. Another way is just have a micro-black hole inside a sphere, thus at a certain diameter you can walk along on the outer surface of that sphere.Sigtrygg said:
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
Hard SF is a continuum - it is possible to be "harder" than Star Wars but still quite "soft" relative to the norms of literary SF. In general, cinematic SF tends to be softer than its literary counterpart due to differences in the storytelling medium - in film and television there is rarely sufficient space to explore complex idea or the social implications of multiple technological changes. There are exceptions, but they are rare.
A lot of the modern space opera being published right now is harder than Traveller from a technological perspective - people like Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, Ken MacLeod, Charles Stross, etc have created space opera with a more 'contemporary' feel than the works that inspired Traveller.
A lot of the modern space opera being published right now is harder than Traveller from a technological perspective - people like Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, Ken MacLeod, Charles Stross, etc have created space opera with a more 'contemporary' feel than the works that inspired Traveller.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
If you hear explosions in space, it's not sci-fi. It's Star Wars.
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
Hmmmm....What do sandcasters sound like? :lol:
Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
I have yet to hear an explosion in space while playing Traveller.ShawnDriscoll said:
Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
Traveller is harder that Star Wars. Suppose the made a Traveller Movie with the same budget as a Star Wars movie, how would it be different say from the combat sequence in Star Wars IV when the fighters were on a mission to destroy the Death Star on its way to Yavin? Lets say we substituted Traveller space ships for Star Wars spaceships and special effects. Lets say Luke Skywalker is piloting a Traveller fighter as part of a squadron of Traveller fighters. The Tie Fighters come up from the Death Star to challenge them.Prime_Evil said:
For one thing Luke doesn't see the fighters he is in combat with, at best they appear as little dots. If a laser misses him, he doesn't know about it, as lasers are invisible in space, if they hit, there is an explosion on his ship. Traveller fighters in space also don't move like airplanes, Luke can point his fighter at whatever ship he is targeting, even if it is coming up from behind him, this is no big deal in space, and anyway if Luke's ship I approaching the Death Star, he will want to slow down to avoid crashing into it, he wants to blow up the Death Star, but to do that, he needs to hit an exhaust port that is 2 meters wide with a thermonuclear bomb on a delayed fuse., if he simply crashes into the Death Star, he will make a crater in its surface and he will die. Meanwhile the Death Star's main batteries will be trained on his ship, the Imperial Tie fighters will be tryin to shoot him down, and this all occurs in the silence of space. Luke hears the fans of his life support, he might hear the whine of his ion engines ad their impulse vibrates through hi ship, but he hears nothing else except perhaps a worried Princess Leia over his radio.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
If you miss-jump while in the middle of the Great Rift, and your ship still makes it across in a few months time by coasting on just fumes, it's not hard sci-fi.
Wil Mireu said:To address the OP - you'll have to come up with a definition of "hard scifi" first that everyone agrees with. Good luck with that.
I agree. I am of the mind that it is all about consistency.
After all, should 20 years from now we find out that exceeding c is possible and mechanically doable, and we find something better than the Standard Model to explain everything; which in turns completely changes everything... thats just as unrealistic to us now Armor that stops nuclear blasts, transporters and energy shields that magically stop anything and everything.
I'm basing (my opinion) on the fact that if certain scientific "truths" are shattered/changed when we reach a new technological milestone, then I can't call a theoretical future "soft" just because its not based on what we see today.
A
Anonymous
Guest
It's all a bit too relative really. It is what you want to call it and the chance of agreeing on a forum is pretty close to the chance that I'll discover FTL transport while studying the brownian motion in the tea I just made.
Slim to zero. Two hopes: Bob Hope and No Hope.
It comes back then to the same question, what do you want it to be? What is believable to you? How far do you want to extrapolate?
As to the title of the thread, once we all digress to our own little TU it's impossible to answer. Perhaps the only people who can say so authoritatively are the authors but they don't weigh in too often and I think they're quite happy to let each of us work it out for ourselves. There's a lot made of how much material has been published over the last 3 decades for Traveller but the consistencies between it all throw any idea that there's a single entity called The Traveller Universe out of the window.
Slim to zero. Two hopes: Bob Hope and No Hope.
It comes back then to the same question, what do you want it to be? What is believable to you? How far do you want to extrapolate?
As to the title of the thread, once we all digress to our own little TU it's impossible to answer. Perhaps the only people who can say so authoritatively are the authors but they don't weigh in too often and I think they're quite happy to let each of us work it out for ourselves. There's a lot made of how much material has been published over the last 3 decades for Traveller but the consistencies between it all throw any idea that there's a single entity called The Traveller Universe out of the window.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Prime_Evil said:
Like a day at the beach.
Solomani666
Mongoose
Nerhesi said:This was brought on by a conversation with a fellow poster, to which I am very thankful for being able to chat with despite have very different viewpoints on our preferred scifi technology paradigm
To keep it simple, I just wanted to chat a bit about what is "Hard Scifi" and what is not "soft Scifi". And also, why I believe Traveller is hard scifi.
What are the indicators of hard scifi?
Hard Scifi, is about internal consistency. If I have access to grav drive technology in ships drives. I should have personal grav belts, grav cars, and so on. If I have armor materials or shielding on spaceships, I should be able to get those on people, tricycles and so forth.
What is NOT required for scifi?
A relationship to current technology, practices or discoveries.
The existence of shields, transporters, armor, new particles, reasoning, etc... does not in any way immediately make something not hard. Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear to us as magic. As long as that magic is consistent in it's use, it is "hard scifi".
What makes things "soft"? (Lack of consistency)
The biggest one you see people cringe at are thrusting drives. Basically - the kind of rockets/engines we have. The second something like that exists that can move a 500kton object at any speed (or oh God, launch off a planet) - that should mean you can now create a ballistic device that will blow away small moons. I once (I wish I had a link) saw a little study of the effect of one of those ships simply passing by earth or our moon.
Having teleporters but not making full use of the technology Is it used in surgery? Can it store matter? can it copy it? Do you have things that make matter.. great - so now would anyone die if I can just store their "pattern" and replicate it whenever I need?
These inconsistencies usually become super apparent when you see "unique" examples of a certain technology, then it doesn't appear in any other area. (Like the deflection ability of a light saber, not being propagated to other defense mechanism).
--------
So to me, traveller, has a very limited amount of internal inconsistencies when compared to say Star Wars or Star Trek or Battletech (which is harder than the previous two for example - surprisingly).
Anyways, just thought this would be an interesting discussion to have.
Excellent!
I never thought of it that way.
I would also add the term SCIENTIFICALLY PLAUSIBLE to the definition. Otherwise you just might as well call it fantasy.
.
.
.
sideranautae
Mongoose
Nerhesi said:This was brought on by a conversation with a fellow poster, to which I am very thankful for being able to chat with despite have very different viewpoints on our preferred scifi technology paradigm
To keep it simple, ...
Anyways, just thought this would be an interesting discussion to have.
Well constructed argument/definition. That is how I have seen it and how the genre of Sci-Fi was originally written. The original, and still best definition. I am in the process of wiping out the last major remnants of internal inconsistencies in the rules.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
I choose to disagree with the opening thesis. Traveller, or specifically the Charted Space setting of the Three Imperiums, is not Hard SF. It is Period SF, flavored by the era between the Lensmen and the death of Poul Anderson. A key part of the definition is that it looked like Hard SF at the time, but no longer does.
sideranautae
Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
Interesting BUT, you don't define the term "Hard sci-fi"... So you don't frame your disagreement in a way that can be discussed.
GypsyComet said:
The key word is setting, of which all are: The 3I, 2300, Judge Dread, etc.; and all with their hand waves. As far as applying engineering principles, that's work, something I'm not here for myself; I mean, for example, spacecraft across all the settings are magic carpets. It has to be though, if one wants interstellar, or even interplanetary travel (and colonies) in their setting, because in reality those things don't exist. It is hard for people to accept, and I know there is dissent; but there are issues beyond issues, such as the effect of long term exposure to cosmic radiation. NASA is a bit rah-rah on the issue, and maybe the propulsion engineers from Armstrong Hall are too pessimistic, but if after a manned expedition to Mars led to all the astronauts dying of cancer a few years latter, it would be devastating to the idea of any more manned missions. I know plenty of them look at the term "Hard SF" as an oxymoron. It is what it is.
Similar threads
