Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness/One Big Lie: Difference between revisions

'''[[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness/One Big Lie|One Big Lie]]:''' The author invents [[The "Unicorn In The Garden" Rule|one (or, at most, a very few)]] counterfactual physical laws and writes a story that explores the implications of these principles.

 

* The ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' book series: [[Space Is an Ocean]], but the series is internally consistent, relies on essentially only one piece of "new" technology (gravity control methods)<ref>Two, if you include the ability to translate across hyperspace bands; three, if you also include Treecats' telepathic abilities</ref>, mostly merely extending other pieces of current technology (medical science, nuclear fusion containment, lasers). Additionally, space combat is very three-dimensional and ship-to-ship engagements are often fought at fractional light-second distances (contrast the traditional ''[[Star Trek]]'' Starship Standoff).

* [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series operates on a great deal of [[Phlebotinum]] mixed with just enough hard sci fi elements to keep things sounding plausible. For example, [[FTL Travel]] is performed by means of [[Artificial Gravity]] generators that violate [[No Conservation of Energy|conservation of energy]], but the rules for employing them are very strict, and most other technologies are based on things resembling known physics, or are logical extensions of the use of [[Artificial Gravity]]. However, once the [[Precursors]] start to show up with their [[Lost Technology]], things get really fanciful really fast. Examples: constructed artificial planetoids that can traverse the galaxy in a week and fire star system-destroying bursts of energy across intergalactic space, entire planets that warp through alternate dimensions, etc.

* Despite what the anime may cut off, ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' is actually very high on this scale. Both the anime and manga do not have any forms of [[Applied Phlebotinum]], [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|except in a few questionable cases]], and the manga ''justifies'' the development and appearance of Diclonii: they have an accelerated growth of a "pineal body", or "[[wikipedia:Pineal gland|pineal gland]]", which is a part of the [[wikipedia:Cerebellum|cerebellum]] and was also known as a "third eye", as well as related to [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|Near-Death Experiences]]. The cerebellum is widely rumored to be a controller of the [[wikipedia:Proprioception|sixth sense]], of which [http://hanslindgreen.com/blog/proprioception-the-sixth-sense/ this page goes further in-depth].

* The ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' movies use the Big Lie of the miniaturized Arc Reactor, a palm-sized power source that, in the words of the first movie, can "power [a] heart for fifty lifetimes... or something bigger for fifteen minutes." To a lesser extent, [[Powered Armor]] is also treated as such as this is the technology that the movies explore the consequences of - namely, that every military in the world wants one and every arms dealer wants to sell one - but it's the Arc Reactor that makes such armor possible. It's softened considerably in the context of the other [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] movies, though, as they imply that the reactor is based on a [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness/Science in Genre Only|Science in Genre Only]] alien artifact.

 

'''''One Small Fib:''''' These stories include only a single counterfactual device (often [[FTL Travel]]), but this mechanism is not a major driver of the plot.

 

* In the universe of the [[1632]] series, the plot device behind the transposition of the West Virginia town to the middle of the [[Thirty Years' War]] is only ever mentioned in the preface to the original novel. Everything else in the story is based on fact or speculation.

* Many Hal Clement novels, such as ''[[Mission Of Gravity]]'', ''Close to Critical'', are set in a universe featuring FTL, but only as a background element explaining the presence of humans in other star system. The planets themselves are designed by straightforward extrapolation of known physics to situations vastly unlike those of Earth.