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Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness/Speculative Science: Difference between revisions
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'''Speculative Science:''' Stories in which there is no "big lie" -- the science of the tale is (or [[Science Marches On|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
* The works set early in the timeline of [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[Known Space]]'' universe fall into this category, including ''Protector'' (which featured Bussard [[Ram Scoop|Ramscoops]] but no faster-than-light travel). The later in the timeline of ''Known Space'' you go, though, the farther the scale slides toward the soft side, with FTL, reactionless drives, inertialess drives, indestructible transparent hull material, and finally ''psychic luck'' all entering the fray.
* Robert L. Forward's ''Rocheworld'' setting was quite hard through the first two books (it should be, he's a physicist). Points are lost to [[Sequelitis]]; In the third and later books, the science softens to mush, including finding native ''coffee beans'' on the moon of a gas giant circling a red dwarf.
* ''Dragon's Egg'', also by Forward, takes the idea of life on the surface of a neutron star with extreme seriousness.
* In ''[[Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind]]'', the [[Easy Amnesia|memory-erasure]] device is reasonably plausible from a scientific perspective, and as a story set [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], there is little else that could be objected to.
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]]'': Minus [[Instant AI, Just Add Water|Mike itself]], pretty much everything is already around, or could easily be put together in the next half-century (the book is set in 2075-2076). The only fly in jam here is that we had a moonbase for a minimum of thousands by the 90s.
* The Menace From Earth (also by Heinlein) posits a sublunar colony that doesn't require a ton of future-tech but would be absurdly expensive to build with today's technology. Beyond that, the story sticks tightly to realistic extensions of the current technology. The protagonist is even engaged in drafting the design for a starship that anticipates engines that haven't been invented.
* ''[[I Miss the Sunrise]]'' is set far in the future, but doesn't rely on [[Applied Phlebotinum]]. Many of the technologies present are described in great detail and generally work according to real physics.
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* ''[[Regenesis]]'': Set in the present, showcases bleeding edge biotechnology for its science fiction aspects (most of the technology featured are real or in the "theoretical possible but impractical/expensive/unethical stage of development)". Sometimes it's less science-fictiony than CSI.
* Anime and manga examples: ''Mighty Space Miners'', ''[[Planetes]]'', ''[[Moonlight Mile]]'', ''[[Freedom Project]]'', ''[[Rocket Girls]]''.
* ''[[Ghost in The Shell]]'' is for the most part completely plausible, although some of its elements are not so much impossible as [[Awesome but Impractical]] (eg. [[Spider Tank|SpiderTanks]], [[Invisibility Cloak|cloaking devices]] etc.). Others ([[Instant AI, Just Add Water|sentient AIs developing self-awareness]], [[Hollywood Cyborg|full-body prostheses]], [[Brain Uploading]]) are so realistically presented as to be almost frightening.
* TV docudramas about near-future space exploration, such as ''[[Space Odyssey Voyage to The Planets|Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets]]'' and ''Race to Mars''.
* [[Stephen Baxter]] tends to write in this category, with books like Titan, about a mission to the eponymous moon using a combination of decommissioned Shuttle, ISS and Apollo technology.
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