Star Trek is NOT Hard Sci Fi

The greatest response to 'Start Trek is hard science fiction' is just one letter. Q.

Would you call Nautilus a miracle exemption? After all ships that sail under the sea are totally fantastical!

Live long and prosper. <-- you forgot about this.

Spacedock sent me. I watched, liked, and subscribed.

I'm still not sure if Early Edition is an American fantasy comedy-drama Or a Sci Fi show involving someone with a Time Machine in their closet that you never see.

Concerns about Conservation of Energy aside I can think of quite a few more outright bonkers things in Star Trek than Matter Replicators.

I think my usual angle is "Does it break the laws or Physics, get around them or work inside the boundaries" With Star Trek the last one is perhaps rarer than it should be.

But particle Beam weapons are also fine too as they rely only on the power generation to make them really, again that part is semi-OK (again hand waving aside why Nadion Beams). or to put it another way the Fantasy in Star Trek Phaser's isn't the beam so much as it's the Battery pack that powers Phasers at all... The Physics of Batteries is really giving Star Trek a dirty look over that.

I'll tell you what one of their biggest exceptions is = Radiation doesn't do much in Star Trek unless it has to for the plot.
Nothing ever gets irradiated... heck the atmosphere curtain likely "scrubs" the shuttles clean when they reenter the ship despite them bathing in Gamma rays for hours or days at a time.

Lets be honest Star Trek is proper ropey science = I almost consider Voyager a Sci Fi Parody by default.... which might even be why it's the show I never really fell out of love with.

DS9 isn't sci fi it's a soap opera.

I will say this though it would be hilarious to apply Rowan's standard's to Gi Joe.

Star Trek is great because it is character-driven science fiction with a positive vision of the future.

star trek is supposed to be this world that has transcended hate but it is instead revealed to. be a world of mass delusion, where hate is denied, but still exists.

Okay everybody believes science fiction is fake well not everyone believes that it's fake I believe that this is reality humanity is in the Stars as well as many other beings you got the technology LOL

This is reality people the information had to come from somewhere when is people going to realize that our ideas that we think is new are not new at all they're in the cosmos you just have to be in the right vibration to catch the information love you all

Okay we'll try this cool but so is wormholes teleportation right

I honestly didn't realize anyone thought Star Trek was hard science fiction. :-0

Star Trek was never hard science fiction, but it at least made some small effort at scientific realism, when it first premiered, unlike other (cough) “science fiction” shows at the time (Lost in Space, Gilligan’s Planet, etc.). It was also unique in that it employed some of the top science-fiction authors of the time to write some of its scripts.

Unfortunately, Star Trek stopped stopped carrying about science long ago, and each sequel series has been worse than the last (not only in terms of science but writing in general). But the special effects have gotten shinier, and the actors hotter, and that’s all the fans seem to care about.

Star trek: blue humanoids, Green Humanoids, Humanoids with big ears,
Humanoids with spots, Humanoids with ridges, Humanoids with ridges and a temper, Humanoids with pointy ears (Kuudere Elves), Humanoids with funny looking ears. The wide range of diversity In star trek and notice how every one of them looks like with people with the exception of a couple the token minorities lol.
Anyone who says dumbshit like that a out star wars. Hasn't seen star wars or is to dumb to understand what it is about.

The whole Star Trek vs Star Wars argument never made sense to me. If it wasn't for them both having the word "Star" in them, I doubt they would ever be compared to each other as much as they do. To me thats like saying, which is better? Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones? They are both old fantasy with waring kingdoms so obviously they are the same, right? A bunch of nonsense.


That being said, Star Trek is definitely better. :)

One miracle exemption that you missed. Deflector dishes.

Space Opera, Space Fantasy, or Science Fantasy maybe, but definitely not Science Fiction. There's very little "hard science" in Star Trek.

It was the 1960s.

Star Trek is a far cry from 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Andromeda Strain . That being said, if the franchise is soft-sci-fi (which as you aptly pointed out is not inherently bad), then why does it have such gratingly bad military logic? Before I machine-gun a few points, I will confess that I have not watched Star Trek since NG and some of the prequel-saga "Enterprise" (I gave up after a male pregnancy episode).
- Highest ranking ship crew going on away missions instead of dedicated invasion, garrison, or explorer specialists -- especially given the supposed size of the crew. ("make sure I'm replaced with someone with similar experience if I cannot return to lead this crew" -- the myopic; heroic captain)
- Clearly they have the ability to produce automated weapon systems, but do not -- no drones or non-sentient-androids to help avoid risking the lives of the crew needlessly.
- Away teams are heavily armored with red shirts!
- After being tossed around like rag-dolls, the bridge crew never invests in seat-belts/harnesses. Being ultra-high tech, you'd think inertia dampeners or any other something-something-field generator would cancel out the force vectors when the fragile human crew is breached.
- No countermeasures for torpedoes outside of the shields? Perhaps a fragmentation device or suicide drones would take it out before it gives another camera shake?

I think in times of tablets and touch screens, making paper vs. PADDs a measurement of hard vs soft sci-fi doesn't really work anymore as much as it did before touch screens were widely used or even possible at all.

While it's appreciated such a discussion, the heart of the matter is this:

Science fiction is literally fiction in which Science plays an important part in the story. That's it.

All other considerations are the result of the self interest and interference by publishers.

You go back to the Golden Age of Science -fiction and you'll understand there was already a struggle between those writers who would not violate known laws of physics/chemistry and those who went quite a bit beyond those boundaries.

I'm not even referring to Hollywood style Science fiction - it's not even worth a serious look because, with the exception of 2001 - A Space Odyssey by Kubrick the complete disregard towards Science is a permanent feature of movie and series.

There are a few things worth mentioning:
- Ursula Le Guin and a few authors are considered Soft Science-Fiction because their stories rely HEAVILY on soft sciences (sociology, anthropology, psychology)
- Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Sheffield, Bear are indeed reliant on hard Sciences and are thus considered as hard Science-fiction authors
- the category Speculative Fiction should have been given more space and interest. Do read authors John Barnes or Frederick Pohl to understand what great authors think about this

Star Trek:

I have always been a fan, but the ridiculous jargon they use (mostly on DS9 and Voyager) and the total disregard for physics heavily detract from what could be (Roddenberry DID PLAN TO, anyway) a truly outstanding universe.

Star Trek and Star Wars are not true Science fiction works - and neither are Galactica, Babylon 5 (this show actually tried to be careful with the physics of space combat or the biochemistry of alien environment).

I've never understood why some people will reject a story just because it has some fantastical elements. Isn't the purpose of fiction to be fictional? Story is more important than accuracy, even when story relies on accuracy to work.

Exactly. Star Trek has always been good because of the thematically rich stories, not because of the technobabble. That’s why I was never able to get on board with some of the fans’ complaints about new trek “not being accurate” with the technology. I really don’t care as long as the stories are good. Whether or not they are is a different story. personally I think modern trek has its highs and lows but the problems of the lows run deeper than the inaccuracy of the tech.

Right,and romantic fiction isn’t romantic cuz that isn’t how real people fall in love, historical fiction isn’t history, we get it - fiction is in the title okay - The Expanse is wonderful BUT also fiction - and I’ve seen the television series and read the books, implausible stuff happens in them too. Star Trek is just fine as science fiction, solid, fun and full of wonderful stories. Stop making people feel bad about wishing that stuff could really happen someday. And - fyi, Einstein thought quantum theory wasn’t real science

I think that the most recognisable Star Trek quote is „Live long and Prosper”

Who the hell calls Star Trek hard sci-fi? Lol

um akchually TOS replicators used a protein goop and flavoring to make food, not transporters (and to um akchually myself the TOS food machines were "food synthesizers" not replicators - sheesh you filthy casual he was talking about "replicators" not synthesizers)

i think you're forgetting that it's fiction, so it's not really about how closely it resembles real-life science, it's about how consistently it adheres to it's own rules and scientific laws

I'd say the mere presence of the technology in Star Trek is not the problem.
The problem is that it is not explained as such, and this entails especially that we know what it can do, what the limits and the possibilities are, above how it does that.
And even more, that it is then explored and "exploited".
Especially the latter isn't done much in Star Trek. If you have gravity platings and replicators, for what else can you use them? DS9 has the replicators being used as automated shooting traps in one episode, and this is used exactly once. If this is easily possible, then why is this not used when for example klingons board a ship?
Or another example, creating an artificial human like Data is seen as something big that everybody wants to do. But we know that a holodeck can create an AI that is even more human-like in behaviour than Data (Prof. Moriarty) and we know that holodeck creations can walk around outside the holodeck (the doctor from Voyager). Combine that, instant artificial human.
This is one example how technology could be exploited. But this isn't done. Technology is only used for one single task, and the exceptions to that rule are things that are done in one episode and then forgotten. All the time, in tons of examples.
And not the kinds of exploitations for which you need to be a genius to think about.
This is my strongest reason why I wouldn't consider it to be hard sci-fi.

I'd also draw a comparison to Brandon Sanderson's Laws Of Magic. Technology as used in Star Trek would fall under what Sanderson calls Soft Magic Systems.

Star Trek from the very beginning did have some out there moments that have little basis in reality so I can see why it would be on the softer end of sci-fi. But I still consider it a bit harder than Star Wars or Doctor Who.

Watching as a child I thought of Star Trek as more of a hard sci-fi and I grew up with it was definitely More of an intense fan than I am now but I still love it It has helped shape who I am and it has been inspirational to both me and many others but as I've actually learned science upon replay definitely soft on the science but I see aspects to it that I did not see as a child regarding a lot of the social commentary not saying I was blind then but now it's more apparent and more the driving feature that I see just set in a world with an aesthetic that I grew to love

I don't know if it's fair to say more interesting than how a Heisenberg compensator would work but it's at least equally interesting but in a different way 😂🖖

As much as I love Trek... it's not hard scifi and that's no bad thing. Anyone who thinks Trek is 'hard scifi', has never read hard scifi before.

Hard or soft, I think the whole thing is ridiculous. It's only fiction until we figure out how to solve the problem. If I described a jet engine to Christopher Columbus and how the new world could be reached in a matter of hours instead of months, he'd laugh and slap you right off the pier into the water. Fiction is only good if it's about people dealing with other people or a problem and not with a terrorizing McGuffin and its red blinky light.

It's not. It Hard entertainment.

What Star Trek has going for it over other soft sci fi, is that even though it’s all made up nonsense, the characters are still scientists and explorers and view/approach the world through a scientific lens.

A particularly pretentious presentation.

“A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711)

Another way to think of 'miracle exemptions' is it's the magic of fantasy with some science language around it. Star Trek in particular to me is a drama set in space with 'magic' tech and some science. that said, it does fire the imagination of a great many people and when at it's best is great drama! Magic tech is what makes good scifi inspiring for me. Otherwise, I could just watch old NASA apollo/gemini mission videos. Spreking of which, as a kid in the 70s solar panels and fuel cells were my magic tech and those seemed amazing to me at the time.

star trek and other Francises can be used as Inspiration.

Some of our Tech can also called Magic, for a example the Computer if we would go back in Time people would say this is black magic or selvlearning machines in Short AI.

I understand that you put Names on things to know where you stand but if the human race survive long enought we will do thing that look from now like miracles.

I am rewatching this video and I think one of the most important/brilliant points is thinking of Scfi in terms of a Spectrum from Hard to Soft.... It clears everything up from the old model of more fixed genres taught at University.........

I would be very interested for some young literary majors to explore this spectrum.... Excellent video by the way, very clever...

I honestly kind of disagree.
Most of the stuff you call miracles is just stuff we probably can eventually do with future science.

I wonder if Blade Runner would qualify as hard sci-fi? My initial thought is yes, but the more I think about replicants, the less inclined I am to believe that it truly is.

Blade Runner is also far more sci-fi in general than we see. One of the coolest things about it in my opinion is that the more fantastical space ships and space stations and whatnot exist in that world, but we never really see it. I think that’s neat.

Star Trek also poses a world without scarcity - now that would really be a miracle.

To be honest, technobabble in Star Wars is usually more believable than in Star Trek because Star Wars is an entirely different universe with different physical constants, so what sounds as bullshit to us can be totally scientific to people there. Star Wars is very consistent most of the time, and Star Trek isn't, there are a lot of things that just fucking break internal logic of this universe, from episode to episode, and they are always conveniently forgotten about afterwards

Aaaaactualy the interesting and or anoying thing about miracle exemptions is that scientifically it is not possible to ever proof one hundred percent that they are completely impossible

cgp grey makes terrible videos I would hardly call him a reliable source of information

I'd describe Star Trek as sciencey soft science fiction. Or maybe sciencesque or something like that. It's got a lot of handwavey tech, but leans into the sciencing stuff out with it.

Gene Roddenberry took pains to set the series on a firm foundation of real science, but some of the episodes have really bad science, such as The Alternative Factor. The hardness varies from one episode to another. Also, we can't know what unexpected discoveries will be made in the future. So the number of "miracle exemptions" is not necessarily a good measure of plausibility. Today, when we read The Black Star Passes, the description of a giant aircraft with 40 propellers on each wing sounds silly now that we have jet engines. To me, control panels on a starship seem implausible since by the time we develop a superluminal drive we should have the technology to control machinery by thought.

The only goofy thing realism wise I don't like in the expanse is the lack of robots instead of humans doing most of the work in space. The author said he found robots boring.