I certainly do not go to Star Trek for any kind of scientific accuracy or rigor.
I have papers and the like for that.
I have papers and the like for that.
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x05 - "Saints of Imperfection"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
I understand what you mean, and I concur. Though I'm also a fan of a lot of (written) hard SF, like Greg Egan's works (it's very difficult to get harder than that).
That said, it's important to me that SF have SFnal content which is somewhat at the core of the show. A science fiction setting lets you do two things which you cannot do in a "mundane" setting.
1. It can put normal people into an extraordinary setting which isn't possible given current technology and understanding of the universe, and see how they deal with it.
2. You can use the setting as an allegorical framework to reference contemporary issues.
If a science-fiction tale fails to do either one of these things, it's simply not all that interesting to me. It's basically just a generic drama with some spaceships and rayguns pasted over it. If I wanted that, I'd just watch a generic drama. Not that I would though, because I generally find people kind of boring.
I don't know what "real" Science Fiction is. That's like saying something is "real" Trek.
SF is a broad genre with many different subgenres, from Hard to Soft to Military to... well Star Trek. Granted, Trek isn't LitSF, even though episodes like "City on the Edge of Forever" and "Calypso," get close.
At best, Star Trek is science-fiction for the masses, as Gene Roddenberry intended with TOS. At worst, it's space fantasy.
And in a way, Trek has become a SF subgenre with its own tropes and nomenclature.
But YMMV.
I dunno. There are a few things that attempt to be real science concepts, such as the warp drive and the transporter (although the on-screen science behind these themselves has changed over 50 years), but there are so many things that they assign a science-y word to and just make us trust them that it's all possible because: science.
Specifically for example, what I mentioned before about beings who live in subspace. So we are told that there is this other place in subspace where other beings live, invisible from us (and we are invisible to them). Great, but how? The term "subspace" is thrown around quite a bit on BermanTrek to give a "non-explanation explanation" about a lot of things. "It's subspace" is usually all we are given by way of any science, and that really doesn't give us any real information.
And the out-of-phase beings in "Time's Arrow". They were right there in the cave with our heroes, but we are given the explanation that we can't interact with them because live out of phase from us. They may as well have just told us "it's magic".
And then there's fluidic space, which is a totally different realm outside our own universe, but surprisingly enough is still a place we can visit (and our physics still works), and vice versa for species 8472. Not much information was given about fluidic space, but the name was cool.
But as I mentioned above, I'm fine with all of this. Sra Trek doesn't need to be any more science-y than it is. But to go back to what you said about it being "in the middle" between hard science fiction and sci-fi lite, I still think it is sci-fi lite that is trying to make itself sound like hard science fiction. It throws out concepts as buzzwords, but doesn't give any details of those concepts.
Edit to add:
I'm mostly talking Berman Trek. TOS was actually more hard sci-fi because it didn't throw out the buzzword concepts like Berman Trek did. TOS was silent on t most of the science-y stuff.
And it may sound like I'm being contradictory, but being silent on the science is actaully better than throwing out buzzphrase concepts
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As I've said in the past, I think TOS was reasonably rigorous SF for its time period - basically within the mainstream of SF. Certainly it set out to be a cut above pulphouse writing. Things like psychic powers and alien-human interbreeding were pretty common in written works of that period. But the written genre made a turn towards "hard" with authors like Gregory Benford, David Brin, Greg Bear, etc in the 1980s, while TNG built off of the 1960s base of TOS, meaning the two began diverging more and more.
IMHO, sci-fi lite is Star Wars, where patently ridiculous things like a planet which is partially exploded with its core showing pop up and no one bats an eyelash.
Gregory Benford, I think, called non-hard sci fi "playing tennis with the net down" but I won't agree with that. For starters I think it is very difficult to rigidly define hard-sf as almost anything we'd call sci fi must include some element of the implausible simply because we do not understand future technology or all the ramifications that come from it, though that is in fact the entire point.
Not to get off the rails, but I suppose there are many ways to think of science fiction, and some are more common than others. There is of course the space opera/space western etc , where the background, the details, are primarily an attractive location for the telling of a story, or useful perhaps as allegory. There is also still the science fiction, what I think some might call "true" Verne-esque or Campbellian or whatever, science fiction where the technology itself, the rammifications thereof, etc are a key point to the story. There are others but if I fixate on those two, I think Star Trek has often straddled the line between Space Opera and Science Fiction, but always it tries to veer to science fiction.
At the same time, it isn't constrained to making sure G. Benford's tennis net is raised and cranked rigidly. Which is good, I think.
Not to get off the rails, but I suppose there are many ways to think of science fiction, and some are more common than others. There is of course the space opera/space western etc , where the background, the details, are primarily an attractive location for the telling of a story, or useful perhaps as allegory. There is also still the science fiction, what I think some might call "true" Verne-esque or Campbellian or whatever, science fiction where the technology itself, the rammifications thereof, etc are a key point to the story. There are others but if I fixate on those two, I think Star Trek has often straddled the line between Space Opera and Science Fiction, but always it tries to veer to science fiction.
At the same time, it isn't constrained to making sure G. Benford's tennis net is raised and cranked rigidly. Which is good, I think.
I was editing my post to point out that I was talking more about Berman Trek (TNG, etc.) than TOS.
I think TOS was actually more what I would call the "Literary Science Fiction" in the style of Asimov, Bradbury, Niven, etc. -- because it didn't feign an attempt at explaining everything by throwing at us the science buzzwords (technobabble) like Berman Trek did .
TOS instead was mostly silent on the science-y stuff. Less technobabble. TNG often felt like is was trying to baffle us with bullshit. TOS stories on the other hand were usually more high-minded science fiction/Literary Science Fiction concepts, and less about the technical science itself (or in Berman Trek's case, ostensibly trying to be about the science).
All of that may sound like I'm being contradictory -- i.e., telling you that I think NOT explaining the technical science is more hard science fiction (or at least more "Literary Science Fiction") than actually attempting to explain the science -- but I think being silent on the science is actually better than throwing buzzphrase technobabble against the wall hoping it sticks.
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That's all fair. That's part of why I watch SF but not all of it, so having the different elements is not essential to me.
I personally love all flavors of SF, so even if it feels like "generic drama" are more interesting to me with spaceships and rayguns pasted in to it.
But, I recognize that this is definitely a different strokes point.
It's a slow day.
it's Valentine's Day. Most of us are a little...preoccupied
It airs on TV in Canada"Airs?" Or "streams?"
(31 now.)
Star Trek isn't science fiction in any normal sense anymore - it is it's own sub-genre which has largely ignored the last thirty to forty years of science fiction.
Whatever new special effects they use - it's always normal people on a sailing ship rocking to side to side while cradling their pistol and radio.
Whatever new special effects they use - it's always normal people on a sailing ship rocking to side to side while cradling their pistol and radio.
Yep, that gin ain't gonna drink itself.
This could potentially be my least favourite episode of the season, based on two things: Section 31/Georgiou, and the return of Culber in some wishy-washy micelial-networky way. I was fine with the character while he was alive, but he died; I'm just worried that whatever form his resurrection takes, it will be met with eye rolls and head shakes. Impress me, DISCO! 
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