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[–] 85 points 6 months ago (16 children)

This is a very funny way to describe TNG, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue that Star Trek is a hard sci-fi.

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  • [–] 54 points 6 months ago (11 children)

    Bounce the graviton particle beam off the fuckin whatever

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  • [–] 24 points 6 months ago (8 children)

    Okay first of all, it's a graviton Lance and you're supposed to aim it into a flux ewaonarion chamber.

    It's like you people don't even know basic starfleet engineering standards....

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

    It’s simple:

    The warp core is a plasma intermix reaction chamber containing a dilithium matrix that moderates matter-antimatter convergence with a flow-stabilized magnetically interlocked containment manifold that distributes warp power through plasma induction conduits to the engine nacelles and charges the main deflector with anti-protons to generate a subspace field of at least 9 mega-Cochrans whose modulated geometry envelops a stable warp bubble around a starship thereby displacing its gravitmetric frame of reference. All you have to do is modify the subspace field so that protons may pass through but the anti-protons may not, and compensate for the inverse tachyon convergence factor by raising the level of graviton flux beyond the universal gravitational constant at the sublight velocity barrier. It’s all just classic warp mechanics and subspace field theory you get at first year Starfleet academy.

    Now, the transporter is an entirely different animal altogether, because as it turns out molecular pattern decoherence is a major factor in why transmitting highly localized buffered matter suffers from irreversible entropy when you try to encode it on a subspace carrier wave. The magnetic resonance of the matter being transported is encoded by rectifying the interleaved signal through an array of field-effect plasma transducers while the intrinsic field subtractor destabilizes the molecular structure into a coherent signal modulation that energizes redundant cross-connected pattern buffers continuously refreshing the resulting resonance field flux to prevent entropic pattern degradation. You certainly wouldn’t want your molecular patten to randomly decohere in the middle of the transport cycle or become interleaved with another pattern in the buffer, I can tell you that my good sir!

    Now don’t get me started on the holodeck though, that thing is craaaazy. Sherlock Holmes is real now whaaaaat?

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Not holmes, just his greatest enemy, who was vibe coded into existence by someone who should have known better!

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    I think one of the most inconsistent things about Trek is how the Federation is all about rules and safety most of the time, yet they still employ holodecks despite the many many terrible and life-threatening things they're constantly doing.

    Moriarty was basically made sentient by a somewhat shit prompt entered into the 24th century AI. Imagine if half the prompts people enter nowadays could just become sentient.

    Also they just physically don't make sense. If the holodeck is x size and there's more than one person between them, they shouldn't be able to be further away from each other than the max size of the room.

    Also billion other things but just wanted to comment a little

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    I think there are a few episodes of Voyager that explore this. They run the holodeck continuously at one point as a virtual town with people constantly going in and out and several problems pop up. I think someone even mentions how it's having issues dealing with so many people being in so many places all at once.

    There's also the episode of TNG where they teleport people to holo caves to move them to a new planet without them knowing about it, and it has issues there as well.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago*

    Oh I love the holodeck shenanigans.

    But like in reality, if any of those things had have happened to an actual military with some of their recreational tech, they'd lose it kinda quick, just to be sure. (And yes yes federation or Star Fleet isn't a military but)

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    classic warp mechanics and subspace field theory you get at first year Starfleet academy

    They reference academy teachings, but it makes you wonder what HS physics classes look like in the 24th century. Like maybe warp mechanics specifically are the modern equivalent of building an engine, so you wouldn't have classes addressing that directly unless you went to a school for putting vehicles together. But surely the basics of subspace needs to be discussed in the same way that light speed is the current known speed limit of the universe these days.

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  • [–] 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone argue that Star Trek is a hard sci-fi.

    It deals with technology and its repercussions, is using the future and technological advancement to examine human behaviour.

    There's not so many laser sword battles.

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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago*

    That's a decent definition of SF, but "hard" SF means that the technology, science, and logic are accurate based on our understanding of those things. Star Trek doesn't really worry about those things, which is fine, but it's not hard SF.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Hard sci-fi: The Expanse, Project Hail Mary; no FTL travel, and physics works mostly as we understand it.

    Science Fantasy: Star Wars; space wizards.

    Star Trek is neither of these.

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  • [–] 30 points 6 months ago

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

    And just like his technology, Q's love for his receding hairline is beyond our comprehension.

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  • [–] 28 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Who calls Star Trek hard sci-fi?

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  • [–] 28 points 6 months ago (10 children)

    Some people use hard scifi to mean consistent with its established rules, other people use it to mean consistent with our current knowledge of physics. Star Trek isn't either.

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  • [–] 23 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Hard Sci fi would be more like The Expanse or maybe The Martian. Trek is just regular SciFi.

    The fun one is Star Wars, which is more Fantasy than SciFi

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Trek is space opera.

    Wars is a fairy tale (there’s a princess, evil emperor, magic, etc.)

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Trek is utopia with whispers of benevolent authoritarianism. The Federation are the Borg at some level, looking to assimilate all they come across despite their morality that appeals to the viewers of the show.

    Wars is dystopia with magic. Most people appear poor, all the power and money is concentrated in a few places. Gangs and warlords everywhere. Always someone trying to take more, whether it be Hutt or political fascists.

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  • [+] -6 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Star Trek is just 1960s US jingoism wrapped up in some kind of pseudo-scientific veneer.

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  • [–] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

    Yeah but besides that, it's all hard science. There's breeding between genetically disconnected species, making new technologies by "reversing the polarity" of things, teleporting matter/life thousands of miles without any technology to rebuild matter on the other end, and inconsistently defining warp speeds where warp 10 is "infinite" velocity and causes you to devolve (into a salamander thing... which isn't a part of human ancestry) but also some ships have gone over warp 10 just casually traveling in the original series. That's some hard science there.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    There's an episode of TNG that tries to explain the inter-species breeding thing. Turns out, ancient aliens spread their DNA across the galaxy, and that's why every alien looks like a human with prosthetics added to their ears, nose, forehead, etc.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

    Yea, I'm aware, but evolution/genetic drift is a thing. We can't breed with even our closest terrestrial cousin species with a common ancestor from 5-8 million years ago, which would have come from that same seeded genetic line. Why would we be able to breed freely with a Klingon whose last shared genetics were this seed from 4 billion years ago?

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    We can’t breed with even our closest terrestrial cousin species with a common ancestor from 5-8 million years ago

    ... we can't?

    Dammit! All that effort, all those lacerations and broken bones, for nothing!

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  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    "who voluntarily has a receding hairline"

    Hilarious that anyone would think an ambiguisouly queer trickster God would give the slightest of fucks about human beauty standards, and doesn't just think it looks fitting for its own standards.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago

    A sexy bald Frenchman

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago

    TIL whether something is hard sci-fi apparently has a lot to do with baldness.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago

    No one calls it hard scifi

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    rage/engagement bait. who the hell calls it that?

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Have we stopped the trend of putting excessively large and unnecessary borders around social media re-posts? Please let it be so.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    just because a being can materialise and dematerialise at will in any costume you can imagine does make them a god

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    It's kinda funny when people oversimplify things to black vs. white in order to mock other people and feel good about themselves.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (6 children)

    It's tricky because there are several potential meanings of, "hard sci fi".

    Some people specifically mean that it lacks any "woke" elements.
    Sometimes it means that it doesn't address any social issues and is limited to an action movie with fantasy physics.
    Sometimes it's about a standard of how realistic the physics fantasy physics are.

    I probably wouldn't count Star Trek as "hard sci fi" on any of these criteria and that's not a bad thing. In general, good science fiction isn't really about the science. It's about the people and the science is just a vehicle to explore questions and ideas about people.

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    I've never, ever heard anyone use either of the first two "definitions." I read a stupid amount of SF and reviews of SF. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you've just heard some people using a term incorrectly, which doesn't constitute an alternate definition.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    It's a pretty standard response from when people are trying to disguise their hatred for any hint of progressive politics. They won't say, "I don't like this show because they have a black lesbian." They'll try to dismiss it as fake sci-fi by responding with, "I only like hard sci-fi."

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Your second description is literally the definition of soft scifi. No one on planet earth calls comics hard science fiction.

    Anyway, Trek is a little hard in that it DOES deal with social issues, and scientific implications, and does what scifi is meant for. But it also has teleporting and magic gods.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

    I’m not familiar with the characters, can some kind person provide screenshots?

    Edit: TIL Picard is French

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    IT'S MY FUCKING MBTI TYPE AGAIN WHAT DID I TELL YOU PEOPLE. Sorry I recently got fascinated by the connections between esoteric spirituality and Jungian psychology but when I did my mbti then looked up fictional characters they're all either trickersters or just literally Lucifer.

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