#space precinct

I keep hearing people talk about ‹hard science fiction› and ‹soft science fiction› as if they were categories.

First of all: science fiction hardness is a sliding scale. Consider Babylon 5 — space ships have inertia on that show. They need engine burns to get moving and also need engine burns to stop their motion. They need thrusters to start spinning and also to stop their spin. The eponymous station uses centrifugal force as gravity substitute. All this is much more grounded in hard science than Star Wars, but they also have hyperspace and telepaths. Babylon 5 is much softer on science that The Expanse. It's not either ‹hard› or ‹soft›. It lies somewhere on a sliding scale of hardness.

But also, many works of fiction occupy multiple points on that scale. One common template is to have a science fiction world on some point of the scale and characters who are familiar with that world — and then tell a story about something that is extraordinary for the world, that the characters don't understand and that can be further to the soft end of the scale.

2001: A Space Odyssey is set in a very hard science fiction world in which a nuclear powered space ship takes years to fly to Jupiter/Saturn, in which centrifugal force is the only usable gravity substitute. Putting humans in hibernation for the journey is the most speculative element of that world's science. The omission of the Discovery One's heat radiators in the film is unrealistic. And in hindsight we see that the time scale for space exploration wasn't as realistic as it may have seemed when it was written. — And then there are the monoliths left by advanced alien precursors. They extend beyond the three-dimensional space we exist in, have gifted our ancestors with the mental ability of tool use, and do incomprehensible things to help us further.

The Expanse also draws a scientifically very sound picture of the future with a speculative high-thrust high specific impulse fusion drive as the most phantastical technology. — And then there's the proto-molecule left by advanced alien precursors that can straight-up alter the laws of physics when it sees fit.

Starhunter leans a bit more to the soft side of science fiction by having artificial gravity on its ships, but is otherwise close to The Expanse in the scientific hardness of its ordinary world. — And then there's the Divinity Cluster, a set of genes implanted by unknown means into the human genome by advanced alien precursors which when activated gives pretty much supernatural space-time-bending abilities.

Space Precinct is a very soft sci-fi show. The baseline world is a cop show in space with casual space travel, orbit-going flying cars (how exactly do hoppers soar like that? Who cares?), pew-pew lasers as handguns (how would you power them? Who cares?), and even aliens that have psychic abilities as just a normal thing. But many episodes deal with phenomena that are to that world as X-Files are to ours. For example the meteorite that's alive and mind-controls people and doesn't come from another world like about everyone in Demeter City does, but fell through a temporary hole in space and probably comes from a different universe.

Babylon 5 has a multi-tiered canon of advanced aliens. Unlike Humans and Narn, the Centauri and the Minbari do have sci-fi-typical artificial gravity on their ships. The Great Machine on Epsilon III can enable something akin to astral projection. The Vorlons, the walkers of Sigma-957, the Shadows and other First Ones are narratively equivalent to the monolith/proto-molecule/Divinity Cluster creators, but they don't differ in science fiction hardness like those do. We're told that the biological ships of the Vorlons are impressively advanced from the in-universe humans' perspective, but in principle such technology is more in the scope of hard science than the telepaths who are common in the setting. The Shadows just phasing in and out of hyperspace without opening jumpgates goes beyond what's usually possible in the setting, but jumpgates and hyperspace as depicted on the show already aren't predicted by known science.

Another way works occupy multiple points on the scale is to construct within a relatively soft science fiction world a situation in which the characters need to apply real science to solve a problem.

Stargate SG-1 and even more so Stargate Atlantis frequently have episodes with such stories. Puddle Jumper stuck halfway in a stargate in space? Getting it unstuck is only the first step, because of Newton's first law of motion. You need to then apply Newton's second law to move forward.

A similar template is the use of just one science fiction element that may be very soft in a world that's otherwise like reality, and use of that science fiction element to explore actual science.

Fantastic Voyage doesn't much care about physics when it comes to shrinking. But it counts as educational about biology.

Jurassic Park is less serious about cloning than about paleontology. It includes some highly speculative ideas for its dinosaurs and is in many respects outdated in light of more recent discoveries. Yet it's further to the hard end of the scale than most dinosaur fiction.

A similar but distinct type of story is the ‘what if’ in which a science fiction element is used not to facilitate the exploration of a barely related subject, but to apply scientific principles and explore what the one fictional addition to science would entail.

Tenet asks: what if objects could be made to move backwards through time?

Torchwood: Miracle Day asks: what if people just didn't die?

The premise of these must be beyond the realm of known science for it to count. But how everything is affected by it can be measured on a different scale of science fiction hardness. You can apply known science in theory to hypothetical scenarios. And how strictly established principles get applied is different from how far the base hypothetical strays from science.

Peak hard science fiction is when you do the math. What fuel-mass ratio is needed for the mission? How large do the heat radiators need to be and at what temperature do they operate?

Space travel on The Expanse doesn't violate the known laws of physics, but the Epstein drive is so efficient that characters can mostly zip across the solar system without seriously worrying about the Tsiolkovsky equation, and they never go on long-range missions that require customised ships adapted to the mission profile. This gives it a soft science fiction flair.

It was quite an experience, because afterwards I could see "Red Dwarf" written all over "Lexx". Truly a source of inspiration. The cameos in the last season of "Lexx" kind of prove it.

Also, apparently, "Space Precinct" was another inspiration for "Lexx". This is surprising, but I can totally see that.

BABY

IDRIS

ELBA