Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin
Really, I'm totally serious. If you want a lot of people to call your stuff hard SF leave out the blaster pistols. A generic expansion of that principle is that you can have lots of superscience as long as you make it large and inconvenient which Traveller does.
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This trick works with an amazing number of space opera tropes. Any time your characters ride in a wheeled ground vehicle, make a note of something on a bit of paper instead of an electronic box, take an audio only call, turn a key in a lock and swing open a door, light something with a match, or shower with water instead of sound waves, you build yourself a little bit of credit that helps your audience give you a pass on the psionic jump drives that work on tarot card symbolism. This isn't an effect limited to SF, it works well in horror or fantasy too. Or anywhere really - a lot of plausible little deductions early on goes a long way toward disguising that the mystery breaking deduction at the center of your story doesn't really make sense.