History Mohs / ScienceInGenreOnly

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' are even softer than ''MST3K''. Not only does stuff happen and things [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum run on nonsensoleum]] but the depicted reality contradicts what we are familiar with in everyday life. Planetary systems and galaxies twirl around one another, and everything has a near-Earth gravity. The protomatter of stars help you launch from place to place and ludicrous speed travel between the loosely defined galaxies are a must.

* The ''[[TheDCU DC]]'' and ''{{Marvel|Universe}}'' universes, which in some ways resemble sci-fi versions of the FantasyKitchenSink, will occasionally make [[HandWave weak, palsied gestures in the direction of verisimilitude]] and then follow that with a [[SplashPanel two-page spread]] that violates every rule of physics yet discovered, except the [[RuleOfCool most important one.]]

* ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is packed full of all kinds of bizarre nonsense -- for example, the fastest mode of travel through the universe is by ''bistro'', as in "place you eat in" or "second most overworked word in food marketing after '''new'''[[note]]Or more appropriately, the [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem creative mathematics]] used to calculate bills in such establishments[[/note]], and the second fastest mode is a drive runs on the power of improbability -- but the stories are fully aware of how absurd it is, and the reader ''is'' encouraged to think about it. ItRunsOnNonsensoleum was clearly a favorite, if not ''the'' favorite, trope of creator DouglasAdams.

* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'': stuff was owned by famous people or was present at famous events. Stuff somehow gains -- and exaggerates -- a property associated with said person or event. Don't think about it too hard.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Stuff happens. [[MST3KMantra Don't think too much how]]. Characters [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace breathe in space]] on at least two occasions. [[InstantAIJustAddWater Artificially intelligent robots]] built entirely out of random spare parts. A VW Microbus converted into a spaceship. As the theme song says: "It's just a show. You really should relax."

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' -- at least the films -- tends to run on the RuleOfCool. SpaceIsNoisy, there's OldSchoolDogfighting between space fighters, ArtificialGravity is so ubiquitous that it doesn't even bear mention, an Earth-sized planet is blown up with such force that the debris rushes outward faster than the speed of light, etc.. (The StarWarsExpandedUniverse tries to be a little more restrained, and probably belongs in the next harder category.)

* The original 1978 ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Classic}}'': They cross interstellar -- or maybe intergalactic, [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale even they're not sure]] -- distances in a matter of days. Spacecraft [[OldSchoolDogfighting move like airplanes]], unless they're big spacecraft, in which case they [[SpaceIsAnOcean move like ocean ships]]. Guns fire [[FrickinLaserBeams "lasers"]] that move more slowly than bullets, with [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience Cylons shooting blue and Vipers shooting red]]. A city's stockpile of "Tylium" catches fire, and then blows up the ''[[EarthShatteringKaboom entire planet]]''. The ArtificialGravity that keeps them right-side-up doesn't even merit a mention, as it's questionable whether the writers even knew that people on space ships experience zero gee.

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Back to MohsScaleOfHardness.

[[AC:Examples]]
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Stuff happens. [[MST3KMantra Don't think too much how]]. Characters [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace breathe in space]] on at least two occasions. [[InstantAIJustAddWater Artificially intelligent robots]] built entirely out of random spare parts. A VW Microbus converted into a spaceship. As the theme song says: "It's just a show. You really should relax."
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' is chock full of every single popular science fiction trope, often with [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum intentionally silly]] ReverseThePolarity style answers to justify them. Only "harder" than ''MST3K'' because there's no MST3KMantra in the opening and the occasional legitimate maths and science appears as a GeniusBonus. Just for starters, there's a ship that once made the entire universe move around it, while the ship itself lay still, making the ship work at triple capacity.

* ''Literature/TheGiver'' never gives any scientific justification whatsoever for...well, anything, really. Not the psychic transmission of memories, not the total control kept over every aspect of the Community, [[spoiler: right down to its climate and color—or, rather, lack thereof.]] The focus is more on human nature.
* ''Franchise/{{Bionicle}}'' begins with a PatchworkMap island in the middle of a SingleBiomePlanet, inhabited by {{Cyborg}} {{Hobbits}} [[SchizoTech who live like primitive humans]]. They are joined by a [[FiveManBand Six Man Band]] of cyborgs with superpowered {{mask|OfPower}}s and ElementalPowers. Although many of the initial mysteries have been resolved, and the series went through a drastic [[DoingInTheWizard shift from mystical to semi-sci-fi]], there is almost ''no'' explanation of how anything actually works. Also, creator Greg Farshtey has the MST3KMantra in his sig on the fansite BZPower.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' are even softer than ''MST3K''. Not only does stuff happen and things [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum run on nonsensoleum]] but the depicted reality contradicts what we are familiar with in everyday life. Planetary systems and galaxies twirl around one another, and everything has a near-Earth gravity. The protomatter of stars help you launch from place to place and ludicrous speed travel between the loosely defined galaxies are a must. Creator/{{Shig|eruMiyamoto}}gy believes in putting [[RuleOfFun fun]] before ''everything'' else, including basic logic. Also, [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace Mario can breathe in space.]]
* ''Comicbook/{{Asterix}} and the Falling Sky'': In what is usually a mundane/fantasy-ish classical antiquity setting, we have a [[HowUnscientific science fiction-esque plot.]] There are two alien races shown, one of them have tin-can rats as soldiers while the other have {{Superman}} clones. Both have spaceships (one had a rocket while the other had a flying saucer) and came from places light-years away from Earth, only coming to the Gaulish village to fight over the iconic magical super potion that said village have. [[spoiler: It turns out that the magical potion is not compatible with the aliens' physiology.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'': Even if you accept the premise of water molecules turning into food molecules via atom rearrangement - this movie will challenge your WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief by throwing anything resembling logic out of the window to replace it by RuleOfFun. See the main entry for more details. The original book (and its sequel) did this too.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' -- at least the films -- tends to run on the RuleOfCool. SpaceIsNoisy, there's OldSchoolDogfighting between space fighters, ArtificialGravity is so ubiquitous that it doesn't even bear mention, an Earth-sized planet is blown up with such force that the debris rushes outward faster than the speed of light, etc.. (The StarWarsExpandedUniverse tries to be a little more restrained, and probably belongs in the next harder category.)

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' gives no explanation for, well, anything. Everything happens in CartoonlandTime and is run by either RuleOfCool, RuleOfFunny, CartoonPhysics, or a mixture of the aforementioned, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking platypi are blue]].
* ''ToBoldlyFlee'' has nineteen Internet reviewers turn a house into a working spaceship capable of traveling from Earth to Jupiter in less than a week to investigate a literal PlotHole. Definitely running on RuleOfCool and RuleOfFunny.

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* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Stuff happens. [[MST3KMantra Don't think too much how]]. Characters [[BatmanCanBreathInSpace breathe in space]] on at least two occasions. [[InstantAIJustAddWater Artificially intelligent robots]] built entirely out of random spare parts. A VW Microbus converted into a spaceship. As the theme song says: "It's just a show. You really should relax."

* ''Anime/MazingerZ'' has elements of Mohs/WorldOfPhlebotinum, since it tries to be consistent with the rules and physics of its own world, but often real world physics are overruled by RuleOfCool and RuleOfFun. And thus, you have eighteen-meters-tall robots are surprisingly fast and agile for its size, run on Phlebotinum and are MadeOfIndestructium.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Stuff happens. [[MST3KMantra Don't think too much how]]. Characters breathe in space on at least two occasions. [[InstantAIJustAddWater Artificially intelligent robots]] built entirely out of random spare parts. A VW Microbus converted into a spaceship. As the theme song says: "It's just a show. You really should relax."

'''Science In Genre Only:''' The work is unambiguously set in the ''literary genre'' of ScienceFiction, but ''scientific'' it is not. AppliedPhlebotinum is the rule of the day, often of the [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum Nonsensoleum]] kind, GreenRocks gain NewPowersAsThePlotDemands, and both BellisariosMaxim and the MST3KMantra apply.

* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'', which in spite of the fact that the power source, Mantra, is similar to MinovskyPhysics to power robots and machines, still has many of the characters breath in space, are several hundreds of thousands of years old, and fight against beings that come from the planet itself, as well as being more of a FantasyKitchenSink in this way.

* ''ToBoldlyFlee'' has nineteen Internet reviewers turn a house into a working spaceship capable of traveling from Earth to Mars in less than a week to investigate a literal PlotHole. Definitely running on RuleOfCool and RuleOfFunny.

* ''ToBoldlyFlee" has nineteen Internet reviewers turn a house into a working spaceship capable of traveling from Earth to Mars in less than a week to investigate a literal PlotHole. Definitely running on RuleOfCool and RuleOfFunny.

* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'', which in spite of the fact that the power source, Mantra, is similar to {{Minovsky Particle}}s to power robots and machines, still has many of the characters breath in space, are several hundreds of thousands of years old, and fight against beings that come from the planet itself, as well as being more of a FantasyKitchenSink in this way.

* ''TheGiver'' never gives any scientific justification whatsoever for...well, anything, really. Not the psychic transmission of memories, not the total control kept over every aspect of the Community, [[spoiler: right down to its climate and color—or, rather, lack thereof.]] The focus is more on human nature.
* ''Franchise/{{Bionicle}}'' begins with a PatchworkMap island in the middle of a SingleBiomePlanet, inhabited by {{Cyborg}} {{Hobbits}} [[SchizoTech who live like primitive humans]]. They are joined by a [[FiveManBand Six Man Band]] of cyborgs with superpowered [[MaskOfPower masks]] and ElementalPowers. Although many of the initial mysteries have been resolved, and the series went through a drastic [[DoingInTheWizard shift from mystical to semi-sci-fi]], there is almost ''no'' explanation of how anything actually works. Also, creator Greg Farshtey has the MST3KMantra in his sig on the fansite BZPower.

* ''{{Asterix}} and the Falling Sky'': In what is usually a mundane/fantasy-ish classical antiquity setting, we have a [[HowUnscientific science fiction-esque plot.]] There are two alien races shown, one of them have tin-can rats as soldiers while the other have {{Superman}} clones. Both have spaceships (one had a rocket while the other had a flying saucer) and came from places light-years away from Earth, only coming to the Gaulish village to fight over the iconic magical super potion that said village have. [[spoiler: It turns out that the magical potion is not compatible with the aliens' physiology.]]
* ''CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'': Even if you accept the premise of water molecules turning into food molecules via atom rearrangement - this movie will challenge your WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief by throwing anything resembling logic out of the window to replace it by RuleOfFun. See the main entry for more details. The original book (and its sequel) did this too.

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Back to Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

'''Mohs/ScienceInGenreOnly:''' The work is unambiguously set in the ''literary genre'' of ScienceFiction, but ''scientific'' it is not. AppliedPhlebotinum is the rule of the day, often of the [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum Nonsensoleum]] kind, GreenRocks gain NewPowersAsThePlotDemands, and both BellisariosMaxim and the MST3KMantra apply.

* ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'': Stuff happens. [[MST3KMantra Don't think too much how]]. Characters breathe in space on at least two occasions. [[InstantAIJustAddWater Artificially intelligent robots]] built entirely out of random spare parts. A VW Microbus converted into a spaceship. As the theme song says: "It's just a show. You really should relax."

* ''{{Futurama}}'': Chock full of every single popular science fiction trope, often with [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum intentionally silly]] ReverseThePolarity style answers to justify them. Only "harder" than ''MST3K'' because there's no MST3KMantra in the opening and the occasional legitimate maths and science appears as a GeniusBonus. Just for starters, there's a ship that once made the entire universe move around it, while the ship itself lay still, making the ship work at triple capacity.

* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': The show has elements of ''Mohs/WorldOfPhlebotinum'', since it tries to be consistent with the rules and physics of its own world, but often real world physics are overruled by RuleOfCool and RuleOfFun. And thus, you have eighteen-meters-tall robots are surprisingly fast and agile for its size, run on Phlebotinum and are MadeOfIndestructium.

* ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': The universe is not run not by the laws of physics, but by the RuleOfCool. While the show remains ''relatively'' non-screwing with physics in the first arcs, the latter one more than makes up for it.

* The ''[[TheDCU DC]]'' and ''[[MarvelUniverse Marvel]]'' universes, which in some ways resemble sci-fi versions of the FantasyKitchenSink, will occasionally make [[HandWave weak, palsied gestures in the direction of verisimilitude]] and then follow that with a [[SplashPanel two-page spread]] that violates every rule of physics yet discovered, except the [[RuleOfCool most important one.]]

* ''AsurasWrath'', which in spite of the fact that the power source, Mantra, is similar to MinovskyParticles to power robots and machines, still has many of the characters breath in space, are several hundreds of thousands of years old, and fight against beings that come from the planet itself, as well as being more of a FantasyKitchenSink in this way.

* ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': Packed full of all kinds of bizarre nonsense -- for example, the fastest mode of travel through the universe is by ''bistro'', as in "place you eat in" or "second most overworked word in food marketing after '''new'''[[hottip:*:Or more appropriately, the [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem creative mathematics]] used to calculate bills in such establishments]], and the second fastest mode is a drive runs on the power of improbability -- but the stories are fully aware of how absurd it is, and the reader ''is'' encouraged to think about it. ItRunsOnNonsensoleum was clearly a favorite, if not ''the'' favorite, trope of creator DouglasAdams.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'': [[ChainsawGood Chainsaw swords]], psychic spacemen, elves in space, orcs in space, undead robots, planet-eating bugs, three-hundred-metre-tall millennia-old walking battle cathedrals, soul-eating space stations and vehicles that travel faster because they're painted red ([[JustifiedTrope justified]], [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Sort Of...]]), and that's just scratching the surface. The primary means of FTL is flying through Hell. In 40k, RuleOfCool is physics. As is RuleOfScary.

* ''PowerRangers'' in its more scientifically themed seasons (more magical seasons usually make a token gesture towards this with giant robots, but aren't close enough to trying to qualify). Even when they get their powers from a government research lab, the morphing is still a mix of phlebotinum and handwaves, the sources of energy are either phlebotinum or not mentioned at all, faster than light travel and humanoid aliens are the rule, [[MadeOfExplodium sparks shoot out of weapons and struck objects entirely at random irregardless of object composition and the kind of weapon in question]], there's never an equal and opposite reaction for most actions, and the square-cube law is in the corner rocking back and forth in the fetal position muttering about giant robots, giant monsters, and the impossibilities of the human shape on the kaiju scale.

* ''TheGiver'': We never get any scientific justification whatsoever for...well, anything, really. Not the psychic transmission of memories, not the total control kept over every aspect of the Community, [[spoiler: right down to its climate and color—or, rather, lack thereof.]] The focus is more on human nature.

* ''{{Bionicle}}''. The story begins with a PatchworkMap island in the middle of a SingleBiomePlanet, inhabited by {{Cyborg}} {{Hobbits}} [[SchizoTech who live like primitive humans]]. They are joined by a [[FiveManBand Six Man Band]] of cyborgs with superpowered [[MaskOfPower masks]] and ElementalPowers. Although many of the initial mysteries have been resolved, and the series went through a drastic [[DoingInTheWizard shift from mystical to semi-sci-fi]], there is almost ''no'' explanation of how anything actually works. Also, creator Greg Farshtey has the MST3KMantra in his sig on the fansite BZPower.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'': Even softer than ''MST3K''. Not only does stuff happen and things [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum run on nonsensoleum]] but the depicted reality contradicts what we are familiar with in everyday life. Planetary systems and galaxies twirl around one another, and everything has a near-Earth gravity. The protomatter of stars help you launch from place to place and ludicrous speed travel between the loosely defined galaxies are a must. [[ShigeruMiyamoto Shiggy]] believes in putting [[RuleOfFun fun]] before ''everything'' else, including basic logic. Also, [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace Mario can breathe in space.]]

* The original 1978 ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaClassic Battlestar Galactica]]'': They cross interstellar -- or maybe intergalactic, [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale even they're not sure]] -- distances in a matter of days. Spacecraft [[OldSchoolDogfighting move like airplanes]], unless they're big spacecraft, in which case they [[SpaceIsAnOcean move like ocean ships]]. Guns fire [[FrickinLaserBeams "lasers"]] that move more slowly than bullets, with [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience Cylons shooting blue and Vipers shooting red]]. A city's stockpile of "Tylium" catches fire, and then blows up the ''[[EarthShatteringKaboom entire planet]]''. The ArtificialGravity that keeps them right-side-up doesn't even merit a mention, as it's questionable whether the writers even knew that people on space ships experience zero gee.

* ''StarWars'' -- at least the films -- tends to run on the RuleOfCool. SpaceIsNoisy, there's OldSchoolDogfighting between space fighters, ArtificialGravity is so ubiquitous that it doesn't even bear mention, an Earth-sized planet is blown up with such force that the debris rushes outward faster than the speed of light, etc.. (The StarWarsExpandedUniverse tries to be a little more restrained, and probably belongs in the next harder category.)

* ''{{Warehouse13}}'': stuff was owned by famous people or was present at famous events. Stuff somehow gains -- and exaggerates -- a property associated with said person or event. Don't think about it too hard.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Anything and everything can be {{Hand Wave}}d by either SufficientlyAdvanced technology, RuleOfCool, RuleOfScary, the TimeyWimeyBall, or some combination thereof.

* ''PhineasAndFerb'': There's no explanation for, well, anything. Everything happens in CartoonlandTime and is run by either RuleOfCool, RuleOfFunny, CartoonPhysics, or a mixture of the aforementioned, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking platypi are blue]].

'''Mohs/ScienceInGenreOnly:''' The work is unambiguously set in the ''literary genre'' of ScienceFiction, but ''scientific'' it is not. AppliedPhlebotinum is the rule of the day, often of the [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum Nonsensoleum]] kind, GreenRocks gain NewPowersAsThePlotDemands, and both BellisariosMaxim and the {{MST3K Mantra}} apply.

* ''[[{{Warhammer40000}} Warhammer 40000]]'': [[ChainsawGood Chainsaw swords]], psychic spacemen, elves in space, orcs in space, undead robots, planet-eating bugs, three-hundred-metre-tall millennia-old walking battle cathedrals, soul-eating space stations and vehicles that travel faster because they're painted red ([[JustifiedTrope justified]], [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Sort Of...]]), and that's just scratching the surface. The primary means of FTL is flying through Hell. In 40k, RuleOfCool is physics. As is RuleOfScary.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'': Even softer than ''MST3K''. Not only does stuff happen and things [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum run on nonsensoleum]] but the depicted reality contradicts what we are familiar with in everyday life. Planetary systems and galaxies twirl around one another, and everything has a near-Earth gravity. The protomatter of stars help you launch from place to place and ludicrous speed travel between the loosely defined galaxies are a must. [[{{Shigeru Miyamoto}} Shiggy]] believes in putting [[RuleOfFun fun]] before ''everything'' else, including basic logic. Also, [[BatmanCanBreatheInSpace Mario can breathe in space.]]

* ''[[{{Warehouse13}} Warehouse 13]]'': stuff was owned by famous people or was present at famous events. Stuff somehow gains -- and exaggerates -- a property associated with said person or event. Don't think about it too hard.

* ''DoctorWho'': Anything and everything can be {{Hand Wave}}d by either SufficientlyAdvanced technology, RuleOfCool, RuleOfScary, the TimeyWimeyBall, or some combination thereof.

* ''{{Futurama}}'': Chock full of every single popular science fiction trope, often with [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum intentionally silly]] ReverseThePolarity style answers to justify them. Only "harder" than ''MST3K'' because there's no MST3KMantra in the opening and the occasional legitimate maths and science appears as a GeniusBonus. Just for startes, there's a ship that once made the entire universe move around it, while the ship itself lay still, making the ship work at triple capacity.

'''Science In Genre Only''': The work is unambiguously set in the literary genre of Science Fiction, but scientific it is not. Applied Phlebotinum is the rule of the day, Green Rocks gain New Powers As the Plot Demands, and both BellisariosMaxim and the MST3K Mantra apply.

'''Science In Genre Only''': The work is unambiguously set in the literary genre of Science Fiction, but scientific it is not. Applied Phlebotinum is the rule of the day, Green Rocks gain New Powers As the Plot Demands, and both Bellisario's Maxim and the MST3K Mantra apply.