Quote Originally Posted by teh lag View Post
"Good" science fiction (or any form of fiction to be honest) generally follows its own internal logic, regardless of whether or not said logic makes sense in "real life".

Ex: If in a sci-fi universe there are boats that can fly but only if they have enough assfuckium in their reactors, and then suddenly they can fly without assfuckium, it would be perfectly reasonable to call out that inconsistency.
Exactly.

The criticism stands EVEN IF a pack of nerds devote all their time to resolving the lack of assfuckium with a drawn-out explanation. At that point, the fiction is bad not necessarily because it can't make any degree of sense, the fiction is bad because it's ugly. Unelegant. Confusing.

In Star Wars, Han Solo claimed the Millennium Falcon could make the Kessel run in 12 parsecs -- a measure of distance, rather than time. Obvious writer's gaffe, but if you look hard enough, you can find some fan explanation that halfway resolves the issue with the fiction. Still, the average person who knows what a parsec is is still going to be confused and that's why it remains a crack in the fiction.

To be fair, most of the BS in the Halo universe is confined to the books. The games do a good job of avoiding technical exposition. But when you have a line like, "Halo doesn't kill the Flood." in one game and the same characters (Chief, Cortana, Spark) having the expectation that Halo WILL kill the Flood in another, it stings.