SF Rant

[tkdguy]

Science fiction is a work of imagination. It's a speculation on what society may be like in the future. The thing is, I notice how almost all SF shows seem to be a variation on a theme. Most campaigns are filled with aliens both friendly and hostile, blasters, and travel across the galaxy. Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, whatever; it's almost the same thing once you strip it down to basics.

 

And yet, I hear a lot of complaints when I try something different, say, a near-future campaign that has a few advancements in technology, but is otherwise similar to today's society. This is what I've heard:

 

"WAAAAAH! Why is the space military based on the Air Force? That's not cool. You're supposed to go NAAAAAVY!!!"

 

"WAAAAAH! Why are the spaceships armed with railguns? That's not cool. They're supposed to shoot LAAAAASERS!!!"

 

"WAAAAAH! Why are there only humans present? That's not cool. You're supposed to have AAAAALIENS!!!"

 

Seriously, has SF become so fixated on playing the same note over and over again? I've done the whole space opera gig to death, and I'm bored with it. I'm ready for something new. Unfortunately, not too many people I game with seem to agree with me. FYI, I feel the same way about high fantasy as well.

 

Anyway, rant over. Thanks for taking the time read. Your thoughts are welcome.

[Vondy]

Science fiction is a work of imagination. It's a speculation on what society may be like in the future. The thing is, I notice how almost all SF shows seem to be a variation on a theme. Most campaigns are filled with aliens both friendly and hostile, blasters, and travel across the galaxy. Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, whatever; it's almost the same thing once you strip it down to basics.

 

And yet, I hear a lot of complaints when I try something different, say, a near-future campaign that has a few advancements in technology, but is otherwise similar to today's society. This is what I've heard:

 

"WAAAAAH! Why is the military based on the Air Force? That's not cool. You're supposed to go NAAAAAVY!!!"

 

"WAAAAAH! Why are the spaceships armed with railguns? That's not cool. They're supposed to shoot LAAAAASERS!!!"

 

"WAAAAAH! Why are there only humans present? That's not cool. You're supposed to have AAAAALIENS!!!"

 

Seriously, has SF become so fixated on playing the same note over and over again? I've done the whole space opera gig to death, and I'm bored with it. I'm ready for something new. Unfortunately, not too many people I game with seem to agree with me. FYI, I feel the same way about high fantasy as well.

 

Anyway, rant over. Thanks for taking the time read. Your thoughts are welcome.

 

That's probably because those shows are light on science and heavy on action and drama and effects. Its mostly space opera and social speculation with a veneer of science. There isn't a lot of hard science fiction out there -- or science fiction that really churns technological implications. Those could make for a great game, but its heavy on speculation and thinking and requires front-loaded explanation. Its harder to wrap your head around subtle changes to extant culture than big-set, heavy-effects settings. The kinds of games you are talking about require meditating on the "logical consequences" of new technologies and such and don't have the same "anything goes" style as rubber non-science. A lot of gamers want the bright lights, candy, and quick thrills of their favorite shows -- and that's okay. But, it does make it harder to get them to buy into something "a little different."

[tkdguy]

That much is true, and my group is relatively well-versed in science.

[PaycheckHero]

SF shows are variations on a theme because of a couple of the immutable laws of Hollywood: (1) script writers neither know nor care about science, and (2) actually nobody actually knows how to systematically create an original successful movie or TV show, and so anything popular gets re-made and re-made until nobody will watch anymore. Star Trek was famously sold as a Western in space, because Westerns were big and if it wasn't connected to something known it would probably not be made. It's the economically rational choice because the alternative is much riskier.

 

The only thing that bores me about High Fantasy is D&D tropes. I'd be delighted if there were so many games that didn't follow D&D tropes that I had the opportunity to get bored. I'm always sad when I see a Hero campaign where someone painstakingly used Hero's flexibility to re-implement D&D.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Science fiction is a work of imagination. It's a speculation on what society may be like in the future. The thing is, I notice how almost all SF shows seem to be a variation on a theme. Most campaigns are filled with aliens both friendly and hostile, blasters, and travel across the galaxy. Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, whatever; it's almost the same thing once you strip it down to basics.

 

And yet, I hear a lot of complaints when I try something different, say, a near-future campaign that has a few advancements in technology, but is otherwise similar to today's society. This is what I've heard:

 

"WAAAAAH! Why is the military based on the Air Force? That's not cool. You're supposed to go NAAAAAVY!!!"

 

"WAAAAAH! Why are the spaceships armed with railguns? That's not cool. They're supposed to shoot LAAAAASERS!!!"

 

"WAAAAAH! Why are there only humans present? That's not cool. You're supposed to have AAAAALIENS!!!"

 

Seriously, has SF become so fixated on playing the same note over and over again? I've done the whole space opera gig to death, and I'm bored with it. I'm ready for something new. Unfortunately, not too many people I game with seem to agree with me. FYI, I feel the same way about high fantasy as well.

 

Anyway, rant over. Thanks for taking the time read. Your thoughts are welcome.

 

Excellent rant, tkdguy. I'm with you 100%.

 

This is EXACTLY why I wrote Terracide. I felt it was time, not just to break all these unwritten "rules" but to utterly annihilate any justification for them to exist in the first place, and prove that it was, in fact, possible to write a good SF RPG well outside of this utterly worn-out, dumbed-down, mass-marketed, nielson-rated, tired, cliched, drooling fanboi paradigm.

 

 

Also, see here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070208103915/http://www.galactica2003.net/articles/concept.shtml

 

 

We take as a given the idea that the traditional space opera, with its stock characters, techno-double-talk, bumpy-headed aliens, thespian histrionics, and empty heroics has run its course and a new approach is required. That approach is to introduce realism into what has heretofore been an aggressively unrealistic genre. We will eschew the usual stories about parallel universes, time-travel, mind-control, evil twins, God-like powers and all the other clichés of the genre. Our show is first and foremost a drama. It is about people. Real people that the audience can identify with and become engaged in. It is not a show about hardware or bizarre alien cultures. It is a show about us. It is an allegory for our own society, our own people and it should be immediately recognizable to any member of the audience.

 

That man is my fracking hero.

[tkdguy]

Funny you should mention the new BSG. It was one of the inspirations for my campaign, along with Firefly, Stargate: SG-1, and Cowboy Bebop.Of course, I had to pick and choose which elements I'd keep or toss out.

 

Not that I have a problem with Star Trek et al. I enjoy them. But there's more to SF than that. And I'd rather game in my own universe than someone else's.

[bigbywolfe]

I think one reason there is less hard scifi sources is that much of what is written is proved wrong in a decade or so. There is some great space opera stuff from the 50s. The is some gread hard scifi from the 50s too, but is it still hard scifi if we now know that (insert tech or theory) is wrong?

[tkdguy]

It can be, even if the science is a bit dated, just not as hard as it was thought to be. But since we're talking about the here and now, so we have to go by what we know today.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I'm probably the wrong guy to comment on this topic as I love Space Opera. I don't think we get enough of them. (well enough good ones anyway. There are what, three major Space Opera franchises that are highly regarded...Trek, Wars and Bab5...with a few others recognized by mainly hardcore geeks...Farscape, Stargate, BSG...and not much else outside of the novel space unless you count Mass Effect)

 

I'm not much for hard sci-fi. I tried getting into it as a kid and then later as a young adult, but it never resonated with me, which is weird because I do like to keep up a bit with scientific advances and am fascinated with astronomy.

 

However I adore fantasy. Which is of course, why I like Space Opera. It's fantasy in spaaaaaace..... All of my sci-fi roleplaying efforts are firmly entrenched in the Space Opera zone, where Aliens replace Demi-humans. Technology replaces enchanted items. Where Psionics replace spells. Where alien worlds replace exotic nations. Where Interdimensional horrors replace demonic horrors...okay, those are basically the same thing, but there they are.

 

But its a very interesting phenomenon. When I play Space Opera, it feels very different from my typical fantasy efforts, even though the formula is essentially the same. Maybe it's the presence of common technology that everyone has access to which makes it feel different (as opposed to most fantasy settings where magical items are quite rare, most people having access to only the most primitive of technological instruments) or perhaps the atmosphere of science being known and reliable as opposed to magic being mysterious and often exclusive to certain individuals that is the difference. Whatever it is, it makes them feel like completely different genres when I play them, even though they are essentially cut from the same cloth.

 

Also, I find that I use a lot more social commentary when I run Space Opera than I do with heroic fantasy, which generally is about the adventure aspects. In one Space Opera campaign I ran, the game began about prejudice ingrained within a society (a planet run by anti-psi religious zealots vs a pro-psionic underground) but it eventually morphed into a commentary on the role of consciousness in the greater cosmos and whether or not lifeforms classically considered "non-sentient" had consciousness. That game waxed quite philosophical and did so in a very cool way. (with the players trying to figure out of the world in question was itself conscious and whether or not it was purposefully manipulating the genes of the human settlers to make them more psionically active/aware so that it would have people to commune with)

[Xavier Onassiss]

I can recommend a number of excellent modern SF authors whose work is both hard SF and space opera.

[Vondy]

I'm probably the wrong guy to comment on this topic as I love Space Opera. I don't think we get enough of them. (well enough good ones anyway. There are what, three major Space Opera franchises that are highly regarded...Trek, Wars and Bab5...with a few others recognized by mainly hardcore geeks...Farscape, Stargate, BSG...and not much else outside of the novel space unless you count Mass Effect)

 

I'm not much for hard sci-fi. I tried getting into it as a kid and then later as a young adult, but it never resonated with me, which is weird because I do like to keep up a bit with scientific advances and am fascinated with astronomy.

 

However I adore fantasy. Which is of course, why I like Space Opera. It's fantasy in spaaaaaace..... All of my sci-fi roleplaying efforts are firmly entrenched in the Space Opera zone, where Aliens replace Demi-humans. Technology replaces enchanted items. Where Psionics replace spells. Where alien worlds replace exotic nations. Where Interdimensional horrors replace demonic horrors...okay, those are basically the same thing, but there they are.

 

But its a very interesting phenomenon. When I play Space Opera, it feels very different from my typical fantasy efforts, even though the formula is essentially the same. Maybe it's the presence of common technology that everyone has access to which makes it feel different (as opposed to most fantasy settings where magical items are quite rare, most people having access to only the most primitive of technological instruments) or perhaps the atmosphere of science being known and reliable as opposed to magic being mysterious and often exclusive to certain individuals that is the difference. Whatever it is, it makes them feel like completely different genres when I play them, even though they are essentially cut from the same cloth.

 

Also, I find that I use a lot more social commentary when I run Space Opera than I do with heroic fantasy, which generally is about the adventure aspects. In one Space Opera campaign I ran, the game began about prejudice ingrained within a society (a planet run by anti-psi religious zealots vs a pro-psionic underground) but it eventually morphed into a commentary on the role of consciousness in the greater cosmos and whether or not lifeforms classically considered "non-sentient" had consciousness. That game waxed quite philosophical and did so in a very cool way. (with the players trying to figure out of the world in question was itself conscious and whether or not it was purposefully manipulating the genes of the human settlers to make them more psionically active/aware so that it would have people to commune with)

 

When it comes to reading and viewing, I like both hard science fiction and space opera. I've found, for games, hard sci-fi is really hard to do well. I like Star Wars, Trek, B5, BSG, Space Above and Beyond, and Firefly. I also loved Blade Runner. But blade runner as a game would lose much of what made the book and director's cut of the movie so distinct and appealing. I find this to be true of a lot of hard science fiction. The elements and speculation that make it compelling aren't always narrative elements that translate to the gaming table. While an innovative scientific or technological point can drive a novel and reader speculation, it generally gets reduced to the level of "premise" in an RPG. I enjoy Jovian Chronicles and Transhuman Space, but neither ever became more than niche settings. And, JC focused on giant robots and provided levels of play from gritty, to adventurous, to cinematic -- and most people played it as cinematic and ignored the gritty/realistic elements. Calculating reaction mass, air supplies, and vectors is not something most gamers want to be worried about. I think space opera -- which as you say is fantasy in space -- is easier to grasp and adapt to the unique genre of gaming.

[Christopher]

Personally I am more a fan of the Space Opera Side then the Hard SciFi. Despite being quite scientificaly minded myself.
I originally planed on saying something that the "Hardest SciFi I like uses Rotation for artificial Gravity and ocassionally mentions Newtons First law." But I noticed that there is at least one Setting where this would not apply and wondered why:
Schlock Mercenary is a Webcomic whose setting is about as Hard SciFi as you can get, while still having FTL (the only asumptions are that some very old species learned matter anihilation and artifical gravity creation, uplifted humanity and several thousand other species with it and then let the whole thing stew for 1000 Earth Years). But the Science is not the Focus. It only serves to create "Cool Places" for the Heroes Protagnists to work in (and very often destroy).

 

"WAAAAAH! Why are there only humans present? That's not cool. You're supposed to have AAAAALIENS!!!"

If your players say that, I see one primary reason (the one why I avoid thoses settings): Limitation of Concepts.

When you do not have aliens (or only a very limited set of aliens) a lot of concepts will be hard to impossible to make. While they could perhaps still be made, doing them in the setting requires a lot of reading/research into said setting. And usually I do not have time to read into those Settings to "make it fit": That would either be too much reading (and still could collide with the GM's Vision) or the only way to learn about the setting is to play in it.

 

Schlock Mercenary is again an intersting Setting: While has it's fair share of Aliens (ranging from Rubber-Forhead to Carbosilicate Amorphs), "Sophonts of Sol" got a bit extended: Humanity uplifted 2 species of Elephants and Apes. They also created certain subspecies like the "Purps" (purple humans with Photosintetic Skin). And A.I. also count as a form of Sophonts (so much there is a Category called "Synthethic Intelligences" who are designed to be "bright, but not bright enough to count as people")

 

About alternatives to Space Opera:
The poor SciFi writers only have the chance to make Space Opera or Hard SciFi, with Hard SciFi seeming to have a problem selling in any big market. The only other option is to take in elements from totally different Genres. The new BSG and Stargate Universe for example delved deep into the Drama areas (Shaky camera is a clear sign of Drama). While I watched the ocassional episode, I avoided it. I don't like watching Soap Operas and those two were way to much in that area for me to truly like it.

Alien and Terminator 1 and Movies like "Event Horizion" delved into Horror with just enough SciFi for the premise. And I found them more enjoyable then classical horror movies because they had SciFi Elements.

[Tasha]

Ok I am a Navy over Air Force person. For the simple reason that the Navy has a huge part of their force that is trained to live in a Steel Coffin. They have already worked out how to work in an environment that is not human friendly. They train all of their people to deal with Fire. They even have folk who know how to take off and land from a narrow, short deck in a bucking medium. Starships being run by the Navy seems like such a no brainer to me. Now I can see with our current tech of NEO and small missions to the Moon and other places. Air Force Pilots probably fit well. But if they ever started to make large ships like we see in Space Opera then that space force would be fools if they didn't pull personel from every Wet Navy in the world esp Submariners to fill positions in those ships. Because the training would easier for those people who are used to dealing with conditions on a Navy ship.

I like Space Opera to play with because you don't have to deal with certain problems with Space Travel. Number one being that space is BIG. It takes months to go from one world to another. Even with Near Lightspeed drives you are dealing with Days and weeks to get to another world in the same system. So you have LONG periods of Down time which can be an adventure in itself, but leads to boredom. What I like is Space Opera that seems to be conscious of real physics. ie Loved B5's Fighters and the design and tactics. There was some handwaving of real physics, but many things that felt real enough. I think that New BSG stole that B5 feel when showing some of the epic battles in Season 1 and 2.

[Vondy]

I would say, however, that "almost human" would make for a great cyber-hero style game.

 

It has a blade runner / cyberpunk vibe without being so dark and desperate.

[bigbywolfe]

If your players say that, I see one primary reason (the one why I avoid thoses settings): Limitation of Concepts.

When you do not have aliens (or only a very limited set of aliens) a lot of concepts will be hard to impossible to make. While they could perhaps still be made, doing them in the setting requires a lot of reading/research into said setting. And usually I do not have time to read into those Settings to "make it fit": That would either be too much reading (and still could collide with the GM's Vision) or the only way to learn about the setting is to play in it.

 

 

I pretty much completely disagree with this.  If you (generic "you", the player) decide to play a certain character before even knowing what the setting is that is your problem, not the GMs.  If you want to play a Jedi in a Traveler game should the GM bend over backwards to insert a knightly order of psionics into his campaign just for your special snowflake character or should he hit you upside the head and say "save it for a Star Wars game"?  Hell, if you have your heart set on playing a specific alien before you even know if it exists in the setting that isn't "Limitation of Concepts", it's  making huge assumptions and expecting everyone, GM and group, to cater to your idea. 

No thanks.

[JasonPacker]

I'm more and more taken with the notions of transhumanism. GURPS: Transhuman Space is an excellent resource for a mostly realistic SF setting in the near future that gives you variety without aliens, and manages to keep things pretty interesting. And folks RAVE about the setting of Eclipse Phase (though I've not read it all myself) with many of the same notions. Both are more than a little Cyberpunk Grows Up - less dark in many cases, but a logical progression.

[tkdguy]

Keep in mind you can have space opera without any of the elements I ranted about. As someone mentioned in the NGD years ago, the BSG reboot is space opera with hard SF trappings.

 

I have heard about Transhuman Space. I'm not a fan of transhumanism, but I may be able to mine some ideas from the setting.

[PaycheckHero]

Oddly enough, I don't regard Star Trek, Star Wars, or B5 as being good examples of Space Opera. They are too much the products of Hollywood and pop entertainment. I don't think that have all that much in common with the stories 'space opera' was coined to refer to (first as a term of abuse). I think the reason people are treating space opera as excluding hard SF is more or less because they think that those pop entertainment icons define it, and it is true that Hollywood is purely incapable of doing hard SF (and wouldn't care to if it could, as there isn't enough money in it). But actual space opera is fairly compatible with hard SF, so long as you aren't so hard as to disallow some sort of FTL drive.

 

I've threatened many times to do a space opera game on the hard-science end of things, I just never had the right players and the right inspiration at the same time.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I would say, however, that "almost human" would make for a great cyber-hero style game.

 

It has a blade runner / cyberpunk vibe without being so dark and desperate.

I haven't watched it yet. I was planning to. I was hoping it would be dark and desperate...

[NuSoardGraphite]

I pretty much completely disagree with this.  If you (generic "you", the player) decide to play a certain character before even knowing what the setting is that is your problem, not the GMs.  If you want to play a Jedi in a Traveler game should the GM bend over backwards to insert a knightly order of psionics into his campaign just for your special snowflake character or should he hit you upside the head and say "save it for a Star Wars game"?  Hell, if you have your heart set on playing a specific alien before you even know if it exists in the setting that isn't "Limitation of Concepts", it's  making huge assumptions and expecting everyone, GM and group, to cater to your idea. 

No thanks.

As a GM, I try to go out of my way to include every players concept as much as I can without compromising the integrity of the campaign as a whole. I a game such as Traveler, depending on which Era, you could have a knightly order of psychics and if that was feasible for the era in which I was running my campaign, I would allow it. I'm all about players playing the characters they want. That's one of the primary reasons I run Hero. Choice.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Oddly enough, I don't regard Star Trek, Star Wars, or B5 as being good examples of Space Opera. They are too much the products of Hollywood and pop entertainment. I don't think that have all that much in common with the stories 'space opera' was coined to refer to (first as a term of abuse). I think the reason people are treating space opera as excluding hard SF is more or less because they think that those pop entertainment icons define it, and it is true that Hollywood is purely incapable of doing hard SF (and wouldn't care to if it could, as there isn't enough money in it). But actual space opera is fairly compatible with hard SF, so long as you aren't so hard as to disallow some sort of FTL drive.

 

I've threatened many times to do a space opera game on the hard-science end of things, I just never had the right players and the right inspiration at the same time.

I disagree that they are not good examples of Space Opera. They are modern examples of Space Opera. They are Space Opera, as defined by modern sensibilities and adjusted (as much as hollywood allows them to be) for the differences in what we know about space/tech/physics today compared to the original authors of the genre. If anyone was to do a film of the Lensman novels, they would be very, very different from the books, simply because of the differences in the mindset of the eras.

 

Granted while I agree that Space Opera and Hard Sci-fi aren't mutually exclusive, there are certain tropes that are standards in Space Opera that are difficult to justify without rubberizing the science behind them. It's hard to imagine a full scale colonization of space without such technologies as artificial gravity (to prevent muscular and skeletal deterioration in those individuals who work and live in space constantly) force field technology (to protect ships and space stations from the coronal discharges of the various stars they routinely encounter, to survive cosmic storms and the background radiation present in recent nebulae etc) and terraforming (because I would think that while there are many "earthlike" worlds out there, the vast majority of them won't necessarily be of the correct temperature, atmospheric makeup etc to be friendly to habitation by terran natives) and if you simply handwave all these things to make it necessary to have a sprawling galactic society that works and lives in space and planetside with no adverse affects whatsoever, you are basically just doing Space Opera, but with guns instead of lasers.

[Old Man]

I pretty much completely disagree with this.  If you (generic "you", the player) decide to play a certain character before even knowing what the setting is that is your problem, not the GMs.  If you want to play a Jedi in a Traveler game should the GM bend over backwards to insert a knightly order of psionics into his campaign just for your special snowflake character or should he hit you upside the head and say "save it for a Star Wars game"?  Hell, if you have your heart set on playing a specific alien before you even know if it exists in the setting that isn't "Limitation of Concepts", it's  making huge assumptions and expecting everyone, GM and group, to cater to your idea. 

No thanks.

 

This is pretty much the same discussion I've had a few times regarding the fantasy genre.  Why are so many games basically LOTR/D&D clones?  Well, for better or for worse, that's where the player pool is.  In order to have a fantasy game where you don't constantly have to reeducate the players*, you're likely to have to run something that's pretty similar to D&D.  You can run D&D with some steampunk (Eberron) or D&D in the desert (Dark Sun) but there is kind of an event horizon for 'creative' fantasy campaign settings, beyond which lie the effing strange like Talislanta** or Jorune.  If there are no elves in your fantasy setting, you are asking for trouble.

 

Similarly, the familiarity epicenter with SF is going to center on Trek and Wars and go from there.  B5 and BSG*** and Firefly are further out but still comprehensible.  Any 'hard' SF setting that really requires an understanding of (for example) what vacuum is like?  Way out there, familiaritywise.

 

* And the players will resist reeducation anyway.

 

** Always wanted to play this.

 

*** Ironically, the BSG reboot that intentionally avoided cliche space opera tropes was intensely hated by a significant percentage of SF fandom.  It's too dark, it's too gritty, there's no Vulcan Jedi, etc. 

[kahuna's bro]

earth forces should be based on the navy? why not a composite of the militarys four units army ,navy ,marines and airforce

[bigbywolfe]

As a GM, I try to go out of my way to include every players concept as much as I can without compromising the integrity of the campaign as a whole. I a game such as Traveler, depending on which Era, you could have a knightly order of psychics and if that was feasible for the era in which I was running my campaign, I would allow it. I'm all about players playing the characters they want. That's one of the primary reasons I run Hero. Choice.

And your missing the entire point of what I said. No aliens =/= no choice. If a player wants to play a steampunk gorilla in your modern military game the player is being an ass. If a player insists on being a half-ogre, half-drow dual-weilding magic great swords in your Avatar: The Last Airbender fantasy game you are not " limiting his choices" by saying "no". If your game group has decided to run a hard scifi game and one person wants to play a klingon warrior raised by romulans, sent to Earth as a spy who betrayed his people to protect humanity that player is making a character inappropriate for the setting and there is no reason to warp the entire campaign around that one person to the detriment of everyone else's game.

Saying "elves are not a playable race because I hate the pointy eared fops" in a standard high fantasy game may be limiting concepts. Saying "um, this is CoC and we are not inserting Tolkien-esque elves in 1920s USA" is not.

[PaycheckHero]

I disagree that they are not good examples of Space Opera. They are modern examples of Space Opera. They are Space Opera, as defined by modern sensibilities

Adjusted for people who would not appreciate actual space opera.

 

and adjusted (as much as hollywood allows them to be) for the differences in what we know about space/tech/physics today compared to the original authors of the genre.

*Physics*? Those shows are about as devoid of actual science as it is possible to be. They may be adjusted for people who believe Coast to Coast AM is a news source, I suppose, that wasn't a problem for the original Space Opera authors (they instead labored under difficulties like (greater) pressure to churn out product in quantity regardless of quality).

 

Granted while I agree that Space Opera and Hard Sci-fi aren't mutually exclusive, there are certain tropes that are standards in Space Opera that are difficult to justify without rubberizing the science behind them. It's hard to imagine a full scale colonization of space without such technologies as artificial gravity (to prevent muscular and skeletal deterioration in those individuals who work and live in space constantly)

This is hard because why? Because ignorant Hollywood scriptwriters (but I repeat myself) can't (or all too often might be able to but don't want to or can't sell it if they did want to) do it? Even with scriptwriters rather than actual SF authors (ignoring the small intersection of the sets), the primary reason they use artificial gravity rather than rotation is that it keeps the special effects budget within reason. They can't afford to do anything better, just as most of them can't afford anything better than rubber-forehead aliens. They also believe that most of you wouldn't know the difference anyway--in private, industry people tend to be kind of open about believing their audience is primarily idiots. The problem with that is that people who watch those shows and mistake them for anything other than the softest of SF have their imaginations shaped by the needs of a film or TV show budget and think that artificial gravity must be part and parcel of living in space. Which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy--if their audience wasn't already morons, they would be after watching too much Hollywood product. The great thing about the business model of both Hollywood and of drug dealers is that the product creates more customers.

 

In the real world, it it not hard for a great many people to imagine; this is not subject to debate since they have imagined it and have written about it extensively both in fiction and the more blue-sky technical studies. If you want to learn something beyond the light science-fantasy of TV, the 'Space Habitat' article on Wikipedia will list many designs for you, and you can google from there.

 

force field technology (to protect ships and space stations from the coronal discharges of the various stars they routinely encounter, to survive cosmic storms and the background radiation present in recent nebulae etc)

Good God. You actually believe all that scriptwriter gobblety-gook? The hazards of space and the technologies to cope with them aren't *precisely* what Gene Roddenberry might imagine. Once again, as with the other technologies you imagine are necessary, TV and movies have force fields because they are *cheap*. Often you just mention their existence once and never even have to have special-effects show them on-screen. You can do the same with 'shielding,' but the Rule of Cool comes into play: force fields are cooler. The media is addicted to the Rule of Cool, and with a handful of exceptions that is mutually exclusive on the screen with hard SF.

 

and terraforming (because I would think that while there are many "earthlike" worlds out there, the vast majority of them won't necessarily be of the correct temperature, atmospheric makeup etc to be friendly to habitation by terran natives)

Staggering as it may seem, people have imagined colonizing space without terraforming, though you can't get that from the screen--it can make sets cheaper to assume primarily planetary colonies with terrains that appear similar to some location Hollywood is used to shooting in.  Even if it isn't cheaper for a particular script, planetary settings are also familiar to an audience which they assume would not even know why they might have chosen otherwise. It's bad business to waste a ton of money on things your audience won't care about, and the one thing Hollywood does know a great deal about is making a profit.  By contrast, being true to science is somewhere below navel lint on the general media scale of importance.

 

Also staggering may be the fact that people have imagined building enclosed colonies on planets--it isn't necessary to cover every inch of a planet in humans to call it colonized.

 

The one thing that is hard to imagine is getting people to give up whatever future equivalent of TV and movies people are using then to kill off their brain cells so the general population has enough brain cells to not open both airlock doors at once or get a reeeaaally good tan from direct solar radiation. Mass entertainment may turn out to be the biggest barrier to space exploration....