There was a very interesting thread in the feminism forum which was getting slightly derailed from it's original purpose, but evolved its own little discussion regarding 'hard sci-fi' vs. 'soft sci-fi' and all the technomagic in between. So, I raised the point regarding the system of governance for the human fleet in BSG, R_F mentioned the importance of the vacuum of space in making certain Trek gadgets work.
So, let's work out other sci-fi kurfuffles with our sci-fi solar powered fan person brains.