One Big Lie: The author invents one (or, at most, a very few) counterfactual physical laws and writes a story that explores the implications of these principles. Examples of Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness/One Big Lie include: * The Honor Harrington book series: Space Is an Ocean, but the series demonstrates admirable internal consistency, relies on essentially only one piece of "new" technology (gravity control methods), mostly merely extending other pieces of current technology (medical science, nuclear fusion containment, lasers). Additionally, space combat is very three-dimensional and ship-to-ship engagements are often fought at fractional light-second distances (contrast the traditional Star Trek Starship Standoff). * Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series opera