Fuck , you got me <| sep |> TENDIES AND DAY DATES <| sep |> Lol yes it is . <| sep |> How rational a story is is completely orthogonal to how scifi it is . A perfect example would be Star Trek and I say this as a huge Trekkie . I don ' t mean the setting is soft SF even a pure fantasy world can be a rational setting if it has clearly defined rules . A rational story is supposed to , in general , behave according to hardandfast rules which are discernible by the audience . In Star Trek , ships and equipment and psychic aliens and so on have exactly the capabilities the story needs them to . There ' s no way to predict whether the Enterprise can beat that D ' deridexclass warbird or that Ferengi raider in a fight , since it depends on what the story calls for . Another thing , Trek ' s unwavering and unquestioning rejection of consequentialism seems very nonrational to me . Nearly every morality play centers around the ends not justifying the means . Lt . Cmdr . Data Would you choose one life over one thousand , sir ? Captain JeanLuc Picard I refuse to let arithmetic decide questions like that . ACTUAL DIALOGUE albeit from a cheesy episode from Season 1 Picard and other characters say things to the same effect many , many times the only consequentialists in the setting are stodgy old Vulcans who are not presented as the same kind of moral paragons as Picard et al . Trek ' s morality is very selfcentered and very much based on avoiding blame rather than producing good outcomes e . g . the Prime Directive . Every single Starfleet officer needs to take a good long look at Scott ' s Consequentialism FAQ . This , to me , makes the setting nonrational a good rationalist story can include a good rationalist deontologist character , but I find it hard to take that an entire enlightened civilization rejects consequentialism out of hand .