Science fiction uses scientific and technological hypotheses to portray human beings in conditions that do not yet exist. It explores what happens when the starting rules change and how the people who inhabit them react. Different currents coexist under the same label: space opera with its interplanetary scale, hard SF with scientific rigor at its core, biopunk on the body and genetic engineering, dystopia on power and control, first contact on the encounter between humanity and the alien. This section collects reading guides and pathways by genre.