I don't think an ansible is "hard sci-fi". Hard sci-fi deals with known physics, and FTL communication violates that.

> which is about as hard sci-fi as you can get.

Interesting, I always thought that the modern interpretation is that hard sci-fi is "rooted in science" or close to it. The ansible (i.e. FTL communication) is, to our current knowledge, not possible. But it is such a useful plot device that it could be viewed as "close enough".

I understand the opposite of hard sci-fi to be the hand wavy "magic" stuff like photon torpedoes, teleportation, phasers, hyperspace, and so on.

How is it hard sci-fi? It was basically magic