> Yet no "hard" takes on artificial gravity come to mind.
Yeah, I’m just suggesting maybe there just haven’t been any hypothetical speculative physics concepts that could explain artificial gravity. At least with FTL we’ve got wormholes, the Alcubierre drive, zero-point energy, etc.
> any explanation would be difficult to work into an interesting narrative
With sci-fi people seem to like explanations of FTL well enough, both the soft fantastical kind and the hard speculative physics kind. I think artificial gravity just needs its own visual/conceptual equivalent to the going into hyperspace effect, or warping space, or stargate relays, etc.
But artificial gravity itself is indeed conceptually and perhaps literally “low” because it’s much more mundane than other aspects. You might as well explain it away by everyone wearing magnetized boots. Tractor beams / interdictors with gravity well projectors are neat, though.