My thoughts on technobabble

[Lord Revan]

First of this is gonna be a long one so sit tight.

Now for starters we all know that technobabble isn't something solely found in Star Trek (nor is bad technobabble either), how ever I'm not gonna focus using technobabble in debates as Brian Young made an exelent vid about the that subject and I got frankly very little to add to that.

now what makes technobabble good or bad. The infamous "no lasers!" from the TNG episode "Outrageous Okana" is very way of demonstrating this as it can both good or bad depending how you interpit the dialoge, focus being on Riker's line "lasers can't penetrate even our navigational deflectors", now trektard fanatics like to interpit this as "no weapon with the word "laser" in their name can penetrate the nav deflectors regardless of yield" making the line bad technobabble as it gives the ship capabilities not demonstrated before or after and it also has a mild case of using excess words (a simple "the enterprise is immune to such weapons" would have been enough).

However if we're to assume that the bridge crew of the Enterprise-D aren't total idiots for who you have to explain even the minor details, the likely interpitation of Riker's line comes as "lasers mounted on a ship of that size can't penetrate even our navigational deflectors they simply don't have the power needed to do it"(the bolded red text parts being parts I added). This would be good technobabble as it gives the vital info without excess words nor does it assume that ship has capabilities it never demonstrate even when those capabilities could have saved the day.

more often then not, the so called "expert" or "scientist" characters seem to spout technical jargon even when it's not needed (or worse when clear easy to understand message is vital), this is one of the worse uses of techobabble because it a) enforses the sterotype that "intellectuals" live in their own world and cannot be related by the audience b)it's generally used to hide flaws in the script by making a character act like a total idiot. True scientist or engineers tend to use as simple language as possible when talking to someone who is unfamiliar with the subject but needs to understand some parts of it, that said regardless what hollywood tries to tell you scientist are people with their flaws so sometimes they can get angry or frustrated.

Another really bad use of technobabble is the "technobabble deus ex machina" where a problem is solved by scientific sounding jargon, this bad as it gives the idea that science is some sort of magic that "normal people" cannot understand even if they tried and that again scientist are some sort of freaks you as the audience cannot really relate to.

[Sarevok]

I never found technobabble bad except in VOY. But that's because the episodes were dull and boring not the made up terms.

[Lord Revan]

I never found technobabble bad except in VOY. But that's because the episodes were dull and boring not the made up terms.

trust me there's alot of bad scifi that has truly god afoul technobabble and even then the made up terms aren't really the problem but rather the dialoge being dull, overly complex, confusing and not all that effective, not to mention it being used to try to cover up flaws in the script, for example why does the device due X, well because of *insert multi-line scientific sounding monologe non-explanation* or how can we get out of this *insert multi-line scientific sounding monologe to cover up that you had no idea how solve this and desided to use writers fiat to save the characters*.

[khursed]

I never found technobabble bad except in VOY. But that's because the episodes were dull and boring not the made up terms.

trust me there's alot of bad scifi that has truly god afoul technobabble and even then the made up terms aren't really the problem but rather the dialoge being dull, overly complex, confusing and not all that effective, not to mention it being used to try to cover up flaws in the script, for example why does the device due X, well because of *insert multi-line scientific sounding monologe non-explanation* or how can we get out of this *insert multi-line scientific sounding monologe to cover up that you had no idea how solve this and desided to use writers fiat to save the characters*.

I just cringe whenever they use "focused neutrino beams" as a method of doing anything.

Might as well say "we equipped our tanks with styrofoam armor instead of the usual, because it sounded more cool".

[Number Theoretic]

As the OP already said, real-world scientis and engineers try to use a language that is a) simple and b) precise. Because no one likes to always explain something, there is domain-specific language. It depends on the content: if you look at any dialog and replace any "scientific-sounding" word by something completely different and it doesn't break the dialog, it's likely meaningless technobabble. But this must not be a bad thing. Sometimes, it's just there to create atmosphere.

[Batman]

I dunno. It's not unusual for people to get carried ayway when they're explaining how they're about to do something that pertains to their field of expertise. The fun part is that mostly, TNG if nothing else in Trek handled it the way the real world does-
Tech guy: *technobabble explanation*
Person with problem: 'Whatever. Just fix it.'
There's numerous occasions in TNG where they're discussing the Problem of the Week and Geordi/Data/Wesley start explaining in great detail how they're going to fix it by crossdressing the EPS conduits to look like a llama only it'd be purple in the antimatter universe and that's why only to be cut short by Picard/Riker asking 'Can you do it or not'. And that's fine. As NT said, the technobabble is just there to show that yep, this is the future, they have technology we don't.
I think a lot of the bad rep Trek has WRT technobabble is due to VOY, where it not only became a lot more prominent but also was flat out wrong as often as not. Toxic anti-matter residue and the crack in the event horizon come to mind. Or the pressure from a star's radiation threatening to physically collapse the hull.

[Lord Revan]

well true sometimes technobabble is used to build atmosphere or scope and frankly I got no problems with that but when you use during a crysis 1000000 words where only 10 would get your point across and you sound that you could just as well be talking about magical ponies that whole time for all the sense you did to the audience it's not good use of technobabble and yes I know people can get overly exited or carried away when talking about something they care, just look at the dialoge between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner during the first time they meet in the Avengers movie but the funny thing is that we can sort of follow their train of thought even if we don't know what they're talking about.

with bad technobabble it's like observing some mystical ceremony, you have no idea what's being done and you just have to trust "science" to solve it like it was an act of God

[lPeregrine]

There's no such thing as "good" technobabble, because technobabble is defined as meaningless technical-sounding words.

In your example "lasers on a ship that small and primitive won't be powerful enough to get through our navigational deflector" isn't technobabble at all. It makes perfect sense, uses all relevant scientific concepts correctly, and gives an informative explanation for what's going on. Granted, there's an element of writing skill involved in knowing when to give an explanation and when to just leave it at "they're weak, just ignore them", but there's nothing wrong about that statement in isolation.

The technobabble version would be something like "our navigational deflector will invert the frequency and create a quantum subspace wave that no laser can penetrate". It's a string of technical-sounding words whose sole purpose is to make an uninformed viewer think that a character is an expert, but without having to invest the effort in writing sensible dialogue. It gives us no insight into what's going on, and it's difficult to believe that it would give any insight to a character in that universe. It's bad when it appears at all, and it's really bad when the entire plot revolves around a meaningless string of words that might as well be "we wave our magic wand and the laser goes away" or "DSFLKJDSLFKGJLKDFJGLKFDJGLKJFDLKJGLKDFJGLKJFDLKGJLKFD LASER IS GONE".

And of course it only gets worse when the technobabble goes from merely nonsense to getting things obviously wrong, like "energy beings" or "cracks in the event horizon"...

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think that in order to have good technobabble (or what you might term tech-talk to distinguish it) it has to be written by someone who knows enough to avoid making glaring errors. Like the event horizon crack thing Batman mentioned.

After all, in order to lie convincingly you have to know something of the truth. I tihnk the same applies to technobabble.

[Sarevok]

No such thing as good technobabble. At best you can sprinkle some real science concepts to inspire viewers to learn more. This is what star trek did at its finest. Futurama also did the same with a lot of bleeding edge physics underneath the jokes that just makes a young viewed want to grab a book and read. This is what scifi should strive for to inspire people to know more.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hence why I said you can have good tech-talk as opposed to technobabble. The other alternative is method Stargate went with: use technobabble considerably but not take it seriously.

[Imperial528]

No such thing as good technobabble. At best you can sprinkle some real science concepts to inspire viewers to learn more. This is what star trek did at its finest. Futurama also did the same with a lot of bleeding edge physics underneath the jokes that just makes a young viewed want to grab a book and read. This is what scifi should strive for to inspire people to know more.

According to the definition of technobabble, yes, there is such a thing as good technobabble. It's defined as a mixture of jargon and technical terms in speech to the point that a layman wouldn't understand much, if not all, of what is being said. However, good technobabble makes sense to people who either work in the field, a field that uses similar jargon, or are familiar enough with it that they understand what is being said.

Of course with sci-fi the problem is that often the characters work in fictitious fields that come with their own fictitious jargon. That technobabble can be good when used to further enhance the atmosphere of the scene. For example, if the Captain is talking to the Chief Engineer about the warp core, you would expect some technical terms to appear there. Such technobabble becomes bad when it outright distracts from the scene and the character's conversation instead of adding to it. Or when they use real-world jargon the wrong way.

[Crazedwraith]

God, any long speech filled with technical jargon is technobabble in my book. And in most people's books. This 'must be meaningless' requirement is just pulled out your ass unless you've got an oxford english dictionary reference to back it up Ok i did thar search myself It says it must be incomprehensible but the context is clearly that its incomprehensible to a layperson not that it has to be actually meaningless

That's why you see the term treknobabble to denote the really useless Voyager style babble.

Stargate was filled with technobabble. Like Carter talking about blackholes. Usually it was either real science or their made up wormhole science. The Audio Commentaries claim Brad Wright and Amanda Tapping were actually real sticklers about doing science research so it made sense and Tapping knew what she was talking about.

[Lord Revan]

any long speech filled with technical jargon is technobabble in my book

this is the defination I'm using as well.

[Simon_Jester]

Let's not be too picky. Technobabble is the kind of word that's really only used informally, and it's usually a pejorative. Is it any wonder that there are people who think "technobabble" is always a bad thing by definition?

[mr friendly guy]

We can't forget the Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator now can we? At least that was clearly meant to be satire about technobabble though.

[Darth Wong]

As the OP already said, real-world scientis and engineers try to use a language that is a) simple and b) precise. Because no one likes to always explain something, there is domain-specific language. It depends on the content: if you look at any dialog and replace any "scientific-sounding" word by something completely different and it doesn't break the dialog, it's likely meaningless technobabble. But this must not be a bad thing. Sometimes, it's just there to create atmosphere.

I would prefer to say that real-world scientists and engineers tend to use language which is utilitarian. That means it's usually simple, but it also means it isn't necessarily precise, as least not in the sense that things are described fully. After all, if you're all working on something which involves a lot of toroidal magnets, you probably won't say "toroidal magnet" every time you mention them. I figure it wouldn't take too long before a bunch of engineers would start referring to them as "donuts". This is clearly not precise language, but it gets the job done, in context. It's also natural; this is the way real people talk.

[madd0ct0r]

real people also occasionally forget other's don't have their vocab:

"We've switched to R7crete over R28 so we can strip forms in about 3 days for cols and a week for slabs"

"We've switched to a fast setting concrete that lets us remove the form work earlier"

[Lord Revan]

real people also occasionally forget other's don't have their vocab:

"We've switched to R7crete over R28 so we can strip forms in about 3 days for cols and a week for slabs"

"We've switched to a fast setting concrete that lets us remove the form work earlier"

Of course they're just human after all and it's human to make mistakes, but there's a difference between sometimes forgetting you're talking to someone who doesn't understand the jargon and someone who always no matter how inappropiate or ineffecient it is, uses as much jargon as it's humanly possible and never simplifies his speech for people who might not understand him, even when it's absolutly vital that they understand him.

Wouldn't you agree on that?

[Darth Wong]

real people also occasionally forget other's don't have their vocab:

"We've switched to R7crete over R28 so we can strip forms in about 3 days for cols and a week for slabs"

"We've switched to a fast setting concrete that lets us remove the form work earlier"

Of course they're just human after all and it's human to make mistakes, but there's a difference between sometimes forgetting you're talking to someone who doesn't understand the jargon and someone who always no matter how inappropiate or ineffecient it is, uses as much jargon as it's humanly possible and never simplifies his speech for people who might not understand him, even when it's absolutly vital that they understand him.

Wouldn't you agree on that?

The crewmembers of a ship are all insiders. There is no need for verbose and precise explanations of things that they would mutually understand, so their jargon would be lazy, not over-technical like Star Trek jargon.

[madd0ct0r]

well the first sentence example was one that happened in real life(technical AND lazy), and was a construction manager talking to the company CEO.

CEO then asked for it in english.

[Darth Wong]

Fiction writers have long had a dramatic device for getting characters to explain themselves in plain English rather than jargon: the Dumb Character. The Dumb Character doesn't understand what's going on, so he has to ask the technical person to explain in layman's terms.

This would have worked fine in Star Trek as well, except that the writers in the TNG era and beyond all got the bizarre idea in their heads that every officer should be a jack of all trades and be able to talk to the engineering crew as if he's a technical expert on every system in the ship. Hence, the horrible technobabble, which lacked either the terse utilitarian informality of realistic insider talk or the plain-English usefulness of the Dumb Character explanation.

[Lord Revan]

Fiction writers have long had a dramatic device for getting characters to explain themselves in plain English rather than jargon: the Dumb Character. The Dumb Character doesn't understand what's going on, so he has to ask the technical person to explain in layman's terms.

This would have worked fine in Star Trek as well, except that the writers in the TNG era and beyond all got the bizarre idea in their heads that every officer should be a jack of all trades and be able to talk to the engineering crew as if he's a technical expert on every system in the ship. Hence, the horrible technobabble, which lacked either the terse utilitarian informality of realistic insider talk or the plain-English usefulness of the Dumb Character explanation.

Trek writers seem(ed) to have this strange notion that in order to be "a strong character" a character couldn't have any flaws, hence the exessive technobabble since no character couldn't have the "flaw" of not understanding everything.

[madd0ct0r]

except picard

[Vendetta]

Technobabble in the Star Trek sense has always been about one thing: Pretending that magic is science by using long words. It's not about explaining what's going on, it's about pretending to explain what's going on whilst actually delivering zero information to the audience, whilst what actually happens is just magic that solves or causes the problem of the week.

That's why there's no dumb character to explain stuff to, or mr. exposition who is smarter than everyone else and explains everything for the rubes, because the point is to obfuscate not explain.

The other sense that technobabble is used in is when it refers to a fixed but fictional technological concept. "Warp factor 9" is technobabble, but in that case it's technobabble that the audience actually does understand because it's a fixed and repeated concept that gets used repeatedly in the same context so the audience becomes familiar with what it means within the fiction.