Treknobabble
From Free net encyclopedia
Treknobabble is a portmanteau of "Star Trek" and "technobabble" (itself a portmanteau of "technology" and "babble").
It is used humorously by fans of the various Star Trek television series, and disparagingly by its critics, to describe the infamous amount of pseudoscientific gibberish packed into many episodes of these television series. The term has escaped Star Trek fandom (and anti-fandom) and has become more commonly used in contexts where useless and incorrect "technical" explanations are given, typically in situations involving various pseudosciences or in science fiction writing. Piller filler is a synonym, a derivative of producer Michael Piller's name.
Some fans of the show feel that treknobabble devices and phenomena are increasingly used as dei ex machinis in Star Trek, to the detriment of plot, drama and characterization. For example, an emotionally difficult problem such as whether or not to sacrifice the captain to save the ship is bypassed by a "focused tachyon field" which allows both to escape. Reportedly, writers on The Next Generation and later series would add the tag "<tech>" to portions of the script where they needed some jargon inserted, which would then be assembled by a different set of staff. This somewhat undermines the traditional role of science as the inspiration for plot in science fiction, although the show was always intended to be primarily drama in the space opera style rather than straightforward science fiction.
Another increasingly common use of this term has it applied to any in-depth discussion about Star Trek-related matters among fans.
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Examples of treknobabble
There are two possible sources for treknobabble: use of the actual item in the show itself as well as use of the term outside of its place of origin. Both are provided below.
Examples from episodes
- "Okay, Morta. The Enterprise computer system is controlled by three primary main processing cores cross linked with a redundant melacortz ramistat and fourteen kiloquad interface modules. The core elements are based on FTL nanoprocessor units arranged into twenty-five bilateral kelilactirals with twenty of those units being slaved to the central heisenfram terminal. . . . Now this is the isopalavial interface which controls the main firomactal drive unit. . . . The ramistat kiloquad capacity is a function of the square root of the intermix ratio times the sum of the plasma injector quotient. . . ."
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Rascals", Commander Riker 'describes' the functioning of the ship's computer to—and intentionally confuses—one of the Ferengi who commandeered the ship.
- "We've learned that if we uncouple the transporter's Heisenberg compensators and allow them to rescramble randomly, we can beam a holodeck object... or a person... off the grid."
- In the TNG episode "Ship in a Bottle", Captain Picard simulates technobabble to fool Professor Moriarty.
Examples from books
- "If we interplex the comm systems in both suits, we might be able to create a phased carrier wave. Voyager would read the signature and know it's from us." — Star Trek: Voyager, "Day of Honor" by Michael Jan Friedman and Jeri Taylor.
Some may consider all or part of various reference works, like the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, as Treknobabble.
Examples from other sources
This web site contains the following sentence when describing a presentation made by a telephone company, very clearly establishing use of the term in a situation which does not even peripherally involve Star Trek.
- "Treknobabble about the future of communication spews from concealed speakers [...]"
This MUCK introduction page, in giving an example of providing an object description says:
- "@desc sample thing=Upon looking at the Sample Thing you see that it is quite an intricate device. It consists of a subspace jargon emitter attached to a small phased matter rerouter, and you can count at least five Treknobabble modulation units around its perimeter."
Of particular interest in this example is the use of the term "treknobabble" in the middle of a block of text containing examples of what could plausibly be "treknobabble" from the television series itself, if, perhaps, a little over-the-top.
External links
- The Deeper Side of Trek: Technobabble — illustrates both uses of the term.
- Jay's Physics and Star Trek Page — perhaps the platonic ideal of someone trying to rationalise treknobabble.
- The Particles of Star Trek — "So tiny, you can't tell it's a deus ex machina!" A humorous look at the negative aspects of treknobabble as a plot device.
- Random Technobabble Generator — a treknobabble generator.sv:Treknobabble