TOS technobabble...

[scotpens]

It's been a long time since my college TV production classes, but I think it's a basic principle in filmmaking that stuff should be shown visually when possible, instead of explained in lengthy dialog or even with written titles on the screen.

Gene Roddenberry's point about technobabble was that, in real life, people don't stop to explain how their everyday tools work. For example, the opening scene of Forbidden Planet has some technical-sounding jargon which isn't explained to the audience because the characters know exactly what they're doing and what those terms mean. The alternative is to make a character the "designated idiot" -- the outsider who needs all the technical stuff explained for the audience's benefit, like the radioman in Destination Moon.

EDIT: I see Lance already covered much of the same territory.

 

[Nebusj]

Mostly, they just describe some weird thing that happened as ``magnetism''.

 

[scotpens]

TNG episodes (especially later in the run... and basically all of Voyager) Were often written in the following format:

RIKER:
What if we (tech)? Would that solve the problem?

DATA:
I am afraid not, sir. The (tech) would make that impossible.

LAFORGE:
Yeah, Data, but if we (tech) the (tech) and then we (tech), we just might have a shot!

...and the (tech) spots would be filled in later.

That would make a great game of Mad Libs.

 

[BillJ]

TOS had the opposite problem of technobabble: Whereas the later series used technobabble to explain things, TOS barely ever explained anything aside from "The tech just does what it does, don't bother asking how it works because you'll never get an answer".

Which is awesome because it allows people to exercise their imaginations and doesn't slow the story down.

 

[Kor]

^ Hear, hear.

Kor

 

[plynch]

In Berman Trek, it seems to me someone often says "We could..." or "Maybe a reverse polaron blabla. . ."

You can change channels at that point because . . .

They try it. It works.

So often when I try something it doesn't work and I have to go to plan C, F, K, whatever.

Maybe they should have just avoided all the ship-in-danger-so-use-technobabble plots and just done B plots, characters, ethics, issues. Or have the ship get damaged or destroyed occasionally.

 

[Warped9]

It's amusing to imagine how latter day Trek would have handled tech situations from TOS.

In "The Naked Time" Riley turned the main engines off. All Scotty said is that they couldn't mix matter and antimatter cold and that he needed thirty minutes. Spock mused that there was a possible formula for a cold intermix. That was it.

 

[Push The Button]

deleted

 

[Warped9]

I don't recall TOS Spock fixing a problem by throwing a switch or two.

 

[Wingsley]

^^^ ! ! !

SPOCK: It is similar to deflector panels I've seen, Captain, but far more complicated.

KIRK: Careful. I must have hit something accidentally. A beam caught me and that's when I stopped remembering.

SPOCK: Probably a memory beam. You must have activated it out of sequence.

KIRK: More symbols. Can you read them?

SPOCK: I do have an excellent eye for musical notes, Captain. They would seem to indicate that this series of relays activated in their proper--...

KIRK: Spock, just press the right button!

(Spock presses the middle button of a row of three, and other sections light up. A blue beam shoots out of the top of the obelisk and pushes the asteroid away.)

 

[Captain Rob]

I always wondered why if it only took pressing one button to make the thing work. What are all of the other buttons for? To activate the stupid memory beam that shouldn't even be there?

 

[Metryq]

don't bother asking how it works because you'll never get an answer".

Which is awesome because it allows people to exercise their imaginations and doesn't slow the story down.

In "The Naked Time" Riley turned the main engines off. All Scotty said is that they couldn't mix matter and antimatter cold and that he needed thirty minutes.

Scotty also said, "He's turned the engines off. Completely cold. It will take thirty minutes to regenerate them."

He didn't say "recharge" or "re-energize," he said "regenerate." Given freedom to speculate, that makes the engines sound like something non-structural—like a magnetic field—that the tangible structure is not the engine.

KIRK: Spock, just press the right button!

Kirk didn't want to be "flashy thinged" again.

 

[bbailey861]

I love TOS even more because of the lack of technobabble. I don't need to know how things work to the level of explanation often given in the later series. I just want a good character driven story about people I give a shit about. Tech may certainly be involved, but not to the degree where my brain starts to hurt. That never, ever, happened in TOS.

 

[xvicente]

TOS technobabble:

>This computer can enhance audio by a factor of ONE TO THE FOURTH POWER!

(and as I wrote that I remembered the gem "the intruder is emanating a force field of 12th power" "12th POWER!?!")

I lol, I lol....

 

[Marsden]

Which is awesome because it allows people to exercise their imaginations and doesn't slow the story down.

I love TOS even more because of the lack of technobabble. I don't need to know how things work to the level of explanation often given in the later series. I just want a good character driven story about people I give a shit about. Tech may certainly be involved, but not to the degree where my brain starts to hurt. That never, ever, happened in TOS.

+1! both of these.

 

[Kemaiku]

TOS technobabble:

>This computer can enhance audio by a factor of ONE TO THE FOURTH POWER!

(and as I wrote that I remembered the gem "the intruder is emanating a force field of 12th power" "12th POWER!?!")

I lol, I lol....

The point wasn't that V'ger could produce energy to the 12th power inside itself, it's that even the outermost layer of it's protective buddle, or warp field, was 12th power, was staggering.

In order to have something millions of miles away from a power reactor existing at the terrawatt level of power, the energy core needed would be many, many, MANY times more powerful than that again.

V'ger's energy source was so...godlike even, that even the most afterfthought radiative field of effect around it was more than all the power humans in the 23rd century had ever produced for 150,000 years was simple how it worked, and had worked, for thousands of years.

That's humbling, and frightening at the same time.

 

[Anwar]

Well, they never really explain just what "12th power" is. 12th to the power of what exactly? I mean, twelve to the power of 1 is...1.

Basically, TOS (and Doctor Who, sometimes) uses these made up terms to make things sound urgent and it's up to the actor to make it sound big even when it doesn't mean anything.

 

[Kemaiku]

I just assumed the standard 1e12 or 1,000,000,000,000 or 1 trillion watts/joules, of field strength at the perimeter.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

TOS technobabble:

>This computer can enhance audio by a factor of ONE TO THE FOURTH POWER!

I thought that was a howler for many years. But then I realized it could be shorthand for "one unit of loudness to the fourth power," and that makes enough sense to get by on.

 

[Ghrakh]

TOS had the opposite problem of technobabble: Whereas the later series used technobabble to explain things, TOS barely ever explained anything aside from "The tech just does what it does, don't bother asking how it works because you'll never get an answer".

It's like the difference between TNG Holodeck stories and TOS. In TNG they use the Holodeck to explain things like being in a Western, in TOS they just find "Gangster World" or "Roman World" or "Andy Griffith World".

Or they use Godlike beings to create everything they need for a plot like that.

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