Hard Star Trek

[Autistoid]

An exaple.

Ted the 54 year old machinist climbs the ladder slowly as sweat poors off his brow. Wheezing and deep breathing as his radiation detector keeps beeping with a bright red.

His senior leutenant asks him of status.

Angrily he takes his communicator dropping it down the 12 story shaft, knowing this is a oneway trip.

As he grips the ladder with one arm, his other arm shaking reaches into his holster grabbing his plasma cutters, as the control panel pops open.

In an effort to close the last remaining containment door, he blasted at the jammed piston, hoping the door soon shut close.

As he shakes and fights to keep his plasma cutter at the optimum angle, he states a general rule of thumb.

He rambles the metal, the thickness, and the depth per min as he spits out a mouth full of blood.

As the piston suddenly break free and the containment door pops shut, he droops over the ladder as his stomach wretches.

 

[fireproof78]

Thing is, in the original series bible, Roddenberry stated you weren't suppose to go into how the technology works. If I remember correctly, his analogy was: "Joe Friday doesn't stop to explain how a revolver .

If you look a few pages back that is exactly what I was also advocating;that nobody cares about whether there's traces of frozen Methan in the soil of some alien planet, but can be made to care about the people who look for it.

Also "fun"....well there's "fun" and "fun" and sometimes eve "fun" Are you advocating we should make Star Trek just for the people who like to see people getting shot and girls in miniskirts? With a "quip and everybody laughs ending" no matter how many people died during the storyline?

Every incarnation of Star Trek has its humour. TNG in particular had very funny/entertaining moments, though of course it was a different kind of humour than TOS. Not everybody considers two guys throwing slurs at each other or people endlessly spurting catch phrases "fun"

As I said, I do not consider the loose rules and now risks the only problems Voy and ENT had. You are very right, the characters of those incarnations were basically bloodless.
Let alone that with those two shows they were just making Star Trek in order to make Star Trek, not because they were inspired or wanted to.

And I was never, never ever advocating Grimdark, I hate Grimdark. However there is a whole scale between "Grimdark everything is hopeless" and "Rayguns and miniskirts! Cowboyplanet Episode!"
But I think that's the problem here, the twos ides in this thread both think the other more "extreme" in their wishes than they really are.

When people hear me advocating "harder rules" for the ST universe, they think I want a purely scientific show, when nothing could be further from the truth.
When I hear people say "Star Trek needs to be fun" my mind darts to stuff like the everybody laughs ending or the Gangster planet episodes, when they might not advocating something quite that silly.

On Limiting The Technology: A story needs to have limitations to have suspense and those limitations need rules and those rules need to be consistent. They don't need to be detailed to the point that the writers need to have an engineering degree, but they need to be internally consistent. Otherwise there is no suspense. Like in Voy where people just spouted techno babble and that counted as "action" and "fun"

In the X-Men everybody knows that Rogue can't touch people, it frequently leads to complications which cause drama. Telepaths in B5 were strictly limited in their abilities from individual to individual. Spock could only read minds if he secured a persona and then performed a difficult and taxing technique.

Troi's telepathy/empathy was never clearly defined and fluctuated from episode to episode -> que the writers whining about her powers making stories impossible and her being to hard to write.
Limiting things is important and it is important that the audience knows the limits.

Agree with most of what you said.

However there is a huge difference in technobabble and technical language.

Looking at breaking bad as an example, use technical terms your target audience is willingly interested in.

Saying there is CO2 nitrogen or Oxygen in a planets atmosphere is not going over your expected audiences head.

In fact it's almost the reverse, by using made up technobabble your showing the writers to be dumber than the average college student.

Of course I think the general rule is technical talk should fit what your average person may be familiar with.

I.e. we all know on some level what a fuel pump is.

By sticking to basic ideas that most 21st century audience understand there still can be some talk that is somewhat techlike.


That being said were talking about on the rare ocassion when it's directly relavent.

Examples.

Captain there is three inches of steel here, our cutters are gonna overheat before we get through it.

Captain there is way to much CO2 in this atmosphere.

Captain the fluid pump is stalling, there's no way we are gonna get that door open.

IF tng talk was thought up by theorectical physicists at MIT, we should use technical terms a plumber, carpenter or machinist from your local community college is familiar with.

It's a fine balancing act, to be sure. The terms and phrases should be something that the audience is familiar with but technobable often comes from using common "sciency words" (sarcasm here) that sound really official and mean absolutely nothing.

 

[Autistoid]

It's a fine balancing act, to be sure. The terms and phrases should be something that the audience is familiar with but technobable often comes from using common "sciency words" (sarcasm here) that sound really official and mean absolutely nothing.

I think the best rule, is the expert in the room should be someone with vocational skills(a skilled trade) rather than someone who's doing a masters in Physics.

Granted technobabble from the get go was just absolute babble.

I think by using more real life physics it's much easier to use simple and easy to understand type tech talk to convey something much more neatly.

 

[T'Girl]

IF tng talk was thought up by theorectical physicists at MIT, we should use technical terms a plumber, carpenter or machinist from your local community college is familiar with.

Or instead of employing the advise of a theoretical physicists simply have your writers consult with a plumber, or a carpenter, or a machinist.

Ultimately the warp drive is only a engine, the warp core is just a reactor, the turbo-lift little more than a elevator, quantum torpedoes are missiles and phasers are simply guns.

The majority of the audience, even without a science education, can figure out what is basically meant by a character ordering "shields."

If you (Autistoid) want to have a more hard science version of Trek, I think one of the important aspect of such a show would be not to draw attention to the fact that it is a more hard science show. The fact that hard science is being employed should never get past the writer's room, the audience watching the show will either pick up on it ... or not.

 

[Autistoid]

IF tng talk was thought up by theorectical physicists at MIT, we should use technical terms a plumber, carpenter or machinist from your local community college is familiar with.

Or instead employing the advise of a theoretical physicists simply have your writers consult with a plumber, or a carpenter, or a machinist.

Ultimately the warp drive is only a engine, the warp core is just a reactor, the turbo-lift little more than a elevator, quantum torpedoes are missiles and phasers are simply guns.

The majority of the audience, even without a science education, can figure out what is basically meant by a character ordering "shields."
.

Yes but people have no idea how to fix those things, or what can go wrong.

There based on convoluted abstractions.

Using a simple piston, or a fluid pump etc, gives a reference point that can be easily understood.

A jammed piston, send a guy in to fix cut it, etc.

 

[T'Girl]

Yes but people have no idea how to fix those things.

Is it your suggestion that none of "those things" be a part of the hero ship? No engines, no power sources, no weapons?

And let's face it, most people can't fix the drive belt on a clothes dryer.

 

[fireproof78]

Yes but people have no idea how to fix those things.

Is it your suggestion that none of "those things" be a part of the hero ship? No engines, no power sources, no weapons?

And let's face it, most people can't fix the drive belt on a clothes dryer.

*raises hand*

Yep, I can't.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm getting the impression that, in trying to eliminate technobabble, there is an elimination of the technology as well.

The idea of advancing technology is one of the core ideas of Star Trek, so I'm reluctant to eliminate it, or, by extension, offer simplified explanations for the sake of "the audience."

What I personally am for is establishing the technology, what it can do and what it can't do. You can do that without exposition, simply by putting the hero ship in a situation where it has to be pushed to its limits (Scotty's famous "I'm giving it all she's got, Captain!").

What does that tell us? That this tech, though powerful, is still limited.

I think it is a matter of establishing the tech rules, and limits and sticking with them. Internal consistency, when applied correctly, provides a fun experience, in my opinion.

Or I could be misunderstanding and that was all a waste.

 

[Autistoid]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm getting the impression that, in trying to eliminate technobabble, there is an elimination of the technology as well.

The idea of advancing technology is one of the core ideas of Star Trek, so I'm reluctant to eliminate it, or, by extension, offer simplified explanations for the sake of "the audience."

What I personally am for is establishing the technology, what it can do and what it can't do. You can do that without exposition, simply by putting the hero ship in a situation where it has to be pushed to its limits (Scotty's famous "I'm giving it all she's got, Captain!").

What does that tell us? That this tech, though powerful, is still limited.

I think it is a matter of establishing the tech rules, and limits and sticking with them. Internal consistency, when applied correctly, provides a fun experience, in my opinion.

Or I could be misunderstanding and that was all a waste.

Well this is the beauty of using harder science.

When you go with known technologies like nuclear, you can easily come up with simple techs that are easy to predict.

And useful for thinking up crisis and issues relating to plot.

I.e. Nuclear reactors require some form of heat dissipation.

Energy that is used cannot be easily stored, therefore it must be radiated into space.

The easiest way to do this, is with massive fluid pump.

A great plot would have the fluid pumps getting plugged, requiring some form of bypass.

Simple theory involving pumps and pipes, yet is relatively realistic.

 

[BillJ]

Well this is the beauty of using harder science.

When you go with known technologies like nuclear, you can easily come up with simple techs that are easy to predict.

And useful for thinking up crisis and issues relating to plot.

I.e. Nuclear reactors require some form of heat dissipation.

Energy that is used cannot be easily stored, therefore it must be radiated into space.

The easiest way to do this, is with massive fluid pump.

A great plot would have the fluid pumps getting plugged, requiring some form of bypass.

Simple theory involving pumps and pipes, yet is relatively realistic.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

 

[T'Girl]

A great plot would have the fluid pumps getting plugged, requiring some form of bypass.

That's not a "plot," that's ten seconds of dialog.

I think it is a matter of establishing the tech rules, and limits and sticking with them. Internal consistency, when applied correctly, provides a fun experience, in my opinion.

This, the idea that it all has to be open and fluid so the writers don't have to work too hard and can go anywhere they want is lame. So is the idea that the viewers aren't going to notice if they change basic premises every other week.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that there's going to be a certain amount of "making it up as we go." But once something is established, that should be it.

The idea of advancing technology is one of the core ideas of Star Trek, so I'm reluctant to eliminate it ...

Autistoid mentioned nuclear, nothing would have made me happier than if the 22nd century Enterprise had been powered with fusion reactors, and not a antimatter reactor. But fusion reactors would still have been technology more advanced than what we have now, hardly a simply system.

You can do that without exposition, simply by putting the hero ship in a situation where it has to be pushed to its limits

TOS very nicely informed the audience that the ship was pushing it by going over warp six, beyond that was some form of strain, it wasn't necessary to go into the exact nature of the strain. There was no dialog concerning warp envelopes, damping fields, structural integrity, it was just bad for the ship.

 

[Autistoid]

A great plot would have the fluid pumps getting plugged, requiring some form of bypass.

That's not a "plot," that's ten seconds of dialog.

I think it is a matter of establishing the tech rules, and limits and sticking with them. Internal consistency, when applied correctly, provides a fun experience, in my opinion.

This, the idea that it all has to be open and fluid so the writers don't have to work too hard and can go anywhere they want is lame. So is the idea that the viewers aren't going to notice if they change basic premises every other week.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that there's going to be a certain amount of "making it up as we go." But once something is established, that should be it.

The idea of advancing technology is one of the core ideas of Star Trek, so I'm reluctant to eliminate it ...

Autistoid mentioned nuclear, nothing would have made me happier than if the 22nd century Enterprise had been powered with fusion reactors, and not a antimatter reactor. But fusion reactors would still have been technology more advanced than what we have now, hardly a simply system.

You can do that without exposition, simply by putting the hero ship in a situation where it has to be pushed to its limits

TOS very nicely informed the audience that the ship was pushing it by going over warp six, beyond that was some form of strain, it wasn't necessary to go into the exact nature of the strain. There was no dialog concerning warp envelopes, damping fields, structural integrity, it was just bad for the ship.

Thats results in a full episode where the crew must keep the ship from overheating.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Don't get me wrong, I understand that there's going to be a certain amount of "making it up as we go."

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwhAq3F8NCE[/yt]

 

[T'Girl]

Thats results in a full episode where the crew must keep the ship from overheating.

Lieutenant:
"Captain Captain, one of the fifty coolant pumps is clogged."

Captain:
"Well pull your thumb out of your ass Lieutenant and fix it, I shouldn't have to tell you your job."

 

[Autistoid]

Thats results in a full episode where the crew must keep the ship from overheating.

Lieutenant:
"Captain Captain, one of the fifty coolant pumps is clogged."

Captain:
"Well pull your thumb out of your ass Lieutenant and fix it, I shouldn't have to tell you your job."

Captain are you out of your mind, fifty coolant pump, this ship has three. One was damaged with your little stunt with the romulans, the other was broken 6 months ago, but you insisted on bodly going far from a starbase.

A ship of this size can't be weighted down with backups captain, I'm an engineer not your mother.

 

[BillJ]

Captain are you out of your mind, fifty coolant pump, this ship has three. One was damaged with your little stunt with the romulans, the other was broken 6 months ago, but you insisted on bodly going far from a starbase.

A ship of this size can't be weighted down with backups captain, I'm an engineer not your mother.

But none of this is functionally different than what we see in Star Trek now. In "Mudd's Women", they crack the dilithium crystals projecting their shields around Harry Mudd's ship while it was in an asteroid field.

There was no need for long drawn out explanations like we got in later Trek. They point to the fact the Enterprise runs on crystals the size of a fist, they crack one and then lose the other en route to Rigel, without the crystals they don't have the power to leave orbit and will spiral down.

The fancy technobabble was a creation of the later shows. And it should die with them. Give the audience only what they need to know for the plot.

 

[T'Girl]

When in doubt, climb on top of the reactor and kick it a few times.

 

[fireproof78]

Captain are you out of your mind, fifty coolant pump, this ship has three. One was damaged with your little stunt with the romulans, the other was broken 6 months ago, but you insisted on bodly going far from a starbase.

A ship of this size can't be weighted down with backups captain, I'm an engineer not your mother.

But none of this is functionally different than what we see in Star Trek now. In "Mudd's Women", they crack the dilithium crystals projecting their shields around Harry Mudd's ship while it was in an asteroid field.

There was no need for long drawn out explanations like we got in later Trek. They point to the fact the Enterprise runs on crystals the size of a fist, they crack one and then lose the other en route to Rigel, without the crystals they don't have the power to leave orbit and will spiral down.

The fancy technobabble was a creation of the later shows. And it should die with them. Give the audience only what they need to know for the plot.

Yes.

There is limiting technobable, and there is limiting technological change. In all of the examples that have been given, all that has changed is the terminology being less made up. Ok, that's fine. But, that doesn't mean we don't have some hypothetical change in, say, nuclear power. As T'girl points out, it would be very simply for a starship to have a fission power plant, rather than an antimatter one.

However, in my opinion, with Star Trek at least (and not just science fiction) there will an imagining of technology that will fundamentally change the understanding of science, be it FTL, traveling through spatial dimensions (hyperspace), wormholes, etc.


Introducing fundamental changes or discoveries is science if part of what makes it fun. It is exploring changes to society because of the technological changes.

I think that well established ground rules of tech will force more character moments, where they have to respond to the technology, or don't because it is part of their world, and the technology itself is unremarkable.

 

[BillJ]

I think that well established ground rules of tech will force more character moments, where they have to respond to the technology, or don't because it is part of their world, and the technology itself is unremarkable.

Looking at this from more of a TOS perspective, I don't think the technology was ever used in a contradictory manner.

Yeah, we had Kirk saying they couldn't be beamed up without lowering the screens in "Arena" and Fox beaming down through the shields in "A Taste of Armageddon", but I'm not really sure how contradictory that really is. You can chalk it up to shields allowing outgoing energy waves while stopping incoming energy waves. Which would explain why they stop energy beams but the ship can still use its phasers.

Then we had a change in terminology for the crystals that power the Enterprise from Lithium to Dilithium after they found that Lithium was a real substance. But other than that, the technology came across as pretty consistent. Likely because they didn't delve too deeply into it.

It has always seemed weird to me how many people claim to love Star Trek but then want to change it from what it essentially is. Do Superman fans constantly complain about Kryptonite not being a real substance?

 

[Starborn Dragon]

I got curious and popped the question into Google. I came up with several discussion sites and...

Apparently some fans do complain about Kryptonite note being real.

I don't get it myself.

How can Kryptonite NOT be real when you have a guy that can move planets with his bare hands?

On the other hand, these could just people doing what they can to troll a thread and start junk.

 

[BillJ]

And, yes, I qualify Superman as science-fiction.