What do you think are some of the worst examples of Treknobabble in the franchise?
And what series do you think does it poorly the most often?
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I’ll try extrapolating the verteron exovector (or something like that)
Harry Kim Voyager S1E1
Thanks, that sent me Googling. “KIM: I’ll try extrapolating the verteron exit vector. No, I can’t get it. There’s a strange phase variance in the radiation stream. We’ll have to wait until the probe exits.” Episode 6 (another wormhole?!) http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/106.htm
exit vector
Thanks, couldn’t remember the exact line
at least there’s only one word in there that makes it complete nonsense, “extrapolating a vector” sounds vaguely sensible, technobabble for “i’ll have a guess at where it’s headed”
I’m going through Voyager now and I feel like they do this nonsense more than any of the other Treks thus far.
The thing is that while the technobabble is just that, the process represents how engineering gets done better than most other ‘serious’ SF, albeit at compressed speed.
Voyager did a better job than any at showing how the thinking and problem-solving work gets done - which to me is more the point.
All this criticism seems to come from folks who’ve never seen nerds working in teams being nerds. They seem to want science FICTION to be locked down to concepts that someone with a mid 20th bachelor’s degree in science would know.
Whereas the real life scientists and engineers in my circle react more like Erin Macdonald did when she was working on her physics PhD and saw Voyager. She recognized the process and thought it was cool that some of the newer concepts in gravimetrics were referenced but didn’t sweat the small stuff.
