New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 30 of 40

Thread: Treknobabble

  1. - Top - End - #1
    Orc in the Playground
     
    kraftcheese's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Australia

    Default Treknobabble

    Me and the girlfriend have been watching through Star Trek: Voyager and MAN oh man is the technobabble incomprehensibly bad. As an example, in the episode we're watching now they keep saying a disembodied psychic worm alien is showing "sporocystic life signs"; what in the world...? Spores + cysts = subspace worm?

    We watched through TNG before this and it wasn't as bad; they'd go over the top sometimes, but most of the time you could sort of follow what they were saying and it wasn't so goofy, but Voyager so far has just been filled with minute long speeches about reversing the phase inverters to initiate zeon pulses and the like.

    I feel like technobabble, when done well can actually bring something to a piece of media, but what do you folks reckon?
    Tales from the Trashcan

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Colossus in the Playground
     
    Eldan's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Switzerland
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    A sporocyst is a stage in the life cycle of trematode worms.
    Resident Vancian Apologist

  3. - Top - End - #3

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Star Trek Voyager really took Technobabble to new heights. I guess it was a backlash from TNG that often stayed Techo-light so that ''poor mom and pops'' could like and watch the show. TNG does have it's technobabble moments, but mostly it just sticks to ''human'' stories and the tech takes a way, way, way back seat to just 'force fields' or ''a light ray'' TNG also bent over backwards after telling you that ''we can adjust the decay rate of the atoms to leave a temporal trail'', and then saying ''people at home that is like leaving a trail of bread crumbs''. So ''normal folks'' would know about ''following bread crumbs home'', and could ignore the babble.

    DS9, at first also kept up the TNG babble light. But some Star Trek fans like more ''hard'' Sci Fi, so Voyager was an attempt to please them. And it did not work out so well....

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    SwashbucklerGuy

    Join Date
    Nov 2009

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by kraftcheese View Post
    I feel like technobabble, when done well can actually bring something to a piece of media, but what do you folks reckon?
    It is just meaningless filler. If it is just a string of random scientific sounding words, why bother saying it? Compare older Trek with newer Trek: In the older episodes every device had its purpose and only its purpose because that was what is important to the plot. The heroes had a well defined set of tools at their disposal and they could either work out a solution using those, or they had to come up with a completely different approach. If phasers did not work on the problem of the week, they did not work. Period. There was no re-modulating them to make them stronger. What would be the point of that, plot-wise? Either the heroes can use force or they cannot. In later episodes they would spend a minute to explain all the details, using ultimately meaningless descriptions, because they either had to pad out the episode or because they had too many characters on the show and actor XYZ still needed some lines this week.

    You can see in later seasons of DS9 that they re-embraced the idea of only conveying plot-relevant information and consciously avoided this kind of technobabble, even poked fun at it. Whereas Voyager really loved the technobabble. If I remember correctly there were some Voyager episodes where they even "solved" the plot by using technobabble. Which is probably the worst kind of technobabble as it renders the plot completely meaningless. Nothing is learned and the audience just wasted 40 minutes watching "A wizard did it".

    Also, quite often, this kind of technobabble introduces dangerous plot elements. Once you have established that the deflector dish can do basically anything, you either have to ignore continuity, or you have to justify in each episode why they do not just re-configure the deflector dish to solve the problem of the week.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Draconi Redfir's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Gobbotopia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    voyager is my favourite trek personally.

    yeah it has some flaws and some missed oppertunities, but it's entertaining.
    Avy by Thormag
    Spoiler
    Show


  6. - Top - End - #6
    Colossus in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    right behind you

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Its basically the only series I have watched from start to finish. I have watched large swaths of tng and ds9, and I absolutely love both of those, (especially ds9, awesome characters there) but voyager was the only series I really stuck with for some reason. probably a combination of timing and availability. Agreed, it has a lot of flaws, but it was still an enjoyable storyline overall.
    "Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
    Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."

    Quote Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama View Post
    Traab is yelling everything that I'm thinking already.
    "If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Kitten Champion's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2012

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    Its basically the only series I have watched from start to finish. I have watched large swaths of tng and ds9, and I absolutely love both of those, (especially ds9, awesome characters there) but voyager was the only series I really stuck with for some reason. probably a combination of timing and availability. Agreed, it has a lot of flaws, but it was still an enjoyable storyline overall.
    That was much the same reason I watched it. It was on 5 days a week around the hour when the only alternatives were the local news or game shows. This in an era before Netflix and PVR. I probably would have dropped it anyways if not for the fact that Robert Picardo was deeply enjoyable most of the time and the CGI and make-up design were pretty on point.

    The first two seasons especially felt so tepid and predictable that I honestly wondered if they were just taking early TNG scripts out of storage and editing into Voyager. I also didn't really know what the Maquis were... and that honestly remained true for years despite Maquis characters featuring prominently in the main cast.

    Compare that to DS9 where the first time I saw it was during summer holidays around 3 in the morning on a Sunday followed immediately by one of those hours-long commercials for a phone sex hotlines where they played wallpaper music to images of women posing in bikinis. That episode happened to be in the beginning of season 6 where the Dominion War was central, and I had no clue what was going on and who these Jem'Hadar were and I was hella intrigued. I was pretty damned frustrated that - as things stood at the time - I'd never find out.

    Anyways, Trek technobabble is kind of white noise for me. The worst I can recall was "Heroes & Demons" - where Harry Kim decides to play a Beowulf scenario for some reason and gets kind-of-killed-temporarily by a light alien thingy before the episode begins and the Doctor must go in to save him - because it was like 10% of the episode's run-time that could have been used on really anything else instead, was obviously nonsensical even if you've only vaguely heard of science before, repeated itself, and also contradicted itself if you were to spend time to decipher it.

    Though admittedly it does have this kind of charming quality about it because the actors actually tried to sound sincere through it, which must be hard to do when you've got a mad-lib word salad of a script -- so props on that.
    Last edited by Kitten Champion; 2017-05-08 at 08:21 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Rynjin's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2016

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    The first two seasons especially felt so tepid and predictable that I honestly wondered if they were just taking early TNG scripts out of storage and editing into Voyager.
    Wonder no more: They were, sometimes. There's quite a few episodes in all the seasons that are retooled from rejected TNG scripts.
    Last edited by Rynjin; 2017-05-08 at 08:31 PM.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Cikomyr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Montreal
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Draconi Redfir View Post
    voyager is my favourite trek personally.

    yeah it has some flaws and some missed oppertunities, but it's entertaining.
    Voyager was an unambitious, coward project written by lazy hack writers who didnt cared about their character except when they had huge tits on display. The series refused to actually be about anything and mostly threw the majority of its starting premise out of the window.

    That doesnt change the fact that i know many people who really enjoyed it, and i see no reason to think they are wrong for enjoying it. So i am happy it brings you joy; for me its brought only frustration.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    Star Trek Voyager really took Technobabble to new heights. I guess it was a backlash from TNG that often stayed Techo-light so that ''poor mom and pops'' could like and watch the show. TNG does have it's technobabble moments, but mostly it just sticks to ''human'' stories and the tech takes a way, way, way back seat to just 'force fields' or ''a light ray'' TNG also bent over backwards after telling you that ''we can adjust the decay rate of the atoms to leave a temporal trail'', and then saying ''people at home that is like leaving a trail of bread crumbs''. So ''normal folks'' would know about ''following bread crumbs home'', and could ignore the babble.

    DS9, at first also kept up the TNG babble light. But some Star Trek fans like more ''hard'' Sci Fi, so Voyager was an attempt to please them. And it did not work out so well....
    One of the thing i loved most about DS9 is that sometimes they would bring up the hackened Technobabble plot; only for it to fail. Technobabble is not a Deus Ex Machina, but instead a crutch the characters shouldnt rely on.

    "Hey! We design Polaron Particles Emitters that will destabilize Gowron Changeling's molecular structure!" --> the plan fails miserably, and the resolution centers around Odo's deductive skill and his character growth

    "Hey! To stop the imminent invasion, we will remodulae the station's deflector array to send an inversed Tachyon beam that will close the Wormhole without damaging the Prophets" --> the plan fails miserably, actually reinforces the wormhole so it can never, ever be closed.

    "Look! We found a way to detect a Changeling because of the Iniodic Radiations that were left on anyone who sabotaged the Engines" --> okay, this one worked. But it did jack squat against the Changeling who instantly escaped.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Orc in the Playground
     
    kraftcheese's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Australia

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    I still stand by the idea that when technobabble about a fake particle is simple enough to follow the conclusion of a character, or based on something real scientifically, TNG has made it work; I just haven't felt that way in VOY (so far; still enjoying it though!)

    I'm happy that they dial down the babble in DS9 because I'm really looking forward to watching it after VOY; I really liked all the Maquis/Bajoran/Cardassian eps of TNG.

    One thing I'm really surprised about with VOY is the production value of costumes and makeup with a lot of the aliens.

    Sure, you've still got lots almost-human looking aliens, but they at least make an effort to give them body paint or more prosthetics than the Bajorans or those aliens that were just humans with a white streak in their hair from that one TNG episode.
    Tales from the Trashcan

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Colossus in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    right behind you

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Voyager had a LOT of ruined potential for character growth. Its like they wanted both worlds, the episodic nature of tng where 95% of what happens has no effect on future episodes, and the great overarcing storyline and character growth of ds9. I mean just look at the doctor as an example. This guy goes through a LOT from forming a career outside of medicine, creating a holographic family, falling in love with a couple of flesh and blood types, and is constantly on a mission to make himself more lifelike through little things like trying to make it possible to daydream. And yet in the end where does it all lead? He is still nothing but the doctor, still stuck in the medical lab unless the episode requires him to leave briefly, and really only minimally changed. That hologram family episode was AMAZING. It was powerful, dramatic, meaningful. Then it all just goes away and is never seen nor heard from again.

    Most of the characters had at least a few episodes like that. Episodes that would dramatically alter a character, or allow them to grow as a person only to be forgotten by the next episode. How about the one where neelix and tuvok were in a transporter accident that merged them together? In the end they learned valuable lessons about each others outlook, and we saw a thaw in how they got along. Then the next episode rolled around and its never mentioned again. The closest we got was the paris/belanna pairing. And of course seven of nine.
    "Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
    Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."

    Quote Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama View Post
    Traab is yelling everything that I'm thinking already.
    "If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Cikomyr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Montreal
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by kraftcheese View Post
    I still stand by the idea that when technobabble about a fake particle is simple enough to follow the conclusion of a character, or based on something real scientifically, TNG has made it work; I just haven't felt that way in VOY (so far; still enjoying it though!)

    I'm happy that they dial down the babble in DS9 because I'm really looking forward to watching it after VOY; I really liked all the Maquis/Bajoran/Cardassian eps of TNG.

    One thing I'm really surprised about with VOY is the production value of costumes and makeup with a lot of the aliens.

    Sure, you've still got lots almost-human looking aliens, but they at least make an effort to give them body paint or more prosthetics than the Bajorans or those aliens that were just humans with a white streak in their hair from that one TNG episode.
    Complex makeup is easier to do for a 1-shot specie with 6 people you will ever see, for ONE episode.

    Compare to doing the makeup of potentially up to 150 extras for a specie, Witt a minimum of 20 per episode that will be your series' staple for a series that will initially have huge budgetary limitations.

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Orc in the Playground
     
    kraftcheese's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Australia

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    Complex makeup is easier to do for a 1-shot specie with 6 people you will ever see, for ONE episode.

    Compare to doing the makeup of potentially up to 150 extras for a specie, Witt a minimum of 20 per episode that will be your series' staple for a series that will initially have huge budgetary limitations.
    That's fair; I more meant the one shot species in VOY usually have better makeup and costumes imo than most one shots in TNG.
    Tales from the Trashcan

  14. - Top - End - #14

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by kraftcheese View Post
    That's fair; I more meant the one shot species in VOY usually have better makeup and costumes imo than most one shots in TNG.
    Well, a good half of TNG used ''old stuff that was laying around the studio lot''. And a lot the rest were just simple things like robes. And TNG encounters a lot of ''look exactly like humans'' alien races.

    VOY is at the end of a long line of the same production teams, so they had a lot of time to refine things and get them right. So you see a lot better make up and costumes.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    GreataxeFighterGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2008

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    Voyager was an unambitious, coward project written by lazy hack writers who didnt cared about their character except when they had huge tits on display.
    I can't really agree that it was unambitious. IMO, it was actually a very ambitious premise, but it did nothing to live up to its promise. OTOH, I will agree that it often had hack writing, which was a very big part of the problem.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Cikomyr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Montreal
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by dps View Post
    I can't really agree that it was unambitious. IMO, it was actually a very ambitious premise, but it did nothing to live up to its promise. OTOH, I will agree that it often had hack writing, which was a very big part of the problem.
    Unambitious execution?

    You are right that it had an ambitious premisce. But it wont get any point from me since they were too coward and unambitious writers to ever actually do something with that premisce.

    You never get points for what you claim were youe objectives; only if you actually met them. And Voyager was ran from day 1 like they didnt cared about their own premisce, and did everything they could to play it as safe as possibe; to the point of undermining their own characters.

  17. - Top - End - #17
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Legato Endless's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    Twin Cities, Minnesota

    wink Re: Treknobabble

    Techobabble is fine if it's being used for ambiance, when it's being used to resolve anything major and not acting as extension of characters or theme then you're in trouble. When Geordi and Scotty argue through techobabble it's good episode work, because it's used to show the differences between the men and how Scotty is having trouble adapting to a galaxy that seems to have left him behind.

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    Voyager had a LOT of ruined potential for character growth. Its like they wanted both worlds, the episodic nature of tng where 95% of what happens has no effect on future episodes, and the great overarcing storyline and character growth of ds9.
    Which is odd because character growth is the one thing that doesn't reset after the credits roll in TNG. Whereas all bets favored the status quo despite whatever happened on VOY. Even if people were considering a full blown mutiny five minutes before the episode ends.

  18. - Top - End - #18
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Joran's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post

    One of the thing i loved most about DS9 is that sometimes they would bring up the hackened Technobabble plot; only for it to fail. Technobabble is not a Deus Ex Machina, but instead a crutch the characters shouldnt rely on.
    Except for that one time the Federation managed to mine the entrance to the wormhole with cloaked, self-replicating mines. Then when that failed, there was a literal deus ex machina.

    Also, DS9 had one of the more clever forms of applied Federation technology: a sniper rifle with a scope that could see through walls and a mini-teleporter at the end which would teleport the bullet. Too bad they never really addressed all the ramifications if this thing could exist and be replicated.

    P.S. My favorite fan theory of why everything technology/spacial/etc goes nuts in Star Trek (the humans are the Doc Browns of the galaxy): https://imgur.com/gallery/wpZ4w (warning: language)

  19. - Top - End - #19
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Draconi Redfir's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Gobbotopia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Had voyager been able to focus more on the trip home back to earth, and the struggles therein, it could have had a decent overarching plot. It had some good recurring alien threats such as the medical Vidiians, the barbaric everything-held-together-with-duct-tape Kazon, the ruthless hunter-society Hirogen, and the "Year of Hell" Krenim.

    Had those aliens been focused on for longer arcs as season-long enemies, it could have been neat. they encounter the alien of the season, deal with them, struggle with them, defeat, bypass, or change them (such as giving the Hirogen hologram technology to allow them to continue the hunt while still growing as a society) and other such things.

    Guy by the name of SFDebris had an interesting idea for the "Year of Hell" story arc, which was sadly split into only two episodes. in the year of hell arc Voyager travels through the space of the heavily armed Krenim, who posess time-based technologies Voyager can't deal with. Many are lost, and Janeway needs to make a hard decisions just to survive. in the end, the whole thing it ret-conned out via treknobabble, a giant shockwave being sent out to un-do the year and make it a relatively peaceful trip.

    just before that happened however, Voyager had to lower a shield that was protecting them from the ret-coning powers of the Krenim. Had that shield remained just a little bit longer in it's source section, and had Harry Kim been inside that room at the time, there could have been potential for a good ammount of character growth for the under-utilized ensign. suddenly he's a war-torn man with knowledge of things the crew and captain would "never do", because they did do them, when all hope was lost and they had to do something.

    But ehh, just a few of many missed opportunities i suppose.
    Avy by Thormag
    Spoiler
    Show


  20. - Top - End - #20
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
    Feb 2017

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    I don't care much about technobabble if it's for the atmosphere. The federation crews in the next generation era consist mostly of scientists and engineers. In reality somebody from 1700 could not or only barely follow a discussion about transportation, weather forecasts or politics today.
    But as already mentioned, it becomes annoying when it was used to solve the plot's main problem. Over time Enterprise and Voyager would have been really powerful if they just remembered the new field of science they developed two weeks ago. But single episodes where written by different writers who had obviously no idea what had happened to the characters and especially to the technology.
    Also annoying when they missed an easy technical solution. The random phaser frequencies worked against the Borg until they adapted to the algorithm. In school whe build an electronic dice that gave numbers depending on how many milliseconds the button is pushed.I don't know how the Borg would have adapted to that.

  21. - Top - End - #21
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Cikomyr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Montreal
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Joran View Post
    Except for that one time the Federation managed to mine the entrance to the wormhole with cloaked, self-replicating mines. Then when that failed, there was a literal deus ex machina.
    2 points to address here:

    1- claiming that the cloaked self-realicating mines were Technobabble.

    They werent. They used and intelligently combined technological staple of the show we have seen over the period of more than 10 years. The entire scene they set those up never use a single word of madeup jargon except words that are used to describe a sci-fi concept ("cloaked", "replicating"), etc.

    Technobabble would have been "creating a subspace tachyon field that would disrupt the nedyon emission from any warp core sufficiently, blowing the ship up"

    THAT would have been technobabble. The mines were actually an okay tech plot.

    2- the Prophets were NOT a Deus Ex Machina. The show had already established on multiple occasions:

    A- the Prophets as superpowerful aliens that are beyond our comprehension
    B- the Prophet's interest in Bajor
    C- the Prophet's connection to Sisko as their Emissary.

    So having Sisko go and make a plea for their intervention was NOT a case of Deus Ex Machina, which is:

    Quote Originally Posted by Wikipedia
    The term has evolved to mean a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object.
    There was nothing unexpected or new about the Prophets. For hell's sake, there was an entire scene in the previous episode about Sisko mulling over Bajoran Prophecies.

    Doesnt mean you have to like it. But it is NO MORE a Deus Ex Machina than Yawhe's Column of Fire/Parting of the Sea was a Deus Ex Machina in The Ten Commandments.

  22. - Top - End - #22
    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2010

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    2 points to address here:

    1- claiming that the cloaked self-realicating mines were Technobabble.

    They werent. They used and intelligently combined technological staple of the show we have seen over the period of more than 10 years. The entire scene they set those up never use a single word of madeup jargon except words that are used to describe a sci-fi concept ("cloaked", "replicating"), etc.

    Technobabble would have been "creating a subspace tachyon field that would disrupt the nedyon emission from any warp core sufficiently, blowing the ship up"

    THAT would have been technobabble. The mines were actually an okay tech plot.
    Agree that it wasn't technobabble since they didn't even explain how the mines actually worked. I can't agree they were an ok tech device though since something like that would have been the most ridiculously destructive and overpowered weapon ever created. Why send a fleet into Dominion space? Go somewhat outside their defense radius. Drop a couple of mines off and have them just replicate until the entire system is just full of mine.

    There was nothing unexpected or new about the Prophets. For hell's sake, there was an entire scene in the previous episode about Sisko mulling over Bajoran Prophecies.
    It was unexpected that they'd be able and were willing to take out the Dominion reinforcement fleet. I mean hell Sisko could have gone to them right as the station was going to get taken and done that. Instead the way it's presented as pretty much out of nowhere he'd go to the wormhole and hope it works, which it did. If it was their plan to begin with sure, but this was literally out of nowhere since their plan had failed.

  23. - Top - End - #23
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Joran's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    2 points to address here:

    1- claiming that the cloaked self-realicating mines were Technobabble.

    They werent. They used and intelligently combined technological staple of the show we have seen over the period of more than 10 years. The entire scene they set those up never use a single word of madeup jargon except words that are used to describe a sci-fi concept ("cloaked", "replicating"), etc.

    Technobabble would have been "creating a subspace tachyon field that would disrupt the nedyon emission from any warp core sufficiently, blowing the ship up"

    THAT would have been technobabble. The mines were actually an okay tech plot.

    2- the Prophets were NOT a Deus Ex Machina. The show had already established on multiple occasions:

    A- the Prophets as superpowerful aliens that are beyond our comprehension
    B- the Prophet's interest in Bajor
    C- the Prophet's connection to Sisko as their Emissary.

    So having Sisko go and make a plea for their intervention was NOT a case of Deus Ex Machina, which is:



    There was nothing unexpected or new about the Prophets. For hell's sake, there was an entire scene in the previous episode about Sisko mulling over Bajoran Prophecies.

    Doesnt mean you have to like it. But it is NO MORE a Deus Ex Machina than Yawhe's Column of Fire/Parting of the Sea was a Deus Ex Machina in The Ten Commandments.
    Ah, sorry, I didn't mean "Deus Ex Machina" in the pejorative sense, but instead as a literal intervention of the Gods. It was really well done and I liked that scene a lot.

    I was annoyed at the self-replicating mines, because I could have sworn that replicators couldn't replicate anti-matter and I assume the warheads on those mines are matter/antimatter. Cloaking and replicating are concepts already introduced in Star Trek, but being able to self-replicate a cloaking device, replicator, warhead, sensors all in one-meter wide package without use of an external power source seemed like a leap beyond what we were told were possible with the technology in Star Trek and would have a greater impact on the setting.

    That said, you're right that it's definitely not at the level of "inverse the polarity of the deflector dish and fire a tachyon beam" kind of solution and not meaningless technobabble.
    Last edited by Joran; 2017-05-15 at 11:39 AM.

  24. - Top - End - #24
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Cikomyr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Montreal
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Chen View Post
    It was unexpected that they'd be able and were willing to take out the Dominion reinforcement fleet. I mean hell Sisko could have gone to them right as the station was going to get taken and done that. Instead the way it's presented as pretty much out of nowhere he'd go to the wormhole and hope it works, which it did. If it was their plan to begin with sure, but this was literally out of nowhere since their plan had failed.
    But it wasnt Sisko's plan form the beginning. It was literally a Hail Mary pass, a desperate last resort.

    But didnt had to. The writers didnt backed themselves into a corner to come up with a "save the day" convenience thay will never have consequences again.

    Instead, they made pretty clear that Rom could have sabotaged the Station's entire weapon array just in time to save the minefield. But thr Writers WANTED Sisko to make a leap of faith and a plea to the Prophets. This plot point was all about character growth for Sisko.

  25. - Top - End - #25

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Joran View Post
    I was annoyed at the self-replicating mines, because I could have sworn that replicators couldn't replicate anti-matter and I assume the warheads on those mines are matter/antimatter.
    I don't think any Trek show has ever said ''we can't replicate anti matter'' . It would seem that if you can replicate matter, you could also replicate anti matter.

    Though it is possible the mines had some other from of explosive too.


    Quote Originally Posted by Joran View Post
    Except for that one time the Federation managed to mine the entrance to the wormhole with cloaked, self-replicating mines. Then when that failed, there was a literal deus ex machina.

    This is a very good example of a literal deus ex machina. And it is very artificial and forced.

    You get the arc episodes at the end of the season and that start of the next...the fall of DS9 to the Dominion and the (2nd) occupation. However, you have the problem that it is a Star Trek show. So you have at least half, maybe more of the creators of the show screaming that they can't do there own ''very special episode'' as ''the dumb arc'' has ''messed everything up.'' The ''message zealots'' want to use the show to ''rip a story from the headlines'', and ''give it a unique spin'' and then ''put forth their own awesome one sided solution'' . But, again, this is at least half the Star Trek creators...and fans, for that matter. And you can't have ''very special message shows'' in the middle of a war arc(as they scream that Roddenberry would never have done a war arc too). So the ''war hawk'' creators got only a couple shows to do their ''war arc'', and then it was demanded that they hit the reset button and go back to normal ''very special message shows''. And as you see just about the whole middle and end of season 6 is just ''normal stories'', with a ''what war? Oh, um, yes it is still on going, um way over there...now forget about the war and watch our very special message show''.

    So you get the War Arc for a couple shows at the start of the season, but they have the hard limit of ''at the end of Sacrifice of Angels, you must hit the reset button and drop the war arc so we can do our very special message shows.'' But the War Hawks had written themselves into a corner....how could they do all that in just the last act of one episode.

    And they had only one choice: deus ex machina.

    1.First is was so dumb for the Wormhole Aliens to just ''suddenly'' protect Bajor. Oh, sure they, um, watched over it during the Cardassian Occupation and did not lift a finger against the Dominion for several seasons...but, now, suddenly, for no reason they act. Sure....

    2.So....at the time the dominion and Bajor have a treaty. They are friends. Yet Sisko lies and is like ''they will destroy Bajor!'' And gets the wormhole aliens to fall for this lie. As if the fleet of Dominion ships would zip through the wormhole and be like ''destroy Bajor!''. Sure, why would they join the battle and wipe out the Alpha Quadrant allegiance...

    3.So um Rom ''turns off DS9's phasers'' so they can't take out the mines....and um, somehow turns off all the stations weapons too....wow, amazing work.

    4.The scene before the Defiant gets to the station we see plenty of Dominion ships around the station, but when the Defiant zips over....there is not a single Dominion warship anywhere? Oh, guess they were all sent into battle? That is how you do ''a battle'' right? You never keep any ships protecting your base. And yet...low and behold...when the Dominion evacuates just a couple of minutes later...there are plenty of ships around for them to use.

    They just needed to end the occupation quick....the goofy Worf wedding was next week...lol

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Pex's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2013

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by joran View Post

    p.s. My favorite fan theory of why everything technology/spacial/etc goes nuts in star trek (the humans are the doc browns of the galaxy): https://imgur.com/gallery/wpz4w (warning: Language)
    hahahahahahaha
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

  27. - Top - End - #27
    Dwarf in the Playground
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Personally, I feel Technobabble has a similar role to that of ki/magic/whatever in Martial Arts Movies. It is there to explain anything cool that the characters do, and should usually be pretty simple such as JJBA's Harmon which boiled down is more or less "It kills vampires, and you can also send it through a lot of things". So there is a needed amount of technobabble to explain say how teleported through shields when they normally can't, or something like that. But unless it contradicts already established rules. It generally shouldn't be needed.
    I prefer a keg of beer!

  28. - Top - End - #28
    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2010

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    I don't think any Trek show has ever said ''we can't replicate anti matter'' . It would seem that if you can replicate matter, you could also replicate anti matter.

    Though it is possible the mines had some other from of explosive too.
    Probably very niche when you'd want to replicate anti-matter. Presumably it would take more energy than you'd get out of using the anti-matter not to mention you'd have to have special containment so that when you replicated it, it didn't just react with the matter around and explode. There are presumably big anti-matter facilities that create the stuff to be sent off on starships so replicating it should still be possible.

  29. - Top - End - #29
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Cikomyr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Montreal
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    This is a very good example of a literal deus ex machina. And it is very artificial and forced.
    Its a Divinely-based resolution to the plot. But its not "Deus Ex Machina" in the least.

    And its perfectly natural within the show's premise, and was an integral part of Sisko's character development path he was set on SINCE THE BLOODY PILOT

    You get the arc episodes at the end of the season and that start of the next...the fall of DS9 to the Dominion and the (2nd) occupation. However, you have the problem that it is a Star Trek show. So you have at least half, maybe more of the creators of the show screaming that they can't do there own ''very special episode'' as ''the dumb arc'' has ''messed everything up.'' The ''message zealots'' want to use the show to ''rip a story from the headlines'', and ''give it a unique spin'' and then ''put forth their own awesome one sided solution'' . But, again, this is at least half the Star Trek creators...and fans, for that matter. And you can't have ''very special message shows'' in the middle of a war arc(as they scream that Roddenberry would never have done a war arc too). So the ''war hawk'' creators got only a couple shows to do their ''war arc'', and then it was demanded that they hit the reset button and go back to normal ''very special message shows''. And as you see just about the whole middle and end of season 6 is just ''normal stories'', with a ''what war? Oh, um, yes it is still on going, um way over there...now forget about the war and watch our very special message show''.

    So you get the War Arc for a couple shows at the start of the season, but they have the hard limit of ''at the end of Sacrifice of Angels, you must hit the reset button and drop the war arc so we can do our very special message shows.'' But the War Hawks had written themselves into a corner....how could they do all that in just the last act of one episode.
    Funnily, all of your criticism there can be laid down at the feet of Rick Berman, who was thr armchair producer of the series; instead of the actual producers of DS9. The writers WANTED changes to the status quo. They wanted extended story arcs and significant war moments.

    We are lucky the show's creators managed tl get what we got. If you want to understand why Voyager and Enterprise sucked, you have to understand that Rick Berman had a more active hand in its production.

    And they had only one choice: deus ex machina.
    No they didnt. Like I said, they could have had Rom save the monefield just in time.

    1.First is was so dumb for the Wormhole Aliens to just ''suddenly'' protect Bajor. Oh, sure they, um, watched over it during the Cardassian Occupation and did not lift a finger against the Dominion for several seasons...but, now, suddenly, for no reason they act. Sure....
    This is a stupid criticism. The Prophets could see the future. It is so easy to explain that the Prophets understood that the Cardassian Occupation would end and that it shaped Bajor in the right direction; while a Dominion occupation would end in complete genocide.

    2.So....at the time the dominion and Bajor have a treaty. They are friends. Yet Sisko lies and is like ''they will destroy Bajor!'' And gets the wormhole aliens to fall for this lie. As if the fleet of Dominion ships would zip through the wormhole and be like ''destroy Bajor!''. Sure, why would they join the battle and wipe out the Alpha Quadrant allegiance...
    Everyone knew that the only reason the Dominion kept its end of the bargain regarding nonaggression treaties was because they didnt had the forces in the Alpha Quadrant to take on everyone at the same time. So they divided and conquered; having people seeing that the Dominion was true to its word with Bajor meant they had no reason to intervene in the war againt them. This was clearly established in the show; were you paying attention?

    And yet, the moment the extra 2,800 ships crossed over, the Dominion/Cardassian alliance could take over everyone else. So there would be​ no point in keeping pretences.

    3.So um Rom ''turns off DS9's phasers'' so they can't take out the mines....and um, somehow turns off all the stations weapons too....wow, amazing work.
    Again, have you even watched the show you are criticizing?

    The weapon system is a Station System, accessible from inside. Last i checked, its not possible to access a mine's internal system before it explodes in your face.

    Then, it wasnt the weapon's systems Rom tried disable at first, but the technodoodad that allowed the disabling of the mines. When he couldnt do that in time, he was asked to instead disable the station's weapons.

    And it was estsblished in a complete episode that Rom not only was a brilliant engineer, but could figure out how to operate/tamper with the station's systems somewhat better than O'Brian.

    4.The scene before the Defiant gets to the station we see plenty of Dominion ships around the station, but when the Defiant zips over....there is not a single Dominion warship anywhere? Oh, guess they were all sent into battle? That is how you do ''a battle'' right? You never keep any ships protecting your base. And yet...low and behold...when the Dominion evacuates just a couple of minutes later...there are plenty of ships around for them to use.
    Since its been said many times in the show that Dukat sent pretty much anything he could to stop the Federation fleet, and since DS9 was pratically a battlestation at this point, i fail to see your plot hole.

  30. - Top - End - #30
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Kitten Champion's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2012

    Default Re: Treknobabble

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    This is a stupid criticism. The Prophets could see the future. It is so easy to explain that the Prophets understood that the Cardassian Occupation would end and that it shaped Bajor in the right direction; while a Dominion occupation would end in complete genocide.
    It could be easily inferred that the Prophet's primary goal was ultimately to seal the Pah-wraiths forever in their prison on Bajor to prevent their own destruction and whatever hell they'd wrought in the universe in general. That all their interventions in Bajor's history and Sisko's life specifically were designed to that end. Here, they had the dilemma of Sisko killing himself without reservation and their hand was forced.

    They are quite alien in their thinking, and aren't strictly benevolent per say. They seem to be somewhere in the area of the Ascended Beings from the Stargate universe, but they were never humanoid in any respect.
    Last edited by Kitten Champion; 2017-05-16 at 10:27 AM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •