Star Trek's Treknobabble, explained

Key foods

  • Star Trek maintained scientific rigor by hiring consultants to review the scripts and add technical jargon.
  • Vocabulary added to the scripts made the show more real to viewers, even if they didn't understand it all.
  • Fans and writers alike embraced the term as proof of the show's believability, coining the term “Treknobabble”.



when space explorers The creator, Gene Roddenberry, worked on it Star Trek: The Original Serieshe was very aware of the thin line that science fiction walks between fantasy and reality. Years before the first humans set foot on the moon, he was making a show about exploring the galaxy in a giant spaceship. Roddenberry obviously knew he was creating a fantasy world. But he wanted to space explorers Fantasy should be as realistic as possible and based on real science.

as American scientist Roddenberry reportedly achieved this by hiring real scientists to help him make his fantasy believable. A physicist named Harvey P. Lane Jr. was one of the first scientific advisors for space explorers. He reviewed the scripts TOS pilot, “Cage” and worked with the writers to make them more accurate. When the series was finally picked up, the producers hired scientists Joan Pearce and Peter Sloman of De Forest Research to review all the scripts.


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The language of scientific precision

Whenever Pierce or Sloman found something inconsistent with scientific fact, they worked with the writers to make changes that made sense for the story and maintained accuracy. This often meant adding highly technical language to the script, and soon, space explorers It became infamous for its technical jargon.

A lot of terms in TOS At times it made it difficult for the average viewer to follow. However, since it was a sci-fi movie, the idioms actually made the show more real to viewers. They admitted that they didn't understand all the talk about “light-years” and “parsecs” and “nacelles” because they weren't scientists, so the words had the effect of convincing the audience that the characters knew what they were talking about.


However, the commitment to scientific rigor had its drawbacks. Fans who were scientists, academics and researchers started writing letters to them space explorers The staff request an explanation about some of the facts contained in an episode and point out contradictions and mistakes. Despite their annoyance, the writers and consultants took the letters as proof that their show was believable enough that people wanted to be indifferent to the details, rather than condemning the entire premise as wild fantasy.

The birth of Treknobabble

Star Trek Technobabble (1)
space explorers Technobabble meme

When Roddenberry and his creative team began development Star Trek: The Next Generationthey were still committed to maintaining the same level of scientific rigor TOS. Just as they had done before, the producers hired consultants to help the writers with technical matters. However, writers had a lot of trouble walking the line between good science and sound science that worked for their stories.


Naren Shankar, one of the science advisors in recent chapters TNG told the writers Fifty-year mission: The next 25 yearswhose occupation:

… It was not about science, but about preserving fake science
space explorers
the world

He went on to say that the previous scientific advisor was adamant about scientific accuracy and Shankar felt that the authors were offended by this. So Shankar did what he was asked to do: fill the script with terms that sounded good and weren't so false as to throw off all scientific merit.


In fact, filling in the blanks of the script was literally how scientific jargon entered each episode. When the writers were working on a new episode, they would write “[TECH]Wherever they needed semi-believable technical language. From there, scientific advisors would fill in the blanks. Actors often received scripts before adding jargon, and rehearsed scenes by saying “tech” whenever it appeared in their lines. Semi-regularly, Trek actors had to memorize complex lines of jargon. The consultants did their best to stick to terms and concepts that were at least acceptable. They eventually developed a whole language. space explorers– special terms that continued throughout the franchise.

Although the term “technobel” did not enter the collective consciousness space explorersthe franchise became famous (or perhaps infamous) for its use of technobabble – scientific or technical dialogue that doesn't really mean anything in the real world. according to Oxford English Dictionarythis term was coined by The Wall Street Journal In 1981, long before the release TNG. But the term became very relevant space explorers which fans of the show and later the general public began to use the term “Treknobabble” to refer to Star Trek-Special technobabble


Internet phenomenon Treknobabble

As the Internet became more popular, so did the newbies and geeks who loved it space explorers Since they were children, they started bringing their love space explorers to the Internet at Star Trek-Certain bulletin board systems and subsequent forums have Trekkies discussing, analyzing, complaining, and mocking Treknobabble.

Fast forward three decades and now the internet is full of Treknobabble generators, Treknobabble memes and even Treknobabble rap. such as space explorersTreknobabble is now part of the mainstream.

Sources: American scientist, Fifty-year mission: The next 25 years, Oxford English Dictionary

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