Question: Technology, Technobabble, Handwaving, Disbelief.

dealing with the technology gone wrong

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I have experience of that. Unfortunately about 40 years of it.
It's either an instant inspired Macguver fix or a large mug of coffee and schematic / software source / manual / Searching Internet or email / skype to someone I know that had one.

Fix it slow and you are an idiot and incompetent (hey but maybe no-one else could have fixed it!). Fix it quickly (using brilliant expertise that no one else has) and "What's the fuss, can't be a big deal because you fixed it quick."

One boss I had thus had the logic
"NEVER EVER fix it on the Customer Premises. Always bring it back."
He was right.

Didn't Macguver explain afterwards?

Ray McCarthy said:

[*] Discover some sort of Hyper or Infra space outside of normal space time.

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This is why so much science fiction uses hyperspace excuses for faster than light travel. The odd thing is that it seems like readers are getting more and more used to it and thus it is easier to get away with. I do not even do a double-take anymore if a science fiction author refers to hyperspace, hyperspeed, or hyperjump/warpjump when referring to a spacecraft of some sort - but I would do so for communication for some odd reason.

I like my SF to have science in it that can be explained. I don't like the term technobabble, as it suggests making up spurious explanations for unlikely technologies. If it can't really be done (FTL) then, on the whole, I'd rather it didn't get a daft explanation - at least not in any depth. If the FTL needs fixing, then provide some babble if you have to, but try to make it brief. The best SF to my mind, invokes real science and extrapolates it to a possible future setting. This doesn't require technobabble, but clear brief explanation, and I like to see that. Most SF these days doesn't actually do this much, instead its technobabble fantasy in space. Which has its place, and I enjoy much of it for other resaons, but its not my favorite genre or way of treating technology.

Sodice said:

I do not even do a double-take anymore if a science fiction author refers to hyperspace, hyperspeed, or hyperjump/warpjump when referring to a spacecraft of some sort - but I would do so for communication for some odd reason.

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You wouldn't have like it in Star Trek: Into Darkness, where Kirk phoned Scotty on his mobile phone from another star system then?

Bick said:

You wouldn't have like it in Star Trek: Into Darkness, where Kirk phoned Scotty on his mobile phone from another star system then?

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I have tried to block that film out of my memory. Thus, I do not recall the scene of which you speak.

But as far as the whole "much SF is just technobabble fantasy" thing, I find that notion rather irksome. Science fiction in general often deals with very different themes than fantasy - regardless of how science is actually handled in a particular work. And even concepts like hyperspace and FTL are hypothetically possible based upon current knowledge, no matter how vague, abstract, and nondescript those hunches may be. Despite the lack of realism in trying to imagine how those sort of things would or could function if they turned out to be theoretically viable, it is still a different approach than fantasy in my opinion. A setting including hyperspace is different than Star Wars' co-opting Sword and Sorcery into Lightsaber and Force - the latter to me best described as space fantasy rather than any subgenre of science fiction. I would not include soft science fiction that rests upon hyperspace in the same category.

All that being said, there seems to be an inherent pointlessness to this sort of genre and subgenre differentiation most of the time.

Sodice said:

But as far as the whole "much SF is just technobabble fantasy" thing, I find that notion rather irksome. Science fiction in general often deals with very different themes than fantasy - regardless of how science is actually handled in a particular work. And even concepts like hyperspace and FTL are hypothetically possible based upon current knowledge, no matter how vague, abstract, and nondescript those hunches may be. Despite the lack of realism in trying to imagine how those sort of things would or could function if they turned out to be theoretically viable, it is still a different approach than fantasy in my opinion. A setting including hyperspace is different than Star Wars' co-opting Sword and Sorcery into Lightsaber and Force - the latter to me best described as space fantasy rather than any subgenre of science fiction. I would not include soft science fiction that rests upon hyperspace in the same category.

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Sorry, I perhaps was unclear, as I agree with your comments above. I'm ok with the use of FTL and such like, and don't mean to denigrate such speculations as 'fantasy'. My feeling is that more and more SF is really just a drama set in space, without much in the way of science or scientific extrapolation at all. This is relevant to the discussion of the depth and quality of technology explanations in SF, because if the genre is (to some extent) drifting away from scientific extrapolation, there's not going to be that much required.

Of course, the consequences of scientific extrapolation can be well explored in both "soft" and "hard" SF as you point out. An example from the softer side is "Greybeard" by Aldiss; an example from the harder side is "The Fountains of Paradise" by Clarke. Both extrapolate a scientific idea to a natural conclusion, and they are quite distinct from the 'drama in space' type of modern book typified by Weber, Bujold, McDevitt, etc. To be clear - I'm not judging those authors' books at all - I have enjoyed work from all those authors for other reasons.

Bick said:

Sorry, I perhaps was unclear, as I agree with your comments above. I'm ok with the use of FTL and such like, and don't mean to denigrate such speculations as 'fantasy'. My feeling is that more and more SF is really just a drama set in space, without much in the way of science or scientific extrapolation at all. This is relevant to the discussion of the depth and quality of technology explanations in SF, because if the genre is (to some extent) drifting away from scientific extrapolation, there's not going to be that much required.

Of course, the consequences of scientific extrapolation can be well explored in both "soft" and "hard" SF as you point out. An example from the softer side is "Greybeard" by Aldiss; an example from the harder side is "The Fountains of Paradise" by Clarke. Both extrapolate a scientific idea to a natural conclusion, and they are quite distinct from the 'drama in space' type of modern book typified by Weber, Bujold, McDevitt, etc. To be clear - I'm not judging those authors' books at all - I have enjoyed work from all those authors for other reasons.

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Ah, in that case I would agree. This is part of the reason why I find the various subgenres of science fiction to be so attractive. Depending on what I am interested in at the moment, I can usually find a work or author within the umbrella of science fiction that can fit that interest. Whether it is the ramifications of a technological advance/scientific idea or simply an interesting story situated amongst science fiction themes. The dividing line between these two approaches is part of what I was asking about in the original post. For me, I can find interesting technological themes explored in works that are often more about the social ramifications of said technology than a 'scientific idea' explored explicitly as such which then requires elaborate scientific examination.

I tend to view it the same way I view a story set in the modern world. Some people will have an incredibly detailed knowledge of technology, or at least parts of it, but the vast majority will have an understanding they kind of picked up at school but really weren't paying that much attention. Take televisions for example, how many people if you sat them down in a lab could build a working TV from first principles despite it being an incredibly common item of technology? I'm willing to bet most descriptions and attempts would bear an remarkable similarity to "magic beams cause picture to appear".

So I take the same approach to future technology. Faster than light travel that relies upon technology maybe a dozen people on a planet can follow the maths on but everyone "knows" it involves manipulation of gravitational fields. And so on.

But then I find it irritating when authors have political systems magincally just work with hand waving. Communism suddenly working throughout a star sytstem because...eh everyone just tries really hard, sort of thing.

Lost technology is also interesting. Much detailed manufacturing processes are not sufficiently detailed in books. Companies may shred old documentation and dump it as they go out of business or change.
Certain pre 1950s electronics devices and parts can't be made. No documentation survives and the experts are dead. They would need R&D almost from scratch.
The last CRT factory in Europe (USA & Japan long gone) and tube rebuilders (anywhere) closed last year (2013). Some valves (very few) are still made in Russia and Eastern Europe. I'm not sure if any CRT maker is still in production in China.

Most things rely also on a long vertical supply chain of specialist materials. Once that is gone it is extremely difficult as the OEM device maker never knew how to make the component parts, probably by the 1920s as companies specialised.

So one interesting area of fantasy is the idea of some common material failing due to say a rogue nano-bot or a new fungus or bacteria, the dislocation of society and rush to find replacement.

Or your Colony gets independence in Space but the Earth is destroyed or has an embargo. You'd be amazed how many things no-one would have a clue how to make. Wikipedia isn't good enough and doesn't even allow "how to" detailed articles!

Perhaps no-one knows how to make optic fibre properly, or how to fabricate ICs, or how to make pure enough silicon and other materials for the fabrication. Research the supply chain. processing and manufacturing to make a Tablet computer, starting by just digging stuff up on your planet. It's frightening. Most of the detail is totally unavailable even in the best universities or Patent records as it's "trade secrets".

If you can make copper wire and steel etc, at least you could build a slow computer out of about 5,000 to 10,000 relays. You might have to use miniature valves for 10 to 30 years for everything till your materials science is good enough for transistors. Developing decent miniature valves will take 3 to 5 years even if you know how, due to materials difficulty (Glass to metal seals, drawing tungsten filaments using diamond dies, special pure barium compounds to coat cathode or filament, getter materials. Coils, resistors and capacitors are easy though! Really good vacuum pumps).
It took years to have commercial Tungsten lamps instead of rubbish carbon filament because Tungsten is such a pig to make and then even worse to make into wires.

So in your "cut off" Colony Planet, existing working technology would be extremely valuable and irreplaceable for maybe a generation. Initially manufacturing might be at 17th century level!

Babbage's computer couldn't be made with the tools they had. The attempt made UK a world leader in Machine Tools!

Politics is hard.

For example if your world has evenly divided opposed factions, democracy won't work.
Communism perhaps can't work on a larger scale than a village. (Kibbutz sort of works but a Moshav is better, No country has ever had functioning communism).

Capitalism is totally unstable in a zero growth scenario.

Null_Zone said:

But then I find it irritating when authors have political systems magincally just work with hand waving. Communism suddenly working throughout a star sytstem because...eh everyone just tries really hard, sort of thing.

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Politics has to be given much more leeway. It is not a hard science (no matter what certain famous political scientists try to tell you - the rest know better). Because of that, it is awfully difficult to tell an author 'you got the political makeup of your own world wrong'.

Yes. a small change or difference in perception can make a system work or fail. Look at how well democracy has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, South Africa, Egypt etc.
Obviously the Chinese system isn't what the USSR had.

Ray McCarthy said:

Yes. a small change or difference in perception can make a system work or fail. Look at how well democracy has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, South Africa, Egypt etc.
Obviously the Chinese system isn't what the USSR had.

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Despite the name of the party, no political scientist considers China a communist country today. It is referred to in political science academia as 'state capitalism.' Same as Putin's Russia.

And speaking about perception, some would be surprised by the responses the US gets when it talks about democracy to other countries. They look at our electoral college system and instantly see the irony of the US lecturing anyone on democracy. By any strict standards, many South American countries are technically more democratic than the US. We do not even vote in our own president.

I dunno. I think Russia (and the US) could be called stateless capitalism in different ways. In Russia, it seems to be run by the Russian mafia with Putin as don (l'etat c'est moi). In the US the powers that be (corporations, tea party, "corporations are people and money is speech" folks, whatever) have basically wedged the government into impotence. Which is unfortunate when (a) we're re-enacting WWII in the Ukraine, (b) Viet Nam in Iraq/Syria and (c) the Chinese think its funny to flip us off and fly barrel rolls over our jets with theirs and all we do is (a) sanction, (b) chuck some ordnance at Iraq, and (c) complain. But, hey, "state(less) capitalism" is the way of the future! Now that the US is neutralized, Putin can take Europe and there basically won't be any pesky states anymore.

As far as the electoral college, it's the least of our problems and only made any difference once or twice (and one of those put Jefferson into the White House due to political spite but at least that worked out okay in my book). It was part of the price of getting these United states to federate. I mean, we never were a direct democracy in any sense although the historical course until recently was more and more directness. But we were always a republic/representative democracy. The electoral college derives from our direct votes, so we do choose our president but through an added layer.

But this thread is wandering so far off topic it's headed straight for an entirely different forum.

J-Sun said:

I dunno. I think Russia (and the US) could be called stateless capitalism in different ways. In Russia, it seems to be run by the Russian mafia with Putin as don (l'etat c'est moi). In the US the powers that be (corporations, tea party, "corporations are people and money is speech" folks, whatever) have basically wedged the government into impotence. Which is unfortunate when (a) we're re-enacting WWII in the Ukraine, (b) Viet Nam in Iraq/Syria and (c) the Chinese think its funny to flip us off and fly barrel rolls over our jets with theirs and all we do is (a) sanction, (b) chuck some ordnance at Iraq, and (c) complain. But, hey, "state(less) capitalism" is the way of the future! Now that the US is neutralized, Putin can take Europe and there basically won't be any pesky states anymore.

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Putin largely broke the Russian mafia's power when he came into office by making an example of some of the billionaires. They still own quite a bit, but Putin's government controls the show - hence the 'state' part. It is considered state capitalism because even though there are free markets, Putin's government largely dictates the direction of the economy. It is a more severe version of France's dirigisme. The mob itself has very little power in the economy unlike during the 90s. Putin cleaned house with public offices, police, and government agencies. As long as the mob does not oppose Putin, they are left alone - but he made it clear what happens when they oppose the government. He does not run the country through the mob. Quite the opposite.

J-Sun said:

As far as the electoral college, it's the least of our problems and only made any difference once or twice

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I was not saying that it has made a difference, just that other democracies look at it and find it silly that the US touts democracy when it is not one.

But yes, we are off-topic. If you are interested in the topic I can send you materials about it, including the criteria comparative political scientists use for labeling something as state capitalism (the term came into wide usage in academia largely because of Putin).

This is shaping up to an interesting conversation and I'm not sure how much of value I can add.

I have a sense of technobabble being relegated into a sort of dirty area like Sci-Fi has been with such endearing monikers such as Skiffy.

What's most interesting is that they might be somewhat related. It seems that purist would much rather see science in science fiction to be the best extrapolation of current science into the future. And I'm not about to disagree with that because there is much to embrace in that thought.

What I do find interesting in that vein is that in a way that would mostly lead to no need for much scientific explanation unless you are targeting the engineering types who like to look under the hood. Basically we're speaking of a useful analogy to automobiles because it does not take an understanding of how the engine works to get into a car and drive it. It does if you mean to fix it so minor repairs might require the 101 class. Even so they don't need as yet the information for rebuilding or recreating the engine so there is still no need for a great amount of any sort of technological background. That means that the technological background included in a story involving someone getting into a car to start it would have to specifically target those people who like to get under the hood and identify all the parts.

Much the same could be said of future stories of space flight. Some day it might require less and less knowledge to operate a space ship. Of course still for those who like to look under the hood it might be that we need to demonstrate that the character operating the ship knows more than just how to get from point a to point b. So we get into some sort of explanation. At this point if we are mostly extrapolating within the constraints of known physics this could be done without Technobabble if we define Technobabble as being close to if not tantamount to hand waving.

It's when we go beyond physics that we have to make a choice. Do we fall back to that place where we address all the readers as people who are not interested in looking under the hood or do we have to keep the techno-philes head under the hood?

But there's another aspect to this because we are in an area that threatens physics as we know it so, there is an obligation in a fantasy to create rules that govern the portion where we expect the reader to suspend their disbelief. This unfortunately can lead to some if not a whole lot of hand-waving and Technobabble. You could leave it off but then there are no physics that explain what you are doing so there are either no limits or the known limits have already rendered your technology into magic. So you either don't go out of the bounds of known physics or you start dealing with the extraordinary extrapolation as fantasy and create the rules.

Of course this all assumes that we are only speaking of Technobabble as something that explains something that has no real explanation. If we were to put something like the explanation of how a car really works as being technobabble then we'd have to back-peddle. If all scientific exposition is considered technobabble then we would be looking at just the basic question of when is exposition acceptable, which I feel is a slightly different question.

But I could be wrong.

Michael Colton said:

Despite the name of the party, no political scientist considers China a communist country today.

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Which is why I said it's not the USSR!
Actually 1912 to 1948 was the Mandarins.
about 200BC to 1912 only tinkering with it. Is today's China hugely different politics to pre 1912?

I think if you tinker and adapt you'll find at least one Chinese period between 200BC and 1912 a starting point for a more viable Extra-Solar political system. Churchill famously said that Democracy was terrible, it was just the other systems are worse. The USA has a totally broken system mostly designed for a pre Civil war looser Federation. It was slightly reformed. IMO the Civil war wasn't about Slavery but between looser than Swiss Federation vs a single Nation State federal only in Name. The USA didn't have a Federal dollar till I think 1913 (USA dollar created 1792, but printed dollar could be different value in different towns).
The Swiss have the only real "federal government".
Western democracy isn't a single system. Ireland, UK and USA are very different. Israel, love or hate it, is the only real working Democracy in the Middle east but has a totally archaic system of Proportional Representation. Theirs is based on a pre Czarist era Polish concept brought by East Europeans and Russians in the 19th Century when Turkey (Ottoman Empire) still ruled most of the Middle East (earlier all of it).

It's worth studying political systems and history before you make your own. Some systems worked for a very long while. Fairness, freedom, efficiency, wealth, peace, stability, social mobility, level of crime, corruption are all separate attributes. If you need some combination of those for the plot then some now extinct system may be more readily adapted than what you suppose the 20th Century or today has.
Pre 15th C. Irish Brehon laws interesting. No automatic inheritance. Women more rights than any other contemporary system (Look up too when Swiss Women got the Vote or when Switzerland joined UN!).
Contrast Western European Feudalism (technically ended with Sark in 2004!) with China 200 BC to 1912 (various different periods), Japan and India before the 17th Century. Compare religious freedoms and local National freedoms between different periods of Roman Empire before Nero and Muslim World 1100 to 1914, esp. Ottoman. Or British Empire colonial rule India vs West Indies vs Australia (Ireland wasn't ever part of Empire or a really a colony except maybe during Cromwell. Cromwell still is unpopular in most of Ireland, some people probably blame him even for the Irish Famine, which actually was a Europe wide phenomenon and not as bad as some earlier European Famines. Nor was the Absentee landlord maybe as bad overall as athe Highland Clearances. I'll be getting visits now from men in balaclavas and white vans after a few black & Dekker catalogues are put through letterbox).

What used to take weeks (Months?) in the reference section of a major city library (no taking home the books and the town library was useless) is now a few hours on Internet / Wikipedia so no excuse to skimp on research before inventing your SF&F politics and economics!

tinkerdan said:

Some day it might require less and less knowledge to operate a space ship.

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Probably similar to operation of a regular ship or aircraft that has full electronics, autopilot and navigation. Maybe even a few weeks on a flight simulator and then a few hours on the real spaceship / starship to get the "pilot's licence?". Assuming one has already the appropriate education so you can either manage the engineer or attempt repair yourself when something goes wrong and you have no "Houston" on the Radio / Laser / Ansible /subspace link etc.

Ray McCarthy said:

What used to take weeks (Months?) in the reference section of a major city library (no taking home the books and the town library was useless) is now a few hours on Internet / Wikipedia so no excuse to skimp on research before inventing your SF&F politics and economics!

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While I agree with this, it is also true that the political systems one can research are extremely dependent upon the context of their time and place. There are many examples of people extracting those systems because of elements they find interesting or useful and placing them in another context that makes little sense or feels unintentionally surreal. It is not enough to research political systems in and of themselves, but also their development and downfall within the context of their time. If you merely transplant a system without examining its context within the rest of the world setting, you can create a situation where the question "how the hell could this system have possibly developed here?" blinking at you in huge neon lights.

And yes, China's current political system/situation is very different than 1912.

Michael Colton said:

I searched the forums for a post on this topic and did not quite find one, though I am sure various comments have touched on it at some point. I have a general question for readers of science fiction regarding the believability of technology.

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What really annoys me is when authors get ordinary things WRONG and then I am relly pissed of when fans don't even notice.

I have tried 4 of Iain Banks books and finished two, Player of Games and Looked to Windward. PoG was interesting because I was a chess fanatic in high school but beyond that I wasn't excited about it. I though LtW sounded like a much more interesting plot but it was confusing because of the scene changes between characters and in time and because one character had two people in his brain because of a technological implant.

But anyway the thing that reall pissed me off was a scene where a character was hanging upside down and dropped a "stylo". Apparently it is a device that allows drawing in 3D. The character then waits an unspecified time and decides to fall after it to retrieve it. Banks then says some time later that the character had propellors on his ankles and stabilized his velocity at 22 m/s. Then I thought, "Wait a minute, that can't happen at near Earth gravity." It takes less than 3 seconds to reach 22 m/s in Earth gravity.

Now this event occurred in one of Bank's air spheres. But at no point previous to that had he indicated that Air Spheres had low gravity. In fact it is never stated in the book. I searched the net to find it discussed elsewhere. But Banks has his character falling for kilometers and talks about his clothes flapping. The aerodynamics would make it impossible for the character to catch the dropped object especially if he limited his speed.

So to me Banks writes SF that is basically indifferent to science it is just about the story. I tried Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons but did not finish either.

I found this thread by searching on "physics".

psik