Question: Technology, Technobabble, Handwaving, Disbelief.

Thinking on the question I am struggling to recall excerpts or references of explanations that have 'annoyed' me - I suppose if they cannot suspend my disbelief they just don't belong in my memory banks.

tinkerdan said:

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

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But this got me thinking that if an author is telling a tale it is often more believable when they skirt casually over the technology as if it is a now mundane part of everyday life in their fiction. This way the hows and whats can be left to the best storyteller of all, our own imaginations.

Even so if the author is intending on digging a bit deeper, I am no physician but plausibility is present only if what is being explained can be understood. It needs grounding in the real world to be able to relate, otherwise even if there is a genius invention hiding behind the words it might as well be space magic.

That's kind'a what I had in mind.

WinterLight said:

Thinking on the question I am struggling to recall excerpts or references of explanations that have 'annoyed' me - I suppose if they cannot suspend my disbelief they just don't belong in my memory banks.



But this got me thinking that if an author is telling a tale it is often more believable when they skirt casually over the technology as if it is a now mundane part of everyday life in their fiction. This way the hows and whats can be left to the best storyteller of all, our own imaginations.

Even so if the author is intending on digging a bit deeper, I am no physician but plausibility is present only if what is being explained can be understood. It needs grounding in the real world to be able to relate, otherwise even if there is a genius invention hiding behind the words it might as well be space magic.

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But just for fun I'm not adverse to someone using something common place to help explain something that is otherwise magic.

Something like when trying to explain the inexplicable portal that stands before you ready to send you through some billions of light years away to your destination.

It stands open ready with a space time distortion that wants to grasp you up, like some enormous hand tossing stones across the water with hope that you'll bounce across the surface of subspace a number of times and reach the other side. Or fall short and sink to the murky depths. We lose more travelers that way.

Or.

It opens the rift and reaches out through space time to the destination and pulls the cosmic strings taught like a gigantic slingshot with loads of potential cosmic energy and waits for you the precious stone to insert yourself whereupon it releases the strings to return the energy and delivers you to the bullseye. Or maybe a gnat's hair off. Or possibly missing completely. Couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.

I have noticed that sort of metaphorical explanation in a few different instances. It can work pretty well. If I remember correctly, BSG used it for several cylon technologies.

At the 1998 Worldcon in Baltimore I attended several of the panels on the use of science fiction in education (and the importance of luring a steady influx of young readers into SF) and was inspired to do something. I had several ideas, but the first to come to fruition was to speak at the Johns Hopkins University Society of Physics Students about "Physics in Science Fiction".

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http://www.larryniven.net/physics.shtml

psik