Star Trek's Treknobabble, explained

Key things

• Star Trek maintained scientific accuracy by hiring consultants to review scripts and add technical jargon.
• The jargon added to the scripts made the show more realistic for the audience, even if they didn't understand it all.
• Fans and writers alike adopted this jargon as evidence of the show's credibility, coining the term “Treknobabble”.

When Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, worked on Star Trek: The Original Serieshe was very aware of the thin line science fiction walks between fantasy and reality. He did a show about exploring the galaxy in a giant spaceship years before the first humans stepped on the moon. Roddenberry obviously knew he was going to create a fantasy world. But he wanted to Star Trek fantasy to be as realistic as possible and based on real science.

As Scientific American Roddenberry achieved this by hiring real scientists to help make his fantasy believable. A physicist named Harvey P. Lynn, Jr. was one of the first scientific consultants for Star Trek. He reviewed the scripts for TOS pilot, “The Cage” and worked with the writers to make them more accurate. Once the series was finally picked up, the producers hired scientists Joan Pearce and Peter Sloman of De Forest Research to review all the scripts.

The language of scientific precision

Whenever Pearce or Sloman found something that didn't fit the scientific facts, they worked with the writers to come up with changes that made sense of the story and maintained accuracy. This often meant adding very technical language to the scripts, and early Star Trek became infamous for his technical jargon.

A huge amount of jargon in the TOS at times made it difficult for the average viewer to watch. However, since it was science fiction, the jargon actually made the show more realistic for the audience. They accepted that they wouldn't understand all the talk about “light years” and “parses” and “gondolas” because they weren't scientists, so the jargon had the effect of convincing the audience that the characters knew what they were talking about.

However, the devotion to scientific accuracy had its downsides. Fans who were scientists, academics and researchers themselves started writing letters Star Trek employees request clarification of certain facts contained in the episode and point out inconsistencies and errors. Despite their annoyance, writers and consultants began to accept these letters as proof that their show was believable enough that people wanted to dig into the details rather than dismiss the entire premise as wild fantasy.

The birth of Treknobabble

When Roddenberry and his creative team began development further Star Trek: The Next Generationwere still determined to maintain the same level of scientific accuracy as TOS. As before, the producers hired consultants to help the writers with the technical stuff. But the writers had a lot of trouble transitioning between good science and good-sounding science that worked for their stories.

Naren Shankar, one of the scientific consultants for the last term LPG he told the authors Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Yearsthat his work:

…it wasn't about science, it was about perpetuating fake science
Star Trek
world.

He went on to say that the previous scientific advisor was adamant about scientific accuracy, and Shankar got the impression that this annoyed the writer. So Shankar did the job they asked him to do: he filled the script with some jargon that sounded good and wasn't so imprecise as to abandon all scientific credit.

In fact, filling in the gaps in the script was literally how scientific jargon got into every episode. When the writers were working on the new episode, they wrote “[TECH]” wherever they needed some semi-believable technical language. Scientific advisors filled in the blanks from there. Actors were often given scripts before the jargon was added, and would rehearse scenes with “tech” whenever it appeared in their lines. On a semi-regular basis, Trek actors had to to memorize complicated lines of jargon the day the scenes were set for filming, although the show's science advisors did everything they could it was in their power to stick to the jargon and concepts were at least believable, eventually creating an entire language Star Trek-specific lingo that has persisted throughout the franchise.

Although the term “technobabble” has not entered the collective consciousness because Star Trekthe franchise has become famous (or perhaps infamous) for its use of technobabble — scientific or technical-sounding dialogue that doesn't actually mean anything in the real world. According to Oxford English Dictionarythe term was created The Wall Street Journal in 1981, long before the premiere LPG. But the term has become so associated with Star Trek that fans of the show, and later the general public, began using the word “Treknobabble” to refer to Star Trek –specific technobabble.

Internet phenomenon Treknobabble

As the Internet grew in popularity, the same nerds and geeks who loved it Star Trek they started bringing their love from childhood Star Trek to the internet. IN Star Trek –specific message board systems and later forums Trekkies discussed, analyzed, complained and poked fun at Treknobabble.

Fast forward three decades and now the internet is full of Treknobabble generators, Treknobabble memes and even Treknobabble rap. Like Star TrekTreknobabble is now part of the mainstream.

Resources: Scientific American, Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, Oxford English Dictionary