Ron Moore calls Star Trek's tech "meaningless" MUst read!!!!!!!!!

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[Kosh GTO]

http://video.syfy.com/online_originals/scifiwire/2009/ronald-d-moore--star-treks-tech-in-the-tech/v1161896



At his recent keynote speech at the New York Television Festival, former Star Trek writer and creator of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica Ron Moore revealed the secret formula to writing for Trek.

He described how the writers would just insert "tech" into the scripts whenever they needed to resolve a story or plot line, then they'd have consultants fill in the appropriate words (aka technobabble) later.

"It became the solution to so many plot lines and so many stories," Moore said. "It was so mechanical that we had science consultants who would just come up with the words for us and we'd just write 'tech' in the script. You know, Picard would say 'Commander La Forge, tech the tech to the warp drive.' I'm serious. If you look at those scripts, you'll see that."

Moore then went on to describe how a typical script might read before the science consultants did their thing:

La Forge: "Captain, the tech is overteching."

Picard: "Well, route the auxiliary tech to the tech, Mr. La Forge."

La Forge: "No, Captain. Captain, I've tried to tech the tech, and it won't
work."

Picard: "Well, then we're doomed."

"And then Data pops up and says, 'Captain, there is a theory that if you tech the other tech ... '" Moore said. "It's a rhythm and it's a structure, and the words are meaningless. It's not about anything except just sort of going through this dance of how they tech their way out of it."

Moore said the retro-technology he used in Battlestar "was really a reaction against Star Trek." He added, "I just decided from the outset that I wanted a phone to look like a phone."



So what do you think??? Here is what i belief : Technobabble has always been a conceit in Trek. Certain death is always avoidable by doing XYZ to the deflector dish, reversing the polarity of the whatever, or narrowing the annular confinement beam. If all they had to do was say "tech" and have somebody else fill in the gaps, it says a lot. Also the same with Stargate where Sam or Rodney will pull the ansewrs right out of there asses and safe the day.  GTO

[A-HK]

That's not news.
Almost every TV scifi show does that.

Basically it's because almost all TV script writers majored in English and are scientifically illiterate (and sadly, often proud of it).

Doctor Who (in the 70s-80) made a joke of it "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" was their generic technobabble.

But I do get irritated at Trek, they made up gibberish when there was perfectly good, real science they could have used. I don't know why they talk about "consultants" when anyone who did science in high school can tell how dumb and self contradictory most of their "science" was.

For instance, they were always coming across mining settlements on remote planets. But instead of mining something real, they had to make up some XYZium for them to mine.
 
The thing is, we know ALL the natural elements now. There are 92 from Hydrogen to Uranium. And that's it, for any planet we can live on without being fried by radiation. Save made up science for when you really need it, don't piss away your credibility.

[Valkyrie]

I still say that ST was instrumental in inspiring the imaginations of countless scientists across this planet.  Personally, I don't care that what they are talking about isn't real.  How often is what you hear on the news actually real?