Worldbuilding & Writing 101: Fictoscience & Technobabble
(Vivian:) Anne, the nulltronic readings are all over the place. Lay in a course to avoid.
(Anne:) Madir! If we repolarise our entanglement field, we might manage a quantum-ubergenic manoeuvre around the hyperdestructive superinterference from the nulltrinos!
(Vivian:) Leans over into the com-unit of the chair Medbay, please send forces, someone on the bridge has lost their marbles.
Hello and welcome to your favourite alien Limax, Vivian’s blog! Sorry about that, Anne went a little crayon with today's topic, Technobabble and Fictoscience! If you hear her scream things on the way out, please ignore!
What is technobabble & fictoscience
Technobabble is most commonly associated with scifi, but it could technically be done in fantasy. It would feel very out of place due to its nature, but I have faith that some of you could do it! Anyway, what is technobabble? In the strictest sense, it is a bunch of scientific sounding words with scientific and mechanical sounding affixes crammed onto scientific words or generic words to make them sound more scientific.
Fictoscience is, as the name might suggest, fictional science. It is the science and how the universe you make works. This is generally more carefully thought out, but not necessarily all encompassing with equations and the like. But think of it in a way as science+, the stuff you add on top of regular science to make all the new fancy tech you want. Some of you hard scifi nuts might go “Well my stuff is hard so I don’t make things up”, to which I say, yes you are. You are extrapolating, and while it is more likely that your stuff is actually plausible within the science that we do know, it is still additions on top because we have yet to demonstrate that it does work. So fictoscience you get as well!
Recognizing & differentiating technobabble & fictoscience
What is the difference between technobabble and actual “scientific” talk? After all, you can have legit ideas you have thought out and wish to describe to the consumer that they need! There are several clues to distinguish between technobabble and legit fictoscience. The biggest one that is mostly based on gut is that it feels like it is just trying to sound scientific. But that can for some be literary science anyway, so here is a short list to help.
Technobabble is generally done fast and hard. Lots of words and affixes in a short space of time while fictoscientific talk takes its time to make you understand.
Fictoscience terms are often used in the narrative before they are explained.
Technobabble often comes in times of pressure, crisis, or any emergency and is rarely done in casual scenes. Fictoscience is the opposite, rarely occurring in intense scenes and more common in the calmer times of writing.
Technobabble tends to have virtually nothing but grammatical words (or bare minimum of non-scientific-sounding content words) between the fancy fancy words, while Fictoscience is more relaxed and generally has larger distances between the 10 dollar words.
Technobabble’s affixation is generally close to nonsensical while fictoscientific words are carefully chosen based on meaning and context.
Wow, this is very vague! Yeah it is, because the line is incredibly blurry, but here is some advice on how to identify both technobabble and fictoscientific terminology.
Their Purposes
Both of these forms serve a purpose narratively speaking, and I will go through them here.
Fictoscience
Fictoscience is the extra rules by which your world operates. How does your phlebotinum work? How does your magic work? It all falls under fictoscience, and fictoscience in writing is when you as an author are trying to explain it. It has to be done in such a manner that the readers can understand the terms and build up enough understanding that the story requires. How detailed the knowledge of the reader has to be depends on the story itself and how it and the world are structured. In most stories the details of how Faster Than Light (FTL) works is entirely irrelevant.
But if you have some fancy gadgets with which you can make weapons, getting to know the fictoscience requires more, as it will affect the conflict. Which is a topic Anne Winchell will get into at a later date! The point still stands that the more crucial the concept is to the conflict, the more you will need to explain it. Another important aspect in this, narratively, is to make it not sound like a “As you know, Bob,” thing. If everyone knows these things because it is common knowledge, it might be better to weave it into the narrative and descriptions rather than have a character explain it. Be aware also that due to this purpose to keep it accessible, fictoscientific speech has less big words crammed in to be accessible to viewers and readers.
Technobabble
Technobabble, on the other hand, has a completely different purpose. It is generally a quick solution to a current conflict or issue where the technological stuff is not the important aspect itself. Some can look at technobabble as a deus ex machina, and sometimes, they are correct. It can be used as a quick solution out of thin air where the character just blabbers on about a thing and suddenly everything is solved, robbing the situation of conflict, meaning, and satisfaction. A common and acceptable use of technobabble doesn’t remove the tension but should at most turn a hopeless situation to “We just might make it”, where additional things have to be done.
Examples of good technobabble are in the middle of a space battle (I am doing space because I love space opera 😛). Anyway, the ship's engines have been incapacitated by whatever reason and are dead in the water, and the enemy is approaching for the final shot to end them. This is the moment when the engineer pulls some technobabble scheme to get the engines to work, not at full power, but at all so they can move and have power for weapons. Now it is up to the pilot and weapons people to take on the enemy vessel.
So in a way, good technobabble is an asspull to not kill the cast and give them a possible chance to survive on their own skills.
Common parts of fictoscience & technobabble
ALL THE WORDS AND AFFIXES! AAAAHHHH!!!!!!
(Anne: Vivian, your favourite part!)
This list of affixes and words is not exhaustive and I am likely to make updates to it. I will explain their general use so you can use it properly in context.
Frequency: Refers to the period of an oscillating system. That is, the system goes between 2 (generally) states and follows a specific shape. It can easily mean just switching between multiple states and refer to when it returns to the original state. The word itself refers to how many times per second the original state is reached again and again and again. So 9 Hz (The official unit for frequency for you humans), means, if we assume it goes through state 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 1, that it passes by 1, 9 times every second.
Quantum: Oh god I hate this one so much. It has essentially become a buzz word for science magic. So unless you really really really know what you are talking about, or at least are sufficiently close, do not ever use this one. Quantum means essentially “discrete”, as in it is the smallest possible unit and all others will be a multiple of it. So it deals with very small stuff where it is the smallest unit. As said, I recommend against using it due to its abuse.
Matrix: This one has many meanings, but in the general sense that it can be meaningfully used in all contexts across all, it means “Ordered structure”. This does not quite fit any of the formal definitions, and that is fine; as much as I love being nit-picky, even I have limits.
Linear: Is there much to say here? It means exactly what it says, that it is linear. Like a line. Easy and predictable in general.
Posi: Comes from Positron which comes from Positive and Electron. It should really only be used to describe something as positive. It is generally electric charges, but who knows what you come up with.
Nega: This one is less popular but has the same idea as Posi-, except Negative.
Polarity: Polarity comes from having many different poles. Poles in this context refers to some form of a split of all things. It can be incredibly vague. Classical types are magnetic poles (north and south, as all magnets have that) or electric poles (positive or negative–everything is either, or at the most fundamental part when it comes to matter), you can of course have more. If there is no difference between two poles in whatever it is, no “reverse polarity” can happen. You can of course have more than 2 poles if you are creative. Be aware though when it comes to electrical circuits and such, while there is a polarity, they are generally designed to be unidirectional so reversing polarity means it won’t work. And of course AC reverses it constantly so… yeah.
Hyper: Means big right? Nope! Well kinda, it means more like “beyond”, “above”, “excessive” and such, in mathematics it also means “beyond 3 dimensions”, so “hyperspace”, means “more than 3D space”.
Nano: It simply means “one billionth”, or 0.000000001. It does not mean “Tiny” or “incredibly small”. It means one billionth, which can be tiny… or it can be still very huge. “How can that be huge?” you ask. Simple! It is attached to a unit of measurement that is gargantuan in its default, and it's still huge. A nanolightyear, for example, is almost 10 thousand km. That is still a large distance for you puny humans. But Nanometer, which is the most common one because of nanobots, well a blood cell is 7500 nm, and a carbon atom is 0.34 nm in width (roughly speaking, quantum stuff makes it inexact and pointless). So if you make something just 1 nm, it means you have 3 carbon atoms to use in every direction… can’t do much there.
Electro: Fairly simple, it relates to electricity
Magno: Same, but related to magnetism
Magnetised: A funny word! Magnetised means that an object, usually metal but you can do this on anything with certain properties and make up as you go, anyway, it has been affected by an external magnetic field and has now, for some time at least, retained some of the magnetic field and is thus magnetic itself. That is, it has its own magnetic field.
Flux: When something is in a state of flux, what does it mean? It means it is changing, and it has not reached any fixed state anymore. So Flux should be used on things that are related to changes. “Flux capacitor” would be a capacitor that changes stuff… which in some way is highly redundant because by definition for a capacitor to work, it has to change. I will go into what it means later. But if it means in terms of changing time, I guess it kinda works? But I doubt that is what was meant, but maybe?
Bio: Bio, biology, life, do I need to explain this? Or are you related to Bob?
Sonic: THE HEDGEHOG! ...no wait, no copyright strikes here, NOOOO!!! Anyway, it is related to sound. “Sonic cannon” or the likes generally mean a cannon based on sound, not that it is firing faster than the speed of sound… most do that anyway so it is redundant. But “Hypersonic” means “Beyond sound”, so really freaking fast in the atmosphere.
Infra: Means “Below”, so it can be used for that. It rarely is, but hey, it would make it more interesting! Today, it is more commonly associated with infrared and things related to heat. It is however NOT a prefix that is related to heat and you should not really use it for such. You can use it for infrared light but not heat itself. There is another prefix for that.
Sub: Same as infra, except only below, “Subatomic”, “below atom level”.
Nuclear: Related to the nucleus of the atom where most of the mass is.
Atomic: Related to atoms.
Nucleonic: An old school now “Fancier” way to say nuclear.
Hydro: Related to water.
Photo: Related to light.
Mega: Similar to Nano, except bigger it means a million, “Megaton” means “A million ton”.
Giga: Same as Mega, except a billion.
Homo: Means “Same, identical”. So “Homosexual” literally means “Same sex attraction”. Fun fact is that in algebra, it has kinda lost this meaning, but if you squint, you can see its intended meaning where it is used.
Iso: It means “same” just like Homo, but is less popular. I have found personally, this is not scientific usage at all, but literary wise, “Homo” is better done with biology. “Iso” is better with physics and mathematics. Chemistry can have either/or.
Epi: This is more done in mathematics but can be worthwhile using, it means “Above”, “Over”, or “on”.
Hetero: “Other” or “Different”, unlike homo it doesn’t have another counterpart as far as I know.
Endo: “Within”, like “Endemic” which means it is internal and will go around.
Auto: (Anne: You can’t tell me this doesn’t mean mechanised like an automobile! I refuse to believe otherwise!) Smacks Anne with a newspaper on the nose no no no! Automatic comes from greek “automotos” and is also in “automaton”, both mean the same as “automobile”, “self-moving”, auto means “self”, if the thing can do it on its own without a person, it is “auto-X” whatever it is.
Mono: “One”, not too big of a deal.
Multi: Opposite of Mono, meaning “many”.
Inter: “Between” or “Across”, so “intergalactic” means your setting is BETWEEN GALAXIES! And we can traverse that easily. If you mean just within Milky Fucking Way, next prefix is for you.
Intra: “Within”, similar to Endo, “Intragalactical” means “within the galaxy”, I hate how people conflate it.
Capacitor: THIS IS NOT A BATTERY! A lot of people use this instead of a battery. An electric capacitor can store a small amount of energy and discharge it very quickly and easily but that is the thing. It is a relatively small amount that goes fast. It is not good for long term storage. It needs to be constantly “recharged” to retain, which is why they are in active circuits generally and act as short term releases only to smooth out quick changes. If you want to store it for a long time, use “battery”. If it is quick charge, quick release, “capacitor” works.
Temporal: Related to time.
Chrono: Also related to time.
Thermo: Related to heat. “Thermonuclear” means that it is a nuclear reaction that relies on heat somehow (Fusion requires heat).
Magi: Related to magic.
Gravo/Gravi: related to gravity.
Plasma: This can be hard to define, why? Because it has so many meanings! Fire can be called a form in some sense. I would say the best way to think of this is something that has properties that are liquid-like, maybe with some gas properties thrown in, and is a mix of different things that together act as a neutral whole. For example, the plasma of the sun has a mix of electrons and protons that move around. Kinda like a liquid, but when you look outside, it does not look like it is electric in the slightest (other than magnetic stuff). Water is not a plasma if you throw some salt into it just because as a whole, it now tastes like salt water, not water. This is not a perfect definition, so take it with a grain of salt, HAH!
Atmo: Atmosphere related. Atmo actually comes from the word for steam, but for obvious reasons it has changed with time.
Radio: Comes from Latin meaning “ray”, which is why you have both “radioactivity”, “radio waves”, “radiograph” and such. One is nasty, the others are entirely harmless!
-tron: Related to particles, generally a form of particle.
If you have more words, prefixes, suffixes, and more that you have heard in technobabble for scifi and more, please comment below, and I’ll happily include it.
Personalise fictobabble
See what I did? I fused them together! So I don’t have to call them separately when I want both together! Anyway, how do you personalise them? Well, if you are going hard scifi and such, you are stuck, and really nothing in this blog matters to you.
For the rest of you, whether you do soft science or just magic, here is a very simple dirty trick. Anne doesn’t want me to tell you but like I am going to let her stop me from telling you my secrets! (Anne: No don’t share the secret aluvalixir!) If you make up your entire branch of physics like I love to do… create your own affixes and roots! Make sure the roots and affixes have specific meanings, what they relate to, what they do, and be consistent in how you use them. This way, you can make it very personalised to your world and what you’ve made to exist there.
Making fictobabble believable
The way is simple. Know what each root and affix fundamentally mean, and then, when you start smashing them together, the product of it all has some semblance to what you are trying to convey. String of words and affixes that are haphazardly put together without consideration to meaning will show your ignorance more than anything. Sure, technobabble is BS, but it has to sound believable, and that means you have to be familiar with roots and proper usages in science. Check the list and other resources I will provide, and you can string them together and make it very believable!
How to know you’ve gone too far
When the stuff stops making sense. Like in the intro, the stuff Anne said quite honestly makes no sense whatsoever. It is a mindless thoughtless string of vague sounding affixes and words pretending to have meaning.
If you, the author, read it, and it is just complete and utter bullshit in your ears, readers will know it too.
Examples
Do I have to do this Anne? Do I?
(Anne: YES YOU MUST!)
Urgh, Fine! Here we go! I am not going to cite any specific examples because honestly I cannot remember any on the top of my head. But I will give examples to think about what I make up. Actually Anne, this is your fault, you’re doing some as well!
Fictobabble used poorly
Say you got a gang of rascals that is traversing space and they get to a planet where they are to get some secret weapon to deal with their enemy in space. It has been a bit of a struggle, but they got there. The gang goes down to the planet and meets up with the engineer/scientist who begins:
This gravotronic electrodischarge cannon uses hyperconcentrated high frequency gravometric waves on a nucleonic scale to gigapenetrate shields and harm the ship.
This can be fictoscientific speech, but it has more the hallmarks of technobabble. The affixation is nonsensical, meaningless, and shows a clear lack of understanding what any of it all means beyond “oh fancy words”. The thing to notice here is also this… why in Divinum’s name does anyone need to know all of this? This is clearly trying to explain how the weapon operates, but the language is close to useless. Speaking this way is a highly unusual kind of behaviour and not something most characters will do. Unless you have established the character as highly eccentric or the likes, this is not how people start a conversation or go into things without a prompt. And do not forget that if the gang are not experts, most of this will fly over their head, so any intelligent person will dumb it down as well.
(Anne:) Now for some fantasy! Your character, the Great Hero Anne, has come to Vivian, a blacksmith who can make the finest armour in the kingdom and is beloved by all. She asks for some armour, but when Vivian speaks, it’s all nonsense. In a panic, Anne summons a doctor, who says the following:
Quick! I need some quantumana magipollen stat to make an epilinear aluvalixir to cure the thermomagichaospeech before it becomes intrapermanent! Go find some aluv!
In case you couldn’t tell, this, uh, this doesn’t make sense. This is bad technobabble, because the reader is completely lost when reading this. None of these words have been introduced before and they’re scrambled together in rapid succession in a moment of crisis. As a reader, you would be pretty frustrated reading this. Are you curious what the doctor is trying to say? I’ll explain when I show you fictobabble done well! But seriously, what does intrapermanent even mean?!
(Vivian:) Don’t ask me, I don’t know! Thanks for that wonderful example!
Fictobabble used well
Time for a good one! Similar setting as my previous one but we are now stepping into my universe, we were in it all along! Anyway, I established fairly early that Nentro- is a prefix that is used for a special kind of plasma, nentroplasma, get it? I am so uncreative! Which is good here! Anyway, they get to the planet and meet the same guy that goes:
No need to worry about this baby. Standard nentronics in it, so it’ll be easy peasy to install it. The big issue is the nentrocapacitors. They are bulky and need to be directly connected and have a high flow of plasma by and through it.
Here we have language personalised by using the prefix nentro- that I made up. No stealie! Anyway, I use it several times with selected words and places. I use plasma because of how I imagine it behaves and is structured. Nentronics is probably the most difficult one, but any reader or viewer can quickly deduce it is a nentro- version of electronics. There are some big words, but the majority is more personality rather than endless spewing of fancy words.
(Anne:) Back to fantasy! When Vivian, the beloved blacksmith, begins speaking nonsense, you find a doctor who diagnoses it as chaospeech. After searching for answers, someone introduces you to a flower, aluv, that, when distilled into an elixir, can cure it. Your character has been harvesting aluv, which blooms only at midnight in the light of a full moon. Now, you take the ingredients to a famed alchemist, who says the following:
Thank you, Great Hero Anne! Never have I seen such skill and persistence in gathering aluv! Now, I’ll just distil the magipollen from the aluv to form the aluvalixir… Done. Give this to Vivian, and zhir chaospeech will vanish!
The reason this works is that first, I got rid of some of the nonsense from the first example that has nothing to do with anything. Second, the terms have been built up slowly, and they’re not crammed together in a moment of crisis. The reader knows aluv, since the character has been harvesting it, and that’s a made up term to help personalise the world. Magipollen is a new word for this scene, but the affix magi- is pretty self-explanatory, and given the context of the scene, it’s clear that the pollen has magical properties. You also know what chaospeech is, though that’s also hopefully obvious from the combination of chaos and speech, plus the topic of this blogpost, technobabble, which is pretty chaotic speech. If you know aluv, and you’re familiar with an elixir (I’m assuming most fantasy readers are), then the term aluvalixir also makes sense. And finally, this is a logical way to explain things in a slow-paced situation, not a rush of random words when everything is going wrong. In other words, it works!
Summa summarum
(Vivian:) Fictobabble is an important component of speculative fiction. The big issue is when it becomes meaningless technobabble that is used to make an ass pull that all alone saves the day without the narrative relying on character’s abilities which are shown to the consumer. That renders tensions, stories, and all meaningless. It also reduces your credibility as a writer.
Understanding roots and affixes, their meaning, and general usage in contexts is a huge help to make all your fictobabble more meaningful even if you chose to not expand it in details and only make it appear deeper than it really is. And never forget that personalising touch in it can do wonders to make your world and writing feel more alive. Some things will always exist, but new things always make it feel like it is different and things have happened. Any words you wish to contribute with, Anne?
(Anne:) I’d just add that it’s good to have words and affixes that are unique to your world. You want to do this! Reviewing the list of affixes above can help ensure that they’re actually logical, and making up your own is fun. Just be wary so you don’t turn your unique language into technobabble!
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Copyright ©️ 2023 Vivian Sayan. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as affixes and roots, and random derivations using them, including magipollen, are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific ideas such as nentro-, aluv, aluvalixir, and all language or exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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