The unknown and unexplained in science fiction

How technology works is sometimes in a novel or movie or other work (some authors give you every last detail, like Andy Weir) and sometimes it's just there as a given.

While avoiding explanations in visual media is more common than in printed ones, the fact that it happens at all is telling. Take something like the TV series (and movies) of Star Trek. Warp speed is part of every episode and is vital to the functioning of the plot. In fact, several episodes show them in danger because the warp drives are malfunctioning.

We usually get no explanation; they're just a given in the universe. When there is an explanation, it's gobbity-gook. Sometimes it's internally consistent and other times it's not.

Some folks say that any story with faster-than-light travel isn't realistic, no matter how far in the future. Yet, you'd never call Star Trek, or any other story with FTL travel "fantasy" because of it.

The important part isn't if the author explains the technology to the reader but if the characters believe it. There are plenty of technologies in the real world I don't understand on a technical level, where I couldn't explain how or why they work. But I still believe they're real. I know they're not magic.

To call your story science fiction, the tech merely has to be scientific. It's not important that the reader understand the scientific principles behind technology in your story.

posted over 5 years ago

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Cyn‭

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Scientific plausibility is maintained by not doing anything that breaks it. That is all there is to it. Details get bit more complex.

Unless you somehow signal otherwise the default assumption any reader will and should make is that your world works the same as the world they are familiar with. The issue comes with how to not signal more than you intend. When you introduce a new element the reader will try to fit it to some model they are familiar with. You need to control what that model will be. A task complicated by different readers being familiar with different things. Assumptions safe with one audience will utterly fail with another.

And the context has major impact. I am specifically talking about genre. If your story reads like fantasy or space opera or has gothic horror vampires you should not waste much time trying to look scientifically plausible. It won't work.

When you introduce an element that is beyond the known science but wish to to maintain plausibility anyway there are two parts to it.

First is still not saying anything that breaks the plausibility outright. If you say or imply it is "magic" you will lose. Do not use fantasy conventions. Do not imply it is magical. Do not imply it is sufficiently advanced to be considered magic.

Second is simply signalling to the reader that it should be considered plausible. That it is science. All that means is that somebody understands how it works, and somebody built it with normal engineering without any magical rituals. Or could have done so even if they did actually use ritual incantations due to superstition. That somebody discovered the science behind it, and understands it. That it fits in the overall framework of science and scientific method.

Sadly, very sadly, the established practice to convey that is technobabble. Try to keep it minimal. All you need is enough that the reader gets your intent.

For example for an FTL drive you could mention that it is a [a] drive based on the [b] effect discovered by [c] in [d]. That this particular one was built by [e] in [f] and is special because it can [g] and has [h]. But that unfortunately it has issues with [i] and needs regular [j] which increases upkeep or limits its use in some way.

Just speak about it in recognizably the same manner and same kind of language that is used to discuss things that are common place, not at all magical, and obviously entirely plausible. For a space drive look how enthusiasts talk about car engines or jet engines. For a weapon look how gun enthusiasts talk about guns. Then either have such a character be enthusiastic 'on camera' or have some other character or the narrator give a toned down version.

It is annoying but you do not need to spend lots of time on it, you just need to do it every time you first introduce a new element. Preferably without it sounding ridiculously forced and unnatural. Technogeek characters that are constantly babbling things nobody wants to hear can be convenient.

posted over 5 years ago

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Ville Niemi‭

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Your question makes me think first and foremost of Asimov's robots. We know how they work, right? There are the Three Laws. And they have a positronic brain.

Wait, what? What on earth is a "positronic brain"? How is that even possible? What does that mean?

When asked "why positrons", Asimov freely admitted that positrons were the buzzword at the time, and that had he written the first robot stories a few years before or a few years later, the brains could have been made from some other phlebotinum. The important bit about the robots was not how the functioned physically, but how they functioned logically - the Three Laws. (Which connects to @CortAmmon's answer - what's important to the plot is what we need to understand well.)

@scohe001 is right: we do not actually understand how our technology works. A USBdrive works by inserting it into the correct slot in the computer, and then copying things to/from it. How that actually works apparently involves quantum physics, tunnelling, and is for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from magic.

What makes our technology "technology" is that we know someone understands it, someone, manufactures it, someone can take it apart and fiddle with it. Basically, it is "coded" technology.

So that's what you do: you code something as technology by the way it is treated: it is manufactured, bought, sold, tinkered with, used by laymen. @Amadeus gives examples, like the technology breaking and being repaired - that's still coding something as 'tech'. The readers only need information about how something works if it's relevant to the story, and the information only needs to go as deep as is relevant to the story. One can, for example, understand the software (e.g. the Three Laws) while the hardware is a black box (e.g. positronic brain).

As a thought experiment, compare a magical device that uses knobs and buttons. A camera with a tiny imp inside that, when you push a button, quickly draws what's in front of it. (Terry Pratchett reference.) Such magic would feel "too technological", right? That's because, even though we're told "it's magic", the way it's treated is the way technology is treated, not the way magic is treated. We have different expectations from magic than we have from technology. Which is what lets you invent something that's "sufficiently advanced science", and thus theoretically "indistinguishable from magic", and then distinguish it from magic by the way it is treated.

posted about 5 years ago

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Galastel‭

1885 reputation 81 551 319 3

I think you may be thinking a little too hard about things as the writer. Instead look at things from your characters' perspectives. Unless you're writing an engineer or someone actually building X, they probably won't actually know how it works. Heck, even an engineer building X would only know about the tiny portion they actually work on. The rest is probably done by other teams or even other computers.

Remember that to the layman, things just work.

Let's imagine that X is actually a car in today's world. If you were to ask some John Doe on the street, he'd explain to you that the car works by turning the keys and pressing the right pedals. He probably understands what it's good for and how it interacts with the world (ie: what can go wrong if you collide with something). He knows that when the little needle gets close to the 'E' he needs to put more Magic Fluid in it from one of the Magic Fluid depots around the city. But that's about it.

Focus on the things your characters care about. Those are the things that will affect them

Does John Doe know how the car burns the gas to cause propulsion? Or how the brakes work? Or even why it's so easy to turn a wheel and change the direction of two tons of metal? I'd guess not. And guess what--this lack of knowledge doesn't even affect him!

What John Doe does care about is how the price of Magic Fluid has been going up lately. He cares about how cool the new models of cars look compared to his old one or what (to someone unfamiliar with the concept of cars) minor features were added.

You're not writing an encyclopedia or manual--you're writing a story!

If knowing or not knowing a fact doesn't affect your characters, then guess what--it doesn't affect your story! And if it doesn't affect your story, then it has no place in the pages you're writing.

Remember that all of this technology is just a pile of tools that work to build an image for the reader of what your world is like and propel your story. At the end of the day, all that really matters for the story is probably exactly what you've written: it's "see[ing] the technology in use, understand[ing] what it does, and even what it requires to work."

posted over 5 years ago

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scohe001‭

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The most important thing I recommend is to hold to Sanderson's First Law of Magics:

An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

While you draw the line between magic and science fiction, this rule is essential on both sides of the line. It's important because much of what makes science fiction fun dabbles along the edge. You have to be able to obey the laws of magic while you're teetering over on the magic side.

It also points directly at the key to your question. Your reader must understand the magic. If they understand the magic, they will give more leeway in the scientific plausibility. One pattern I have seen many times is to establish a character with scientific credibility, and then rely on them to give credibility to whatever you are writing.

Probably the most important thing to remember that's unique to science fiction is the flow of science. Science does not give any credibility to predictions outside of the status quo without experiments showing something different. People are trained to be skeptical of these things. If you have to violate a "currently known law of physics," you are going to want to make sure they can believe whatever experiments were done to move science in that direction. Thus, if you need FTL, pay attention to how the new rules might have been discovered. If you need to break the law of conservation of energy, make sure you do so gracefully. And, if possible, introduce these changes in a way that does not solve conflict. That way, at worst, readers can respond through Sanderson's Law.

And remember:

We often think of scientific discovery with shouts of "Eureka! Eureka! I have found it!" and the subsequent public indecency as one streaks through Syracuse naked. Real scientific discovery rarely sounds like that. Far more often, it sounds like "Hmm. That's kind of funny."

posted over 5 years ago

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Cort Ammon - Reinstate Monica‭

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Going of the "Lay person" comment, there are a lot of topics today where people may understand the fundamental basics of the system, but not the actual working mechanics. I recall a scene from the TV series "Transformers: Prime" where Jack (a human) is working on his science fair project about engine mechanics with Arcee (a robot that can change into a motorcycle) and both have reached a stumbling point and have the following exchange (paraphrased):

Jack: Arcee, you're a motorbike. Can't you build me an engine?

Arcee: a bit annoyed Jack, you're a human. Build me a small intestine.

It's notable in that the person who ends up helping Jack is a mechanic, which to the Transformers requires a lot of science background equivalent to a Medical doctor. Arcee is a soldier and knows how to break a bot... putting one back together is a bit beyond her ken.

Another example of this exists in Firefly, where Mal, the Captain, knows very little about how his ship flies and in fact, he has to hire two people to both fly the ship and repair it (Wash and Kaylee) although he has some ability to overlap with Wash, he isn't nearly as good. In one scene where there is a break on the ship, Kaylee is giving a long technical explination about how a spaceship from the future works only to be interupted by Mal and asked for a translation into "Captain Dummy Speak" which amounts to the ship is broke and dead in the water.

Similarly, in Star Trek, the technical solution was given in full by the "Royal Smart Person" only for someone to come up with an analogy for what he just said. Saying you could use a high energy neutrino beam to polarize the shields is meaningless, but everyone knows that it's essentially going to go through the shield like a hot knife through butter. Of course, Star Trek gives us one of the best out of universe answers to the scientific workings of it's tech. When one writer was asked by a fan "How do the Inertial Dampeners work?" the writer responded with the right answer to the question, "Just fine, thank you." This was accepted because Trek Tech does have a consistent use of terms that the writers use to show specific effects without really knowing how they work. The inertial dampeners allow for safe travel at FTL speeds that won't cause the crew to go splat on deceleration. It's basically the breaks. The exact mechanics are not known, but they don't need to be. If ever a character shouts that the dampeners aren't responding, it's gonna be panic mode (they are not that prone to break, when compared to holodecks and transporters, which are the go to mechanical trouble points that will cause problems).

Star Wars, which doesn't really explain tech, gives us Han Solo and his beloved hunk of junk Millenium Falcon. Han's love of the ship is very much like the gear head who's always tinkering with his cool car... and like the gear head, the ship's age mixed with modifications that aren't strictly legal in nature, means the ship is all kinds of messed up and not the most reliable. When Luke points to a blinking light while Han tries to make the first hyper-space jump, Han merely tells him don't press it... like a passenger in an old car in a police chase being concerned about the perpetually lit "check engine" light and the ace driver not wanting him to worry about it. It's always on. Empire gives us Han having trouble because his ship is broke and all the usual fixes aren't working and the cops are on him.

posted about 5 years ago

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hszmv‭

530 reputation 1 71 105 0

The easiest way to show your technology fits science fiction is to have it break, and then get it fixed by an engineer with a spare part or something.

More generally speaking, in the reader's mind it will be "technology" if it is treated like "technology". In particular, show it can break and needs to get fixed by some guy with a screwdriver. In that scene the tech gets treated as we would treat a misbehaving iPhone, as an irritating inconvenience. We don't really know how an iPhone works either, but we don't treat it like its magic.

You will see this trick used in Star Wars, repeatedly, the drives and machines malfunction. R2D2 may beep, and we can't understand that, but the actors all treat the beeping as a language they know, and respond in English (usually in a way that lets us know what R2D2 said).

You will see the same trick used in Star Trek, Scotty was always there to remind Kirk (and the audience) that the warp drives weren't magic (but apparently Scotty was magic, always doing the impossible.)

Treat it like a fallible machine, and it will be seen as one. As a general rule, magic contains some mechanism of action that is not scientifically explainable. That is true even in detailed magic systems.

Technology will not, the characters all think of it as a machine, even if they have no exact knowledge of how the machine works; they know that machines depend on parts, the parts can wear out or break, and the machine will stop working.

Treat it like technology, and you don't have to really explain how it works, your readers will see it through the eyes of your characters, as a machine.

posted over 5 years ago

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Amadeus‭

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