# Favorite Sci-Fi Mumbo-Jumbo **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 25, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915 "2013-06-25T21:12:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/1 "2013-06-25T21:12:08Z")
\*I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears… in… rain. Time… to die… \* - **Blade Runner** _Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!_ - **Ghostbusters** \*You weren’t there. In the final days of the war. You never saw what was born. But if the time lock’s broken then everything is coming through. Not just the Daleks, but the Star of Degradations. The Horde of Travesties. The Nightmare Child. The Could-Have-Been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres. The war turned into hell! \* - **Doctor Who** , “the End of Time” Science fiction and fantasy writers invent huge, fascinatingly complex universes, imbued with endless backstories and explanations for every incident and reference. And sometimes they make stuff up because it sounds cool. This thread is about the latter - the intentionally mysterious and obscure. It’s about sentences and paragraphs writers throw in to their book, movie or series without explaining them and without ever intending to explain them, solely to evoke an emotional reaction. In other words, stuff that’s left entirely to our imagination. I brought my three favorites above. Let’s see yours. (Note: I only mean stuff that isn’t explained in the story’s official “canon”. Fanfic, fanwanks and expanded universes don’t count). ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/2 "2013-06-25T22:04:26Z")
“It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/3 "2013-06-25T22:08:11Z")
Ha! The obvious classic. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/4 "2013-06-25T22:24:22Z")
The Avatar smiled silkily and leaned closer to Ziller. “Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal, I am not even some attempt at producing an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side.” Masaq’ Hub to Mahrai Ziller (Iain M Banks: Look to Windward) For some reason that self-description of the super-advanced AI’s of the Banks universe still gives me the chills. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/5 "2013-06-25T22:30:40Z")
Is that the only time these “culture minds” are mentioned in the books? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/6 "2013-06-25T22:39:31Z")
Because I’m not sure you got when I’m going for here. I want the utterly obscure, not merely the evocative. Take the “Kessel Run” line. We don’t know what or where Kessel is, or why it has a run. We don’t know if 12 parsecs is a little or a lot. In fact, we don’t know anything at all, and never will. The line was just thrown out there, never to be explained. That’s what I want. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/7 "2013-06-25T22:47:19Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > _Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!_ > > - **Ghostbusters** This is one of my favorite parts of the movie. Perfect delivery of the lines. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/8 "2013-06-25T22:55:45Z")
Directions to find the lost planet of Thamber, in Jack Vance’s “The Killing Machine” - Set a course from the old Dog Star A point to the north of Achernar; Fare until, on the starboard beam, Six red suns toward a blue sun stream. Sleight your ship to where afar A cluster hangs like a scimitar. Under the hilt to the verge extreme And dead ahead shines Thamber’s gleam. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/9 "2013-06-25T23:10:16Z")
I’m not sure this is really the kind of thing you’re looking for, but I like it enough I’m going to post it anyway: _The next day, when the twilight was far gone and night was gathering fast, the magician went away to the forest’s edge, and uttered there the spell that he had made. And the spell was a compulsive, terrible thing, having a power over evil dreams and over spirits of ill; for it was a verse of forty lines in many languages, both living and dead, and had in it the word wherewith the people of the plains are wont to curse their camels, and the shout wherewith the whalers of the north lure the whales shoreward to be killed, and a word that causes elephants to trumpet; and every one of the forty lines closed with a rhyme for “wasp.”_ -Lord Dunsany, **The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth** ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/10 "2013-06-25T23:12:52Z")
In the first episode of **Fringe** , while describing “The Pattern”, a series of paranormal events, one of the characters said **“The events appear to be scientific in nature”**. I’m still not sure if that line was supposed to be funny or not. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/11 "2013-06-25T23:16:09Z")
Sadly, my favorite mumbo-jumbo phrase was explained as soon as they got past the guards and therefor does not qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/12 "2013-06-25T23:52:37Z")
It’s not completely an aside, but NIven&Pournelle have several passages from the comet’s perspective in _Lucifer’s Hamster_. One is one of the most dreadfully chilling passages I’ve read in any book. From memory: \*The comet was dying, disintegrating under the heat of the approaching sun and now more a massive field of icy chunks and rock than a coherent ball. It needed only to swing past the enemy sun and back out into the cold, where it could slowly regroup into a single entity again. But there appeared to be something in its path.\* ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/13 "2013-06-25T23:53:20Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > _I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears… in… rain. Time… to die…_ > > - **Blade Runner** … > > Science fiction and fantasy writers invent huge, fascinatingly complex universes, imbued with endless backstories and explanations for every incident and reference. And sometimes they make stuff up because it sounds cool. > > This thread is about the latter - the intentionally mysterious and obscure. It’s about sentences and paragraphs writers throw in to their book, movie or series without explaining them and without ever intending to explain them, solely to evoke an emotional reaction. In other words, stuff that’s left entirely to our imagination. I brought my three favorites above. Let’s see yours. You opened the thread with mine. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/14 "2013-06-26T00:06:50Z")
I’ve been trying to come up with a good one, and all I can come up with are annoyingly hacky bad ones. Like: “I haven’t felt you this tense since we fell into that nest of Gundarks.” “You fell into that nightmare, Master, and I rescued you, remember?” “Oh yes.” ::fake laugh that was clearly take one but was used anyway:: ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/15 "2013-06-26T00:56:33Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m not sure this is really the kind of thing you’re looking for, but I like it enough I’m going to post it anyway: > > _The next day, when the twilight was far gone and night was gathering fast, the magician went away to the forest’s edge, and uttered there the spell that he had made. And the spell was a compulsive, terrible thing, having a power over evil dreams and over spirits of ill; for it was a verse of forty lines in many languages, both living and dead, and had in it the word wherewith the people of the plains are wont to curse their camels, and the shout wherewith the whalers of the north lure the whales shoreward to be killed, and a word that causes elephants to trumpet; and every one of the forty lines closed with a rhyme for “wasp.”_ > > -Lord Dunsany, **The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth** I just looked this up to post it. Dunsany did this very, very well. (To be honest, his stuff doesn’t have many other virtues, but this? This he did well.) ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/16 "2013-06-26T01:05:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Frost: Hey, I sure wouldn’t mind getting some more of that Arcturian poontang! Remember that time? > > Spunkmeyer: Yeah, Frost, but the one that you had was a male! > > Frost: It doesn’t matter when it’s Arcturian, baby! Is pretty amusing. (From [_Aliens_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/quotes?ref_=tt_ql_3), of course.) That movie did a good job of implying a big roomy backstory, especially for the Colonial Marines (“_another_ bughunt”???). ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/17 "2013-06-26T01:15:45Z")
A large amount of the Hitchhiker’s Guide… especially Vogon Poetry. So much so that my twin boys are known as ‘Grunting Bugglies’ [QUOTE=Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz] Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturitions are to me, As plurdled gabbleblotchits, On a lurgid bee, That mordiously hath bitled out, Its earted jurtles, Into a rancid festering confectious inner-sphincter. [drowned out by moaning and screaming] Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles, Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts, And living glupules frart and slipulate, Like jowling meated liverslime, Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turling dromes, And hooptiously drangle me, With crinkly bindlewurdles, Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, See if I don’t. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/18 "2013-06-26T01:15:48Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > I just looked this up to post it. Dunsany did this very, very well. (To be honest, his stuff doesn’t have many other virtues, but this? This he did well.) Dunsany was excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/19 "2013-06-26T01:50:04Z")
I recall from the game _Colony Wars_ there were descriptions of various planets that gave backstory. One such planet listed various Terran atrocities that had happened there, including some incident called _“The Last Emasculation”,_ a phrase that stuck with me. [QUOTE=Soon I Will Be Invincible] She’s not quite invisible, merely transparent, a woman of Lucite or water. When you get to know her face, she has that long-jawed look people start getting a few centuries from now, a hollowness around the eyes. You recognize it when you’ve been up and down the time-stream a few times, and seen a few of the far-future possibilities - the Machine Kings, or the Nomad Planet, or the Steady State, or the Telephony. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![irritant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@irritant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irritant)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/20 "2013-06-26T01:59:34Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > I just looked this up to post it. Dunsany did this very, very well. (To be honest, his stuff doesn’t have many other virtues, but this? This he did well.) This is possibly the most baffling thing I’ve read today, and I’ve been following the “Mental illness is exaggerated” thread in GD. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915.md?page=2)