# 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:** 19\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/141 "2013-06-29T22:04:25Z")
> [@tonyfop](#): > > Unfortunately, Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson wrote all of those really bad prequels to try to explain everything. I almost wish I hadn’t read them, because theytook the magic out of the “Real” novels. Which is one of the things that the OP seemed to be referring to: use of SF mumbo-jumbo (ISTM more than mere technobabble) that leaves the reader/audience going _“huh, I guess that **in-universe** that must mean **something** …”_ and trying to fill it in is a fool’s errand because it would be distracting from the point – for instance, what’s the Tannhauser Gate is not what’s important, it’s that Roy values his memories and it pains him that with his death they will pass into oblivion. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/142 "2013-06-30T00:11:12Z")
That’s what’s so awesome about Tolkien. It’s as if the authors of Ghostbusters spent 40 years making notes about Zuuls and the Rectification of the Vuldruni, just so they could have something behind that throwaway line referenced on page 1. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/143 "2013-06-30T00:22:33Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > That’s what’s so awesome about Tolkien. It’s as if the authors of Ghostbusters spent 40 years making notes about Zuuls and the Rectification of the Vuldruni, just so they could have something behind that throwaway line referenced on page 1. Funny you should say that. Dan Aykroyd worked out a fairly sophisticated spirit classification system when he was writing _Ghostbusters_. All that “class five free-roaming vapor” stuff wasn’t just tossed off for effect. Aykroyd knew exactly what that meant, even if it was gibberish to the audience. Of course, given Aykroyd’s general woo-woo nuttiness, he might not have meant it as fiction… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/144 "2013-06-30T00:25:18Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Which is one of the things that the OP seemed to be referring to: use of SF mumbo-jumbo (ISTM more than mere technobabble) that leaves the reader/audience going _“huh, I guess that **in-universe** that must mean **something** …”_ and trying to fill it in is a fool’s errand because it would be distracting from the point – for instance, what’s the Tannhauser Gate is not what’s important, it’s that Roy values his memories and it pains him that with his death they will pass into oblivion. “Look, we all go way back and uh, I owe you from the thing with the guy in the place and I’ll never forget it.” “That was our pleasure.” “I’d never been to Belize.” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/145 "2013-06-30T01:35:38Z")
“The continuum transfunctioner is a very mysterious and powerful device …and its mystery is only exceeded by it’s power.” ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/146 "2013-06-30T02:27:29Z")
> [@tonyfop](#): > > Unfortunately, Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson wrote all of those really bad prequels to try to explain everything. I almost wish I hadn’t read them, because theytook the magic out of the “Real” novels. Wait a second. They are really bad prequels but you only _almost_ wish you hadn’t read them? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/147 "2013-06-30T02:52:31Z")
I have a collection of supremely Bad Science Fiction quotes that I keep adding to. I know that this thread isn’t supposed to be about Bad Mumbo Jumbo, but some of these are irresistable. I will limit myself to one book by someone who is arguably the all-time winner for Bad SF Writing, Lionel Fanthorpe. He was evidently paid by the word, and sometimes used what I call the Thesaurus Technique. These examples are from **Galaxy 666** , written under the pen name (I have a list of two dozen pen names he used) of _Pel Torro_: To start, a little – well, a _lot_ – of techno-babble > [@](#): > > pp. 39-30 – Ischklah, Bronet, and Korzaak were manning the visual and auditory preceptor units, reading figures of scales as fast as they could go. > “Co-ordinates 1,9,7,5,4,862/003,” called Ischklah. > “9071 ¾. O24 co-ordinates CBJ, para-co-ordinate 198, 002,” called Bronet. > “Hyper co-ordinate 10467,” said Korzaak. “Ultra-co-ordinate 194/312/564/8179,” said Ischklah. > “Infra-co-ordinate,” began Bronet. “987.56 reference co-ordinate 1325.” > “Alpha reading high,” said Ischklah. > “Beta scale medium,” called Bronet. > “Gamma steady,” said Korzaak. > “Aleph pointer, zero. Beth pointer, zero.” > “Gimel pointer minus 2,” cut in Korzaak. to finish, an example of the Thesaurus Technique: > [@](#): > > p. 64 – > “I get the feeling,” said Bronet, “that there are nooks and crannies, holes, niches, corners, secret passages and underground rooms here that house things I would rather not see.” > “There is also the feeling,” said Oski, “that there are things in concealment here. It’s like walking on the edge of an ambush all the time. It’s as though the whole place were strangely camouflaged, as though it were a mask, a visor, or a veil drawn down over a face that it was better one did not see. Somewhere, something is hiding, lurking, skulking. This planet is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Under the wool, or behind the masquerade, there is an imposter. Who or what it is I do not know. It’s an obfuscating planet; it’s a disguised planet. This whole galaxy is a strange mystery, a mystery to which we seem to be no nearer a solution than when we were back in the happier parts of the empire. It’s a furtive planet, it’s reticent. I get the feeling that it’s screening, that it’s hiding something.” > “It’s a very taciturn place,” said Korzaak. “There are things ensconced here that are best left concealed. It’s a planet lying in wait, a whole galaxy lying in wait.” > “My main thought is one of discord,” said Bronet, “as I was saying a little earlier.” > **“Tell us more exactly what you mean,” said Ischklah.** > > [It then, amazingly, goes on] > > “I mean something like this. This is only an embryo thought at the back of my mind; it’s – it hasn’t had time to formulate.” He bit his lip, at a loss for words. “This planet seems to me a part of a galaxy of conflict. This is the sort of place where everything is discord and dissonance. It’s a planet of disharmony in a galaxy of disharmony. It’s a disagreeable sort of world. There’s something harsh about it. It’s a cacophony; it’s a world of Babel; it has confused sounds, but they are more than sounds. There is pandemonium, tumult, or racket here, but it’s not just in your ears; it’s everywhere. The whole place is somehow out of tune. It jangles. It’s discordant.” > “I think I’m beginning to see how you feel,” said Oski. “It jars and jangles on me.” > “You’re right,” said Bronet. “It scrapes and it rasps on the nerves, on the ears, on the mind…” > “It’s a harsh, raucous world,” said Ischklah. “There is something inharmonious and unharmonius about it. The very air, although it is sweet and clean, carries with it something unmelodius and unmusical. There is something untunable and untuneful here.” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/148 "2013-06-30T02:56:08Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I have a collection of supremely Bad Science Fiction quotes that I keep adding to. I know that this thread isn’t supposed to be about Bad Mumbo Jumbo, but some of these are irresistable. > > I will limit myself to one book by someone who is arguably the all-time winner for Bad SF Writing, Lionel Fanthorpe. He was evidently paid by the word, and sometimes used what I call the Thesaurus Technique. > > These examples are from **Galaxy 666** , written under the pen name (I have a list of two dozen pen names he used) of _Pel Torro_: > > To start, a little – well, a _lot_ – of techno-babble > > to finish, an example of the Thesaurus Technique: Thank you for reminding me why I have never been able to get into written science fiction. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/149 "2013-06-30T02:57:42Z")
Another bit of mumbo-jumbo from **Galaxy 666** : > [@](#): > > p. 13 – Milka began tucking into magellanic pseudopods with schurgle grass and chipped funkleweed. Bion began carving a deliciously cooked leg of hurkle-beast with oogonga sauce. ---
**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 30, 2013, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/150 "2013-06-30T13:08:24Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Which is one of the things that the OP seemed to be referring to: use of SF mumbo-jumbo (ISTM more than mere technobabble) that leaves the reader/audience going _“huh, I guess that **in-universe** that must mean **something** …”_ and trying to fill it in is a fool’s errand because it would be distracting from the point – for instance, what’s the Tannhauser Gate is not what’s important, it’s that Roy values his memories and it pains him that with his death they will pass into oblivion. Well put - that’s exactly what I was going for. In a way, I’m looking for textual MacGuffins. What they are and what they do isn’t important; how the characters react to them, is. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/151 "2013-06-30T13:23:21Z")
Switching over from sci-fi to fantasy, there’s the bit in DRAGONLANCE where a book contains a time-travel spell complete with a number of notes handwritten in the margin; the most interesting one: _“It is not possible to prevent the Cataclysm. So we have learned, to our great sorrow and at a great cost. May his soul rest with Paladine.”_ This immediately prompts a low whistle of surprise: _“So that’s what happened to him … That was a well-kept secret.”_ (Another character then mentions that they were fools even to try it, but, hey, they were desperate. _“As are we,”_ says a third, bitterly.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/152 "2013-07-01T13:03:08Z")
From China Miéville’s \*The Scar \* > [@](#): > > “Remember the razor golems?” said the Brucolac suddenly, and Uther Doul fell silent. “The steamwind plain?” the Brucolac continued. “Remember that place? The things we saw? This city owes us, Uther. We were the ones who saved it, whether they’ll admit it, whether they know it or not. Where were the damn Lovers then? That was you… and me.” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/153 "2013-07-01T19:15:51Z")
Not a science fiction film, but great science [Mumbo-Jumbo](http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/378113/Bringing-Up-Baby-Movie-Clip-Intercostal-Clavicle.html): “The last bone we need to complete the brontosaurus – the very last bone – the intercostal clavicle – is arriving tomorrow, after four years hard work.” ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/154 "2013-07-05T18:12:18Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > _Qadgop the Mercotan slithered flatly around the after-bulge of the tranship. One claw dug into the meters-thick armor of pure neutronium, then another. Its terrible xmexlike snout locked on. Its zymolosely polydactile tongue crunched out, crashed down, rasped across. Slurp! Slurp! At each abrasive stroke the groove in the tranship’s plating deepened and Qadgop leered more fiercely. Fools! Did they think that the airlessness of absolute space, the heatlessness of absolute zero, the yieldlessness of absolute neutronium, could stop QADGOP THE MERCOTAN? And the stowaway, that human wench Cynthia, cowering in helpless terror just beyond this thin and fragile wall…_ > > E.E. “Doc” Smith, _Children of the Lens_ > [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Watch it! Cynthia and I have been married for over 3 decades now. Do not make me go all xmex-like on you… Kind of a letdown to know that the reason Qadgop wanted to enter the tranship was to propose… ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/155 "2013-07-10T01:21:33Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > “By Grabthar’s Hammer, you will be AVENGED!” I can grab a class that isn’t listening just by dropping in a “Kessel Run” or “Han shot first” reference (gives you hope, seeing 20-somethings that have Star Wars memorized). And I often promise that we’ll have treats on Monday… “This I swear… By Grabthar’s Hammer!” ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/156 "2013-07-10T13:31:21Z")
Two of 'em, not quotes, but “concepts” type mumbo-jumbo. 1. Larry Niven’s **Protector** stuff. We (humans) are the mutated remnants of a lost Pak colony. Paks have three stages in their lifestyle: children, breeders, protectors. When a breeder gets past child-bearing/producing age, they’re genetically compelled to eat a plant that has a symbiotic virus in it that mutates them. Their hair falls out, their teeth fall out but their upper lip gets harder and more beak-like, they grow a second heart, and their intelligence increases dramatically. Because we (the decendants of a lost Pak colony ship) don’t have access to the plant that has the virus, we just grow old as our bodies try to make the change from breeder to protector on it’s own. I don’t care how impossible the biology or archaeology is, it was the first science fiction “concept” that literally stunned me. 2) Greg Egan’s **Quarantine**. It’s an sf mystery and this is the big reveal, so I’m putting the concept in spoilers. One day we wake up to find the whole solar system surrounded by a mirror-like sphere–NO visible light gets out, it’s a perfect reflective surface (he handwaves away heat issues, stuff like that). So we can’t see anything beyond, say, the Oort cloud. Remember Schrodinger’s cat? The idea that until you open the box, the cat is “smeared” across all possible outcomes between alive and dead? Turns out, that of all the races in the universe, we’re the _only_ ones who don’t live that way–every other individual in every other race across the galaxy lives smeared across all possible outcomes. Or they did, until we came along. When we look at them, we “open Schrodinger’s box” and nail them to one existance…killing billions of varients. And our telescopes are getting better… They put up the mirror to stop us from unwitting galactic genocide. Which blew me away. Weirdly, I don’t remember the actual _story_ all that much–a detective searching for a missing girl or something–but the concept has stuck with me for years. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/157 "2013-07-10T13:47:30Z")
Reminds me of a sf short story I once read in which astronauts from Earth reach another habitable world and are sitting around a campfire. A humanoid alien shows up out of the dark, surprising them. It sits down and begins talking in a friendly way to them. It explains [spoiler]that the galaxy was once ruled by a terribly cruel, dictatorial master race. After millenia, the other races were able to overthrow their tyranny and hunt down virtually all of them. Some members of the master race went into hiding, though, in remote star systems. From time to time, having long forgotten their lineage, they relearn starflight and emerge back into the galaxy… and it just happened again. As the Earth astronauts realize what this means, the alien kills them all, and checks their ship’s computer to learn their point of origin. Brrrr.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/158 "2013-07-10T13:53:54Z")
Not really mumbo-jmbo, but standard sci-fi monster movie stuff. After the Army has killed the monsters that have ravaged the country, the white coated scientist usually says something like: “maybe mankind is not ready for contact with superior races from the stars”…or something like that.:o ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915/159 "2013-07-10T14:47:32Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Reminds me of a sf short story I once read in which astronauts from Earth reach another habitable world and are sitting around a campfire. A humanoid alien shows up out of the dark, surprising them. It sits down and begins talking in a friendly way to them. It explains [spoiler]that the galaxy was once ruled by a terribly cruel, dictatorial master race. After millenia, the other races were able to overthrow their tyranny and hunt down virtually all of them. Some members of the master race went into hiding, though, in remote star systems. From time to time, having long forgotten their lineage, they relearn starflight and emerge back into the galaxy… and it just happened again. As the Earth astronauts realize what this means, the alien kills them all, and checks their ship’s computer to learn their point of origin. > > Brrrr.[/spoiler] Either Alan Dean Foster borrowed that idea from the story you list or vice versa. Except for the downer ending, it’s almost exactly the same as Foster’s “With Friends Like These…” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo/661915.md?page=7)