Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lake
I think one of the rules of any fiction writing at all, be it sci-fi, fantasy, or any other kind is this: Keep the technobabble to the absolute minimum required to do the job.
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I ran into that issue with
Verdant Skies, as the "technobabble" was essential to the resolution of the problem, and I had already set up a command hierarchy that demanded a meeting to discuss what had happened.
In that case, I tried to do what anyone in such a meeting would do, that is: Keep the explanation simple enough for any layman in the room to understand; so, no complex quantum physics details and equations, some simplified descriptions of the involved theories and technology, a character whose job it was to simplify physics explanations for non-scientists; and most importantly, a closing outburst from another character to get everybody grounded and breathing again.
I thought it worked well.
I provided further detail in the afterword of the story, and on my webpage, for anyone who was interested in knowing more. In my case, references to articles from which I pulled my science were my afterword, but there's no real reason an afterword can't be as fictional as the rest of the story... in fact, trying to discern whether an afterword is real or fictional can be half the fun of an SF story.