Science fiction terminology

dilemma between painful truth and blissful ignorance

Technobabble (a portmanteau of technology and babble), also called technospeak, is a type of nonsense that consists of buzzwords, esoteric language, or technical jargon. It is common in science fiction. Use of technobabble in the Star Trek universe is referred to treknobabble.

A fix-up (or fixup) is a novel created from several short fiction stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material, such as a frame story or other interstitial narration, is written for the new work.

thumb|A visual effects model of a ship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind featuring extensive greebling Greebles, also called greeblies (singular: greebly) or nurnies, are small relief details used to give visual complexity to a model. The act of decorating a model with greebles is known as greebling. While greebling originated as a technique in filmmaking, it is commonly used in model-making, toy design, and kitbashing.

Clanker is a slur for robots and artificial intelligence (AI) software. The term has been used in Star Wars media, first appearing in the franchise's 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando. By 2025, the term had become widely used to express hatred or distaste for machines ranging from delivery robots to large language models. This trend has been attributed to anxiety around the negative societal effects of AI.