The imaginary line marking the difference between
Applied Phlebotinum which is a cool and interesting adjunct to the story being told, and
Applied Phlebotinum which
is the story being told. Story quality plummets dramatically the further past the Roddenberry Line you get.
What side of the Roddenberry Line you're on can often be determined by the amount of
Technobabble you have to wade through before you can find a real plot point or a believable character.
The term was coined by Ben "Gryphon" Hutchins of
Eyrie Productions Unlimited, and named (of course) for the late
Gene Roddenberry, creator of
Star Trek, whose enthusiasm for the gimcrackery of
The Future occasionally overwhelmed his training as a writer. (
Some of his successors were better about this... and some were significantly worse.)
