What exactly is Unobtainium

Is it about

1. a mineral/metal/such that is hard to obtain in-universe, or
2. a fictional mineral/metal/such (that the world may have in excess)?

Courtesy link: Unobtainium

First sentence of the description: Unobtainium is the exotic material that is needed to make the Applied Phlebotinum of a story work.

Three elements:

• It powers the Applied Phlebotinum — it makes the magic work or lets you forge the super weapons and armor or runs the warp drive.
• It's hard to get — you can't buy mithril or dilithium at the convenience store.
• It's "fantastic" — it does not exist in the real world that we know of, or has properties not found in the real world thing it's supposedly based on. (Some older kinds of unobtainium became retroactively mundane when we discovered how to make them/what properties they have.)

Note that there are two subtropes that can help with specific cases, each on opposite ends of the scale of consistency:

• Minovsky Particle: A form of unobtainium that has a rigorous scientific description and strictly defined properties, even though it's not real.
• Green Rocks: A form of unobtainium that has whatever properties the plot demands.

edited 6th Mar '17 9:17:34 PM by Fighteer