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Since when did Trek explain anything with reference to real physics? Treknobabble =/= scientific explanation.

No but they try. They say the ship goes fast due to M/AM engine which makes a lot of power and warps space.

They dont just shrug and say "Its magic"

I wasn't talking about Trek, merely about sci-fi in general.
Several sci-fis do simply wave explainations away, Star Wars probably being the most noticable one as they didn't explain anything in the films.
The difference between sci-fi and fantasy is that one has technology, the other doesn't.

Teaos wrote:No but they try. They say the ship goes fast due to M/AM engine which makes a lot of power and warps space.

Yes, they say what it does - but that doesn't mean that it isn't effectively treated as magic, since none of them can be done using modern physics. In "The Empire Strikes Back" Yoda gives a pretty detailed description of how the Force "works". Despite this, you'd be hard-pressed to describe it in modern terms as anything but magic. In many cases, it's probably better to handwave how technology works, as the less exposition there is the smaller the chance of getting it wrong. As Rochey says, the difference between sci-fi and fantasy is whether it's based on technology, not whether they give detailed explanationsof how that technology works.

No in Fantasy shit can just happen. In Harry Potter people can pop around anywhere in an instant.

In trek to do that you have to have a teleporter near by that runs on set pirameters.

Even in Harry Potter the magic involved has set parametres. It's impossible according to the laws of physics, but it is internally consistent.

Not really. HP almost never set any limits to their magic or what could happen. Trek did.

In trek to do that you have to have a teleporter near by that runs on set pirameters.

Yes, and that's the difference I already pointed out:
one has technology, the other just is.

This doesn't make Trek any more realistic than Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. It just means they try to sound more realistic.

Isn't the point that the second part of the term "science fiction" is "fiction?" So, 'Trek has technobabble incorporated - it doesn't make it any truer to the laws of physics that we know. As Rochey mentioned, all that it does is move the milieu from the realm of fiction to sci-fi.

The problem with the GCS warp core is that it has one.

Deepcrush wrote:The problem with the GCS warp core is that it has one.

Well, in a manner of speaking. But the GCS caore, or related systems, seem to be needlessly fragile for a ship that is supposed to be designed to go faster, farther, harder, <inject superlative here> than anything else.

But by the fact that it does go bigger harder faster means that it needs a super power core with very specific fine tuning. It would make it fragile.

Teaos wrote:But by the fact that it does go bigger harder faster means that it needs a super power core with very specific fine tuning. It would make it fragile.

No it doesn't. If it was a dedicated high-speed courier, maybe, but for a ship that is designed to be the most powerful warship the Federation has to offer, such a delicate design is the height of folly. Raw power isn't the be-all and end-all of warship design - it has to be able to deliver that firepower, and if it blows up due to poor reactor safety it can't.

But because it is so big and powerful almost no one would take it on or be capable of being able to take advantage of that.

Teaos wrote:But because it is so big and powerful almost no one would take it on or be capable of being able to take advantage of that.

You're talking about building a warship with a dangerously unstable reactor, and keeping your fingers crossed that no-one will attack it. Quite apart from the fact that there are plenty of powers that can take on a GCS (the Klingons and Romulans for starters), it doesn't need an attack to risk the ship's destruction - half the passing space anomalies have done it.