--- In the control room ---

Ensign: Sir, USFLTFORCOM is detecting a noise moving south over the Beaufort Sea, coordinates marked Zulu-1. They say it sounds like a sonic boom!
General: Damn! Are any of our air assets in that region?
Airman: Sir we have two Longswords on an elliptical patrol one hundred eighty miles south-south-west going subsonic, coordinates Bravo-3.
General: Raise us to alarm yellow and get me X-band look-down on those grid coordinates now! This could be a first strike! Why didn't any other sensors detect this?
Airman: Ground based RADAR is detecting no intruders.
Engisn: Sir, FLTFORCOM states all its sensors are online but none squawked. The sound was detected by the USS Rhode Island, she claims to have heard the noise directly above her.
Royal Navy Ensign: Sir the HMS Astute is 517 miles north-north-east, marker Hotel-5, and cannot confirm the noise.
General: ...And a goddamn polar bear falling over would have FLTFORCOM reporting the entire Russian Air Force flying over the pole....
Captain: Sir, next look-down sat overflight will occur in 7 minutes 32 seconds.
General: Shit! Have those Longswords snap to intercept and put their sensors on the projection.

--- In the cockpit ---

Combat controller: Eielson to Guardian 2-1, have your patrol descend to two five thousand feet and snap to intercept marker Zulu-2 on a direct heading, best afterburner, over. You are intercepting a south-moving sonic boom spotted at marker Zulu-1. Possible first strike, over.
Longsword pilot: Guardian 2-1 to Eielson, wilco, descending to two five thousand feet, heading is direct intercept with marker Zulu-2, flying at best afterburner and bogies are possible, out.

Reading this, how did you feel?

Completely confused?
Totally amazed?
Got too intimidated to continue reading?
Understood most of what was going on?
Appreciative of the realism?

I'm trying to get a feel for how much technological immersion people are prepared for and interested in and how well it would be appreciated (or unappreciated, whatever the case may be). For me, animes and comics that try to portray technologically complex equipment and professional soldiers with casual personalities acting independently and on whims irk me, whereas I was totally impressed the depiction of technology in shows like Neon Genesis Evangelions.

Brainstorming for my own comic, I'm thinking of a realistic depth of technological immersion that few others may be able to meet me on in terms of appreciating or even understanding what the hell is happening. Important to note is that tech grunge dialog would supplement more human discussion, not replace them.

I could make out most of it, but throwing out too many numbers will come off as too technical or techno-babble for my tastes. It's something Star Trek Next Gen was occasionally guilty of... mm, I guess it makes it hard to relate to unless you can easily understand what everything is in reference too.

As a background chatter narration that wouldn't guide the story or even an individual panel, I wouldn't mind it, but it's a bit too dry otherwise. I wouldn't want an explanatory glossary of dozens of acronyms either.

In my opinion, it's easier to listen idly to techno-babble than be forced to read it. That said, I'm sure there are those who enjoy the detail of this sort of thing.

It actually depends on the readers preference. Generally, readers who are less technically inclined will tend to skip reading the technical part and get to the point of the message relayed by the characters. Only a small percentage of readers would get confused if such conversations were to carry on for more than 20 pages.

Yeah, that sounds like the kind of dialogue I would skip. That stuff isn't interesting to me.

Yeah, I'm afraid that is just too much work to read. If I really pay attention I can more or less understand what is going on, but the mass of technical terms and numbers is a turn-off. I think page space is a little more valuable than that, as a reader I'd rather it be spent on conveying the vital actions than being perfectly technically correct. It's not really strong enough as a dialogue to offset the 'it's just people talking' that the visuals would probably end up being.

But, as you say, some comic readers who are into sci-fi or military technicality would probably appreciate the realism. As a casual reader I'm not into it though.

Hmm, ok, I'm getting a better feel for how to do this. In the original post I exaggerated the density of the techno-babble to try to engineer an 'overwhelming immersion' feel, but a more refined direction is to try to illustrate all of moving parts in a way that you can feel the full chain of events that lead up to a particular event. The dialog in the opening post has been subtly edited to reflect this. Now lets say the pilot is an important character - if you ONLY heard him get ordered to a speedy intercept with the Zulu-2 marker and then things went from there, would you feel any less intensity/weight on whatever action follows?

And does ANYBODY here like technological immersion? Like you yourself?