Nuclear engineers have two faces when they hear "critical state." For the initiated, it's just Tuesday—the reactor's doing exactly what it should, reaching the perfect chain reaction equilibrium where each fission triggers exactly one more. For everyone else? Pure existential terror because they think Chernobyl 2.0 is imminent.
It's like telling a non-pilot the plane is experiencing "controlled flight into terrain." Technically accurate, absolutely terrifying if you don't know it's just landing.