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Something that I feel that is lost in the later Treks is that in the original series, there's a lot of work put into making humanity (and by extension, the Federation) seem like a small speck in the universe, an underdog even. For all the episodes where they land on a planet with a more primitive, less advanced society, there must be at least as many where they run into a more advanced or even hyperevolved society beyond their understanding. There's still a fair amount of that in TNG, but as it went on, there was far less of the Enterprise being overpowered by aliens more advanced than them, and more of the Enterprise being paralyzed by fear of a diplomatic incident. DS9 was essentially all-in on the Federation being the top superpower in the Quadrant, Voyager I guess tried to make itself the underdog by just taking them away from the Federation's sphere of influence, and in Enterprise, they weirdly end up with Earth as nearly the equal of any other race they encounter even though they're supposedly not as advanced yet. I guess that's part of the appeal of the Borg, they're just the last major group that was introduced in no uncertain terms as being mostly superior and more advanced than the Federation.
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Jun 19, 2023 15:55
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Explored space is still incredibly tiny, though, they've explored a few percent of the galaxy. The Federation is top dog in their sphere, but the entire point of TOS/TNG/SNW on-the-Enterprise type of show is that they're heading out from the Federation's sphere of influence into the unknown, there's really nothing stopping them stumbling across plenty of more advanced civilisations.
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Jun 19, 2023 16:10
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it kind of makes sense from a production standpoint: the show is about (mostly) humans, in a future setting. in order to make that believable the technology has to be visibly, obviously advanced from the present day, and actual technological progress has been pretty rapid since the late 60s (and of course, was also influenced by star trek anyway). basically, when you have to necessarily make the humans more and more technologically advanced, even in "the past" owing to the prequel settings, what does a technologically superior civilization even look like? i don't know and i suspect the writers don't either. but it's definitely something i'd like to see, i'm tired of the federation coming in and acting like bigshots. i wanna see them get weirded out by something that seems like wizardry to them. in any series we almost always have a hyper-intelligent crew, too — for better or worse, they always like to figure stuff out with science and whatnot. well, i'd like to see them get stumped about some stuff. bring in the metrons or something
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Jun 19, 2023 16:24
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Beeftweeter posted:what does a technologically superior civilization even look like? space glows But on a more serious note, you can always go with the 'civilisation advanced enough their ships are more form over function' and just have big flying art pieces.
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Jun 19, 2023 16:26
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Bring over the Nox from Stargate
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Jun 19, 2023 16:38
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MikeJF posted:space glows So like a ship, in the form of some kind of giant bird, for a warship even. 
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Jun 19, 2023 16:42
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Eighties ZomCom posted:So like a ship, in the form of some kind of giant bird, for a warship even. well, part of the problem is that most of the alpha quadrant powers are basically at technological parity with the federation (even the pakleds). certainly the romulans are, along with the klingons, cardassians, ferengi, vulcans, etc. etc. we see the federation gatekeeping technology too, saying that it would be destructive to transform a society with technology (this seems to be mostly when it may threaten their interests; in "errand of mercy" it's specifically an enticement). in fact, it seems as though technological progress has mostly stalled since the late 23rd century. sure, we see more advanced displays, and the warp scale was rejiggered so that TNG-era ships are exponentially faster than those in TOS, but that was more due to wanting a more consistent, standardized scale. it's a convenience that they can say that it's tied to engine efficiency enhancements or whatever. but other than that, what advances have we seen? commbadges? multitronics? quantum torpedoes? bio-neural circuitry? these are all ways of accomplishing most of the same things we've seen on screen since TOS. they're upgrades literally in name only e: probably doesn't help that the only real "future" setting is in discovery, and even then it's hampered by the federation and beyond being mostly destroyed by that point Beeftweeter fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 17:21
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Android technology seems to have gotten significantly worse since the 23rd century too
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Jun 19, 2023 17:23
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No Dignity posted:Android technology seems to have gotten significantly worse since the 23rd century too yeah, i always thought it was bizarre that we see a ton of androids in TOS that are outwardly indistinguishable from humans (in "what are little girls made of?" and "i, mudd", for example), but by TNG data is the best anyone could do and even then nobody can replicate that success. then of course picard swings hard in the other direction by showing that "synthetic" research is banned despite the existence of androids that are indistinguishable from humans even on a biological scan level
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Jun 19, 2023 17:28
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Beeftweeter posted:yeah, i always thought it was bizarre that we see a ton of androids in TOS that are outwardly indistinguishable from humans (in "what are little girls made of?" and "i, mudd", for example), but by TNG data is the best anyone could do and even then nobody can replicate that success. then of course picard swings hard in the other direction by showing that "synthetic" research is banned despite the existence of androids that are indistinguishable from humans even on a biological scan level Okay but at the same time pretty much all of those amazing androids and supercomputers that we see in TOS had either destroyed or imprisoned their creators - and those are just the ones that the Enterprise found! And the one time they tried to put an AI in charge of the Enterprise it turned around and attacked its fellow starships, killing hundreds of people! Throw in the ethical and moral issues and it makes perfect sense to me that the Federation is utterly uninterested in allocating resources to android development, leaving only isolated crackpots to toil away in service to their outsized egos.
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Jun 19, 2023 17:41
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Okay but at the same time pretty much all of those amazing androids and supercomputers that we see in TOS had either destroyed or imprisoned their creators - and those are just the ones that the Enterprise found! And the one time they tried to put an AI in charge of the Enterprise it turned around and attacked its fellow starships, killing hundreds of people! sure, but that just means they need to modify their software to, well, not do that; alternatively, don't give them that capability in the first place. it's ridiculous that something like that would take hundreds of years hell, we even have an advanced civilization teach their android construction techniques to the federation in "return to tomorrow". by TNG, nobody can even reconstruct data. was nobody taking notes?
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Jun 19, 2023 17:45
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It's gonna bother me now that Picard never introduces Worf as Lt. Roshenko.
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Jun 19, 2023 17:54
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Beeftweeter posted:sure, but that just means they need to modify their software to, well, not do that; alternatively, don't give them that capability in the first place. it's ridiculous that something like that would take hundreds of years Okay but what's the benefit? What does the Federation get out of androids that's worth risking their civilization over?
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Jun 19, 2023 18:05
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Beeftweeter posted:e: probably doesn't help that the only real "future" setting is in discovery, and even then it's hampered by the federation and beyond being mostly destroyed by that point And they've thrown out the cooler poo poo that the 29th century was shown to have too. We've seen future agents from before Discovery's new era being able to walk through walls and having rooms bigger on the inside and being able to step across light-years in a single moment and seamlessly blend together multiple versions of themselves and all sorts of poo poo and that's all gone.
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Jun 19, 2023 18:10
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Okay but what's the benefit? What does the Federation get out of androids that's worth risking their civilization over? They don't have to use EMHs to mine dilithium or diamonds or whatever the hell they were doing?
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Jun 19, 2023 18:11
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The capability of holoprojectors is a reason why they wouldn't bother with physical androids when it seems like a few holoprojectors can manipulate the environment around them remotely much more flexibly and magically just using fields. Don't bother with EMHs or anything just have the projector strip the surface away and pull out what it needs god that EMH thing was so dumb.
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Jun 19, 2023 18:14
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Okay but what's the benefit? What does the Federation get out of androids that's worth risking their civilization over? good question. to be clear i'm not sure, but there's definite utility there in reducing the need for biological labor. that seemed to be the impetus to trying to make more data-type androids: basically, having an officer that doesn't get tired, doesn't need sustenance, is physically powerful, is a walking encyclopedia, can perform multiple roles; poo poo like that. we see them taking steps in this direction with the androids on utopia planitia, for example, and also using holograms in sort of the same capacity on voyager. they're almost always spoken of in a subordinate, servile way. now, of course, the androids on utopia planitia are hacked to destroy the planet, and they both open up a whole new pandora's box of determining sentience and associated rights. but the basic idea of using them to automate away things that may be too dangerous or difficult for biological beings is there. they touch on this in "the measure of a man", but i still think that whether or not they'd think of it as essentially slavery is very much an open question when you move beyond protecting the rights of one (at the time extremely unique) individual towards a much larger group that was essentially created in order to "protect" a different one. selfishness is a powerful political motivator i don't have an answer here because they've been all over the place with it, but it's a can of worms that trek has been pretty good at tackling, i think. i'd like to see them explore it more in SNW since we know there were a lot of non-federation androids running around the quadrant at that time, unless of course they decide to just ignore that
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Jun 19, 2023 18:23
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It's always fun to see what types of animal features the make-up artists give the different races, like the Klingon's crab-like carapaces (that clearly extend to their chests at least but have their most obvious expression on their forehead crests) and the Beneans having elaborate feather displays instead of hair giving the idea of bird people (plus their hard beak-like ridges along their noses). There are the obvious examples too like the Trill's Giraffe spots.
BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 18:53
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MikeJF posted:The capability of holoprojectors is a reason why they wouldn't bother with physical androids when it seems like a few holoprojectors can manipulate the environment around them remotely much more flexibly and magically just using fields. Don't bother with EMHs or anything just have the projector strip the surface away and pull out what it needs god that EMH thing was so dumb. Especially using E*Hs to do physical labor with hand tools, like my dudes you have transporters and cutting beam weapons and tractor beams. Just beam the ore into your fusion smelters a hundred metric tons at a time, or if it can't go through a transporter use Wesley's miniaturized tractor beam to chuck phasered-out blocks into the hopper or something. Just an incredibly stupid bit of writing that sacrificed any hope of being taken seriously to make a ham-fisted point that nobody needed made anyway. Then again nobody ever seriously accused Star Trek of fully understanding the implications of its miracle tech.* *That's what the Culture is for.
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Jun 19, 2023 19:41
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Beeftweeter posted:good question. to be clear i'm not sure, but there's definite utility there in reducing the need for biological labor. that seemed to be the impetus to trying to make more data-type androids: basically, having an officer that doesn't get tired, doesn't need sustenance, is physically powerful, is a walking encyclopedia, can perform multiple roles; poo poo like that. In the history of many worlds, there have always been disposable creatures. They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do because it's too difficult or too hazardous. And an army of Datas, all disposable? You don't have to think about their welfare, you don't have to think about how they feel. Whole generations of disposable people.
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Jun 19, 2023 19:48
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In the episode with the Exocomps they were working on some sort of laser mining array, so the technology definitely exists in the world.
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Jun 19, 2023 19:55
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I like the Voyager episodes where they accidentally gently caress the prime directive inside out, like when they cause the destruction of an entire civilisation due to a botched attempt at not doing that, or in Emanations where they accidentally reveal to an alien race what really happens when they die and send their people into a complete panic.
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Jun 19, 2023 20:00
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Boxturret posted:In the episode with the Exocomps they were working on some sort of laser mining array, so the technology definitely exists in the world. Nah the laser's a carrying beam for EMH programs Drill deep into an asteroid and fill it with holoslaves, come back in a decade. The Federation!!!
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Jun 19, 2023 20:00
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They really should have reprogrammed those holograms to enjoy being slaves.
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Jun 19, 2023 21:16
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BioEnchanted posted:I like the Voyager episodes where they accidentally gently caress the prime directive inside out, like when they cause the destruction of an entire civilisation due to a botched attempt at not doing that, or in Emanations where they accidentally reveal to an alien race what really happens when they die and send their people into a complete panic. emanations is funny because you can kind of tell "it's the 90s we can't take such an atheist stance as to say there is no afterlife in the star trek universe so even though we are literally their afterlife UH THEIR MENTAL ENERGIES CAN BE FOUND IN THE RING AROUND THE STAR SYSTEM MAYBE THERE IS SOMETHING STILL GOING ON OOOOOOO"
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Jun 19, 2023 21:17
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Kibayasu posted:They really should have reprogrammed those holograms to enjoy being slaves. just get a billion of those perfect brides from the famke janssen planet
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Jun 19, 2023 21:18
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Arivia posted:emanations is funny because you can kind of tell "it's the 90s we can't take such an atheist stance as to say there is no afterlife in the star trek universe so even though we are literally their afterlife UH THEIR MENTAL ENERGIES CAN BE FOUND IN THE RING AROUND THE STAR SYSTEM MAYBE THERE IS SOMETHING STILL GOING ON OOOOOOO" To be fair, the Prophets are real, it's just a matter of perspective. The lady who "died" did gain enhanced understanding of the universe too, it just didn't answer the questions in the way that she'd hoped. It's kind of amusing that Janeway's reaction to Chakotay's faith is similar to Sisko's to Kira's in that they both gain a valuable perspective, it's just that Chakotay's is based poorly of a real thing by mashing a bunch of tribes together so it's kind of cringey and offensive while the Bajoran's faith is made up whole cloth so it's internally consistent and not misrepresenting any particular people.
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Jun 19, 2023 21:59
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I take it back, I do want to wake up in Star Trek. You’ve made me realize I can probably bullshit my way into being the ship’s Chief Metaphysician. There’s obviously a need.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:04
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Or you could be a counsellor. Kess and Troi prove all you need to qualify is basic empathy and common sense. I do like the worldbuilding moments though, like there are about 118 elements IRL but by the time of Voyager they've discovered 256 of the fuckers.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:09
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Marsupial Ape posted:I take it back, I do want to wake up in Star Trek. You’ve made me realize I can probably bullshit my way into being the ship’s Chief Metaphysician. There’s obviously a need.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:25
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BioEnchanted posted:To be fair, the Prophets are real, it's just a matter of perspective. The lady who "died" did gain enhanced understanding of the universe too, it just didn't answer the questions in the way that she'd hoped. It's kind of amusing that Janeway's reaction to Chakotay's faith is similar to Sisko's to Kira's in that they both gain a valuable perspective, it's just that Chakotay's is based poorly of a real thing by mashing a bunch of tribes together so it's kind of cringey and offensive while the Bajoran's faith is made up whole cloth so it's internally consistent and not misrepresenting any particular people. No I get it it's just in the context of "Emanations" it's very much transparently a backdoor that's kind of like "we can do a lot of progressive things in Star Trek but saying there's no afterlife for sure is too far for the audience."
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Jun 19, 2023 22:28
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Yeah, the ending of Emanations is a boilerplate TV cop-out that feels even more hollow since the whole point of the episode is that it's not real. It's the kind of TV plot where the last few seconds literally undermine the entire preceding 45 minutes.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:41
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BioEnchanted posted:Or you could be a counsellor. Kess and Troi prove all you need to qualify is basic empathy and common sense. I do like the worldbuilding moments though, like there are about 118 elements IRL but by the time of Voyager they've discovered 256 of the fuckers. I want to study the bridge consoles a bunch maybe work on figuring out why they explode/throw out rock concert sparks/emit flames all the time in combat, make starfleet about ten times more combat capable Did "resistance" earlier and thought it's probably janeway's best yet, once again feels like a middling to good tng episode but that's okay with me
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Jun 19, 2023 22:41
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I love PFT, but a metaphyscian is the person you call in for when you have to defend your android buddy’s personhood or consult on whether or not to separate new composite individuals created by transporter accidents. The person who actually has to solve thought experiments turned reality.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:45
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I like the makeup on the vidiians who are infected with the Phage, it's got a really strong aesthetic, they really look like they have been patching themselves back together over the course of years. They have so many clashing types of skin it's a cool look.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:46
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Vidiians were a great alien with a great background and a lot of possibilities. Shame about that.
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Jun 19, 2023 23:12
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Boxturret posted:In the episode with the Exocomps they were working on some sort of laser mining array, so the technology definitely exists in the world. IIRC that was actually more of a massive tractor beam that scooped up what they needed from a surface.
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Jun 20, 2023 05:14
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In context of it coming directly after “alliances” “threshold” is even more amazing. “Hey we just pissed off literally everyone and need to get out of here as fast as we can does the senior staff have any ideas?” “Well I have been loving around with a shuttle craft engine, Captain…” e: I would officially like to say lol lmao at the salamander babies. Janeway you don’t have the luxury of loving your crew like that Arivia fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jun 20, 2023 |
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Jun 20, 2023 05:37
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Currently watching TNG S01E08 ‘Justice’. I don’t think the wardrobe dept anticipated HDR when they dressed these people in cut up cotton t shirts. A CRT screen would be camouflaging a lot more of this moose knuckle action. Oh, well, maybe Wesley will get executed, this time.
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Jun 20, 2023 08:36
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Marsupial Ape posted:Currently watching TNG S01E08 ‘Justice’. I don’t think the wardrobe dept anticipated HDR when they dressed these people in cut up cotton t shirts. A CRT screen would be camouflaging a lot more of this moose knuckle action. They say Gene was a visionary, I bet he knew exactly what he was doing
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