STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Amaris]

Transporters are 100% magic.

Not really. Despite all the wacky things we've seen transporters do, the wackiest things were always specific to some set of extraordinary circumstances, we have never seen them cure death and they usually had other limitations (range, atmospheric conditions, convenient outcroppings of minerals and so on). Not for scientific reasons so much as storytelling ones, because if you're telling adventure stories it's kind of a good idea for your heroes to not have a cure for death and the ability to instantly teleport everywhere.

If transporters were "100% magic" they'd have functioned like Q's powers, which really were basically magic.

Katherine Pulaski could have been healed, but not restored to her previous state unless the transporter could alter matter to match a particular pattern, which it did, to restore her to health. The transporter could be used just like the replicator, which works on the same basic principle of matter re-arrangement based on scanned patterns. In short, put a corpse in the transporter, pull up a previously stored pattern, or sample of live DNA, and voila! You have a living human being.

The transporter is magic.

I dunno. I recently watched a highly entertaining adventure movie that had each of these elements. It was well regarded by critics and audiences alike. Starred some British guy with an unusual name as the villain. Perhaps you've heard of it?

Star Wars?

 

[BigJake]

In short, put a corpse in the transporter, pull up a previously stored pattern, or sample of live DNA, and voila! You have a living human being.

Actually no, the way the transporter was written, you could tinker with the pattern of a living organism in a limited fashion, but you couldn't just save a copy of a living organism and "reboot" it every time someone died. That is not a form of "magic" we ever saw transporters do, because aside from any number of plausible scientific or quasi-scientific objections, that would be a questionable storytelling decision.

I'm not saying there aren't any number of uses transporters theoretically could have been put to that were avoided, sometimes for kludgey reasons or out of sheer habit. But the decision never to turn them into resurrection machines, among the other limits posed on them -- the decision to not make them "pure magic" -- is based in features of storytelling without which the show or movies would arguably be the adventures of Q or something close to it.

(EDIT: But then it all depends what your threshold is. Death was effectively meaningless in many a superhero comic and every Eighties cartoon ever, and is similarly toothless in the modern MCU, which some people like and some are beginning to not like so much. And of course the old Trek movies did resurrect Spock [albeit they at least chose a less easily-replicable method than just a basic serum from some dude's blood]. If that sort of thing doesn't bother you then that's where you're at. I was one of those kids who was driven nuts by the amount of gunfire in G.I. Joe cartoons that had no consequences, and loved that The Transformers Movie had the guts to actually kill off some characters even if it was just making room for new toys. )

 

[Amaris]

In short, put a corpse in the transporter, pull up a previously stored pattern, or sample of live DNA, and voila! You have a living human being.

Actually no, the way the transporter was written, you could tinker with the pattern of a living organism in a limited fashion, but you couldn't just save a copy of a living organism and "reboot" it every time someone died. That is not a form of "magic" we ever saw transporters do, because aside from any number of plausible scientific or quasi-scientific objections, that would be a questionable storytelling decision.

I'm not saying there aren't any number of uses transporters theoretically could have been put to that were avoided, sometimes for kludgey reasons or out of sheer habit. But the decision never to turn them into resurrection machines, among the other limits posed on them -- the decision to not make them "pure magic" -- is based in features of storytelling without which the show or movies would arguably be the adventures of Q or something close to it.

(EDIT: But then it all depends what your threshold is. Death was effectively meaningless in many a superhero comic and every Eighties cartoon ever, and is similarly toothless in the modern MCU, which some people like and some are beginning to not like so much. And of course the old Trek movies did resurrect Spock [albeit they at least chose a less easily-replicable method than just a basic serum from some dude's blood]. If that sort of thing doesn't bother you then that's where you're at. I was one of those kids who was driven nuts by the amount of gunfire in G.I. Joe cartoons that had no consequences, and loved that The Transformers Movie had the guts to actually kill off some characters even if it was just making room for new toys. )

Thomas Riker disagrees. Plus, a device that can break you down to the quantum level and reassemble you can do anything to you. Whether they used it on screen or not, the fact is the transporter is a magic machine.

 

[BigJake]

Thomas Riker disagrees.

Thomas Riker was a duplicate of a living organism. He isn't scientific, he's arm-waving, but he doesn't disagree, any more than Kirk's duplicate in "The Enemy Within" does. The story did not involve bringing anyone back from the dead, for good reason*.

(* Granted, of course if you could control these freak duplications you could use the transporter as a resurrection machine... which is precisely why the stories featuring such duplications are always extraordinary circumstances and uncontrollable freak incidents. Why? Because why would you ever give the protagonists the ability to outright cure death. One of the basic dictates of Trek storytelling, at least originally, was to keep the protagonists recognizably human, which includes mortality and the tensions deriving from it.)

Whether they used it on screen or not, the fact is the transporter is a magic machine.

Yeah, but, no, with due respect. There's a difference between a narrative cheat and a "magic machine." A narrative cheat that has rules of its own just isn't a "magic machine," whether fan opinion dictates it should be able to do all the things or not. The transporter is obviously a narrative cheat in many ways, indeed that's how it came about in the first place, but they're nevertheless different things.

Science fiction always involves some arm-waving. Trek had the transporter, David Brin's Earth had "cavitronics," Interstellar had a traversible wormhole with specific story-enhancing properties. All are bona fide arm-waving not backed (or only very loosely backed) by any actual science. That doesn't make them "magic."

 

[Amaris]

Yeah, I don't see us agreeing on this. Quite frankly, I'd accept "magic blood" over "magic quantum teleporting machine" anyway.

 

[BigJake]

Quite frankly, I'd accept "magic blood" over "magic quantum teleporting machine" anyway.

Okay, so... why? For storytelling purposes (and leaving loyalism to STID aside for the moment), is the rule that the protagonists should be relatable as human and mortal a bad one? What's the gain in terms of storytelling compared to the cost?

 

[Set Harth]

I recently watched a highly entertaining adventure movie that had each of these elements. It was well regarded by critics and audiences alike. Starred some British guy with an unusual name as the villain. Perhaps you've heard of it?

Serenity?

 

[BillJ]

Serenity?

Saw it at the theater. It disappointed me so much, I haven't watched Firefly since.

 

[Amaris]

Quite frankly, I'd accept "magic blood" over "magic quantum teleporting machine" anyway.

Okay, so... why? For storytelling purposes (and leaving loyalism to STID aside for the moment), is the rule that the protagonists should be relatable as human and mortal a bad one? What's the gain in terms of storytelling compared to the cost?

I find mutagenic blood more believable.

 

[BillJ]

Quite frankly, I'd accept "magic blood" over "magic quantum teleporting machine" anyway.

Okay, so... why? For storytelling purposes (and leaving loyalism to STID aside for the moment), is the rule that the protagonists should be relatable as human and mortal a bad one? What's the gain in terms of storytelling compared to the cost?

I find mutagenic blood more believable.

We know that Khan had remarkable recuperative powers from "Space Seed". So I don't think there is anything about magic blood that is unbelievable from an in-universe perspective.

 

[Zaminhon]

Okay, so... why? For storytelling purposes (and leaving loyalism to STID aside for the moment), is the rule that the protagonists should be relatable as human and mortal a bad one? What's the gain in terms of storytelling compared to the cost?

I find mutagenic blood more believable.

We know that Khan had remarkable recuperative powers from "Space Seed". So I don't think there is anything about magic blood that is unbelievable from an in-universe perspective.

Khan, among the other survivors in Space Seed were in suspended animation, not dead. There were many other super-beings who died in the transport ship due to the chambers malfunctioning, so the blood apparently was not as magical as STID made it out to be. The magical life-restoring properties of the blood were not even alluded to in Space Seed or TWOK, it just came out of the blue in STID. I wasn't into Enterprise, so maybe it was referenced there?

 

[BillJ]

I find mutagenic blood more believable.

We know that Khan had remarkable recuperative powers from "Space Seed". So I don't think there is anything about magic blood that is unbelievable from an in-universe perspective.

Khan, among the other survivors in Space Seed were in suspended animation, not dead. There were many other super-beings who died in the transport ship due to the chambers malfunctioning, so the blood apparently was not as magical as STID made it out to be. The magical life-restoring properties of the blood were not even alluded to in Space Seed or TWOK, it just came out of the blue in STID. I wasn't into Enterprise, so maybe it was referenced there?

I don't think any one from the Botany Bay was dead when Kirk and Company found it in "Space Seed". On Ceti Alpha V, they were up against not only the eels but also likely dehydration and malnutrition. The fact so many survived is likely due to their superior physical shape. Still nothing there to contradict magic blood.

 

[Set Harth]

I don't think any one from the Botany Bay was dead when Kirk and Company found it in "Space Seed".

KIRK: How many alive?
SCOTT [OC]: Twelve units have malfunctioned, leaving seventy-two still operating. Thirty of those are women.
KIRK: Kirk out. Seventy-two alive. A group of people dating back to the 1990s. A discovery of some importance, Mister Spock. There are a great many unanswered questions about those years.

 

[BillJ]

I don't think any one from the Botany Bay was dead when Kirk and Company found it in "Space Seed".

KIRK: How many alive?
SCOTT [OC]: Twelve units have malfunctioned, leaving seventy-two still operating. Thirty of those are women.
KIRK: Kirk out. Seventy-two alive. A group of people dating back to the 1990s. A discovery of some importance, Mister Spock. There are a great many unanswered questions about those years.

Thanks for the quote!

Even with that, those folks could have been dead for decades or centuries. Far beyond the recuperative powers of Khan's blood.

 

[Set Harth]

But I guess the question is how they ended up dead in the first place.

 

[BigJake]

Quite frankly, I'd accept "magic blood" over "magic quantum teleporting machine" anyway.

Okay, so... why? For storytelling purposes (and leaving loyalism to STID aside for the moment), is the rule that the protagonists should be relatable as human and mortal a bad one? What's the gain in terms of storytelling compared to the cost?

I find mutagenic blood more believable.

It honestly felt borrowed from the X-Men to me.

 

[BillJ]

It honestly felt borrowed from the X-Men to me.

Magic blood or transwarp beaming simply doesn't bother me in the slightest. And it won't bother me if neither are brought up in the next Trek movie. Star Trek, while having regular characters, was really something of an anthology series. So many technologies came and went without having any effect on the larger universe.

Psycho tricorders that were infallible when it came to telling if someone was lying? We never heard of them again. Sentient androids? Data was a big thing nearly a hundred years later. Wide beam stun phasers from orbit? Never heard about those again. The engines being supped up by the Kelvin's to make the intergalactic crossing in three-hundred years? Never heard of those either.

Protomatter and Trilithium got name drops but never figured prominently in stories again. Neither did the Genesis Device which would've been a potent weapon against the Borg. Even the gas that was corrosive to organic compounds? Never heard from again.

Star Trek is chock full of game changing tech that comes and goes as the story needs dictate. Why should it change now?

 

[fireproof78]

But I guess the question is how they ended up dead in the first place.

I think (if I recall correctly) the implication was that the tech had failed due to how old it was when the Enterprise found it. Super human or not, being put in to suspended animation and not brought back out right probably could kill a person. McCoy seemed concerned about that in ID.

 

[Amaris]

Okay, so... why? For storytelling purposes (and leaving loyalism to STID aside for the moment), is the rule that the protagonists should be relatable as human and mortal a bad one? What's the gain in terms of storytelling compared to the cost?

I find mutagenic blood more believable.

It honestly felt borrowed from the X-Men to me.

I definitely do not agree, as the idea of a serum or vial of blood containing healing properties has been around for ages. That said, even if it is, the X-Men franchise has borrowed heavily from gods knows how many sources when making its films and building its mythos.

Hell, the idea of teleporters has been around for ages, but don't you notice how amazingly similar the stasis devices in Forbidden Planet look to the Trek transporter? Keep in mind that Gene openly stated how he borrowed from film classics and television shows when making the Star Trek universe.

 

[BigJake]

I find mutagenic blood more believable.

It honestly felt borrowed from the X-Men to me.

I definitely do not agree, as the idea of a serum or vial of blood containing healing properties has been around for ages.

The idea of blood that magically regenerates things is pure X-Men. The idea of a serum is on the other hand quite common and would presumably be known in the Trek universe, which is exactly what makes giving them X-Men blood to make into serums seem so stupid, because it effectively cures death. And that's bad.

(I'm assuming they'll find some workaround for this in the next movie, like Augment blood turning you evil or something. But for my money it was clunky and unnecessary in the first place.)