What invention will be the next game changer for the Trek continuity? I don't mean one that sounds awesome, is tested, fails spectacularly, and is abandoned forever. I'm talking in terms of transporters and warp drive - things that revolutionize people's lives and permeate so much of what they do.
Well, they've already gone this route in the novels, but slipstream drive or other "faster-than-warp" propulsion. Puts Starfleet out into the Delta and Gamma Quadrants and COULD let them reach other galaxies. Beyond that? When does Starfleet develop reliable enough time travel to become Timefleet? And does that put them in charge of monitoring parallel timelines? So how far does that go? The Mirror Universe?
I admit I've never been a huge fan of the "time police" and having a Temporal Prime Directive. Even allowing for that degree of technology, I have a hard time trusting any group with it. There are too many potential variables to any given timeframe to say that only one direction is the "proper" one (IMO).
Is there a field they haven't delved into that much? The fields discussed so far: * FTL travel * Replication of materials and goods * Holograms * Transporters
Decent replicator pizza. I'm almost inclined to think though that even if they perfect slipstream drive, it'll eventually become known as warp drive out of habit and with a new warp scale to match.
Noncorporeal existence? I mean, everybody is already doing it but humans. And you don't have to become a glowing cloud or anything - you could be a bit of software here, a few cells there, stretched across generations or compressed into a time loop. Characters need not be divided sharply into Individuals and the Collective, but could be something in between. If need be, you can also be hologram, or then part hologram, or occasionally hologram. But not necessarily. Before going that far, give characters the option to pick their species. A new injection for every episode, five for a busy one, and you go from human to Klingon to Antedean to Customized and back. Gender-flipping would be even simpler. Changing your age, too. Timo Saloniemi
Light parallel universe hopping for ships at major transport hubs, and personal transporter hopping everywhere, in a Federation that has united across multiple "nearby" (in a quantum signature sense) parallel universes. It's 2604, and is it the future of the Primeverse or the Kelvinverse? Yes. Because the two Federation merged along with about 6 other ones, back in 2467. The new Vulcan homeworld for Vulcans in the Kelvinverse ultimately turns out to be... Vulcan... in the Prime universe. And in the other direction, the Romulan refugees have a homeworld back, too. You wanna talk permeating everything people do? Imagine the extended families....
An eight universe spanning United Federation of Planets that encompasses roughly a third of eight galaxies...but the same galaxy over and over again?
You got it. "Dear Abby, my husband died in the D'Agla Massacre at Nimbus III, and it's been a difficult two years for me and my kids. But we recently met his parallel from Earth Delta, along with my own. There has been instant chemistry between the three of us, and the kids all seem to get along well with each other and love having "twins". I think we'd all like to live together, and formalize our relationships, but I worry about my kids losing their memories of their real father, and that our new situation disrespects his memory. What should I do?"
The real game changers which aren't just bigger faster versions of existing stuff are like the others have said, time travel, and universe hopping. In the realm of bigger/faster it is really smaller which matters, so I would put mobile holographic emitters of the Doctor's style as a game changer. They utterly trivialize the creation of bodies for robots of all sorts and artificial beings in particular. Combine one with a miniature replicator and you get genuine tools too. Another one would be personal transwarp transporters. Imagine everyone carrying their own coin size transporter capable of sending someone to any known planet at will. Someday the same thing would happen to temporal transporters, and since interdimensional transporters are just normal TNG-modern transporters with tweaks there could be individuals going anywhere in the known universes at will, without ships sometimes in the mid 4th millennium of Trek. Actually, maybe that's the 31st century given Ensign Daniels brings Archer to the future without any noticeable time ship, let alone any noticeable transporter effect. I think Daniels and Archer jury rig a device like that, but dependent on Future Guy's platform in the past, for Archer to return to the past, so maybe he doesn't quite have one by that period.
Technology used on a day-to-day basis that doesn't fail and threaten to kill people (such as malfunctioning transporters or holodecks).
Yeah, like the day-to-day technologies we use today: cars, power tools, fast food, houses built below sea level, et cetera.
I was thinking about reliable shrinking and enlarging transporter technology to facilitate delicate medical treatment, first contact with short/microscopic/giant species, engineers squeezing into tight spaces to fix things, escape traps, etc... Maybe Miss Frizzle could help them with that. The Magic School Bus also has the ability to change the shape of people without cosmetic surgery...remember all the times those kids turned into animals?
Ooh, I had a thought today - the Resurrection Circuit! In the future, this will allow the Federation Timefleet to monitor alternate timelines, but here (due to the immense computational load) it only monitors timelines a few seconds diverged from each other. If the ship it's fitted to is destroyed, a version from a divergent timeline where, say, that torpedo missed is substituted. Test vessel: The USS Phoenix. Star Trek Online has a future version where we fight a particular battle over and over with each side trying to make slight alterations to the timeline.
Ablative Uniform Generators - A uniform is generated and constantly regenerated from an emitter on a belt or watch. When you get up in the morning, simply don your uniform generator, and you'll instantly be fully dressed. If your tunic is torn in a scuffle during an away mission, the generator will instantly repair any damage. An evil collector throws an liquid that dissolves uniforms on you? Just wait a couple of seconds and your modesty is intact. Also protects you against Borg assimilation!