USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?

[CorporalCaptain]

So, increasingly, are smartphones.

It's pretty dumb, after all this time, that the communicator and the tricorder are separate items.

An in-universe explanation for why they could not be combined is available, at least retroactively but based on TOS itself, including things discussed in dialog: The tricorder evidently could not retain all its functions and be miniaturized to be smaller than what we saw*, an item that was too big to attach to a utility belt and needed a shoulder strap to facilitate its portability, whereas on the other hand the communicator was intended to attach to a utility belt, be carried ubiquitously by all members of a landing party**, and be inconspicuous in certain scenarios.

In TNG, the communicator got so miniaturized that it was brooch-sized and worn as one. Everyone always had one on, so there was no need to include communicator circuitry in the tricorder, though you'd think that the cost of including it anyway would be about zero for them. On the other hand, I'm not sure that we could establish canonically that tricorders were not also communicators.


* - or it would have been, yes?
** - females in minidresses sans utility belts notwithstanding

 

[Awesome Possum]

So, increasingly, are smartphones.

It's pretty dumb, after all this time, that the communicator and the tricorder are separate items.

It's one of the things I like about The Orville. The tricorder and communicator are a combined item. A friend of mine has the making of book, it describes it as basically the iPhone 400 and combined them because we have devices that plug into iPhones that allow them to detect gases. It just made sense that it should be the same prop since the trend with technology is to combine as many functions into a device as we can.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's plausible that the mechanisms for a certain cross section of tricorder functions could fit together with a communicator in a communicator housing or in one only marginally larger, kinda a tricorder-lite/communicator combo.

 

[Rahul]

See, I'm absolutely in favour of combining the Tricorder and the Communicator into one device. But that would only work in a post-TNG series. And is one more reasons why prequels suck: You can't keep up with the development of technology.

In the 60s, having a phone without a cable and a universal scanning device was as fantastic as FTL-travel or beaming. It still is, because they are still essentially these devices:

... just powered up to fuckin' infinity.
To reach other PLANETS without supporting infrastructure nor GPS satellites!
The same way a Tricorder is still simply magical: It's basically all modern medicine equipment compressed to handheld size - Magnetic resonance imaging, X-rays, unlimited databanks for multiple species (basically the entire medicine based Internet downloaded into one device). It's still amazingly futuristic.

The problem is: It doesn't look futuristic anymore to modern viewers. They are used to smartphones with apps. That's not a problem of the show, but with the viewers. But a good show would try to ease viewers in this regard anyway. Introducing simply one device that can do everything would be a way.

But this is where canon and the whole prime timeline argument comes into play: It's essentially unimportant if that technological development was made in the 23rd century or the 24th, it's still the future. But in-universe there is a clear progression bar, that would be destroyed. Thus, every prequel show IS restricted in how it can portray the future - thus even looking somewhat like retro-future sometimes (which is bad for Star Trek!). While a simple sequel show (set in real-time distance after TNG) could easily ignore everything and be as futuristic as modern day viewers expect from a space opera show.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

It's still amazingly futuristic.

The problem is: It doesn't look futuristic anymore to modern viewers

Ya know, Rahul, you are onto something there. When I was growing up, schooling made it pretty clear that what is inside the box, is more important than the casing. It's capabilities are the real sign of it's prowess.

Perhaps modern audiences seem to lack that basic technical literacy in an age where a device is marketed as a magic box.... or perhaps, as I have sometimes argued before, all that supposedly unnecessary "technobabble" such as "wow, this device of yours can even broadcast to a ship in orbit" was in fact highly necessary to the genre.

 

[Rahul]

Ya know, Rahul, you are onto something there. When I was growing up, schooling made it pretty clear that what is inside the box, is more important than the casing. It's capabilities are the real sign of it's prowess.

Perhaps modern audiences seem to lack that basic technical literacy in an age where a device is marketed as a magic box.... or perhaps, as I have sometimes argued before, all that supposedly unnecessary "technobabble" such as "wow, this device of yours can even broadcast to a ship in orbit" was in fact highly necessary to the genre.

I think that's a side effect of everyday-life technology advancing so incredibly fast the last few years...
Most people simply don't KNOW what's inside the box anymore. If you took an old Radio apart, or a television device, you could see the technology inside. Nowadays, everything is microchips. And they all look alike - even though they have vastly different capabilities.

A second part is modern day marketing. If every two years there is a new cellphone on the market - they are not going to differ that much. And spouting arbitrary numbers about performance is bad marketing. Thus, the entire industry has conditioned people to lust for what looks the newest. Curved screens and such. Cleaner user interfaces. They don't really enhance performance. They just look more futuristic. Thus people associate the progression of technology much more with optical changes than probably ever before - It's what they are conditioned to in everyday life.

And Trek design looks old. And dorky. It comes down to the technology nerds to really assess what's inside the box. The old Lockheed Blackbird is still the fastest plane humans have ever built. But it does look like a plane from the 60s. With knobs and boxy handlers. Thus very old. Most people are feigned to associate progression with the looks of user interfaces though - even cars pretend they are completely new every generation. There's really no easy solution there. Just wait until cellphone technology has reached a point where leveling up every two years isn't economic anymore - and people will keep their cellphones for years (and we WILL reach that point sooner or later), and the whole attitude of the general population towards perceived technological advancement will radically shift again.

 

[Tuskin38]

Plus, look at the back of those nacelles; they scream rockets.

 

[Belz...]

The DSC Enterprise bothers me. It's not bad, but it's not quite right. It lacks the charm of the original's long neck and what that says. What the high, less decorative, pylons say. TOS was a ship of space and exploration. This looks fine, but it lacks a certain curious grace. A certain utilitarian clip. It's too rad new toy, and I don't buy it as a weird future spaceship, like I did the original.

Well, that's the problem. The original doesn't really look that futuristic anymore. Blame it on sci-fi that's been made since.

Plus, look at the back of those nacelles; they scream rockets.

Is this sarcasm? The original's nacelles were the most rocket-like of all Trek nacelles.

And what is with the lip behind the shuttle bay? Shuttles don't need runways; they don't have wheels.

First of all, they may need it in some circumtances (emergency landing), and second, it's just a design choice.

And big impulse engines scream tiny penis.

Please tell me you're joking.

the communicator is also a tracking device and a universal translator.

No, if I remember correctly the translator is shipboard. And where is it a tracking device?

See, I'm absolutely in favour of combining the Tricorder and the Communicator into one device. But that would only work in a post-TNG series.

And this brings up something else: in TNG the communicators are meant to be more advanced than in TOS, but all they can do is communicate, still. You can't view information with them, or anything of the sort. If anything they're even less advanced than smartphones, aside from the aforementioned concession about range.

 

[Tuskin38]

First of all, they may need it in some circumtances (emergency landing), and second, it's just a design choice.

Voyager had a big lip as well.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Maybe the big lip detaching will be an important plot point, like the Falcon's escape pod in Solo

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Maybe the big lip detaching will be an important plot point, like the Falcon's escape pod in Solo

So that's what happened? The escape pod escaped?

 

[GNDN18]

It's pretty dumb, after all this time, that the communicator and the tricorder are separate items.

The communicator could be retconned as a Tricorder I, with more limited capabilities than the Tricorder II. Design lineage and a call back to “The Devil in the Dark” and I can hear it now

 

[Mudd]

They could combine the devices in a prequel. Not many folks would care for long if the show was good.

 

[cooleddie74]

Beautiful "rockets."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Unfortunately/fortunately not a bridge but just observation windows on the sail

Which, on a submarine, is called "the bridge." The whole reason naval vessels HAVE a bridge is so that helmsman and navigators have a nice high place to sit and steer the ship. This is the main reason the bridge usually has windows.

The central nerve center of submarines, destroyers, frigates and aircraft carriers is called the CIC, control room or attack center, depending on the ship. This room does not have windows because it is buried deep within the hull and usually surrounded by armor plating.

In short: NOT having a window on the bridge kind of defeats the entire purpose of having a bridge. If the central control room doesn't have a window, then it sure as hell shouldn't be sticking out of the hull in a big obvious dome.

Also a rather rude and unneeded statement towards Russians mate.

The Typhoon class submarine is the largest submarine ever constructed and arguably one of the best examples of naval engineering IN HISTORY... but of course, a window on the bridge is stupid as fuck, so surely the Russians would know the best way to say that.

Of course, it's not just the Russians. Have a look at USS Tarpon in 1936, pretty standard for a pre-war submarine design. Note the windows on the bridge.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The Communicator is a military device, not a public phone, it has one job, to communicate.

That can't be said if anything else Starfleet has ever built, though. ALL of their tools are insanely multipurpose. Phasers can be converted into forcefield generators, they can stun, they can kill, they can cut through walls, heat up rocks, boil water to make coffee, etc. A typical tricorder can scan, record, transmit impulses, analyze soil samples, vital signs, detect biohazard contaminants, radiation, etc. Even a communicator has multiple functions; it can be used as an emergency beacon, a personal locator, a translator, a recorder, an archive device...

Really, having the communicator and the tricorder being separate devices is highly inefficient, considering the hardware of a communicator could easily fit inside of a tricorder. The broader point -- and it is a good one -- is that all of the functions of the communicator, whatever those might be, are pretty much inaccessible in that it doesn't have any sort of logical user interface that would allow you to USE them. How, for example, could you open your communicator and contact just one other person on your away team? How would you select one frequency over others? How would you set your communicator to a different encryption scheme than normal in case you were being monitored? How would you tell your communicator to listen to an alien language and provide a translation (how the hell did Burnham do this?) How do you adjust the volume on the communicator?

One wonders how many menus you have to cycle through with just two knobs and a button to get it to do what you want. Maybe it CAN do all of these things, but it's not a very efficient design for it.

A window on a starship wouldn't work. For proof, turn on the lights in your house and look out the window at night. All you'd see in the window is the bridge crew's reflection. It's why IRL, astronauts don't have lights inside their helmets. You wouldn't be able to see anything outside the window.

And yet, real space craft still have windows...

Canon violation!

 

[Jadeb]

The broader point -- and it is a good one -- is that all of the functions of the communicator, whatever those might be, are pretty much inaccessible in that it doesn't have any sort of logical user interface that would allow you to USE them. How, for example, could you open your communicator and contact just one other person on your away team? How would you select one frequency over others? How would you set your communicator to a different encryption scheme than normal in case you were being monitored? How would you tell your communicator to listen to an alien language and provide a translation (how the hell did Burnham do this?) How do you adjust the volume on the communicator?

One wonders how many menus you have to cycle through with just two knobs and a button to get it to do what you want. Maybe it CAN do all of these things, but it's not a very efficient design for it.

It wasn't that long ago that people would have been baffled by how a phone could be operated when it's just a slab of glass and metal. Nevermind that it can also do a billion other things. At a certain point, I think, we have to take a charitable view that the Trek future is sometimes beyond our understanding.

Even in the real world, things don't always make sense when viewed in this fashion. Why do people still make phone calls when we can Facetime? Because we can doesn't mean we want to. Maybe that's why the communicator is as it is.

 

[Ronald Held]

Does a TOS communicator have intrinsic UT capabilities or the Ship's computer does the work? For talking to the Companion they used the UT pipe.

 

[GNDN18]

Beautiful "rockets."

In the beginning....

Landru saith: "Thou shalt not render nacelles with fiery blasts of fire firing from the ends." And so it was. And Landru saith "It is good."

 

[ITDUDE]

My iPhone can’t access subspace frequencies.

But then it’s a 5s.

And I have Verizon.

Better than AT&T
But it's a corp phone, so I don't pay for service, so I am not complaining.