Anachronistic technology in DSC?

[Groppler Zorn]

Disclaimer: just go with this one

Ok so I’ve read several times here that DSC looks totally different to TOS because it needs to project a realistic future from current year - so it got me wondering: how good a projection is DSC?

Let’s think about the technology:

1) transporters - scientists have already beamed molecules across a room. Do we really think that it’ll take another 200 years to perfect the technology?

2) communicators - this is a bad one. We already have in-ear comms - look at the avengers movies for this or even any contemporary film where special agents etc are used. Heck, even TMP had wrist communicators - Apple Watch anyone? Flip phones in the 23rd century seem like a step backwards.

3) touchscreens. We have heads up displays in current year. How come they don’t use hologram displays as a matter of course on DSC? Their consoles look like Microsoft surface - which would need a hell of a service pack in the 23rd century.

4) windows - viewscreen or otherwise. Since starships are basically submarines in space, why would they have windows *at all?* They have sensors to get images - does the USS Zumwalt have an abundance of windows? No. And she’s one of the most advanced ships of current year.

5) warp drive - ok the spore drive was a massive step forward in this area, but when we see things like iron man set in *current year* powering his suit with a miniature arc reactor he built using terrestrial components, why does warp drive need to exist in the 23rd century? Surely 200 years from now we’ll have advanced further than that (extrapolating from the rate of societal change and scientific advancement over even the last 50 years).

6) scanners - why would Starfleet use physical scanners for anything? 200 years from now everything would be nanotechnology wouldn’t it? Again, using marvel as the yardstick, they show billionaires like Tony Stark using nanotech now - wouldn’t we have developed much further in the next *two centuries* in that area?

Obviously the explanation for many of these things appearing in DSC is because they’re “Star Trek” tropes. But does “projecting forward from now” contradict much of the established “Star Trek” technology invented in the 1960s which we now take for granted?

And let’s toss canon out the window for this discussion since “projecting forward” means that we really should discard it in favour of having a “realistic” future setting.

 

[Lord Garth]

Discovery looks nothing like what the real 23rd Century will look like...

... but, since I'll be long-dead by then, what we see in DSC works for me.

Tachyons are proof to me that travel beyond the speed of light is possible, we just need to figure out how to travel at such a speed and keep time dilation from kicking in. While I do think it might be possible -- it's arrogant for us to assume we currently have the answer to everything -- I highly doubt we'll be able to crack the mystery by April 5, 2063... a time during which I most likely will still be alive to see. But somehow I doubt I'll care about this stuff when I'm 83. But who knows? Please don't let me still be debating this stuff when I'm in my 80s...

"Transporters" today might be able to transfer molecules, but a human organism is quite a bit more complex. It might take them a while.

For the rest of the technology: we just came out of a century where everything changed at an unusually rapid rate. There was more change during the 20th Century than during any other century in human history. It was the exception, not the rule. It's entirely possible that technological development will plateau or slow down to point of where it was in other centuries. Alvin Toffler's book Future Shock (1970) details just how drastically different and unusual the 20th Century truly was.

 

[Timo]

1) transporters - scientists have already beamed molecules across a room. Do we really think that it’ll take another 200 years to perfect the technology?

In the model where technology proceeds through human innovation, I guess 200 years till practical teleportation is fine if not optimistic. Said without a terminal at one end, or either end - perhaps longer?

If we let AIs innovate, then all bets are off...

2) communicators - this is a bad one. We already have in-ear comms - look at the avengers movies for this or even any contemporary film where special agents etc are used. Heck, even TMP had wrist communicators - Apple Watch anyone? Flip phones in the 23rd century seem like a step backwards.

The military loves backwards, though. We have seen little of the civilian side of life in Trek, least of all in DSC.

Will we have communications devices that do more than those seen in Trek? Probably. But at some point, we'll stop coming up with excuses to cram more functionalities into these things. If the consumer prefers truly extensive telepresence, then space explorers might, too - and perhaps nobody will see the need to actually go places any longer?

3) touchscreens. We have heads up displays in current year. How come they don’t use hologram displays as a matter of course on DSC? Their consoles look like Microsoft surface - which would need a hell of a service pack in the 23rd century.

Controlling your environment might be done utterly by personal remote soon enough. I don't see holograms adding anything to that, but I could see a continuing need for shared and interactive situational awareness means - and since we're so visual, this means displays that react to anybody's touch and/or sound, in addition to reacting to our personal remote control.

4) windows - viewscreen or otherwise. Since starships are basically submarines in space, why would they have windows *at all?* They have sensors to get images - does the USS Zumwalt have an abundance of windows? No. And she’s one of the most advanced ships of current year.

Materials tech would make opaqueness controllable if need be. Why have anything but windows in a construct whose hull is 100% high tech anyway? Houses might still retain a division to walls and windows. Spaceships probably wouldn't.

5) warp drive - ok the spore drive was a massive step forward in this area, but when we see things like iron man set in *current year* powering his suit with a miniature arc reactor he built using terrestrial components, why does warp drive need to exist in the 23rd century? Surely 200 years from now we’ll have advanced further than that (extrapolating from the rate of societal change and scientific advancement over even the last 50 years).

I gather it's possible warp drive or comparable interstellar travel simply doesn't exist and cannot be invented or discovered. And today this is the preferred view on the issue.

6) scanners - why would Starfleet use physical scanners for anything? 200 years from now everything would be nanotechnology wouldn’t it? Again, using marvel as the yardstick, they show billionaires like Tony Stark using nanotech now - wouldn’t we have developed much further in the next *two centuries* in that area?

Clouds of small machines would probably be little different from sparkling, colorful "forcefields" as a means of sensing or manipulation in practice...

And let’s toss canon out the window for this discussion since “projecting forward” means that we really should discard it in favour of having a “realistic” future setting.

Hmm. We'd have to discard all of Star Trek, then. There aren't pointy-eared humanoids out there waiting to treat us as equals. If humans explore the stars one day, they won't be having Trek adventures there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lord Garth]

The key flaw too many people make when predicting the future is that they assume it will progress along the lines of whatever current trends are. They assume the future will look like today but even more so.

In the future, we'll run into things we don't expect, things we don't understand right now, things we aren't even thinking of right now. So The Future as it looks "projected from today" is inherently wrong. But since 2018 is closer to the 23rd Century than 1966, it's just a little less wrong. But still wrong.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Disclaimer: just go with this one

Ok so I’ve read several times here that DSC looks totally different to TOS because it needs to project a realistic future from current year - so it got me wondering: how good a projection is DSC?

Let’s think about the technology:

1) transporters - scientists have already beamed molecules across a room. Do we really think that it’ll take another 200 years to perfect the technology?

2) communicators - this is a bad one. We already have in-ear comms - look at the avengers movies for this or even any contemporary film where special agents etc are used. Heck, even TMP had wrist communicators - Apple Watch anyone? Flip phones in the 23rd century seem like a step backwards.

3) touchscreens. We have heads up displays in current year. How come they don’t use hologram displays as a matter of course on DSC? Their consoles look like Microsoft surface - which would need a hell of a service pack in the 23rd century.

4) windows - viewscreen or otherwise. Since starships are basically submarines in space, why would they have windows *at all?* They have sensors to get images - does the USS Zumwalt have an abundance of windows? No. And she’s one of the most advanced ships of current year.

5) warp drive - ok the spore drive was a massive step forward in this area, but when we see things like iron man set in *current year* powering his suit with a miniature arc reactor he built using terrestrial components, why does warp drive need to exist in the 23rd century? Surely 200 years from now we’ll have advanced further than that (extrapolating from the rate of societal change and scientific advancement over even the last 50 years).

6) scanners - why would Starfleet use physical scanners for anything? 200 years from now everything would be nanotechnology wouldn’t it? Again, using marvel as the yardstick, they show billionaires like Tony Stark using nanotech now - wouldn’t we have developed much further in the next *two centuries* in that area?

Obviously the explanation for many of these things appearing in DSC is because they’re “Star Trek” tropes. But does “projecting forward from now” contradict much of the established “Star Trek” technology invented in the 1960s which we now take for granted?

And let’s toss canon out the window for this discussion since “projecting forward” means that we really should discard it in favour of having a “realistic” future setting.

This is what doesn't work about Discovery, IMO. They've mashed up all the fictional Trek 1960's-2000's treknology into the pre-TOS era and given it a new coat of paint, but kept the 1960's backstory. It's trying to be a jack of all trades (reboot! Prime continuity! More realistic projection of our future! Elon Musk reference!) and managing to be master of none. It works as a comic book style elseworld, and that's how I see it.

I would be very curious to see a from scratch reimagined Star Trek.

 

[Timo]

The key flaw too many people make when predicting the future is that they assume it will progress along the lines of whatever current trends are. They assume the future will look like today but even more so.

In the future, we'll run into things we don't expect, things we don't understand right now, things we aren't even thinking of right now. So The Future as it looks "projected from today" is inherently wrong. But since 2018 is closer to the 23rd Century than 1966, it's just a little less wrong. But still wrong.

Which shouldn't stop us from doing "forward-positioned" scifi, because it's never about the future anyway.

But it is always about a future, even if usually one that cannot be derived from our present no matter what. And it fails to be "a future" if it isn't internally consistent fiction in a suitably intriguing and awe-inspiring fashion. Which is where "does this really fit?" becomes a relevant question.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Groppler Zorn]

since I'll be long-dead by then

Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever...

beyond the speed of light is possible, we just need to figure out how

This is why I think the spore drive is interesting (even if it could have been better executed) since it’s loosely based on actual science and would mean for instant travel across space (and time by the looks of things too). I’m all for warp drive - but looking forward from now, instant travel across the galaxy seems more futuristic and realistically achievable in the next 200 years than the immense energy demands of a matter antimatter reactor.

But somehow I doubt I'll care about this stuff when I'm 83. But who knows? Please don't let me still be debating this stuff when I'm in my 80s...

I hope I’m still debating it! using my Borg nano interface and controlling my phone with my thoughts...

But they’ve already started doing human robot interface type stuff - and we’ve seen the robot lady in DSC so in the 23rd century wouldn’t all humans be technologically augmented to some degree?

It's entirely possible that technological development will plateau or slow down to point of where it was in other centuries.

That’s an interesting point - I’d not thought of that.

Tbf ENT showed us something of a plateau with warp drive since it seemed to take them almost a century to break warp 2...

If we let AIs innovate, then all bets are off...

Then resistance will be futile...

The military loves backwards, though.

Fair point - but Starfleet isn’t entirely military.

I actually agree that flip communicators should be basic so that there’s less chance of them failing etc. And they’re subspace comms devices too - so who knows how big they’d need to be... but the trend in “future tech” always tends towards wireless, wearable, and smaller. The commbadges of TNG seem more “realistic” even in the 23rd century

I don't see holograms adding anything to that

Fair point - I was envisioning something like “minority report” where the holograms are being waved about in the air and such.

Why have anything but windows in a construct whose hull is 100% high tech anyway?

That’s a damn good point. Maybe all the DSC hull is transparent aluminium - just bits of it are opaque. Which would make sense since you could reconfigure the outer hull to suit your needs.

I actually think we should see this on DSC - even if it’s just for the damn viewscreen...

Clouds of small machines would probably be little different from sparkling, colorful "forcefields" as a means of sensing or manipulation in practice...

I never thought of that either - maybe that’s what Bones’s lil scanner thing was all along? A nanite projector?

For the purpose of this discussion it doesn’t matter that the first time we saw nanites was in TNG - the “canon directive” is rescinded for the duration of this thread...

We'd have to discard all of Star Trek, then

Or just assume all of prior Star Trek happened at once regardless of era, timeline, or quantum reality... hehe

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Sorry for multiple posts - more replies came in as I was typing!

The key flaw too many people make when predicting the future is that they assume it will progress along the lines of whatever current trends are. They assume the future will look like today but even more so.

Agreed. I think this is the inherent flaw in making DSC in particular look “futuristic” based on 2018. Yet, TOS started with the 1960s - the weird thing is that Trek looks awfully prescient but that’s only because a lot of tech was based on Trek ideas

This is what doesn't work about Discovery, IMO. They've mashed up all the fictional Trek 1960's-2000's treknology into the pre-TOS era and given it a new coat of paint, but kept the 1960's backstory. It's trying to be a jack of all trades (reboot! Prime continuity! More realistic projection of our future! Elon Musk reference!) and managing to be master of none. It works as a comic book style elseworld, and that's how I see it.

I would be very curious to see a from scratch reimagined Star Trek.

Fair point. Personally I would have preferred an update that was closer to TOS - since DSC didn’t need to be *our* future - just the future as Trek has already depicted it.

I tend to agree that a straight up reboot would be cool.

it is always about a future

Definitely. I kinda wish DSC had made more of this point in its production and aesthetics

 

[Relayer1]

Discovery looks nothing like what the real 23rd Century will look like...

Exactly.

Any 'futuristic' TV show is going to be utterly inaccurate. Chances are that teleportation and faster than light travel are either impossible or impractical.

More likely is that in the next couple of hundred years, people inhabit a virtual recreation of the universe (perhaps downloading their consciousness into it) and explore it that way.

That's way more achievable and....still likely to be utterly inaccurate.

 

[Lord Garth]

Agreed. I think this is the inherent flaw in making DSC in particular look “futuristic” based on 2018. Yet, TOS started with the 1960s - the weird thing is that Trek looks awfully prescient but that’s only because a lot of tech was based on Trek ideas

We're communicating online through computers about a TV show. Motion pictures were developed in the 1880s, telegraphs (the first telecommunication) were developed in the 1830s, and computers were invented in the 1930s. So our own technology is based on stuff that goes back much, much further.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Any 'futuristic' TV show is going to be utterly inaccurate.

Fair point - which makes me wonder how widespread that view is. Because with that in mind we could argue that DSC doesn't *need* to look like “our” future at all (so the “we needed to update it because cardboard sets and it needs to look futuristic” argument falls on its face) because DSC’s future is just as inaccurate as TOS’s future.

But maybe that wouldn’t make a tv show that’s the most viewed or streamed show ever or something?

We're communicating online through computers about a TV show. Motion pictures were developed in the 1880s, telegraphs (the first telecommunication) were developed in the 1830s, and computers were invented in the 1930s. So our own technology is based on stuff that goes back much, much further.

That’s right I never considered that. Even emojis can be traced back to basically hieroglyphics...!

So in terms of what we *think* of as futuristic, DSC looks behind the times, but when we consider how consistent certain things have been throughout recent history (as in your examples), DSC is perhaps *too* advanced...?

This show can’t win

 

[Rahul]

Disclaimer: just go with this one

Ok so I’ve read several times here that DSC looks totally different to TOS because it needs to project a realistic future from current year - so it got me wondering: how good a projection is DSC?

Let’s think about the technology:

DIS is, like all Star Trek, soft SF. That means almost everything depicted in it - from FTL drives to beaming to alien humanoids - is at this point ranging from "highly unlikely" to "utterly physically impossible".

As such, it's pretty hard to predict when something impssible will become possible. Or if it will ever be.

Second of all: Progress is weird, and doesn't happen linear. It's more that at any time, there is a "field" in which we make absurd amount of progress in short times (one century it was "steam engines", followed by "material sciences", in the 60s it was "space technology", nowadays it's "computer technology").

Each of these "plateaus" at some point - modern wind turbines and nuclear power plants still work with the same technology as 19th century dynamos. And each new technology can be used on the old one in funky ways: Modern cars and rockets have a lot more technology on board, and advances in computing power are used to make both much more efficient.. But the basic technology behind both is still the same.

Advancements in computing technology will come to an "endpoint" at some point - actually in forseeable time, giving physical limitations, if we don't crack quantum computing. From then on out, it's not so much more "revolution", as constantly "slight improvements in efficiency", until the next unforseeable technological revolution comes (or doesn't).

But at the same times, proven technologies will stlll work: Humans will continue to use wheeled vehicles, live in buildings on the ground, cook grown food, and interact with their electronic devices with knobs and buttons. New technolgies can be added. But rarely do proven ones ever vanish.

 

[Spot261]

DIS is, like all Star Trek, soft SF. That means almost everything depicted in it - from FTL drives to beaming to alien humanoids - is at this point ranging from "highly unlikely" to "utterly physically impossible".

<coughs> ahem, fantasy, ahem.....yes, carry on

 

[Tuskin38]

This is what doesn't work about Discovery, IMO. They've mashed up all the fictional Trek 1960's-2000's treknology into the pre-TOS era and given it a new coat of paint, but kept the 1960's backstory. It's trying to be a jack of all trades (reboot! Prime continuity! More realistic projection of our future! Elon Musk reference!) and managing to be master of none. It works as a comic book style elseworld, and that's how I see it.

I would be very curious to see a from scratch reimagined Star Trek.

There is nothing wrong with that

 

[Mudd]

Oh, the technology in STD is as out of date for the time period in which it takes place as the technology in TOS was. This is all about how things look, not about staying current with what we know and can reasonably expect.

 

[cultcross]

transporters - scientists have already beamed molecules across a room. Do we really think that it’ll take another 200 years to perfect the technology?

It'll probably take longer than that. If we want to talk realism, transporters are extremely unlikely because to work they have to break a fundamental law of nature - the Uncertainty Principle.

 

[XCV330]

Disclaimer: just go with this one

Ok so I’ve read several times here that DSC looks totally different to TOS because it needs to project a realistic future from current year - so it got me wondering: how good a projection is DSC?

Let’s think about the technology:

1) transporters - scientists have already beamed molecules across a room. Do we really think that it’ll take another 200 years to perfect the technology?

2) communicators - this is a bad one. We already have in-ear comms - look at the avengers movies for this or even any contemporary film where special agents etc are used. Heck, even TMP had wrist communicators - Apple Watch anyone? Flip phones in the 23rd century seem like a step backwards.

3) touchscreens. We have heads up displays in current year. How come they don’t use hologram displays as a matter of course on DSC? Their consoles look like Microsoft surface - which would need a hell of a service pack in the 23rd century.

4) windows - viewscreen or otherwise. Since starships are basically submarines in space, why would they have windows *at all?* They have sensors to get images - does the USS Zumwalt have an abundance of windows? No. And she’s one of the most advanced ships of current year.

5) warp drive - ok the spore drive was a massive step forward in this area, but when we see things like iron man set in *current year* powering his suit with a miniature arc reactor he built using terrestrial components, why does warp drive need to exist in the 23rd century? Surely 200 years from now we’ll have advanced further than that (extrapolating from the rate of societal change and scientific advancement over even the last 50 years).

6) scanners - why would Starfleet use physical scanners for anything? 200 years from now everything would be nanotechnology wouldn’t it? Again, using marvel as the yardstick, they show billionaires like Tony Stark using nanotech now - wouldn’t we have developed much further in the next *two centuries* in that area?

Obviously the explanation for many of these things appearing in DSC is because they’re “Star Trek” tropes. But does “projecting forward from now” contradict much of the established “Star Trek” technology invented in the 1960s which we now take for granted?

And let’s toss canon out the window for this discussion since “projecting forward” means that we really should discard it in favour of having a “realistic” future setting.

1: I would predict that transporters, as they are shown in Trek, will never be developed. That's not to say some sort of stable wormhole system won't be. But scanning someone into a murder machine and only being able to make one copy you can pretend is you..and then put them anywhere you want, within range, or maybe not, requiring a receiver, or maybe not. Nah.

2: Ultimately you might have the nanotech wired into the body to handle comms chores. When you're done at the end of your shift you take a pill, disolve your comm nannos and send it down the commode next time you got to go. But post humanism is difficult to show in sci fi, especially one with its roots all the way back to Forbidden Planet and pulp sci fi magazines.

3: Why do we still use triggers on guns. laces on shoes and flat bladed screws? Some things just work well enough. Thare are irrigation systems still in use on the Nile that predate the Pharaohs.

4: SpaceX dragon OTOH DOES have a window. Even the Cargo variant. Transparent materials aren't necessarily any weaker than other things in Trek. If they want a window, they can have a window.

5: FTL drives require new physics. There are hypotheses, like Alcubierre's, but that does not mean FTL drives will ever be a reality. I'll never say never, but in some ways its comforting to think that if there's even the most remote possibility to achieve that, then a civilization must have reached a far more advanced and enlightened state before going boldly. Besides, there's enough to do in our solar system and nearby stars to keep us busy for centuries of exploring. In this I think Trek was either extremely optimistic, or it will never happen at all. .

6: I wouldn't base scientific gizmos on Tony Stark. Disney took what was already done in Star Trek and made it smaller. Ok. Some things actually don't get better with miniaturization. Earth observing satellites for instance are rather huge. They have to be because of the optics. You can't really get around that. Interfaces can only reach a certain size until they are not user friendly. Witness how smart phones got smaller and smaller until they started getting bigger and bigger. And sometimes the nature of the needs of the service dictate how you outfit your crew. Some things, like processors, you can shrink down to a point, though there is a limit, but matters like thermal management interface size, the physical requirements of the scanner medium etc, will not change very much. A desktop microscope now isn't all that different in size from one 150 years ago, even if the abilities are radically better.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

1) transporters - scientists have already beamed molecules across a room. Do we really think that it’ll take another 200 years to perfect the technology?

Well, not really. Quantum teleportation experiments have transferred information from a collection of atoms over a distance, but this isn't "beaming" in the Trek sense. It requires the same thing (photon, atom, etc...) to be present at the receiver, and once the information is copied from the transmitter, the original is destroyed.

Tachyons are proof to me that travel beyond the speed of light is possible, we just need to figure out how to travel at such a speed and keep time dilation from kicking in.

Tachyons are theoretical and have never been observed. So, there's no "proof" of faster-than-light travel, unfortunately. The Alcubierre warp drive has an end-run around time dilation effects, but it requires more energy than is present in the universe to run it.

 

[ITDUDE]

Hmm. We'd have to discard all of Star Trek, then. There aren't pointy-eared humanoids out there waiting to treat us as equals. If humans explore the stars one day, they won't be having Trek adventures there.

I'd like to think future long distance travel will be done via something like wormholes, artificial or natural. There are definitely pointy eared humanoids out there, and we will find them!

 

[Noname Given]

Disclaimer: just go with this one

Ok so I’ve read several times here that DSC looks totally different to TOS because it needs to project a realistic future from current year - so it got me wondering: how good a projection is DSC?

Let’s think about the technology:

1) transporters - scientists have already beamed molecules across a room. Do we really think that it’ll take another 200 years to perfect the technology?

ASSUMING they find a way to disassemble, beam, and resemble a person's actual matter/molecules in a way that doesn't end up killing you outright, realize the sheer number of molecules/particles who's position relative to everything else needs to be mapped/saved, then reconstructed molecule by molecule.

Bottom line: You may travel at the speed of light once converted, but time/processing power needed to map and properly dissemble and reassemble you would probably take years for one trip.

TLDR: Transportation of living matter as depicted by Star trek Transporters is probably impossible and will never be a technology that can be perfected, period.