Rewriting episodes for the modern day a.k.a how to solve them in 5 minutes

So there have been a number of episodes that I've watched recently - especially DS9 or earlier - where I can't help but think that if they were written now they would be resolved in 30 seconds or at least the "tension point" of the episode would be.

Two examples that come to mind are in Time's Arrow where the crew send Samuel Clemens back in time and are then wondering if he made it back - these days you'd just hop on Wikipedia or Google (maybe by the 2300's it is now called Googleplex to reflect the infinitely more vast amounts of data it is searching) and look up sighting of him, or books released by him, after the date he was meant to have returned.

Then in The Sound of Her Voice - obviously the twist is that the USS Olympia was actually lost a few year's prior. Surely though Starfleet would have clocked that a ship on an 8 year mission not having returned might be MIA and presumably there would have been a "flightpath" filed for their return so ships could have tracked along and found them presumably? Also as soon as they hear about the ship you look up their records, see when they set off, and then when told they were on an 8 year mission it would click that there is a time skip.

It feels like both of the above come from an era of non-instantaneous communications or access to information like we do now so the writers would not consider using it as a solution to it but by that point in time they should never not have historical, tactical etc data immediately available

Can anyone think of any other plots that fall apart thanks to modern technology?

 

Even at the time the show aired, Starfleet's flagship should've had info on Mark Twain in its database.

As for the prompt question, I can't think of a technology example at the moment, but there are plenty of examples of outdated attitudes about women and sexuality that are no longer believable for the future. Women not being able to captain starships in TOS; all the men on Archer's ship, and none of the women, being hypnotized by the Orion women. Even with Don't Ask Don't Tell enforced, I doubt that would be the case on a ship of over 100 people.

 

The Orion hypnosis might be chemical in nature, distinct to male physiology, and therefore not be dependent on a person's sexual orientation.

 

Agreed but when you think that many writers will take prompts from their formative years so will always be slightly behind the times then it makes sense that they wouldn't think in terms of databases etc whereas one now would literally "Hey Computer" it!

I get what you mean with attitudes - I'm trying to steer clear of them, not least of all because it can be a combustible topic, but also some can probably be worked around (whilst steeped in misogyny the Orion thing was pheromone based wasn't it and I'm sure there are examples of various insects or spiders in the real world where there is a similar enough polar effect) with solutions other than society is getting its act together.

Obviously the many, many, examples where DNA testing could have helped (see the Voyager episodes with Suder, and in a later one Tuvok, going and killing/attacking people) or having an access log so if you enter a room/area of the ship it has to register a thumbprint so you always know who was there.

Even just CCTV or RFID on the commbadges would solve 90% of things.

The challenge then becomes how to actually rewrite the episode to account for this without losing the spirit of it

 

I did just post the same but then it occurs to me that it would have to be synthetic you'd think and require scanning of the species that was to be controlled as there should be such variation from one to the next that it couldn't work on all males

 

We've had heartbeat sensors for some time... a person who takes off their combadge should still be trackable. If nothing else, the ship should be able to track any humanoid heartbeat that doesn't have a badge associated with it. Children could have a tracker sewn into their garments.

 

Good shout - didn't think of that.

I would then add that it should be able to differentiate as presumably a Klingon heart beats differently to a humans, to a Vulcans etc etc

 

What are you talking about? They did exactly that. There's a line in the end where he went on to write books he was supposed to write about, after the date they visited...

Ships on those long term missions probably get delayed all the time. Also it may have been classified. Also, They were in deep stress, all that, which was one of the main plot points of the episode, so it was reasonable to assume that they didn't think to look it up the details of the Olympia's mission....

 

A person's bio-reading should be as personal as a fingerprint. Ergo, they should be able to say "scan the ship for Ensign Nobody's biosign", and know where Ensign Nobody is immediately.

 

1) There is a specific point after they send him back and are waiting for people to return from the other side when surely as soon as they send him through it would change time such that a failure to return would not flag it. They may have done that subsequently but the point is that the tension of that moment would have been broken if some ensign who was dossing off just piped up and went "yeah guys, says here on Fleetypedia that he was seen two days later ...."

2) I get that they were in deep stress but she had been missing for 3 years so would surely be classed as MIA and anyone with two brain cells would look her up just to have a nosey (like you would on Facebook or Instagram these days) and also to find out about her which would inform them of it

More importantly this isn't to have a go at the stories but to have a bit of fun with it and show how modern conventions and use of technology would change how the writers approached it - you only have to look at Saru in Disco looking up the power rankings of Starfleet Captains to compare himself. That feels like a very modern approach to things - I'm sure for example that certain football (soccer for people who don't understand the idea that a game played mostly with hands shouldn't be called football) players will be vain or self conscious enough to see how they are ranked or look up the best of all time and then research what makes people consider them to be the best so that they can change their game to try and copy it

 

Wasn't that Janeway's pet name for Harry?

 

The lack of any kind of video monitoring for critical areas drives me nuts, one could almost forgive TOS, but in “Court Martial” they show it exists.

 

Blurry vision, it's late... I thought that this thread was called...

Rightwing episodes for the modern day a.k.a how to solve them in 5 minutes.

 

Repentance : Janeway: Well, they're the legitimate government, they sentenced Iko to death, there's nothing to discuss, really. Now, if only they had had huge dilithium deposits, it might have been justified to invade there to erm, bring democracy. But they don't, so we just move on and this subject will never be discussed again.

Something like that?

 

Only behind his back.

 

Haha - that has made me chuckle.

I think the answer to Rightwing Trek is more speeches about antelopes

 

A single PADD is fine as obviously it's just a shit tablet but when you see The Doctor give Kes a pile with each in theory being a different text it is daft.

Message in a Bottle's no doctor issue is solved by a simple back up file (and by Living Witness that is sorted) but there should always be redundant systems and back up docs.

There are a lot of episodes predicated on there only being a single copy of a document or file and they used to treat downloading as akin to deleting the original - now you'd get Lt Rent-a-shirt getting done by a phishing subspace message and a virus taking down the Ent that way

 

My favourite in Trek tech silliness in TOS is Kirk holding a sparkly microphone and trying to talk it up as a technical marvel

 

That could have been sorted easily. Voyager beams the convicts over to the prison transport, and OOOPS! Transporter malfunction, and all that's left of Iko is a pool of goop, a la "Data's Day". Voyager apologizes profusely for the accident, the locals tell them not to worry, he was gonna die anyway so who gives a damn. When Voyager is clear, they bring him out of the pattern buffer, and no one's the wiser. They haven't even interfered with anyone's culture.

But, the episode wouldn't be as effective selling its message if they did that.