Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 5x07 - "Erigah"

[cooleddie74]

Starships still have NCC registry numbers and are still named things like "Voyager" and "Enterprise" hundreds of years into the future. Why not phasers? They may simply be a lot more flexible and powerful now that they're fashioned from programmable matter.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Why even have jet airplanes? WW1-era planes were good enough. Why have metal ships? Renaissance era designs got us across the Atlantic just fine.

Bad analogy, since the ships do not use purely 23rd or 24th Century tech.

 

[cooleddie74]

Again, could all be about compromise. Hundreds of member worlds and there's basically a vote on which weapons and tech get mass distributed throughout Starfleet. A 23rd century TOS phaser and a 32nd century one may have essentially the same concept and overall function but the one from 900 years into the future could be vastly more efficient and have ten times as many possible uses and settings.

 

[Skywalker]

Technology doesn't advance on its own. It advances when a need arises or there is an opportunity to make it better. They still use phasers because there's no need to come up with something better. And there isn't always going to be something better, either.

 

[fireproof78]

That's supposition on your part. And laziness on the part of the writers. You have this embarrassment of (not dooplers!) riches of having a series set in the 32nd. century with tech so advanced, it'd appear to us to be almost magical and here we are stuck with Discovery and the story of yet another "galaxy ending threat".

Yes, yes, the writers are so lazy.

I'd rather see Discovery and a galaxy ending threat that a lot of other Trek plots.

But why is it a phaser? Why is it not a, for example, a quantum polaric disruptor or whatever - Why are they still using phased energy weapons?

Because it works.

That's it. It works. That's what Star Trek does. It updates only when absolutely necessary and not a moment before.

I find the whole idea of The Burn and how the Federation/Starfleet is portrayed in this show to be completely unbelievable.

Then perhaps the show is not for you. The Burn is one of my favorite stories, season 3 one of my favorites. Starfleet is extremely insular and protective, and losing several members, including Earth, over fear will not be recovered easily.

Yes, we would love to believe that people will just snap out of it but that's not how people works.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I wasn't making the point to you. I was making it to cooleddie. That's why you didn't understand it.

What you post is for everyone. I read eddie's post and yours. I'm well with in "my rights" to comment.

 

[Nerys Myk]

That's just lazy. Nobody said "tech advances on it's own", that's just silly. There is always a need or opportunity for any kind of tech advance to occur when you have a federation of thousands of planets in it. They use phasers and tricorders because the writers of Discovery are too lazy to think of anything else that supplants the familiar Trek tech we know.

Bullshit,

 

[Skywalker]

That's just lazy. Nobody said "tech advances on it's own", that's just silly. There is always a need or opportunity for any kind of tech advance to occur when you have a federation of thousands of planets in it. They use phasers and tricorders because the writers of Discovery are too lazy to think of anything else that supplants the familiar Trek tech we know.

The only lazy thing I'm seeing is this argument.

(And the cat in my avatar.)

 

[fireproof78]

They use phasers and tricorders because the writers of Discovery are too lazy to think of anything else that supplants the familiar Trek tech we know.

Bullshit. When the writers on Discovery tried something new they got shellacked from the loudest critics. You want them to do something new? Show them it's worth their time and not get ripped apart for daring to change anything.

 

[Nerys Myk]

No, you're not. The context that you didn't get in that message was a reply to his message.

I know how message boards work.
ETA: I can reply to any post I please. Nothing in the rules say I can't.

 

[cooleddie74]

One could also say the pre-Federation 22nd century phase pistols and phase cannons are lazy producer choices since we already have the more primitive but effective EM-33 hand pistols and electromagnetic pulse cannons on Starfleet and civilian ships before 2151 (and afterwards) but it was a creative choice that the network and Berman and Braga felt would be more "comfortable" for audiences of the new prequel series ENT.

Phase pistols of 2151 don't function much differently than the hand phasers of 2266 but they have fewer settings and more limited range and capabilities, so that's where the "newness" lies. Familiar, but different.

 

[Farscape One]

That is one thing that bugged me... how easily the Discovery crew adapted to the technology of the 32nd century.

Yes, these are smart and adaptable people. But there should have been more time needed for this crew to get up to speed.

A few decades in the future? Absolutely can adapt quickly. A hundred years? I'd expect it to be more difficult, but I suppose it is doable.

But almost a millennium ahead in the future? They should basically be 'cavemen confronted with a tricorder', to quote Captain Donald Varley.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Can't come up with a cogent argument so you resort to profanity. How "enlightened" of you.

Sometimes that's all that's needed.
But you've no idea how "lazy" the writers are or what their motivations are. All you know is they aren't doing what you want so you resort to insults. How "enlightened" of you.

 

[NCC-73515]

Until she just ended up being a Borg Queen pawn/drone and they deleted her from the story...

which villain remained interesting after they died?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yes, these are smart and adaptable people. But there should have been more time needed for this crew to get up to speed.

OTOH, it's a TV show. Some compression is needed.

 

[cooleddie74]

It's a conceit of fictional storytelling. Time travelers adapt to different technology faster than they probably should, much as characters stealing local clothes in which to disguise themselves invariably run into clothes that are JUST the right size for them.

 

[fireproof78]

which villain remained interesting after they died?

Colonel Green.

Species 8472.

Chang.

OTOH, it's a TV show. Some compression is needed.

something something speed of plot.

It's a conceit of fictional storytelling. Time travelers adapt to different technology faster than they probably should, much as characters stealing local clothes in which to disguise themselves invariably run into clothes that are JUST the right size for them.

Kirk does it.

Paris does it.

A conman from the 22nd century pilfers a time pod to steal tech from a much later time period than his own.

It's not new to Star Trek. At all.

Oh, there were plenty of people who said that "phase pistol" and "photonic" was lazy writing on the part of ENTs showrunners. But what i'm saying is that the new tech in Discovery should have been so out of our (the viewers POV) that it would present us with something new and fascinating. Instead, we got phasers and tricorders just with a lick of piant & a few extra buttons.

Because it's not about the tech. It's about the people. If Enterprise can be accepted now (and declared so backwards from The Next Generation, though phase pistols act the same), then I can accept Discovery at this point.

It ain't going to change anything on my enjoyment level.

 

[Skywalker]

That is one thing that bugged me... how easily the Discovery crew adapted to the technology of the 32nd century.

Yes, these are smart and adaptable people. But there should have been more time needed for this crew to get up to speed.

A few decades in the future? Absolutely can adapt quickly. A hundred years? I'd expect it to be more difficult, but I suppose it is doable.

But almost a millennium ahead in the future? They should basically be 'cavemen confronted with a tricorder', to quote Captain Donald Varley.

I wouldn't go quite that far. Cavemen didn't even have the wheel; they would have zero reference points to help them try and understand any of our current technology.

A lot of the 32nd century's technology is grounded in concepts the crew of Discovery were already familiar with, they just needed to be brought up to speed on the modern variations. Now, the really out there stuff like programmable matter? I can see that taking some time to figure out. But a TV show doesn't have the luxury of letting its characters spend months or years learning how to make the ship go.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Vadic was more interesting than L'rell, Voq, Control, Osyraa, Tarka, Moll and L'ak combined

She was pretty one-note IMO. One step above a panto villain.

 

[fireproof78]

She was pretty one-note IMO. One step above a panto villain.

I really liked Vadic, but L'ak, Moll, L'Rell and Osyraa were more fun to watch.