Which Star Trek technology would people abuse the most if it was released today?

[Kamen Rider Blade]

It's been a long time since I read it, but I'm pretty sure I was, too.

People's sex lives & infidelity will be easily revealed.

Also, everybody's crimes / atrocities will also be easily revealed.

This is why regulation & control over the technology would be important to not let it wreck society.

Also, Omni-Directional Sensors & Micro-Worm Hole Jammers would become very important for people if you had Star Trek level tech.

 

[ngc7293]

Larry Niven Wrote a story called "The Alibi Machine". It was basically a Transporter and it was used to commit murder. He also wrote about other ways to abuse a teleporter. If it was the Transporter from Picard, then Mass transit would be a thing of the past.

 

[Toril Toran]

If you tried to bend time to your will, then there is a very good chance that someone else will try to do the same. Perhaps more than one person/group/organization.
This is why you would need an organization like office of temporal investigations.

This is why the very wise Ferengi have this rule:
Rule of Acquisition number 236: You can’t buy fate

 

[Ithekro]

Star Trek has an entire Temporal War that lasts centuries in real time and probably millennia in time travel shenanigans. Ending in a ban on time travel technologies by the time USS Discovery shows up in the far future.

 

[Toril Toran]

I’m sure Section 31 had a hand in that war, somewhere

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I’m sure Section 31 had a hand in that war, somewhere

The hard part is "Proving It".

They're supposed to be a "Ultra Secretive" clandestine organization that doesn't answer to any government.

Who knows what players are loyal to 'Section 31' in the greater Temporal War.

 

[matthunter]

Luckily Trek tries to play it coy with the notion of storing peoples' consciousness during transport (the DS9 ep Our Man Bashir is the closest we get, but they mention that the system is storing the whole transporter pattern and storing even 4 people is taking massive amounts of DS9's computing resources). The notion is that the pattern MUST be rematerialised in totality - no keeping a copy (and even duplicates like Tom Riker must be materialised, not kept for a rainy day).

The webcomic Schlock Mercenary examines in detail the benefits/abuses of tech involving brain backups and downloads, smart AI and matter-transmission tech.

 

[Toril Toran]

I wonder if is possible to use the transporter to demoleculize you, modify your DNA while you are in there, and then remolecularize you as a new person. This would make requesting DNA to make stronger, smarter people (augments).
Luckily, no one in the trek universe has thought of this yet

 

[137th Gebirg]

Luckily Trek tries to play it coy with the notion of storing peoples' consciousness during transport (the DS9 ep Our Man Bashir is the closest we get, but they mention that the system is storing the whole transporter pattern and storing even 4 people is taking massive amounts of DS9's computing resources). The notion is that the pattern MUST be rematerialised in totality - no keeping a copy (and even duplicates like Tom Riker must be materialised, not kept for a rainy day).

The webcomic Schlock Mercenary examines in detail the benefits/abuses of tech involving brain backups and downloads, smart AI and matter-transmission tech.

In TNG’s “Realm of Fear” we see Barclay, conscious, in the transporter stream, watching as weird things attack him in there, hence his extreme transporter phobia. The implication was that patterns are actually still in some kind of cohesive state (both mentally AND physically) and the person is fully aware of things going on around them.

That being the case, one wonders how Scotty didn’t go batshit crazy being stuck in the pattern buffer on the Jenolan for 70 or 80-some years when the E-D discovered him in “Relics”.

 

[matthunter]

I wonder if is possible to use the transporter to demoleculize you, modify your DNA while you are in there, and then remolecularize you as a new person. This would make requesting DNA to make stronger, smarter people (augments).
Luckily, no one in the trek universe has thought of this yet

It's absolutely possible - they do it in TNG's Unnatural Selection to modify Pulaski's DNA back to normal after it's been altered by the immune system of the augmented kids.

Spoiler: Picard S3

The Borg also used it to spread the "receiver" trait to younger transporter users so their biology could be hijacked by Jack Crusher's command signal

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Spoiler: Picard S3

The Borg also used it to spread the "receiver" trait to younger transporter users so their biology could be hijacked by Jack Crusher's command signal

Spoiler: Picard S3

The Borg did that to every user, it just happened to only affect the young. Older people felt something, but it wasn't effective over a certain age. I guess that's problem with "lack of testing" due to having a missing element from your plan and only testing it at the last minute in a "Hail Mary" attempt.

 

[matthunter]

Spoiler: Picard S3

The Borg did that to every user, it just happened to only affect the young. Older people felt something, but it wasn't effective over a certain age. I guess that's problem with "lack of testing" due to having a missing element from your plan and only testing it at the last minute in a "Hail Mary" attempt.

The only thing missing from this is where what you said matters to anything except your sense of self-worth.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The only thing missing from this is where what you said matters to anything except your sense of self-worth.

Accuracy in the details matters. It has nothing to do with my sense of self.

 

[matthunter]

Accuracy in the details matters. It has nothing to do with my sense of self.

Clearly you define yourself by that metric, so it really does.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Clearly you define yourself by that metric, so it really does.

I don't understand why you are so hostile to me for correcting a minor error.

Did I do something to get on your bad side?

 

[matthunter]

I don't understand why you are so hostile to me for correcting a minor error.

Did I do something to get on your bad side?

Pedantry annoys me.

There are far larger mistakes to spend your energy on.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Pedantry annoys me.

There are far larger mistakes to spend your energy on.

IC. So you just don't like it when you make minor mistakes and somebody helps you fix it in good faith.

 

[FredH]

Transporters.

Imagine a highly motivated and well-funded terrorist organization being able to beam a nuke into the central headquarters of their adversary. Or lock on to enemy troops and beam them all out of existence entirely. It is the most terrifying kind of Trek technology that stands to do the most harm in mass quantities (outside of a matter/antimatter explosion that will destroy the whole planet in an instant, of course). Even the metaphysical/philosophical implications of the tech are still hotly debated by the fandom to this day. Does the body actually "die" in order to get dematerialized and an entirely new person created on the other end? If one believes in a soul, does it get permanently untethered or does it some how find its way back to the host body after it's put back together and re-integrate? Does the person simply stare blankly into nothingness, sans-consciousness, the actual person lost forever? Will there be tons of new ghosts floating around from untethered transporter souls? How does any of that even work?

Teleporters (via mini-wormholes or space-folding) are only a little less dangerous-sounding - at least, as it applies to keeping the person in one piece - but can still wreak havoc as a highly effective asymmetrical warfare tactic. We are a LONG way from the "evolved sensibility" that TNG espouses for humanity. In fact, the cynic in me is pretty sure we'll never get there.

And then there is always the time travel thing. If we need to have that kind of tech, I'd prefer it to be a "read-only" set-up, so that it can be used to look back into the past to see what happened, thereby ensuring an accurate historical account for research purposes. Akin to the theoretical "Project Looking Glass". I would think looking into the future might be problematic, depending on any myriad choices that can generate different potential timelines. It would make anyone believing in pre-destination go batshit crazy. Unless time truly is linear. Active participation in time travel is just a recipe for disaster, especially if one has nefarious intent.

I hope I never live long enough to see any of that.

Frankly, I’m surprised actual Trek doesn’t have transporters being used as weapons that way.

 

[FredH]

I would abuse the bejeezus out of the Holodeck. Really, imagine if we all had an actual Holodeck, each with a Galaxy Class computer core equipped to make every dream and fantasy come alive with a word.

It would seem rudimentary to network Holodecks so real folk could mingle in a shared space. Others would be represented by real-time avatars on your Holodeck, with all interactions fed back to them, and vice versa.

Plus, the Holodeck can also function as a replicator.

And I am leaving ... why?

And that right there is where Talos IV comes from.

 

[Unicron]

Pedantry annoys me.

There are far larger mistakes to spend your energy on.

IC. So you just don't like it when you make minor mistakes and somebody helps you fix it in good faith.

I'd recommend you both refrain from getting too personal. Thanks.