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How would you re-imagine the TOS Communicators?

Wingsley

Wingsley

Commodore
Commodore
Let's assume you had a shot at either the forbidden TOS Year 4 or TMP.

How would you re-imagine the TOS hand-talkie communicators?

I've read that some people think that since cellphones in our Consumer Culture offer more functionality, the TOS hand-talkies seem out of place. I can see the point, but I'm not entirely in agreement. I see the 23rd century TOS communicators as deliberately limited-purpose field gear: simple, minimally functional, and easy to fabricate or maintain. Look at how easy Spock re-assembled a communicator in "Patterns of Force", with no equipment to work with!

A Starfleet-issue communicator is obviously a subspace transceiver; it can apparently transmit over interplanetary and perhaps extra-star-system distances. ("Mudd's Women", "Metamorphosis"). Does this sound plausibly sufficient, or should Captain Kirk have an iPhone 233G? Remember, out on the frontier, there are no cell towers...
 
I would make it slightly thinner and not quite as rounded at the edges. The screen becomes a square w/ rounded off edges and siplays frequency information instead of a trippy swirly thing. The lights are still there, but are more flush with the body. I'd keep the speaker plate and adjustment knobs. The flippy antenna would become a clear piece with the gold antenna pattern on it. The back would have a label including the ship's emblem, registry number, and a serial code. Give the communicator a smooth matte finish, as opposed to the rough finish it has.
 
The more functions you combine into a single piece of equipment the more screwed you are when something happens to that item. Sure it would be nice to have a communicator/tricorder/phaser/mp3 player combo device but when the Gorn steps on it you've lost 4 devices instead of 1.

The TOS era communicator is one of the few pieces of tech that (to me at least) doesn't look at all dated.
 
Oh, they would be curvy and white, with huge bright LED lights all over them, and tiny viewscreens that nevertheless displayed text at huge sizes so only a couple of words at a time would fit on the screen...

...Wow, that kind of sucks, doesn't it, 2008? Let's keep them the same.

[insert awesome chirpy sound] "Kirk to Enterprise..."

Humbugsley said:
I've read that some people think that since cellphones in our Consumer Culture offer more functionality, the TOS hand-talkies seem out of place.
Click to expand...

Tell those people to call a ship in orbit on their cellular phones
 
Yes, and notice how large they are, and how you couldn't contact someone on Mars or Jupiter, and how they don't use subspace to contact anyone.
 
Yeah, I love how folks will disparage the design as out of date, even though it seems to have all kinds of abilities a cellphone will never have. Not only FTL communications to spacecraft and an immediate beamout signal, but having a swirling moire pattern that only God knows what it does, and being able to cause a rockslide with sympathetic vibrations when a high teer and a Klingon are coming after you.

Show me a cellphone that can do that. :p
 
What do y'all think of the TMP-era revisions of the hand-talkie communicators?

I'm not talking about the TMP-1 wristwatch style; I'm talking about the flip-top handhelds in TMP-2, and TMP-3.
 
I like the bluetooth earphone idea, and turning that round swirly thingie into a rectangular video screen for the occasional visual feed, either to or from the ship or another communicator.

But beyond that, I'd leave it alone.
 
Humbugsley said:
CRA,

Do you mean earphones like this?
Click to expand...

I'd go with something more streamlined. That thing could get easily pulled out of your ear on a branch or rolling down a hill or something. Anything you take on an away mission has gotta be rugged and able to withstand some abuse (which is why that scene in Nemesis on the Scimitar really bugged me. You know, when Picard lost his Phaser-II)

Anyways, most of the changes I proposed were aesthetic as opposed to functional (With the exception of the screen). In terms of function, the TOS communicator doesn't need a whole lot more.
 
I would keep them pretty much the same but just add detail to the contols. It probably could be a little smaller, but not by much. I like the flip antenae and it's duel purpose of protecting the controls from minor accidents.
 
I wonder...how would we re-imagine the neck-tie Gene wore when he was stumping to sell "The Cage" to the network reps...
 
Capt_Jason said:
I wonder...how would we re-imagine the neck-tie Gene wore when he was stumping to sell "The Cage" to the network reps...
Click to expand...

I would keep them pretty much the same but just add detail. It probably could be a little smaller, but not by much. I like the windsor knot and it's duel purpose of protecting the neck from minor accidents.
 
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