Technological Development Between 22nd and 24th Centuries
- Thread starter lilzal
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Exactly, the tech in ENT wasn't as advanced as the detractors say. It fit in fine with what we know it'd evolve into for TOS and TNG.
Seriously, even the tech in Galactica is pretty advanced. If you expecting them to use only railguns and nuclear torpedoes without even a hint of lasers of some kind, THAT was what would have not made sense.
Seriously, even the tech in Galactica is pretty advanced. If you expecting them to use only railguns and nuclear torpedoes without even a hint of lasers of some kind, THAT was what would have not made sense.
Perhaps the tech in ENT wouldn't be percieved as being so samey if it was used differently.
Example: The combat in ENT is pretty much like the combat in TOS/TNG/everything else:
Hide behind a defensive technology which can be measured in percentages whilst you blast at the other guy with your pew pew gun.
I propose that combat could have been shifted from a focus on point-blank defense to a focus on not being shot at at all - make the torpedo the primary weapon of combat and put a focus on long-to mid range defense, ECM and getting the hell out of the way. Space combat would be less like galleons blasting each other and more like submarine cat and mouse games.
Maybe I just really love submarine movies.
Example: The combat in ENT is pretty much like the combat in TOS/TNG/everything else:
Hide behind a defensive technology which can be measured in percentages whilst you blast at the other guy with your pew pew gun.
I propose that combat could have been shifted from a focus on point-blank defense to a focus on not being shot at at all - make the torpedo the primary weapon of combat and put a focus on long-to mid range defense, ECM and getting the hell out of the way. Space combat would be less like galleons blasting each other and more like submarine cat and mouse games.
Maybe I just really love submarine movies.
LOL, BSG and B5 are nothing like what I'm thinking. They're still pretty much galleons pounding each other in space.
To be fair, I think Enterprise haters represented a very diverse group. While some might have wanted things some way, others wanted it completely different.
Not necessarily. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, muskets and artillery were still very similar to what they had been during the Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars. The only major changes had been the change from the flintlock system to the more efficient percussion system, and the evolution of breech-loading weapons shortly after the war began. The armies were still using Napoleonic tactics without considering how the advancements would affect warfare, just as the armies in WWI were still using outdated tactics that had been developed for less modern technology.
Point is, there's no guarantee that a relatively wide stretch of years will see a corresponding revolution in technology. That's largely dependent on the state of industrialization and advancement.
They certainly can, but what I'm saying is that it's foolish to do that for every single system. TNG established that phasers didn't exist in the Federation prior to the 2200s, although they had energy weapons that were the predecessors to modern phasers.
Yes, but how much of a different is there between a phaser and a phase pistol? A semi-automatic pistol operates on a different system from a modern revolver, but that revolver still operates on the same mechanism as its 19th century cousin. It's just slightly more efficient and deadly, and it hasn't been phased by the automatic's existence. And one of the most well known semi-automatic pistols, the Colt .45, debuted with the American armed forces in 1911 and was still being issued until 1985 with only minor changes. Some are still in use today.
Actually, the bit of dialogue from TNG "A Matter of Time" could just as well establish that phasers came to exist in the Federation in the 2100s, aka the 22nd century.
Con man 'Rasmussen' is asking about progress. Worf could be taken as saying that there was progress on phasers: first there were none, and then in the 22nd century progress happened and phasers were born. "The last two centuries" would cover the first half of the 24th, the entire 23rd, and the second half of the 22nd, so Worf would be looking at technologies that developed within that timespan; things that came to being in the 22nd would be quite acceptable, then.
...Personally, I find it more satisfactory to try and fanwank this bit of dialogue than to try and fanwank the ENT phase pistols and shipboard guns into something that is "not really a phaser yet".
Indeed, it would probably be preferable to decide that Worf simply was dead wrong this once...
Timo Saloniemi
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Fleet Captain
I see no evidence of technological stagnation in the Federation between the 22nd and 24rd century.
You see, between the 18th century and the present, there were a number of fundamental discoveries - steam, electricity and many others - that completely transformed human technology.
Between now and the 22nd century, there will also be new fundamental discoveries - for example, gravity control - that will enable FTL starships to be built.
From the 22nd century onwards, the physical laws of the universe will be largely discovered - at least the fundamentals. One can only better one's technology.
For example - where can one go from FTL starships? Faster FTL starships.
From warp 5 to warp 9.something in only 200 years. And make no mistake - warp 9.something is not twice as fast as warp 5, it's HUNDREDS of times faster than warp 5.
The same can be said for the evolution of many trekverse tachnologies.
You see, between the 18th century and the present, there were a number of fundamental discoveries - steam, electricity and many others - that completely transformed human technology.
Between now and the 22nd century, there will also be new fundamental discoveries - for example, gravity control - that will enable FTL starships to be built.
From the 22nd century onwards, the physical laws of the universe will be largely discovered - at least the fundamentals. One can only better one's technology.
For example - where can one go from FTL starships? Faster FTL starships.
From warp 5 to warp 9.something in only 200 years. And make no mistake - warp 9.something is not twice as fast as warp 5, it's HUNDREDS of times faster than warp 5.
The same can be said for the evolution of many trekverse tachnologies.
It sounds a bit dubious that we could run out of fundamental discoveries as our technology advanced. If anything, we should be discovering things at an accelerated rate when our technology allowed ever more outlandish experiments to be carried out.
It's of course possible that discoveries would come to a grinding halt in the 22nd century, when humans made contact with older and wiser species. They'd have so many answers for questions we didn't even yet have the intelligence to ask that our science might collapse out of sheer anguish. And possibly the formation of the Federation would do the same to the sciences of most of the other species, too.
Perhaps that is indeed what has happened in Star Trek? The Federation has been divided into those dispirited by the superior knowledge of others, those rendered complacent by their superior knowledge, and a teeny weeny handful of people who still dare postulate that they don't know everything. Thus, our heroes teeter on the verge of major breakthroughs such as the one relating spacetime and thought, but they dare not take the required steps because in the 24th century, only charlatans research things they don't already know everything about. And besides, dabbling in such things is dangerous...
The 2300s could well be the new Middle Ages in that respect.
Timo Saloniemi
It's of course possible that discoveries would come to a grinding halt in the 22nd century, when humans made contact with older and wiser species. They'd have so many answers for questions we didn't even yet have the intelligence to ask that our science might collapse out of sheer anguish. And possibly the formation of the Federation would do the same to the sciences of most of the other species, too.
Perhaps that is indeed what has happened in Star Trek? The Federation has been divided into those dispirited by the superior knowledge of others, those rendered complacent by their superior knowledge, and a teeny weeny handful of people who still dare postulate that they don't know everything. Thus, our heroes teeter on the verge of major breakthroughs such as the one relating spacetime and thought, but they dare not take the required steps because in the 24th century, only charlatans research things they don't already know everything about. And besides, dabbling in such things is dangerous...
The 2300s could well be the new Middle Ages in that respect.
Timo Saloniemi
That's because they added a truckload of biofilters and failsafes, after the shocking realisation that transporters were in fact incredibly damaging to DNA, leading to the discovery of 'transporter psychosis'. They were pulled from production and eventually reinstated years later on Federation ships when a safe and standardised system was agreed upon. Ever wonder why Dr McCoy didn't like using them? Or why LaForge stated there was only "over a hundred years of evidence" to show they were safe, when Enterprise had one over 200 years prior? Yeah... Archer may have lived a long life, but I bet he went a bit funny in the head. Poor guy.
Federation standardised interfaces. The love of blinky blue lights is a strictly human condition. We eventually learn to love blinky red lights much more.
Subspace transmission requires bigger components. It's like our present day digital radio compared to analogue -- seemingly the same technology but actually quite different and more advanced.
Alternative explanations for the above:
- It looks flashier.
- It looks flashier.
- It looks flashier.
His comment is interesting and non-specific. Does he mean that no phasers existed anywhere in the whole galaxy? Or is he referring to Earth (there was no Federation at the time)? But as he is a Klingon, shouldn't he be referring to his own species' technology?
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We might decide that phasers are indeed a novel human invention, distinct from the beam weapons used by other species, and somehow preferable to the older Vulcan death rays and Klingon disruptors in Worf's opinion. After all, phasers had some success against the Borg in "Q Who?", as if they took the Borg by surprise, even though photon torpedoes were impotent from the very start. In subsequent battles, Cubes have been immune to phasers from the start, too (even if lesser elements such as Drones don't seem to carry immunity to anything permanently)... Possible proof for the galactic novelty value of phasers?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Well, no matter what instruments and technology one has, the electromagnetic waves, for example, will have the same properties and will be described by the same equations.
If, by the 22nd century, humanity/the Federation figured out the fundamental physical laws of the universe - the theory of everything, how the quantum level and relativity fit together - than all that's left to discover are details - exotic phenomena, etc.
The bulk of the research will focus on finding technology that makes beter use of the physical laws of the universe - by this point thoroughly known.
And in this area, as exemplified by the tremendous increase in warp velocity, nothing stagnated. Quite the contrary.
The technology in the 24 century resembled the one from the 22nd century simply because it used the same laws of physics and principles.
Yes - in a few episodes - from TNG and Voyager - it is implied that, beyond the subatomic level, at the most fundamental, the trekverse is composed out of matter, energy and thought, united.
However, the ability of corporeal beings to discover this level by physucal means is doubtful.
Corporeal species such as the Voth (millions of years of technological development) or the borg (who assimilated thousands of advanced civilizations) were not aware/could not use this level of the universe.
Apparently, corporeal beings could discover and learn to use this level of existence only by PSI means and, once they mastered it, they "ascended" - much like Wesley or Kes.
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Thats my point. Assuming that technology 100 years prior to TOS must be more primitive is no different that assuming technology 100 years after TOS must be more advanced. It just doesn't happen like that.
Yes and those weapon were called phase pistols.
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We don't know do we? On the surface a phase pistol and a phaser look the same. They fire a beam of energy, just as a revolver and an automatic fire bullets. But as you point out with the revolver and the automatic, the systems to accomplish this might be differerent.
I really wouldn't want BSG-ish fighting in Trek anyways... It's still very old school ships of the line pounding at each other, despite the fighters. I still think submarine warfare in space (with accommodations for laser/phase weaponry and the extreme ranges and speed) would have been friggin cool.
Hater, no. I think ENT missed a lot of potential, but there's plenty of stuff I liked about it.
Like this. I liked this.
Unless a deeper truth about the nature of electromagnetic waves is found, in which case equations describing them from that vantage point will come to use. And soon thereafter, technologies exploiting the deeper truth would also emerge.
We had already figured out the world by the end of the 18th century to our satisfaction, pretty much - but then we invented technologies that were capable of producing unusual, extreme conditions where our previous understanding proved inadequate. That's why we have EM waves rather than Newton's particle/line optics model today - even though we still use line optics whenever we don't need the accuracy of the EM wave model. But Maxwell's theories on the latter had countless practical applications, as did other "extremist" theories that followed. I'd trust the more esoteric fields of study to keep on producing such useful information. But perhaps I'm wrong and this is why the post-2300s Federation appears stagnated (and the older and wiser species also fall into the pattern)?
Timo Saloniemi
You're right. However, that being said, there could have been more of an effort to show how these technologies differed, instead of giving us a phase pistol that sounds and looks like a modern phaser when it fires, and that can defeat enemies like 24th century Borg with little trouble. Instead of giving us an early Earth ship that looks like a slightly modified version of the Akira. All I'm saying is, ENT as a series suffered from a combination of Executive Meddling and cutting corners which, in my view, hurt it as prequel in terms of things like technology. It got other stuff right.
I don't think Sub warfare would hold the interest of the viewer long enough to work out. They want fast and maneuverable stuff, like space fighters.
As for the Vulcans, the haters also hate that they were made into a superpower just because some of the Vulcans in TOS gave off the impression of being a conservative and "keep to themselves" people. Being a military superpower seems pretty logical to me, that kind of power leads to better protection than if they stayed isolated on one planet against invading Empires.
