Roddenberry's Worst Ideas

[T'Girl]

Kirk was just making a generous gesture to Uhura.

Not that generous, while Kirk did offer to buy two drinks, he failed to offer to pay for Uhura's entire drink order. Obviously Uhura was ordering drinks for her entire table of friends. If Kirk had offer to pay for the entire order, he might have been invite back to Uhura's table and had a better chance of seducing her over the course of the evening.

A bit cliche, but you have a better chance with women being fast with the cash, verses being a cheap stiff.

 

[Gary7]

There are plenty of contradictions in Star Trek. Sometimes it's a matter of writing error that slips past editing and manages to get approved... and even the actors don't stop to consider it. Take the whole thing with Quark and gold. At one point he says it's worthless, and at another point he says otherwise.

"No money in the 24th century" is just a joke, IMHO. Now, it could be extended a bit... "We don't have money--we have a closed credit system." But how VALUABLE are credits anyway? To me, it looks like when you play within the confines of the Federation, you don't really need much. It's a socialist society. Healthcare is free. Food is essentially free. Replicator "rations" or credits may be dependent upon the quantity or complexity of what you're requesting to have produced, but we're not shown how many credits are needed for whatever thresholds that might be crossed. There's probably a huge apartment system managed by the government that enables basic lodging for free.

But how do you obtain exclusive property? There's always something exclusive or of limited availability in society. Are you bequeathed that by your station or by making some special achievement? How much does the government really own and/or control? If replicators can produce precious metals, then the whole monetary system can't work. People would just replicate platinum and then sell it.

Anyway, this is all within the confines of the Federation. Externally, it's clear that most species have some kind of monetary system and so in order to trade you MUST have some kind of exchange vehicle. Can you trade your Federation credits for something you want to buy from a Ferengi? Maybe you have to get your credits exchanged to latinum first.


Bottom line... Star Trek did a poor job of really explaining how the Federation credit system is supposed to work and how it would interface with extraterrestrial cultures. We've heard inferences about crew members having salary here and there, but we've no idea how much and how it positions them economically. While I know it could've been a powder keg trying to define a monetary system in more detail, I think it would've been possible to do something a little more detailed than what we got.

 

[T'Girl]

Healthcare is free.

Starfleet certainly doesn't seem to charge for emergency services. But as a general societal policy, I was wondering if you pulled this from a particular episode?

Bottom line... Star Trek did a poor job of really explaining how the Federation credit system is supposed to work and how it would interface with extraterrestrial cultures.

We're given a window into why the Vulcans adopted their emotion control, they were destroying themselves as a group.

Warp drive, transporter, and other devices receive at least a passing explanation. Sometimes composed of technobabble. In FC we saw the first (Human) warp flight. In Enterprise there was a episode about the first (Human) transporter use.

The show is completely lacking in explanation on the 22nd century's "the new economy," or what is meant by "the economy is different."

In the multiple series we get mentions of pay, accounts, bank, credits, buying, selling, etc. It sounds given the vocabulary used that their financial structure is a analogy of our own. If Picard's one time statement is the true picture of the future, what were all of those other Humans (and non-Humans) talking about?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

There's probably a huge apartment system managed by the government that enables basic lodging for free.

Yeah, but you'd be taking your life in your hands to live there. Free housing is the costliest kind. And smell that urine in the stairwells.

 

[Jeyl]

To name a few,

Season Two's final episode, "Assignment: Earth". Imagine if the series didn't get renewed for a season three and Assignment: Earth ended up as the original series' last episode. Quite an insult when you consider that it wasn't meant to be a Star Trek episode at all, since Gene made it as an attempt to get a new series started by using Star Trek to make this backdoor pilot.

The Star Trek theme. Gene, as long as your lyrics don't appear in the theme, I will never, EVER credit you for creating the theme. You did not do this to make the theme better, you did just to rip off Alexander Courage. Practice what you preach.

Treatment of women. Sorry, but I don't like a sexist Starfleet, or your idea that a woman who isn't pretty can't have a future. Plus writing that one line "They're like animals" to describe a green skinned woman dancing to music is just bad.

Wesley Crusher. If I was a child actor and I learned years later just how much Gene Roddeberry was attached to Wesley as a character, I would feel almost violated. Think about it. The whole point of Wesley's character was to fulfill some old guy's self-important ego. Ick!

Canon. Oh, for god's sake Gene. It's a story written by a writer endorsed by the studio with your name on it. Just because it's not on film doesn't mean it's not a story worthy to be acknowledged.

Killing Tasha Yar. This could have been handled a whole let better Gene. A LOT BETTER.

 

[CaptainStoner]

Ok, here is my point condensed.

We can't *really* explain warp drive, transporters, replicators, or their effect on economy and use/non-use of money. All of this stuff is bullshit.

But if we take something now impossible, and pretend it is true in fiction, we create a kind of equation which is played out in the show itself. Remove the lofty aim, and you lose the spirit of things. Star Trek is supposed to be inspiring, and a future of abundance is part of that.

 

[scotpens]

Treatment of women. Sorry, but I don't like a sexist Starfleet, or your idea that a woman who isn't pretty can't have a future. Plus writing that one line "They're like animals" to describe a green skinned woman dancing to music is just bad.

You're looking at a story written in 1964 through the prism of 21st-century sensibilities. To audiences of the time, and I daresay even to many people today, it's quite understandable that Vina, with her crippled and deformed body, would prefer to stay on Talos IV where she could have the illusion of youth and beauty.

As for the Orion dance scene, IIRC, a line was cut before the pilot was shown to NBC -- something like "every now and then a man comes along who can tame one of them." So it could have been worse!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And they never explained why the Talosians couldn't simply read Vina's mind (they were extremely powerful telepaths, after all. And Vina was unconscious, not dead! So she still had a mind to read) to find out what a human being looked like. OR, for that matter, they could have just scanned the Columbia's computer banks!

 

[robau]

There's probably a huge apartment system managed by the government that enables basic lodging for free.

Yeah, but you'd be taking your life in your hands to live there. Free housing is the costliest kind. And smell that urine in the stairwells.

Everything is sanitized in the utopia.

 

[CaptainStoner]

There's probably a huge apartment system managed by the government that enables basic lodging for free.

Yeah, but you'd be taking your life in your hands to live there. Free housing is the costliest kind. And smell that urine in the stairwells.

Everything is sanitized in the utopia.

Except on thursdays. Avoid the stairwells on thursdays.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Treatment of women. Sorry, but I don't like a sexist Starfleet, or your idea that a woman who isn't pretty can't have a future. Plus writing that one line "They're like animals" to describe a green skinned woman dancing to music is just bad.

You're looking at a story written in 1964 through the prism of 21st-century sensibilities. To audiences of the time, and I daresay even to many people today, it's quite understandable that Vina, with her crippled and deformed body, would prefer to stay on Talos IV where she could have the illusion of youth and beauty.

As for the Orion dance scene, IIRC, a line was cut before the pilot was shown to NBC -- something like "every now and then a man comes along who can tame one of them." So it could have been worse!

Plus for all we know the Talosians medical stuff was the only thing keeping her alive seeing as she said they put her back together wrong.

And they never explained why the Talosians couldn't simply read Vina's mind (they were extremely powerful telepaths, after all. And Vina was unconscious, not dead! So she still had a mind to read) to find out what a human being looked like. OR, for that matter, they could have just scanned the Columbia's computer banks!

That assumes Vina had the necessary anatomy knowledge that they needed and/or the Columbia's computers weren't reduced to junk by the crash.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Yeah, but you'd be taking your life in your hands to live there. Free housing is the costliest kind. And smell that urine in the stairwells.

Everything is sanitized in the utopia.

Except on thursdays. Avoid the stairwells on thursdays.

Have you ever seen a stairwell in 24th century Utopiearth? Turolifts. Turbolifts everywhere. Even in modest semi-detatched homes, probably.

 

[WraithDukat]

Have you ever seen a stairwell in 24th century Utopiearth?

Barclays house in "Pathfinder".

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Have you ever seen a stairwell in 24th century Utopiearth? Turolifts. Turbolifts everywhere. Even in modest semi-detatched homes, probably.

The horizontal turboshafts on the Enterprise sure aren't helping anybody to stay in shape. They qualify as another bad GR idea.

It reminds me of a line Bruce Willis had in Over the Hedge: SUV's are something humans need because they're slowly losing their ability to walk.

 

[CoveTom]

And they never explained why the Talosians couldn't simply read Vina's mind (they were extremely powerful telepaths, after all. And Vina was unconscious, not dead! So she still had a mind to read) to find out what a human being looked like. OR, for that matter, they could have just scanned the Columbia's computer banks!

They obviously read her mind, or the Columbia's computer banks, regarding what a human being was supposed to look like, because they gave her the illusion of being a normal-looking human being.

But what you're talking about is actually repairing the physical damage that had been done to her body, for real. That would require some rather specific medical and anatomical knowledge. Vina's mind may not have contained that knowledge. It's also possible that Columbia's computers did not contain that sort of information either or that, if they did, they were destroyed in the crash.

So the Talosians did the best they could: they patched her back together as best they could figure how, and then used their power of illusion to let her see herself the way she originally was.

 

[T'Girl]

... and then used their power of illusion to let her see herself the way she originally was.

Spock: "SS Columbia. It disappeared in that region approximately eighteen years ago."

Haskins: "This is Vina. Her parents are dead. She was born almost as we crashed."

Susan Oliver was thirty-two years when The Cage started production. But when we first see her character, she is supposed to appear to the landing party to be eighteen (with respect, she didn't).

Number One: "There was a Vina listed on that expedition as an adult crewman."

Did the appearance of Vina, the appearance she wanted look like, look at all like the "original" Vina? In the first Matrix movie, they used the term residual self image. It's the way individuals tend to think of their own physical appearance. Especially during times when they can't actually see themselves. Vina's image of herself (assuming the Talosians let her choose it) was of a blonde, blue eyed, slim, small breasted, beautiful young woman.

But did Vina ever look like this?

 

[yousirname]

Tell you what, let us cut this down to a basic fact of the show ... WE SEE AND HEAR THEM USING MONEY.

No duh. That's why I'm saying it's self-contradictory. You're the one making these weird leaps of logic to pretend that it's not. The use of money in canon isn't counter to my position; indeed, it's a central feature.

The difference there of course is Jake actual did received monetary value for the sell of the land. It was made clear in the example of the book that Jake (as he said himself) was indeed employing a figure of speech.

What is in the least "self-contradictory" about any of that?

There's nothing self-contradictory about those things in themselves, obviously. It's the fact that there are other things in canon which, y'know, contradict the implied or express use of money which are contradictory. Thus rendering canon self-contradictory on this issue.

I don't think you're using that correctly.

I do.

not retrievable; irrecoverable; irreparable

And it's "for instance", not "for instants".

 

[T'Girl]

There's nothing self-contradictory about those things in themselves, obviously. It's the fact that there are other things in canon which, y'know, contradict the implied or express use of money which are contradictory. Thus rendering canon self-contradictory on this issue.

And by "other things" you're referring to that single line of dialog in First Contact? There was never any consideration of there being no money during the production of TOS in the 1960's. And I can't recall ST: Enterprise discussing the subject one way or the other. Nor do I believe Voyager ever directly brought up the subject of no money.

During the creation of TNG, Gene Roddenberry express a vague idea of there being no money in the 24th century. But when pressed by the shows writers, he was unable to explain what he meant in even the most simplest of terms. The writers themselves lived in a society with money, whether deliberately or unintentionally, the existence of money in the 24th century worked it's way into the scripts.

If you say that there is no money whatsoever in the 22nd, 23rd, 24th centuries, you basically building that supposition on a single clear overt statement. Which flies in the face of dozens and dozens of examples of a more conventional financial system.

It not like it is a fifty fifty mix of yes money and no money examples. Your isolated evidence does not make the five series' position on money "contradictory."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It's much simpler to just assume that Picard is being a condescending jackass when ruminating about money or the supposed lack thereof.

 

[scotpens]

But did Vina ever look like this?

I don't know what Vina looked like before the crash, but you've just reminded me why I had a huge crush on Susan Oliver.