Medicine in the 24th century

We don't know what Riker went through on the Titan and after, but he is presented (in 2399) as living in a sort of neo-Luddite lifestyle, hunting and cooking and eating his own food, and even had these tendencies in his youth (fishing, at least) even if he suddenly decried it that one time on the Enterprise. He might get cancerous growths instantly removed when they show up, but it seems that Riker isn't keeping up the longevity regimen that Picard (the former health nut and Marathon runner) did in his first 64 years.

 

...Or is longevity something you may pick up at a more advanced age, and while both men kept destroying their bodies with bad habits such as extreme sports in their early days when the bodies coped and it didn't matter, Riker was the one who never grew up?

Perhaps key to living long and prospering is simply giving up riding and instead going holo-riding?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Then again, Riker's the one who settled down, got married, and started a family at a semi-reasonable age, while Picard's the one who continued to galavant across the Quadrant well into what I consider old age in an incredibly stressful job and multiple wars (even if he snagged a cushy position at those times), and then apparently crashed, hard, in his octogenarianism after the late-life crisis known as the TNG movies.

In the Peter Pan/"never grew up" category I would look towards our man Jean-Luc. Riker was just another Lost Boy who managed to finally squeeze out of Picard's bad influence.

 

Okay, that settles it: family = early death.

It's cold logic, too. As soon as you procreate, you are a competitor for the resources your kids would much rather have. Perhaps Picard already melded with Spock back at his wedding and gained this lifelong insight, even if he doesn't consciously recall it?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Must be one heck of a bong? At the time, I rolled with it, but I roll with Space:1999 as well and that one takes the cake for its contrived premise requiring massive suspense of disbelief to enjoy. So it can be worse than using copious syllables' worth of treknobabble. Possibly because "Genesis" is still theory no matter how stretched, whereas the moon traversing the galaxy so fast due to a nuke boom-boom despite infraluminal velocity is just completely daffy. Episodes in isolation, like "War Games", do manage to make up for it. Just take some nice drugs before sitting through most of season 2 and one can survive it as well...

Dammit Jim, I hate it when people win me over with crossover ideas.

Just as long as Barclay's alter ego isn't Prof. Chaos, being belittled by Cartman with "Simpsons did it!" every two seconds... now that crossover puts Freddie and Jason to shame, especially when they teamed up to fight Predator with its new allies from Alien (III, why not ).

 

Was there any technical reason (even fanwank explanation) that Geordi's visor wasn't able to do the normal visual spectrum as well as the usual stuff he could do?

 

I don't think so. The closest is they said it detected ALL the wavelengths and such at the same time, which is probably why it couldn't detect normal vision.

 

Wow that would drive some people insane...... He's got mad coping skills, but the vision we have seen from that looks terrible, how do you distinguish anything from that interface he sees?

 

Geordi said he focuses on what he wants and disregards the rest, in "Heart of Glory".

Like distinguishing a specific voice in a crowded room, it takes practice.

 

Except in the episodes where his visor totally could emulate natural human vision. Like the episode where they used him as a remote camera (I can't remember what episode or what for, but they linked his visor to the view screen and it was just like watching someone stream video from their smart phone.) or when he can, somehow, see the symbols on poker cards.

 

...No, there never was an episode with streaming human-style visuals. "Heart of Glory" had feed that was incomprehensible to the other heroes instead. "Mind's Eye" had a different fancy feed, perhaps optimal for the needs of Romulans. And those card symbols? He could see them through the cards, was the point.

But yeah, no doubt the VISOR could do normal human vision. Its just that LaForge had no truck with such silliness: he considered mere human vision a handicap, and would never have given up the VISOR edge, not even on pain of, well, pain.

Twice in his life, he got to briefly experience human vision, first thanks to Q, then thanks to those Fountain of Youth particles. The point there being that it was brief and he wanted it brief; being stuck with that would have ruined the whole thing.

LaForge turned down human eyes several times, stating that this was because they were so grossly inferior. So he probably doesn't tune to the human-emulation channel on his VISOR, like, ever. But the channel probably is there all right. It's just that there never has been a story calling for seeing that: in "Heart of Glory", the heroes wanted to experience the VISOR, not a silly old GoPro. (Whether Soran in ST:GEN tapped into the human/Klingon vision emulator, or installed a camera routine of his own, we don't exactly learn.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

But what about First Contact, in that movie he ditched the visor altogether for bionic eyes

 

Hmh? He got a new, contacts-shaped VISOR, is all. (Again giving him superhuman rather than mere human vision, which was the one and only issue he would care about.)

In ST:INS, the contacts apparently pop right off to reveal a healed version of his natural, normally nonfunctional orbs. Which is sorta silly, because he didn't lose eyesight but was born blind, so mere reverting to youth wouldn't restore vision. It would be rather more gruesome to assume the rejuvenating effect popped all-new techno-orbs out of their sockets and then grew natural ones in their place... (Would Picard's machine heart be shoved aside by an all-new natural one, too, and perhaps ejected through a body orifice?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

Even back in the time of Pulaski there had been ocular implant variables that Geordi could've opted for. He refused on the grounds that the technology hadn't advanced enough to allow him comparable vision iirc.

One has to kind of assume that after his visor had been used twice as a weapon against his ship & crew, he began considering for one reason or another, that implants would be much less vulnerable to foul play.

Plus, by the time of FC, the tech might have advanced significantly. In my head canon, his friendship with Data might have even been the very thing to advance it, as Soong android eyes (like the VISOR) are essentially Federation tech, but that do allow for humanlike vision (as evidenced in some of the POV stuff we see in Data's dreams)

Data's eyes might have been used to help make better ocular implants for Geordi. In fact, there's really no reason to not think that both techs (Soong eyes & VISOR) could be merged, such that both Data's & Geordi's eyes could've been advanced, & potentially even be the same at some point after Generations.

So Geordi & Data might see the same way, in all the visual spectrums

Spectra? Spectrums? lol

 

If the transporter can remove all incoming harmful bacteria and viruses (except when it doesn't) for incoming passengers and crew, why not just step into the transporter once a week for a daily rejuve and cleanse? Keep a copy in the buffer to compare with so you'll never age. You can skip a sonic shower once a week, too.

What is the point of doctors in the 24th century? Doctors repair bodies. Who needs that when you have the ultimate throwaway culture?

 

LaForge might not have wanted to remove and replace his eyes, so the visor and later a overlay on the surface of his eyes was the way he wanted to go. I'm assuming that LaForge's eyes were still present in NEM with something on the exterior.

 

You'd lose your memories

 

Yup, in "Loud As a Whisper", Pulaski surprises LaForge by offering him two things Crusher never did: replicated real eyes (which LaForge doesn't want because he thinks this would mean "giving up a lot") and ocular implants with some but not full VISOR functionality (which would mean giving up "20 %" or thereabouts, and LaForge has doubts about that as well).

Why would they be any less vulnerable? They're machines, they can be hacked into.

Then again, all the heroes can be hacked into, and have been. Their biological components are likely to be less resilient to hacking than their machine bits, really, having never been engineered to block a hacking. I doubt LaForge would have any rational reason to think that he's a special vulnerability, with or without a fancy eye prosthetic.

We never hear Data would be particularly high tech, though. I mean, he spent the first few decades of his life not being considered that. The only thing worth a mention is his positronic brain, and that one doesn't really become evident until the events of "Datalore" where Data for the very first time gets associated with Noonien "Positronics" Soong.

But yeah, LaForge might have chosen the new techno-eyes because they no longer meant "giving up 20%" and might in fact have been better than the old VISOR in some respects. He never sounded like a guy who'd be willing to downgrade - see the one where he has to face giving up high warp, say.

As for Data's vision, he never performs any special feats with it. Indeed, there's a direct comparison in "Heart of Glory" with the two looking at the same targets, and LaForge seeing things such as android glow and metal fatigue while Data merely relies on his tricorder to detect life signs. Sure, Data is likely to be able to focus better than humans, in the mental sense - much like how he can discern signal in auditory noise. But he's not a pair of field binoculars on any away mission (again, LaForge is, in "Hide and Q"!).

Timo Saloniemi

 

No reason why that wouldn't work. I don't know why not one had done that on a regular basis.

 

assuming they are part of the electrochemical snapshot of the brain when it was last scanned, maybe you wouldn't.

it would end some dramatic moments

"Enterprise, what we got back.. didn't live long... Fortunately we have a good backup! Sending them again on the auxiliary system."