Anachronistic technology in DSC?

[Kemaiku]

Tachyons are proof to me that travel beyond the speed of light is possible.

Nope.

We've observed two decay products that we *think* come from a single larger particle, that when the decay trajectories and momentum are resolved, seem to imply an FTL component before that. The pre-decay particle has never been seen, and we have no idea if we have all the post collision/breakdown etc products accounted for.

We can't really *see* the anti-neutrino produced by Neutron decay, but we know the mass/charge ratio of enough particles to know where the resultant mass, momentum and energy are and how enough hadron interactions work.

There's literally no proof any particle exists or travels faster than light.

 

[Kor]

A "realistic future from current year" wouldn't even have crewed ships at all. But Trek still uses this format, so it really isn't all that different in the fundamentals. Futurists conjecture that deep space exploration will be done via 'mind uploading' to automated probes. No reason to put actual life and limb in harm's way. But I don't think that would make for riveting drama.

Kor

 

[Rahul]

The Alcubierre warp drive has an end-run around time dilation effects, but it requires more energy than is present in the universe to run it.

Sadly, it's even wore than that: For the Alcubierre warp drive to work, you would need what they call "exotic" matter: Essentially negative gravity (matter, that doesn't attract, but repels other matter). And there is no proof - none at all - not even really a convincing theory that something like that even exists at all.

It's just a funny thought experiment sadly.

 

[dinzy]

Disclaimer: just go with this one

Ok so I’ve read several times here that DSC looks totally different to TOS because it needs to project a realistic future from current year - so it got me wondering: how good a projection is DSC?

Let’s think about the technology:

1) transporters -

2) communicators -

3) touchscreens.

4) windows -

5) warp drive

6) scanners -

1) Not going to happen. Quantum teleportation is not the transfer of atoms, it is the copying of a quantum state from one atom/particle/etc to another. To get it to work one would have to build the copy of the body in the location you wanted to beam to first, then map all the quantum states of all the atoms in the source body, magically entagle them and transfer all the states over. I.e. never going to happen.

2) This bothers me too, but transmission is the problem. Being able to send a signal from the surface of a planet to a ship in far orbit would require sophisticated antennas and a lot of power. This is nowhere near as easy as communicating with a nearby cell tower. From today I could believe that they need large communicators. However TNG had small ones. Shrinking tech is not that hard once you have something portable. Since they had communicators in ENT and they shrunk by TNG they really should have been shrunk well before DSC.

3) It really comes down to what is the easiest to use and most stable to disruption. 3D tech may exist and be cool, but it may be safer to have touchscreens and buttons when in the heat of battle.

4) Why wouldn't you have windows in crew quarters and other areas. Being able to see out helps with morale. Plus its fucking space. Wouldn't you stare for hours?

5) Warp drive is not based on any real science. We may never be able to travel at speeds approaching lightspeed. It is not impossible, and much more feasible than transportation, but it would take a miracle for us to have anything like it in 300 years.

6) I don't understand what you are getting at. So much of science is shooting stuff at other stuff and measuring what comes out. I.e. scanning. Nanotech is just manipulating matter to create technology. CPUs are nanotech. At best we will be able to build molecular machines that are still confined by the laws of physics. Figuring out what is out there will always require shooting photons, or other particles at it and measuring what bounces back.

Marvel and Trek are fantasy. Transporters and warp drive are really only plot devices.

 

[Delta Vega]

Speaking as a non technical minded type, and someone who really just can`t swallow all that Trek predicts as definitely going to be (not within 200-300 years anyway), my thoughts as a pragmatist are that no matter how we look at Trek, how we envisage the future, or how we think technology will advance, the design and spec of Enterprise from 2001 was far too modern looking and far too advanced to be 100 years before Original Trek, making Discovery look completely and utterly over the top for a show incorporating technology which looks a thousand years in advance of something supposedly 10 years pre TOS.
I know and understand that any new show works to the parameters of current CGI and special effects, but someone, somewhere should have reigned in the production designers on both of the latest incarnations of Trek.
I think TNG, DS9 and Voyager were pretty good examples of projecting technology forward from Kirk's time so I don't know why producers seemed to think we wouldn`t notice how ultra modern the ships in ENT and Discovery look when they should have been retro.
If that makes sense to you all ?

 

[Tuskin38]

Speaking as a non technical minded type, and someone who really just can`t swallow all that Trek predicts as definitely going to be (not within 200-300 years anyway), my thoughts as a pragmatist are that no matter how we look at Trek, how we envisage the future, or how we think technology will advance, the design and spec of Enterprise from 2001 was far too modern looking and far too advanced to be 100 years before Original Trek, making Discovery look completely and utterly over the top for a show incorporating technology which looks a thousand years in advance of something supposedly 10 years pre TOS.
I know and understand that any new show works to the parameters of current CGI and special effects, but someone, somewhere should have reigned in the production designers on both of the latest incarnations of Trek.
I think TNG, DS9 and Voyager were pretty good examples of projecting technology forward from Kirk's time so I don't know why producers seemed to think we wouldn`t notice how ultra modern the ships in ENT and Discovery look when they should have been retro.
If that makes sense to you all ?

Enterprise looks closer to the 21st century. It doesn’t look more advanced at all.

 

[fireproof78]

Enterprise from 2001 was far too modern looking

Yeah, I'm snipping this part because that was the point. The NX 01 felt like it grew out of technology from our history, as did the uniforms. All of it felt suitably close to believable without being overblown. And I never understood the complaint of the design of the Enterprise. I still felt like the overall feel was smaller, and quite limited compared to the Constitution class of TOS.

Everything in Enterprise felt a bit too cumbersome in terms of features, while TOS definitely had a more sleek look. I believe the NX 01 as a transition from the space shuttle and other 21st century looking tech in to TOS, as close as that could reasonably be after 30+ years of production values evolving.

 

[Lord Garth]

I think the NX-01 does look more NASA-like, which works for a series like ENT.

And on another note...

making Discovery look completely and utterly over the top for a show incorporating technology which looks a thousand years in advance of something supposedly 10 years pre TOS

"1,000 years"? I think you're exaggerating.

The exterior design of Discovery was the ship design for Planet of the Titans... so, had that movie been made that ship still would've been a 23rd Century design. The fact is the Discovery design (1976-ish) was thought up 12 years after the Enterprise was (1964). In the Star Trek Universe, the Discovery was commissioned in 2256. The Enterprise was commissioned in 2245. Almost the same difference in Star Trek as there was in Real Life.

Do you think the TMP Look wasn't anywhere at all, and then just magically sprung up everywhere in 2270? In-Universe, even without DSC, I never thought it did. I figured the TMP Look was around before that and we just didn't see it.

For the interior: I admit it doesn't look like TOS. At all. I think it looks more like it would be something Post-TUC. But I think the TUC Look still works in 2018 and the TOS Look doesn't (in my opinion), so I give it a pass. BUT, Star Trek VI is still the 23rd Century.

So, inside or out, Discovery does NOT look "1,000 years" more advanced than the TOS Enterprise. More advanced? Sure. I'm not denying that. But not 1,000 years more advanced.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I will say those montiors on the NX-01 bridge scream early 2000's... you don't realise how much the shape of monitors changes over the years until you randomly watch an old episode and see those bulky trims with their oven lid pad buttons stuck on.

 

[Timo]

The funny thing about anachronistic is that in Trek, it's by definition irrelevant.

Pseudohistorically, Trek isn't about mankind coming up with cool new stuff. It's about mankind being accepted into the interstellar community which has cool stuff. And all it takes is Zephram Cochrane and the invention of warp; after him, the concept of inventing ceases to matter, at least in terms of causal progress here on Earth. In 200 years, we'll have stuff invented thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, and we'd have spent those thousands or tens of thousands of years at it if not for Zeppy.

It's just too bad that both what Cochrane came up with, and what it allowed us to come in contact with, are likely to not exist in this universe, ever.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's just too bad that both what Cochrane came up with, and what it allowed us to come in contact with, are likely to not exist in this universe, ever.

This. People who want Star Trek to be hard sci-fi tend to forget that the aliens in Trek's world include solumn elves, mean elves and a galaxy which is 90% human with silly things glued to their heads.

 

[Timo]

...Which may end up being the one and only realistic part of the setup. After all, if the solution to the Fermi paradox is that it isn't a paradox at all and we're alone here, and if we don't win the ultimate Darwin Award, in a million years the Milky Way will be full of sapient bipeds who look a bit funny.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Yellow Flame Sushi]

This. People who want Star Trek to be hard sci-fi tend to forget that the aliens in Trek's world include solumn elves, mean elves and a galaxy which is 90% human with silly things glued to their heads.

Didn't Spock explicitly state that humanoids make up only a minute fraction of the known life forms within the Milky Way in Wolf in the Fold?

 

[Timo]

Very much so, and a good catch. One wonders whether there are other types of planet-dwelling dominant species, though. With humanoids ruling over so much of Milky Way, and with class M planets so common, we'd do well to speculate that billions of years of terraforming has made life unbearable for any planetbound competition.

Perhaps Spock is referring to other type of life altogether? The first season of VOY showered us with examples of spaceborne life. Every Trek spinoff has featured its share; the VOY heroes just traveled more than most, perhaps covering a greater number of species-specific territories than their more static counterparts from DS9 or TNG or TOS.

Free-fliers wouldn't be disadvantaged by the terraforming spree, or by the minuscule humanoid presence in open space. And they would appear to be abundant: if Lorca can run into a gormagander at a random point in space, and 56 other starships have met them within the decade, then this "rare" species is likely to number in the quintillions at the very least...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Didn't Spock explicitly state that humanoids make up only a minute fraction of the known life forms within the Milky Way in Wolf in the Fold?

Unless he's speaking of insects and lower life-forms, they have 100% failed to depict that in 50+ years. Plus, it contradicts "The Chase", which makes the humanoid-dominated galaxy intelligent design ()

 

[Delta Vega]

I think the NX-01 does look more NASA-like, which works for a series like ENT.

And on another note...



"1,000 years"? I think you're exaggerating.

The exterior design of Discovery was the ship design for Planet of the Titans... so, had that movie been made that ship still would've been a 23rd Century design. The fact is the Discovery design (1976-ish) was thought up 12 years after the Enterprise was (1964). In the Star Trek Universe, the Discovery was commissioned in 2256. The Enterprise was commissioned in 2245. Almost the same difference in Star Trek as there was in Real Life.

Do you think the TMP Look wasn't anywhere at all, and then just magically sprung up everywhere in 2270? In-Universe, even without DSC, I never thought it did. I figured the TMP Look was around before that and we just didn't see it.

For the interior: I admit it doesn't look like TOS. At all. I think it looks more like it would be something Post-TUC. But I think the TUC Look still works in 2018 and the TOS Look doesn't (in my opinion), so I give it a pass. BUT, Star Trek VI is still the 23rd Century.

So, inside or out, Discovery does NOT look "1,000 years" more advanced than the TOS Enterprise. More advanced? Sure. I'm not denying that. But not 1,000 years more advanced.

I`m not just talking about the design of the ship
I`m talking about Spore Technology
Holographic communications
Travel in the blink of an eye
You clearly know more about Trek than I do, saying it doesn't look a thousand years more advanced is only your opinion though
And in my opinion, the whole show does look a thousand years more advanced.

 

[Delta Vega]

Enterprise looks closer to the 21st century. It doesn’t look more advanced at all.

I`m talking about everything in Enterprise, the bridge, the sick bay, the pods
Admittedly they haven't quite tied down the transporter yet as a default means of travel, but to me, Enterprise looks far too advanced to be 100 years before Kirk.
Opinions and that.

 

[Yellow Flame Sushi]

Plus, it contradicts "The Chase", which makes the humanoid-dominated galaxy intelligent design ()

Return to Tomorrow also contradicts The Chase by Kirk informing Sargon that life on Earth developed independently.

 

[Timo]

How so? It just shows that Kirk was ignorant of the facts of the matter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Rahul]

Didn't Spock explicitly state that humanoids make up only a minute fraction of the known life forms within the Milky Way in Wolf in the Fold?

Very much so, and a good catch. One wonders whether there are other types of planet-dwelling dominant species, though. With humanoids ruling over so much of Milky Way, and with class M planets so common, we'd do well to speculate that billions of years of terraforming has made life unbearable for any planetbound competition.

Perhaps Spock is referring to other type of life altogether? The first season of VOY showered us with examples of spaceborne life. Every Trek spinoff has featured its share; the VOY heroes just traveled more than most, perhaps covering a greater number of species-specific territories than their more static counterparts from DS9 or TNG or TOS.

Free-fliers wouldn't be disadvantaged by the terraforming spree, or by the minuscule humanoid presence in open space. And they would appear to be abundant: if Lorca can run into a gormagander at a random point in space, and 56 other starships have met them within the decade, then this "rare" species is likely to number in the quintillions at the very least...

Timo Saloniemi

I interpret that as "creature-like" lifeforms. Like Horta, or the Gormagander. And that humanoid simply is the (almost!) only shape that allows species to manipulate technology, thus most intelligent, technological lifeforms are humanoids, even though they of course only make up a tiny percentage of the overall living beings.

Unless he's speaking of insects and lower life-forms, they have 100% failed to depict that in 50+ years. Plus, it contradicts "The Chase", which makes the humanoid-dominated galaxy intelligent design ()

Did I ever mention I hate this "intelligent design" episode? And that I see it in the same vain as "Threshold" and it's infinite-warp-10-salamanders, or DIS galaxy-spanning subspace mushroom?

In that I accept these concepts in the single instances where they are used, but pretend to ignore they have ever happened otherwise?