Archer's vs Kirk's missions

[Ethros]

My iPhone looks more advanced than most things in TOS. And the PADDs on TNG/DS9/VOY too. When I see people criticising ENT because it "looks" more advanced than TOS I really do find it a tad ridiculous.


It's just the way technology is, I remember an interview with Rick Berman or Brannon Braga when ENT was on the air about how the laptop in their Paramount office at the time (early 2000s) was already smaller than the one Janeway had in her ready room on Voyager.

 

[T'Girl]

^ I've heard people claim things like that before. Your iPhone probably only has about ten miles of range, far short of calling a orbiting ship.

Without access though a celltower, wifi or some other access to the internet can your iPhone really do all the things we see a tricorder do independently?

 

[section31agent]

Until "Enterprise" came along with Captain Archer, I was always under the impression that Kirk and his Enterprise crew was a big deal because the mission was a "first." However, after watching Enterprise and seeing the mission of captain Archer, it gives me a feeling of "been there-done that."

I realize that Kirk's Enterprise was larger, but Archer had some encounters that were just as spectacular, and like Kirk, Archer saved earth. I even remember it being mentioned in season 4 that Archer had a lot of schools named after him.

Was Archer and his mission ever mentioned before "Enterprise" aired.

As other's have said Kirk's Enterprise was just one of a dozen other Constitution class ships in the fleet doing the same kind of missions so it wasn't unique.

Archer's ship was the first with an engine powerful enough to really explore deep space. And until Columbia was launched 3 years later it was the only one. So Archer's mission was definitely more unique in that sense. He was really the first pioneer of deep space.

But Archer also had the benefit of Vulcan star charts. So in a sense they were exploring places that the Vulcans had "been there, done that" and even gave him a map.

But when Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Janeway went to explore they were going where no man, Vulcan or Federation citizen had gone before. It's just that they were not the only starship doing that anymore.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Kirk was just as likely to be delivering supplies, checking up on colonies or ferrying diplomats as exploring strange new worlds. His mission was a broad one and not limited to what was said in the credits' monologue. Archer's was much narrower at first, strange new worlds were all there was.

I miss this aspect of the shows. I think the TOS writers really put some thought into the sheer variety of duties that a starship might have. Perhaps it came easier to them because a number of them had already seen military service and knew from experience that a ship like the Enterprise would be doing all sorts of things.

 

[Timo]

We did see quite a bit of variety - some of it even realistically related to how the various starships were different in design and function.

But when Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Janeway went to explore they were going where no man, Vulcan or Federation citizen had gone before. It's just that they were not the only starship doing that anymore.

Interestingly, Picard basically never went anywhere new. Except in the aptly titled "Where No One Has Gone Before", that is. Otherwise, it was places known to the Federation or otherwise already visited by humans, settlers or castaways or whatnot. But that wasn't his mission anyway, regardless of the opening speech (which we now know is just some sort of a generic Starfleet motto derived from an old Cochrane speech). He flew the big flagship and mostly did diplomacy with that, occasionally taking an emergency call, but seldom having time to explore.

Janeway in turn was forced on a mission into the unknown when performing a military errand. Would there have been any diversity to her missions if not for the Caretaker?

Sisko had no mission other than mind Bajor and the wormhole. His "exploration" was limited to armed recce...

I don't think we missed out on diversity in the spinoff shows, really. It's just that Picard managed to avoid the most menial errands during his seven years because he flew a special prestige vessel.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[eyeresist]

Functionally, as well, I don't get the truth behind the contention. Do people really maintain that its weapons systems, "shielding", environmental systems, EVA suits,ad infinitum, not to mention the obvious factor of speed, were superior in capability to TOS Enterprise?

In ENT's Mirror Universe arc, the NX crew find the Defiant from TOS (due to reasons) and regard it as a ship so superior it could win the war they are currently losing.

And so we got the Vulcan arc in the fourth season of Enterprise, as an attempt to fix the big differences in Vulcan culture between ENT and the rest of Trek in one neat, rushed story line.

The Vulcan arc was awesome. Unless you find fresh storytelling inherently bad.

 

[Ethros]

^ I've heard people claim things like that before. Your iPhone probably only has about ten miles of range, far short of calling a orbiting ship.
Without access though a celltower, wifi or some other access to the internet can your iPhone really do all the things we see a tricorder do independently?

I did say "looks more advanced"

 

[Timo]

Seems to me it has more buttons. In today's tech context, that's the most certain sign of primitiveness...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

Which is utterly ridiculous. Anyone that knows tech from the inside out, especially the kind of tech that will lead to the kind on Star Trek, will tell you that the more complex the machinery, the more complex the controls will have to be to use it. People scoff at the idea, saying we're comparing biplanes to jetliners, but actually we're comparing the controls of an F-4A Phantom to the controls of an F-22. Even when there are the type of control surfaces similar to a cell phone present, there are more of them, and each one does more things. They have to, or the pilot won't be able to fly the thing. Even the controls of the space shuttles, which didn't change the way they worked over time, got more complex, in part due to the introduction of the touchscreen interfaces.

 

[Timo]

Which is utterly ridiculous.

But true. Just have a look around. I'd like more buttons and less menus, but engineers (both commercial and military/medical/aeronautic/whatnot) apparently do not.

Even when there are the type of control surfaces similar to a cell phone present, there are more of them, and each one does more things.

Which is the difference between ENT and TOS, too. TOS has fewer specialized controls and more generic fields of unlabeled (or labeled-as-needed) buttons; fewer viewscreens supposedly providing the information better predigested for the user; etc. TNG just takes that to the 2000s conclusion of all-touchscreen interfaces, while none of the Trek centuries projects a particularly futuristic concept of interfacing.

Even the controls of the space shuttles

Comparing those to anything much is folly - they were just a series of user-hostile prototypes barely good enough to do their job. Ergonomics were not a concern in their development, nor was any cutting edge tech involved. Considering the fantastic costs of introducing the vehicles in the first place, it would have made zero sense to spend dollars to make the Endeavor better than her predecessors, that is, fix what wasn't broke and didn't need to be particularly good.

The commercial upstarts of today who build space kites for tourists naturally apply modern interfaces, too. And would, even if they were building more complex vehicles. The STS was late 1960s technology; the ballistic capsules of Orion or CST-100 ilk have appropriately modern controls that make ENT look ancient.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

All of this actually naturally follows the curve of engineers wanting more and more specialized controls to perform each individual function. The TOS control surfaces were very high-tech and specialized for the '60s, and the TMP/TWOK controls surfaces were the same, just for a much more advanced understanding of just how many controls they'd need on a 23rd century bridge, and the advancement of engineering influence on that understanding. Each iteration of the bridge was in fact merely a testament to when it was produced as far as how high-tech it was seen to be. Even in TUC, with Nick Meyer's back-to-basics, real-world approach with physical controls, had many more controls at each station than any of the previous films.

The touchscreens of TNG and ENT are less an advancement of that understanding and more a storytelling convenience. I'm actually astonished at many fans, who decry the more advanced, more complex controls as backwards, and regressive, because of their misinterpretation of how highly complex spaceships from other worlds visiting modern day Earth(Day the Earth Stood Still, for instance) were depicted with what they believed were simple, even simplistic controls, when in actuality, they were shown with what 1950s Hollywood came up with to depict the very same kind of highly complex, variable interface controls we thought were so cutting edge modern in TNG. Klaatu pushed no physical buttons on his control panels. He pressed a flat surface, and lights beneath it told him what he had done.

 

[Timo]

I'm personally convinced the TOS button fields were every bit as variable as the TNG interactive and no doubt also tactile touchscreens, being customizable for the user or the application at the, well, press of a button. But those lacked the display function (save for no doubt becoming whatever color the user wanted, and featuring whatever label befitted the current function). Not a big loss - you wouldn't want your display obscured by your own hands (quite a problem with mobile phones today)! And there was attention paid to ergonomics, 1960s style. Although there must be serious neck problems for bridge teams, what with everybody having to turn around to interact with the skipper who often demands attention.

That ENT had more in the way of specialized levers and fixed-in-place small display screens, dials and whatnot looks like a logical step between the "today" of the 1990s-2000s and the future of TOS. But it's a bit odd that things would "regress" to throttle levers and the like in TMP/Abrams movies again...

Exotically futuristic interfaces can sometimes get pretty ridiculous, such as with the "crystals" or "runestones" of Stargate SG-1. Then again, who could have predicted mouses?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jedman67]

the physical and digital controls in Enterprise were cohesive, they shared the same design aesthetic and so on. Apparently Dell is still around a hundred years from now . ST09 was an interesting design choice, but it wasn't my all around favorite.

Stargate...is a rule unto itself. High tech spaceships lit with frakkin torches??

 

[Timo]

The thing is, they were run by cavemen. Or maggots pretending to be cavemen.

Apparently, Ancient tech was not only durable but extremely user-friendly, even when the users were utter morons. As exemplified by the stargates themselves, with stone age backup modes for the technologically challenged. Starfleet probably still has a few thousand years to go before achieving anything similar.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Drone]

So, you're saying the more user-friendly the interfaces, the harder they become to conceptualize and construct, with the simplest examples being the most difficult to fashion?

 

[eyeresist]

^ I feel there is some sort of joke about the Apple iStore in this....

 

[Drone]

When even taken notice of, I think I'm rarely perceived as injecting much in the way of levity into my comments, so perhaps I'll just wisely refrain from providing any comment on your bold assertion!!!!