Never noticed Isaac Asimov's name on the credits of TMP before my last rewatch. Got me wondering exactly how much, and in what capacity, his involvement was. Can anyone shed some light?
Asimov & TMP?
- Thread starter DeepSpaceYorks
- Start date
He served as an assistant for the science part of the movie (matter/antimatter, wormhole...), these kind of things.
I believe there's an article from the 80s in Starlog that says Asimov was asked about his opinion of the whole script as well.
Some interesting tidbits:
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
Some interesting tidbits:
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
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I loved the part:
"Roddenberry wrote a courteous letter to Asimov, explaining how hard they tried to keep the show remaining in the realm of serious science fiction, by trying as much as possible to adhere to sound scientific principles within the restrictive framework of a television production".
If only modern writers could abide by this instead of displaying poor real world science and magical technology.
"Roddenberry wrote a courteous letter to Asimov, explaining how hard they tried to keep the show remaining in the realm of serious science fiction, by trying as much as possible to adhere to sound scientific principles within the restrictive framework of a television production".
If only modern writers could abide by this instead of displaying poor real world science and magical technology.
As much as I love TOS, I don't think Roddenberry tried very hard. It was him that wrote that writers shouldn't be trying to explain the science behind the technology we saw.
It's the eternal, and unanswerable, question isn't it? Just how accurate should the science in science fiction be? To be honest, I couldn't tell either way, as long as it makes sense internally it's all I need.
What the science behind giant hands in space?
I'd love to know the science behind sending one full grown adult into a transporter and getting two back, or vice versa? This just isn't a sin of TOS, it also happens in TNG ("Second Chances") and Voyager ("Tuvix"). Or the science behind going warp ten turning one into a lizard?
Star Trek has had much more dreadful science than good science over the decades.
I think that the best thing to do is have a scientific foundation but then don't try to explain exactly how it works! But if you are using real world science, make sure that it is correct; you can always throw in a sc fi fudge to push the envelope (dilithium crystals). It's all very well saying that the Murasaki phenomenon is 'quasar-like' but then if you say that. you should make it quasar-like. Don't accuse a super nova of being able to destroy a star system without explaining why the Romulans didn't detect something that moves at the speed of light.
The transporters have a special place because their basic functionality is left extremely vague in TOS. I've never been of the view that they are kill and clone machines, despite the language used on screen, but rather that they phase matter into a dimension where distance has no meaning hold it in there while repositioning the linked placeholder energy (using the subspace carrier wave) and then release so that the person snaps back into our reality at the new location. Anything that scrambles the energy links (the transporter pattern) scrambles whatever comes back.
Because some energy links leak away every time, the transporter pad on the ship retains a copy of the pattern when it sends someone, which it compares when you beam back aboard (a reason to use transporter pads). It then adds in cloned material to make up for the bits you've leaked on your return. If you leak too much, trying to import too much cloned material is harmful and possibly fatal ("What we got back didn't live long").
So transporter clones are rare instances where someone who is 50%+ cloned from a transporter pattern somehow survives. In Kirk's case, whatever caused the system to malfunction upset Kirk's pattern and jiggled with his epigentics, leading to differing personalities. The presence of too much cloned material was affecting both Kirks' health.
For me, this covers off a lot of the sins in various Trek plots plus leaves a few oddities just about explainable. The distance you can transport is limited by how far you can project your energy beam while maintaining the energy links (the confinement beam). The further away you beam, the weaker the links, the more of the pattern you lose, and the more of the person you need to clone on the return journey. It also places a theoretical limit on how often you should use the transporter before suffering health issues, which is a concept I like, and helps explain rotation in landing party duty.
Of course this is my homebrew explanation and unsupported by everything ever said in Star Trek except perhaps in Realm of Fear! One of the reasons I dislike NuTrek is because I can't comprehend how they can maintain a coherent confinement beam over such long distances. I can see how you could do it with relays but at each relay, a bit more of the signal would have leaked away, decreasing the health and integrity of whatever snaps back at the other end. It stretches the concept too far for me whereas I can shoehorn most of it into my pet theory.
Others think transporters work through some kind of quantum tunnelling. I suppose with quantum mechanics, there might be instances where the atoms at both ends of the tunnel end up as a person but it does feel harder to explain the two Kirks.
Many problems Star Trek encounters with its tech probably stem from the decision to base stories around the tech rather than making it purely incidental.
The transporters have a special place because their basic functionality is left extremely vague in TOS. I've never been of the view that they are kill and clone machines, despite the language used on screen, but rather that they phase matter into a dimension where distance has no meaning hold it in there while repositioning the linked placeholder energy (using the subspace carrier wave) and then release so that the person snaps back into our reality at the new location. Anything that scrambles the energy links (the transporter pattern) scrambles whatever comes back.
Because some energy links leak away every time, the transporter pad on the ship retains a copy of the pattern when it sends someone, which it compares when you beam back aboard (a reason to use transporter pads). It then adds in cloned material to make up for the bits you've leaked on your return. If you leak too much, trying to import too much cloned material is harmful and possibly fatal ("What we got back didn't live long").
So transporter clones are rare instances where someone who is 50%+ cloned from a transporter pattern somehow survives. In Kirk's case, whatever caused the system to malfunction upset Kirk's pattern and jiggled with his epigentics, leading to differing personalities. The presence of too much cloned material was affecting both Kirks' health.
For me, this covers off a lot of the sins in various Trek plots plus leaves a few oddities just about explainable. The distance you can transport is limited by how far you can project your energy beam while maintaining the energy links (the confinement beam). The further away you beam, the weaker the links, the more of the pattern you lose, and the more of the person you need to clone on the return journey. It also places a theoretical limit on how often you should use the transporter before suffering health issues, which is a concept I like, and helps explain rotation in landing party duty.
Of course this is my homebrew explanation and unsupported by everything ever said in Star Trek except perhaps in Realm of Fear! One of the reasons I dislike NuTrek is because I can't comprehend how they can maintain a coherent confinement beam over such long distances. I can see how you could do it with relays but at each relay, a bit more of the signal would have leaked away, decreasing the health and integrity of whatever snaps back at the other end. It stretches the concept too far for me whereas I can shoehorn most of it into my pet theory.
Others think transporters work through some kind of quantum tunnelling. I suppose with quantum mechanics, there might be instances where the atoms at both ends of the tunnel end up as a person but it does feel harder to explain the two Kirks.
Many problems Star Trek encounters with its tech probably stem from the decision to base stories around the tech rather than making it purely incidental.
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It's good there wasn't that much done with being exacting with science. Just have a solid degree of logical consistency on the stuff that you do do.
Asimov's own view, IIRC, was that he'd gladly provide advice, but he accepted that the filmmaker was free to ignore that advice if doing so served the story.
There's a fundamental difference between getting the science right and discussing the science onscreen. You don't need to do the latter in order to do the former. It's like researching any other aspect of a story -- you work out a consistent foundation for your own understanding as the writer, so that the story holds together, but you don't put any more of your research on the page than you absolutely need in order to convey the plot, characters, etc. After all, a chef doesn't explain the recipe when serving a meal. The meal speaks for itself, but it still required knowing the recipe and the technique in order to make it well.
Much of the time, the science wasn't very good.
Personally I'd rather see some scientific accuracy give way in the name of telling an entertaining story. But I'd prefer to avoid laughably inaccurate science.
The problem being that everyone defines "an entertaining story" and "laughably inaccurate science" in different ways.
The problem being that everyone defines "an entertaining story" and "laughably inaccurate science" in different ways.
Realiistic science... like FTL telepathy.
Riiiight.
As I recall, Roddenberry said he had Asimov come in to tell skeptical studio heads that a living machine was actually possible... but since Gene loved to play up the villainy of the "suits" who knows what actually happened.
Riiiight.
As I recall, Roddenberry said he had Asimov come in to tell skeptical studio heads that a living machine was actually possible... but since Gene loved to play up the villainy of the "suits" who knows what actually happened.
At least telepathy is pure science fiction. If it involves forming memories in some else's mind, quantum mechanics presumably allows it to happen FTL. What's silly is how it is targeted beyond line of sight.
Well, I'm not so sure that's true now, although it was in the sixties. They can now show that different parts of the brain 'light up' in different combinations when we think of certain things plus our memories are stored chemically and accessed through bio-electricity. You can probably bung together some nonsense based around that science in the same way that empathy can be explained via pheromome sensitivity (unless you are Troi using it over the viewscreen).
I did get a sense of scale from Trek--seeing a black shy with no stars when on the way to Andromeda.
Asimov didn't travel any more than he had to, so he certainly wasn't on the TMP set. He must have critiqued the scripts remotely.
