News Discovery New Character Breakdowns

[eschaton]

Imagine the chair unfolding into an exoskeleton. You can sit in in when you want, and stand and walk with it when you want.

Yeah, they could easily do it that way, which is why I said I'm willing to wait and hold judgement. In general though, sitting for long periods is not good for the health of anyone, thus I'm not sure what advantage there would be to having an exoskeleton fold into a chair, rather than just...use a chair...as needed.

 

[fireproof78]

Let's be super honest: If a deaf child get's the possibility of being healed, and is prevented from doing so by her community - that is not just fucking disgusting, but IMO criminally.

Any adult deaf person has of course the full personal choice to seek treatment or not. But if he choses not to, purely out of a sense of obligation to his community, I'm sorry that guy is really stupid. This shows only that extremist ideologies exist in all places, and that disabled people are sometimes as fallable and easy to fool as the rest of us.

Yes. It's called the Prime Directive in Star Trek.

 

[Spot261]

That's a pretty problematic attitude toward disability. Firstly, in that you would equate someone choosing to remain how they are with someone who would support homeopathy to cure a fatal disease, and second that you dismiss the lived experience of a great many disabled people who certainly do consider their unique circumstances as, if not positive, at least integral to who they are and the life they have lived and not something to be 'cured'. They would no more change it than I would my eye colour. The deaf community, for example, are quite militant on the subject.

The other problem with 'cures' in speculative fiction is that they are not available in reality. They reduce the experience of lifelong disability to that of having a passing illness, and make disabled people even more invisible. In TV land, if you break your back, odds are you will miraculously walk again by season's end. Imagine what that is like to someone to whom their wheelchair is with them for life.

Every person has the fundamental right to be really stupid. (As long as it doesn't put other people in harm's way). If you decide to die because you don't want a blood transfusion for religious reasons? Your personal right. You want to loose your hand because you are too ashamed to go to a doctor? Again: Your personal choice.

Now to be perfectly clear: There is a BIG difference if it's merely an attitude to cope with an unchangeable situation. If someone is physically impaired without the chance of ever being fully treated (say, lost his legs), it's not just perfectly acceptable, but probably even a good idea if he sees the positive side of it, and how the experience personally enriched his life and his person. And see the change and groth it spured in him, and what person he became because of it. That's not just perfectly fine, but also recommended.

But reject a simple treatment to your condition on the ground of your personal feels about it? Again: 100% your personal choice. But also really, really stupid.

The show’s? I don’t know if you know anything about special effects, but I could film something passable using in-camera effects for almost nothing. I imagine they make it look great. You’re either trying to invent excuses to not have anyone in wheelchair on the show for some reason or you lack the imagination to think of how they could pull it off.

I have to concur here, we are looking at someone who seems to really not want that disabled person on the show and is determined to find a justification

 

[fireproof78]

I have to concur here, we are looking at someone who seems to really not want that disabled person on the show and is determined to find a justification

Perhaps best to leave it lie. Not productive as far as my reading.

 

[Spot261]

Perhaps best to leave it lie. Not productive as far as my reading.

Words of wisdom I feel.

 

[Rahul]

I have to concur here, we are looking at someone who seems to really not want that disabled person on the show and is determined to find a justification

Keep that shit to yourself. You know that isn't true, and pulling up baseless accusations to not have to think for yourself and instead being able to get spoon-fed what is right and wrong by your perfect showmaster will not make you feel any better.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I'm not sure what advantage there would be to having an exoskeleton fold into a chair, rather than just...use a chair...as needed.

Being able to find one when you need one, now. They're not all nailed down.

 

[eschaton]

Let's be super honest: If a deaf child get's the possibility of being healed, and is prevented from doing so by her community - that is not just fucking disgusting, but IMO criminal.

Any adult deaf person has of course the full personal choice to seek treatment or not. But if he choses not to, purely out of a sense of obligation to his community, I'm sorry that guy is really stupid. This shows only that extremist ideologies exist in all places, and that disabled people are sometimes as fallable and easy to fool as the rest of us.

AFAIK this isn't really the concern in the deaf community. It's that hearing parents of deaf children are getting cochlear implants for their kids, reducing the next generation of naturally-occuring deaf individuals. Basically, they look at it as akin to gay-conversion camp - only it actually is successful.

If we were back in hunter-gatherer times, being deaf would be a huge disability. Then again, so would being nearsighted or a score of other common ailments we basically ignore. In the modern world, what's the main life risk of being deaf? Getting hit by a car you can't hear honking? No, actually it's having to deal with medical professionals who can't communicate with you properly, which shows how much more work we have yet to do.

 

[Spot261]

Keep that shit to yourself. You know that isn't true, and pulling up baseless accusations to not have to think for yourself and instead being able to get spoon-fed what is right and wrong by your perfect showmaster will not make you feel any better.

That's nice dear.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Considering how everything else so far has looked on this show, "they [will] make it look great" seems like an extremely implausible assumption.

Like many of your posts in this thread, it seems like an issue with your own perspective rather than anything based in reality.

 

[Rahul]

AFAIK this isn't really the concern in the deaf community. It's that hearing parents of deaf children are getting cochlear implants for their kids, reducing the next generation of naturally-occuring deaf individuals. Basically, they look at it as akin to gay-conversion camp - only it actually is successful.

If we were back in hunter-gatherer times, being deaf would be a huge disability. Then again, so would being nearsighted or a score of other common ailments we basically ignore. In the modern world, what's the main life risk of being deaf? Getting hit by a car you can't hear honking? No, actually it's having to deal with medical professionals who can't communicate with you properly, which shows how much more work we have yet to do.

See: This is an entirely different topic to consider which overlaps somewhat: What to do about genetic mutations/illnesses. Should genetic diseases get artificially ereased from the gene pool? Or should we keep them as part of our humanity?

Like, if they could prevent any people in the future from getting autism, ever, is that a good idea to implement? Or do we want to accept autism as a human condition, and keep it around. What't the greater good here, the idea of autism being an accepted state of being in our society, or the well-being of future children that could have been born without it?

This is no easy question. And I'm not going to propose any answer here.

It's also widely off-topic, and seems to be used by some posters here to smear anyone that suggests a mere physical disability could and should be cured in the future of Star Trek...

 

[fireproof78]

It's also widely off-topic, and seems to be used by some posters here to smear anyone that suggests a mere physical disability could and should be cured in the future of Star Trek...

I more wonder why there is an expectation of a cure in Star Trek, when Star Trek has demonstrated some things have not been cured, especially in the TOS timeframe.

 

[Spot261]

I more wonder why there is an expectation of a cure in Star Trek, when Star Trek has demonstrated some things have not been cured, especially in the TOS timeframe.

That's also unclear, we saw Worf paralysed in TNG, nearly one hundred years later and the only possible (not to mention dubious) cure is experimental.

 

[Rahul]

I more wonder why there is an expectation of a cure in Star Trek, when Star Trek has demonstrated some things have not been cured, especially in the TOS timeframe.

Artificial limbs are a thing NOW.
It'd be stupid to assume no progress in this area will be made in the next 200 years.

I know this is a fine line some people simply don't seem to get: That the portrayal of people with physical limitations is perfectly fine (and hell, even encouraged!), but at the same time, chief engineers in wheelchairs on starships during combat missions is hella' stupid in Star Trek. But that's a case of worldbuilding - in this case, the disregard for narrative coherence, not predjudices against wheelchairs in general, lest alone against people in them (which, again, is a really ugly insinuation, which doesn't stop some around here anyway).

 

[fireproof78]

That's also unclear, we saw Worf paralysed in TNG, nearly one hundred years later and the only possible (not to mention dubious) cure is experimental.

Yes, but don't speak of that

Artificial limbs are a thing NOW.
It'd be stupid to assume no progress in this area will be made in the next 200 years.

I know this is a fine line some people simply don't seem to get: That the portrayal of people with physical limitations is perfectly fine (and hell, even encouraged!), but at the same time, chief engineers in wheelchairs on starships during combat missions is hella' stupid in Star Trek. But that's a case of worldbuilding - in this case, the disregard for narrative coherence, not predjudices against wheelchairs in general, lest alone against people in them (which, again, is a really ugly insinuation, which doesn't stop some around here anyway).

Yeah, you'll get no argument from me about contemporary tech and looking forward. But, there is a tendency to have expectations of Trek and that level of tech, rather than extrapolations from modern knowledge. In other words, we haven't seen artificial limbs in TOS era yet so why assume they are there.

Other than that, I'll just disagree with the rather black and white statement of wheelchair on starship=stupid. That's just too black and white for me to agree with.

 

[Rahul]

That's also unclear, we saw Worf paralysed in TNG, nearly one hundred years later and the only possible (not to mention dubious) cure is experimental.

I don't remember that episode that detailed, but AFAIK there was nothing in this episode suggesting Worf could not have had been given a cybernetic exo-sceleton to move and maybe even serve again. It was about the personal choice of it. But even they made pretty sure he would NOT be able to serve on a starship with his impairment.

 

[Awesome Possum]

See: This is an entirely different topic to consider which overlaps somewhat: What to do about genetic mutations/illnesses. Should genetic diseases get artificially ereased from the gene pool? Or should we keep them as part of our humanity?

Like, if they could prevent any people in the future from getting autism, ever, is that a good idea to implement? Or do we want to accept autism as a human condition, and keep it around. What't the greater good here, the idea of autism being an accepted state of being in our society, or the well-being of future children that could have been born without it?

This is no easy question. And I'm not going to propose any answer here.

It's also widely off-topic, and seems to be used by some posters here to smear anyone that suggests a mere physical disability could and should be cured in the future of Star Trek...

Deafness and autism aren’t diseases.

In fact autism has been around for as long as there were humans, we just didn’t have a name for it yet or called it different things. It seems to just be part of the wide variety of human possibilities. Treating it as a negative thing is a problem with society instead of the people who are autisic.

 

[Spot261]

Other than that, I'll just disagree with the rather black and white statement of wheelchair on starship=stupid. That's just too black and white for me to agree with.

Absolutely, stupid would be throwing away years of training invested and experience gained by denying an injured chief engineer the chance to serve in a wheelchair in favour of an underling who could get down a jefferies tube or be one extra phaser in the event of being boarded.

The key word is "chief", as in "the person who gives the orders", not "the person who carries them out".

 

[Spot261]

I don't remember that episode that detailed, but AFAIK there was nothing in this episode suggesting Worf could not have had been given a cybernetic exo-sceleton to move and maybe even serve again. It was about the personal choice of it. But even they made pretty sure he would NOT be able to serve on a starship with his impairment.

As a security officer.

 

[Awesome Possum]

As a security officer.

From a warrior race who prides dying in battle and would rather die than be unable to fight.

Worf having issues with being paralyzed is more due to himself and his worldview than the reality of his situation.