Earth Has Robots?

[Detached Nacelle]

I just rewatched Homefront and Paradise Lost. I love seeing more of Earth and the Federation as a political entity and just how normal it is to just pop on over to anywhere on the planet as if it's just down the road. One thing that caught my eye, towards the start of part 1 a horse-drawn carriage passes by and at the end during the blackout the same carriage can be seen with the driver hunched over in a very 'powered-down' position. With Earth out of power, all electronics shut off seemingly including the driver and if he were a hologram he would have dematerialised so I can only conclude he was a very human-like robot. If Earth had robots that so completely resembled people then the synthetic labourer units of the 2380s were really nothing new in-universe and the Zhat Vash conspiracy was a very long time in the making, maybe they couldn't hack these old models and needed the synths to be advanced so that they could destroy them.

 

[Tosk]

Interesting, I'd never considered that before. I always just figured the dude was sleeping.

The script doesn't mention it at all in that scene, so no help there.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

There's a planetwide blackout, an invading force could arrive at any moment. I'll just sleep here in the middle of the street.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe the driver was just trying to keep his head down and avoid notice, or was watching a news report on the buggy's console.

Discovery retroactively established that 23rd-century Starfleet had robotic cleaning drones that only came out when a room was empty, explaining why we never saw them before. It's consistent with references in TNG to the Enterprise cleaning itself, another thing we never actually saw happen but which was explicitly stated. We also know from "The Ultimate Computer" and "More Tribbles, More Troubles" that the Federation used robot ships, and "Once Upon a Planet" showed that the Enterprise's engineering section had robot arms that could assemble equipment. So yes, the Federation had robots, but not sophisticated humanoid androids.

Even if a horse-drawn buggy did have a robotic driver for the tourists, it wouldn't have to be a sophisticated android, just a simple animatronic figure of the sort they have at theme parks today, since it wouldn't have to stand up.

 

[Tosk]

There's a planetwide blackout, an invading force could arrive at any moment. I'll just sleep here in the middle of the street.

But a robot cab driver without any kind of independent power makes perfect sense.

(I'm not saying a robot can't rely on an outside source for power. But I'm also saying that it's not crazy for someone to sleep during a blackout. Joseph himself was doing it at the same time, after all.)

 

[Christopher]

I'm not saying a robot can't rely on an outside source for power.

Even if it did, it would probably have a battery backup in case its connection were interrupted, so the common sci-fi scenario of every piece of equipment instantly shutting down when the broadcast power cuts off is just silly. After all, broadcast signals can be interrupted for many reasons, so any vehicle (or robotic operator of a vehicle) relying on broadcast power would probably be required by law to have a battery backup as a basic safety requirement.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

But a robot cab driver without any kind of independent power makes perfect sense.

(I'm not saying a robot can't rely on an outside source for power. But I'm also saying that it's not crazy for someone to sleep during a blackout. Joseph himself was doing it at the same time, after all.)

He wasn't sleeping he was checking his eyelids for holes. And not in the middle of the street, Nog was wrong this guy is the only one not afraid of the Dominion.

Even if it did, it would probably have a battery backup in case its connection were interrupted, so the common sci-fi scenario of every piece of equipment instantly shutting down when the broadcast power cuts off is just silly. After all, broadcast signals can be interrupted for many reasons, so any vehicle (or robotic operator of a vehicle) relying on broadcast power would probably be required by law to have a battery backup as a basic safety requirement.

Clearly battery powered lights and radios and such are just not popular anymore. Perhaps the hubris of paradise, the power will never go out why have such things? Captain Sisko was under the assumption everyone was huddled in the dark afraid as if candles don't also exist.

 

[Christopher]

Clearly battery powered lights and radios and such are just not popular anymore.

The lights in my apartment don't have battery backups if the power goes out; I'd have to use a flashlight, or, indeed, candles. (Which is why I always keep candles and matches in my kitchen in case of blackouts, which have happened a number of times over the years. A neighbor once borrowed a couple of my candles during a blackout with a sob story about how afraid of the dark she was, and then she never returned them. I should've taken her up on the offer to pay me 5 bucks for them instead of trying to be a good neighbor and lending them freely.)

Anyway, I wasn't talking about household lights, I was talking about the logical safety requirements for a passenger vehicle. Even without blackouts, any form of broadcast signal is subject to occasional interruptions. What happens if the remote-powered vehicle goes through a tunnel, or passes by a shielded installation that's between it and the nearest power broadcast antenna? It's just common sense to have enough stored power to weather those brief interruptions. I mean, we've seen often enough in Trek that even subspace signals can be subject to interference and dropouts.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

I meant like those little battery powered lights you can get with the sticky pads on the underside, they're very bright and extremely useful for when the lights go out.

Hovercars should be independently powered too but I guess everyone has the good sense not to drive in a blackout by this point.

It sure would have made a lot more sense if Earth's power relays were knocked out by an EMP.

A robot may need to recharge of course, the DOT drones in Discovery had to dock to recharge, a(n increasingly farfetched) robot horse driver could also need to recharge after its rounds and if the power goes out so too does its charger.

This would certainly make the advancement in synthetic labour to more Soong-like androids more meaningful. We have drones, we have holograms, we have robots but look at all the limitations we remove. No need for charging units nearby or to install holoemitters in the mines.

 

[Christopher]

I meant like those little battery powered lights you can get with the sticky pads on the underside, they're very bright and extremely useful for when the lights go out.

I had a couple of those once -- I still have one on my bathroom wall -- but the batteries died so quickly that I gave up using them long ago.

Still, the point is that talking about household lights is a non sequitur when I'm talking about what safety regulations would logically exist for passenger vehicles, or hypothetical robotic operators thereof.

It sure would have made a lot more sense if Earth's power relays were knocked out by an EMP.

Not really, because power grids can be shielded against EMP. There are already efforts being made to harden present-day power grids against potential EMP attacks, so presumably 24th-century systems would be far better protected.

Also, the way EMP is usually portrayed in fiction -- as a temporary shutdown that can be averted by powering devices down in advance -- is absolute nonsense. The EMP itself generates current in conductors whether they're powered up or not, and the resulting power surge burns devices out permanently, requiring their replacement. If a vulnerable power grid were subjected to an EMP attack, it could take weeks to get it up and running again and years to repair it completely. The damage would be far more extreme than Admiral Leyton wanted -- or, more likely, it wouldn't have worked at all because the means to EMP-harden a power grid would've been 350-year-old technology.

A robot may need to recharge of course, the DOT drones in Discovery had to dock to recharge, a(n increasingly farfetched) robot horse driver could also need to recharge after its rounds and if the power goes out so too does its charger.

I still don't see how you get from "one driver had his head lowered" to "Earth has an entire population of androids."

This would certainly make the advancement in synthetic labour to more Soong-like androids more meaningful. We have drones, we have holograms, we have robots but look at all the limitations we remove. No need for charging units nearby or to install holoemitters in the mines.

Oh, don't even get me started on the stupidity of holograms mining with pickaxes. I refuse to believe that scene was anything but symbolic. Of all the ways to use advanced technology for mining, it's hard to imagine anything more inefficient and pointless. I mean, they have phasers to bore mineshafts. They have transporters that could lock onto the ore and beam it right out of the rock.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Not to mention if any Hortas want to see more of the galaxy, a solution that benefits both.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Not really, because power grids can be shielded against EMP. There are already efforts being made to harden present-day power grids against potential EMP attacks, so presumably 24th-century systems would be far better protected.

Also, the way EMP is usually portrayed in fiction -- as a temporary shutdown that can be averted by powering devices down in advance -- is absolute nonsense. The EMP itself generates current in conductors whether they're powered up or not, and the resulting power surge burns devices out permanently, requiring their replacement. If a vulnerable power grid were subjected to an EMP attack, it could take weeks to get it up and running again and years to repair it completely. The damage would be far more extreme than Admiral Leyton wanted -- or, more likely, it wouldn't have worked at all because the means to EMP-harden a power grid would've been 350-year-old technology.

I'm sure someone could have come up with some technobabble about the protection being sabotaged or the perfect frequency of the EMP or it probably wouldn't have been explained at all more likely.

I still don't see how you get from "one driver had his head lowered" to "Earth has an entire population of androids."

I feel I may have miscommunicated my thought if it gave that impression. More like Earth has been using more humanoid robotic drones prior to F8 and the others. Certainly not of android complexity.

I am of course entirely aware this is a random thing in the background I was never meant to pay attention to but short of crisis happened while someone was sleeping in a way that'll do some serious harm to your neck perhaps the extra was just told not to look at the camera.

I am curious if it was at all purposeful by the director or even noticed during shooting.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Can you share a screenshot?

 

[Detached Nacelle]

I apologise but this is best quality I can get

 

[Tosk]

If the cab driver is a robot, why isn't the horse a robot too?

while someone was sleeping in a way that'll do some serious harm to your neck

I was thinking more that he nodded off, not that he chose that position to get his eight hours.

 

[JoseNoodles]

Never noticed that. Just Starfleet security scoping out the horse. Maybe he knew too much.

 

[Poltargyst]

Never noticed that. Just Starfleet security scoping out the horse. Maybe he knew too much.

Could have been a changeling.

 

[The Wormhole]

There's a planetwide blackout, an invading force could arrive at any moment. I'll just sleep here in the middle of the street.

When you're tired, you're tired.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Horse, driver and coach are all Changelings.