And the point remains that fictional devices work however the writers want them to. I'm trying to have a conversation about how the writers of science fiction, including Star Trek, tend to make implausible and unrealistic assumptions. Just restating how Trek depicted things does not work as a counterargument for a discussion of whether those depictions were believable.
Depends on what each person considers implausible or unrealistic given the setting.
There's a reason why "Real Robot" genre became popular in Anime, despite the fantastical Technology that Gundam still uses and some of the crazier aspects in it.
"Realistic Sci-Fi" while being set way into the future with advanced tech is also popular for that reason.
Despite however Sci-Fi writers try to justify their arbitrary writing decisions.
I'm a fan of more "Realistic Sci-Fi" writing where things make sense within it's own domain.
Not the "Super Hard Real Sci-Fi" that you're probably thinking.
But more "Real Robot" style Anime/Sci-Fi that Gundam brought into the world.
But why do we assume modern armies would still be modern centuries from now? We're not far from having viable humanoid robots. If it becomes practical to mass-produce "battle droids," drones that can achieve most of the same ends as human soldiers, would populations still stand for governments sending their sons and daughters to be cannon fodder on battlefields? From what I gather, we're already seeing a transition away from piloted fighters toward remote-operated drones, the human military personnel directing the machines from safety rather than being flung into the line of fire. Once robots become capable of replacing ground troops, at least for the most dangerous or elementary tasks, would it be reasonable to expect future militaries to keep sending humans into combat the same way we do today, or did in the past? Even aside from ethical questions, it might be more economical to mass-produce drones that could be stored in low-power mode and deployed as needed than to train, feed, clothe, and house large numbers of living soldiers on a continuing basis. We might end up with a system where all the "grunt" work is done by robots and the human personnel are all essentially officers, strategists, administrators, etc.
This is my point. Too much SF just takes present-day or historical military methods and transposes them to space or alien planets, rather than actually imagining how such things might plausibly change in the future.
Because modern military does get inspired by Sci-Fi and vice versa. Many modern Sci-Fi is inspired by modern Military and what is coming next IRL.
It's been stated many times that Drones / Robots will be coming, but it won't replace humans, it's going to "Supplement Humans" as a 'Force Multiplier'.
You're right in the the "Grunt Work" could be done by robots with human personnel super-vising, but the amount of Grunts we have will get multiplied by the # of Battle Droids accompanying them.
Imagine a Army of 100,000 Ground Pounders who will move into the field.
Now attach 15x "Data-Level" Battle Droids to each Ground Pounder.
Now you have 1,600,000 Troops on the field split into Fire Squads deployed across a very expansive battle field the size of a Very Large City County to cover more area and take care of more things than what a traditional Organic Army could pull off.
That's what I mean by Hybridization.
Part of it is about maintaining local C&C over the Machines that accompany our troops, the other is having the Organic Person maintain situational awareness of what is going on in the Battle Field and making local level tactical & strategic decisions on the fly and deciding when to allow weapons fire and targets to get destroyed and when to not do that and decide to do another action.
You're looking at it from a Sci-Fi writers PoV. I'm looking at it from a Technologists PoV and based on what actual Military Officers and those who are doing the Doctrinal Research into how to integrate the technology into the force. They don't want you to replace all Grunts on the ground, having skin in the game is what prevents War from becoming a pure "Number's Game".
That's why I don't think the Organic Soldier will ever go away, you don't want Politicians to treat sending troops over and performing combat actions as a "Excel Spread Sheet" stat.
You want them to have REAL consequences with potentially their own friends & family members being lost.
That's turning a military force into a PURELY Robotic Army is NEVER a good idea, there are more consequences than just losing Sons/Daughters on the Battle Field.
It affects the politicians who make the higher level decisions on when to go to war and what military actions to take.
When Politicians can treat War like a Stats game w/o any blow back, they're more likely to press the button to go to war to solve any problem instead of having to do real negotiations & diplomacy.
That's what you never want. For the Politicians to have it too easy to decide to go to fight a war because they can't get the outcome they want.
It needs to be a MUCH heavier choice to decide to use the military option.
It seems to me that both those have often been the case with human soldiers. Desertion has always been a problem in every war, and humans can be "hacked" into espionage or treason by psychological manipulation, seduction, or money.
Desertion does happen, but not in the amounts that you think.
Black Mailing of Troops is always a issue, but it's not as prevalent as you would think.
Hell, despite how it's portrayed in fiction, most computer hacking in real life consists of tricking people into giving up their passwords or granting access to hackers with fake credentials. The weakest link in any computer system's security is always the human operators, so I think it's getting it backward to worry about the software.
It's a bit of both, Software, Hardware, & People.
All of it needs to be focused on.
