Is there any technology in TNG that's already outdated?

[John Picard]

How figuratively would be my next question. I'm aware of dialogue saying one thing and visuals saying another, so there's a natural conflict between script and FX. Which one do we take?

I'm wary of manipulating figures for the sake of trying to get feats (positive or negative). The one thing that supremely irks me about Star Wars expanded media is how everything we see on screen is retconned, whether they be good or bad. Example: In Return of the Jedi novels and comics, we find that several fighters crashed into the Death Star before Lando and the fleet swerved to avoid it. However, in the movie's visuals themselves, the entire fleet is comfortably far from the Death Star, to the point where you can see the whole thing (it's no moon, but still), and there's no evidence whatsoever of a collision.

Trek has a good habit of not doing that sort of thing, but whenever someone says we have to take the FX figuratively, then I have to wonder just why FX were depicted in such ways in the first place.

Regardless, I'm still very unsure as to how both a Cardassian warship and a Breen vessel seem to miss the Defiant (MUCH bigger than a pick-up truck!) at near point-blank ranges and at matching speeds.

Small targets can be a bitch to hit.

We have a Boeing that can fly at hundreds of MPH and hit the hood of a pickup truck miles away, but we've got ships that can't hit a 5-deck vessel that's less than a ship's length away from a weapon whose discharge is a significant fraction of the target's size. Oh, and both ships are traveling at the same speed, too.

*For reference, I'm citing visuals from "Defiant" and "What You Leave Behind," and in both cases the Defiant is being chased

We also have present-day targeting systems that 'lead' the target (aim ahead, compensate for speed and distance) for improved accuracy, which makes the misses even more suspicious in the Trekverse.

Stray Tacheyon emissions cause targeting errors

 

[Cyke101]

Small targets can be a bitch to hit.

We have a Boeing that can fly at hundreds of MPH and hit the hood of a pickup truck miles away, but we've got ships that can't hit a 5-deck vessel that's less than a ship's length away from a weapon whose discharge is a significant fraction of the target's size. Oh, and both ships are traveling at the same speed, too.

*For reference, I'm citing visuals from "Defiant" and "What You Leave Behind," and in both cases the Defiant is being chased

We also have present-day targeting systems that 'lead' the target (aim ahead, compensate for speed and distance) for improved accuracy, which makes the misses even more suspicious in the Trekverse.

Stray Tacheyon emissions cause targeting errors

"Stray tachyon emissions" is your answer to everything, isn't it?

I've been foiled again!

 

[JarodRussell]

Trek never had problems with technology getting outdated. The shows and movies simply adapted to progress, replacing CRTs with TFTs, stuff like that, and everyone was happy.

Problems arose when they decided to make prequels, because then the clash between fiction and reality became a problem.

 

[Shazam!]

The dream has always been a heavily stylised prequel that looks like the 60s Trek-era. In A Mirror Darkly managed it just fine as did Trials and Tribble-ations.

It will happen one day.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Anyway, while this doesn't pertain to TNG, I think it pertains more to DS9/VOY/ENT: phaser misses. TNG's phasers almost always hit their targets, so it's not a complaint against them, but it happens semi-frequently in the other three spinoffs.

To wit, here's a Youtube video of the Air Force testing a laser mounted on a flying Boeing jet with a surprising amount of accuracy. Suddenly all those misses by super-destructive weapons aimed by hyper-advanced targeting systems seem a bit ridiculous. (and who wants to bet that the plane was several miles up and perhaps several miles away ahead or behind the target? Compare that to when phasers miss despite ships being only a couple kilometers apart!)

The visual effects in Trek always have to be taken figuratively. There have been occasions where ships have been depicted as being only a few ship lengths apart while spoken dialogue placed them thousands of kilometers apart. If they're far enough for lightspeed time lag to be a factor, then missing is certainly a possibility, particularly since phaser beams are particle beams that travel slower than light.

How figuratively would be my next question. I'm aware of dialogue saying one thing and visuals saying another, so there's a natural conflict between script and FX. Which one do we take?

I'm wary of manipulating figures for the sake of trying to get feats (positive or negative). The one thing that supremely irks me about Star Wars expanded media is how everything we see on screen is retconned, whether they be good or bad. Example: In Return of the Jedi novels and comics, we find that several fighters crashed into the Death Star before Lando and the fleet swerved to avoid it. However, in the movie's visuals themselves, the entire fleet is comfortably far from the Death Star, to the point where you can see the whole thing (it's no moon, but still), and there's no evidence whatsoever of a collision.

Trek has a good habit of not doing that sort of thing, but whenever someone says we have to take the FX figuratively, then I have to wonder just why FX were depicted in such ways in the first place.

Regardless, I'm still very unsure as to how both a Cardassian warship and a Breen vessel seem to miss the Defiant (MUCH bigger than a pick-up truck!) at near point-blank ranges and at matching speeds.

I think Defiant was using ECM. We know they can jam communications, so that technology is around.

 

[Snaploud]

Anyway, an away team had discovered "Data Discs" on the alien ship, which turned out to be CDs. From there, Captain Picard was able to view the alien captain's logs and discern that the asteroid belt was a trap. He then piloted the Enterprise out of the asteroid field.

Long story short, CDs are the "obsolete" technology considering thumb drives are more compact and can hold more data these days.

They may have resembled CDs, but there's really no way to know the nature of the data storage on the disc. The shape of the object may bear little relation to its storage capacity. In fact, the choice of shape may be nothing more than a personal or cultural choice.

 

[Cyke101]

I think Defiant was using ECM. We know they can jam communications, so that technology is around.

Just a quick question: what's ECM? I'm not familiar with that acronym.

Anyway, I don't know if jamming communications would be relevant, as we can probably infer that the enemy ships could see the Defiant just fine and even today's department store digital cameras have auto targeting systems. There was also no hint whatsoever (dialogue or visuals) in "What You Leave Behind" of the Defiant using any sort of jamming device.

Trek never had problems with technology getting outdated. The shows and movies simply adapted to progress, replacing CRTs with TFTs, stuff like that, and everyone was happy.

I think part of the problem is when Trek writers use terms already used in real life, like megatons, gigawatts, and titanium alloys. Those all sound impressive, but using something comparable to modern times is a very quick way to date something. That's exactly what happened with Data's trillions of operations measurement which, in reality, would actually make him inferior to humans, not superior.

When they use something invented, like Cochranes or Delta-Vs (as far as I know), then it's all good because no one really knows just what is in a Cochrane.

The dream has always been a heavily stylised prequel that looks like the 60s Trek-era. In A Mirror Darkly managed it just fine as did Trials and Tribble-ations.

It will happen one day.

Yes, agreed. A lot of Apple products seem advanced b/c of a simple white model, but it's really evocative of late 60s sci-fi. Ford Mustangs adopted more of a retro look lately and steampunk is its own trend. I've always reasoned that TOS may look less advanced than ENT only because design aesthetics went retro, almost in an Apple kind of way. I'm so sure that if someone from the 70s saw the outside of today's laptops, they'd assume we took a step backward (they look simple, are sleek and not elaborately decorated like 70s tech)... but it's what's on the inside that counts!

 

[EmperorTiberius]

ECM are electronic counter measures. ST must have an equivalent. We know they can somehow interfere with communications and various scanners, why not targeting sensors? I don't think it needs to be mentioned on screen, it could be an automatic feature as soon as red alert is sounded or when they enter into battle.

The missiles today are not all that advanced at all. Sure, they can lead the target, but only if the target is not interfering with its radar or infrared sensors. What would happen with that laser in the video if there was a thick cloud interfering with it? It's easy hitting a punching bag, when someone is hitting back, it's a different story.

 

[Cyke101]

ECM are electronic counter measures. ST must have an equivalent. We know they can somehow interfere with communications and various scanners, why not targeting sensors? I don't think it needs to be mentioned on screen, it could be an automatic feature as soon as red alert is sounded or when they enter into battle.

Thanks for the explanation. I learn something new every day

I would agree with you, akin to how when we're already underway in a battle, you don't have to hear Janeway say shields up to know that they're already up, but we've never seen the equivalent of an ECM in Trek. Always running it in battle is one thing, but frankly, making it exist in a story is something else entirely. To infer the existence of a technology that's never been mentioned is a bit of a stretch. After all, if a torpedo does hit, does that mean our heroes have counter-counter-measures?

The missiles today are not all that advanced at all. Sure, they can lead the target, but only if the target is not interfering with its radar or infrared sensors. What would happen with that laser in the video if there was a thick cloud interfering with it? It's easy hitting a punching bag, when someone is hitting back, it's a different story.

And yet today's missiles seem to have an even longer firing range than (at least) mini-photon torpedoes it seems, if we go by visuals alone. Trek is inconsistent with its tech, but then again, that's the point of this thread, isn't it. Besides, if the laser in the video encountered a cloud, you may have a point... yet it's already shown to be capable of hitting something far smaller than a starship at distances greater than what we're used to (at least in modern Trek). That *must* account for something-- in some regards, it's still more advanced. It may not have the oomph, but it's certainly got the accuracy (by the way, in my above mentioned examples, Defiant didn't return fire while being chased while still evading enemies at near-point blank range... so no, in this case, the punching bag was definitely not fighting back!)

I'm fairly certain that the Navy and Air Force have non-missile projectile weapons that also lead the targets as well.

 

[Doug Otte]

The episode where the Enterprise is stuck in a deadly asteroid belt and cannot escape no matter how fast it fires the engines. They were caught because Captain Picard wanted to investigate an ancient alien ship never before seen.

Anyway, an away team had discovered "Data Discs" on the alien ship, which turned out to be CDs. From there, Captain Picard was able to view the alien captain's logs and discern that the asteroid belt was a trap. He then piloted the Enterprise out of the asteroid field.

Long story short, CDs are the "obsolete" technology considering thumb drives are more compact and can hold more data these days.

As I recall, they didn't resemble CDs. They were cylinders, weren't they? And, I think any society, no matter how advanced, will still have some kind of portable data storage device. Although data can be stored best on a centralized server and accessed via a network, I feel that people/aliens will always want the ability to carry something around, if only to use in emergencies when the server or network isn't functioning.

And, how compact can something become before it's clumsy for a human/alien appendage to reasonably hold it? Perhaps the data cylinders in "Booby Trap" were an ideal size for those aliens' hands.

Doug

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Thanks for the explanation. I learn something new every day

I would agree with you, akin to how when we're already underway in a battle, you don't have to hear Janeway say shields up to know that they're already up, but we've never seen the equivalent of an ECM in Trek. Always running it in battle is one thing, but frankly, making it exist in a story is something else entirely. To infer the existence of a technology that's never been mentioned is a bit of a stretch. After all, if a torpedo does hit, does that mean our heroes have counter-counter-measures?

You got it ahahaha. ECCM.
It's a shame they never mention this in an episode, it has to exists based on what we've seen. In Star Trek Star Fleet Command games, they exist and are implemented pretty well I thought.

I think the phasers are pretty accurate too. Remember one episode of TNG where they dig a deep hole with the phaser?

To me, toredoes seem the most innacurate of all weapons in trek, and since they have their own guidance, it would make sense if there are ECMs in place. It's easier to interfere with a small targeting scanner on a missile then on a ship. Remember the Way of the Warrior, and how those torpedoes miss all those Klingon ships, at one point I was like "How can they miss a ship as big as Negh'var??!!", but it makes sense if ECM's from the entire Klingon fleet were in place around the station.

Again, it is never shown, but it's the only explanation, short of saying the writers are stupid.

 

[Michael]

The 'memory coils' from Booby Trap didn't look anything like CDs. As Doug Otte pointed out, they are more cylindrical in shape.

 

[John Picard]

The 'memory coils' from Booby Trap didn't look anything like CDs. As Doug Otte pointed out, they are more cylindrical in shape.

So much for relying on memory

I *DO* remember when the Enterprise found the people who were in suspended animation that the pod had, as Data called it, "An old style disk drive". The pod was launched well into the late-1990's, which by that time would most likely have used either a cable interface for updating or applying a patch to the computer, or a CD drive.

 

[Christopher]

Trek has a good habit of not doing that sort of thing, but whenever someone says we have to take the FX figuratively, then I have to wonder just why FX were depicted in such ways in the first place.

Because a realistic, scientifically accurate depiction of a space battle would be incomprehensible to the viewer. The ships would be vast distances apart and moving at enormous speeds. And ships in a battle situation would probably try to damp their emissions as much as possible, so they wouldn't be visible from a distance. Any impacts or explosions would be over with in a fraction of a second. A nuclear or antimatter explosion in space wouldn't be a colorful, roiling fireball; it'd be a split-second flash of blinding light, shorter than the duration of a single frame of video. In a realistic space battle, there'd be practically nothing for the naked eye to see. Depicting it figuratively is the only way to make it visually comprehensible and engaging.

I *DO* remember when the Enterprise found the people who were in suspended animation that the pod had, as Data called it, "An old style disk drive". The pod was launched well into the late-1990's, which by that time would most likely have used either a cable interface for updating or applying a patch to the computer, or a CD drive.

Well, the "D" in CD stands for "disc." So someone centuries from now, unfamiliar with the details of our technology, could say "disk drive" when he means "CD drive."

 

[John Picard]

I *DO* remember when the Enterprise found the people who were in suspended animation that the pod had, as Data called it, "An old style disk drive". The pod was launched well into the late-1990's, which by that time would most likely have used either a cable interface for updating or applying a patch to the computer, or a CD drive.

Well, the "D" in CD stands for "disc." So someone centuries from now, unfamiliar with the details of our technology, could say "disk drive" when he means "CD drive."

I'm certain someone would be able to post up a screen cap from the episode, but I do remember that the drive looked like the old 8" floppy drives from a mainframe (I'm was a mainframe operator in the 80's while in the Navy).

 

[Mr. B]

The small screen sizes and bulkiness of PADDs make them look dated as well as the screen thickness of those 'laptop computers' as seen in Picard's ready room.

 

[Cyke101]

Thanks for the explanation. I learn something new every day

I would agree with you, akin to how when we're already underway in a battle, you don't have to hear Janeway say shields up to know that they're already up, but we've never seen the equivalent of an ECM in Trek. Always running it in battle is one thing, but frankly, making it exist in a story is something else entirely. To infer the existence of a technology that's never been mentioned is a bit of a stretch. After all, if a torpedo does hit, does that mean our heroes have counter-counter-measures?

You got it ahahaha. ECCM.
It's a shame they never mention this in an episode, it has to exists based on what we've seen. In Star Trek Star Fleet Command games, they exist and are implemented pretty well I thought.

IIRC, the Starfleet Command games also have point-defense phasers for incoming torpedoes, too (or was that Armada?). Such a defensive weapon would be SOOOO helpful in Trek, especially when we see how relatively slow torpeodes travel compared to phasers.

I think the phasers are pretty accurate too. Remember one episode of TNG where they dig a deep hole with the phaser?

TNG phasers are pretty accurate. I recall only one instance of them truly missing (and even then, Worf got it with a second shot). Rather, when I mentioned inaccurate phasers, I stated DS9/VOY/ENT in my first post about the stopic as being the guilty parties. To note, the examples I cited are from DS9.

One last note: while focusing on DS9/VOY/ENT weapon (mis)usage, I'm a lot more forgiving of the Defiant-class missing all those shots, as it seems that pulse phasers are built much more for phaser-spamming than for accuracy. After all, accuracy is one of the main advantages of a phaser array, something a Defiant doesn't have.

To me, toredoes seem the most innacurate of all weapons in trek, and since they have their own guidance, it would make sense if there are ECMs in place. It's easier to interfere with a small targeting scanner on a missile then on a ship. Remember the Way of the Warrior, and how those torpedoes miss all those Klingon ships, at one point I was like "How can they miss a ship as big as Negh'var??!!", but it makes sense if ECM's from the entire Klingon fleet were in place around the station.

Again, it is never shown, but it's the only explanation, short of saying the writers are stupid.

It's just that the writers are clearly more on the creative side than the scientific side, and hey 90% of the time, that's a-okay by all of us!

 

[Cyke101]

Trek has a good habit of not doing that sort of thing, but whenever someone says we have to take the FX figuratively, then I have to wonder just why FX were depicted in such ways in the first place.

Because a realistic, scientifically accurate depiction of a space battle would be incomprehensible to the viewer. The ships would be vast distances apart and moving at enormous speeds. And ships in a battle situation would probably try to damp their emissions as much as possible, so they wouldn't be visible from a distance. Any impacts or explosions would be over with in a fraction of a second. A nuclear or antimatter explosion in space wouldn't be a colorful, roiling fireball; it'd be a split-second flash of blinding light, shorter than the duration of a single frame of video. In a realistic space battle, there'd be practically nothing for the naked eye to see. Depicting it figuratively is the only way to make it visually comprehensible and engaging.

I've no qualms with the way battles are depicted in Trek, but if two ships are on screen fighting basically side by side by half a km, then I'm going to believe the visuals and not some made-up figure of them really fighting hundreds of km at a time, simply because then that means the visuals or the dialogue is lying to us. It's basically a form of near-instantaneous on-screen retconning.

I'm fine that we see energy beams and that the ships fight up close and personal, but if you show that but say it's something else entirely, then something's up. That's why I want to ask how far do we take the figurative in a space battle. When Voyager chased Equinox, i believe there were figures in the dialogue that matched up to what we saw on screen; same with Defiant in The Die is Cast. Compare that to an instance in TNG where Klingons are stated to be hundreds of km away but on screen they're basically bearing down on the E-D.

Again, I've no problem with the way battles are carried out in Trek as long as they're clear about scale. TOS managed to pull off long-distance battles. Their solution? Never show two ships in the same shot when discussing distance. In hindsight, it was probably more of a cost cutting/low-tech solution, but it did give off the impression of distance.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I think the idea of holodecks, though not the execution, is somewhat outdated; why go to all the trouble to create 3D forcefield/holograph illusions in a big room when you could just use VR interfaces? If TNG had come along a few years later, the crews might've been having their recreational experiences in cyberspace rather than a large physical room.

You mean Red Dwarf's VR with groinal attatchment is more likely than TNG's holodeck?

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

Voice-controlled computers.

This new-fangled "keyboard" thing is much more efficient. Or, in different contexts, light-switches.

Well, it depends on the function. The voice interface on the Enterprise is very sophisticated versus anything we have today, and could almost carry on a conversation with you. There were many times when a voice interface was handy and efficient. Imagine, for example, if Beverly Crusher had to stay still as she was searching for answers in "Remember Me," instead of being able to chat with the computer as she moved about the ship. OTOH, we saw the TNG people using keyboard-like interfaces on many occasions. The voice control of the computer hasn't replaced other methods of input; just supplemented them.

They also use voice control in situations where using the keyboard would be much faster or easier (even when seated at a duty station), as a way of telling the audience what's going on.

Which is sensible, but surely we are permitted to snark now and then.