If Michael Burnham is the smartest Starfleet officer he's ever known then Starfleet is in bigger trouble than we think.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room, this series violates Roddenberry's vision big time
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If Michael Burnham is the smartest Starfleet officer he's ever known then Starfleet is in bigger trouble than we think.
I could be mistaken as to the nature of the games in the refitted 1701 recreation hall, but according to, I believe, Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise there were light cube games inside the hall that allowed crewmembers to play with projected light or a form of hologram. Even if there were no holodecks in the 23rd century there may have been implied holograms in post-TAS Trek as early as the first movie.
Starfleet has a very long history of employing very stupid people. I assume it's just a logical result of the idiocracy.
The Rec Deck is on two levels. There might be a small holodeck on the upper level in a corner somewhere. They have birdsong. Wouldn't surprise me if the walls and ceiling could not have natural scenes projected either.
If Discovery has crude, non-interactive holoprojectors in the 2250s then it's possible that the refitted Enterprise could have even better versions of the same technology. We certainly never saw anything being played save for the game with the multicolored flashing lights that was built into the floor and the strange tabletop game with the illuminated rods or crystals.
That's not really accurate, though it's an understandably common misconception. It's not portrayed as a wholly new concept to the characters. What is portrayed as novel to them is how indistinguishable it is from reality, the level of tactile and sensory detail, the lifelike characters that can be conversed with and respond spontaneously, etc. No one actually spoke or acted as if they had never experienced any sort of holographic simulation before, just as if they hadn't experienced ones this good.
"Encounter At Farpoint" (TNG):
DATA: This woodland pattern is quite popular, Sir. Perhaps because it duplicates Earth so well. Coming here almost makes me feel human myself.
RIKER: I didn't believe these simulations could be this real.
DATA: Much of it is real, Sir. If the transporters can convert our bodies to an energy beam, then back to the original pattern again...
RIKER: Yes, of course. And these rocks and vegetation have much simpler patterns.
DATA: Correct, Sir. The rear wall...
RIKER: I can't see it.
DATA: We're right next to it. [throws rock right over Riker's shoulder to reveal wall]
RIKER: Incredible!
WESLEY: Commander Riker! Commander Riker, isn't this great? This is one of the simple patterns. They've got thousands more. Some you just can't believe...
RIKER: Careful, the next rock is loose!
(Then Wesley falls into the water and really gets wet, and stays that way upon exiting, tracking it out to form a puddle in the corridor. It's not just holographic, it's real, and it persists outside the room!)
"The Big Goodbye" (TNG):
TROI: You could be over-preparing. You've been looking forward to the upgrade of the Holodeck. You have the time. Captain, you need the diversion.
[...]
PICARD: From that window, I could see an entire...
DATA: City block.
PICARD: That's right. Sounds! Smells!
CRUSHER: You make it sound so real.
PICARD: Well, that's how it felt!
[...]
PICARD: The sense of reality was absolutely incredible! When that woman kissed me, it was so...
CRUSHER: Exciting?
PICARD: Real!
(Troi even refers to it straight out of the gate as an upgrade, meaning it's not an entirely new thing, just an improvement on something that came before.)
As the quote from The Making Of Star Trek I posted above shows, Roddenberry had conceived of something akin to this at least as far back as the second season of TOS, and actually planned to show it in the third. It just didn't come to fruition thanks to a combination of budgetary restrictions, his stepping down as line producer for the third season, and ultimately cancellation. But as we can see from the animated show, this was still in his mind something that existed aboard Kirk's ship. As with so much of TNG, his idea there was to present a new-and-improved version that would blow away—perhaps literally, if you're not careful—even those who were experienced of older models.
And it's not hard to make sense of Harry's comment from "Flashback" (VGR) about there being "no Holodecks" (nor "replicators" as opposed to "food synthesizers" or "protein resequencers") on starships in Kirk's time, either. Once all the evidence is taken into account, it's fairly inferrable that a "Holodeck" specifically is a highly-developed combined facility incorporating the utilitarian purposes of holographic combat simulators as seen in DSC (following on from the very rudimentary holographic target practice systems seen on ENT in episodes such as "Sleeping Dogs" and "Harbinger") and the recreational purposes of the facility from TAS, and expanding on them both, being also useful for scientific research, engineering simulations, and any number of other uses. (It's like a department store or a shopping mall. Before there were such things, there were still stores and shops of all sorts. You just couldn't necessarily find them all in one place.)
This is even further backed up by the fact that the holosuites on DS9 never get referred to as proper holodecks and are even distinguished from such in "Take Me Out To The Holosuite":
SOLOK: I need use of a holosuite. The T'Kumbra holodecks are currently under repair.
SISKO: To arrange holosuite time you have to go through Quark. He owns the only ones on the station.
(I know we had a whole other thread on this subject already; sorry for the repetition. It's worth repeating, though.)
-MMoM
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The Franklin was lost just after the founding of the Federation. Which puts it just a few years after the events of Star Trek: Enterprise. Edison was a Earth MACO, and given command when it was absorbed into the Federation Starfleet. The ship itself was lost nearly a century prior to the movie.
No, not at all. The dynamic is very interesting but is also has tinges of racism with Spock's ancestry often being a source of comment or joking.
Perhaps Lorca should make jokes about Saru's prey species to help with relieve the tension.
I think the Spock McCoy stuff is closer to the banter you might see between an Englishman, A Welshman, a Scotsman...even smaller, northerner and southerner, Glaswegian and Edinburgh Native, Sunderland and Newcastle (we Maccem and they Brakkem.) I don’t know what you guys have in the U.S...maybe U.S and Canadian, or New York and New Jersey. Such seems to get out of hand more there. It’s also something more frowned upon from above these days, the people on the ground...the actual Spocks and McCoys...tend to have less of an issue with it. Probably because before you start calling someone a soft southerner or a tight Yorkshireman, there’s a working relationship and friendship already in place.
But the variability in the Spock/McCoy relationship makes it hard to judge.
Quark and Odo, Tuvok and Neelix...these are easier to enjoy, as it’s not so...species based.
I'm talking about the fact that she was originally built before Star Trek: Enterprise and still had her non-bio-transport-approved transporter from that time when she was lost in the early 2160s, hence it needing to be modified by Scotty in the film to be safe. She was "the first Earth ship capable of Warp Four" and was thus originally launched sometime between 2145-2150, after the NX-Delta broke Warp Three per "First Flight" (ENT) and before the NX-01, which was the first Earth ship capable of Warp Five and had already reached Warp Four prior to "Broken Bow" (ENT).
Here's a recent ongoing thread and an older one with more discussion on these subjects.
-MMoM
I'm talking about the fact that she was originally built before Star Trek: Enterprise and still had her non-bio-transport-approved transporter from that time when she was lost in the early 2160s, hence it needing to be modified by Scotty in the film to be safe. She was "the first Earth ship capable of Warp Four" and was thus originally launched sometime between 2145-2150, after the NX-Delta broke Warp Three per "First Flight" (ENT) and before the NX-01, which was the first Earth ship capable of Warp Five and had already reached Warp Four prior to "Broken Bow" (ENT).
-MMoM
I'm just correcting the notion she was lost "more than a century later". The ship itself was probably twenty years old when it was lost.
Oh I get you now, thanks. Yes, I'll correct that in my post. I meant "more than a decade." Sorry for the confusion.
-MMoM
17.
Launched 2147, lost at Altimad in 2164.
Launched 2147, lost at Altimad in 2164.
^How do you arrive at 2147 for launch, particularly? I've heard that 2164 for loss comes from Edison's bio, but I've not found that to be legible even in HD. Dialogue just says "early 2160s" but in any case the exact number of years is not important in context of my point here and "more than a decade" covers it sufficiently. My point is just that she never received the new transporters that NX-01 had, even though she was in service longer.
-MMoM
-MMoM
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Extrapolation from the breaking of the Warp 3 barrier in 2144 and the construction and launch of Enterprise during 2150-51. A lot of timelines place the Franklin as being the midpoint between the two events and her launch being in or around 2147. Makes sense. Not so early that her size and complexity would be out of place in the immediate aftermath of Duval's test flight aboard the NX-Delta but not so close to the launch of the NX-01 that it would make you wonder why Starfleet didn't break the Warp 4 barrier until just before Archer took command of the much bigger and faster Enterprise.
Warp Three was broken in 2145, not 2144:
2147 is speculative, as it could just as easily be later in 2145, or 2146, or 2148, or 2149, or early 2150, for all we know. 2147 is a perfectly reasonable guess, though, as good as any.
-MMoM
(Now back to Gene's Vision™?)
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Difference seen in DS9 and DISCO is that the projected people in the former look like they're actually there, whereas in the latter they're displayed transparently and have a flickering effect. Transmissions are probably just not strong enough in the 23rd century to emit lifelike projections.
Does the TOS ship have a bowling alley?
He could, if they were friends.
The basis of mutual respect and friendship is what make the Spock-McCoy interaction possible. Without that it would be highly inappropriate, to say the least.
That could always eventually happen.
After all, Lorca and Stamets pretty openly hated each other at the outset, but on the last episode had reached a point where each was pretty nice to the other.
And for me, that is the true essence of Star Trek, not a Stepford wives level of conformity where all of the characters always agree with each other and there is never conflict, but when they have fundamental philosophical disagreements and personality clashes and yet learn to work together and get along for the greater good.
It could still be considered highly inappropriate, regardless of personal status, if these people are supposed to be professionals in their fields.
The larger point is that DISCO will not become "more Star Trek" because Bridge Officers start teasing each other.
The holographic displays actually allow the blinkenlights panels of the 60's to make more sense. You can imagine all the projected data not picked up by the camera.
