Mobile emitter - ethics of using it

[ItIsGreen]

Just watching some random Trek on Netflix and I settled on "Future's End", the episode where the Doctor got the mobile emitter, and a question has popped into my head that never occurred to me in the last 20 years.

Considering the whole episode deals with someone from the past using future technology for their own gain, the similar premise of TNG's "A Matter of Time" and Starfleet's own policies on altering the timeline, how come it's OK for the Doctor to continue using the emitter?

I mean, even if they were very strict about using it only for allowing the Doctor to exist outside of sickbay in medical emergencies (which they weren't), who's to say the scientists back at Earth wouldn't tear it apart and use it to create all sorts of 29th century-flavoured devices, or Section 31? At one point it was nearly responsible for giving the Borg a 500-year nudge ahead in technology...

I get the story reasons for having it, but surely Janeway should have destroyed it or returned it to Braxton at the end of the episode?

 

[Catarina]

Janeway (barring writing inconsistencies when it comes to her personality) seems to overlook when it's in her favor. see Endgame. taking borg tech back in time to suit her needs to get her crew home.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Janeway made use of the emitter because she needed the EMH to exist throughout the ship. And she had that right. The more places the Doctor can go, the more help he can be, and the more patients he can save.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's possible that she didn't know that what she was doing was impossibly illegal?

Janeway could have opened an DTI department.

That would have meant a lot of promotions.

 

[φ of π]

Maybe it's a bootstap paradox where Voyager's EHM's mobile emitter is the technology that allowed for the invention of... mobile emitters.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Young Braxton at the end had better tech than Young Braxton at the beginning.

So, yes.

 

[Catarina]

Maybe it's a bootstap paradox where Voyager's EHM's mobile emitter is the technology that allowed for the invention of... mobile emitters.

I could buy that.

 

[Triskelion]

You know how to make the mobile emitter unnecessary? Cast Garret Wang as the Doctor, leave Kim growing fungus down in sickbay. Put Robert Picardo at Ops. No better yet - as First Officer. Let Beltran take over for Wang as Bell Boy. Sorry - Chief Elevator Operations Officer.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I don't blame Janeway, because there's a question of free will in play. I, living in the present, don't want to do anything to screw up my past. But I need to treat anything that visits me "from the future" as merely being from a *potential* future - not from the written in stone FUTURE - or I have to give up on the idea that I have any sort of free will or control over my destiny at all, because everything that I do and that happens around me is going to lead to *that* future. I don't care how fond I may be of Crewman Daniels or Captain Braxton and his crew or whomever, that's still just BS.

As for *Admiral* Janeway, well, she didn't care. Her friends ended up in a bad way, and I seem to recall something about Starfleet in her time secretly believing they had about 6 months before the Borg moved on them with an overwhelming force? (I might have that wrong - been a long time since I've watched "Endgame".)

 

[Guy Gardener]

And how do you know that you are not being sent a Trojan horse?

You can't trust the future.

 

[Jedman67]

Did Henry Starling steal the mobile emitter from Braxton? or did he invent it by reverse engineering stolen technology from Braxton?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Reverse engineering is not inventing.

 

[Sophie74656]

Did Henry Starling steal the mobile emitter from Braxton? or did he invent it by reverse engineering stolen technology from Braxton?

I don't see why Braxton would have a mobile emitter with him. I always assumed her revese engineered it.

 

[Jedman67]

Reverse engineering is not inventing.

Reverse engineering one thing to build something completely new but with the same principles is sort of inventing

 

[ItIsGreen]

It just kind of strikes me as odd that in an episode about taking future technology away from people in the past, the Doctor gets this technology which is either from the 29th century, or is a 20th century invention based on 29th century technology, and no one bats an eye. It's handled so casually, the Doctor's like "Oh yeah I can leave sickbay now", and no one raises the question of whether or not he should have it in the first place.

Young Braxton at the end had better tech than Young Braxton at the beginning.

Did he? I didn't notice any difference, and nothing was explicitly mentioned. If he did, it was definitely underplayed.

That would have meant a lot of promotions.

Still not for Kim, though!

 

[Guy Gardener]

JANEWAY: You tried to destroy our ship in the twenty fourth century and the next time we saw you, you were an old man, homeless, in 1996.
BRAXTON [on viewscreen]: I never experienced that timeline.

Multiple splintering timelines vs. "A leads to B leads C leads to A" (ie one immutable Time Line).

Those are completely different understandings of time that would mean that they had completely different technology.

BRAXTON [on viewscreen]: In my century we can scan time, much as you use sensors to scan space. The Temporal Integrity Commission detected your vessel over twentieth century Earth. I was sent to correct that anomaly. Prepare to follow me back into the rift. I'm returning you to your own time, to your previous coordinates in the Delta Quadrant.

OG Braxton had to figure it out that Voyager destroyed the Federation by combing through the debris of Earth looking for the causal factor, and not by scanning time.

 

[ItIsGreen]

JANEWAY: You tried to destroy our ship in the twenty fourth century and the next time we saw you, you were an old man, homeless, in 1996.
BRAXTON [on viewscreen]: I never experienced that timeline.

Or it just means that Voyager averted the explosion that Braxton went back to destroy them for in the first place, so he never had to go back and do it. No reason to assume the tech is any different. Braxton looks the same, the timeship looks the same.

OG Braxton had to figure it out that Voyager destroyed the Federation by combing through the debris of Earth looking for the causal factor, and not by scanning time.

I'm not seeing a correlation. Why are the ability to 'scan time' and having to figure out why the solar system blew up (and finding Voyager's debris) mutually exclusive?

We don't know the mechanics of this time scanning either, it could well be no more than a radar blip showing anachronous objects in different time periods, and not sensitive enough to reveal the cause of the explosion, thereby requiring some old-fashioned investigation.

Braxton I clearly has the abillity to scan time to some extent as he managed to turn up directly in Voyager's path when he was hell-bent on destroying them at the start of the episode.

Braxton II just noticed Voyager was out of place and went back to put them back where they came from. He never had any need to search for evidence in the first place.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Original Braxton met Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, where they were supposed to be.

Endscene Braxton had a lot of answers for Janeway that the temporal prime Directive told him to shut it about.

 

[locutus101]

Starling wasn't that good with all that 29th century technology at his disposal he was only able to make lame ass 1990 ish computers and then he needed more technology. That's lousy!

 

[φ of π]

Can you imagine someone from the 1900's figuring out how to reverse engineer an iPhone?

Not only would they lack the necessary tools, they'd not even have the necessary background knowledge of the technology to know where to start.