Maybe they wouldn't have technology like cars and airplanes, but they would have cities. Those frontier towns were set up to build the railroads, and bring settlers.
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North Star opinions
- Thread starter TrickyDickie
- Start date
The Amish benefit that there are non-believers out there willing to make the things they cannot. The Amish aren't building iron bloomeries, forging steel or producing all the other goods they need to thrive. They also aren't buying all their own products. They're not a great example of self sufficiency, because like anyone, they aren't.
That's another problem with the North Star. It can't all be a bunch of tiny frontier towns. Where are the factories producing the goods they use? There has to be at least one or two large cities to support a late 19th century level of technology. Glassware, steel, machinery, printing: some of that can be done by individual craftsmen but not at the level shown. So how did wherever their metropolis was never develop further? Maybe that would have been a fun steampunk sequel but they didn't go that route.
The root issue here is, what did the Skags want out of the humans exactly?
Clearly the underlying idea wasn't to establish a thriving and self-sufficient human colony where life could go on as it had in the mid-1800s West. But establishing this might have been the simplest way to keep the slaves happy and working nevertheless, even when the real idea was to have them toiling in mines and factories unlike any in the old West. I still can't see them giving the slaves six-shooters, though!
If the slaves were originally kept in different conditions, say, Skag-provided ceramoplastic barracks, and then broke loose and started doing things the way they knew, this means they built their own six-shooters. Which is simple enough: a gunsmith might have had the proper skills, and also the skills to make his own tools. But where would he get the steel? Or even the iron?
Here we have two options. Either the Skags had provided their little slave-mining operation with bountiful resources that the humans could put to use (and these survived the rebellion), or they had not (or they were lost in the rebellion). But it seems extremely unlikely that there would be just enough steel to build six-shooters and repeating rifles, but not, say, steel houses, steel mills, steel steeples for the church etc. A colony rising out of ashes full of bountiful resources shouldn't look like 1800s West - it should look like the exact opposite of what the Mythbusters would build on a desert island, that is, something lacking in modern knowhow but not lacking in modern raw materials.
Let's assume the settlers don't have steel but do have a slave mine or three that provide them with iron, coal and copper, but all the advanced mining gear is lost. Building a steam locomotive in 300 years might work if the settlement had fifty gunsmiths who managed to share their knowledge and even pass all of it to their apprentices. But it certainly wouldn't look like any steam locomotive we know! In contrast, just sticking to the mundane, like six-shooters, would probably lead in safe stagnation and zero evolution of the tech.
Indeed, I'd say the model where there are no cities and no mines and no industries, jus frontier towns ripped out of all context, is the most plausible one. These folks can't build six-shooters, except by cannibalizing existing ones. Their gear has simply survived the past centuries, being discarded when too worn down, and their ammo supplies are dwindling and can never be replenished. But back in the days of the rebellion, somebody managed to punch out a sufficient number of guns and bullets from the Skag replicators before those were lost, and so the lifestyle survives, identifiable as that of the old West even when based on a completely different premise of dwindling finite resources.
Timo Saloniemi
Clearly the underlying idea wasn't to establish a thriving and self-sufficient human colony where life could go on as it had in the mid-1800s West. But establishing this might have been the simplest way to keep the slaves happy and working nevertheless, even when the real idea was to have them toiling in mines and factories unlike any in the old West. I still can't see them giving the slaves six-shooters, though!
If the slaves were originally kept in different conditions, say, Skag-provided ceramoplastic barracks, and then broke loose and started doing things the way they knew, this means they built their own six-shooters. Which is simple enough: a gunsmith might have had the proper skills, and also the skills to make his own tools. But where would he get the steel? Or even the iron?
Here we have two options. Either the Skags had provided their little slave-mining operation with bountiful resources that the humans could put to use (and these survived the rebellion), or they had not (or they were lost in the rebellion). But it seems extremely unlikely that there would be just enough steel to build six-shooters and repeating rifles, but not, say, steel houses, steel mills, steel steeples for the church etc. A colony rising out of ashes full of bountiful resources shouldn't look like 1800s West - it should look like the exact opposite of what the Mythbusters would build on a desert island, that is, something lacking in modern knowhow but not lacking in modern raw materials.
Let's assume the settlers don't have steel but do have a slave mine or three that provide them with iron, coal and copper, but all the advanced mining gear is lost. Building a steam locomotive in 300 years might work if the settlement had fifty gunsmiths who managed to share their knowledge and even pass all of it to their apprentices. But it certainly wouldn't look like any steam locomotive we know! In contrast, just sticking to the mundane, like six-shooters, would probably lead in safe stagnation and zero evolution of the tech.
Indeed, I'd say the model where there are no cities and no mines and no industries, jus frontier towns ripped out of all context, is the most plausible one. These folks can't build six-shooters, except by cannibalizing existing ones. Their gear has simply survived the past centuries, being discarded when too worn down, and their ammo supplies are dwindling and can never be replenished. But back in the days of the rebellion, somebody managed to punch out a sufficient number of guns and bullets from the Skag replicators before those were lost, and so the lifestyle survives, identifiable as that of the old West even when based on a completely different premise of dwindling finite resources.
Timo Saloniemi
I didn't mind it. I do agree with an above comment that it seemed a bit unusual in the middle of the Xindi arc since it really had nothing to do with stopping the Xindi. I assume they were probably analyzing the data they had up to that point and maybe they just had no where to go right then and there.
Otherwise it was fine. I too questioned the lack of development, and they do even acknowledge that in the episode when the teacher laments the fact that humanity has gone how far and yet they have been stagnant.
It'd be interesting if some future novel picks up the thread of the story and goes back to the planet (since I don't think we'll see an on screen follow up).
Otherwise it was fine. I too questioned the lack of development, and they do even acknowledge that in the episode when the teacher laments the fact that humanity has gone how far and yet they have been stagnant.
It'd be interesting if some future novel picks up the thread of the story and goes back to the planet (since I don't think we'll see an on screen follow up).
Two people have mentioned Reed stunning T'Pol and no one mentions the smirk when he did it? Or wondered if "Speed" was ever featured on "movie night". It would also have been nice if they'd made it the same group of aliens that kidnapped the '37's. Now we have to think that there were two groups of aliens taking Earth folk.
Or three - the Preservers of TOS "Paradise Syndrome" also abducted, and the setup where big rocks are falling from the sky smells of an illegal mining operation to me.
We really have to wonder why there aren't more of these slavers around. Star travel in Trek is dirt cheap, and transporters make abductions easy, so using primitive folks as slave labor in petty crime sounds lucrative enough. Earth was a busy port of call for all sorts of star travelers until the Vulcans came and started spying on us, perhaps scaring away the competition. We got visits from gods and swindlers alike. Both would have had the means and the motivation to take along a few humans when they departed for parts unknown. Yet returning those would never have been particularly viable, so there might be dumping grounds all across the galaxy, possibly simply because dumping is cheaper than the ammo needed for executions, possibly because even gods and criminals still have hearts, albethem noncorporeal or made of stone.
Timo Saloniemi
We really have to wonder why there aren't more of these slavers around. Star travel in Trek is dirt cheap, and transporters make abductions easy, so using primitive folks as slave labor in petty crime sounds lucrative enough. Earth was a busy port of call for all sorts of star travelers until the Vulcans came and started spying on us, perhaps scaring away the competition. We got visits from gods and swindlers alike. Both would have had the means and the motivation to take along a few humans when they departed for parts unknown. Yet returning those would never have been particularly viable, so there might be dumping grounds all across the galaxy, possibly simply because dumping is cheaper than the ammo needed for executions, possibly because even gods and criminals still have hearts, albethem noncorporeal or made of stone.
Timo Saloniemi
"Spectre of the Gun" is my favourite TOS episode precisely because the sets are so incomplete in the illusion. Alas, with more budget and the more realistic setting, this episode (and the TNG western episodes) are less enjoyable. Still, "North Star" is an interesting premise; I would've liked to have seen a human or 2 from the planet insist on joining the crew and featured every so often as recurring guest stars.
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