Re-imagine Enterprise tech

[Jedi Marso]

One of the bad things about this prequel series was how quickly they just resorted to standard Trek tech from later eras: phasers, photon torpedoes, and tricorders being the most obvious examples. I always felt that the tech, weapons, and so on from this era should have been far less advanced and far more cumbersome.

1. Weapons:

Should have been particle-accelerator cannons (or something similar) instead of torpedoes.
Lasers or some form of power-augmented lasers rather than phasers.

2. Tech:

Instead of hand-held scanners, they should have been forced to wear cumbersome scanner-packs that were the technological pre-cursors to tricorders without the miniaturization (which was in fact better than what we saw in TOS with both communicators and tricorders).

Or, for storytelling purposes, they would have had to set up a 'scanning station' on the surface of a planet with heavy equipment, then been able to use hand-held units to remotely access/control the scanners or focus scans on certain areas.

3. NO TRANSPORTERS

They did a good job of not abusing the transporter too much, at the beginning. Transporter technology should have come about a century later, at least in terms of it being safe for transporting anything aside from bulk cargo. When you think about it, the transporters and what they do are far and away the most technically advanced devices in the Trek-verse, up to and including warp drive.

I think the series would have been far more true to its intentions if they wouldn't have just cheated and let the technology be the same as it was in the later eras. Same thing with having the Borg, Ferengi, Cardassians, and so on be around in the pre-Federation 22nd Century. Just sheer laziness. Discuss: what forms of 22nd Century tech would you like to have seen?

 

[Long Syntax]

All great points. I don't necessarily disagree with any of the points regarding specific tech - the only exception being laziness as primary reason future tech or tech terms were used. I believe primary reason was the production staff and writers were pushed by UPN to connect with "Trekkies" using tactics such as easily identifiable tech terms and hardware - even it it didn't necessarily fit in. However, once Pandora's box had been opened, it became all too easy to just use the preexisting tech terms - and yes, I guess be lazy in their writing.

 

[uniderth]

Guns. Handheld weapons should have been projectile weapons. Perhaps "lasers" could be used, but they should have been large, requiring a back or case mounted power pack.

I like the idea of scanner stations.

No subspace communications. The ship should be limited to regular radio. this would mean that when they are out there, there is no communication with earth except for messages passed on via other space ships.

Also about shipboard scanners it would be interesting if there were no ftl shipboards scanners. There would no way to detect a ship, entity, planet, etc until you are in the near vicinity. Light takes eight minutes to travel form the sun to the earth, sensor scans should too.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Guns. Handheld weapons should have been projectile weapons. Perhaps "lasers" could be used, but they should have been large, requiring a back or case mounted power pack.

That is a neat idea, even though I do confess to liking the 'pew-pew' lightfights in Enterprise.

No subspace communications. The ship should be limited to regular radio. this would mean that when they are out there, there is no communication with earth except for messages passed on via other space ships.

Also a good point, or at a minimum, subspace comms should have been severely limited. Even in 23rd Century TOS, there were times when a reply from Starfleet 'was going to take three weeks.' On mankind's first deep space mission, they should have been out of contact with Starfleet for extended periods.

Also about shipboard scanners it would be interesting if there were no ftl shipboards scanners. There would no way to detect a ship, entity, planet, etc until you are in the near vicinity. Light takes eight minutes to travel form the sun to the earth, sensor scans should too.

I agree on limited sensors but in a different direction: I don't think they should have been able to pinpoint bio-signs and such on planetary surfaces or large spacecraft. Maybe the presence of biological life, but that's it. Then when the captain and others are being held captive, their fate is truly a mystery and the problem of finding them much larger in scope.

That said, it seems that any ship that can travel at FTL speeds is going to have to have at least a limited FTL sensor capacity to see what's ahead of them (and behind them for that matter) or be running blind at warp speed.

 

[apollo1984]

Personally I would have kept the early seasons weapons at plasma weapon level that used magazine clips, while at the same time I would have kept spacial torpedoes and used plasma cannons rather than phase cannons for the ship based weapons.

I liked how they used the transporter in the early seasons and would have liked to have kept it's use restricted for emergencies only.

 

[uniderth]

magazine clips

Well, which one is it?

 

[trekshark]

in my head canon the Ent communicators while smaller than the TOS ones were less capable too, which explains them being a bit bigger in tos

I agree they should have stayed with the original torpedoes and not gotten "photonic" ones and the hand weapons whoulc have been plasma with a "stun" setting that didn't knock people out like phaser stun but was just low powered so it resulted in something more like a bad sun burn/light blistering vs burning a hole in a person

 

[apollo1984]

in my head canon the Ent communicators while smaller than the TOS ones were less capable too, which explains them being a bit bigger in tos

I agree they should have stayed with the original torpedoes and not gotten "photonic" ones and the hand weapons whoulc have been plasma with a "stun" setting that didn't knock people out like phaser stun but was just low powered so it resulted in something more like a bad sun burn/light blistering vs burning a hole in a person

This is what I have always though too, why did they need to introduce phase pistols in the pilot and install phase cannons on the ship? was this a network issue again about then not wanting to be too prequally (sp) and forcing them to introduce more futuristic tech.

 

[eyeresist]

I liked the clunky phase pistols they had in the pilot. They really should have stuck with them (or something like) throughout the show.

Regarding the upgrade of the phase cannons, perhaps they were overpowered, but actually seeing the ship be upgraded to increasing effectiveness was a good moment in the show.

The problem with the transporter was it was so convenient, and the only reason not to use it was fear. They should have made the tech more unreliable, depending on distance involved and complexity/amount of mass of the thing being transported. So sending a person through the transporter is like Russian roulette, with a non-trivial chance of things going wrong, i.e. when people are forced to use the transporter they have to be examined by Phlox, and are sometimes injured or even damaged permanently (I mean by the transporter, not by Phlox).

I'm in two minds about deep space comms. Being isolated from Earth would be interesting dramatically, but in an age of warp drive and matter transporters it's hard to believe they'd still depend on primitive radio.

Same with the hand scanner - given what a modern phone can do now, it would be hard to buy a futuristic scanner being a piece of heavy equipment.

 

[apollo1984]

The problem with the transporter was it was so convenient, and the only reason not to use it was fear. They should have made the tech more unreliable, depending on distance involved and complexity/amount of mass of the thing being transported. So sending a person through the transporter is like Russian roulette, with a non-trivial chance of things going wrong, i.e. when people are forced to use the transporter they have to be examined by Phlox, and are sometimes injured or even damaged permanently (I mean by the transporter, not by Phlox).

They did sort of do something like this early on where they beamed a person up in a storm and he basically re-materialized with leaves and stuff growing out of him as the transporter scanner could not separate the person from all the shit that was flying about.

On the whole they still used their shuttlepods to get about quite a bit showing no reliance on the transporters to get around. But they did use the transporters strategically when they had too.

 

[eyeresist]

You are right about the guy being beamed up with leaves and stuff. But that was the only time anything went wrong. Every other time they used it, it was fine (except the time Hoshi was caught in the buffer for a second and experienced a tedious episode). They kept using the shuttles, which I liked, but I think they needed to keep the dangers of the transporters in the audience's mind.

 

[apollo1984]

You are right about the guy being beamed up with leaves and stuff. But that was the only time anything went wrong. Every other time they used it, it was fine (except the time Hoshi was caught in the buffer for a second and experienced a tedious episode). They kept using the shuttles, which I liked, but I think they needed to keep the dangers of the transporters in the audience's mind.

While I don't think episodes that had the transporter malfunction repeatedly would work (if it happened too often), I guess they could have made it so it's use was limited since the tech it was built on was primitive so rather than more people becoming tree people just have it happen so that there were situations it simply could not be used at all so like atmospheric conditions mean the scanners could not get a proper lock etc rather than outright malfunctions.

Oh the other instance I just remembered was Major Hayes death at the end of season 3 where a shot went through his transporter pattern. This did not appear to happen with future transporters (not that I really remember).

 

[Hopeful Romantic]

except the time Hoshi was caught in the buffer for a second and experienced a tedious episode

 

[at Quark's]

In perspective of credible technology progress, I would've liked to see a much more primitive era.

For example, http://www.st-minutiae.com/articles/romulanwar/ (a section of a website that was written before enterprise about the Earth-Romulan war, purportedly only a few years later), pictures a fledgling Starfleet that has had low-capacity warp drive for 80 years, but hasn't developed M/AM reactors yet, still having to rely on fusion. (According to the site, developing it is one of the major factors in winning the war).

As a result, interstellar voyages and military expeditions are feasible, but just only barely, and you have to take humongous amounts of fuel with you, making most of the ships bulky and cramped. On the longer legs of a journey, you'd need to build refueling points (that would become prime strategic points in any conflict). So you need to plan your operations ahead with extreme care. No FTL communication except with warp-capable torpedoes, etc, etc, etc.

But I suppose such a premise would have severely curtailed storytelling possibilities for the the standard 'episode of the week' format, instead would have necessitated a very different way of telling stories, perhaps one that couldn't easily be reconciled with what the general viewership expects of a star trek series.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Two things I did really like about the actual show:

1. The 22nd Century 'diagnostic bed' was a big, MRI style imaging chamber that they had to slide you in to.

2. Phlox's use of biological remedies. (His pharmacopia of strange fauna that he used to cure maladies). I thought it was both a more primitive AND alien approach to medicine that worked for the time and his character.

 

[eyeresist]

^ Yes, I liked both of these. The biological medicine was a nice addition to the Trek universe. And the imaging chamber had a door (unlike the real-world equivalent) which helped with dramatic possibilities - thinking of the episode where Phlox tells invading aliens that the person they're after is in the imaging chamber, so they shoot through the door.