Should a proper sequel series radically update the tech?

[SG-17]

So lets say Picard is successful and it motivates CBS to greenlight a new full series set after Nemesis/2009 flashbacks but not so far that they couldn't use cameos for publicity (for example the first decade of the 2400s). Should the tech be radically updated to match modern developments? Should it be updated in Picard as well? What would the canon implications be of such comparatively massive leaps in such a short time frame of ~20-25 years?

For example, the use of PADDs in the 24th century shows frankly looks ridiculous to modern audiences. Where today you can fit thousands of books onto a chip as small as a fingernail, needing a crate of PADDs just to read the complete logs of a single 3-person starship (USS Raven) over three years is hilariously out of date.

 

[dinzy]

I was under the impression that ST:P is a full series.

The PADDs are ridiculous and need to go. I struggle with the communicators in DSC. Even if it required some massively complex antenna array to reach through the atmosphere, I am sure they could have shrunken it down to the size of the TNG communicators between ENT and DSC. Setting TNG so far ahead of TOS was a mistake in the sense that it got technology change so wrong. I can hardly recognize what's left from 1986 today apart from the people and structures. Technology can do a lot in a few decades. You can assume some progression for all critical technologies similar to Moore's Law. The tech will get 2x better in some way every y-years or any % better on any key parameter. If y is 5 the tech will have gotten 2^5th better by 25 years. If y is 25 then it is 2x as good. If they wanted to have fun with it they could figure out y for several current techs then try to map their sci fi tech to those. So communicators map to radar/comms systems and the better is size, or rather size required to transmit a TB.

One question that would be interesting to explore is "What would drive technology development outside of Starfleet (defense) and Medial advancement?" Would it also come from the Ferengi and other consumer/capitalist species? Technology development is extremely expensive in terms of whatever resource you consider is the only way to "fund" it through large organizations like the federation?

 

[Tenacity]

"What would drive technology development outside of Starfleet (defense) and Medial advancement?"

Well, look at what drives our societies tech forward today. Military (which you mention), competition, commerce/commercialism, money, and business.

According to some fans most of these things don't exist within the Federation (silly idea I know).

So what would drive the Federation, Federation member worlds, and individuals to create better than what currently exists? A few might putter around out of intellectual curiosity and just the fun of it, but in a money-less culture the never ending drive to advance (success and avarice) for an entire society would be missing.

Problem with figuring this out is we see relatively little of the Federation outside of Starfleet. It is possible that for the most part they're simply not advancing (or little) outside of military tech.

In the near century between TOS and TNG what came out of no where? Replicators would seem to be about it.

They've achieved a comfortable society, why push?

 

[Kor]

Yes, the tech should be radically altered. Futurists conjecture that deep space travel would not be done with crewed ships at all, as is often depicted in popular sci-fi, but instead via "mind uploading" to automated probes. So Starfleet should decommission all their ships and do this instead. That should be the future of Star Trek.

Kor

 

[Wulff359]

It is going to be hard to have a 300 years prediction of the technology in the future AND keep it recognizable and enjoyable for us viewers as well. Example: various military organisations are working on a brain/computer interface so pilots can “think” their commands into the plane. In a Federeation Starship, at the con or the ops officers would sit in the chair, thinking their commands. Also, in 300 years I also expect pictures and display feedback to be broadcast directly into the visual cortex of the brain. So in a show technologically halfway true to technological developments basically there are a bunch of people, sitting in chairs on the bridge, their brains being logged in and connected virtually over the ships intranet doing what they do only online. There is no physical (inter-)action anymore. That would be a pretty boring show.


The producers might want to take a look at Ghost in the Shell (NOT the Hollywood movie ). First/Second Gig showed some pretty good concepts of how the real world can be connected to the cyber reality. Stories could happen on both planes. But who knows, maybe they will surprise us. NuGalactica had also a convincing explanation why they were “retro” with their computers. If the Borg find a way to infiltrate the Federation Computertechnology and they will have to fall back to the old Duotronic systems of the Kirk era, they might even have the Connies as main ship class again.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I want to see Roddenberry's Nudist Paradise humans sitting in a lush forest on Earth, flying a hi-tech starship through the cosmos remotely with their iPads and transwarp beaming to anything they find interesting.

 

[.:: TSN ::.]

For example, the use of PADDs in the 24th century shows frankly looks ridiculous to modern audiences. Where today you can fit thousands of books onto a chip as small as a fingernail, needing a crate of PADDs just to read the complete logs of a single 3-person starship (USS Raven) over three years is hilariously out of date.

What exactly is wrong with a PADD? Is it just the multiple pads issue? Because I think that even in the distant future you need some portable device for displaying data. I guess another option is for everyone to wear "google glasses" and view holographic papers.

 

[SG-17]

What exactly is wrong with a PADD? Is it just the multiple pads issue? Because I think that even in the distant future you need some portable device for displaying data. I guess another option is for everyone to wear "google glasses" and view holographic papers.

Yes and that its a 1980s look at the future for tech. The PADDs on Enterprise look more advanced than the PADDs in the 24th century shows. They looks very reminiscent of early PDAs, I just think they, along with a lot of the "80s look into the future" style tech be upgraded. A lot has changed between 1987 and today, a lot more than many expected.

 

[Tuskin38]

For example, the use of PADDs in the 24th century shows frankly looks ridiculous to modern audiences. Where today you can fit thousands of books onto a chip as small as a fingernail, needing a crate of PADDs just to read the complete logs of a single 3-person starship (USS Raven) over three years is hilariously out of date.

I think that was just to show they were looking at a lot of data.

Like you'd show a researcher having a stack of books. It was meant to convey that they were reading a lot of information without putting that fact in the dialogue.

 

[Tenacity]

What exactly is wrong with a PADD?

Well, one thing "wrong" was that for it's size it didn't have a particularly big screen, and there's no evidence that I can recall of them using the screen as a touch screen. Below the screen there were some buttons, but not many.

Now if the face of the padd was half screen and half buttons (like a blackberry) that would make sense, but it wasn't.

 

[Major Tom]

To make it relevant today they more or less have to update the tech. They don't think they'll get a big enough audience just with old Trekkies otherwise. They want a new audience, but will do just enough to pull in some of the old fans.

 

[Lord Garth]

They updated Discovery's technology to acknowledge Today. The Picard Series should do the same.

In-Universe, I think the tech jump from Nemesis to the Picard Series should represent 20 years' worth of advancement. So it shouldn't be any more radical than 20 years of difference normally would be. For some really mind-bending advancements, way beyond anything possible on TNG/DS9/VOY or even thought of, they should jump a lot further ahead.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They updated Discovery's technology to acknowledge Today. The Picard Series should do the same.

In-Universe, I think the tech jump from Nemesis to the Picard Series should represent 20 years' worth of advancement. So it shouldn't be any more radical than 20 years of difference normally would be. For some really mind-bending advancements, way beyond anything possible on TNG/DS9/VOY or even thought of, they should jump a lot further ahead.

Discovery has retconned all of TNG's technology into the pre-TOS era. That's a century worth of advancement which, according to 2018 Trek, never happened. They always had it all along , we just never saw it. So what's 20 years in a stagnant universe?

 

[Lord Garth]

Discovery has retconned all of TNG's technology into the pre-TOS era. That's a century worth of advancement which, according to 2018 Trek, never happened. They always had it all along , we just never saw it. So what's 20 years in a stagnant universe?

It was stagnant in the '80s too. The jump from The Voyage Home to "Encounter at Farpoint" is not 80 years' worth of advancement.

We just have to accept the 24th Century was a stagnant Dark Age. Fine with me. It was never my favorite Star Trek century to begin with.

 

[uniderth]

What I haven't seen mentioned yet is the misconception that Star Fleet tech is an accurate depiction of civilian tech. Star Fleet Tech has got to be build for multi-species compatibility, it has to be more rugged than civilian tech, and probably has greater capacity than civilian tech. On excellent example is the Kirk era communicator. People always say it's less advanced than a modern cellphone. Can a cellphone communicate instantaneously across lightyears without any infrastructure? I loose signal if I drive inside a tunnel. Sure our cellphones look sleek and cool. But a Star Fleet communicator doesn't need to allow the user to play Angry Targs, or browse Federationgram.

I think it's interesting that PADDs don't have touch screens while the ships controls DO. So it's not that touch screen technology doesn't exist in the 24th century. But for some reason it wasn't implemented on PAD Devices.

 

[STEPhon IT]

So lets say Picard is successful and it motivates CBS to greenlight a new full series set after Nemesis/2009 flashbacks but not so far that they couldn't use cameos for publicity (for example the first decade of the 2400s). Should the tech be radically updated to match modern developments? Should it be updated in Picard as well? What would the canon implications be of such comparatively massive leaps in such a short time frame of ~20-25 years?

For example, the use of PADDs in the 24th century shows frankly looks ridiculous to modern audiences. Where today you can fit thousands of books onto a chip as small as a fingernail, needing a crate of PADDs just to read the complete logs of a single 3-person starship (USS Raven) over three years is hilariously out of date.

The production design should be modernized appropriately for Star Trek. Too many of the dummies in Hollywood are so intent on putting their personal stamp on the tech of Trek because of what's in - in our times than thinking is it acceptable to the Star Trek world? PADD maybe odd for some but it was an extension to the electronic clipboard from TOS, and I thought was appropriate because it was the next generation of tools, as a matter of fact all of the equipment were modernized from the original source material. What I have a problem with is when these comedic producers sub-plant all these catchy fan-dump words like Prime Universe to force their generic contributions of the property while slyly re-inventing it more in the image of Star Wars. Make prequels where the paraphernalia doesn't honor what was done before and purposely gives the illusion what they're doing is better than what was done in 1966.

The fans who loves this sh*t needs to understand Star Trek is not our realistic future but a fantasy one; and it's best laid out from imagination and not from what Apple or Xerox or whatever Japan is doing now days. Writers should have some inspiration but it should always be in mind to honor those who got Star Trek started and not sh*t all over their hard work created so long ago.

The Picard series should honor it's origins appropriately.

 

[The Old Mixer]

If they were to make one upgrade to Trek tech to reflect changes in real world tech, I'd say they should put the communicator, tricorder, and PADD functions in the same communicator-sized device.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

If anything, PADDs should have an epaper-like screen, not a glossy one.

 

[Butters]

They should go whole hog if they’re going forward and give us a scenario where all the tech we’ve ever seen is put to it’s inevitable pragmatic purpose.

The challenge to the writers is having characters remain relevant, and drama that is plausible, with the technology to solve any problem is available at the touch of a button.

Need to hide a ship in star’s atmosphere? There’s an app for that.

Need to transport to several light years? There’s an app for that.

One of the most dissatisfying aspects of later Trek for me was the ‘why don’t they just...it worked last week’ factor. They need to come up with problems that can’t be resolved with any kind of technology, because the reasons for not using that tech from the start can only be irritatingly contrived.

Fall of the federation stories and prequels are appealing because they strip away the massive technology leaps and allow the more hands on human stories that can’t be done when everyone has a personal shield and teleporter built in to their cuff links.

 

[Tenacity]

Could go with a theme on the show to de-emphasize technology and the place it holds in the day to day live of people in the future, I mean the tech would be there, but the show wouldn't focus on it, and the characters wouldn't obsess over it.

No scene of a Data like character working at a computer station acquiring information so that they could then recite the info to another person, that would happen off screen and we (the audience) just hear the person to person exposition.

A character might pull out a information device, but they would only briefly glance at it and immediately put it away. They wouldn't be seen "playing" with it, or gazing lovingly into the screen for a protracted time period.

No close ups of characters running their fingers over a control panel, not that no controls would ever be touched, just it would never be a featured camera shot.