Game "Star Trek Invented It First!" – Wrong Answers Only

[Just a Bill]

Game has concluded; thanks everyone for playing!

We're all familiar with how the classic series invented/inspired/anticipated/influenced many future developments such as flip phones, 3.5" floppy disks, tabletop flat-screen TVs, and so on. None of that belongs here. This thread is for joke answers, retcons, and intentionally foolish interpretations about future predictions in TOS, TAS, and the original-crew feature films.

The challenge of this game is to look for something that actually suggests a future coincidence/connection. A dumb one, for sure, but one where we can at least see the basis for it. Guidelines to shoot for:

• Base it on something legitimate in classic Trek, but that's just a coincidence, ridiculous exaggeration, etc.
• Find a visual reference (or reconstruct one, as I do below).
• Pithy is good. A picture that tells the story by itself is great.
• Don't just photoshop future stuff into a screencap, or write an arbitrary backstory for some trivial background object. This isn't a creative writing assignment, it's a creative finding assignment.
• Keep it tasteful.

Here's my own nonsense to kick things off. I stumbled onto this pattern while building a model of the set in a CAD program; that's the real Journey to Babel set plan, and the sequence of door colors is legitimate.

https://i.imgur.com/k0rXdWJ.jpeg

 

[Maurice]

Except Star Trek didn't inspire flip phones, 3.5" floppy disks, or tabletop flat-screen TVs. Those are just the sorts of coincidences you're asking for. That said, I'll play along.

• Star Trek's shuttlecraft inspired the butter dish
• Despite theories to the contrary, the Keebler Elves didn't inspire Mr. Spock's pointed ears, but Spock did inspire the elves' pointed ears. The tagline "Keebler cookies are only logical" was nixed due to a threatened lawsuit

 

[Just a Bill]

Except Star Trek didn't inspire flip phones, 3.5" floppy disks, or tabletop flat-screen TVs. Those are just the sorts of coincidences you're asking for.

That's why I wrote "invented/inspired/anticipated/influenced" in an attempt to be general and not make Trek clairvoyant or overstate its influence. (Although I would argue that Flint's flatpanel monitor is absolutely a literal case of Star Trek anticipating future technology as surely as da Vinci anticipated helicopters and tanks.) If there is a better group description for the "legitimate" observations of Trek tech becoming future reality, I'm happy to use it.

And just for clarification, the examples I gave really aren't the sort of coincidences I'm asking for. A fictional personal handheld wireless communication device with a flip lid that predates a literal personal handheld wireless communication device with a flip lid evokes a reasonable, casual observation that "hey, Trek predicted that." But four doors that, from a certain angle, just happen to correspond to the colors in a corporate logo is very different. It's interesting, but claiming it's a Trek-did-it-first situation is a "wrong answer." That's what I'm looking for: the ones where we go "hey, that's a bit surprising" but it's not remotely predictive.

I'm defining communicators and record tapes and Flint's monitor as "right answers" for the purpose of the challenge, because endless examples like electronic clipboard = Kindle and universal translator = Google Translate, while they might make for a great thread on that topic, are not the purpose of this thread.

 

[Maurice]

Now I'm just confused.

 

[Shawnster]

Now I'm just confused.

Sounds like "have you ever seen something that reminds you of Star Trek? If so, post here and boldly claim Star Trek actually inspired it."

My work station at the newspaper in the late 99s. Since I was overnight shift I had 4 entire computers in a horseshoe arrangement. I could sit and swivel the chair to work at any of the 4 terminals. No doubt the arrangement was inspired by bridge consol stations.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

A fictional personal handheld wireless communication device with a flip lid that predates a literal personal handheld wireless communication device with a flip lid evokes a reasonable, casual observation that "hey, Trek predicted that."

There was a proposed flip phone device which predates the fictional one. That’s what Maurice is pointing out.

I highly recommend the article about it on his blog.

 

[Maurice]

Annnnnyway, I reread the original post, and I forgot it included "anticipated".

 

[Phaser Two]

Why the odd snark? I think it's a cool topic.

 

[Shawnster]

TNG "The Game" predicted the 21st century obsession of the dopamine rush people get from social media likes and clicks and shares. People played the game with just as much focus as people give today to their cellphones while they post online, text, check social media, or play games.

 

[Just a Bill]

TOS references only, please.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

computer which responds to voice commands = Alexa/Siri

 

[Shawnster]

Large screen TVs

 

[Just a Bill]

And that concludes our little experiment. Thanks everyone for playing. I did such a poor job of explaining that almost nobody understood it, but nevertheless everybody wins! I'll try harder next time.