With incomprehensible technology? Star Trek had very little of that.
The cardassian union in discovery?
- Thread starter rhllot
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With incomprehensible technology? Star Trek had very little of that.
Aliens such as Thasians and Sheliaks, many others, that are only vaguely hinted at as to the source of their capabilities are most intriguing.
Exactly. Every "sentient" (For lack of a better word.) creature Star Trek has ever presented is still rooted in some kind of human-like construct. And their space magic is just a more powerful version of human space magic.
There's never been anything presented that's truly alien in all facets, at least not to the magnitude or detail presented in classic works of "hard skiffy," because such things are well beyond the scope of the franchise. And they're generally not compelling or relatable enough for a TV/movie-going audience.
Probably the single most alien life form ever shown in Trek was he TVH probe, and that thing's whole reason for being was to chew the fat with other Earth-born mammals.
TVH probe, and the Horta.
Think of the excitement that an entity even such as Vger generates, as opposed to dealing with just Klingons/Romulans. The latter is, at best, an exercise in Freudian psychoanalysis. Don't get me wrong, I like Klingons, but in a way of total detachment from reality, not from a Sci-Fi perspective.
How is V'ger--in any way--"alien?"
It was built right here in 'Murica!
It was built right here in 'Murica!
The Horta may have been alien in the sense that it wasn't humanoid, but it was not 'incomprehensible' - it was firmly rooted in the natural sciences - documentaries going back to the 50s have speculated on how life might develop in a non-Carbon biochemistry, using say Silicone.
Never in Star Trek has anything been explained as actual magic - everything - I mean everything - has been presented as a product of the natural world, even if it was pure imagination, it was never meant to be magic at any point.
That is, after all, the very point of Star Trek - there are no sky deities to appeal to - we are the sole cause of our own flourishing or demise.
That, for me, means that there is nothing "incomprehensible" in Star Trek. Incomprehensible means cannot be comprehended. It clearly can, because somebody did it, and given time, Federation science will comprehend it, because nothing in the natural world is beyond investigation forever.
Never in Star Trek has anything been explained as actual magic - everything - I mean everything - has been presented as a product of the natural world, even if it was pure imagination, it was never meant to be magic at any point.
That is, after all, the very point of Star Trek - there are no sky deities to appeal to - we are the sole cause of our own flourishing or demise.
That, for me, means that there is nothing "incomprehensible" in Star Trek. Incomprehensible means cannot be comprehended. It clearly can, because somebody did it, and given time, Federation science will comprehend it, because nothing in the natural world is beyond investigation forever.
I'd rather not spoil the movie for you, but there's more to it than what was built in America.
I never implied that I want to see magic, on the contrary. By incomprehensible, I mean technology so advanced that the characters are unable to explain their true properties - for now, such as the Talosian power to create simulations or the Zetar's existence in a state of concentrated photons.
We can guess at the Talosian's source of power - it might be manipulation of a target's brain directly over relativistic distances via radiation or quantum entanglement, or something else. Any Starfleet officer would be thinking along similar lines, even if it's currently beyond their ability to dissect.
The incomprehensible on the other hand has no viable explanation - it relies on a metaphysics at odds with reality - and it also often lacks any social context. Occasional perplexing advancement is fine, but I don't want people just busting out some mythology-addled graphic designer's sketches of what they think is wacky or cool, with no thought to it's purpose or practical reason for existing. And that, in a nutshell, is why I prefer to mostly see, in alien cultures at a similar level of development to us, practical reasons and purposes for things - because Star Trek is not Diablo III.
The incomprehensible on the other hand has no viable explanation - it relies on a metaphysics at odds with reality - and it also often lacks any social context. Occasional perplexing advancement is fine, but I don't want people just busting out some mythology-addled graphic designer's sketches of what they think is wacky or cool, with no thought to it's purpose or practical reason for existing. And that, in a nutshell, is why I prefer to mostly see, in alien cultures at a similar level of development to us, practical reasons and purposes for things - because Star Trek is not Diablo III.
THis is the kind of stuff I hope we never see in Star Trek, things designed just for the purpose of looking cool, but which actually look infantile rather than alien - graphics designers who are mixed up about what is fantasy and what is science fiction allowing their ideas from Norse mythology or Christian demonology to seep into a work that is meant to be completely secular - the fantasy creep. We see this in games all the time, where something relatively hard sci-fi will be created, and then another team moves in and says "yo, wouldnt it be cool, if like, everything glowed and had millions of spikes, like a demon!!!!!".
Just look at Star Trek Online, and how Klingon demons have been introduced...
In fact, check out this article's headline, for the return of the Iconians in that awful game:
Says it all really.
Says it all really.
Again, not advocating for Diablo III or even Diablo II. I have zero interest in fantasy, mythology, dragons, metaphysics, divninities and whatever else you're arguing against.
However, in light of the that we know that due to the law of accelerating returns, sometimes referred to as Moore's Law but in reference to a more specific paradigm, as far as it applies to information technologies, is exponential. And as more industries in our own time are becoming intertwined with IT, such as genetics and medicine in a more broad sense, any advanced civilization, using us a baseline for the acceleration of development, would be vastly more advanced even if it was just 50 years ago of us.
Studying the physical properties of our galaxy, we know that it is 13.7 billions years old, with about 400 billion stars. Our own sun is about 4.6 billion years ago and hasn't changed (in terms of its impact on its habitable zone) in about 4 billion years. Millions of G-type main-sequence stars in the galaxy are hundreds of millions of years old than our sun, while the majority of Red Dwarfs are older (and obviously will continue to exist for trillions of years) - in light of this, it is statistically improbable that most aliens that we will encounter are going to be within decades of our level of development. It is more likely that they'll be a ~ million years ahead or behind us. A million years behind us is a wild primate, a million years ahead is something largely incomprehensible at this point, something well beyond the powers of Q. However, Star Trek could try, and sometimes it does, depicts civilizations that are a hundred or more years ahead of us, with technology beyond the scope of immediate analysis. It could also be intriguing the follow the progress of humans in trying to understand this technological gap using some clever technobabble rooted in plausible hypothetical studies.
Personally, I explain the predominance of human-like aliens for myself by arguing that other aliens would just choose not to be in contact with us and staying hidden from our sensors does not pose a serious problem to them. But, it would certainly be interesting to see at least a few of such interactions in the new show. In reality, I doubt that this is the reason why human-like aliens appear in high frequencies, it's probably just a) easier to dress up human actors b) easier to write stories that are rooted on thousands of years of literary traditions rather than venturing beyond it. Conflicts with the Romulans and Klingons are still rooted in a literary tradition that emerged in Sumer with Gilgamesh. More realistic aliens would require writers to think beyond our collective past.
Well, it's about a device that was literally constructed by humans which a stand-in or analog for a human construct. Its purpose for existence was to become human.
Look at the projection of Ilia during Spock's walkabout. It had that big red plasma orb right where her vocal chords were supposed to be. In other words, it was projecting itself in the form of the bald Indian woman (See: human.) to be its voice. It then bonded with Wil.I.Am.NotRiker, in what was a clear representation of how humans reproduce, to create a new life form that was supposed to be representative of human potential and possibility.
Then there's Spock's subplot. It's all about him rejecting his Vulcan culture/philosophy/whatever and embracing his human brother.
Hell, the last line of the film is onscreen text that includes the word "human."
I don't think you could have picked a worse example, as it so perfectly proves my earlier point.
Erm... That's the definition of magic. Whether or not it may be explained away in the future is irrelevant. If something is perceived as a power beyond the known laws of nature, then it's magic to the perceiver.
@Tesophius - That's all fine, and we will no doubt see occasional super-beings in an episodic fashion. But Star Trek is also about exploring cultures at a similar level of development to us, and they are often fascinating to behold. They also will tend toward similar patterns simply because of the commonality of all genetic machines, and the parallels between cultures that develop in a competitive environment - I hope people recognize the value of this side of Star Trek, as well as more alien forms of life.
There is value in it, in fact, some of my favorite episodes are away missions into pre-warp civilizations. However, statistically, us encountering civilizations that close to our level of development is the least likely scenario. Especially as it relates to civilizations, all the primary aliens, that are at exactly the same level of development. It doesn't make much sense, other than creating room for easy/lazy writing of retelling the same stories from the past in a new setting.
But this isn't a hard reboot, so you have to accept that as part of the setting. I would welcome a more hard-sci-fi Star Trek one day, with technology or attention to the Drake Equation, along the lines of Revelation Space or Rendezvous with Rama or Altered Carbon - but this seems to be a soft reboot at most.
Also there is an in-universe explanation for why so many species are at a similar level of development - it's because warp drive has connected the galaxy and technology is openly shared and traded, leading to an abundance of species at similar levels of technology, many of who even use the same freighter designs. Aliens such as the T'kon that arose long ago, or even more extreme, like the Q, are remnants from what archeologists might call a "different material stratum".
Also there is an in-universe explanation for why so many species are at a similar level of development - it's because warp drive has connected the galaxy and technology is openly shared and traded, leading to an abundance of species at similar levels of technology, many of who even use the same freighter designs. Aliens such as the T'kon that arose long ago, or even more extreme, like the Q, are remnants from what archeologists might call a "different material stratum".
Rendezvous with Rama is actually my favorite Sci Fi novel of all time. I've never read Revelation Space, I'll check it out. I highly doubt that something better than STAR TREK is going to be made anytime soon though, which is why it's important for Trek to strive for improvement. Everything else out there is just preposterously illogical.
The only thing "incomprehensible" in Star Trek is how Garrett Wang AND Robert Beltran managed to stick around for 7 WHOLE seasons.
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