The Trouble With Time Travel, Tech-wise

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Unlike the advanced and vastly different look of tech from 2286 (as opposed to 1986), any alternate reality set time travel to our year (2016) won't be as jarring from an aesthetic standpoint. We too have touchscreen computers.

I know that culturally (arts, music, fashion, etc) and in terms of what tech can do (warp drive starships vs NASA shuttles and the like), there will be a wide gulf to traverse, especially for aliens unfamiliar with Human history. But the look and feel will need to be differentiated somehow, or else, from a visual standpoint, they'll feel quite at home.

(Incidentally, my theory for why Trek tech always mirrors the aesthetic of the era the show/film was made in is that there was a revival of the style. That and clunky tech is military grade; harder to lose/break.)

 

[Kor]

Is this in regard to a particular Trek story?

Kor

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The alternate reality - more specifically the upcoming 4th reboot film if it is a time travel one a la Voyage Home.

But this thread is specifically about tech - thoughts on how things looked, as opposed to worked.

 

[Mytran]

How things look doesn't always represent what's really there under the surface.
The coloured blobs and switches on the TOS-E may have been a conscious stylistic choice in the mid 23rd century, combined with stuff we never actually saw (like all those black shiny surfaces actually being information displays, for instance)

 

[F. King Daniel]

Compare Earth as depicted in Into Darkness (ground cars, flying cars, hovercraft, arcologies, massive skyscrapers, multilayered streets, interstellar phone calls) and Yorktown in Beyond (flying cars, transporter booths, insane gravity etc) with Earth today.

That said, the new crew are a lot more street wise than their predecessors, so I doubt a "fish out of water" situation would work as well as STIV (except for Spock or any of the other alien crew, of course)

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Unlike the advanced and vastly different look of tech from 2286 (as opposed to 1986), any alternate reality set time travel to our year (2016) won't be as jarring from an aesthetic standpoint. We too have touchscreen computers.

The time travel of "Voyage Home" and "City on the Edge of Forever" were jarring for reasons that had little to do with the technology. Significantly, they were cut off from THEIR technology, THEIR culture. They were seeing an alien world they were having trouble dealing with and it was amusing for audiences because that alien world was OURS.

You want jarring? Have Kirk get stopped by a jittery police officer who looses his shit and opens fire on him because he tries to reach for his communicator. Or, alternately, have Scotty and Keenser wind up stumbling into a crowd of people who all shoot puzzled looks at Keenser for a few tense moments until one of them casually points and says "Um... Comic con is that way."

I know that culturally (arts, music, fashion, etc) and in terms of what tech can do (warp drive starships vs NASA shuttles and the like), there will be a wide gulf to traverse, especially for aliens unfamiliar with Human history. But the look and feel will need to be differentiated somehow, or else, from a visual standpoint, they'll feel quite at home.

From a purely visual standpoint, the best way to differentiate would be to have them visit the ghetto. Deep Space Nine did this with the "Sanctuary Districts" where everything was still relatively contemporary but the SOCIAL component was drastically different and there were mobs of homeless people laying in the street.

A major thing to consider is the fact that 23rd century San Francisco is going to have a lot of the same landmarks it did in the 21st. Even some of the Star Trek novels play with the idea that the SF Skyline still has some familiar features (the Transamerica Pyramid, for example).

The reverse case also bears considering: anyone with a basic understanding of what "technology" is and how it works probably won't be too blown away by what they see on the Enterprise, at least not to the extent that someone who grew up in, say, rural Cuba wouldn't be surprised by an Xbox and an HDTV. The reaction is "Wow, you guys have some kickass technology here!"

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Who says it even has to be America they wind up in?

LOL anyone who does a Gillian Taylor and sees the Enterprise will be like, "Cool, but mine's better."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Who says it even has to be America they wind up in?

Anyone who wants that kind of film to be a domestic success?

Actually, IMO, it would make a lot more sense at this point for them to do a time travel adventure into their own far future. Have the Enterprise travel to the 26th century where the Federation has transmogrified into some kind of evil empire and ruling half the galaxy with an oppressive iron fist. The whole mission is to figure out what went wrong and what triggered the slide into despotism and them go back to the 23rd century and set it right (e.g. a certain councilman gets assassinated the day after Enterprise disappears and this causes a chain reaction that leads to an ultra-hawkish Section 31 plant to become president of the Federation and leads to a series of wars that turns Starfleet into a galactic death squad, etc).

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Anyone who wants that kind of film to be a domestic success?.

Well, they could go to more than one continent.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Well, they could go to more than one continent.

Any place they go that would appeal to moviegoers in international box office numbers is going to have much the same problem. Worse, actually, in parts of Europe where some cities are HUNDREDS of years old and two hundred years in the future seems like "Summer after next, plus or minus some weeks"

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I suppose so. LOL would love to see them wind up in the apple store or some such place, maybe a latest tech convention and have them laughing at the specs and capabilities of the stuff.