Trek Portrayals Of Futuristic War Is Unrealistic

[BillJ]

Remember how hesitant Picard was to turn navigation over to the computer? That never made sense to me. I bet we have better automatic navigation technology now.

It seemed like Data should have been the one flying the ship.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Realistic war would be boring as hell for the viewers. That's all she wrote.

 

[velour]

The concept of AI was never adequately explained in Star Trek. On the one hand we have Data who is this super advanced android AI and seems to be unique in Star Trek yet we have holograms gaining sentience every other episode. AI would have been much further along in any of the Star Trek eras and should have been more prominently explored. Even without android's there should have been a lot more robots doing the mundane day to day and/or dangerous tasks.

My "In head canon" is there is some moral opposition to AI and robots in the Star Trek universe that keeps people from using them often. Kind of like genetic modification. Maybe there was some sort of AI war in the past like in the Dune universe.

Maybe the experience of the M5 fiasco ("The Ultimate Computer") soured Starfleet's attitude about AI.

 

[PrestigeWorldwide]

Sisko in Sacrifice of Angels finds he has no choice but to try to punch through the Dominion lines. It's space, it's three-dimension and your ship has a cloaking device. Have you tried just going around the enemy fleet? If the goal was to get just one ship to DS9 to stop them from detonating the minefield, at least the Defiant could have done that. Or, for that matter, the freaking Klingons.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I am SHOCKED, SHOCKED there is unrealism in Star Trek!

 

[Kor]

Of course space warfare wouldn't be done the way in which it's depicted in Trek (and other sci-fi).

The whole idea of manned exploration of deep space is daft and outmoded in the first place. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth_of_the_starship.html

But pure technical realism isn't the point of Star Trek. The point is to have an entertaining experience that hopefully makes you think a little about humanity along the way. The point is also to make a bunch of money for the producers and the network, and turning Trek into a documentary on futurism just wouldn't have the same broad appeal as the light space opera approach.

Kor

 

[Maurice]

...But lets imagine they got to Earth and beamed down, say, 10000 drones. How long would it take them to assimilate Earth with those troop numbers given the methods we saw in this episode and later in ST:FC? Clue: it's a long ass time..

If each drone could only assimilate 1 person per day, and each new drone could likewise assimilate 1 person per day, you're at 20 billion assimilations in 3 weeks. The math is easy.

 

[ralfy]

It's a notable point that applies to many shows, i.e., using drones and androids, if not just robots, for dangerous tasks.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

But lets imagine they got to Earth and beamed down, say, 10000 drones. How long would it take them to assimilate Earth with those troop numbers given the methods we saw in this episode and later in ST:FC? Clue: it's a long ass time.

In real life, an adversary like the Borg could overwhelm the Earth with exponential-growth assimilation in a short time. An initial beachhead of ten thousand drones would be overkill. But, post "Q Who," when Q wasn't around to save them, the overriding factor being not to create a no-win scenario for the heroes, the writers had to gimp the Borg in some way.

ninja'd by @Maurice. (Such is the fate of a browser tab left open overnight.)

 

[Tesophius]

There is an episode on VOY called "Prototype". It was learned that the Cravics and Pralors each developed AI soldiers and ships to fight so that they would not have to risk their own lives in battle.

But aside from this one obscure episode, all of the major fighting done in Trek is by manned spaceship fighting in person. And upon further thinking, it just doesn't make sense. Why are people risking their lives to fight in person, let AIs fight it out!

IMHO, by the time of Trek, especially TNG era, AI is very advanced. It must have occurred to someone, "Hey let's send AIs to fight while we stay safely far away."

I mean IRL of today, we are building drones, autonomous vehicles, etc. There will be a time IRL that all nations use drones and AI ships, AI planes, AI soldiers to fight.

So the in-person fighting of most Trek episodes is wrong and only VOY "Prototype" episode got it right.

Opinions?

I fully agree, that's why I hate wars in StarTrek.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Maybe the experience of the M5 fiasco ("The Ultimate Computer") soured Starfleet's attitude about AI.

Can't say I blame them.