What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

All he's got left is his career and his beautiful sickbay and his friends and his bones.

 

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I agree that 30 Ly's is pretty much nothing even for 24th century Warp drive, however, considering the fact no one corrected the president on that estimate, it stands to reason its (mostly) accurate. Most people in the 32nd century (politicians included) would probably have basic understanding of Warp drive and distances involved - and regardless of how twisted politicians behave today, remember that in Trek, they don't... or at least wouldn't... and they wouldn't say something as blatantly wrong as that in the presence of other SF officers.
Plus, even though she wasn't SF, she did serve aboard a transport... so she would have an understanding of Warp drive, etc... and given how 'in your nose' she tended to be, I'm guessing she familiarized herself well with Discovery and its overall capabilities.

When we also contrast this with the premise that in S3 it was mentioned the Thikov was 5 months away, it gives you a pretty good indication that Warp drive hasn't advanced in terms of speeds much or at all (which of course is ludicrous in itself, but this is a show that didn't bother advancing anything substantial in 800 years and left things largely as they are, so the premise that Warp drive hadn't advanced isn't far away from the realm of possibility).

VOY could cover 15 Ly's in about 2 days at 'high warp'... meaning that Disco would need 4 days to traverse 30 Ly's at those speeds... possibly half as much time... but I am extremely skeptical that Warp drive experienced any substantial increase in speeds when we contrast it to everything else we saw.

 

Not controversial as such but by the time of Voyager didn't they cure cancer?

 

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I thought the comment was not about getting back to the barrier but about getting to HQ - which does resolve much of the issue around how long it could take.

I choose to understand the issue over the speed at which they can travel not having increased substantially being that there is some kind of artificial limiter in place like the way we have speed limits.

Maybe it is due to the ability to navigate or it screws with subspace (wasn't there a TNG ep about that?)

Maybe due to the Spore Drive they were unable to upgrade Disco to fully utilise the 32nd c tech?

Either way, it more or less reconciles things.

 

Spoiler: When you put it that way

 

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There is no real artificial limiter on Warp. It was established in the 24th century that Warp 9.9 = 21 473 times speed of light, and the USS Prometheus (as seen in VOY season 4), was the first SF ship capable of travelling at 9.9 without shaking itself apart (unlike VOY which was only able to maintain 9.75 for 12 hrs - not 9.975).
Ships were also seen travelling at much faster speeds on the warp scale too when pushed by external forces (which btw were studied).

At any rate, yes, the distances involved related largely to getting back to SF HQ and/or Earth... but my point was this is a clear indication that Warp as such hadn't advanced in 800 years, which is ridiculous at best - especially when we take into account all experimentation UFP did in the 24th century and technologies and knowledge they uncovered/received - all of which was swept under the rug for 32nd century [its one of the main reasons I find Disco to be barely watchable in S3 and 4].

At any rate, upgrading Disco fully shouldn't have been an issue. Even replicators and transporters can easily reshape matter on a subatomic level in the 24th century... programmable matter makes things even easier.
Also, Disco's hull underwent changes to accommodate for 32nd century technology, and I wouldn't be surprised if also the superstructure was changed/refreshed to be in line with 32nd century mettalurgy - again, this could also be done in the 24th century with the tech that was available back then.

I will admit there might be underlying design limitations which prevent much faster Warp speeds on Disco (nothing to do with the Spore Drive itself), but to be fair, the Thikov was already mentioned it was 5 months away... so, no real advancement to speak of in the Warp speed department and Disco underwent serious changes in almost every department.

By the 32nd century, maintaining Warp 9.9 at the very least on most ships should be a proverbial breeze [after the Burn], allowing a ship to traverse even 100 000 Ly's in just over 4 and a half years. But no advancement was made whatsoever it seems to it seems like they are limited to 1000 ly's per year at most

 

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Agreed on all of the above so I should rephrase - when I say artificial limiters I mean like the fact that my car can in theory do 130mph but it isn't going to do that for long, either because I run out of fuel or road conditions do not allow it.

So maybe some regions of space/subspace necessitate reduced speeds and it isn't efficient enough to rag it along at max warp all the way as you risk running low on deuterium or something before reaching a refueling spot.

 

Spoiler: DISCO S4 Spoiler

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, I don't trust the words of the UFP President, especially since moments before, we see how fast USS Discovery-A was going to cover a few measily light years before traversing the Galactic Barrier. I manually calculated how fast they were going on average, and the UFP President's #'s don't jive with what we see. Just because she served aboard her dad's Transport doesn't mean she's is absolutely proficient with all the details of the Warp Engine. We don't know the exact details of what role that she served in. And as a politician, it's not her job to know the details of Warp Drive. That's for the crew of the USS Discovery. And given how insignificant her error was to the mission, I'm not surprised that the crew didn't waste their breath on correcting her. It still takes a significant amount of time to get back to SF HQ from where they were near the HyperField. It just isn't the "Decades" long trek. Wasting slightly under 1 year to get back to SF HQ isn't half bad considering how far you would be traveling.

Remember, we've been over this in the DISCOVERY Threads, you were part of it. Let's just agree to disagree. You take the UFP Presidents words seriously; I don't, especially given the speeds we see on screen and can calculate. Her error in speech is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

 

Spoiler: DISCO Season 4

The writers here pulled a VOYAGER on us... one sentence would have fixed a glaring error. Especially being a streaming show, where there is no set time limit on episode length.

It created artificial drama. The episode didn't need it. Personally, I think it brought it down a bit.

 

Sorry if this answer already came up. 443 pages is a lot to go through.

I'm not sure if this is even controversial (or just plain common sense) but ... considering what we know about holograms in Star Trek via Moriarty, the Doctor, Vic Fontaine, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. They clearly can grow a sense of self-awareness and desire to exist beyond being play things for the Starfleet crew. In "Flesh and Blood" - we see that you can even "adjust" the holograms to experience fear and pain.

So when they use holograms in the holodeck for their own amusement - how is it not a moral issue? I find it especially weird with VOY since that is a central arc for The Doctor - growing beyond his programming. Is it ok to harm a hologram if they have not yet "grown"? We are supposed to laugh at Quark's "Vulcan Love Slave" program - but if the Vulcan in that program grew self-aware - is it ok to still continue with a program that essentially erases consent? What about the programs where characters are training and gunning down/slicing holographic enemies? Does the crew need to wait until they are self aware before being bothered by it?

I feel like Trek tries to bake their cake and it too on this subject. Considering what they tell us about the EMH - it seems rather gross that the other Starfleet officers routinely have sex with or kill holograms...

 

And whatever happened to Moriarty by the end of TNG? Surely Voyager coming home could have given him hard light emitters with the technology they had discovered. Did they just dump him somewhere?

 

Yes. He was dropped off in mid-Atlantic and became the captain of the Enterprise.

 

assuming his little self contained universe survived the crash on Verdian 3.

 

I don't think there was that much damage to the saucer most of it seemed external so wonder what would have got salvaged.
Maybe novel writers would do something with Moriarty one day.

 

Yea, I was channel flipping once and came on a western just as DeForest Kelly got shot. "Bang, ugh. [flop]" I could not tell you the name of the film.

 

Yeah, I feel like Star Trek is kind of confusing when it comes to holograms, and it's been like this since season 1 TNG when Dixon Hill's friend wondered what happened to him when the program turned off.

The way I see it, there's:

• Moriarty - A regular hologram (apparently) made sapient by the Enterprise's computer somehow.
• The Doctor - An unusually sophisticated program that evolved to become "as close to a sentient life form as any hologram could hope to be" through continual upgrades and just being left on.
• Vic Fontaine - Designed to be more than a regular hologram, but no one wants to think too hard about if he's a real person.
• Basically every other hologram - Pretty much just the computer doing some role playing.

I wouldn't say that other holograms, like Da Vinci or La Sirena's crew, are alive or conscious in any way, because that would be all kinds of horrifying and wouldn't make sense when you've got stories about the rights of AI happening at the same time.

 

Does make me wonder if the D's computer can make a sentient Moriarty is the D's computer itself capable of attaining sentience? Would a starship have rights if it refused to follow orders?

 

There was a whole episode about this in Discovery S4.

 

With Software based Sentience, it's a FAR harder line to tell if it's "Real Sentience" or the mimicry of "Sentience" via Adaptive AI & various Algorithms designs to mimic Human Personality & Thought process.

That's why I agree with the judgement that they gave the rights of a Artist to the EMH, but didn't fully declare "The Doctor" as being Sentient.

You would really have to decompile and monitor every aspect of "The Doctor" to validate if he's sentient and what makes him unique from a software perspective, compared to a regular EMH. Especially since the fundamental EMH programming was done by Lewis Zimmerman.

 

I completely forgot about that one. That's another good example. So to some degree, they even wonder what is happening in "their world".

But would every hologram reach sentience with the same conditions? If Worf's training program kept running and the warriors in it were allowed to continue to exist - would any of them (or all of them) start to adapt and wonder about more beyond their programming?

You would think in a universe with A.I. rising to sentience - this would cause the Starfleet officers to be a bit wary of using the holodeck. It just seems like if you look at it from the perspective that A.I. can evolve - using the holodeck is very immoral and even our heroes (for a brief moment) engage in horrible, unspeakable acts that would place them in prison if they did it to someone with flesh and blood.

You're probably right that we're supposed to look at it as those examples are just rarities and it is not common amongst other holograms. The rest are really just photons and force fields.

I don't think it's a plot hole per se and I don't think the writers intended the holodeck to be this deep when it comes to morality. I just thought it is weird that it is never really brought up beyond the Hirogen torturing those holograms. It would have been nice if the Doctor came back with a new perspective on using the holodeck and if it really was moral to do so. In fact, this would be a good way to retire the holodeck and spare us from anymore "Oops the holodeck is broken and is now trying to kill us." episodes.

In fact, the whole concept of the holodeck is all over the place on a show like Star Trek. I get that we're just supposed to see it as advanced virtual reality and nothing more, but if you place it next to an "enlightened species" it is an oddity. I guess my "controversial" opinion on the holodeck (in general) is it is an all around incompatible (with being enlightened) and immoral concept with sentient holograms (as a possibility) that you can harm, the horror of larping traumatic wars for fun, and having adult relations with a likeness of a fellow officer that would not give you the time of day in the real world. Just seems really weird the more I think about it...