What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

Wasn’t that going to be the original plot of the DS9 anniversary episode the became Trials and Tribbleations? I could swear I read that before.

 

Yep. It was one of many ideas pitched.

 

You know, that could still be a 60th anniversary episode. And with so many shows on now, any of them can do it... including any future shows.

 

It does feel like more of a Lower Decks type plot though.

 

And it's the best suited show to do it, given it's a little over a century since Kirk visited the planet.

 

Something tells me if Lower Decks does do anything with Sigma Iotia it'll likely just be a brief scene in one episode. Similar to the bit with Landru in the season 1 finale.

 

Maybe to negotiate out the Federation's 'cut'...

 

"Dr. T'Ana got to use her Bonnie and Clyde experience on the holodeck."

"What??"

"I'll explain later."

 

I'd agree with you in the real world (as much as the real world can handle these sorts of things) but it was established in Future's End that 1970's Earth tech could reverse engineer 29th century tech so somewhere with 1940s tech would reasonably be expected to be able to get something out of a communicator from 200 years in the future I would think

 

I was going to mention Miles, but, technically, he did first appear on TNG.

 

I agree, and the episode even crossed my mind when I wrote the post you're replying to.

The irony is that Starling would have needed to be a transcendent genius to even only roughly understand /reverse engineer the basic principles of 29th century technology (even the shuttle came complete with accessible documentation), and that if he were a genius of that magnitude, he probably wouldn't have really needed 29th century technology to make significant breakthroughs himself and build him that business empire he did.

 

I don't think I agree with this assessment, for three reasons.

1. This future tech depends upon the results of experiments that are unknown to present-day researchers. The results of these experiments are not a priori knowable, no matter how smart you are.

2. The tech includes in its components chemical elements and other physical materials that do not exist on present-day Earth (e.g., dilithium).

3. The development of the future tech depends upon billions, possibly even trillions or more man-years of research and development. That represents an enormous of decisions. Even a super-genius is not billions or trillions times more intelligent than the people who developed the tech. So, they would get more than a leg up from having the tech to base new research upon.

 

Ah, perhaps I should have made myself more clear. I simply meant that someone, intelligent enough to reverse-engineer (even if only very rudimentary) technologies centuries beyond your own, and understand (some of) the basic principles these technologies operate on and derive your own product lines on it, based on materials that are available to you, etc. , would presumably be intelligent enough to achieve his own breakthroughs without that example tech as well - not that they could achieve the same breakthroughs. Not quite as large perhaps, but still enough to get filthily rich and build your own business empire/ monopoly around them.

 

Only thing I can think of to square the circle is that he managed to access the computer (which based on other series has no security features at all unless explicitly set up) and literally asked the computer for schematics or something and took those to be developed as the circuit board and microchip stuff could presumably be manufactured without clear understanding.

Sell partial rights to someone who was working on developing computer tech at the time who might then have a better idea on how to integrate them and do lots of small incremental jumps in tech using the ships computer as the key resource to "teach" him how each thing worked.

Still not exactly plausible but we've all suspended our disbelief for more egregious things in Trek

 

Yeah, luck is also always a factor in success.

 

Hahaha. That sounds like a great idea.
Maybe the Iotians would ask for a piece if the a tin after all.

 

*action

 

I have another controversial opinion:
I liked Star Trek V.
Not because of the plot, but because of all the small interactions between the crew.
Like when Kirk first beams up from rock climbing

KIRK: "I could use a shower."
SPOCK:"Yes."

That is something you could only say to a close friend.

 

I would agree that STAR TREK V got all the character beats perfectly. On that basis alone, it becomes one of the better movies of the entire bunch.