What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[at Quark's]

Not to rub salt onto the proverbial wound, but TNG DID have better special effects than TOS.
Still, I found TNG better than TOS because of its stories AND SFX.

My 'controversial' opinion of Trek is that the 24th century Federation as seen on TNG, DS9 and VOY should have been portrayed as massively FAR more technologically advanced compared to what we actually saw given that technology and science evolve exponentially, and in a collection of societies like the Federation combining numerous technologically advanced species in cooperation, sharing, no money, etc. would propel science and technology forward to quite literally 'ridiculous' levels (but good ridiculous).

Unless making progress becomes progressively harder when technologies max out and no fundamental new principles are discovered, and we are limited to making refinements. Planes changed a lot more between their invention and the 1950's than they did since then (I think, even though there is still progress). The same might happen to e.g. computers if we hit some fundamental limits.

I'll agree though that this doesn't seem to be the case in the Trek universe, as Our Heroes they regularly encounter New Amazing Tech, only for it to be shelved and rarely or never to be seen again.

True, but sometimes they reach plateaus. Two examples: one, the internal combustion engines of today still work on the same principle as those of the mid 20th century. Two, the 9mm Luger that our troops still use today was invented in 1908.

The basic principles, yes, but aren't the engines we have today significantly more fuel efficient and less polluting than the ones back then? Progress can continue even if not visible.

 

[Oddish]

Yes, but it's still incremental. In Enterprise's third season, Starfleet upgraded from spatial torpedoes to photon ("photonic") torpedoes. And, they used them right into the 2370's. They were probably more accurate, flew faster, and had many times the yield of the 2150's versions, but the basic nature of the tech was presumably the same.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Yes, but it's still incremental. In Enterprise's third season, Starfleet upgraded from spatial torpedoes to photon ("photonic") torpedoes. And, they used them right into the 2370's. They were probably more accurate, flew faster, and had many times the yield of the 2150's versions, but the basic nature of the tech was presumably the same.

The Photon Torpedo warheads haved improved the Matter/Anti-Matter warhead detonation efficiency to Maximize the blast and to increase the payload volume on top of increasing range, tracking, etc.
But fundamentally, it's the same tech.

 

[at Quark's]

If something is good enough, it often doesn't change anymore that much.

Simple tech like spoons and forks, pens, chairs, etc aren't becoming any more "advanced" for example (even though there is still research in the peripherals, and of course there'll always be the style side of things). Perhaps the same might be true for for example impulse drives (which I believe Geordi says haven't changed that much since Scotty's time - Edit : looked it up and he even says they haven't changed much in the last two hundred years). With weapons on the other hand, there'll always be a drive to one-up your enemy.

 

[cooleddie74]

And Starfleet has the Klingons to thank for photon torpedoes given that the first chronological encounter between Earth humans and the technology is when Hoshi and Malcolm translate and read the controls aboard the Raptor-class Klingon scout ship in "Sleeping Dogs(ENT)."

 

[Oddish]

They knew that photonic torpedoes existed, but they had already learned that from the Vissians. They used all the torpedoes on the Klingon ship to escape in "Sleeping Dogs", so were not able to reverse engineer them.

My guess is, one of three things happened:
1. Starfleet was on the verge of developing matter-antimatter weapons already.
2. The Vissians shared the tech with them, despite the unfortunate affair with their cogenitor.
3. They acquired the tech elsewhere.

 

[at Quark's]

I'm curious how relations between Vissians and the 23rd and 24th century Federation developed. If Archer already met them, they must have run into them again, given that by their own statements, their home system probably wasn't far away.

 

[Nyotarules]

I'm curious how relations between Vissians and the 23rd and 24th century Federation developed. If Archer already met them, they must have run into them again, given that by their own statements, their home system probably wasn't far away.

In the SCE novels a Vissian is a Starfleet officer

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If something is good enough, it often doesn't change anymore that much.

Yes & No. It's more like gradual refinements into better forms of the same fundamental technology.
e.g. Mechanical Locks have improved in difficulty to defeat year after year with pickers and would be destroyers of mechanical locks in an ever increasing arms race.

Simple tech like spoons and forks, pens, chairs, etc aren't becoming any more "advanced" for example (even though there is still research in the peripherals, and of course there'll always be the style side of things).

There are plenty of new eating utensils coming onto the market that try to do things differently, solve a specific problem, or are combinations of existing ones.

Trongs are a relatively new Utensil type:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Chorks are hybrid ChopStick + Forks:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Or Combo Utensils like Splayds = Spoon + Fork + Knife

Perhaps the same might be true for for example impulse drives (which I believe Geordi says haven't changed that much since Scotty's time - Edit : looked it up and he even says they haven't changed much in the last two hundred years).

We know at some point in the future, "Hyper-Impulse" will become a thing.
I've theorized that since the ST:TNG technical manuals since most Impulse drives are restricted to 0.25c due to issues with time dilation.

With weapons on the other hand, there'll always be a drive to one-up your enemy.

Very true.

 

[publiusr]

I first thought the Klingon BoP had hyperimpulse FTL, like Buck Rogers tachyon drive ship that Wilma tested in only one episode.

 

[at Quark's]

Yes & No. It's more like gradual refinements into better forms of the same fundamental technology.
e.g. Mechanical Locks have improved in difficulty to defeat year after year with pickers and would be destroyers of mechanical locks in an ever increasing arms race.

Then, I wouldn't say those locks are "good enough" and fall in the same category as those weapons I mentioned. That is, they would be 'good enough' for everyday use, were it not for the fact that there is another party that is constantly trying to gain the better of those that use such technology, leading to the continual upgrade and refinement process you describe. Perhaps we can see it as analogous to evolution. There is still "selection pressure" on variants of the design, much like a predator-prey dynamic can encourage evolution.

There are plenty of new eating utensils coming onto the market that try to do things differently, solve a specific problem, or are combinations of existing ones.

I don't think the relevant criterion is not whether new innovations are tried but whether these new things are embraced (long-term adopted) by a sufficiently large group of users to stay. I have seen such combined utensils every now and then since my youth, but have never seen them become really popular (except perhaps in those cheap plastic utensils). To compare it to evolution again, a life form can remain the same for tens of millions of years, all the while small mutations popping up, that don't change the species in the long run because they lead to no significant benefit, and disappear again from the population.

 

[BillJ]

Controversial Opinion (and timely, given that this is the anniversary timeframe):

“Encounter at Farpoint” was pretty awesome and I loved it immediately.

I was sixteen when it was released and wore out that VHS recording I made the week after it premiered.

 

[cooleddie74]

"Encounter at Farpoint, Part I(TNG)" gives me the most squishy emotions of any of the post-TOS series premieres but if you cut out the Admiral McCoy scene and the Postatomic Horror sequence it's pretty mediocre to a large extent. That premiere is helped a lot by the DeForest Kelley cameo and Q's trial of humanity.

 

[BillJ]

"Encounter at Farpoint, Part I(TNG)" gives me the most squishy emotions of any of the post-TOS series premieres but if you cut out the Admiral McCoy scene and the Postatomic Horror sequence it's pretty mediocre to a large extent.

I still like the episode, but part of it is its nostalgia value.

 

[cooleddie74]

It really is the weakest premiere of any of the series with the arguable exception of "The Vulcan Hello(DSC)."

 

[BillJ]

It really is the weakest premiere of any of the series with the arguable exception of "The Vulcan Hello(DSC)."

Probably, but I like TNG more than the rest of the spinoffs, so "Encounter..." ends up getting far more play time from me. "The Vulcan Hello" was... not good.

"Encounter..." also suffers quite a bit from the studio going from a one-hour premiere to a two-hour premiere after it had been written, so DC Fontana tacked on the Q storyline that might have went in a different direction as a standalone.

 

[cooleddie74]

Sadly it was better than a lot of the Season 1 episodes that followed.

 

[Mudd]

Continuity still isn't a dirty word.

No, it's just the intro to a fucking boring and trivial conversation.

 

[BillJ]

Sadly it was better than a lot of the Season 1 episodes that followed.

I don't know. I've always enjoyed TNG season one, even though they made some major missteps along the way (*cough*Code of Honor*cough*). Watched "Lonely Among Us" last night and was thoroughly entertained.

 

[1001001]

Broken Bow is probably the best premiere.

And The Vulcan Hello blows Encounter at Farpoint off the space map!