What are your opinions regarding Star Trek that are, shall we say, unorthodox?

[Arpy]

Lately humanity has been on an upward trend of becoming less accepting of adults having sexual contact with the underaged. We don't know for certain that Kirk's mom was what we'd consider underaged. Maybe you wait until you're 22 in the future to get educated about Love. But it doesn't sound like it. And "James" was just the first love instructor.

As far as other worldbuilding he did.. well what? having a brain implant to get secret messages beamed to you? Seems plausible but also something the Federation tends to be wary about.


But back to love instructors. Let's see what the Great Galactic Bird had to say about such things:

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I don’t have time to watch the video, but as to world building in TMP novelization, it’s been decades and I don’t remember it very well, but bits that come to mind are the ones I think I mentioned upthread: New Human movement, less awkwardness around sex, humans and animals having a better understanding of each other, and yes neuro-communicators—which is really not that far off in the real world if we’re honest about it. Neuralink is making breakthroughs today; I’d put that tech in widespread use within the next 50 years, easily, never mind 300.

 

[Arpy]

I think that there's been a shift where people are more generally into what's "real". They want a reflection of the world they inhabit or a future of said world. We see people periodically demand it from Star Trek and I'm just not certain that it can offer that anymore.

I don’t think anyone really knows what’s “real.” The future will probably not be Horatio Hornblower in space, but that’s okay. I can understand how fans might get disillusioned with it once they understand that. But new Trek should try its best and not say welp it all fantasy, no need to try to attempt at any realism or adjust the franchise given what we know or have today. It should feel like something we could achieve with enough time and both social and technological advancement.

*apologies for the double post.

 

[BillJ]

It should feel like something we could achieve with enough time and both social and technological advancement.

None of it has ever felt that way to me.

 

[fireproof78]

None of it has ever felt that way to me.

It did briefly.

Studying astronomy, space travel and human physiology changes that.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

I was a teen when the TMP novelization came out and I was all The Future Can't Get Here Fast Enough! when I read the paragraphs about 'love instructors'.

Mind you I was a typical teen nerd and shy about women, but holy Buddha, I was very interested in them and it would have been nice to have a mentor with benefits who would take me under her wing.

Now? Nah, it wouldn't work, not without a radical reworking of society and what we teach the young about sex and relationships and that's not gonna happen.

 

[Arpy]

None of it has ever felt that way to me.

Totally did for me. And for lots of people. I mean, isn’t that the point?

But yeah, a world without the pathetic bigotries and class divisions we were straddled with and that threaten to crush us still? Do we want a future closer to that in say Jodie Foster’s Elysium movie, or Star Trek?

Do we think that contemporary hard scifi will always be what is considered hard scifi? We act like Newton didn't come after Aristotle, Einstein after Newton, that someone else won’t upend what we think we know about the universe still—Zefram Cochrane.

Both socially and technologically, the future will change and Trek is one attempt at a vision of what might be, if metaphorically more than literally.

And yeah, I think it’s important that science fiction is a real thing separate from fantasy, and that Trek tries to be more the former than the latter. To inspire generations of young new fans and old old ones that the future might be something like it, if we rise to it.

 

[Arpy]

I was a teen when the TMP novelization came out and I was all The Future Can't Get Here Fast Enough! when I read the paragraphs about 'love instructors'.

Mind you I was a typical teen nerd and shy about women, but holy Buddha, I was very interested in them and it would have been nice to have a mentor with benefits who would take me under her wing.

Now? Nah, it wouldn't work, not without a radical reworking of society and what we teach the young about sex and relationships and that's not gonna happen.

I mean if they can come up with warp and transporters in the next three centuries… Look how different a world we seem to be careening toward now. (How different 2000 was from 1900 before it.) Technology evolves ever faster and I think societies will have to do the same or perish. I don’t know that there will be living “love instructors” in the real future, but I could see artificial ones, sure.

 

[cooleddie74]

If an Earth scientist can invent the transporter and before the year 2150 then almost anything - sexual or otherwise - may be possible.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

 

[cooleddie74]

Can confirm.

 

[BillJ]

Whatever one's freak is, as long as it's hurting no one else, they should roll with it.

I will not talk about the freak show that goes on in my bedroom...

 

[Catboots]

Folks have been saying we're gonna get fusion any day now since I was a kid. I doubt we'll have it viable even if I live to be a hundred. I doubt transporters or FTL travel will be viable even if someone was born today and lived to be a hundred. We can't even make artificial gravity as seen in Trek without doing a B5 and making things spin to do it. I grew up with moonbases and mars colonies in sci-fi, and ... how's that doing?

I saw someone complain that the new Avatar series has a regressed world, with tech and such going backwards rather than forwards from LoK, due to an in-universe disaster, and TBH I think that's much more likely for our world than a Trek like future. I fully expect humanity to fuck our world up so much that our whole society regresses, assuming we survive at all and don't just go extinct. Sure I'd like a more hopeful future, but what exactly in the last ten years has suggested we should get our hopes up? I've watched my basic human rights pissed away by a vindictive TERF author and tech become shittier and buggier every year. I've watched Trump be elected TWICE. And I feel I should point out that in Trek things only turned out well because aliens noticed humanity and helped out. Anyone wanna take odds on that happening IRL?

 

[Sam_I_Am]

The TMP novelisation is a lot of fun. It’s wacky but has a lot to recommend it.

At least it went further than most novelisations by not simply replicating the movie play by play and introducing some fresh, novel (pun intended) ideas.

 

[cooleddie74]

That's where the Mind Control Revolts of 2048 originate. It's easily one of the most memorable references in the entire novelization for me.

 

[Nerys Myk]

That's where the Mind Control Revolts of 2048 originate. It's easily one of the most memorable references in the entire novelization for me.

We gotta wait 22 years????

 

[cooleddie74]

The way things are going there'll be no minds left by 2028.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The way things are going there'll be no minds left by 2028.

Sure, that's what they want you to think.

 

[XCV330]

Folks have been saying we're gonna get fusion any day now since I was a kid. I doubt we'll have it viable even if I live to be a hundred.

Helion Fusion has a power plant in Washington State under construction and has the regulatory permits. Commonwealth Fusion is pretty much right behind them or about to outpace them, with their demo reactor about 80% built. Both these companies have billions invested in them. And yeah at some point ITER will do something too, probably.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Helion Fusion has a power plant in Washington State under construction and has the regulatory permits. Commonwealth Fusion is pretty much right behind them or about to outpace them, with their demo reactor about 80% built. Both these companies have billions invested in them. And yeah at some point ITER will do something too, probably.

I read that as "Hellion Fusion."

 

[mb22]

The TMP novelisation is a lot of fun. It’s wacky but has a lot to recommend it.

At least it went further than most novelisations by not simply replicating the movie play by play and introducing some fresh, novel (pun intended) ideas.

Have you read Vonda McIntyre's novelizations of TWOK and TSFS? She adds a huge amount of material not in the films. In the latter the film's story doesn't even begin until around 80 pages in (if I recall correctly).