Will We Ever See The 1990s Star Trek Aesthetic Again? Or Hear that “humm” Sound When No One Speaks?

[Weyoun 251]

This is what computer interfaces looked like in the early 90s:
Apple System 7.1
Windows 3.11
LCARS sure the hell looks futuristic compared to that

I do see where you are coming from, and as an aesthetic I agree with you.

From a practical perspective though it looks so limited - although that is with a 2021 head on.

I fully get why TNG LCARS were seen as futuristic, I think I'm more disappointed by Voyager (and to a lesser extent DS9) not adapting theirs for the present state of tech

 

[C.E. Evans]

Hindsight is always 20-20, especially when you factor in the real-world and dramatic reasons for it, but these days I look at the necessity for PADDs as more of a computer security issue. Who knows, starships could be subject to cyberattacks from many light-years away and PADDs could be a way of making such potential attacks harder to succeed. I also tend to think that there were much more sophisticated operating systems within the Federation, but Starfleet relied on LCARS because it might have been less prone to crashing aboard starships at the time maybe.

 

[Mudd]

Okuda's LCARS is on a level with Jefferies' and Probert's and Theiss's - it's seminal, and all Trek work since references and is built on it.

Just not built well a lot of the time.

 

[cooleddie74]

LCARS in TNG was just Windows 2363 with frequent updates and lots of add-ons.

 

[Weyoun 251]

LCARS in TNG was just Windows 2363 with frequent updates and lots of add-ons.

LCARS is a little bit Windows 8 though, innit

 

[fireproof78]

This is what computer interfaces looked like in the early 90s:
Apple System 7.1
Windows 3.11
LCARS sure the hell looks futuristic compared to that

It's in the eye of the beholder.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Maybe if there is a series set during the Lost Era. Ent-A, Ent-B, Ent-C & Excelsior all fit with the 1990s aesthetic.

Although, I'd be personally be fine with something set after NEM if the Destiny novels were made canon.

 

[Kor]

I see LCARS as just the end-user interface. The actual operating system underneath that is probably quite sophisticated. And there are probably other, more complicated interfaces available for different purposes.

Kor

 

[Noname Given]

LCARS in TNG was just Windows 2363 with frequent updates and lots of add-ons.

With that color scheme it was definitely Apple OS >insert 24th century animal of choice name here<

 

[fireproof78]

I see LCARS as just the end-user interface. The actual operating system underneath that is probably quite sophisticated. And there are probably other, more complicated interfaces available for different purposes.

Kor

One would hope that there would be variety available in the future, and that people would be able to adjust the interface to suit their specific needs. I would not expect LCARS to be the be all/end all interface, especially when it feels supremely inefficient, even to me in the 90s.

 

[Tuskin38]

I've always assumed LCARS was the primary interface for Starfleet and the Government, while civilians had their own OSes.

 

[BK613]

It's in the eye of the beholder.

 

[fireproof78]

Even when those eyes roll

 

[NCC-73515]

I see LCARS as just the end-user interface. The actual operating system underneath that is probably quite sophisticated. And there are probably other, more complicated interfaces available for different purposes.

Kor

The TM explains that all consoles can be completely reconfigured however you want them to look like. That's what allowed Bridge Commander to have tactical on the front right, and CONN on the front left.

 

[Tuskin38]

There's also a tactile option for blind officers.

 

[dupersuper]

If Star Trek is supposed to be self-updating in order to reflect a vision of the future, does that mean that every fictional event which should’ve happened by now has been erased from the continuity, even though they’re all still reflected in the official timeline?

The only REALLY big one of those is the Eugenics War, and personally I just mentally change 1990s to 2090s when it comes up. I think an episode of Enterprise implied something along those lines, and the Voyager crew certainly didn't seem to be visiting a war-torn dystopia when they went back to 1996. We do still have WWIII coming up in 32 years though, so...bummer.

Sound in space works. Stacks of PADDs looks inefficient and wasteful.

It's a post scarcity society. They went nuts.

 

[fireproof78]

It's a post scarcity society. They went nuts.

The prop department went nuts and it has the opposite effect of what they want, at least with me. I'm not thinking 'Oh, they are so overworked." I'm thinking, "That's too many; that doesn't make any sense with the current level of technology."

That's what may don't recognize is how jarring it can be. There's a verisimilitude of advancing technology to be maintained and pretending technology is just like paperwork is pretty much the opposite of advancing tech.

 

[cooleddie74]

Nah, the Eugenics Wars still happened between 1993 and 1996. It doesn't have to make sense to us. It's fiction. It's an alternate history of Earth and always will be by definition of Star Trek being science fiction written by people living in the modern age making things up.

ENT clearly said the genetic engineering of the Eugenics Wars era was from the late 20th century. It's fiction. It doesn't matter if it really happened 25 years ago.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Great, but then what’s the problem with the 2260s being stuck with some of the social and technological artifacts of the 1960s, and the 2360s with those from the 1980s/90s? Why would that have to be updated but not the Eugenics Wars? It’s fiction. It’s the level of progress in that invented universe. If we want it to match ours, as of now we need to wait for 2380+. And keep going with a similar mapping without updating Star Trek history.

(In actual fact, however, the approach to such things has usually been “sweep it under the rug”. You don’t officially move the Eugenics Wars… but you don’t discuss the dates or portray the event either. The Nomad probe was launched, sure, but in 2002? Well… er, sorry, gotta go…)

 

[Steve Roby]

Great, but then what’s the problem with the 2260s being stuck with some of the social and technological artifacts of the 1960s, and the 2360s with those from the 1980s/90s? Why would that have to be updated but not the Eugenics Wars?

Why can't those darn kids today listen to the music I liked when I was their age?