Maybe the reason everybody is fascinated by 20th century entertainment is 2040 is the year humanity got really boring and self serious and stopped making anything cool.
Wouldn't Earth Teleportation Be Too Disruptive?
- Thread starter polyharmonic
- Start date
I guess I don't see the problem with Earth having a transporter system for civilian use to travel around the planet. It makes sense that there would be safeguards in place to protect people from abuse of the system. I think it also makes sense that cars (whatever that looks like in Star Trek's future) and shuttles would still be in use alongside a transporter network. We know that not everyone likes beaming, transporters don't always work with the weather, and people like having cars for other reasons than pure travel (some people like driving to relax, road trips have appeal beyond the destination, some people collect cars or like fixing them, etc.). Kind of like how printed books and DVD/BluRays coexist alongside e-books and streaming, since both offer advantages and features that people like.
Not to mention future sports like Parrises Squares and Velocity.
Except one of the cool things about melting pots is that they're the source of the most interesting new art forms. Where's all the hybrid culture that should exist? Everything we see is either pure human or pure Vulcan or pure Andorian or whatever. We never see cultural syncretism or blending.
This is essentially what we see in Beyond.
NuKirk and co shuttled from an Iowa shipyard to starfleet academy rather than beaming.
Let's assume that a transporter has a 5 minute duty cycle and requires 10 square metres for a pad (3m by 3m). That's fine for occasional ad hoc use, but for bulk shifting of people - say commuting into a city centre - it's a problem. A train can put 1000 people a minute into a city centre with minimal land take (say 400sqm for the platform). You'd have to have 5000 pads to cope with that train line, an area of 50,000 sqm. That's 100 times more space.
Let's assume that a transporter has a 5 minute duty cycle and requires 10 square metres for a pad (3m by 3m). That's fine for occasional ad hoc use, but for bulk shifting of people - say commuting into a city centre - it's a problem. A train can put 1000 people a minute into a city centre with minimal land take (say 400sqm for the platform). You'd have to have 5000 pads to cope with that train line, an area of 50,000 sqm. That's 100 times more space.
Maybe humanity "evolved" from having any culture whatsoever. Although we know literature is still a thing because of Jake Sisko and Geordi LaForge.
That's really an impossibility for an advanced species since culture is the collective manifestation of a specie's intelligence. Typically that manifestation is expressed through artistic forms, but not exclusively. Culture also includes how people dress, what they eat and so forth. Culture is literally every aspect of intelligent life.
Yeah but I could swear starfleet engulfs everyone's lives on earth. Who has time for culture when there's quadrants of space to explore ??
It just seems that way because all the shows center on Starfleet. If you only knew about the United States from shows like JAG, M*A*S*H, Black Sheep Squadron, and Hogan's Heroes, you might come away believing the US was a military dictatorship.
A silly one at that.
And did you grow up to be a genius, juvenile offender in the Midwest? lol
Uhura sang the latest 23rd century pop song in TOS 'Beyond Antares' so it can be done without turning the audience off. Next movie should have Uhura singing the latest tune from the rock band The Warp Factors - 'Shag that Orion'
...I never considered that that way, that's perfect. Thanks for this!
That's just it. TOS made some effort to establish a contemporary entertainment culture -- even if 23rd-century music styles did sound uncannily like 1960s music styles. But later Trek shows rarely did anything of the kind. Even the "holonovels" were usually historical tales, and always from before the 21st century. Or else they were present-day, based-on-life stuff like Photons Be Free. It's the in-between period, the stuff that would be historical to the characters but futuristic to us, that was largely ignored by the makers of TNG, DS9, VGR, and ENT. Well, except for Erika Hernandez mentioning "another World War III epic" movie to Archer in "Home." That's the sort of thing we needed more of.
^ Exactly and considering how soon real life movies were made about WW2 and the Nazis there would be something on the Battle of Vulcan. All a character has to do in the movie is mention it in passing ' You heard the latest, they are making a movie about Enterprise and Nero', its called 'Last ship standing'.
How'd you know?
Most young humans in the armed forces of the 23rd century will not be listening to the Beastie Boys. (A band formed in 1980! Please!) It would have been funnier if the scene went like this:-
Keenser turns on Beastie boys music he has no idea how old it is.
Scotty comes in - 'Turn off that music, only my great great granny listened to that ancient stuff'!
Keenser replies - 'No' and turns it up louder
Keenser turns on Beastie boys music he has no idea how old it is.
Scotty comes in - 'Turn off that music, only my great great granny listened to that ancient stuff'!
Keenser replies - 'No' and turns it up louder
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