The universe according to MMM

[MultiMillionMiler]

The 1st 20-30 episodes of the original series were ludicrous, so I am not going to even get started. One main criticism of it I will give is the kids'toy design for all the consoles. Even for the 60s they could have done better. No ship's controls would be all unlabeled levers and random buttons. In the enemy within, spock didn't think of sending down a shuttlecraft, or even landing the ship to retrieve them, lazy writing. Voyager, Janeway's morality is so screwed up, and you lose track of all the copies of the crew via duplicates and alternate timelines, and in the next generation most of the characters are jackass snobs also with twisted morals, especially Troi and Picard. Enterprise at least had a good balance between realism and science fiction, but the plot is too confusing to follow, and I don't think Warp Drive and Transporter technology is realistic in only 130 years.

[Max Rockatansky]

You do realize these are TV shows with the primary intent to entertain?

[MultiMillionMiler]

Yes, but for science fiction the bar should have been a little bit higher. When the master of all logic just doesn't think of a shuttlecraft for no reason at all, when we are supposed to just accept that big apes are stronger than the shuttle's engines, when they let whole planets die for political reasons/weird philosophies, and how they magically repair the ship good as new in 3 days after being 2/3 destroyed, and when warp 14 is achieved in the original series, but 10 is some theoretical impossibility turning you into a salamander in the very next series...they are going to get some criticism regardless of how entertaining it is. Q was 200% right in the 1st episode, humanity did not change. They didn't end all the political/territorial/beaurocratic nonsense, they just spread it into space. If you want to discuss all of this more, you can change the title of this thread to Aviation and Star Trek Reviews by MMM if you want.

[kphoger]

you guys are hilarious

[Max Rockatansky]

you guys are hilarious

[abefroman329]

If you're going to make up nonsense and invoke Star Trek as part of it, why faff about with all of these speeds and not just use the transporter?

Transporter seems very short range in star trek.

It's only short range the scale that Star Trek operates on. Apparently the range was cited as 40,000 km (24,854 mi) in TNG (Memory Alpha's citation style makes it unclear whether this number comes from "A Matter Of Honor" or "Bloodlines" or both). Interestingly, that's within a few hundred miles of the circumference of the Earth (which, out of universe, is probably why they picked that number). So the transporter has a range covering the entire planet.

Do they ever explain why you'd use a shuttle for a trip that was less than 40,000 km?

Also, this thread just made me realize that the creators of The Orville got around this issue by not having teleportation technology in their (ahem) universe.

[Scott5114]

I know they've beamed people to and from high orbits, which can be 20-30 thousand miles in altitude. After seeing all of the original series, next generation, voyager, about half of enterprise, and 10-12 episodes of DS9 (I despise that one), those are probably the only episodes that have ever entered into specs about the transporter.

Of course, all Trek rules are only rules as long as they don't get in the way of a good story.

Naturally, but a lot of the rules are also there because they make a good story. Like the 40k cap on the transporter–after all, if the transporter had infinite range, there would be no need for the Enterprise. And no rules whatsoever would be totally boring; that's why they didn't ever do an entire series centered on Q.

The 1st 20-30 episodes of the original series were ludicrous, so I am not going to even get started. One main criticism of it I will give is the kids'toy design for all the consoles. Even for the 60s they could have done better. No ship's controls would be all unlabeled levers and random buttons.

In the 1960s, science fiction wasn't taken seriously, so the network refused to give them enough money to build anything better. One of the primary reasons that the networks started to see sci-fi as worth investing good money in was...Star Trek. (And Star Wars, of course, but that was a decade or so later.)

If you're going to make up nonsense and invoke Star Trek as part of it, why faff about with all of these speeds and not just use the transporter?

Transporter seems very short range in star trek.

It's only short range the scale that Star Trek operates on. Apparently the range was cited as 40,000 km (24,854 mi) in TNG (Memory Alpha's citation style makes it unclear whether this number comes from "A Matter Of Honor" or "Bloodlines" or both). Interestingly, that's within a few hundred miles of the circumference of the Earth (which, out of universe, is probably why they picked that number). So the transporter has a range covering the entire planet.

Do they ever explain why you'd use a shuttle for a trip that was less than 40,000 km?

Also, this thread just made me realize that the creators of The Orville got around this issue by not having teleportation technology in their (ahem) universe.

Well, the whole reason that Star Trek had the transporter to begin with was because, in the 1960s, the sparkly SFX were cheaper than it would be to build a model shuttle and film it flying around (which was of course the only way to do exterior shots back then).

As for reasons to use the shuttle, it kind of varies per episode. Often the stated reason is because there's something having to do with the planet or its atmosphere that would interfere with the transporter.

[1995hoo]

The comments about buttons and stuff on a starship remind me of something British author John Christopher once wrote. You might recognize his name from his best-known work, the White Mountains trilogy published in the late 1960s (also often called the Tripods Trilogy) about aliens who conquer the world using mild control. In the late 1980s, Mr. Christopher published a prequel and made the following comments in a foreword he added some years later. I'm looking at it right now on my Kindle because the comments above prompted me to look them up. The context for these comments is that the BBC had attempted an adaptation of the original three books but pulled the plug for various reasons, and the story didn't follow the latter half of the first book very closely and didn't follow the second book closely at all.

While the second series was showing, it was discussed in a television program by a panel of viewers, among them the leading British science fiction author of the time. He was very critical of what he had seen on his screen. He commented on the fundamental improbability of the Tripods–who, he scornfully pointed out, had used mere searchlights in hunting the fugitive boys–being able to overcome the technological might of the human race. How could one take seriously an interplanetary invader who didn't even have infrared?

The remark about infrared is an interesting example of one of the basic weaknesses of science fiction: It is not very good at guessing the future, particularly in technical matters. When I wrote the books, infrared was little more than a laboratory tool; twenty years later it was in everyday use for switching television channels from the comfort of one's armchair. (Some older readers may recall that the very first remote controls were not infrared but optical, projecting beams of light.) For every roughly accurate prediction (such as the use of tanks as a military weapon, by H.G. Wells), there are scores, probably hundreds, maybe thousands of failures. No science fiction writer in the sixties, for instance, ever dreamed of the late twentieth-century innovation which was going to fundamentally change our lives: the World Wide Web.

It strikes me as a very interesting point.

Incidentally, in the prequel John Christopher poked fun at that other author: A schoolteacher ridicules the Tripods because one used a searchlight and said, "So it looks at though they don't even have infrared!" He was later one of the earlier people the aliens succeeded in hypnotizing.

Now, there are some things that science fiction deliberately overlooks in most cases, the most notable being time dilation associated with faster-than-light travel. Authors more or less have to ignore such things in the interest of telling a good story. But if you want a book that takes that concept seriously, read The Forever War. It was assigned reading in one of my college astronomy classes and it raises some interesting points, including how two people who leave Earth within minutes of each other may nevertheless be aged differently through time dilation. (I won't say much more in order to avoid spoilers in case anyone is actually interested in the book. A warning for those who care about such things, though: The book was written in the 1970s by a Vietnam veteran and it is a product of its era. Some reviewers in more recent years have complained about how the story treats homosexuality in the far distant future.)

[GaryV]

It's not just science fiction that misses massive future technology developments.

All the "Home of the Future" and "World of the Future" predictions mid-last-century (such exhibits as at World Fairs, but also in text and on TV) missed the potential for computers in everyday life. Sure, they had robots or flying cars, but didn't contemplate that we'd have more computing power in our pockets than NASA had for the moon launch.

Nor were most of the developments in communication conceived, both mass and personal. They had vision phones (that many people derided because who wants to answer a vision phone when just getting out of bed), but totally missed everything that you can do with your phone now and platforms like Zoom and Teams.

[dlsterner]

If you want to discuss all of this more, you can change the title of this thread to Aviation and Star Trek Reviews by MMM if you want.

If I'm not mistaken, if the author of post #1 (which is Max) edits that post and changes the title, doesn't that change the title of the thread?  If so, that should totally be done!   

[Max Rockatansky]

If you want to discuss all of this more, you can change the title of this thread to Aviation and Star Trek Reviews by MMM if you want.

[MultiMillionMiler]

The universal translator is the most unexplainable technology in star trek. How does it make you hear the language as it's being spoken? It's not like the sound comes from the pad. It seems to come from the person. And how does it make both people hear their respective languages, simultaneously?? How does it make you hear something different than what's actually being spoken, that's more than a translator, and how could it make both people hear different sounds at the same time, with no interference or delay. Very illogical.

[abefroman329]

The universal translator is the most unexplainable technology in star trek. How does it make you hear the language as it's being spoken? It's not like the sound comes from the pad. It seems to come from the person. And how does it make both people hear their respective languages, simultaneously?? How does it make you hear something different than what's actually being spoken, that's more than a translator, and how could it make both people hear different sounds at the same time, with no interference or delay. Very illogical.

You're probably wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts (la la la)
Just repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax"

You know what makes total sense? The Babel fish from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

[kphoger]

You know what makes total sense? The Babel fish from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Finally!

[MultiMillionMiler]

The universal translator is the most unexplainable technology in star trek. How does it make you hear the language as it's being spoken? It's not like the sound comes from the pad. It seems to come from the person. And how does it make both people hear their respective languages, simultaneously?? How does it make you hear something different than what's actually being spoken, that's more than a translator, and how could it make both people hear different sounds at the same time, with no interference or delay. Very illogical.

You're probably wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts (la la la)
Just repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax"

You know what makes total sense? The Babel fish from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

That's the only technology I have an issue with in star trek. The most unrealistic and illogical in nature.

[hobsini2]

The universal translator is the most unexplainable technology in star trek. How does it make you hear the language as it's being spoken? It's not like the sound comes from the pad. It seems to come from the person. And how does it make both people hear their respective languages, simultaneously?? How does it make you hear something different than what's actually being spoken, that's more than a translator, and how could it make both people hear different sounds at the same time, with no interference or delay. Very illogical.

You're probably wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts (la la la)
Just repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax"

"Manos the, umm, hands of fate."

[Scott5114]

The universal translator is the most unexplainable technology in star trek. How does it make you hear the language as it's being spoken? It's not like the sound comes from the pad. It seems to come from the person. And how does it make both people hear their respective languages, simultaneously?? How does it make you hear something different than what's actually being spoken, that's more than a translator, and how could it make both people hear different sounds at the same time, with no interference or delay. Very illogical.

You're probably wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts (la la la)
Just repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax"

You know what makes total sense? The Babel fish from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

That's the only technology I have an issue with in star trek. The most unrealistic and illogical in nature.

Voyager's bioneural circuitry is kind of silly. Let's take a computer, and teach it how to get sick with regular viruses instead of just the computer kind. (I know the idea is that the bioneural circuitry is supposed to be faster than the regular kind, but in real life we're already kind of at the point where the hardware isn't really the bottleneck when it comes to computing, it's coming up with the algorithms for it to run.)

The number of times the holodeck safeguards were disabled, the ease in which this was done, and the difficulty in restoring them afterward is all pretty stupid. I would have to imagine that if you were being realistic, disabling the holodeck safeguards would at least require Geordi or B'Elanna to go down there and put their root password in. Also, I would have to imagine if the software going nuts that often was a problem, you should probably just install a breaker box somewhere that just physically cuts power to the holodeck.

My wife, who does casino surveillance, enjoys Star Trek but loves to point out the number of instances in which she would have been able to solve the episode's plot in five minutes by pulling an image, if only the ship had cameras.

[kkt]

while we're on the subject, here's what I think reasonable, IDEAL, transportation speeds are, if all the engineering and safety kinks could be worked out:

Trucks: 90-120 mph
Cars: 200-300 mph
Trains: 500-1000 mph
Boats: 400-500 mph
Commercial Jumbo Jets: 1000-1500 mph
Average Commercial Airliners: 2000-3000 mph
Private Planes: 4000-5000 mph
Military Jets: 10,000-12,000 mph
Interplanetary Spacecraft: 100,000,000 mph
Warp-Driven Interstellar Spacecraft: 10 Billion Miles/Second
Warp Driven Intergalactic Spacecraft: 100 Billion - 1 Trillion Miles/Second.

So you just pulled random numbers out of your butt and decided to call them "ideal"?

Have you met MMM?

[kkt]

The 1st 20-30 episodes of the original series were ludicrous, so I am not going to even get started. One main criticism of it I will give is the kids'toy design for all the consoles. Even for the 60s they could have done better. No ship's controls would be all unlabeled levers and random buttons. In the enemy within, spock didn't think of sending down a shuttlecraft, or even landing the ship to retrieve them, lazy writing. Voyager, Janeway's morality is so screwed up, and you lose track of all the copies of the crew via duplicates and alternate timelines, and in the next generation most of the characters are jackass snobs also with twisted morals, especially Troi and Picard. Enterprise at least had a good balance between realism and science fiction, but the plot is too confusing to follow, and I don't think Warp Drive and Transporter technology is realistic in only 130 years.

They didn't use the shuttlecraft in The Enemy Within because the show didn't have a shuttlecraft set or model built yet.  Or a set for the hanger deck. You can learn a lot from Memory Alpha:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Enemy_Within_(episode)#Continuity

In universe, I guess you could say the hanger deck is out of commission and unable to be brought online for some reason that they never mentioned on screen...

[Max Rockatansky]

The universal translator is the most unexplainable technology in star trek. How does it make you hear the language as it's being spoken? It's not like the sound comes from the pad. It seems to come from the person. And how does it make both people hear their respective languages, simultaneously?? How does it make you hear something different than what's actually being spoken, that's more than a translator, and how could it make both people hear different sounds at the same time, with no interference or delay. Very illogical.

You're probably wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts (la la la)
Just repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax"

"Manos the, umm, hands of fate."

Manos is the superior viewing experience to an MMM thread. 

[MultiMillionMiler]

The 1st 20-30 episodes of the original series were ludicrous, so I am not going to even get started. One main criticism of it I will give is the kids'toy design for all the consoles. Even for the 60s they could have done better. No ship's controls would be all unlabeled levers and random buttons. In the enemy within, spock didn't think of sending down a shuttlecraft, or even landing the ship to retrieve them, lazy writing. Voyager, Janeway's morality is so screwed up, and you lose track of all the copies of the crew via duplicates and alternate timelines, and in the next generation most of the characters are jackass snobs also with twisted morals, especially Troi and Picard. Enterprise at least had a good balance between realism and science fiction, but the plot is too confusing to follow, and I don't think Warp Drive and Transporter technology is realistic in only 130 years.

They didn't use the shuttlecraft in The Enemy Within because the show didn't have a shuttlecraft set or model built yet.  Or a set for the hanger deck. You can learn a lot from Memory Alpha:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Enemy_Within_(episode)#Continuity

In universe, I guess you could say the hanger deck is out of commission and unable to be brought online for some reason that they never mentioned on screen...

They still could have landed the ship.

[Scott5114]

Out of universe, that still would have been more expensive.

In-universe, the Constitution-class didn't have the ability to actually land and take off. (Nor did the Galaxy or Sovereign classes–which is why they made such a big deal about it any time the Intrepid-class Voyager did it.)

[MultiMillionMiler]

I mean they didn't even have to land, just get low enough and hover so that the crew could climb back on, using the warp engines. Drop some ladders down or something. The ship could have fired its phasers at the planet to hear up rocks near them even more.

[Scott5114]

No, they couldn't have.

Five cents, please!

[kkt]

It's a starship, not a helicopter.  Its job is not to hover over a planet's surface close enough for someone to climb aboard.  That would be like asking an aircraft carrier to beach itself to take on crew - only in dire emergency.