Star Trek is Already Steampunk

[YARN]

No, not literally since the Enterprise is not actually steam powered (although visual evidence in the latest film does suggest it may run on beer... ), but it is already

I. A history alternate from ours.
*Remember the eugenics wars? Neither do I.

II. Features dated technological concepts.

This post will focus on #2, which is appropriate to the Tech forum. I think consideration of the Steampunk-ish nature of Trek should inform Treknological discussions, since Treknology is backward looking in many ways.

A. The Enterprise is loaded with people, loads of people, doing jobs that should be automated.

1. The TOS Enterprise has "phaser crews." Kirk gives the order, someone pushes a button, and the a crew of people in a phaser room are supposed to push more buttons (Balance of Terror).

2. The TMP Enterprise has a torpedo room with people to "run out the guns" (Nick Meyer's phrase).

3. The Enterprise has a helmsman. Why? The ship - all the way back to TOS - has artificial intelligence (intelligent enough to communicate and even flirt in idiomatic English) capable handling the ship faster and more precisely than a human. The Ultimate Computer only demonstrated that you don't crazy people design computers in the image of the human mind (a step backward anyhow).

4. The Enterprise has a navigator. The computer can do this better. The modern navy is point and click with GPS. See #iii.

5. The Enterprise has people on it when should be a diplomatic space probe.

a. Robots could do everything to maintain the ship that the computer could not directly do for itself. Think of all the red shirts who needlessly died!

b. If people want to do it "because it it there," then it would make more sense for the crew to engage in recreation, socialization, and intellectual development, rather than doing all the menial jobs on the ship which basically suck.

i. Just ask the muggle Picard in Tapestry.

ii. Just ask the stressed out juniors in Below Decks.

iii. Just ask Finney how much he likes chillin' in that Ion Pod!

iv. Just ask Barclay how much it sucks to be on the outside of the command crew.

Most people on the ship are doing stressful jobs and competing for limited career opportunities. But why? If this is a utopian future, they should only be doing enough work to remain stimulated and the duty assignments should not fester hierarchical stress and anxiety. The ship should basically running itself and just telling the humans when there is something pretty to look at or a new species to communicate with.

B. The Enterprise has Retro Computers

1. TOS Enterprise has crude memory cards that people carry around with very limited memory.

2. TNG Era - people lug around tablet PC and have computer stations everywhere when the computer of the ship should be distributed everywhere.

3. TOS Kirk could defeat computers by commanding them to calculate Pi.

C. Retro Communication - The communications tech of trek (apart from the distances covered) is comparable to the technology of today (and today's technology becomes antiquated at an exponential rate).

1. Crew members carry cell phones, have blue tooth, and have wearable communication devices and so do we.

2. The future points to implanted devices and interior spaces that are "alive" in the sense that they can serve as light sources, computer interfaces, and as communication devices. Picard should only have to think "Where is Riker?" and the computer would tell him, and if he wished to communicate with him, he'd have a wireless telepathic chat with him.

D. The Enterprise is designed with Bi-Lateral symmetry. It has a left and a right and an up and a down, but these axes only make sense for terrestrial vehicles. In space, the only dimensions that matter are forward (where you want to go) and back (where you are coming from). Bilateral symmetry makes sense for airplanes which need to produce equal lift to pull up against the force of gravity, it does not make sense for spacecraft.

E. The decks of the Enterprise are designed as if it is an Earth-bound craft. All the decks fit the bilateral symmetry of the ship, which means that all the decks pull down (away from the top of the ship). This is, however, Earth-bound thinking. A really creative interial design would be one which deployed artificial gravity in a way to allow people to walk on the ceilings and walls. This would be a more optimal use of interior space and allow for creative work space ideas increasing efficiency.

F. The Enterprise has a holodeck. A big ole room that sucks energy to convert energy into something matter-like. The future, however, is not external, but internal. That is, people should simply communing directly with the computer and experiencing all the wonderful opportunities a disembodied consciousness (unencumbered by a body) could do. And this leads to the final problem.

G. Star Trek is humanistic, where the future points to post-humanism (the singularity) - people transcending their bodies and enhancing their cognitive abilities by fusing with massively distributed information processing. There is no need to travel to a planet when you can send a copy of your consciousness mind there.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I thought it was just a fun make believe TV show.

 

[YARN]

I thought it was just a fun make believe TV show.

Yes, a dated one. It's heading to Buck Roger's territory. And yet here we are in the Tech forum talking about Treknology.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I thought it was just a fun make believe TV show.

Yes, a dated one. It's heading to Buck Roger's territory. And yet here we are in the Tech forum talking about Treknology.

Everything becomes dated in fairly quick time, but I find most issues some people have with Trek stem from trying to reconcile an imaginary world with the real one. Naturally there are bound to be huge differences and areas where some real world technology outpaces some tech in the imagined one. It's simply unavoidable.

 

[YARN]

I thought it was just a fun make believe TV show.

Yes, a dated one. It's heading to Buck Roger's territory. And yet here we are in the Tech forum talking about Treknology.

Everything becomes dated in fairly quick time, but I find most issues some people have with Trek stem from trying to reconcile an imaginary world with the real one. Naturally there are bound to be huge differences and areas where some real world technology outpaces some tech in the imagined one. It's simply unavoidable.

Here's the thing. Science Fiction is great when it is forward thinking - when it challenges us to think about the ramifications of the future, when it presents us with view of where we are heading.

Trek was good science fiction in the above sense. Trek depicted a lot of technologies we take for granted today (like cell phones and tablet PCs).

That moment, however, has passed. It is increasingly pointing to how things used to be, than how they will be. Hence, it is Steampunk.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Yes, a dated one. It's heading to Buck Roger's territory. And yet here we are in the Tech forum talking about Treknology.

Everything becomes dated in fairly quick time, but I find most issues some people have with Trek stem from trying to reconcile an imaginary world with the real one. Naturally there are bound to be huge differences and areas where some real world technology outpaces some tech in the imagined one. It's simply unavoidable.

Here's the thing. Science Fiction is great when it is forward thinking - when it challenges us to think about the ramifications of the future, when it presents us with view of where we are heading.

Trek was good science fiction in the above sense. Trek depicted a lot of technologies we take for granted today (like cell phones and tablet PCs).

That moment, however, has passed. It is increasingly pointing to how things used to be, than how they will be. Hence, it is Steampunk.

I'm not sure what you mean by that unless you're talking about the direction in recent years to do TOS prequels and reboots. Otherwise, Trek has never been anything more than the depiction of an idealistic future rather than a realistic one. There are times when Trek has inspired some things in the real world, but not even Roddenberry has ever said Trek is how the future will actually be.

And I wouldn't call it Steampunk at all because that's specifically referring to taking late 19th-Century stuff and fusing them with much later technologies, including some that could be considered futuristic by us today. Star Trek seems to fall more into the category of a futuristic fictional universe.

 

[Christopher]

2. The TMP Enterprise has a torpedo room with people to "run out the guns" (Nick Meyer's phrase).

Well, no, the TWOK Enterprise does. If we'd been shown the torpedo-firing mechanism in TMP, I doubt it would've been anything like that, because Robert Wise did not share Nicholas Meyer's hostility toward futurism.

It's been suggested that the manual torpedo-loading procedure seen in TWOK was something specific to the E's use as a cadet training vessel. Maybe normally it was an emergency backup procedure, and the cadets were taught it so they'd be ready if it became necessary.

3. The Enterprise has a helmsman. Why? The ship - all the way back to TOS - has artificial intelligence (intelligent enough to communicate and even flirt in idiomatic English) capable handling the ship faster and more precisely than a human.

The "flirting" thing is overstated. The computer in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" didn't show any signs of intelligence -- the Cygnetians just reprogrammed it to append "Dear" at the end of every sentence and to use an intonation that sounded more "seductive" to a human listener. Aside from those things, it didn't say or do anything beyond what a normal non-sentient computer could do. I mean, the old "Clippy" Windows-help mascot was designed to smile and address you in friendly, idiomatic speech balloons, but that didn't mean it could think, just that it was programmed to project an illusion of personality.

4. The Enterprise has a navigator. The computer can do this better. The modern navy is point and click with GPS. See #iii.

Do you know why the space shuttle had a big cockpit with a bunch of old-fashioned dials and switches when it could've done the whole thing from a single computer console? Redundancy. Most of it is backup in case there's a computer malfunction. A live crew would serve much the same purpose, and having them perform their tasks manually could be to keep them in practice.

And unmanned probes have a tendency to break down sometimes. How many times have engineers back at NASA/JPL figured out how to reprogram a malfunctioning probe to keep it on track? A probe out in deep space wouldn't have that resource. Having people aboard to direct, supplement, and manage the computer systems is just good sense.

5. The Enterprise has people on it when should be a diplomatic space probe.

What does "diplomatic space probe" even mean? A lot of cultures probably wouldn't consider it very diplomatic to send a robot instead of meeting them in person. And if you don't want to meet people face to face, it would make more sense just to beam messages and not even bother with probes. The whole point of Starfleet is that people want to go out there and make discoveries and contacts in person. That's a cultural choice, not a technological issue. I mean, heck, it's a moneyless utopia where people don't have to work in an office or a factory to support themselves. They've got a lot of free time on their hands; what else are they gonna do with it? Smart, educated, ambitious people are a valuable resource -- why waste it by letting them sit around twiddling their thumbs when they could be out there engaging with the galaxy? The people are what it's all about; the technology is just there to deliver them where they want to go.

There's also the fact that this is fiction and nobody'd want to see a story about a robot probe exploring space.

b. If people want to do it "because it it there," then it would make more sense for the crew to engage in recreation, socialization, and intellectual development, rather than doing all the menial jobs on the ship which basically suck.

And again we come back to military discipline and the need to maintain skills that could be necessary in emergencies. My understanding is that a lot of military life is devoted to tasks that aren't strictly necessary, like close-order marching with rifles or making your bed corners ridiculously neat, but that are done for the purpose of maintaining readiness and discipline. And a lot of military or police training is in skills that you hope you never have to use, like how to kill people or how to disarm a bomb. The tasks performed by Starfleet crewmembers may seem "menial" to the casual observer, but they could save everyone's life if the technology breaks down.

G. Star Trek is humanistic, where the future points to post-humanism (the singularity) - people transcending their bodies and enhancing their cognitive abilities by fusing with massively distributed information processing. There is no need to travel to a planet when you can send a copy of your consciousness mind there.

The mind isn't a piece of software that can be copied and uploaded; that's a cyberpunk fantasy. Even scanning something as intricate and fluid as an organic brain -- which basically has the consistency of Jell-O, remember -- is a very tall order. Getting sufficient resolution to scan and replicate the activity of something that jiggly on a synapse-by-synapse level would be extremely difficult. And even if a copy could be made, it wouldn't be you, it would just be a copy existing independently. Unless you used quantum teleportation, in which case the original you would be destroyed in the process of creating the replica, and by quantum definitions the replica would be the same entity as the original you.

And it's arrogant to assume we know for a fact what the real future's going to be. Today's posthumanist fiction may look as ludicrous to people 45 years from now as TOS does today. I mean, what makes our futurism any better than our forebears'? They made the best predictions they could based on the knowledge they had, just as we do. We can legitimately contrast 1960s SF with what we know of present-day reality, but we have no right to assume that our predictions of the far future are any more reliable than theirs.

And I for one have no interest in "transcending" my body. That's just old-school mysticism and mind-body dualism dressed up with technological trappings. Our current understanding increasingly suggests that our identity and psychology are intimately intertwined with our physical bodies, that you can't just treat a personality as a piece of software entirely distinct from the platform it runs on. Even if I could expand my consciousness into cyberspace, my body would still be at the core of who and what I am, and for all its faults, I have no interest in parting with it. Nor do I particularly enjoy fiction about posthumans. I'm a human, dammit, and I want to read about other humans, not pieces of software that delude themselves into thinking they're human.

Even strictly from the standpoint of genre definitions, it's rather silly to argue that any fiction which is not posthumanist must therefore be steampunk. That's about as absurd as arguing that anything which isn't a slasher film must be a romantic comedy. It's a complete non sequitur. (I'm sure there could be a romantic comedy that is also a slasher film, but then, it might be possible to write a posthumanist steampunk novel too.)

Bottom line, it's wrong to equate "dated" with "steampunk." Your definition of that category is false. It doesn't apply to SF that was written in the past and has been superseded by real progress. Ultimately that encompasses all SF. Steampunk is specifically about drawing on the style and technology of the Victorian era and the science fiction of the time, such as the work of Verne and Wells. It's about creating a consciously retro vision of advanced technology. So that doesn't apply to something that was written in the past with a purely forward-looking intent and only appears dated to audiences in a later generation.

 

[YARN]

I'm not sure what you mean by that unless you're talking about the direction in recent years to do TOS prequels and reboots.

I am talking about the criteria we use to regulate our discussions of Treknology and for evaluating creative choices made in Trek projects.

I suggest that we consider Trek to be Steampunk-ish so that we may relax and/or modify the "reality criterion" in our discussions.

Example: TOS showed analogue gauges, but so what? That was the 60's. TOS-R changed those analogue gauges (under a revision informed the reality criterion) to morphing digital gauges, but this effort is misplaced since everything else about the show screams 1960s.

Otherwise, Trek has never been anything more than the depiction of an idealistic future rather than a realistic one. There are times when Trek has inspired some things in the real world, but not even Roddenberry has ever said Trek is how the future will actually be.

Trek has attempted to depict an idealistic possible future, a world we could inhabit if we play our cards right. It's not Rainbow Bright moves to Rock Candy Mountain idealism, but a Western Democractic ideal future premised on a progressive/heroic reading of science. Consequently, the reality criterion has informed the design and writing of Trek.

And I wouldn't call it Steampunk at all because that's specifically referring to taking late 19th-Century stuff and fusing them with much later technologies, including some that could be considered futuristic by us today. Star Trek seems to fall more into the category of a futuristic fictional universe.

I am using the word polemically to make a point and to take advantage of alliteration/meter (i.e., it sounds snappy).

If we view Star Trek to be steampunk-ish (i.e., science fantasy grounded in late 20th century technological speculation), we can get over the revisionist fetish of trying to constantly update Trek to fit in what view as today's future possible world. Trek is already so very grounded in a fixed history derived from 20th century thinking that this project is really doomed.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, no, the TWOK Enterprise does.

By retroactive necessity, so does the TMP Enterprise. It's the same ship, according to the story.

Also, given that we are shown a "phaser room" in Balance of Terror a "Torpedo Room" is hardly beyond the pale.

If we'd been shown the torpedo-firing mechanism in TMP, I doubt it would've been anything like that, because Robert Wise did not share Nicholas Meyer's hostility toward futurism.

What matters is what we were shown on screen.

It's been suggested that the manual torpedo-loading procedure seen in TWOK was something specific to the E's use as a cadet training vessel. Maybe normally it was an emergency backup procedure, and the cadets were taught it so they'd be ready if it became necessary.

Speculative. I "speculate" that they were being trained to use the room as it was typically mean to be used. Seeing as how they were going into actual combat with the Reliant it seems highly unlikely that they would manually "run out the guns" as an "emergency training procedure" in that instance.

The "flirting" thing is overstated. The computer in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" didn't show any signs of intelligence -- the Cygnetians just reprogrammed it to append "Dear" at the end of every sentence and to use an intonation that sounded more "seductive" to a human listener. Aside from those things, it didn't say or do anything beyond what a normal non-sentient computer could do.

Really? You didn't notice to the depressed/defeated moan it gives when Kirk makes a notation in the log that the computer would have to understand

Also, the TNG computer was more than able to run the ship and even spawned artificial intelligence on more than one occasion.

Do you know why the space shuttle had a big cockpit with a bunch of old-fashioned dials and switches when it could've done the whole thing from a single computer console? Redundancy. Most of it is backup in case there's a computer malfunction. A live crew would serve much the same purpose, and having them perform their tasks manually could be to keep them in practice.

More 20th century thinking. The space shuttle has been retired. You can go see it in a museum with the original Enterprise model. On a ship where you have analogue/manual controls to back up computer systems, this makes sense. The most advanced modern aircraft, however, are fly-by-wire, entirely dependent on functioning computer systems to work. If an F-22 has a massive computer failure, then plane crashes. It has redundant computer systems to back up the main ones - and so would the Enterprise.

Indeed, research has shown that there is increasingly little reason to have pilots aboard commercial aircraft. The planes fly themselves. The biggest reason why we still have them and will continue to have them for awhile is that people aren't yet comfortable with the idea of a pilot-less plane.

And unmanned probes have a tendency to break down sometimes. How many times have engineers back at NASA/JPL figured out how to reprogram a malfunctioning probe to keep it on track? A probe out in deep space wouldn't have that resource. Having people aboard to direct, supplement, and manage the computer systems is just good sense.

And when those probes fail, people don't die. When starships fail, hundreds die.

Also, a starship would have back up computers, self-repairing robots (perhaps nano-sized). A Voyager era ship could use holograms to do the monkey work of changing out "plasma conduits."

What does "diplomatic space probe" even mean?

Ever here of the Voyager space probe?

A lot of cultures probably wouldn't consider it very diplomatic to send a robot instead of meeting them in person.

Probably? According to what standard? A human sociological standard?

And if you don't want to meet people face to face, it would make more sense just to beam messages and not even bother with probes.

Good point. This is another reason why Trek is Steampunk.

The whole point of Starfleet is that people want to go out there and make discoveries and contacts in person. That's a cultural choice, not a technological issue. I mean, heck, it's a moneyless utopia where people don't have to work in an office or a factory to support themselves. They've got a lot of free time on their hands; what else are they gonna do with it? Smart, educated, ambitious people are a valuable resource -- why waste it by letting them sit around twiddling their thumbs when they could be out there engaging with the galaxy? The people are what it's all about; the technology is just there to deliver them where they want to go.

See my mountain climber's reasoning objection (IIA5b).

There's also the fact that this is fiction and nobody'd want to see a story about a robot probe exploring space.

Why not? The probe makes first contact and people follow the probe to meet them in person.

And again we come back to military discipline and the need to maintain skills that could be necessary in emergencies. My understanding is that a lot of military life is devoted to tasks that aren't strictly necessary, like close-order marching with rifles or making your bed corners ridiculously neat, but that are done for the purpose of maintaining readiness and discipline. And a lot of military or police training is in skills that you hope you never have to use, like how to kill people or how to disarm a bomb. The tasks performed by Starfleet crewmembers may seem "menial" to the casual observer, but they could save everyone's life if the technology breaks down.

The computer should be able to handle just about all the emergencies. The humans should simply huddle in a safe room while the computer works out the emergencies for them using superior intelligence, robots, multiple back systems etc.). The humans would want to know what is going on and be able to make generic strategic decisions (Fight! Flee!), but the implementation would be best handled by the ship itself. The very notion that people would need to do these tasks is outmoded.

People should only do enough to feel useful, to develop their talents, and to take pleasure and be fulfilled by their endeavors. Endless drilling, manual labor, hierarchical privilege (bullying by superiors, frustrations at being passed over for promotion) are not utopian outcomes. You have failed to grasp with my central point which is that for most people on a starship, life kind of sucks.

The mind isn't a piece of software that can be copied and uploaded

Prove it.

The mind is a function of the brain and the brain is physical. Create an identical brain and you create an identical minds.

that's a cyberpunk fantasy. Even scanning something as intricate and fluid as an organic brain -- which basically has the consistency of Jell-O, remember -- is a very tall order. Getting sufficient resolution to scan and replicate the activity of something that jiggly on a synapse-by-synapse level would be extremely difficult. And even if a copy could be made, it wouldn't be you, it would just be a copy existing independently. Unless you used quantum teleportation, in which case the original you would be destroyed in the process of creating the replica, and by quantum definitions the replica would be the same entity as the original you.

LOL, Star Trek ALREADY assumes a future where a transporter can move every subatomic part of your body to another location (thousands of miles away).
Trek is already Steampunk on it's own assumptions.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/23/brain.download/

And it's arrogant to assume we know for a fact what the real future's going to be. Today's posthumanist fiction may look as ludicrous to people 45 years from now as TOS does today. I mean, what makes our futurism any better than our forebears'? They made the best predictions they could based on the knowledge they had, just as we do. We can legitimately contrast 1960s SF with what we know of present-day reality, but we have no right to assume that our predictions of the far future are any more reliable than theirs.

What matters is that many assumptions of the future asserted by Trek have already been falsified. We have, for example, technologies today, which are superior or equivalent to technologies on the original Enterprise.

The posthumanism of today may not bear out in all particulars, but some visions of the future have been ruled out (Verne's moon, people on Venus and Mars, Buck Rogers buzzing spaceships, and Star Trek's Steampunk future).

And I for one have no interest in "transcending" my body.

Why? Eternal life. Expanded consciousness. The possibility of inhabiting multiple states of being simultaneously.

That's just old-school mysticism and mind-body dualism dressed up with technological trappings.

No, it's actually a ramification of a rather ruthless functionalist materialism.

Our current understanding increasingly suggests that our identity and psychology are intimately intertwined with our physical bodies, that you can't just treat a personality as a piece of software entirely distinct from the platform it runs on. Even if I could expand my consciousness into cyberspace, my body would still be at the core of who and what I am, and for all its faults, I have no interest in parting with it. Nor do I particularly enjoy fiction about posthumans. I'm a human, dammit, and I want to read about other humans, not pieces of software that delude themselves into thinking they're human.

And if man was meant to fly he'd have wings. I want to read about Earth-bound vehicles, dammit!

Khan really nailed it on the head when he noted of Trek's universe that humanity had done do very little to improve itself.

What makes Star Trek steampunky is this plucky (or is it fearful?) humanism which pushes back against the coming singularity.

Even strictly from the standpoint of genre definitions, it's rather silly to argue that any fiction which is not posthumanist must therefore be steampunk. That's about as absurd as arguing that anything which isn't a slasher film must be a romantic comedy. It's a complete non sequitur. (I'm sure there could be a romantic comedy that is also a slasher film, but then, it might be possible to write a posthumanist steampunk novel too.)

My argument that Trek is Steampunk does not crucially depend on posthumanism. I have six lines of analysis which precede item G.

But yes, any contemporary fiction which refuses to consider posthumanism, which has blinders on, is backwards looking.

Bottom line, it's wrong to equate "dated" with "steampunk." Your definition of that category is false. It doesn't apply to SF that was written in the past and has been superseded by real progress. Ultimately that encompasses all SF. Steampunk is specifically about drawing on the style and technology of the Victorian era and the science fiction of the time, such as the work of Verne and Wells. It's about creating a consciously retro vision of advanced technology. So that doesn't apply to something that was written in the past with a purely forward-looking intent and only appears dated to audiences in a later generation.

I am misusing the term polemically - to get people to think.

 

[Timo]

1. TOS Enterprise has crude memory cards that people carry around with very limited memory.

What is "crude" about them? The fact that they are comfortably sized?

And why should we consider their memory "limited"? Each could hold the combined contents of all the libraries in the universe - but that wouldn't be a practical way to carry, distribute or organize information. Some things will always be on memory medium A and others on memory medium B.

2. TNG Era - people lug around tablet PC and have computer stations everywhere when the computer of the ship should be distributed everywhere.

And it is - hence the ubiquitous interfaces.

These folks just don't believe in interfaces that consist solely of nano-goo that forms clouds around the heads of people. They prefer ergonomic things like tablets and consoles.

3. TOS Kirk could defeat computers by commanding them to calculate Pi.

Not really. Kirk could order a computer to concentrate on a single task by invoking a "Class A Compulsory Directive" - which would defeat a lifeform trying to hide inside the computer. The computer was not Kirk's enemy, but was doing what it had been built to do, that is, serve Kirk.

We can of course argue that the computers of Trek are not as good as they ought to be - but we cannot plausibly argue this on basis of their interfaces being too similar to what we have today. After all, humans themselves won't change much (or at least that's the assumption behind Star Trek, and a plausible future for mankind even if not the only one), so they will be quite comfortable with familiar-looking interfaces.

Also, here #2 is directly dependent on #1: computer technology develops especially unpredictably and illogically, and a wide range of plausible futures thus exists - wider than e.g. with transportation technology.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I'm not sure what you mean by that unless you're talking about the direction in recent years to do TOS prequels and reboots.

I am talking about the criteria we use to regulate our discussions of Treknology and for evaluating creative choices made in Trek projects.

I suggest that we consider Trek to be Steampunk-ish so that we may relax and/or modify the "reality criterion" in our discussions.

Example: TOS showed analogue gauges, but so what? That was the 60's. TOS-R changed those analogue gauges (under a revision informed the reality criterion) to morphing digital gauges, but this effort is misplaced since everything else about the show screams 1960s.

Otherwise, Trek has never been anything more than the depiction of an idealistic future rather than a realistic one. There are times when Trek has inspired some things in the real world, but not even Roddenberry has ever said Trek is how the future will actually be.

Trek has attempted to depict an idealistic possible future, a world we could inhabit if we play our cards right. It's not Rainbow Bright moves to Rock Candy Mountain idealism, but a Western Democractic ideal future premised on a progressive/heroic reading of science. Consequently, the reality criterion has informed the design and writing of Trek.

And I wouldn't call it Steampunk at all because that's specifically referring to taking late 19th-Century stuff and fusing them with much later technologies, including some that could be considered futuristic by us today. Star Trek seems to fall more into the category of a futuristic fictional universe.

I am using the word polemically to make a point and to take advantage of alliteration/meter (i.e., it sounds snappy).

If we view Star Trek to be steampunk-ish (i.e., science fantasy grounded in late 20th century technological speculation), we can get over the revisionist fetish of trying to constantly update Trek to fit in what view as today's future possible world. Trek is already so very grounded in a fixed history derived from 20th century thinking that this project is really doomed.

Atompunk? Rocketpunk? Raygun Gothic?

Anyways, it's perfectly reasonable for us to update Treknology as the years go on, I think.

I mean, why not?

TMP did it. TNG did it.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I'm not sure what you mean by that unless you're talking about the direction in recent years to do TOS prequels and reboots.

I am talking about the criteria we use to regulate our discussions of Treknology and for evaluating creative choices made in Trek projects.

What criteria?

I suggest that we consider Trek to be Steampunk-ish so that we may relax and/or modify the "reality criterion" in our discussions.

I wouldn't suggest that all because Trek isn't even remotely "Steampunk-ish." If it was, it'd be set in the 19th-Century and the Enterprise would either be an wooden oceagoing ship or a lighter-than-air dirigible at best.

Example: TOS showed analogue gauges, but so what? That was the 60's. TOS-R changed those analogue gauges (under a revision informed the reality criterion) to morphing digital gauges, but this effort is misplaced since everything else about the show screams 1960s.

I think the term you're really looking for is "retro-futuristic," (and only from the sense of someone looking back at the show from today). It's a fate that befalls most futuristic sci-fi shows and films eventually. They show evidence of the times they were made in.

Otherwise, Trek has never been anything more than the depiction of an idealistic future rather than a realistic one. There are times when Trek has inspired some things in the real world, but not even Roddenberry has ever said Trek is how the future will actually be.

Trek has attempted to depict an idealistic possible future, a world we could inhabit if we play our cards right.

That's really a misconception. No one involved in Trek has ever said Trek is anything more than a future we can aspire to, but as far as it being a depiction of the real future, that's more wishful-thinking on the part of fans.

It's not Rainbow Bright moves to Rock Candy Mountain idealism, but a Western Democractic ideal future premised on a progressive/heroic reading of science. Consequently, the reality criterion has informed the design and writing of Trek.

I didn't understand a single word of that.

And I wouldn't call it Steampunk at all because that's specifically referring to taking late 19th-Century stuff and fusing them with much later technologies, including some that could be considered futuristic by us today. Star Trek seems to fall more into the category of a futuristic fictional universe.

I am using the word polemically to make a point and to take advantage of alliteration/meter (i.e., it sounds snappy).

It's actually more of a case that you're using the word incorrectly. Steampunk refers precisely to an alternate Victorian/Old West era, not to everything prior to the digital age. It's like calling Trek an alternate version of medieval or biblical times.

If we view Star Trek to be steampunk-ish (i.e., science fantasy grounded in late 20th century technological speculation)...

Which we shoudn't because that isn't really the definition of Steampunk...

...we can get over the revisionist fetish of trying to constantly update Trek to fit in what view as today's future possible world. Trek is already so very grounded in a fixed history derived from 20th century thinking that this project is really doomed.

I believe what you're really just trying to call Trek is a fictional universe (which really covers many bases). A fictional universe can have its own history (as well as present and future) that's different from ours.

 

[YARN]

What is "crude" about them? The fact that they are comfortably sized?

What's crude is that they existed at all.

Have your noticed how Apple products forgo USB post and SD slots?

The Enterprise has a ship wide computer system. Transferring information should be instantaneous. You shouldn't literally have to carry memory cards from station to station (e.g., McCoy handing Spock a giant memory card to plug into his science station. Spock handing Kirk a card from his science station to plug into his captain's chair. Kirk recording Captain's Logs on separate memory cards.

And it is - hence the ubiquitous interfaces.

Right, but the idea that you would need 50,000 workstations distributed in the hallways of the ship is also rather backward looking. The minds of the officers should simply have a wi-fi connection to the ships computer. Why waste the time, energy, movement, and space to have people physically interact with all these workstations.

These folks just don't believe in interfaces that consist solely of nano-goo that forms clouds around the heads of people. They prefer ergonomic things like tablets and consoles.

What's more ergonomic? Getting carpal tunnel syndrome from typing and other repetitive stress injuries or simply thinking DIRECTLY about what you want to do and having it done?

And WHY don't they believe in these sort of interfaces? Because the writers haven't thought of them? LOL.

 

[Christopher]

Atompunk? Rocketpunk? Raygun Gothic?

TOS kind of straddled the pulp and New Wave eras. A lot of its concepts were right out of classic pulp-age space opera, but it had input from more contemporary writers like Sturgeon and Ellison.

Anyways, it's perfectly reasonable for us to update Treknology as the years go on, I think.

I mean, why not?

TMP did it. TNG did it.

Still, as long as it's all assumed to be one unified continuity, ST is going to get increasingly dated as time goes by. I disagree with a lot of YARN's specific claims and assumptions, but that much is accurate. I mean, first contact with Vulcan is supposed to happen only 51 1/2 years from now, so people watching or reading ST stories 55 or 60 years from now aren't going to be able to buy it as the future, at least not within the current continuity (and that includes the Abramsverse, which is assumed to have branched off of the Prime continuity in 2233 and shares a common history before then). Sooner or later ST will either have to be really restarted from scratch with a new approach and new ideas or it'll come to be seen as an outdated entity whose time has passed.

The Enterprise has a ship wide computer system. Transferring information should be instantaneous. You shouldn't literally have to carry memory cards from station to station (e.g., McCoy handing Spock a giant memory card to plug into his science station. Spock handing Kirk a card from his science station to plug into his captain's chair. Kirk recording Captain's Logs on separate memory cards.

And that's why they didn't do that on the later shows. They did have people physically carrying padds around or having piles of them on their desks rather than simply transferring files, but that was done as a storytelling device; a pile of documents on a desk conveys a sense of the character being busy more effectively than an empty desktop with a single monitor would, for example. A lot of your complaints overlook the fact that this is fiction and dramatic license sometimes overrides strict credibility.

Right, but the idea that you would need 50,000 workstations distributed in the hallways of the ship is also rather backward looking. The minds of the officers should simply have a wi-fi connection to the ships computer.

That's one possible direction technology could develop in, but it's shortsighted to say it's inevitable or the way things "should" be. There could be valid reasons why a society might reject the idea of connecting the brain directly to computer networks. I mean, it's bad enough getting malware on your computer. Have you seen Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex? All the ways that people's minds get invaded and altered and rewritten by hackers make for cool storytelling, but they just illustrate how reckless it may be to tie our very identities into a programmable, potentially vulnerable network. So the idea that a society might choose to reject taking that path is not implausible.

Not to mention that Starfleet is a military/defense organization (among other things), so security is important. Having your crew's brains directly connected to the ship's computer doesn't strike me as very secure, especially given how often alien probes invade or alter a starship's computer systems -- or how often telepaths invade or alter the crew's minds. If the two are linked, compromising either one would compromise both. (How many TNG or VGR episodes were there where Data or the Doctor was the only character who could save the day when all the organic crewmembers were incapacitated? If they'd all been linked into a single mental network, they might all have been equally compromised and the ship would've been destroyed.)

Why waste the time, energy, movement, and space to have people physically interact with all these workstations.

Because it's a television show and the viewers want to watch characters actually talking and moving and doing things, not just staring off blankly into space. This is also why Trek characters interact verbally with their computers even when a text interface would be quicker or easier -- because it makes it easier and more interesting for the audience to follow what's going on. Again, the needs of drama take precedence.

 

[YARN]

And that's why they didn't do that on the later shows.

But they did show it and it does fall under that particular continuity we call canon.

A lot of your complaints overlook the fact that this is fiction and dramatic license sometimes overrides strict credibility.

I don't think so. I just think were are getting to the point where that dramatic license is past its expiration date. People in the 60s accepted many things (even needed them to make sense of the story) that today's audience giggles at.

That's one possible direction technology could develop in, but it's shortsighted to say it's inevitable or the way things "should" be.

I'd say it's not just possible, but probable, if not the prime computation.

There could be valid reasons why a society might reject the idea of connecting the brain directly to computer networks. I mean, it's bad enough getting malware on your computer.

Star Trek is utopia. There is no malware.

Have you seen Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex? All the ways that people's minds get invaded and altered and rewritten by hackers make for cool storytelling,

No. Should I? Is it good?

but they just illustrate how reckless it may be to tie our very identities into a programmable, potentially vulnerable network. So the idea that a society might choose to reject taking that path is not implausible.

Reckless or not - the singularity is near.

What lies on the other side will what passes through the nexus of machine and man.

The age of biohumanity is coming to an end.

Not to mention that Starfleet is a military/defense organization (among other things), so security is important. Having your crew's brains directly connected to the ship's computer doesn't strike me as very secure, especially given how often alien probes invade or alter a starship's computer systems -- or how often telepaths invade or alter the crew's minds. If the two are linked, compromising either one would compromise both. (How many TNG or VGR episodes were there where Data or the Doctor was the only character who could save the day when all the organic crewmembers were incapacitated? If they'd all been linked into a single mental network, they might all have been equally compromised and the ship would've been destroyed.)

Well, that's why you might keep a few muggles around. These would not be people (that would be cruel), but rather non-networked robots/holograms (like Data and the Dr.).

If you think about it, your own example works against you. Biological humans are a monocrop. They are vulnerable to the same biological and psychic attacks. A posthuman cluster which embraced diversity, however, would suffer the weakness of biological sameness. Some might have consciousnesses written in a difference program language and run on different systems.

 

[scotpens]

Reckless or not - the singularity is near.

What lies on the other side will what passes through the nexus of machine and man.

The age of biohumanity is coming to an end.

Uh . . . yeah, right. Whatever.

 

[Christopher]

And that's why they didn't do that on the later shows.

But they did show it and it does fall under that particular continuity we call canon.

Canon isn't actually total continuity; it's just the pretense of it. Any long-running canon will contradict and reinterpret parts of itself, because it's the prerogative of fiction to modify its reality in ways that you can't do with actual reality. The most reasonable approach to canon is to focus on the big picture, not the niggling details that are subject to modification. For instance, in Spider-Man it's still an accepted truth that Peter Parker used his superpowers for showmanship and profit before his Uncle Ben was killed, but it's no longer an accepted truth that he performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1962. The important stuff remains, but the incidental details get tweaked over time.

I don't think so. I just think were are getting to the point where that dramatic license is past its expiration date. People in the 60s accepted many things (even needed them to make sense of the story) that today's audience giggles at.

That doesn't make any sense. Dramatic license has been part of fiction for thousands of years and it always will be. There's still a wealth of dramatic license in modern shows: TV cops getting DNA test results back in hours instead of weeks, TV lawyers getting to make arguments during examination or otherwise violating proper procedure, TV lawyers being surprised by courtroom revelations that any competent lawyer would've already learned in pretrial prep, action heroes being blown through the air by explosions without getting their internal organs ruptured in the process, just about anything computer hackers are shown to do, etc. There are whole websites about critiquing the dramatic license taken in TV, film, and comics in areas like physics or law.

Come on, the whole point of fiction is that it isn't exactly like reality, that it can change things to be more interesting and more straightforward and have fewer boring or confusing bits. Heck, just giving a series' heroes 26 or 22 or even 13 distinct adventures a year is dramatic license. Most of us can do our jobs for years without anything really exciting or dramatic happening.

Star Trek is utopia. There is no malware.

You're forgetting "Court-martial," "Contagion," "I, Borg," "The Forsaken," "Unforgettable," "Affliction"/"Divergence," countless holodeck-malfunction episodes, etc.

Reckless or not - the singularity is near.

What lies on the other side will what passes through the nexus of machine and man.

The age of biohumanity is coming to an end.

Weird, this is the second time in the past hour or so I've had to point this out on this BBS: The meaning of the Singularity is a point beyond which we become unable to predict how technology will develop because we don't have enough information to draw any reasonable conclusions. So to claim to know with certainty what the Singularity means is oxymoronic.

Well, that's why you might keep a few muggles around. These would not be people (that would be cruel), but rather non-networked robots/holograms (like Data and the Dr.).

How is it "cruel" to let humans embrace their potential by traveling to the stars? You seem to be advocating for the extinction of the human race and its replacement by robot overlords. How is that a good thing?

If you think about it, your own example works against you. Biological humans are a monocrop. They are vulnerable to the same biological and psychic attacks. A posthuman cluster which embraced diversity, however, would suffer the weakness of biological sameness. Some might have consciousnesses written in a difference program language and run on different systems.

Dude, you know they have aliens in Star Trek, right?

Not to mention that humans aren't nearly as monolithic as you say. There will always be some people who are immune or resistant to a disease to which others are vulnerable. And there are a lot of differences in people's psychology as well, so the same varying levels of vulnerability and resistance could apply to neurological invasions. Heck, we already know that some people are more susceptible than others to hypnosis, or to having a seizure when exposed to flashing lights, or to other known phenomena that can affect a person's mental state.

 

[YARN]

Reckless or not - the singularity is near.

What lies on the other side will what passes through the nexus of machine and man.

The age of biohumanity is coming to an end.

Uh . . . yeah, right. Whatever.

Whatever it is, if anything, that leaves Earth and someday visits another solar-system will not be a human as we know humans today.

It will be genetically improved (if it is even organic). It will be a cyborg (if not completely liberated of the flesh). It will be connected to information processing in ways we cannot imagine.

The final frontier is not space, but nous.

 

[MANT!]

Yeah...right...

 

[Basill]

Reckless or not - the singularity is near.

What lies on the other side will what passes through the nexus of machine and man.

The age of biohumanity is coming to an end.

Uh . . . yeah, right. Whatever.

Whatever it is, if anything, that leaves Earth and someday visits another solar-system will not be a human as we know humans today.

It will be genetically improved (if it is even organic). It will be a cyborg (if not completely liberated of the flesh). It will be connected to information processing in ways we cannot imagine.

The final frontier is not space, but nous.

What kind of Borg Kool-Aid are you serving?

 

[YARN]

That doesn't make any sense.

Yes it does. Dramatic license for one generation is to imagine a balloon going to the moon. For another it is people riding an artillery shell to the moon. For another it is scrapped NASA parts allowing people to go to the moon.

Dramatic license has been part of fiction for thousands of years and it always will be.

But particular licenses/conventions expire.

You're forgetting "Court-martial," "Contagion," "I, Borg," "The Forsaken," "Unforgettable," "Affliction"/"Divergence," countless holodeck-malfunction episodes, etc.

There are a few bad apples, but there's no one writing viruses for a living in Trek.

As for the rest, I imagine a rich cluster of posthuman diversity. Consciousness distributed on different systems, in different languages, with different levels of connectivity. This cluster would be so diverse that no one silver bullet variable would be likely to take it out.

unable to predict[/I] how technology will develop because we don't have enough information to draw any reasonable conclusions. So to claim to know with certainty what the Singularity means is oxymoronic.

The "singularity" is a metaphorical reference to black holes.
Take the notion singularity too literally, and arguably we went through in 1492, or in 1944, or five minutes ago - because no one really knows what it is or what the world will be like after it, which means it could be anything! This is a rather silly way of looking at it.

To speak meaningfully of the singularity we have to be able to say some things about it. Ray Kurzweil, for example, isn't hoping to resurrect his father from boxes of his dad's stuff isn't because he has absolutely no idea of what is on the other side of the singularity.

We know that the singularity is a fusion of humanity with technology. We know that it holds the prospect of virtual immortality. We know that it means what holds true today, will NOT hold true after the singularity. What we do know, what we can project, indicates that Star Trek is increasingly Steampunk.

How is it "cruel" to let humans embrace their potential by traveling to the stars?

I summon Brother Cavil to the stand:

Brother Cavil: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova?
Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.
Ellen Tigh: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible.
Brother Cavil: I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!

You seem to be advocating for the extinction of the human race and its replacement by robot overlords. How is that a good thing?

Good or bad it is coming.

We are the only species which has actively attempted to engineer its replacement! Most species eventually lose the evolutionary contest. We, however, are laboring to build ours. AI researchers will tell you that the prospects of their research is scary, and yet they keep on doing it.

Dude, you know they have aliens in Star Trek, right?

You mean humans with bumpy heads? Trek aliens are not all that alien.