Couldn't Pike have been rebuilt as a cyborg (spoilers for Project Daedalus)

[Yistaan]

After the last episode, it seems like the tech discrepancy between TOS and Discovery got just a bit wider. While before now the tech differences were mainly cosmetic instead of functional, it's now confirmed that Airiam is a cyborg rebuilt from an extremely damaged human body.

Why couldn't TOS tech have done the same for Pike? At the least there should have been a vocabulator built for him to speak instead of that beeping wheelchair. The discrepancy seems jarring now.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Hmm...easily haijacked by alien AI. Pike wouldn't want to compromise his crew.

And there may be no known safeguards.

 

[Yistaan]

Hmm...easily haijacked by alien AI. Pike wouldn't want to compromise his crew.

And there may be no known safeguards.

Have him return to civilian life then. If he has sensitive info in his brain, he'll just have to delete them (the way Airiam can do with her memories). I doubt Pike will care about forgetting a bunch of boring command codes anyway.

 

[dahj]

They couldn't rebuild him. They didn't have the technology.

 

[Yistaan]

They couldn't rebuild him. They didn't have the technology.

But it was available for Airiam? And Pike's brain is still fully intact in TOS, he doesn't need to delete memories or anything like that.

 

[jfordny]

Well ... IMO the Menagerie always had a bit of a problem. It’s a brilliant use of the old pilot and a compelling character study for Spock, but it just doesn’t ring true that a blinking light is all that could be done for Pike. Now there’s Airiam and Tyler, a reconstructed Klingon with the consciousness of a Starfleet officer.

I guess you can wank that radiation poisoning is a different level of damage. That doesn’t really work for me, though. Discovery makes a weakness in the Menagerie even bigger for me.

 

[dahj]

But it was available for Airiam?

It wasn't for Pike. He had Reverse Steve Austin Syndrome.

 

[Yistaan]

Well ... IMO the Menagerie always had a bit of a problem. It’s a brilliant use of the old pilot and a compelling character study for Spock, but it just doesn’t ring true that a blinking light is all that could be done for Pike. Now there’s Airiam and Tyler, a reconstructed Klingon with the consciousness of a Starfleet officer.

I guess you can wank that radiation poisoning is a different level of damage. That doesn’t really work for me, though. Discovery makes a weakness in the Menagerie even bigger for me.

My head canon is that the wheelchair was a temporary thing until a more complex tech suit could be built for Pike. If you take Mendez's line that there was "subspace chatter for months", Pike would have been in that state for 2 months. It was recent enough that Kirk hadn't heard about it.

But then Spock came and messed everything up and Pike thought might as well just live with Vina.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Hmm...easily haijacked by alien AI. Pike wouldn't want to compromise his crew.

And there may be no known safeguards.

It's hard for young'uns to believe but computers can work without being connected to an exposed network.

 

[jfordny]

My head canon is that the Federation eventually does better than a black box and a blinking light and picks Pike up.

But Pike and Vina doesn’t work at all for me and I find the Talosians incredibly creepy with their voyeurism and willingness to torture over “wrong thinking.”

 

[Awesome Possum]

The beeping chair seems like a living hell. I would hope that was only temporary and really just needed until he could heal before a more permanent solution. Like how amputees need to heal before getting the more advanced prosthetic limbs.

 

[David cgc]

No two injuries are alike, especially not "mangled in a shuttle crash" and "space-radiation poisoning." One of the novels proposed that Pike's injuries included an exotic type of Locked-In Syndrome so he couldn't send more than a couple of very limited voluntary nerve signals. At this point, we have to assume that Pike's condition was a result of his injuries, and not a technical limitation. So attempting a full-body prosthesis like Airiam got would just give him a shiny blue body where he could still do one thing two ways. Maybe instead of "beeb" and "beep beep," they could wire it up so he could rotate his forearm clockwise or counter-clockwise, and give everybody a thumbs up or thumbs down.

 

[Kor]

Airiam was probably rebuilt by advanced aliens after her shuttle crashed on their planet, not Starfleet.

Kor

 

[XCV330]

I feel like we're going to find out by season's end

 

[F. King Daniel]

Now they've brought Robocop into the Trekverse and opened that Pandora's box, more than just Pike could be returned to functionality if Starfleet wished.

How long was Picard awaiting rescue on Veridian III? How long was Kirk dead? We could have RoboKirk roaming the galaxy, fighting crime.

 

[Iamnotspock]

With the instances of compromised tech this season - the Enterprise via the holographic comm system and now Airiam - I wouldn't be surprised if we see some sort of fleetwide downgrade at the end, bringing the show spiritually more into line with TOS's tech for Season 3.

 

[Yistaan]

With the instances of compromised tech this season - the Enterprise via the holographic comm system and now Airiam - I wouldn't be surprised if we see some sort of fleetwide downgrade at the end, bringing the show spiritually more into line with TOS's tech for Season 3.

Fear of hacking shouldn't compromise a person's hope for quality of life. That would go against everything the Federation stands for.

 

[Awesome Possum]

If you saw someone with cybernetic enhancements get hacked and be unable to save herself or be saved, to the point where she begged to die so she wouldn’t hurt a close friend. Then would you be eager to do the same to yourself, knowing that’s a risk. Pike being someone who truly cares for the safety of those in his command would object out of fear that could happen. He’d rather suffer than risk anyone else’s life.

 

[cultcross]

Now they've brought Robocop into the Trekverse and opened that Pandora's box, more than just Pike could be returned to functionality if Starfleet wished.

How long was Picard awaiting rescue on Veridian III? How long was Kirk dead? We could have RoboKirk roaming the galaxy, fighting crime.

Discovery didn't introduce that, especially if we are talking 24th century Trek. Artificial hearts are clearly in use in Picard's academy days, and Joseph Sisko is having replacement organs. It stands to reason given our technology today that 23/24th century medical tech will include a lot of biotech options. We don't tend to see them used when the death is dramatically required though.

 

[Yistaan]

If you saw someone with cybernetic enhancements get hacked and be unable to save herself or be saved, to the point where she begged to die so she wouldn’t hurt a close friend. Then would you be eager to do the same to yourself, knowing that’s a risk. Pike being someone who truly cares for the safety of those in his command would object out of fear that could happen. He’d rather suffer than risk anyone else’s life.

That's making an assumption Pike would hop back into commanding a starship after being turned into a cyborg, instead of going home to Mojave caring for horses or something. Why would anyone want to hack a civilian horse carer?

All Airiam proves is that cyborgs should not have sensitive positions in the military, not that they shouldn't exist. If Airiam were not a Starfleet officer, no one would have wasted their time hacking her.