The mobile emitter in Drone

[at Quark's]

Just looked Drone again. After all these years it's still a very enjoyable episode.

But, there's that mobile emitter, which is something of an enigma. On the one hand, it is apparently so simple (or certain parts of it are), that someone (B'Elanna) from a period of 400 years before its time can repair it. And I believe this episode is not the only instance in which it is repaired (but I'm not entirely sure).

On the other hand, it apparently contains so many and so many diverse advanced technologies that within a few days it can grow a single drone (I'm not even going into the 'how' part here) unbeatably superior to the Borg collective (at least the part of the collective residing in that Sphere) . Also, after the emitter is damaged, it gets to be part of the drone's cerebral system, undergoes a sphere implosion, is presumably extracted from the drone's body and repaired. Next time we see it, it's good as new.

All this in one episode!

What's the explanation for this? Did they just have the incredible luck that never in all those years a really complicated part of the emitter got damaged, a part that they couldn't have repaired with 24th knowledge ? Or are all the really complicated parts self-repairing- but the simple parts aren't ?

 

[Refuge]

Maybe they were able to determine a schematic of the emitter. As for the 29th Century materials that may have been unique to that time (if there were actually any), I really don't know. How would the replicators go for such?

It was a pretty cool episode. I kept thinking is that Niles from Frasier? But it wasn't.

It was my understanding One was part human, part Borg, and part emitter.

Just lifted this from Wikipedia : "A small team from Voyager, including Seven of Nine and the ship's holographic Doctor, are performing a survey of a proto-nebula on a shuttlecraft. When the nebula becomes unstable, the team is evacuated via transport to the ship, but a malfunction briefly merges their patterns together. The malfunction is corrected, and the team is safely transported aboard. The Doctor finds his mobile emitter is failing, and he is safely returned to sickbay while Lt Torres takes the emitter to the science lab to attempt repairs the next day. The crew is unaware that the emitter has gained some of Seven's Borg nanoprobes from the malfunctioning transporter, and it begins assimilating the equipment in the science lab."

That implies that there was quite a bit more going on that I thought.. "assimilating the equipment in the science lab". Ensign Mulcahy's tissue gets assimilated next.. and our clever little Borg wannabe makes itself a maturation chamber and life is born! Love it.

Of course given the holographic nature of the Doctor when the transporter merge happened the emitter was more likely to have mixed patterns with Seven and her nanoprobes. Otherwise we could've had another Tuvix situation.

 

[Catarina]

It is endearing but full of?? and let's face it, we didn't actually believe he was staying on board. I know you didn't ask for an opinion but it is all I got. Hehe.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I wouldn't be surprised if it had a database built in (which Voyager couldn't access/didn't know about) with all the futuristic technology blueprints in it. You can fit so much data onto a memory card today that's the size of a little fingernail it's unreal - imagine what they can do in the 29th century.

 

[Catarina]

I wouldn't be surprised if it had a database built in (which Voyager couldn't access/didn't know about) with all the futuristic technology blueprints in it. You can fit so much data onto a memory card today that's the size of a little fingernail it's unreal - imagine what they can do in the 29th century.

I like this plausibility

 

[at Quark's]

I wouldn't be surprised if it had a database built in (which Voyager couldn't access/didn't know about) with all the futuristic technology blueprints in it. You can fit so much data onto a memory card today that's the size of a little fingernail it's unreal - imagine what they can do in the 29th century.

And knowing how precious that mobile emitter is to the doc, and probably being somewhat hesitant about possessing technology 500 years more advanced than they "should" possess, they probably wouldn't want to try to discover the secrets of that mobile emitter at all costs and risks, e.g. the risk of irreparably damaging it.

The Borg (or seven's nanoprobes) would have no such qualms.

 

[Sophie74656]

Just looked Drone again. After all these years it's still a very enjoyable episode.

But, there's that mobile emitter, which is something of an enigma. On the one hand, it is apparently so simple (or certain parts of it are), that someone (B'Elanna) from a period of 400 years before its time can repair it. And I believe this episode is not the only instance in which it is repaired (but I'm not entirely sure).

On the other hand, it apparently contains so many and so many diverse advanced technologies that within a few days it can grow a single drone (I'm not even going into the 'how' part here)

This is the Borg technology at work. When a young child is assimilated it goes into a maturation chamber where it's growth and development are sped up. Within a short time the child emerges as a full adult. We also know that Borg technology adapts. The nanoprobes assimilated the advanced technology from the mobile emitter and used that to improve their work.

Next time we see it, it's good as new.

All this in one episode!

The next time we see it....how much time has passed? Just because it was in the same episode doesn't mean that days haven't passed.

 

[at Quark's]

Next time we see it, it's good as new.

All this in one episode!

The next time we see it....how much time has passed? Just because it was in the same episode doesn't mean that days haven't passed.

Ah, my apologies, I didn't mean to say that it even re-appears in within the same episode 'good as new' - it doesn't, AFAIK.

I meant the two sentences to be read separately, not in combination. The first one expressing surprise that even after all that happened to it, B'Elanna with her "primitive " 24th century knowledge still was able to repair it at all, the technology must be very advanced and quite sturdy and relatively easy to repair.

The second sentence was just meant to express dumbfoundedness over all these paradoxes contained within the very same episode.

 

[Sophie74656]

Ah, my apologies, I didn't mean to say that it even re-appears in within the same episode 'good as new' - it doesn't, AFAIK.

I meant the two sentences to be read separately, not in combination. The first one expressing surprise that even after all that happened to it, B'Elanna with her "primitive " 24th century knowledge still was able to repair it at all, the technology must be very advanced and quite sturdy and relatively easy to repair.

The second sentence was just meant to express dumbfoundedness over all these paradoxes contained within the very same episode.

Right, but even if it's in the same episode time still passes. It could be days in between the events. So there's no reason why something can't be repaired.

As far as B'Elanna fixing the emitter...for one it is still Federation technology so even though it is more advanced some underlying principles are things she is familiar with. And by that point he's had the emitter for a couple of years so they've had time to figure it out. In the beginning they often talked about not knowing how long it would last.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm liking the idea that 29th-century technology is deliberately made easy to repair by anyone who finds it. That's just another advancement of 500 years hence.

(Exactly the opposite of, say, Warhammer 40K, where nobody knows how anything works and thus nothing can be repaired...)

 

[Iseult]

Otherwise we could've had another Tuvix situation.

Oh man, Tuvix. What a cool guy.

 

[Refuge]

Oh man, Tuvix. What a cool guy.

A couple of cool guys in fact, lol!

 

[Farscape One]

Wasn't the mobile emitter built by Henry Starling based on things he learned from the timeship? He clearly didn't have the materials to build exactly like a 29th century model, so he had to use whatever he has in the 20th century. The emitter itself likely is built using 20th century technology, which the crew can easily fix, but with 29th century programming, something they have to look through and study. At least, that's what I am thinking.

 

[Sophie74656]

Wasn't the mobile emitter built by Henry Starling based on things he learned from the timeship? He clearly didn't have the materials to build exactly like a 29th century model, so he had to use whatever he has in the 20th century. The emitter itself likely is built using 20th century technology, which the crew can easily fix, but with 29th century programming, something they have to look through and study. At least, that's what I am thinking.

I don't think they specifically said whether he built it or whether it was something the time ship already had....though I'm leaning more towards the idea of him building it. He said he used holograms to test some of his items and I don't think that time ship had a holodeck on it. So Starling probably had to build it himself.

You know I never thought of this before. It certainly makes sense now that I think about it, and that does explain how Voyager can repair the emitter despite it being centuries ahead of their tech. If it was built using advanced tech but by someone with "primitive" knowledge it kind of averages out to something comprable to Voyager's current tech.

 

[Refuge]

Not that Memory Alpha is an authority but it says this..

"Owned by Henry Starling in 1996, the emitter was either aboard the appropriated Aeon timeship, or derived from the 29th-century technology therein. "

 

[CommanderTrip]

The mobile emitter is such a funny thing. When it was first introduced, it was certainly more vulnerable. I think it was the episode "Macrocosm" someone on the crew highlights that the Doctor needs to be careful because the emitter is 29th century technology and they could lose his program or the technology could be damaged, yadda yadda yadda, something to that effect.

The mobile emitter suffered from the "plot-of-the-week" format the show suffered from in it's later seasons, or "Joe Carey's Law" as I like to call it. Like Joe Carey himself, or the finite amount of photon torpedoes, unlimited shuttles, and only 47 bio-neural gelpacks, many of Voyager's early plot points in later seasons were just kind of forgotten or taken for granted. The mobile emitter became an invulnerable, repairable, and permanent fixture on Voyager. It was no longer a fragile piece of future technology from the future's future. The image of the Equinox-EMH b*tch slapping the emitter on the Voyager-EMH's arm comes to mind.

But I will give Voyager some credit for having a few threads carried out in their later seasons across different episodes. The Reg Barclay/Troi/Pathfinder/Admiral Paris episodes are great examples. And the Borg Kids/Icheb episodes pop into mind too. Voyager definitely had a lot of potential if the show spent 7 seasons patching hull breaches, picking up new crew members, bringing back old crewmembers (joe carey!) and not killing them. (joe carey!)

 

[at Quark's]

^In general, I can forgive these 'plot points' by assuming they gradually got better in making do without starfleet facilities.

Photon torpedoes can't be replaced? That's true when (I believe) Janeway mentions it in early season 1, but not necessarily still true in season 6. The same goes for gel packs and stuff.

Similarly, I could imagine they gradually understood a little more about this mobile emitter.

 

[Jedman67]

The Reg Barclay/Troi/Pathfinder/Admiral Paris episodes are great examples. And the Borg Kids/Icheb episodes pop into mind too.

I consider those plot points to be particularly dumb.

 

[Prax]

There's always room for more Broccoli

 

[Voth commando1]

I think we have to assume the mobile emitter is extremely complex and advanced technology and it joining with Seven's nanoprobes had the effect of creating the drone.

As for the mobile emitter-it was probably 29th century technology and it wasn't something Starling could have made himself in my opinion.