how StarTrek should have been?

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Originally Posted by WaveMan

As far as the Geordi character is concerned I always felt it was a scientifically flawed plot line, Federation medical science would have screened all pregnancy's for genetic abnormalities and birth defects (as he was described as being afflicted with) (trimester scans, we do them today) and corrected any problems simply as standard practice.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge

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There is no indication in TNG that Geordi's blindness is genetic. Certainly it was congenital, as he is stated to have been born blind, but may it have occurred for any number of reasons, including exposure to a teratogenic substance while his mother was pregnant. It was, however a plot point so Gene could make one of his humanistic statements about overcoming disabilities. He was originally a CONN officer - literally a blind man driving the bus.

If you're going to go down that path, you might as well ask why Picard is bald, since they could have screened ou male pattern baldness (Sisko, however, is bald by choice).

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Originally Posted by Owen E Oulton

I remember back in the very early days of the new millennium an ad with Avery Brroks saying "It's the 21st century - they said we'd have flying cars by now. I want my flying car!"

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yeah me too, 2079 seems to be the predicted date of practical flying cars, still the 21st century just a bit late for most of us (I won't be around then)
http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stce...m#.VG-4efmUeJg

I am however amused at this thread. As open fans of the Sci Fi genre, and all of us advocating future thinking. All in support of a show where the lead characters will often ask the Computer to do half their work for them...

Our relatively negative view of computer modelling futurism is amusing.

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Originally Posted by Dan Gurden

I am however amused at this thread. As open fans of the Sci Fi genre, and all of us advocating future thinking. All in support of a show where the lead characters will often ask the Computer to do half their work for them...

Our relatively negative view of computer modelling futurism is amusing.

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Well, just to be clear, I don't have a relatively negative view of computer modelling futurism - I just think we should be aware of its limitations. Computer modelling is fantastic when we can account for known variables - testing aerodynamics in a virtual wind-tunnel, for example. The problem I have is that there are things which completely turn societies upside down that are impossible to account for when modelling a possible future. So a computer model can give you an outcome that's interesting to think about, and in the short term may work for certain things (predictions of population growth or traffic flow with regard to city planning, for example), but they can't give you an "inevitable" result or even a necessarily "most likely" result over a long period and large-scale scenario.

Remember, the computer couldn't translate the Tamarian language in Darmok, because it didn't have the right variables to go on (a listing of Tamarian myths). :)

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Originally Posted by Dan Gurden

I am however amused at this thread. As open fans of the Sci Fi genre, and all of us advocating future thinking. All in support of a show where the lead characters will often ask the Computer to do half their work for them...

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Only when they're not with someone else there to talk to...

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Originally Posted by WaveMan

yeah me too, 2079 seems to be the predicted date of practical flying cars, still the 21st century just a bit late for most of us (I won't be around then)
http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stce...m#.VG-4efmUeJg

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Hell, I'd only be 122 by then - seems doable with real-world advances in medicine.

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Originally Posted by Dan Gurden

I am however amused at this thread. As open fans of the Sci Fi genre, and all of us advocating future thinking. All in support of a show where the lead characters will often ask the Computer to do half their work for them...

Our relatively negative view of computer modelling futurism is amusing.

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Science fiction has had an abysmal record when it comes to predicting the future of computers. In Trek, computers are smart enough to do amazing things, but dumb enough to fall prey to a Kirk Logic Bomb. Imagine what he'd do to Data...

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Originally Posted by Owen E Oulton

Science fiction has had an abysmal record when it comes to predicting the future of computers. In Trek, computers are smart enough to do amazing things, but dumb enough to fall prey to a Kirk Logic Bomb. Imagine what he'd do to Data...

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Yeah, I'd bet it would take Data a whole episode and heartfelt conversation with everyone in the senior staff to resolve some conundrum posed by Kirk.

Really, Landru's problem was that he didn't have any friends.

Yeah, but Norman had a whole planet of friends...

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Originally Posted by Owen E Oulton

Yeah, but Norman had a whole planet of friends...

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Norman's friends were the problem, though!

Seriously, though (he said. dragging the thread kicking and screaming back onto topic), the original concept of a cyborg, prior to its co-opting by Martin Caidin for his bionic hero Steve Austin, was a transhuman concept. Rather specifically defined as a man enhanced by mechanical parts, the term was coined to describe a man enhanced by selective breeding and pharmaceutical means - "For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term 'Cyborg'... A cyborg is essentially a man-machine system in which the control mechanisms of the human portion are modified externally by drugs or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment different from the normal one".

Well, I'm a big McLuhanite, so I always see the fingerprints of the past needs in whatever technology is shaping the present, and that gives me a dim view of optimistic portrayals of the future where technology happens and then the only thing that results is that past problems are fixed but no new ones are created. (I'm reading Fordlandia right now, and between descriptions of the darkly hilarious failures on the Tapajos there's a breakdown of Ford's optimism in the face of a world he himself created.) That's one of the reasons I like DS9's implied history of Earth, where a better society was created by human struggles, better than the technotopianism VOY and sometimes TNG indulged in.

resurrection of an old thread, but the link explains what I was trying to say very well

http://io9.com/5906586/its-time-to-m...-of-the-future

Whoever wrote that article has drunk of the koolaid so deeply that their corpse will be magenta.

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Originally Posted by WaveMan

I was just reading the post about StarTrek Ultimate and it piqued my interest,. I have long thought that Gene's vision of StarTrek was deeply flawed (because of when it was written) as in if you look at Futurists predictions (Future Timeline.net which uses computer modeling on historical events and input from many scientists and futurists) StarTrek would look completely different to how it was written.
Remember these are my thought's and I'm not trying to stir up trouble with anyone.

For one Transhuman's (genetically perfected, cybentically enhanced Homo-Superior) would populate Earth by 2300ad, with biological humans (homo-sapiens) being a very small minority. Homo-sapiens would have no say in how the planet is run (the world government would consist of sentient AI with transhuman input via the internet/full immersion virtual reality) or even understand the current technology (they wouldn't be able to even truly log in to the internet as they would not have encephalon's implanted (nanite based micro computers blending the human mind with AI implants in their brains, expanding the hosts intelligence and ability to process information) or the neural interfaces.

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I don't know if anyone would watch that show. I certainly don't think you'd get away with calling it Star Trek.

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Originally Posted by WaveMan

The clear prejudice against Augments contradicts Gene's vision of a "more enlightened and evolved humanity"

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Absolutely agreed.

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Originally Posted by WaveMan

StarFleet would be a far more militant organization, especially as it seems to be based largely on the American naval fleet/early space program (America leads the way in space exploration and is the world leader, hence their influence is understandable), they would definitely have a "explore the universe/gather as much information as possible" mandate but that wouldn't negate the fact they would do so strongly. StarFleet personnel would have a firm foundation in military doctrine and in fact joining Starfleet would be the same as today if someone joined the Navy/army today (with the same expectation of commitment and danger)

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Again, agreed.

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Originally Posted by WaveMan

I continue when I have time, Thought's so far?

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I think Star Trek is still in need of a good revamping. Abrams may have sexed it up but it still needs to reclaim its place as the Sci-Fi show that looked the future (and boldly critiqued the present). I really don't think any reincarnation of it to date has done so. Heck, I think Mass Effect did a much better job. They were smart enough to at least attempt a future version of the smart phone, with the omni-tool that actually hacks electronics and has a minu-factory built into the darned things. And where are the quantum entanglement communications in Star Trek? They don't have that, because they're still using subspace radio. And the "standard genetic enhancements" anyone joining any military organization receives as a matter of course? Mass Effect had it but, as you pointed out...no. Star Trek doesn't have that but rather still stubbornly holds to a decades out of date assumption that genetic enhancement is of the devil.

And social issues? I've read a few articles (and the comments section of those articles) that addressed that point. How Star Trek can reclaim its place on the front lines of social issues. 99% of all opinions seem to be some variation of including more homosexual couples and transexuals and every other sexual. Yes, great. But where's our Muslim extremist terrorists? Where's our abortion-issue? Where's the ever-widening political disparity among the people, that yawning chasm upon which our United Earth representative republic (or parliament, or whatever) rests? Where are our Jewish aliens and Palestinean aliens and their generations-old conflict, with all its stupefying intricacies? Religion versus Humanism? Government surveillance of the citizenry? Feminism and anti-feminism? And on and on. Plenty of current issues that science fiction can and does address. A modern Star Trek show should as well, and not just for an episode where they find these issues on a planet that will be forgotten next week.

I can easily create a Star Trek universe where all these social issues are present and the technology is ground-breaking again, without having to change too much at all. I'd like to see a Star Trek that does that.