Why is TV SF so bad? (And a modest proposal to fix it)

[WarpGirl]

Hey the transporter replaces the Ceasarian section by VOY's time. As a woman I can only say that is an AWESOME idea!

[Transwarp]

Yeah, but what if the transporter breaks and people have forgotten how to ummm... you know... (defecate) the old-fashioned way? What if their anuses have atrophied from lack of use?

Now try to imagine an episode around THAT concept. Oh, the drama!

[WarpGirl]

Well I'm sorry but not having to be cut open or enduring hours of physical exertion and pain (according to every girl I know the epideral doesn't kill all of it) to have a baby is a nice fantasy. Heck I wish they could have "beamed" my defective parts out when I had my surgery. Let's face it, there are just some things you shouldn't have to suffer through.

For example, the hypospray is a wonderful thing. It once took them 4 hours just to get an IV in me for pre-op because my 6 year old veins were too thin and tiny to get a line. ST gave me hope that eventually I wouldn't have to suffer being in an MRI for 90mins scared out of my wits because of my claustraphobia. Of course, here I am 21 years later still having to suffer with the same old things. BUT at least I can watch ST and be immersed in the fantasy that they will finally perfect a hypospray.

Without ST we would not have I-pads or cell phones, or laptops. So sometimes that crazy all powerful tech is worth something. Because it inspires people to go get a form of it.

[putaro]

Hey the transporter replaces the Ceasarian section by VOY's time. As a woman I can only say that is an AWESOME idea!

It is an awesome idea. That's the thing though - the transporter changes EVERYTHING. Especially if you can manipulate the signal going into it, in which case it changes to a replicator. And the replicator completely changes economics, manufacturing and by extension society. Which, if you think it through and integrate it into your world it's fine. But if you just toss it in without thinking it through it will keep causing problems because viewers start to see the potential and wonder why you (the writers) aren't seeing the potential as well.

When I say that characters should be working around the limitation of their technology, I don't mean that the technology has to be primitive. I like to see the limitations of the technology kind of laid out up front, though, and then the characters don't get to pull new magic gadgets out of their back pockets when confronted with a situation. Star Trek wasn't too bad about that, in general, but they did have a bad habit of writing in new Vulcan powers on a regular basis.

Larry Niven has written several SF mysteries. He said someplace that part of his style in writing them is that he will show you all of the necessary pieces for the mystery somewhere in the story. That gives the reader a chance to figure out the mystery before the detective. It's much more satisfying that way, especially if you can't figure out the mystery but when it's solved for you, you can look back and see that all the clues were there. I don't like when a situation is solved by some completely unknown trick appearing out of nowhere (or deus ex machina as we say in Latin).

[Transwarp]

the transporter changes EVERYTHING. Especially if you can manipulate the signal going into it, in which case it changes to a replicator. And the replicator completely changes economics, manufacturing and by extension society. Which, if you think it through and integrate it into your world it's fine. But if you just toss it in without thinking it through it will keep causing problems because viewers start to see the potential and wonder why you (the writers) aren't seeing the potential as well.

Yep. Need soldiers for your war with the rommies? No problem! Get your VERY BEST guy, transport him into the storage buffer, and just start running off copies of him. As many as you need! Lost them all in that last battle? Pshaw! We'll make more!

Or how about this? Get one of those mimetic sponge things that Phlox made Sim with. Inject with DNA from your favorite historical figure. Now you can just ask all those perplexing questions the historians have been wondering about, because the clone has all the memories of the original! Isn't that COOL? Or do you want to know who's in the tomb of the unknown soldier? Clone him and ask him.

Putaro's absolutely right. These sorts of things need to be considered up front when you're designing your universe.

Another example is military tactics. The tactics you employ in a fight will be shaped by the capabilities of your weapons. (If you're smart. Otherwise you risk fighting the last war, as in WWI generals using 19th century infantry tactics against machine guns.) Given the offensive and defensive capabilities of your weapons and countermeasures, you need to employ tactics that make sense, not just make every battle look like WWII with phasers instead of M1's.

[panyasan]

Yeah, but what if the transporter breaks and people have forgotten how to ummm... you know... (defecate) the old-fashioned way? What if their anuses have atrophied from lack of use?

Now try to imagine an episode around THAT concept. Oh, the drama!

Also, that old-fashioned way isn't that bad. A female body makes hormones during labour: against the pain, to concentrate and when the baby leaves the body the brain gives a signal to the body to start producing breastfeeding. I have been there three times without painkillers. It's fasinating process. Like Transwarp pointed out, new technologies are great, but you need to understand how to handle them and what the consequences are. You can write great stories with this idea in mind.

[WarpGirl]

Like I said it's about the fantasy. I don't really think that it would be a good idea to beam babies out willy-nilly but it IS better than being cut open.

As for technology changing everything that's what happens over time. The telephone, the car, the electric lightbulb, the PC, the i-net. These things have had the same type of effect on our world that the transporter has on the ST world and that's natural.

[Distracted]

The hypospray actually exists. It just hurts more than needles and leaves bruises. http://ard.bmj.com/content/26/2/143.full.pdf

[WarpGirl]

That's why I said this...

...that they will finally perfect a hypospray.

[Alelou]

I was extremely glad not to have a holodeck too, although it seems that real life may be quickly catching up with that concept. I would have preferred them to be at least at a serious lag in communicating with Earth, and they should have been completely cut off in the Expanse, but I got the impression they sometimes kind of were and sometimes kind of weren't, which makes no sense. I think they did fairly well at keeping the transporter kind of iff-y and off-limits for awhile, but, yes, it does get ridiculous once you realize you can just start beaming tactical material back and forth (as in E2). They probably should have worked harder at keeping it less routine, but then innovations like that don't usually take a long time to become routine if they really work. I would also think there would be more existential agonies about it as it began to be used for Humans. Instead, we got a joke over the dinner table.

I just can't regret the completely ridiculous mimetic larval clone plot, though. I love "Similitude" too much. How else could we have had that story? So you'll have to put me right down with the mushy right-brain science-polluters with that one, and no doubt with plenty of other stories. For example, I don't think it really makes any sense in evolutionary or biological terms that Trip and T'Pol could reproduce or would ever want to. However, we have Spock, so we know it's possible -- and I'm very glad we did have Spock, for what would ST be without him? And I certainly wouldn't be here at all if I hadn't gotten hung up on Trip and T'Pol as a couple. I probably never would have finished watching the series.

[WarpGirl]

I don't mind the holodeck itself I'm not too keen on entire episodes focused on the holodeck, but now we have kinex so I'd say in 20 years time we'll have the prototype in our homes.

[Transwarp]

I just can't regret the completely ridiculous mimetic larval clone plot, though. I love "Similitude" too much. How else could we have had that story?

Ahh, a challenge...

How about this: Trip is injured, as in the episode. Sim is created, as in the episode, but he has NO memories. in fact, although he is growing at a prodigious rate (and would have to be fed constantly to provide nutrients to support such growth), he is confined to a bio-bed in sickbay because he has the knowledge and abilities of a newborn. The plan is to harvest material from Sim's brain to cure Trip, but everyone realizes that Trip will be missing some memories and abilities afterwards, because Sim's brain matter will replace areas of Trip's brain where these memories or abilities reside. Shortly before the surgery, Phlox is able to complete a memory map/scan of the affected region and find that it includes much of Trip's engineering and math knowledge. He will have to relearn everything he knows about warp mechanics and Enterprise's engineering systems.

This, of course, renders him useless as the Chief Engineer for the duration of the Xindi mission.

T'Pol states that she can build a machine (similar in function to the telepathic amplifier we saw in the Aenar arc) that will duplicate the cortex synapses providing Trip's memories into the clone's brain (who has not been named at this point), if Phlox can find a way to stabilize the clone's growth. Phlox determines that he can.

It works, and they copy Trip's memories into the clone and retard his rapid growth to a normal aging rate. Now they have a Chief Engineer who is, for all practical purposes, Trip. But the original Trip is still lying on the hospital bed in a coma, slowly dying. He has a couple of weeks left, tops. Of course there is much awkwardness among the crew regarding Sim (Trip?), but Sim (Trip?) still manages to save Enterprise from the space barnacles.

Then (oops!), we find out that the clone body is not stable after all, and has started a rapid deterioration. There is a slim possibility that Phlox can arrest the process and reverse the damage, but it will take a couple of weeks to develop and there is no guarantee of success.

But there is an alternative... Phlox can proceed with the original surgery, harvest the brain material from Sim (Trip?) and original Trip will still have his Engineering skills because they were copied into Sim's brain. There is not time to try both. If Phlox works to save Sim, original Trip will die. And if Phlox saves original Trip, Sim will die. But the probability of success for transplanting brain material harvested from Sim into Trip is MUCH greater.

After appropriate levels of angst, Sim volunteers to willingly undergoing the procedure for the good of the mission. On his last night, he goes and sees T'Pol, says some things that Trip would not normally say, and gets his goodbye kiss from T'Pol.

The surgery is a success and original Trip can resume his duties. But he has these vague memories of T'Pol kissing him...

And I never had to presume that a strand of DNA somehow contains the entire set of living memories of the host.

So, whaddya think?

[putaro]

It's not a bad plot and it does resolve some of the nonsense, but it also opens up a bag of worms - now, every time someone is dying, why not clone them and transfer their memories?

I actually didn't mind the larval clone thing that much. What I didn't like about Similitude was the Phlox, Mr. Medical Ethics, raised a sentient being and then murdered him to save Trip's life. That just seemed really out of character for Phlox to me. I think the episode would have been better if they had run into an alien race that had this technology and Phlox discovered that the clones were really sentient.

[WarpGirl]

Guys I think you're missing the point, although I agree with Putaro's points on Phlox in that episode. Alelou is perfectly stating that without the whacked out monstrosity that was the science of that episode we wouldn't have been treated to the gut-wrenching performence Mr. Trineer gave. Now anyone here knows I'm critical of the (which words did we decide on for some of the lesser plots) stuff shown on ENT but one thing I have NEVER done is deny when there were things done well. Every once in a while a character, and the actor's portrayal elevates imperfect material. Similtude is a great example of that. So is SG-1 for my money at least.

Sometimes whacked out science tells a dang good story. It's NECESSARY!

[Transwarp]

now, every time someone is dying, why not clone them and transfer their memories?

Because the clone isn't stable, I think. Although Phlox THOUGHT he could stabilize it, so you're right: the possibility of memory transfer technology and a source of quick-grow clones would result in a cottage immortality industry. In my defense, I came up with the plot in about ten minutes, so I'm not surprised there's a hole or two. Give me an hour and I could do better. Make it my full time job and pay me to do it, and I'd do better still.

What I didn't like about Similitude was the Phlox, Mr. Medical Ethics, raised a sentient being and then murdered him to save Trip's life.

The impossibilities just keep piling up, don't they? I think the show glossed over the whole ethical dimension, which could have been the most dramatic part of the episode.

Alelou is perfectly stating that without the whacked out monstrosity that was the science of that episode we wouldn't have been treated to the gut-wrenching performance Mr. Trineer gave.

I completely disagree that Mr. Trineer (or any actor) requires whacked-out science to give a great performance. This is part and parcel of a prevalent attitude that seems to suggest that good science in a show will cause the quality of the show to suffer; or that any attempt to keep bogus science out of a show will insure that the show is dull, tedious and boring. You will forgive me if I do not subscribe to that notion.

What was it about my little plot summary below that would have affected Connor Trineer's performance and prevented him from turning in a gut-wrenching performance? Because I really don't see it.

Sometimes whacked out science tells a dang good story. It's NECESSARY!

Necessary? Or just lazy?