Why Star Trek can't go past the Voyager timeline without becoming silly

[Overmind One]

The Star Trek prime universe timeline can't really go much past Voyager without becoming silly and implausible. Why? Well, there are several reasons, I think.

Starfleet technology is now too godlike.

Admiral Janeway has given the Federation transphasic torpedoes, ablative armor, Borg nanoprobes (and the knowledge of the Borg amassed by Seven of Nine). The Borg are no longer a threat because they no longer have a transwarp network.

Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine is likely the smartest human in the Federation. Smarter than Doctor Bashir, the Augment even. Her Borg implants (Borg shields, cortical processor, nanoprobes) give the Federation some easily weaponized technology making them almost invulnerable. I wish she could really do this...

Overuse of the time travel trope, making it part of Starfleet technology.

In two episodes of Voyager, we had the time travel trope used. Once to have an excuse to bring a "mobile emitter" into existence in order to allow the Doctor to leave Sick Bay, and again to stop Captain Braxton from changing history in the episode "Relativity". Actually, there was a third time, which was used to trope Voyager all the way home using future technology.

The Doctor

I liked the Doctor character, Robert Picardo. His personality made him a fun character to watch. But let's face it...the concept of him was silly, even given the already silly holodeck technology. Too many logical paths get broken trying to suspend belief. A sentient program created by a non-sentient computer, and processed and projected via "holo-emitters" which give him enough substance to hold things, to punch people and to (evidently) have sex...this is also done by that holo emitter? Mkay.

So, as you can see, we cannot really venture past the Voyager Engdame period because it gets too silly and too many things change. Think about it...in Nemesis, Admiral Janeway was already back in the Alpha Quadrant. Why didn't the Enterprise E have ablative armor or transphasic torpedoes?

Thoughts?

 

[Joelist]

That was one of MANY problems with Nemesis - the Enterprise should have been able to fry Shinzon's ship easily. And yes the Federation tech has gotten too advanced (I noted this in another thread where the Voyager finale was discussed).

 

[shavedape]

My favorite was (usually on TNG) how the safety protocols would be suspended on the holodeck thereby putting the humans in mortal jeopardy.

 

[Overmind One]

My favorite was (usually on TNG) how the safety protocols would be suspended on the holodeck thereby putting the humans in mortal jeopardy.

I think my most head tilting Doctor moment was when the Videans stole Neelix's lungs and the Doctor created "holographic lungs" to replace them temporarily. HUH? It was far beyond any of my belief suspense system's capabilities to take that one in. Who the hell dreamed up that one? And in Endgame, the Doctor had married a blonde non-holographic human? The term "hologram" does not mean "materialized out of nothing". The mobile emitter must have some sort of line of sight, otherwise the ship's sick bay emitters should have let the Doctor at least into the corridor.

 

[Joelist]

Well, the "holo lungs" at least occurred in sickbay where they had the necessary emitters. The notion that the emitters could give holographic projections solidity was established too. Now the idea that the emitters could project images INSIDE living tissue was naff. And yes the mobile emiiter was plain nuts.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Well, the "holo lungs" at least occurred in sickbay where they had the necessary emitters. The notion that the emitters could give holographic projections solidity was established too. Now the idea that the emitters could project images INSIDE living tissue was naff. And yes the mobile emiiter was plain nuts.

Why didn't they just use the transporter to dematerialize Neelix then rematerialize him with his lungs?

 

[shavedape]

Why didn't they just use the transporter to dematerialize Neelix?

Fixed it for ya.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Fixed it for ya.

 

[Joelist]

Why didn't they just use the transporter to dematerialize Neelix then rematerialize him with his lungs?

Remember when we mentioned these types of things in the "miracle tech" thread?

http://www.gatefans.net/gforums/threads/miracle-tech-in-science-fiction.26152/

 

[Overmind One]

Well, the "holo lungs" at least occurred in sickbay where they had the necessary emitters. The notion that the emitters could give holographic projections solidity was established too. Now the idea that the emitters could project images INSIDE living tissue was naff. And yes the mobile emiiter was plain nuts.

Even if it could do that (which by established canon, no living tissue can be replicated), how would those lungs also make the myriad connections to living arteries and veins and whatever other systems are connected to them? How could holographic lungs metabolize breathed air and then supply the body with the gases? No kind of emitter can emit emitters. I could not think of a path of logic there at all. If holo emitters can do that, then why didnt Starfleet simply put like...100,000 emitters on a raw warp drive unit, toss it into space and holographically create the ship itself?

 

[Tripler]

My daughter is going to do her best to get a job with the series starting up here in TO next year I believe ...

I met a fellow motorcyclist who worked on a few major movies shot here in TO such as Suicide Squad and Total Recall .

 

[Overmind One]

My daughter is going to do her best to get a job with the series starting up here in TO next year I believe ...

I met a fellow motorcyclist who worked on a few major movies shot here in TO such as Suicide Squad and Total Recall .


View attachment 32857 View attachment 32858 View attachment 32859

Let us know how this turns out for her!

 

[Overmind One]

I thought of some other shit...

The Federation acquiring weaponry and defense technology from the future would upset the balance of power WITHIN the Federation, between the Federation worlds, and especially between the allied non-Federation entities like the Romulan Empire and the Klingon Empire. They would all want this technology, especially the armor. Then, in the database, is both slipstream technology and the test data that goes with it, plus transwarp technology stolen from the Borg. They have the Delta Flyer with it's enhanced Borg technology too:

Then there is Astrometrics (Borg Federation hybrid technology)

Astrometrics technology aboard Voyager would give the Federation an immense advantage over it's enemies and it's allies too. It could monitor ship movements more than 10,000 light years in every direction.

When you think about it, the return of Voyager could destabilize the foundations of the Federation and start a war!

 

[Joelist]

This is why in the thread about Voyager I posited that perhaps the show should have ended with the crew safely returning but the ship destroyed.

 

[YJ02]

crew safely returning but the ship destroyed

the crew could have been emergency transpo'd into San Francisco Bay

 

[YJ02]

Captain Braxton

and who was the federation time agent in ENTERPRISE?

There was that whole time travel/manipulation thing going on with the aliens as well

we also saw the future of the federation--far beyond VOYAGER time--when Archer was brought there/given visions of a possible future

there could be a storyline in that--that whatever Braxton and the others did still caused/failed to stop the future war seen by Archer.....

--------------------------------------
the tech that VOYAGER has could be worked around--either TPTB's could state that the alien tech could not be reversed engineered/copied (could have a engineered flaw in it to prevent such a thing--like the fighter homing beacon in SG1) OR, they could just say that the other federation members saw a favor for Earth with this tech and have the tech banned by the federation

could even have a rift between starfleet and the FED over this...perhaps a civil war that takes us actually into "IN A MIRROR DARKLY" universe but in the prime universe instead

ANYTHING would be better then the JJverse we have received!!

 

[Overmind One]

and who was the federation time agent in ENTERPRISE?

There was that whole time travel/manipulation thing going on with the aliens as well

we also saw the future of the federation--far beyond VOYAGER time--when Archer was brought there/given visions of a possible future

there could be a storyline in that--that whatever Braxton and the others did still caused/failed to stop the future war seen by Archer.....

--------------------------------------
the tech that VOYAGER has could be worked around--either TPTB's could state that the alien tech could not be reversed engineered/copied (could have a engineered flaw in it to prevent such a thing--like the fighter homing beacon in SG1) OR, they could just say that the other federation members saw a favor for Earth with this tech and have the tech banned by the federation

could even have a rift between starfleet and the FED over this...perhaps a civil war that takes us actually into "IN A MIRROR DARKLY" universe but in the prime universe instead

ANYTHING would be better then the JJverse we have received!!

The Federation would never ban that armor. It can withstand even Borg cutting phasers using rotating frequency modulation. And those transphasic torpedoes can pass through any shields. Come to think of it, there is the "phased cloak" technology from the TNG Pegasus which Starfleet has. With all this, the Federation can conquer the Borg easily. Even Species 8472 would not be that much more of a threat.

 

[Joelist]

Plus, remember that the entire Temporal Cold War was erased from history in Part Two of the Season 4 episode of Enterprise named "Storm Front". All that remains is the Braxton type Federation timeships from Voyager.

 

[Overmind One]

Plus, remember that the entire Temporal Cold War was erased from history in Part Two of the Season 4 episode of Enterprise named "Storm Front". All that remains is the Braxton type Federation timeships from Voyager.

Yep, I was already wincing from seeing time travel tropes used in Star Trek. When I saw Future's End on Voyager, I accepted it as a clever deus ex machina to give the Doctor that mobile emitter and allow him out of sick bay. Before that, the only timeship I remember is the one Rasmussen used in the Matter Of Time episode in TNG. A small, one man ship was used in both. But I folded my arms and frowned when the USS Relativity came along, with it's Temporal Prime Directive and temporal transporters and such. .

Voyager pretty much pushes the envelope as far as it can go in many ways. Definitely in technology. Starfleet now has detailed surveys of the Delta Quadrant and the civilized (and uncivilized) star systems in it. Seven of Nine could help make the Midas Array more efficient using Borg technology, and allow communication between the Alpha and Delta Quadrants. It's just too much of a leap and makes it look like there is not much left to achieve.

Janeway's shuttle from the future had stealth technology that could not be adapted to Voyager, but the Voyager database still contains the data, doesn't it?

 

[Joelist]

Funny thing is. the couple of times they handled time travel on Voyager outside of the finale they actually did pretty good at it. Future's End was a fun adventure let them get the Doctor off the holodeck, while Relativity was nice because instead of being a typical time travel adventure it was about fixing the deleterious effects of time travel (restoring the timeline).

And I agree that with the Voyager tech the Federation is way too powerful. At this point in order to actually have challenges in their universe you would need a ridiculously powerful adversary. It's the Thor problem (from the Marvel films) in Star Trek form.