Even Star Trek Wasn't Perfect

[ashdjones]

Okay, I know all this is fiction but I can't help but find it interesting (because i'm such a huge geek).

Anyway, I picked up the Star Trek Technical Manual the other day from a charity shop and it had an interesting section on the development logs (blog?) of building the Galaxy Class starships. In particular it mentions that:

- The project was a collaborative effort amongst researchers/engineers amongst the federation
- Many of them thought the project was overkill, the size of the ship was infeasible or even impossible and thought a smaller more efficient design would be better
- They suffered from various supply problems, for example they couldn't get enough isolinear chips for the ships main computer and one of the three computer cores was delayed for 2 years (out of the twenty it took to build the ships)
- Significant work went into tweaking the communications antenna in order to get better range
- Various parts of the ship failed to work, had problems or bugs or were insufficient and had to be reworked or replaced with better components
- Other parts were changed mid-project to incorporate better components that had become available during development

Any of this sound familiar? :lol:

Some other stuff I found interesting:

The Padd units (Tablet Computers they walk around with) have a battery life of 16hrs (I would have expected better this far into the future really!), include fingerprint recognition, have memory card slots and syncronise with the main computer via encrypted digital radio-frequency (WIFI!) and can function as the display panel for any terminal in the ship (VCN tunneling?) including piloting!

The Communicator badges have a battery life of two weeks. They charge inductively (wirelessly) while in the area of the ship, and go into sleep mode while on an away mission (Tapping the badge awakens it).

You would think that in the future almost everything would be done in software, but the book goes into detail about how almost everything has multiple co-processors including various backup systems. The main computer is absolutely massive, taking up multiple floors and networks with the ship with fibre-optics and digital encrypted radio-frequency.

By the way, the book was written in 1991!

 

[mali]

Trying to get things connected:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaBJb8nkXac
N800-> OMAP2

 

[ashdjones]

For some reason that doesn't impress me though. It's like putting an OS-X theme on Windows or Linux isn't it? LCARS (if we suspend our dis-belief for a moment) has advanced UI elements like self-reconfiguring button placement using artifical intellegence. Infact, until I read the book I didn't realise just how little the Starfleet people actually do on a starship, they're effectively baby-sitters because the ship does almost everything itself!

 

[mali]

Why don't the become incredibly fat? Maybe they have got fat-free replicators? Or maybe they reprogram their transporter system to remove fat from time to time?
Back to snow watch..

 

[Bosbeetle]

Looking out of my window it seems, that it stopped snowing. Well, it will melt anyway.

Why don't the become incredibly fat? Maybe they have got fat-free replicators? Or maybe they reprogram their transporter system to remove fat from time to time?
Back to snow watch..

They run through hallways alot

 

[ashdjones]

Why don't the become incredibly fat? Maybe they have got fat-free replicators? Or maybe they reprogram their transporter system to remove fat from time to time?
Back to snow watch..

I imagine they probably have fat-free fat... snythafat?

Interestingly enough, the data files for replicator objects are actually compressed just like MP3s and lose some of their detail and fidelity - food is higher resolution than other objects because it has chemicals that have to taste right. The book lists the memory requirements required for a perfect copy which are above 24th century capability, and that replicator data files don't store brownian motion, quantum states or anything else like that.

The detail they go into is awesome!

 

[mali]

They run through hallways alot

That sounds reasonable.
But when there is a camera nearby, they stop running to not look like a fool, I suppose.

 

[ashdjones]

If you look at the ship layout though, there are a shit-load of corridors.

 

[Dubya']

Why can't they store and then use the transporter buffer to recreate the dead, repair the wounded or clone desirable people or things?

 

[Ravnos]

Okay, I know all this is fiction but I can't help but find it interesting (because i'm such a huge geek).

Anyway, I picked up the Star Trek Technical Manual the other day from a charity shop and it had an interesting section on the development logs (blog?) of building the Galaxy Class starships. In particular it mentions that:

- The project was a collaborative effort amongst researchers/engineers amongst the federation
- Many of them thought the project was overkill, the size of the ship was infeasible or even impossible and thought a smaller more efficient design would be better
- They suffered from various supply problems, for example they couldn't get enough isolinear chips for the ships main computer and one of the three computer cores was delayed for 2 years (out of the twenty it took to build the ships)
- Significant work went into tweaking the communications antenna in order to get better range
- Various parts of the ship failed to work, had problems or bugs or were insufficient and had to be reworked or replaced with better components
- Other parts were changed mid-project to incorporate better components that had become available during development

Any of this sound familiar? :lol:

Some other stuff I found interesting:

The Padd units (Tablet Computers they walk around with) have a battery life of 16hrs (I would have expected better this far into the future really!), include fingerprint recognition, have memory card slots and syncronise with the main computer via encrypted digital radio-frequency (WIFI!) and can function as the display panel for any terminal in the ship (VCN tunneling?) including piloting!

The Communicator badges have a battery life of two weeks. They charge inductively (wirelessly) while in the area of the ship, and go into sleep mode while on an away mission (Tapping the badge awakens it).

You would think that in the future almost everything would be done in software, but the book goes into detail about how almost everything has multiple co-processors including various backup systems. The main computer is absolutely massive, taking up multiple floors and networks with the ship with fibre-optics and digital encrypted radio-frequency.

By the way, the book was written in 1991!

We are truly living in the future. As Matt Boyd said, "you would have crashed your stupid flying car anyway."

Why don't the become incredibly fat? Maybe they have got fat-free replicators? Or maybe they reprogram their transporter system to remove fat from time to time?
Back to snow watch..

Starfleet is, at its core, a military organisation. Those guys generally keep in shape, but fitness drills and PT don't make for compelling television.

 

[Chip]

In an effort to bring this back on topic (!), I recently came across another real-world analog to the Pandora situation.

I was listening to TWiT episode 169, and Jason Calacanis spent a good part of the show talking about his Tesla Roadster. Despite waiting for over two years after paying for the car in full ($130K!), Calacanis was nothing but excited about the car. He went on to explain that Tesla is doing something completely new, and he knew from the beginning that there would likely be manufacturing delays on top of supply delays on top of engineering delays. He said he had no problem waiting as long as it took, because he believed in the product and he wanted to support the company that had the balls to bring it to market. He was so worked up about Tesla and their cars that when he picked up his Roadster, he offered to pay in full now to be the first on the list for Tesla's next car. This is a car which only exists as a clay model and is at least two to three years away from production.

If it hadn't been for the couple hundred forward-thinking people like Calacanis that put up their money two years ago, the Tesla Roadster might not have happened. It is thanks to patient first adopters like them that fully electric vehicles might become a legitimate alternative in the near future.

 

[Fishbong]

The part about star trek that´s always making me smile is that they seem to be able to fix almost every technical problem by recalibrating this, configuring that and aligning something or other. It reminds me of when i was 13 and "repairing" my computer by randomly checking and unchecking some options in the Winows 98 control panel.
And if you really need lots of power, hey, just reroute all available energy through the deflector grid!

 

[sam fisher]

The part about star trek that´s always making me smile is that they seem to be able to fix almost every technical problem by recalibrating this, configuring that and aligning something or other. It reminds me of when i was 13 and "repairing" my computer by randomly checking and unchecking some options in the Winows 98 control panel.
And if you really need lots of power, hey, just reroute all available energy through the deflector grid!

:lol:

 

[cb88]

@Dubya' transporters kind of push you through sub space as it were,,, and not disassemble you the strange effects of early transporters were due to getting garbled you might say along the transmission

there really isn't any control over what happens to you in the teleport but more where you end up

 

[sam fisher]

If i'm right the transporters read your physical pattern to a buffer and then transmit you and reassemble you or something?

 

[Fishbong]

If i'm right the transporters read your physical pattern to a buffer and then transmit you and reassemble you or something?

Yes, but the amount of data needed to reassemble an individual is so huge that they need to use some special kind of memory that can store it all, albeit just for some seconds. As seen in DS9 season 4 episode 10

 

[Ravnos]

I think it has something to do with converting matter to energy and back. You could check Memory Alpha if you want to get really anal about it.

 

[yashton]

Man, I love the TNG:Technical Manual. We've had our copy in my family for as long as I can remember (I always love watching an episode, remembering watching it when it aired, and finding out I was 4 years old at the air date.) I saw a copy of it at a used bookstore the other day. Great book for any Trekkie and a fun read. It always amazed me how much thought and effort went into making a quasi-realistic world.
It is always funny to look at "cutting edge futuristic" sci-fi technology from even two decades ago (wow, has it really been 20 years since TNG aired?) Look at the sets from the new TOS movie compared to the original. The original was a reflection of the technology at the time: computers are big, bulky, with lots of knobs and switches. In essence, a souped up PDP-7. A couple years ago Minority Report dazzled us with fancy multi-touch displays, and yet they are already here. It's one of the reasons I was disappointed with Quantum of Solace, seeing as all the gadgets we see are Bond' cell phone doing basic things and some multi-touch displays. (And stealing water is totally a viable world domination strategy, but I was really expecting some sort of huge weapon or grandiose plot.) No flying cars yet, thank goodness, as I don't trust anyone to drive safely in two dimensions. But take step back and look at how absolutely amazing our current world is. The future is here already! And even better, there's even more cool stuff, just over the horizon!

 

[mali]

I can't get this one scene out of my head. Does someone remember the episode, where Data fights Moriarty? Moriarty is on the holodeck and draws a sketch of the Enterprise. Data takes it and walks off to the bridge to show the drawing to Picard. How is it possible that the paper with the sketch continues its existence outside the holodeck without holotransmitter?!

 

[fade]

I can't get this one scene out of my head. Does someone remember the episode, where Data fights Moriarty? Moriarty is on the holodeck and draws a sketch of the Enterprise. Data takes it and walks off to the bridge to show the drawing to Picard. How is it possible that the paper with the sketch continues its existence outside the holodeck without holotransmitter?!

Ah good point! I remember that ep an i never thought of that! Moriarty was great in it, what ended up happening to him?