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I've read this before, and while I agree that there are tropes, like the techbabble mentioned in the article as well as creating suspense with arbitrary timelines ("we have a routine task BUT the core will explode in 30 minutes"), I think the fact that the specific tech is irrelevant is one of the greatest strengths of Star Trek. The Star Trek universe is one where people live in a post-scarcity, post-war, and heavily automated earth and are free to pursue creative or explorative endeavors. The technology in the show is designed to be seamless; the computer responds to voice commands, doors open on their own, food is ordered from a machine. It is intentional that, in Star Trek, there aren't people huddled in front of a screen all day typing on a keyboard. The reason for that is because a show that would be hyper focused on how tech works would be incredibly boring. And, at least in my opinion, it isn't important. The author says the characters "don't tell us anything interesting about the human condition under science fictional circumstances", but that isn't true. Many episodes revolve around what it means to be human and our role in the universe on a wider philosophical context. Whether the warp drive can realistically be snapped to warp 11 doesn't affect that at all. To give a real world example, consider the Snowden revelations. I don't know the specifics on how the NSA algorithm worked, or what storage devices they used, or if it is possible to perform a certain operation on it. It isn't interesting nor does it speak to realities of a post 9/11 America. What is interesting are questions on the balance between privacy and security, the underwhelming public concern, and the lack of transparency in a government body. I feel like Star Trek would have covered those stories, techbabble or not. |
Or, as Stross mentions in the blog post, they're in (some future equivalent of) the military: In stead of on a space ship travelling the universe, they could be on an 18th-century HMS Enterprise, criss-crossing the seven seas, encountering a new population of exotic islanders each episode, in stead of aliens. Bit more scarcity on those, if they stayed out too long and the vats of beef ran out or went too spoiled, but similar otherwise: Everybody wears a uniform, doesn't worry about money (you'll spend your meager coin / automatically-accumulated Credit Units when you get back home to Blighty / Mars), and implicitly cares about the same mission. Heck, replace Klingons and whatever the other ones were called with Frogs and Yanks, and you have the constant enemy that pops in every other episode.
It's basically a Space-Opera-slash-Space-Western.