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Another Star Trek Rant (Sort of)

unixknight

By unixknight,
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unixknight

unixknight

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There will be spoilers without mercy.  You have been warned.

Despite my rants I love Star Trek.  Last night I was watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.  It was called "Latent Image" and it was, in my opinion, one of the better Voyager episodes... Perhaps even one of the better Star Trek episodes overall.

In this episode, The holographic Doctor discovers that his memory had been tampered with.  After a while, it's revealed that an incident from a year and a half prior had been wiped from his memory because he had such immense guilt over it that it had been driving him insane, or whatever the hologram equivalent is.  He had two critically injured crew members and only had time to save one of them.  He made a choice to save Harry Kim because of their friendship, and the other crewmember died.  The episode closes with him wracked with guilt and pain, and trying to come to terms with it.  (Note:  The story takes great pains to show us that both of the injured crew had the exact same chances of survival, so it doesn't really matter what reasoning the Doctor used to decide who to save.  A coin toss would have sufficed just as well, but I digress.)  

Now, the real dilemma of the episode was over the question of whether or not it was right for Janeway to have the Doctor's memory erased the first time, and whether it would be justified to do so again. If the Doctor is just a hunk of technology then yes, it's justified.  On the other hand, the show was constantly telling us he now counted as a life form and as such, did he not have rights like everyone else?  This kind of dilemma is what makes Star Trek so good, because it isn't hard to see both sides of the issue (if you accept the axiom that the Doctor is, in fact a life form.)  Also, Robert Picardo, who plays the doctor, turns in an outstanding performance in this episode and really brought it to life.  I like that actor a lot in the way he portrays the character, and the episodes that focus on him tend to be some of the most enjoyable, for my money.

I do have one issue though, and I have to put it aside to fully enjoy this episode.  Namely, that "living" machines get created entirely by accident all the time in Star Trek.  It's almost as if it's inevitable that once technology reaches a certain point of complexity, life will just start popping up everywhere.  A holographic EMH gets left activated long enough and suddenly he's alive... Wesley Crusher experiments with nanites that suddenly are alive and sentient.  Some alien bit of programming makes the Enterprise-D's computer go all HAL and come to life.  Heck, a Sherlock Holmes villain is just one badly worded command away from becoming conscious AND able to take over the ship.  Let's not forget the Exocomps, which are also determined to be living machines.  All by accident.

"But hang on there, unixknight.  What about Data?  He's considered alive and you left him off the list!"

Well, yeah I did leave him off... Because at least Data allows for some wiggle room for suspension of disbelief due to the secret sauce that makes Data (and other androids of his type) unique in Star Trek tech: The Positronic Brain.  (Yes, named after the robot brains in I, Robot)  That's the key to letting Data be counted as "alive" without the technology running amok...  Not that this approach worked so well.  Pieces of technology come to life all the time in Star Trek and it's to the point now where, if I worked on a Federation Starship, I'd feel bad about junking a busted toaster because you never know...

And that's my gripe today.  In a sense, these writers are suggesting that technology can turn us into gods.  In Star Trek, a really smart high school kid can accidentally create an entire race of sentient nanites with enough intelligence to communicate after only a few hours.

It's true that living machines weren't new to Star Trek even when The Next Generation came out.  Kirk once spontaneously caused a female android to come to life just using his own raw sex appeal.  (Not kidding.  Go watch "Requiem for Methuselah.")  Then there's V'Ger… a NASA probe come to life after bumping into an alien race of living machines that gave it a bit of an upgrade in the first Star Trek movie.  (That's the 1979 movie, not 2009 for you younger whippersnappers.)  At least in those situations, like with Lt. Commander Data, the builder (Creator?) specifically set out to make a living machine, and in all cases there was something highly unusual about that creator that prevented things from going out of control in the story universe.   

The effect of all this really cheapens the beauty and value of life, and what it is.  Living things possess that spark of the divine that separates them from the inanimate.  It isn't just a matter of complexity, there's more to it than that.  Complexity isn't the reason a virus is alive while a star isn't.  Otherwise we'd already have living computers now.  

So yes, as much as I like the Doctor in Star Trek: Voyager, he is an example of this issue.  I think it would have been much better if, in some episode early on, some element in the story is what "unlocked" his ability to achieve consciousness, so that he would be special.  As it is, what they're basically saying is that if you leave any holographic character running long enough, eventually they'll ascend to consciousness.  Yeah, drop that fun little realization into the next episode of Trek you watch where a holographic character gets killed for the amusement of a crewmember on the holodeck.  (Lookin' at you, Captain Picard, AKA Dixon Hill.)

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bytebear

bytebear

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The Borg is the best villain of all, simply because (at least before the queen) it was just the nature of the beast.  They weren't being mean.  They were just being Borg.

Now, living in proximity of theme parks, I do miss the Star Trek experience at the Hilton in Las Vegas (now gone for a good while), and I do think the Star Wars overlay in Tomorrowland of Disneyland is the wrong theme, and since they are getting a new land, we'll see if they can perhaps do the future justice since Star Wars is technically "a long time ago."   That said, I do think the prequels are crap, the sequels are mediocre, but the addendum to the original series are worthy of canonization.  By the way, Disney is doing cartoon series of episodes based on the original trilogy.  Have fun with that one.

Oh, and Voyager is the best of the Star Trek series.

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Vort

Vort

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2 hours ago, unixknight said:

Then there's V'Ger… a NASA probe come to life after bumping into an alien race of living machines that gave it a bit of an upgrade in the first Star Trek movie.  (That's the 1979 movie, not 2009 for you younger whippersnappers.)

AKA Where Nomad Has Gone Before.

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Midwest LDS

Midwest LDS

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, unixknight said:

I think Voyager had the best premise, and the most potential, but it's the story of a massive missed opportunity, IMHO.  That said, I don't think it's nearly as bad as many people say it is.

I agree. My favorite Star Trek series fluctuates between TNG (the first series I watched as a kid) and DS9 (I really love the Dominion War arc). But I like Voyager too. It definitly has some missed opportunities, but one of my favorite Star Trek characters is the Doctor. Robert Picardo did a great job with that character. Although I suspect I may simply have a weakness for the mechanical characters, as Data is also one of my favorites.

Edited by Midwest LDS
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anatess2

anatess2

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6 hours ago, unixknight said:

Now, the real dilemma of the episode was over the question of whether or not it was right for Janeway to have the Doctor's memory erased the first time, and whether it would be justified to do so again. If the Doctor is just a hunk of technology then yes, it's justified.  On the other hand, the show was constantly telling us he now counted as a life form and as such, did he not have rights like everyone else? 

Errrmm... I don't think the bolded is correct.  I don't think anybody in Voyager counts him as a life form.  Rather, they consider him something that has technologically evolved to warrant individuality.  For example, Kes did not plead with Janeway to command the crew to show the Doctor respect because he is a lifeform.  Rather, the crew was taught to respect the Doctor so his programming will evolve to adapt good bedside manners.  Or, when Janeway decided to promote him to an ECH, the ECH was programmed into him.  Or even in the final episode when the timeline got altered for the Doctor to have married somebody, or get author rights, the rights had to be legally bestowed upon him and him alone, not his "species".  Outside of those clear bestowal of legal rights, the Doctor is nothing more than a really complex program that has evolved so much so as to be considered an individual.  This does not imply that the Doctor is a lifeform because his sentience is not independent from his creator - which is human.  And the human lifeform does not include humans having the power to create life.

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anatess2

anatess2

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3 hours ago, unixknight said:

I think Voyager had the best premise, and the most potential, but it's the story of a massive missed opportunity, IMHO.  That said, I don't think it's nearly as bad as many people say it is.

It was really good... the best of the Star Treks in my opinion.  Where they messed up is in their liberal use of time travel.  It just made a convoluted mess out of everything.

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anatess2

anatess2

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45 minutes ago, Midwest LDS said:

I agree. My favorite Star Trek series fluctuates between TNG (the first series I watched as a kid) and DS9 (I really love the Dominion War arc). But I like Voyager too. It definitly has some missed opportunities, but one of my favorite Star Trek characters is the Doctor. Robert Picardo did a great job with that character. Although I suspect I may simply have a weakness for the mechanical characters, as Data is also one of my favorites.

They might have been your favorites because both are just AWESOME ACTORS.  They both came from theater and have very top-notch versatile skills... from regular acting to theatrical acting to song and dance performances, etc.  They can expand the character to whatever the screenwriters decide they want their "mechanical characters" to be programmed to do.  Hugh Jackman of Wolverine is in that same caliber.

Edited by anatess2
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classylady

classylady

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Love all the Star Trek series. Especially love Voyager. I just wish I didn’t have to defend Voyager to the haters. I haven’t figured out why Voyager is derided so much. Is it because the captain is female? What’s everyone’s take on this? Why the dislike for Voyager?

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anatess2

anatess2

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24 minutes ago, classylady said:

Love all the Star Trek series. Especially love Voyager. I just wish I didn’t have to defend Voyager to the haters. I haven’t figured out why Voyager is derided so much. Is it because the captain is female? What’s everyone’s take on this? Why the dislike for Voyager?

Lots of trekkies hate Janeway not because she's female but because she's a Mary Sue who should be court martialled a million times over.  I mean... this is a series that started with the Captain of an entire starship getting flung into the Delta Quadrant throwing away all their lives (as they could as well be dead and it was only luck - or the screenwriters - that caused them to live) to save the Ocampa... a species that would naturally have gone extinct because their screenwriters did not account for replacement-level population.  And that doesn't even come close to Janeway's blatant disregard for Federation bylaws (which is there not for the Federation but to keep the Star Trek franchise from imploding on itself) especially in the realm of time travel.

But yeah, it is a testament to the awesomeness of the Doctor and Seven of Nine that the series became one of my favorites even with these weaknesses... I mean, I can even forgive Torres' series-long PMS and Ensign Kim never developing past Ensign.

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JohnsonJones

JohnsonJones

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I like Bonanza!

Not that it has anything to do with the thread.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the original Star Trek was considered a Wagon Train to the Stars, so was trying to be a Western without being a Western.

In some ways the Original Star Wars probably got closer to being a Western without being a Western.

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Guest

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9 hours ago, classylady said:

Love all the Star Trek series. Especially love Voyager. I just wish I didn’t have to defend Voyager to the haters. I haven’t figured out why Voyager is derided so much. Is it because the captain is female? What’s everyone’s take on this? Why the dislike for Voyager?

Yes, it must be sexism.

No, I believe it was the hairdo.  Look at Shatner.  Once he went with the curly hair, he was just a completely different captain.  Picard and Sisko didn't have to worry about hair.  But they really went through some rounds with Janeway.

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unixknight

unixknight

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10 hours ago, anatess2 said:

Errrmm... I don't think the bolded is correct.  I don't think anybody in Voyager counts him as a life form.  Rather, they consider him something that has technologically evolved to warrant individuality.  For example, Kes did not plead with Janeway to command the crew to show the Doctor respect because he is a lifeform.  Rather, the crew was taught to respect the Doctor so his programming will evolve to adapt good bedside manners.  Or, when Janeway decided to promote him to an ECH, the ECH was programmed into him.  Or even in the final episode when the timeline got altered for the Doctor to have married somebody, or get author rights, the rights had to be legally bestowed upon him and him alone, not his "species".  Outside of those clear bestowal of legal rights, the Doctor is nothing more than a really complex program that has evolved so much so as to be considered an individual.  This does not imply that the Doctor is a lifeform because his sentience is not independent from his creator - which is human.  And the human lifeform does not include humans having the power to create life.

I think it's a matter of semantics, the way they handled the character.  In a lot of ways the Doctor's development parallels that of Data, who is outright referred to as an artificial life form, and was even legally established as such early on in the episode "Measure of a Man."  I don't recall them ever referring to the doctor like that, but clearly that's what he was thought of as.  I don't think it's disqualified by him becoming an ECH through programming, as Data received programming from time to time as well.  

That being said, I'll grant that it's very gray.  Neither the Doctor nor Data would show up on a scan for life forms, but both characters are (sometimes gradually) given rights and are treated as beings, not equipment.

9 hours ago, classylady said:

Love all the Star Trek series. Especially love Voyager. I just wish I didn’t have to defend Voyager to the haters. I haven’t figured out why Voyager is derided so much. Is it because the captain is female? What’s everyone’s take on this? Why the dislike for Voyager?

I think part of the problem was that the show wasn't very true to its own premise.  Voyager was supposed to be about a small ship, with nowhere near the resources of a Galaxy class ship like Enterprise, struggling to make it home from a vast distance away where the Federation could not help them.  That's a fantastic, built-in source of drama and tension.  Add to that the mix of Maquis crew into the Starfleet crew and the possibilities for drama are endless.

But the tension between the Maquis and Starfleet became completely inert by the end of the first season, Voyager was constantly stopping to study stellar phenomena instead of trying to get home and Voyager was rarely low on supplies or materials.  Heck, they even seemed to have an endless supply of shuttlecraft, as every other episode featured one being lost and/or destroyed.  (There's also a hilarious video on YouTube counting out Voyager firing over a hundred torpedoes even though they'd established that the ship only had a relatively small number on board in the beginning.)  Shortages only ever became an issue when the plot called for it.  Otherwise the ship was always in as pristine condition and well stocked as any ship serving in side Federation territory.  This leads me to strongly suspect a lot of Voyager scripts were adapted from unused TNG material.

8 hours ago, Fether said:

Ya! Cause it was so much better than all the other ones. They are all obsolete as they stand in the shadow of the monolith that is ‘The Last Jedi’.

I'm pretty sure this is satire, folks.  (Either that, or Fether is channeling Rian Johnson.)

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anatess2

anatess2

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1 minute ago, unixknight said:

I think part of the problem was that the show wasn't very true to its own premise.  Voyager was supposed to be about a small ship, with nowhere near the resources of a Galaxy class ship like Enterprise, struggling to make it home from a vast distance away where the Federation could not help them.  That's a fantastic, built-in source of drama and tension.  Add to that the mix of Maquis crew into the Starfleet crew and the possibilities for drama are endless.

But the tension between the Maquis and Starfleet became completely inert by the end of the first season, Voyager was constantly stopping to study stellar phenomena instead of trying to get home and Voyager was rarely low on supplies or materials.  Heck, they even seemed to have an endless supply of shuttlecraft, as every other episode featured one being lost and/or destroyed.  (There's also a hilarious video on YouTube counting out Voyager firing over a hundred torpedoes even though they'd established that the ship only had a relatively small number on board in the beginning.)  Shortages only ever became an issue when the plot called for it.  Otherwise the ship was always in as pristine condition and well stocked as any ship serving in side Federation territory.  This leads me to strongly suspect a lot of Voyager scripts were adapted from unused TNG material.

Where Voyager exactly failed is it didn't fulfill its base potential.  The reason Voyager getting flung out into the Delta Quadrant was so that the series can be freed from the Roddenberry utopia which TNG and DS9 tried to free themselves out of in certain episodes to great success.  Like when the utopia temporarily evaporated due to the threat posed by the Dominion in DS9.

The Maquis was the perfect foil to bring about a non-utopian starship but... as you have said... instead, they went back to the utopian formula of all the Treks before it, which basically makes the Delta Quadrant setting useless.  They could've just stayed in Alpha and still have the same stories.  Seven of Nine challenged the utopia again, but even she went the same way as Chakotay after a few seasons.

 

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