# Forgotten/Ignored Star Trek Technology **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2004, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604 "2004-02-28T08:51:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/81 "2004-03-02T00:09:44Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > Assuming Enterprise makes it to the usual seven years (which doesn’t look likely at this moment), I’m sure there will be some sort “We must never speak of this ever again” explanation. As I believe I’ve suggested in other threads, the most likely scenario is that to foil an Earth-threatening plot, Archer will have to take a course of action that causes his mission to have never occurred. In the process, this will establish the Trekverse as we know it. ---
**Author:** ![elf6c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/82 "2004-03-02T00:56:34Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > But … but … but, the **reason** the prototype fire-when-cloaked ship was destroyed was **because** of the “heatseeking” torpedo! If everyone has figured out a way to cloak the exhaust through dissipation, so that a “heatseeking” torpedo would be useless against a cloaked ship, then there’d be no reason **not** to resume the fire-when-cloaked development program! Yes- but _how could the Klingons know that?_ All they know is that the Federation was able to destroy their new toy. I am sure the Federation was less than forthcoming as to _how_ they pulled it off. The bigger question why didn’t the federation continue their cloaked ship seeking torpedo trick? As far as the site to site thing- the main point still applies. Why not just beam every intruder into space- maximum dispersal. All you need to do make sure the transporter has a bit of power (back up system will do), and instant anti-boarding tech. I love the transporters and would abuse them almost as much as the pornodeck, umm I mean holodeck. . . 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/83 "2004-03-02T02:35:12Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > As I believe I’ve suggested in other threads, the most likely scenario is that to foil an Earth-threatening plot, Archer will have to take a course of action that causes his mission to have never occurred. In the process, this will establish the Trekverse as we know it. …and only Porthos will survive! ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/84 "2004-03-03T01:15:30Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > Wesley’s ability to out-think the rest of the crew is just like that of [Marrissa Amber Flores Picard Gordon](http://home.netcom.com/%7Emblackwl/mst.html). RATLIFF ALERT!!! _screams_ _runs in circles_ _hides_ ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/85 "2004-03-03T02:14:38Z")
What would have made a good episode of DS9: Bashir discovers that immortality was discovered over 200 years previously, and that the Federation deliberately suppressed it, on the grounds that that dying is “part of being human”. Except of course that Section 31 grants it’s top agents and directors immortality so their operations can have centuries-long continuity. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/86 "2004-03-03T03:00:32Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > RATLIFF ALERT!!! > > _screams_ > > _runs in circles_ > > _hides_ No one can hide from Marrissa! – **tracer** , who was beaten by a bunch of kids ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/87 "2004-03-03T03:03:39Z")
> [@elf6c](#): > > As far as the site to site thing- the main point still applies. Why not just beam every intruder into space- maximum dispersal. All you need to do make sure the transporter has a bit of power (back up system will do), and instant anti-boarding tech. Ah – but as we all know, the transporter can only **lock on** to somebody if they’re carrying a working communicator. The boarding parties in the _Star Trek_ universe obviously don’t have any communicators, thus making them transporter-proof. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/88 "2004-03-03T03:19:59Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > No one can hide from Marrissa! > – **tracer** , who was beaten by a bunch of kids I actually once wrote a Trekfic :o based on the Wizard of Oz, with Marrissa (used by graciously granted permission of Mr. Ratliff) as the Wicked Ensign of the Stern. (Wesley was the Evil Genius of the Bow) I don’t know if I’m more embarassed by admitting that I once wrote Trekfic or by admitting that I’ve had personal correspondence with Stephen Ratliff… ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/89 "2004-03-03T03:20:38Z")
Silly silly silly hoo-mahn. They can also lock on to life signs. As early as _Tomorrow Is Yesterday_ (ep 21), we see an Air Force pilot beamed out of his disintegrating jet airplane. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/90 "2004-03-03T03:35:51Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I actually once wrote a Trekfic :o based on the Wizard of Oz, with Marrissa (used by graciously granted permission of Mr. Ratliff) as the Wicked Ensign of the Stern. (Wesley was the Evil Genius of the Bow) > > I don’t know if I’m more embarassed by admitting that I once wrote Trekfic or by admitting that I’ve had personal correspondence with Stephen Ratliff… Pah! Small potatoes. I once wrote [Borged to Death!](http://home.ix.netcom.com/%7Emblackwl/borged.txt). ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/91 "2004-03-03T03:44:47Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > They can also lock on to life signs. As early as “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” (ep 21), we see an Air Force pilot beamed out of his disintegrating jet airplane. And later on, in the **same episode** , they were unable to beam Kirk back from the surface … because Kirk didn’t have his communicator. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/92 "2004-03-03T03:56:22Z")
Communicators provide a lock, but aren’t neccessary for a lock. Kirk was in a secured (sheilded?) area with dozens of other humans. Any hoo… How 'bout those Aliens? ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/93 "2004-03-03T04:06:31Z")
…dozens of other humans… in close proximity. But, yeah. They screwed up in that ep. Making canon and violating it within minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/94 "2004-03-03T04:43:29Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > As I believe I’ve suggested in other threads, the most likely scenario is that to foil an Earth-threatening plot, Archer will have to take a course of action that causes his mission to have never occurred. In the process, this will establish the Trekverse as we know it. That’s what _I’m_ pinning all my hopes on. Oh, and it’s not a “technology” per se, but I thought I’d mention “Starfleet General Order No. 24,” as mentioned in TOS’ _A Taste of Armageddon_… > [@](#): > > General Order 24: A command to destroy the surface of a planet unless the order is countermanded within a specified period. Yup, Starfleet has (or had) their own [“Base Delta Zero”](http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/BaseDeltaZero.html) order. Yow. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/95 "2004-03-03T04:48:21Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Silly silly silly hoo-mahn. > > They can also lock on to life signs. As early as _Tomorrow Is Yesterday_ (ep 21), we see an Air Force pilot beamed out of his disintegrating jet airplane. Plus, there was a “Voyager” episode where Torres executes a “skeletal lock” by scanning for and locking on to the calcium in the away team’s bones. I can think of a fairly _nasty_ way to use that technique, if you’re using the transporter to try and _kill_ someone. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/96 "2004-03-03T05:11:04Z")
Ok first Hi guys Kirk Spock and all being restored from their old age was not done via Transporter but by and adreniline based radiation therapy. How it reversed the process… Damned if I know but if it works that good on wrinkles and premature (snicker yeah right) balding then they should have taken that out to the 23rd centuries version of baby boomers. However In STNG they did do that for Pulaski so that was a crock. Ground weapons technology. Away missions during the Dominion war sure could have used those photon grenade launchers used against the Gorn in The Arena. One of those little jewls took out an entire enemy position. Why they dicontinued their use is beyond me. Hand wave technology… Spock used it in the Cage but Star fleet simply abandoned it seemed rather practical to me. ---
**Author:** ![Nenya\_Elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@Nenya\_Elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nenya_Elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/97 "2004-03-03T05:18:35Z")
> [@SirRay](#): > > You know, in the novels (yes, not canon, I know but I used to read them from the library until they started making all sorts of lame multi-book series), many of those alien races show up again and again - and there are several Horta in StarFleet (I think one DS9 novel had as a secondary story a small Horta child running around DS9, mucking things up - I remember distinctly a scene when it crashed into Quark’s holodeck because it sensed copper, only to enter upon some guy’s holofantasy with a Vulcan ‘slut’ [which simulated the copper in her blood]) Horta? How in the galaxy would they wear the uniform?! But yes, the novels make a great place to play around with one-shot or neglected aliens (and probably technology, for that matter). As does fanfic, but sex is more popular there! ---
**Author:** ![Nenya\_Elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@Nenya\_Elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nenya_Elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/98 "2004-03-03T06:08:12Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > Wesley’s ability to out-think the rest of the crew is just like that of [Marrissa Amber Flores Picard Gordon](http://home.netcom.com/%7Emblackwl/mst.html). I am part of a [project](http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1531996) (as a beta-reader) to fictionally kill off Marrissa Picard in her many incarnations. Actually, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing right now instead of posting to the SDMB… Also: Re: deflector dish or whatever hiding a ship from 20th c. radar tracking: Voyager uses something similar in “Future’s End” where, as soon as they figure out what time they’re in, Janeway casually says, “Hey, Harry, they have primitive tracking technology in this time. Set up the deflector thingy so they won’t be able to pick us up.” Apparently in the 23rd and 24th centuries everybody has technology to hide from whatever detection devices we have today, but not from their contemporary “sensor” technology. By the 29th century, I’m sure finding Romulans or Klingons in 24th c. cloaks should be a piece of cake. And as for intership transport, I remember that it was a big deal in TOS the one or two times they mentioned it–“Captain, we could end up in a bulkhead! It’s too risky!” (but of course they did it anyway). I was under the impression that by a hundred years later they’d refined the targeting lock or whatever on the transporters so that what was a big deal before was common. Hey, Torres even beams home for dinner when she’s being plagued by those pesky Klingons who think her daughter is the Klingon Messiah. Also: subdermal transporter activators–lots of people use them. Mostly for covert operations of one variety or another. Dukat uses one in “Covenant”, to make a swift exit when the Bajorans in his cult realize he’s not being quite up front about this “let’s die and go to be with the love of the pah-wraiths” thing. I think Janeway uses one when she goes on a spiritual quest in order to save Kes. Michael Eddington uses one, one of the times that Sisko’s trying to track him down after he goes over to the Maquis. Which brings me to my contribution to this thread: what about those Star Wars-style holographic communication things they had on the Defiant in that one episode? They could generate an image of the other captain they were talking to, as if he were right there on the bridge with them, instead of using the viewscreen! In full colour, nonetheless, not wavery monochromatic blue! It was of course a prototype, but it seemed to work fine, so I don’t know why they never used it again. They never did. Not that I mind, really, as it seemed a bit of an overkill–they do just fine with the normal viewscreens, and it just seemed a bit too much like Star Wars. (And we can’t have that. Never! :P) Am intrigued by the ENT-as-dream/time blip theory, too. I hope they do _something_ to explain some of this weirdness. I try to watch when it’s on, but when I heard they’d had Borg on the NX-01, I had a hard time taking it seriously after that. Trip’s cool, though. –Nenya ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/99 "2004-03-03T06:40:57Z")
> [@Nenya\_Elizabeth](#): > > I am part of a [project](http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1531996) (as a beta-reader) to fictionally kill off Marrissa Picard in her many incarnations. Foolish mortal. Marrissa cannot **be** killed. She has the favor of the Q continuum on her side, to say nothing of the almighty Ratliff. If you sneak up behind her with a gun and pull the trigger, your gun will jam every time. > [@Nenya\_Elizabeth](#): > > And as for intership transport, I remember that it was a big deal in TOS the one or two times they mentioned it–“Captain, we could end up in a bulkhead! It’s too risky!” (but of course they did it anyway). Do you mean intership, or intraship? ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604/100 "2004-03-03T06:43:36Z")
> [@Nenya\_Elizabeth](#): > > Also: subdermal transporter activators–lots of people use them. Mostly for covert operations of one variety or another. Dukat uses one in “Covenant”, to make a swift exit when the Bajorans in his cult realize he’s not being quite up front about this “let’s die and go to be with the love of the pah-wraiths” thing. I think Janeway uses one when she goes on a spiritual quest in order to save Kes. Michael Eddington uses one, one of the times that Sisko’s trying to track him down after he goes over to the Maquis. See, this is what I didn’t understand about _Star Trek: Nemesis_. Why was that miniatiure transporter-activator that Data was carrying around with him “experimental,” when subdermal transporter activators had been around for nearly a century? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-ignored-star-trek-technology/231604.md?page=6)