# How did Luddites like McCoy and Phlox get such high-profile postings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 11, 2021, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715 "2021-03-11T15:35:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/41 "2021-03-12T16:07:04Z")
Sure. But they probably know better than you or I. Transporters are used to get around on Earth. It’s not like the controversy would be unknown. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/42 "2021-03-12T16:38:25Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > As a nitpick: The clear intention of the writers is that a transporter isn’t a suicide machine. The federation constantly beams people without their consent, and presumably wouldn’t do that if it killed and duped people. > > The machine reduces you to energy, then beams that energy to a distant location and puts you back. You’re the same energy on the pad as you are on the planet, and that apparently is good enough for the people of Star Trek’s timeline to accept it as still being the same creature. Well, the crew of the _Enterprise_ and other starships accept it, but again, there is copious evidence that they aren’t particularly deep thinkers, and indeed their entire experience may be a simulacrum of some sort to keep them out of trouble. Pretty much all of the technology of _Star Trek_, from ‘warp drive’ to ‘phasers’ that can somehow vaporize a living being without leaving a residual mess of starches, lipids, and oils thickly coating all nearby surfaces and yet not even get warm in the user’s hand, is physically non-sensible and is mostly explained away with technobabble and invented particles. The transporter is the most obviously ridiculous (and I don’t think the original show ever bothered explaining how it worked other than “dematerializing” and “rematerializing” the people and objects being transported) and frankly should cause a lot of problems with plots because it is so technomagical it really should be able to resolve the vast majority of problems that put crew in harm’s way, or reproduce them if seriously injured, infected, or killed, so writers are always having to come up with reasons why the transporter cannot be used, or else just ignore it entirely unless they really want to, in which case it is trivial to use it to re-integrate genes or de-age crew members and so forth. These are the dangers of introducing unstructured technology and/or magic to your story; at some point, you have to explain why it can’t be used to fix all problems, which detracts from just telling your story. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/43 "2021-03-12T16:46:09Z")
Transporters have been used to murder. Weyoun got killed that way by a Cardassian. If you work with Romulans, you might logically wonder if they will keep you quiet whenever you use a transporter. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/44 "2021-03-12T16:55:18Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Admiral Secretly-in-cahoots-with-the-Romulans is never seen using a transporter. Isn’t there a rule in watching _The Next Generation_ that about 80% of the time that an admiral shows up they are either engaged in a conspiracy of some sort or totally incompetent? It is just more evidence that “the Starfleet” is a dumping ground for defectives and sociopaths. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/45 "2021-03-12T17:44:55Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The transporter is the most obviously ridiculous (and I don’t think the original show ever bothered explaining how it worked other than “dematerializing” and “rematerializing” the people and objects being transported) For those troubled by the metaphysical issues with the transporter would find their enjoyment of the show to be greatly improved if they assume, as I do, that the whole “dematerialize/rematerialize” is just a convenient shorthand for what is actually happening. Assume that the initial transporter tech, probably going back to the 21st centyry, really did just that. Take things apart, physically move the atoms as energy, and reassemble them. Worked great for non-living things, but when they tried it with humans, it…didn’t work. We’ll just leave it at that. So an independent team came up with what they actually use, the “quantum mechanical physical relocation nexus device” but they kept the name transporter for ease of use. Since most people don’t care how it works as long as it does, no one is bothered. The few philosopher-types that get worried eventually find out how it really works, if they care. (in case anyone cares: the transporter creats a situation where the probabiliy of a person being “here” is the same as it is of her being “there”. And when the transportee is “there”, the device stops. Not only does this not kill the person being transported, it has the side benefit of explaing 90% of the transporter “accidents” during the run of the show. Since it is a “probability” issue, sometimes you get the mathematically higher probablilty that not only is the person “here”, but that the person is really two people, or is 10 years old, or has their internal organs on the outside. Bonus - the evil parallel universe doesn’t actually exist in, well, parallel with “ours”. There’s only one reality at a time. The transporter actually altered the probablility of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Oops! This is in effect what Q does.) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/46 "2021-03-12T17:50:44Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Isn’t there a rule in watching _The Next Generation_ that about 80% of the time that an admiral shows up they are either engaged in a conspiracy of some sort or totally incompetent? It is just more evidence that “the Starfleet” is a dumping ground for defectives and sociopaths. While I enjoy your theory, I would more likely say the preponderance of stupid or evil admirals is the Peter Principle, not some nefarious manipulation. Because, unless you’re going to stay Starfleet is just some very very large holodeck simulation/prison for malcontents and undesirables, and then if so, who would care about the show at all, the fact is Starfleet’s actions have brought near annihilation to earth several times. Anyone trying to give their overgrown boyscouts something to do to get them out of the way is not going to be pleased when they bring home their new playthings the Borg, or the Dominion, or that stupid whale probe, ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/47 "2021-03-12T17:52:09Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > “quantum mechanical physical relocation nexus device” I like it. Simple, easy to follow, and total bullshit. Just like _Star Trek_! ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/48 "2021-03-12T17:55:03Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I like it. Simple, easy to follow, and total bullshit. Just like _Star Trek_ ! Thanks! I think… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/49 "2021-03-12T18:05:22Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I like it. Simple, easy to follow, and total bullshit. Just like _Star Trek_ ! One of the principles back in the TOS writers’ guide was that you would not stop to explain How Things Work unless the explanation were necessary for the actual story point being made. It would be assumed the characters knew their jobs and why things work the way they do. If you get taken out of the story as it happens to ponder about whether it’s bullshit, the writer’s failing. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/50 "2021-03-12T18:07:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > In the Enterprise Era, humans are a bunch of backwoods yokels doing donuts in the more civilized parts of the galaxy. Phlox is a competent doctor from an already warp capable species. If anything, he’s slumming it. IIRC that was the reason given in the series, that Phlox was a lot more experienced in xenobiology than any Earthbound human could have been. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/51 "2021-03-12T18:09:42Z")
Genetics…not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/52 "2021-03-12T18:18:58Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > One of the principles back in the TOS writers’ guide was that you would not stop to explain How Things Work unless the explanation were necessary for the actual story point being made. It would be assumed the characters knew their jobs and why things work the way they do. If you get taken out of the story as it happens to ponder about whether something in the treknobabble is bullshit, the writer’s failing. That is a smart way to write because ultimately all science fiction is going to have technical and factual holes in it (either the technology is physically nonsensical or some fact about current physics or astronomy will eventually be found to be wrong regardless of how much research the author does or how “hard” they attempt to make the science). The original series didn’t have much problem with this because for the most part it just labeled the technology and didn’t bother to explain how anything worked, so the few obvious errors (like the orbit of the unpowered _Enterprise_ decaying over a period of months) can just be explained as oversight or ignored entirely in service of the plot, and since many of the episodes told allegorical stories the viewer was just to accept the technology as a necessary conceit similar to spaceships and psychic powers in _The Twilight Zone_. The problem came when _The Next Generation_ made a real effort to put the technology of ˆ_Star Trek_ on a relatively consistent technobabble basis, and then writers started trying to use technical solutions to solve plot problems, often inventing new technologies on the fly that would have been really useful on their own but were completely forgotten about by the next episode. Suddenly, everybody who knows anything about physics realizes what nonsense it is, and anyone who understands good writing calls such efforts out as ‘cheating’ in terms of plot resolution. It is much better to just treat the technology as essentially magical to facilitate the setting, and then have character-driven stories with resolutions involving the characters making hard choices and sacrifices, so to put characters in peril on a weekly basis they would actually have to kill a character off once in a while, which is something episodic television is wont to do. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/53 "2021-03-12T18:28:39Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > > [@Grrr](#): > > > > Well, McCoy is a country doctor. I’m not sure how he got to be on ANY starship, let alone the Federations flag ship. > > The original Enterprise wasn’t the flagship though, it was just another constitution class starship. Also, with only minimal help from a super-tech teaching device, McCoy can re-implant a brain, so he’s probably highly skilled. Sidebar: This has always bugged me about TNG–they refer to the _Enterprise_ as the flagship when it’s not carrying a flag officer aboard. Off topic rant over… ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/54 "2021-03-12T18:36:06Z")
I don’t know that it is completely off topic: it shows how little attention the writers were paying to consistency from episode to episode. Do you know when somebody first said the _Enterprise_ NG was any sort of flagship? I don’t recall anything like that in the the first episodes. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/55 "2021-03-12T18:43:32Z")
Memory Alpha provides: > **[Flagship](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Flagship)** > > A flagship was a term referring to the status conferred upon a starship. Typically, a flagship was a vessel commanded by a flag officer (an admiral or similar rank). The term was also properly applied to the ship of whichever commanding officer was... It suggests it’s first mentioned on the Icarus Factor. As an aside, originally each starship had their own symbol on the shirt patches, and some time between the series and the films, the Enterprise’s swoopy symbol became the Star Fleet icon. Suggesting that the Enterprise has a special place in Star Fleet’s heart, so the NG Enterprise might be the flagship because it’s the spiritual successor to the original Enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/56 "2021-03-12T18:55:54Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > As an aside, aside, originally each starship had their own symbol on the shirt patches, and some time between the series and the films, the Enterprise’s swoopy symbol became the Star Fleet icon. Suggesting that the Enterprise has a special place in Star Fleet’s heart, so the NG Enterprise might be the flagship because it’s the spiritual successor to the original Enterprise. There was a discussion in another thread about this not too long ago, which I can’t find offhand. The upshot is that this isn’t quite true. The crew of another Constitution-class starship is shown with a distinctive insignia, but there is actually a production memo stating that this was a mistake and all starship crews use the same “arrowhead” insignia as the Enterprise. Starbase personnel, Neutral Zone Outpost personnel, medical facility personnel, a couple of random commodores, and the crew of a “merchant marine” ship did have different insignia, which suggests that there are sub-branches within Starfleet that did have different insignia in the TOS era, which were dropped by the TNG era. But, the explicit rule in the TOS era was that all starship personnel in Starfleet were _supposed_ to have the arrowhead. ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/57 "2021-03-12T20:02:17Z")
I seem to recall it’s mentioned in one of the early first season episodes. I watch the reruns on H&I, and they rolled over to the first season not long ago. Some of those episodes are painful to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/58 "2021-03-12T21:36:43Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I’m more wondering how an openly rascist person like McCoy got past Starfleet training. His attacks on Spock are painful to watch these days. Listen McCoy, just because you come from Georgia doesn’t mean you have to act like an antebellum plantation owner. You’re getting things backwards - In the TOS timeframe, the _Vulcans_ were the plantation owners. They were the “old-money” species, the rich snobs of the federation; McCoy wasn’t calling Spock the N-word, he was calling him a cracker. Making fun of Vulcans was the very definition of punching up. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/59 "2021-03-13T00:05:16Z")
Ironically, Kirk’s Enterprise acted more like a flagship - Kirk occasionally had flag-rank officers onboard who gave orders to Kirk, and Kirk’s Enterprise was chosen to host M-5 (because it had the extra space that a flag officer would use for his staff?). Picard sometimes had flag-officers on board, but they were there as guests, not as part of the chain of command (I may be forgetting examples in both cases). ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715/60 "2021-03-13T01:50:43Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Kirk occasionally had flag-rank officers onboard who gave orders to Kirk, and Kirk’s Enterprise was chosen to host M-5 (because it had the extra space that a flag officer would use for his staff?) I believe Kirk’s Enterprise only had a flag officer onboard twice. Once was when the Enterprise rescued Commodore Matthew Decker after his own ship was crippled by the Planet Killer doomsday weapon; Decker relieved Kirk of command when he believed Kirk wasn’t being aggressive enough in attempting to destroy the Planet Killer. The other time they were simply transporting Commodore Stocker to his new posting (no staff were with him), and he assumed command when Kirk was incapacitated on an away mission. The Enterprise was chosen as the test bed for the M-5, but in that case a computer, not a commodore, assumed command, the crew was reduced to a skeleton staff of only 20, and it hosted a civilian scientist, not a commodore (a commodore did briefly board to give Kirk his orders for the M-5 exercise). ETA: I don’t _think_ the writers were really thinking this deeply, but that might have been the in-universe reason why the Enterprise was chosen as the test-bed for the M-5 - Kirk was the most junior officer in command of a Constitution-class starship, and no commodore was willing to even temporarily give up command of their ship. In the episode, the commodore who commanded another Constitution-class starship is the one who rather peremptorily gives Kirk his orders to take part in the exercise and turn over command to the M-5. Interestingly, several other Constitution-class starships which appeared in the original series did have commodores in command, which suggests that they might have more commonly functioned as flag ships. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-luddites-like-mccoy-and-phlox-get-such-high-profile-postings/937715.md?page=4)