# In Star-Trek TNG why didn't starfleet use androids for everything. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 19, 2011, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160 "2011-01-19T02:50:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/21 "2011-01-19T05:42:01Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Weren’t the Ferengi and their greedy “Yankee trader” ways supposed to be the new series’s _major villians_ at the outset? Yeah, but they were just so damn hilarious that they gave up on that. Then they couldn’t decide if they wanted zombies or robots, so they created the borg. _snaps fingers_ That’s it! Couldn’t they just make their own borg out of prisoners of war, and have THEM run their star ships? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/22 "2011-01-19T05:54:58Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Weren’t the Ferengi and their greedy “Yankee trader” ways supposed to be the new series’s _major villians_ at the outset? Yes, but that idea was abandoned very, very quickly after they realized that nobody found them threatening. They were also implied to eat other sentient species in Encounter at Farpoint, but that was never addressed again. It can be writen off as just a rumour/slur Picard heard. > [@Gorsnak](#): > > Which is pretty silly, since you can use a transporter to materialize his pattern over and over again. But then aside from a few rare episodes the Star Trek universe really avoids dealing with the logical implications of transporter technology. Transporters are the one thing I hated most about Star Trek. They make things way to easy and lead to glaring plot holes (like how even when the shields get knocked out it _never_ occurs to _anyone_ to just beam a warhead over). I was really pissed off when **Enterprise** included them. They had the perfect excuse to not use them, but stuck on onboard anyway. And they didn’t even make it any less usefull that the TOS models (a century later). They could’ve at least limited it to transporting from another unit (rendering in fairly useless in the vast majority of episodes). Did Roddenberry himself once admit he regreted introducing it? Something along the lines he could’ve just as easily had a jump cut from Kirk ordering a shuttle to the surface to the away team on the surface without filming a landing scene? ---
**Author:** ![tingbudong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tingbudong/32/520_2.png) [@tingbudong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tingbudong)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/23 "2011-01-19T05:57:54Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Weren’t the Ferengi and their greedy “Yankee trader” ways supposed to be the new series’s _major villians_ at the outset? I’m probably in a minority, but I rather enjoyed the ultra-capitalist direction the writers eventually took with the Ferengi (mostly during DS9). Some of the episodes were harsh to watch, but the overall development was interesting and it made attempts at filling in some of the bizarre economic gaps of the Star Trek Universe. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/24 "2011-01-19T05:58:09Z")
Short answer: they don’t know how to make an android, so they made holograms instead. But any sufficiently developed tech is subject to the basic Cylon problem. Long answer: Data was a fairly unique invention, and his inventor disappeared, and then he was declared to have rights, so no one could take him apart and figure out how to build another. Even Data himself, when he tried to create another android, ultimately failed to figure out how to stabilize it. However, Starfleet did invent holodeck technology, which led to the Mark I emergency medical hologram (Voyager). After being turned on long past intended, and subject to various tweaks, the Doctor is essentially a person. When the Mark II is invented, all the Mark I’s get repurposed mining an asteroid or something. Initially, the Doctor is limited to sickbay, but in his particular case, he happens upon future tech that lets him me mobile, and in the case of the other holograms, deploying transmitters all over the ship solves that problem. Holograms are becoming more prolific, but at the same time, the Doctor is trying to free them from ‘slavery’. So unless Starfleet comes up with holograms sophistcated enough to be useful but not sophisticated enough to claim rights… Heck even the exocomps, simple bots with a clever processing tweak involving transporter tech evolved sentience. Seems like the natural progression of things. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/25 "2011-01-19T06:08:46Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > Yeah, but they were just so damn hilarious that they gave up on that. Then they couldn’t decide if they wanted zombies or robots, so they created the borg… Actually the Borg were originally supposed to be insects (& connected with those mind controling parasites), but the budget wouldn’t allow that. So they kept the hive mind concept and made them zombielike cyborgs. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/26 "2011-01-19T16:46:52Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > DS9 seemingly Retconned their universe by saying that it was only Earth and a few other founding nations that were quite so utopian and rich. I don’t think that was a retcon. Both Kirk & Picard’s _Enterprises_ frequently met colony worlds and so forth that were much less prosperous: fairly hardscrabble, in fact. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that only Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, Betazed, and a few others possess the full Utopian economy. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/27 "2011-01-19T17:25:32Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > Because a robotic starfleet would put a whole lot of writers out on the street. Seriously. > > There’s no other reason. The whole “Data is sentient so we can’t have an army of them,” while an interesting metaphysical hypothetical, just strikes me as space opera writers hedging their bets. I mean, look at the ship’s computer. It can run autopilot on the ship, accept pretty flexible prosaic commands from the crew. It’s not sentient. Why does your standing army need sentience? Isn’t that a BAD thing? How hard is it to take non-sentient computers and have them run every system on the ship, with ONE human in a tiny living quarters maintaining the ship? Give them little R2D2 wheels with a few bio-gel circuits or whatever they call those things that the computer uses. > > Ooh, sorry, then we can’t have Whoopi Goldberg slinging suds, and Marina Sirtis waltzing around in a skintight bodysuit showing her intimate knowledge of method acting. Better explain that away! > > Similarly, both Terminator’s Skynet and Star Wars Trade Federation showed us that you can have massive armies of robots fighting your war, presumably twice as strong and twice as expendable as hu-mons! What would be the point of having the Enterprise travel around without humans? Its mission is to discover new worlds, meet new peoples - the ship’s job is to carry those humans around. That’s another reason they wouldn’t have lots of androids doing the jobs: because humans want to do them. They’re all interesting jobs, the kind that millionaires today often continue doing even though they don’t need the money. None of them are cleaners or sewerage workers or office drones. Those jobs _are_ done by robots. And a single human being running a whole ship alone? Well, aside from physical illness or human error making it too risky that the ships wouldn’t last long before exploding, the human would go mad. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/28 "2011-01-19T17:36:13Z")
Gene Roddenberry’s main interest was the crew. He wanted to show humans from all over earth could work together. This was the height of the cold war. We were just past the Cuban Missile crisis. The idea we could work together instead of annihilating each other was pretty bold. Black characters on tv were usually servants or criminals. Gene Roddenberry created a black bridge officer. He even threw in an alien science officer. I can’t see robots fitting well in Gene Roddenberry’s vision for a bridge crew. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/29 "2011-01-19T17:36:34Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I don’t think that was a retcon. Both Kirk & Picard’s _Enterprises_ frequently met colony worlds and so forth that were much less prosperous: fairly hardscrabble, in fact. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that only Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, Betazed, and a few others possess the full Utopian economy. True. But given Gino’s aforementioned love of the “utopian future,” and the fact that the Picard so proudly extolled the Federation doing away with want and need, I hardly think he meant “in my part of the Federation.” DS9’s whole deal was that there were disenfranchised citizens in the form of the Maquis getting a raw deal, and the Federation was a cold, calculating superpower playing realpolitik. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/30 "2011-01-19T17:40:34Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > True. But given Gino’s aforementioned love of the “utopian future,” and the fact that the Picard so proudly extolled the Federation doing away with want and need, I hardly think he meant “in my part of the Federation.” DS9’s whole deal was that there were disenfranchised citizens in the form of the Maquis getting a raw deal, and the Federation was a cold, calculating superpower playing realpolitik. I agree - it was a retcon, though not a huge one. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/31 "2011-01-19T17:45:50Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Short answer: they don’t know how to make an android, so they made holograms instead. But any sufficiently developed tech is subject to the basic Cylon problem. > > Long answer: > > Data was a fairly unique invention, and his inventor disappeared, and then he was declared to have rights, so no one could take him apart and figure out how to build another. Even Data himself, when he tried to create another android, ultimately failed to figure out how to stabilize it. > > However, Starfleet did invent holodeck technology, which led to the Mark I emergency medical hologram (Voyager). After being turned on long past intended, and subject to various tweaks, the Doctor is essentially a person. When the Mark II is invented, all the Mark I’s get repurposed mining an asteroid or something. Initially, the Doctor is limited to sickbay, but in his particular case, he happens upon future tech that lets him me mobile, and in the case of the other holograms, deploying transmitters all over the ship solves that problem. > > Holograms are becoming more prolific, but at the same time, the Doctor is trying to free them from ‘slavery’. So unless Starfleet comes up with holograms sophistcated enough to be useful but not sophisticated enough to claim rights… > > Heck even the exocomps, simple bots with a clever processing tweak involving transporter tech evolved sentience. Seems like the natural progression of things. Post #14, but better written here. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/32 "2011-01-19T17:46:49Z")
I always thought Star Wars (the original movie) got it right. There was a human crew that relied on the droids to do the dirty or dangerous work.R2D2 seemed very accurate. The way it could interface with the computer, make repairs etc. They didn’t try to make it look human. It was a droid. I can easily imagine droids on a Star Ship. Worf would growl at them. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/33 "2011-01-19T18:34:41Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > …None of them are cleaners or sewerage workers or office drones. Those jobs _are_ done by robots… In the TNG episode with the Irish luddites and the clone society O’Brian even mentioned that the ship will “clean itself” without going into detail. ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/34 "2011-01-19T19:01:38Z")
Wasn’t Rom fixing the sewage system on DS9 when he first became an engineer? It seemed like a nasty job that nobody wanted. Also, the Maquis weren’t limited to DS9, they were in several TNG episodes and part of the main cast of Voyager. The realignment of the Cardassian border was probably the biggest event to happen in Star Trek. It affected all three series and was felt in two of the movies. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/35 "2011-01-19T19:03:33Z")
Wasn’t there a TNG episode where they made some sort of hovering powerdrill looking things? And of course they became sentient and had to be sacrificed to save the ship from a plasm leak (or some other horseshit)? > [@SciFiSam](#): > > And a single human being running a whole ship alone? Well, aside from physical illness or human error making it too risky that the ships wouldn’t last long before exploding, the human would go mad. I seem to recall that there are some examples in the series where a single human ran a starship. At least for a period of time. I also feel like most of the crew exists for servicing the needs of the crew (and the audience), not the ship: -There’s the captain who basically tells the helmsman where to go. -The helmsman who tells the ship where to go. -The XO who doesn’t do much of anything. -The science officer who tells us what the computer is saying (when the computer doesn’t say it itself). -The communications officer who tells us what Starfleet is saying. -The guy who watches the transporter. -The bartender in the ships lounge. -The chief engineer and his coolies shoveling dilithium into the antimater converter -A couple of redshirts to catch phasers -An assortment of one-off “mission specialists” who happen to be experts in whatever drives the plot that week Keep in mind in the Star Trek universe they have “replicator” and “transporter” technology. You don’t need a droid to change a lightbulb. The ships computer can just transport the old one away and replicate a new bulb into the old socket. As Family Guy pointed out, they don’t even need a “head” on board. Although one thing I’ve often wondered is why they don’t make the entire ship “holodeck” to some degree. At least for non-critical stuff It seems like it would be convenient for moving furniture around. Reconfiguring control panels, whatever. Heck, with their technolgy, why does the Enterprise need to be any particular shape? Seems like they could just add or remove sections as needed. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/36 "2011-01-19T19:16:30Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > Wasn’t Rom fixing the sewage system on DS9 when he first became an engineer? It seemed like a nasty job that nobody wanted. Yeah, but that was a Cardassian station built by bloody Cardies who wouldn’t know an EPS manifold from a phase inducer! It’s not surprising that their poop-dematerialization subsystem suffers repeated failures in turd/anti-turd interfloccinaucinihilipilification chamber. ---
**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:** [January 19, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/37 "2011-01-19T19:26:32Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Yeah, but that was a Cardassian station built by bloody Cardies who wouldn’t know an EPS manifold from a phase inducer! This. In an early ep of DS9, O’Brien even says that the Cardassian equipment is outdated, inefficient and basically junk. Different cultures (and different species) are going to have different priorities for their tech. The canonical DNA baseline of all the Trek species may have a common origin, but it’s obviously evolved over different branches since the Seeding. ETA: Although O’Brien was canonically extremely prejudiced against the Cardassians, so his opinion of their tech may be just as prejudiced. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/38 "2011-01-19T19:29:59Z")
They watched BSG. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/39 "2011-01-19T19:32:37Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Although one thing I’ve often wondered is why they don’t make the entire ship “holodeck” to some degree. They probably don’t want the holoemmiters to fill the ship wth holotribbles or simulated water at the wrong moment. “This is Captain Picard of the Federation Starship-”\* \\* > [@msmith537](#): > > Wasn’t there a TNG episode where they made some sort of hovering powerdrill looking things? And of course they became sentient and had to be sacrificed to save the ship from a plasm leak (or some other horseshit)? Yup: > [@jackdavinci](#): > > Heck even the exocomps, simple bots with a clever processing tweak involving transporter tech evolved sentience. Seems like the natural progression of things. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160/40 "2011-01-19T19:46:00Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Hence one and only one Data. Then shouldn’t his name be Datum? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-star-trek-tng-why-didnt-starfleet-use-androids-for-everything/568160.md?page=3)