"Sorry, my suspension of disbelief doesn't stretch that far." (Open Spoilers)

Cafe Society
221

[QUOTE=II Gyan II]
The basic concept and setup of Star Trek in general

I’ll refer to TNG since that’s the only series that I have seen extensively (yeah, despite what I’m about to write below) besides the original which I don’t remember much of.

8)“Prime Directive” - to not interfere with the “natural evolution” of a primitive species (sub-Warp). What’s ‘unnatural’ in this Trek universe? I suspect the PD is meant to prevent inducing huge shocks in the outlooks of primitive cultures, but there’s nothing unnatural about that. (No Pass)
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It could have been used to good effect to mean that the Federation should resist the temptation to interfere with less advanced cultures “for their own good”. Given the long history on Earth alone of imperialism and well-intended paternalism, or the impact of western technology on more fundamentalist cultures, this makes sense.

But as presented, the Prime Directive was handled extremely stupidly. On TOS, the Prime Directive seemed to mean “don’t interfere- UNLESS the Federation really, really wants something badly”. And on TNG, the pendulum swung ridiculously the other way, where Worf’s human stepbrother had to break Federation law to save a primitive tribespeople from extinction due to the fact that their sun was going nova.

222

[QUOTE=Cardinal]
In fact, what really strains my suspension of disbelief is that almost anything gets done if humans can just order up food and clothing and shelter and pharmecuticals. What’s left to strive for? Why should I go to work and break a sweat?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t think that aspect of the Star Trek universe was particularly well thought out, but I do think it’s realistic, and possibly inevitable. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons, but here are the two that come to mind:

  1. Extended hobbying. When people no longer have to do things to survive, they will do them for fun. There’s very few jobs out there that don’t have correlative hobbyists (or volunteers or enthusiasts or activists), and those that don’t tend to be the boring, repetitive tasks that future technologies will have automated.

  2. Social currency. There’s plenty of things that people will do for the approval and attention of their peers. Having people like you and hold you in high esteem can be a stong motivator. And people are more likely to do favors for other people they consider to be benefiting the general good, like nuns or veterans or peace workers.

223

In The Count of Monte Cristo, which I generally liked, Edmond saves the life of Jacopo, who proceeds to help him find the treasure and act as his manservant for the rest of whenever.

It was a charming story, but come on! Jacopo was a cutthroat who was originally sentenced to death for hording gold that should have been split with his fellow pirates. In reality, Jacopo would have slit Edmond’s throat and taken the treasure the first chance he got.

224

[QUOTE=fetus]
(Meaning, toke it up with Charlie and don’t shoot him.)
[/QUOTE]

Charlie don’t inhale.

225

[QUOTE=jackdavinci]
I don’t think that aspect of the Star Trek universe was particularly well thought out, but I do think it’s realistic, and possibly inevitable. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons, but here are the two that come to mind:

  1. Extended hobbying. When people no longer have to do things to survive, they will do them for fun. There’s very few jobs out there that don’t have correlative hobbyists (or volunteers or enthusiasts or activists), and those that don’t tend to be the boring, repetitive tasks that future technologies will have automated.

  2. Social currency. There’s plenty of things that people will do for the approval and attention of their peers. Having people like you and hold you in high esteem can be a stong motivator. And people are more likely to do favors for other people they consider to be benefiting the general good, like nuns or veterans or peace workers.
    [/QUOTE]

I don’t beleive it is ever stated in Trek (any series) that currency or “credit” is not earned or strived for… but they did specifically state that they ended hunger and the fight for the basic neccesities.

Wasn’t Rikers ‘twin’ owed lots of back credits?

I believe that I have heard mentioned in the series things such as “replicator credits” (although that may have been in Voyager and dealt with rationing and not so much as an earned thing)… Clearly even in the trek world people “work for a living”, but they seem to worry less.

Of course, money/credits arent really mentioned alot, as the idea of trek is taht all of humanity is working together for the common good… once all basic needs are taken care of, you are much freer to pursue dreams/education/whatever and actually achieve a great deal more.

226

While credits are indeed mentioned in passing in The Trouble With Tribbles and maybe a few other episodes of the original Star Trek, Kirk unequivocally tells Gillian Taylor that money does not exist in the 23rd Century in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Picard sneers at and condescends towards Ralph Offenhouse in *The Neutral Zone *because of his primitive 20th Century concerns for wealth and social standing so it’s pretty clear that money was not intended to exist in Roddenberry’s utopia but, thankfully, some of his more harebrained ideas were either downplayed in later seasons of The Next Generation and, especially, Deep Space Nine.

Then we got *Voyager *and *Enterprise *and got a whole new breed of stupid.

227

[QUOTE=Aesiron]
Kirk unequivocally tells Gillian Taylor that money does not exist in the 23rd Century in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Kirk said money, as in the little green bills with the dead presidents on them. Those went the way of the dodo a long time ago. But the Federation has some kind of economy and some kind of currency. I would imagine they don’t have money because it’s too easy to counterfeit with a replicator.

Topic: Star Trek stretches my suspension of disbelief with the Universal Translator. I can buy that a computer would be powerful enough to take a foreign language and somehow be able to turn it into understandable speech. But this amazing bit of technology can also synchronize the lip movements of alien speakers so that they appear to be speaking English!

228

[QUOTE=simster]

I believe that I have heard mentioned in the series things such as “replicator credits” (although that may have been in Voyager and dealt with rationing and not so much as an earned thing)… Clearly even in the trek world people “work for a living”, but they seem to worry less.

[/QUOTE]

I remember Sisko mentioning using all his “transporter credits” going home to eat at his Dad’s restaurant, in a DS9 episode where they are at said restaurant. I took it to mean “a cadet’s allotment of free travel”, not an actual currency, but the end result is the same - things are clearly rationed.

229

[QUOTE=jayjay]
I know you’ve already corrected yourself, but I have to note that I would so totally worship a puppy god…
[/QUOTE]

I, for one, WELCOME our new canine overlo…
Oh, never mind… it’s become trite.

230

[QUOTE=Schuyler]
Whenever the good guys want to access the computer account of the bad guys, they always use some silly little trick to intuite the password - at max it’ll take like 5 tries to hit on the right combination of birthdates, dead wives names, project codewords, or other significant personally-identifying information. …I’m drawing a blank on some other offenders to offer as examples.
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The most egregious example of this for me was Along Came a Spider. Based on some reminiscing by the character days before, Morgan Freeman pulls a perfectly capitalized and exact phrase out of his ass and accesses the essential info. The movie was skating the edge of reason anyway but this was the point where I unsuspended my disbelief.

231

[QUOTE=gigi]
The most egregious example of this for me was Along Came a Spider. Based on some reminiscing by the character days before, Morgan Freeman pulls a perfectly capitalized and exact phrase out of his ass and accesses the essential info.
[/QUOTE]

Still not as bad as “Watchmen”.

Dan Dreiberg is your typical comic-book genius: a brilliant inventor with graduate degrees in multiple fields, he writes for academic journals when he isn’t solving crimes in his superhero persona. So it makes sense that, when he decides to hack into an acquaintance’s computer, he’ll deduce that the guy is a big fan of Ozymandias and so will use “Rameses” as his password. Sure. No problem there.

Except that’s not it. The password is “Rameses II”.

And so when Dan types in “Rameses”, the computer asks him if he’d like to add a rider, since, y’know, it’s currently incomplete.

I agree with Gigi that it’s implausible for someone to pull the exact wording to nail a password; I merely add that it’s worse for someone to pull out the wrong wording and get corrected.

232

[QUOTE=ululate]

And so when Dan types in “Rameses”, the computer asks him if he’d like to add a rider, since, y’know, it’s currently incomplete.

I agree with Gigi that it’s implausible for someone to pull the exact wording to nail a password; I merely add that it’s worse for someone to pull out the wrong wording and get corrected.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, I know this is total against my usual adherence to Occam’s razor, but… It’s fully possible Ozymandius set this up.
In fact, the more that I think about it… Ozymandius’ great hubris was he wanted -someone- to know his plot. He wanted to show how smart he was, but he couldn’t tell anyone. So it’s very possible he left incredibly weak security on his computer when he knew Dan was coming for it.
“Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Indeed. In fact, with a name like Ozymandius, didn’t he have to sort-of assume that his ‘great plan’ would meet a fate like the final few frames of the series would indicate?

233

[QUOTE=ululate]

And so when Dan types in “Rameses”, the computer asks him if he’d like to add a rider, since, y’know, it’s currently incomplete.

I agree with Gigi that it’s implausible for someone to pull the exact wording to nail a password; I merely add that it’s worse for someone to pull out the wrong wording and get corrected.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, I know this is total against my usual adherence to Occam’s razor, but… It’s fully possible Ozymandius set this up.
In fact, the more that I think about it… Ozymandius’ great hubris was he wanted -someone- to know his plot. He wanted to show how smart he was, but he couldn’t tell anyone. So it’s very possible he left incredibly weak security on his computer when he knew Dan was coming for it.
“Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Indeed. In fact, with a name like Ozymandius, didn’t he have to sort-of assume that his ‘great plan’ would meet a fate like the final few frames of the series would indicate?

234

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]
Okay, I know this is total against my usual adherence to Occam’s razor, but… It’s fully possible Ozymandius set this up.
In fact, the more that I think about it… Ozymandius’ great hubris was he wanted -someone- to know his plot.

[/quote]

What evidence of such desire do you see? I don’t believe Veidt had any such desire, as he knew that the success of the plot depending on no one knowing about it at least within the next few years, probably his own lifetime, and possibly ever. In fact, despite his name, Veidt in some ways has the opposite of hubris. In his interviews, at least, he consistently asserts that his abilities are unobtainable for others; anyone can become Ozymandias, in his view, if they have the will.

I’m with those asserting that the whole “add rider” is just a plot hole and evidence that Moore didn’t know much about computer security, or didn’t think this through. He could just as easily have had the computer ask Dan for the password again.

235

[QUOTE=ArrMatey!]
So it’s very possible he left incredibly weak security on his computer when he knew Dan was coming for it.
[/QUOTE]

The problem is, he didn’t know Dan was coming for it.

236

I can fotrgive the outrinning of rushing water/fire, but if a character suddely ducks into an opening why doesn’t the fire/water follow? I mean the stuff just wants to get out where ever it can. See Independence Day.

Nowadays I also can not stand psychic nonsense. I always see them as frauds and can’t accept their otherworldlty powers even in fiction.

237

I agree that there’s some canon evidence that replicator and transporter use is rationed somehow. But that doesn’t extend to food and such.

And it’s my belief that the vast majority of people on Earth really don’t do much of anything at all. They sit around, visit holosuites, play games, hang out with their buddies.

Almost nobody wants to join Starfleet. Starfleet is made up of dedicated hobbyists, like the Boy Scouts today except for grownups. The vast majority of people view Starfleet people as possibly dangerous eccentrics who like to play with spaceships and weapons and risk their lives for no good reason. Kind of like how people today view guys who climb Mt Everest or try to sail around the world in a hot air balloon, or race yachts. Starfleet doesn’t cost Earth citizens anything, it’s not funded by taxes, it’s self supporting. Those shipyards are run by volunteers who just like building ships, the Academy is staffed by volunteers who just like to teach, the ships are staffed by eccentric people who like to explore and risk their lives. But only the tiniest fraction of Earth’s population is involved in this endeavor, the vast majority are content to sit on their asses and drink replicated beer all day every day.

This isn’t to say that there’s no economy in Star Trek…just that anything that can be bought for money can be replicated, and anything that can’t be replicated can’t be bought for money anyway. You can’t buy a Starfleet post on a starship, you have to earn it. You can’t buy fame. You can’t buy a spot on a colony planet, either the other colonists want you to go with them and it’s no charge, or they don’t want you and you can’t change their mind with money, what will you pay them WITH?

That’s the other side of the economy. Nobody needs money for 99% of their daily neccesities…and so there’s no jobs that pay money either. What would they pay you with? And what would you use the money for if you had it? The goods and services that can’t be replicated can’t be bought because the people who provide them don’t want material goods that can be replicated. They have other motivations…social motivations, like being famous, or being recognized as the best, or approval of their social group. Or they want something else that can’t be replicated…like a chance to serve on a starship. Think about why people post here on the SDMB. There are people today who get paid for their writing…but we do it for free. Why do people rush to be the first one to answer a physics question in GQ? Why do people analyze politics for free? Why do they write fanfic for free?

238

[QUOTE=kingpengvin]
Nowadays I also can not stand psychic nonsense. I always see them as frauds and can’t accept their otherworldlty powers even in fiction.
[/QUOTE]

I’m torn on psychics. For me it depends on context. Medium, Ghost Whisperer, and Psychic Detectives – especially that last one – bother me because they’re ostensibly set in the real world; PD strikes me as downright fraudulent (likewise that Crossing show. But Angel’s Cordelia Chase was a psychic, and so are all the slayers on Buffy, and I like both those shows, as they are more straightforward about being fantasies.

239

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
I agree that there’s some canon evidence that replicator and transporter use is rationed somehow. But that doesn’t extend to food and such.

And it’s my belief that the vast majority of people on Earth really don’t do much of anything at all. They sit around, visit holosuites, play games, hang out with their buddies.

Almost nobody wants to join Starfleet. Starfleet is made up of dedicated hobbyists, like the Boy Scouts today except for grownups. The vast majority of people view Starfleet people as possibly dangerous eccentrics who like to play with spaceships and weapons and risk their lives for no good reason. Kind of like how people today view guys who climb Mt Everest or try to sail around the world in a hot air balloon, or race yachts. Starfleet doesn’t cost Earth citizens anything, it’s not funded by taxes, it’s self supporting. Those shipyards are run by volunteers who just like building ships, the Academy is staffed by volunteers who just like to teach, the ships are staffed by eccentric people who like to explore and risk their lives. But only the tiniest fraction of Earth’s population is involved in this endeavor, the vast majority are content to sit on their asses and drink replicated beer all day every day.

This isn’t to say that there’s no economy in Star Trek…just that anything that can be bought for money can be replicated, and anything that can’t be replicated can’t be bought for money anyway. You can’t buy a Starfleet post on a starship, you have to earn it. You can’t buy fame. You can’t buy a spot on a colony planet, either the other colonists want you to go with them and it’s no charge, or they don’t want you and you can’t change their mind with money, what will you pay them WITH?

That’s the other side of the economy. Nobody needs money for 99% of their daily neccesities…and so there’s no jobs that pay money either. What would they pay you with? And what would you use the money for if you had it? The goods and services that can’t be replicated can’t be bought because the people who provide them don’t want material goods that can be replicated. They have other motivations…social motivations, like being famous, or being recognized as the best, or approval of their social group. Or they want something else that can’t be replicated…like a chance to serve on a starship. Think about why people post here on the SDMB. There are people today who get paid for their writing…but we do it for free. Why do people rush to be the first one to answer a physics question in GQ? Why do people analyze politics for free? Why do they write fanfic for free?
[/QUOTE]

Ok… I’m not going to dispute/argue with you on this becuase you said “This is my belief”… but I do not know where in the Star Trek Universe you come up with any of that.
Some evidence against your comments would be :

Sisko’s dad runs a resturaunt… patrons visit this resturaunt.

Picard’s family runs a vinyard… patrons ‘purchase’ his wine.

In ‘All Good Things’, it’s mentioned that the family ‘finaly’ purchased/aquired a replicator… meaning that until then, they used ‘real’ food stuffs that were aquired (presumably) from means other than growing it themselves.

While the pursuit of money (“accumulation of wealth”) may have become out dated, it does not follow that “earning a living” or “earning credits” did.

Doing away with Hunger/poverty has as much to do with attitude as it does with food production and/or ‘making money’.

240

[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
What evidence of such desire do you see? I don’t believe Veidt had any such desire, as he knew that the success of the plot depending on no one knowing about it at least within the next few years, probably his own lifetime, and possibly ever. In fact, despite his name, Veidt in some ways has the opposite of hubris. In his interviews, at least, he consistently asserts that his abilities are unobtainable for others; anyone can become Ozymandias, in his view, if they have the will.

I’m with those asserting that the whole “add rider” is just a plot hole and evidence that Moore didn’t know much about computer security, or didn’t think this through. He could just as easily have had the computer ask Dan for the password again.
[/QUOTE]

Hm. Good point, although I’ll still debate his hubris. He wanted to fail, or at least knew he would. Think of his name, and what the poem he took it from indicates.

I am more than willing to concede that Moore probably didn’t know much about computer security when he wrote that bit, however.