# Star Trek tech features that logically should exist but didn't seem to
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, star-trek-paramount
**Created:** [March 18, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193 "2021-03-18T16:30:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/1 "2021-03-18T16:30:10Z")
In the Star Trek quote thread, there’s a quote from a character saying something to the effect that they’re glad someone grabbed 'em of they’d have fallen, and “it’s a long way to the bottom of the warp core.”
Why would an accidental fall of such danger even be a possibility?
1. The Enterprise computer knows where every living being on the ship is at all times.
2. Enterprise is in space; all gravity is artificially created.
3. Enterprise, and pretty much every other Federation vessel, has transporters than can transport a person from place to place even if neither the departure or arrival point is at a transport pad.
4. Enterprise can project force fields into any number of places, including hallways and other places they are not often used.
5. Enterprise’s computer can, in many situations, physically inhibit things to meet a preset safety protocol.
It strikes me as being reasonable to think that safety protocols could be designed to prevent accidental falls that could seriously injure a person, either by reducing gravitational acceleration in the spot it detects a fall, transporting the person away to a safer place, or something. So why would anyone worry about a fall? It seems like an incredible safety oversight.
There have to be other examples of this, and not just safety features. What other things could they be doing that
1. Are clearly possible given canonical, observed Star Trek technology, and
2. That don’t have any sort of canonical explanation as to why they don’t exist?
The other one I thought of is that instead of bothering to poo you could have the computer transport the poo out of your bowels and into space, but I guess then it’d be weird if you were sitting there and everyone heard that Star Trek transporter noise coming out of your abdomen and you’d know they were all thinking “Smith just dropped a deuce.”
A third would be why people bother with turbolifts if they can be transported about the ship, but that may be an energy issue (whereas preventing a bad fall seems a useful expenditure of energy.)
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### Author:  [@blabbermeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blabbermeister)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/2 "2021-03-18T16:36:07Z")
On The Next Generation (sorry, I stopped watching Star Trek after that), not just Data but the human officers are very good at performing mathematical estimations in their head. It’s almost as if they are taught mental calculation skills in the Academy. I would have expected them to be reliant on the computer or Data for any rote mental skill like that. The tech surely exists but they almost never use it.
They also remember the names of stars and planets and moon numbers too well. Even in the 2000’s this type of info is already relegated to cell phone contacts and not in our conscious minds.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/3 "2021-03-18T16:36:54Z")
You’d think there would be some way of keeping warp cores from blowing up as frequently as a Ford Pinto.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/4 "2021-03-18T16:39:06Z")
Seat belts. Or at least seats fitted with some type of inertial dampening system so that the crew members aren’t flung out of their seats. And instrument panels that don’t explode.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/5 "2021-03-18T16:52:38Z")
The Holodeck is very, very good at emulating human personalaties. Androids better than Data should be trivial.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/6 "2021-03-18T17:00:37Z")
Also, there should be no planet anywhere within The Federation (or any of the similar tech regions) with any degree of poverty and with any significant crime. It is a post-scarcity setting–everyone should be living nigh unto gods (think the late travellers in Vinge’s _Marooned in Realtime_). Things like Tasha Yar’s Planet o’ Rape are just silly.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/7 "2021-03-18T17:03:55Z")
Why do spaceships have a library computer (or any kind of computer that isn’t physically running the ship)? Wouldn’t there be an “Interstellar Cloud”-like system?
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/8 "2021-03-18T17:13:55Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> It strikes me as being reasonable to think that safety protocols could be designed to prevent accidental falls that could seriously injure a person,
I think “smart” force fields should be possible. One could theorize that turning gravity on and off locally might be a technical problem (seeing as how we know more about how warp drive works that artifical gravity, who can say?), but force fields sure.
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> The other one I thought of is that instead of bothering to poo you could have the computer transport the poo out of your bowels and into space,
Well, into space seems rude, but in theory…
I have this fan idea that all babies since oh say 2300 used to be born by transporter, but over time, people got that ol’ luddite feeling a-comin’ on, and there was a mass awakening/awareness that The Machine was taking our Humanity ™, so they went back to birthin’ babies the old fashioned way sometime between ST and ST:TNG.
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> Why do spaceships have a library computer (or any kind of computer that isn’t physically running the ship)? Wouldn’t there be an “Interstellar Cloud”-like system?
Sounds like millennial talk. 🙂 For something as important as their mission, having “the cloud” isn’t smart. Can you imagine Kirk in WoK: “get me the prefix code for the Reliant”, and all Spock can say is, “sorry, we’re buffering”, and computer screen shows the little spinning wheel?
Plus, the chances that out “where no man has gone before” has wifi is virtually nil.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/9 "2021-03-18T17:20:38Z")
My serious answer works only in Next Gen and beyond, not TOS, but, given the number of times crew are abducted off the ship, the computer should monitor the location of everyone in real time using the com badges. When someone gets abducted by whomever, the computer should immmediately alert the bridge, “Captain Picard is no longer on board.”
You could also use it as a safety backup, “Chief Engineer Singh is at the bottom of the warp core…again. He has not moved in five minutes.”
Sure it’s more that a little big brotherish, and the possibilites for abuse abound, but a starship isn’t earth. The increased safety might be worth the trade off. Besides, everyone in the Enlightened 24th century is honorable. No one is going to use the computer to stalk their ex-girlfriend. At least, I hope not.
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### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/10 "2021-03-18T17:22:14Z")
Yeah, I’ve always wondered why the have gravity plating in the jeffries tubes. Picard carrying those children up the JTs tied together should not have been a thing.
And from an engineering point of view. You need energy to power the JTs because there’s gravity in the damn JTs!
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/11 "2021-03-18T17:22:35Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> Sounds like millennial talk. 🙂 For something as important as their mission, having “the cloud” isn’t smart. Can you imagine Kirk in WoK: “get me the prefix code for the Reliant”, and all Spock can say is, “sorry, we’re buffering”, and computer screen shows the little spinning wheel?
>
> Plus, the chances that out “where no man has gone before” has wifi is virtually nil.
Yeah, all that occurred to me, but there is so much fudging of canon between all the different shows (and even between episodes – hell, even between acts of an episode!) that it seemed worth a shot to ask. BTW, I’d pay big bux to see a spinning beachball on the science officer screen.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/12 "2021-03-18T17:24:16Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> BTW, I’d pay big bux to see a spinning beachball on the science officer screen.
I’m right there with you!
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### Author:  [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/13 "2021-03-18T18:26:09Z")
How come they never use any modern slang or idiomatic expressions? All the ones they use date from the mid-to-late 20th century. It’s as if we were all talking in Shakespeare-speak today.
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### Author:  [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/14 "2021-03-18T18:37:05Z")
What I’ve never figured out is why the Bridge of an armed ship (even if it’s not a “warship”) is so vulnerable to attack.
Among other issues (and there are a lot) the physical layout is all wrong. I understand having the big viewscreen in the front, but that doesn’t mean that the entrance needs to be in the back, right where intruders can enter and be standing **behind** almost everybody. That’s a stupendously poor tactical situation.
TNG had the Captain’s ready room off to one side; the entrance could be on the other side. And there needs to be some sort of double-door/antechamber system leading to the Bridge, so that ship’s security has a chance of stopping intruders before they actually set foot in one of the most vital and sensitive parts of the ship.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/15 "2021-03-18T18:53:07Z")
I’ve always wondered why there is so much loose stuff lying around that could break or cause havoc if the ship is being knocked around in an attack. McCoy’s lab is a prime example with all those beakers and bottles and other sciencey-stuff on the tables and shelves. Do they really not have any way of securing it? You know, like bins and things?
In the famous outtake on the ST Blooper Reel, all that shit should be flying around the room; instead, we just see McCoy groping Nurse Chapel as they bounce off the walls.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/16 "2021-03-18T18:59:24Z")
> [@solost](#):
>
> How come they never use any modern slang or idiomatic expressions? All the ones they use date from the mid-to-late 20th century. It’s as if we were all talking in Shakespeare-speak today. -
We’re hearing the historical documents filtered through the universal translator.
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### Author:  [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/17 "2021-03-18T19:00:42Z")
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious they never do [angles and dangles](https://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/anglesdangles/index.html) on their way out from Star Base.
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### Author:  [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/18 "2021-03-18T19:06:57Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> BTW, I’d pay big bux to see a spinning beachball on the science officer screen.
The science officer screen? How about a spinning beachball obscuring the Romulans on the main tactical display screen because Geordi is (yet again) sucking up all the bandwidth trying to get his mack on with a married warp engineer on the holodeck.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/19 "2021-03-18T19:07:35Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> The other one I thought of is that instead of bothering to poo you could have the computer transport the poo out of your bowels and into space
Kind of like [wizard poop](https://news.avclub.com/j-k-rowling-reveals-that-wizards-used-to-just-shit-on-1831501641)?
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2021, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-tech-features-that-logically-should-exist-but-didnt-seem-to/938193/20 "2021-03-18T19:29:12Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> My serious answer works only in Next Gen and beyond, not TOS, but, given the number of times crew are abducted off the ship, the computer should monitor the location of everyone in real time using the com badges. When someone gets abducted by whomever, the computer should immmediately alert the bridge, “Captain Picard is no longer on board.”
That does happen on TNG. The computer does track the crewmembers’ com badges. However, it doesn’t instantly notify the bridge if someone is missing from the ship. Usually it goes like this: “Picard to computer, locate Lieutenant Commander La Forge.”
“Lieutenant Commander La Forge is no longer on board the ship.”
“Where the hell did he go?”
“That is unknown.”
Yeah, computer. Big help you are.
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