Star Trek: A Legacy of Obsolete Technology

Like most geeks, I’m a big fan of science fiction. Books, films and especially TV. And of all the Sci-fi TV shows (both good and bad) there is none more famous than Star Trek. I am proud to say I have watched every series of Star Trek from the original to Enterprise and thoroughly enjoyed them all. But there is one thing I have noticed about life in the 22^nd (Enterprise), 23^rd (original series) and 24^th (TNG, DS9, VGR) centuries. They still love useless technology.

Enterprise or Apple Genius Bar?

Now what exactly do I mean by “useless technology”? I mean technology that only appears in one or a few episodes that has nearly no useful purpose other than to make the story more interesting. Trek episodes are rife with just this kind of technology.  Essentially they’re the iPhone apps of the future. They look cool and flashy in the episode but as soon as you watch another episode in the series it seems the entire crew has forgotten that it ever existed.

The first example I am going to give of this comes from my favorite of the Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. In the episode “For the Uniform”, Captain Sisko is hunting down a former Starfleet officer who betrayed his trust. During this hunt, the two men engage in a continuing dialogue via a holographic projection system. This bit of technology allows the two actors to talk to each other face to face and gives a lot of dramatic tension to their conversation. However this little bit of technology is never seen in a single episode after this one. The show goes on for another two years and Captain Sisko never has another conversation via holographic projection. The technology is solely there for this one episode.*

Another Deep Space Nine episode that has a one time example of technology is “Looking for par’Mach in all the wrong places”. In that episode, Quark, the Ferengi bartender, uses a Virtual Control Device. This device allows Worf, a Klignon warrior and Starfleet officer, to control Quark’s body so he can help the Ferengi win a bat’leth (a traditional Klignon sword) fight. Once again, this is a piece of technology that never makes another appearance in the series. The only time this type of technology is used is so Quark can impress a girl.

But while Deep Space Nine has technologies that mysteriously appear and vanish, they are no where near as bad as the technology in the shows that premiered both before and after it. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the amazing Enterprise D has the ability to separate it’s saucer section from its drive section, allowing the ship to essentially become two ships. This is not some one-shot bit of technology. This is an integral part of the ship’s design. And yet we the audience only ever see the ship do this four times. Three times during the actual series and once during the film Star Trek: Generations. 

 

Although Star Trek: Voyager, had double the amount of episodes its ship’s special feature was used, it is still a bit of a waste. In Voyager, the titular starship actually had the ability to land on a planet, something that no starship in Star Trek history had ever done before. Mechanical legs would actually extend from the bottom of the vessel and the ship would land. Again, like the Enterprise, this is a design feature of the ship. Voyager is built so it can do this all the time. But it is hardly ever used.

Essentially Starfleet paid (“even though the economics of the 24^th century are vastly different”- JLP) for an option they never use. Apparently the 24^th century still has car salesmen and they are still as unscrupulous as they are today.


(WRITER'S NOTE: I was rewatching episodes and they do in fact bring back the holographic projection system in at least one future episode, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume". But still, it's only used for a brief scene.)