Section 1: TECHNOLOGY

1.0 QUASISCIENCE [see footnotes, postscripts]

First I'd better explain this bit of SF‐library jargon.  Quasiscience is plausible “fictional science”, consciously made up by an author for plot purposes, not to fool anyone.  Quasisciences (like tachyonics) are okay in SF.  But pseudoscience (e.g. astrology) is bogus science, peddled by loonies who actually believe in it and wish we did too.  Why do people always muddle the two?  A taste for pseudoscience is no more welcome in an SF scriptwriter than blindness would be in a television cameraman.  See 9.6.

The trouble with Star Trek technology is its scrappiness… meaning both (A) unevenness – i.e. the way the major starfaring races mix archaic and “magical” devices (manual gunnery and replicated food) in an identical patchy manner, and at improbably evenly matched levels (see section 4.3) – and (B) incoherence in the quasisciences: each McGuffin, each Strange Form of Energy Never Previously Encountered, is explained (if at all!) by a separate line of ad hoc doubletalk, and a separate hitherto‐unknown law of physics.  This is the clumsy way to do it; the elegant approach, adopted in my revisions, posits as few novel scientific principles as possible, making each one serve several non‐contradictory functions.  Now on to some specific cases of Star Trek technology with poorly designed quasiscience rationales, starting with the alltime classic example:

1.1 TRANSPORTERS [see postscripts]

Transporters are a last minute addition to the Star Trek Universe (a cheaper effect than shuttle landings); and it shows.  The explanation given is that they break down matter into data and energy, “beam” that energy to the chosen destination, and reassemble it as per data.  This, unluckily, is the wrong kind of teleport.  All they needed was a way to flick objects from A to Z skipping B; what they got is a souped‐up long‐range replicator which kills you and constructs a replacement elsewhere.  For a full analysis of the technological and ethical ramifications (total‐conversion cannons and transporter pattern resurrection, for a start) see section 7.

Back to the drawing board.  The “Star Trek: Mark Two” solution is to invoke a true A‑to‑Z teleport, using the existing Star Trek idea of subspace (the medium of their Faster‐Than‐Light communications).  My transporter fields flick their contents through subspace like tiddlywinks, with no need for any matter‐to‐energy conversion or reconstruction.  This alters the likely operating limits, but towards those evident in ST:TOS: it makes sense that it's an open system requiring no receiver and not much power; but a transponder on the cargo helps, and subspace shields hinder it.  It thus contradicts only plots like “Unnatural Selection” (ST:TNG2; best ignored).  Further questions to be answered include whether potential energy gets conserved (so it's cheaper to teleport downhill than up), and/or whether disappearances leave a vacuum (appearances are even more baffling).

1.2 PHASERS [see footnotes, postscripts]

As Roddenberry said at every opportunity, a TV cop doesn't pause in a chase scene to explain how his gun works.  But then, nor does he use it to phone home; it has reasonable limitations.  I'm not asking for explanations; just explicability.  What kind of beam could function as:

1. A non‐thermal, almost‐any‐metabolism stunner with no ill effects;
2. A localised cutting ray (its normal effect against starship hulls);
3. A deathray, leaving a scorchless corpse for relatives to weep over;
4. A beam of warmth, useful for heating up rocks or cups of coffee; or
5. A no‐mess no‐fuss hygieno‐vanisher, causing its victims to glow red and disappear, not leaving behind searing‐hot clouds of reeking gases?

The only plausible answer is to tie it in as a military application of transporters; Mark‐two phaser beams put a “transporter field” around the target and project it permanently into subspace (but an undersized field simply dissipates as heat).  The field may in fact include and annihilate the phaser itself; watch those suicides in “What are Little Girls Made of?” (ST:TOS1), and “The Wrath of Khan” (ST:TMP2).  I'm ignoring the questions raised (e.g., ST:TNG3) in “The Vengeance Factor” (“knockback” with no recoil, plus (A) and (E) on a sliding scale – i.e. a difference purely of degree!); nor have I explained “stun” yet.  Perhaps it's a neurological (or “psionic”) side‐effect of intense transporter fields, nullified somehow in normal transporters?

1.3 SUBSPACE FIELDS [see footnotes, postscripts]

Firstly, is “subspace radio” instantaneous (to allow delayless chats with Starfleet admirals) or merely Faster‐Than‐Light (as implied by Uhura's cries of “our SOS won't reach anyone for weeks”)?  One might rationalise that it varies depending on what you can afford; starbase can manage tightbeam calls on the “ansible” level of subspace, while broadcasts have to use the slower (less “warped”?) levels… but it sounds horribly forced.

The Star Trek Universe features many different impossible energy effects that show a family resemblance; tractor beams, deflectors, invisible forcewalls, shields, impulse drives, reactionless thrusters, ship gravitics (which never fail), and inertia dampers (which often fail, if not enough to turn them to smears).  One new bit of quasiscience will suffice; they're all forces‐at‐a‐distance propagated via subspace and powered by those trusty impulse engines.  Inertial damping may be unnecessary for some forms of stardrive pseudo‐acceleration, and it's automatic for routine manoeuvres, whereas missile impacts and emergency turns tend to catch it unprepared.

1.4 WARPDRIVE [see postscripts]

Faster‐Than‐Light travel is of course impossible, but an essential Space‐Operatic convention.  The problem with warpdrive's quasiscience basis is that it hasn't got one; it was given no coherent explanation or indeed jargon.  The first ST:TOS pilot talks about “hyperdrive” and “the time warp” (not to mention “rockets”); the second calls it a “space warp”.  ST:TMP1 introduces a Star‐Wars‐hyperjump effect, plus that mysterious visual smear – used in‐atmosphere in “The Voyage Home” (ST:TMP4), so it can't be warp.  See section 6 for more about “warp speeds”, and established SF stardrives; for now, note that in the Star Trek Universe:

• They can't hop “through” barriers, webs, walls, etc. via hyperspace.
• Scenery remains visible en route (planets as well as those “stars”).
• Aristotelian rather than Newtonian laws of motion apply – see 2.3.
• Trips have a similar (brief) duration for passengers and friends back home on Earth; relativity is somehow evaded, rather than exploited.
• General Star Trek technology shows no signs of any time‑ or space‐warping techniques (such as skiing holidays in the closet over lunchbreak).

Devising a drive rationale consistent with both my subspace‐teleport theory and ST:TOS evidence is easy.  If the whole ship can flick itself a metre forward through instantaneous subspace every picosecond that's a pseudo‐velocity thousands of times faster than light!  There are no time dilation or inertial effects, as you aren't accelerated; it feels like you're just moving impossibly fast with an imperceptible flicker.  Some details remain to be worked out (Why that warp‐ten theoretical maximum?  What's “warped”?  How about collisions?) but this would do for a start.

1.5 CYBERNETICS [see footnotes, postscripts]

ST:TOS computers, whether servile or insane, were always standard voice‐interactive Space Opera “Artificial Brains”, with black box internal workings.  Nobody considered the possibility that AIs had any rights to Federation citizenship – okay, so they live in boxes, show little imagination or emotion, and sometimes go mad; but cf. Medusans, Tellarites, Vulcans, and Humans!  The NCC1701 ran into plenty of perfectly humanoid androids, not to mention gynoids (the feminine).  What makes Data so special?  See 3.1.

By ST:TNG, things have regressed in some ways.  Computers are now largely key‐operated, without Genuine People Personalities, and have obtrusively fallible workings.  NCC1701D's computers are notably full of squatters, such as the holo‐Moriarty (see 8.2), nanites, and alien data‐viruses (no wonder, when Geordie takes so long to think of pressing “reset” – watch “Contagion”, ST:TNG2).  The cybercliché stories call unwelcome attention to the relative datedness of ST:TOS, fit the Star Trek Universe poorly, are very predictable for anybody who read any eighties SF, and are still remarkably technophobic – for instance you know that the Borg are evil because they're cyborged.  Why then are Federation computers so primitive?  Haven't they got subspatial (instantaneous!) processors?  If they're still advancing in ST:TNG, why was ST:TOS cybernetics barely ahead of our own?  The natural answer for a Space Opera universe is that AI in ST:TOS had gone as far as it safely can; when you trust computers to make your decisions, your race ends up ruled by a computer‐deity.  This should have remained true in ST:TNG; extra progress is an anomaly, like Data's Starfleet rank (an AI giving orders?).

1.6 BIOTECHNOLOGY [see postscripts]

The Star Trek Universe's attitude to biotechnology is equally conservative.  Genetic engineering, cloning, elective surgery etc. are distrusted – perhaps due to the Eugenics Wars, though this only explains it for Terrans.  Again, the convention of limitations on (so‐called) “dehumanising” technology is a fair one in Space Opera; Star Trek isn't trying to be cyberpunk.  ST:TNG still treats biotech with superstitious dread, but muddles things on occasion (see 5.2).  The trouble appears to be a total lack of soft‐(quasi)science “vetting”.  So in ST:TNG2 “Up the Long Ladder” talks rubbish about cloning; “Unnatural Selection” features anti‐genetic‐engineering alarmism, plus “the DNA for wrinkles”.  Possibly the worst offender is “Evolution” (ST:TNG3), which mixes accurate but irrelevant (“educational”) astrophysics scenery with a plot based on the nineteenth‐century “ladder‐of‐creation” misinterpretation of natural selection; the idea that if I “do enough evolving” I'll eventually become “superior” on some absolute scale.

1.7 JARGON [see footnotes]

Lots of Star Trek Universe quasiscience terminology is fairly obscure and/or silly.  And why not?  Here are some examples, with my suggested explanations.

• Warp factor – everybody has a different theory about what's warped.  My guess is it's the scale of subspace‐to‐realspace distances; see 6.3.
• Phasers – what does “P.H.A.S.E.R.” stand for?  Does Star Trek physics involve subspace particles called “phasons”?  Or is it just “Phaser™”?
• Photon torpedoes – what have explosive coffins got to do with photons?  My favourite theory is that they were invented by Professor Photon.
• Dilithium – frequently just called lithium in early ST:TOS1; perhaps DiLith (two‐stone) allows you to surpass MonoLith (ein‐stein)… Sorry.
• Stardate – a nice bit of atmosphere (also useful for episode production codes).  Inventing a unit whose size varies with the circumstances is a handy trick that might profitably be applied to distances as well – even Blake's 7's “spatials” are better than using imperial units!

1993 Footnotes

1997+ Postscripts