Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 3 Viewing (Spoilers)

[Micah Sweet]

Geordi's problem was never his eyes alone though - it was also or primarily his optic nerves and the DNA of both. We know this from All Good Things... where they talk about the DNA in his optic nerves changing and this fixing his problem.

It's also established as genetic in The Masterpiece Society, where Geordi asserts he'd have been terminated as a single cell (and is not contradicted), which is only a viable claim if his condition was genetic.

So actually, I have to give this one to Strange New Worlds, not to the pedants (who am I often among). I think they're okay to have an eye-regenerator, because it wouldn't work on Geordi beyond regenerating his non-functional eyes and non-functional optic nerves. So if Geordi lost his eyes, sure they could get them back, but they still wouldn't work - they never worked, and they don't because of his genetics.

EDIT - Looking into this, this is further supported because the videogame Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Transinium Challenge which came out in 1989 also said his blindness was caused by an "incurable optical nerve defect". That game wasn't canon BUT it was heavily derived from the series bible and from the people who made it asking questions of the writers, so I think it's safe to say the "optical nerve defect" thing was something the writers considered to be the case from early on, even if it never made a script until All Good Things....

Also, let me say - somehow I knew this in the early 1990s, before All Good Things... came out, so I suspect it was something that a Trek writer had mentioned to a Trek zine which I read when I could get them (which I used to read, yes I know, I know - some of them were amazing though - but I couldn't get them much in the UK), or which had been discussed by one online or the like (unless there is another episode where it's mentioned - Memory Alpha is surprisingly useless here, essentially glossing over his blindness).

Excellent points. That makes sense.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Or with his ex

The way I took the scene (which I agree could have been better) was this was an expedition fraught with delays. Between working just to get into the site than realizing they needed a starship, finding a starship, working with the local government to approve it which has all sorts of red tape, working out the exact agreement of what the starship can and cannot do etc… I imagine it took quite a while.

And so now if they call up top there will be more debate and delays and the local government might change their mind etc.

That’s how I took it but I fully admit it’s flimsy and could have been setup a lot better

Having caught up with the scene in question, it is clear that it is a civilian archeological expedition, headed by Chapel, acting in a civilian capacity. Spock has been co-opted as a tech specialist, he is in no way in command. Technically outranking Chapel is not relevant since it is not a Star Fleet expedition.

And there is subtext - leaving the structure to report to the ship could (probably would) lead to Pike postponing the expedition indefinitely until a solution is found. Hence not reporting it until after the phat loot is found.

 

[Umbran]

It still could. We know from the holodeck episode that the transporter makes a highly detailed physical record of those who pass through it, so this entity could potentially make a body for itself in her image.

Note: M'Benga's daughter was in the smaller emergency medical transporter system, not the main system. And, presumably the data gets scrubbed now and then when you aren't hiding shenanigans. So, her trace is probably gone now.

 

[MarkB]

Note: M'Benga's daughter was in the smaller emergency medical transporter system, not the main system.

And the glitching of the transporter monitor at the end of the episode happened in Sickbay.

And, presumably the data gets scrubbed now and then when you aren't hiding shenanigans. So, her trace is probably gone now.

How often though, especially in the less-used medical transporter? Kirk's pattern was still in the main transporter.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Ancient tech in the Trek universe is built to last! There's lots of examples, the Guardian of Forever, the Doomsday Machine, The Oracle (TOS: "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"), Portal 63 (the Tkon guardian from TNG: "The Last Outpost", at least 60 thousand years old!), The Arbiters of Life (SNW: "Children of the Comet, who the Shepherds, a species more advanced than the Federation, believed were responsible for the genesis of their kind, protected), and so on.

The Arbiters might even be the means the Progenitors used to seed humanoid life, or they might be the source of the technology the Progenitors found that allowed them to do so.

Your call on which of these is oldest, of course.

I guess building stuffs that lasts for millenia is kinda a "trope" in science fiction. It's not necessarily needed in sci-fi with FTL capability (but everyone likes the ideas of finding artifacts of ancient civilizations with more advanced technology, though that always raises the question - where did these advanced civilizations go, why did they leave their stuff behind?)
But without FTL and without impossibly fast engines that can get you to relevatistic speeds, it becomes even more important. Because with something like a generation or cryo-sleep ship, you need to engineer something that can operate for millenia, too. Otherwise your ship falls apart before it arrives anywhere.

 

[pukunui]

But without FTL and without impossibly fast engines that can get you to relevatistic speeds, it becomes even more important. Because with something like a generation or cryo-sleep ship, you need to engineer something that can operate for millenia, too. Otherwise your ship falls apart before it arrives anywhere.

I know they're something of a retcon, but I like the DOTs / Exocomps that were introduced in Discovery or SNW. The little maintenance / repair droids that help keep the starships running and fix all the battle damage and such in between starbase visits. That helps fill a gap and explain how these machines stay relatively pristine.

Perhaps the Vezda prison has something similar that just wasn't visible on-screen - some sort of self-maintenance thing that keeps everything running in pristine condition.

I suppose it's possible that a civilization could attain a level of technology that decays on a galactic time scale. We humans have yet to make anything that will last indefinitely without regular maintenance.

 

[James Gasik]

I know they're something of a retcon, but I like the DOTs / Exocomps that were introduced in Discovery or SNW. The little maintenance / repair droids that help keep the starships running and fix all the battle damage and such in between starbase visits. That helps fill a gap and explain how these machines stay relatively pristine.

Perhaps the Vezda prison has something similar that just wasn't visible on-screen - some sort of self-maintenance thing that keeps everything running in pristine condition.

I suppose it's possible that a civilization could attain a level of technology that decays on a galactic time scale. We humans have yet to make anything that will last indefinitely without regular maintenance.

Yeah, I think our record is 11,000 years, with Gobekli Tepe (or 12,000 in the case of Boncuklu Tarla), though admittedly, the site isn't in pristine condition.

 

[Stalker0]

I guess building stuffs that lasts for millenia is kinda a "trope" in science fiction.

Its actually an interesting question if that kind of longevity is even possible. Sake of argument lets say your a super advanced race that uses nanites or something to repair and maintain everything, perfect over time. Well those nanites themselves have to be repaired and replicate....and with every replication comes the risk of an imperfection.

Our DNA is amazing at replicating accurately at high speed, but mistakes still happen. And even if a nanites system has a replication ability that is even more accurate....unless its 100% some measure of error will be introduced over time, and eventually the system will shift in some direction away from its exact function.

Is it actually possible to replicate things so perfectly that no error is ever introduced? Perhaps, we don't have the capability to do that, but perhaps there is an advanced technique to do just that. Once you have that, perfect maintenance is simply a measure of energy and resource expenditure, but it would be rather trivial to maintain something over any arbitrarily long period once you have that capability.

 

[James Gasik]

I guess what you could do is build intelligent androids that can repair themselves (and each other). Ruk, the android from "What Little Girl's Are Made Of?" was 500,000 years old and still ticking until Not!Korby took him out with a phaser blast.

And he had access to the technology to make other androids, so it wasn't like spare parts were a concern.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, I think our record is 11,000 years, with Gobekli Tepe (or 12,000 in the case of Boncuklu Tarla), though admittedly, the site isn't in pristine condition.

But that's not because theoretical structures that could have been constructed then, but weren't for lack of knowledge more than lack of fundamental processes, couldn't stand longer.

It's because of the construction methods that were available to civilization at that point, and also because most early human structures were built in zones that get earthquakes occasionally (and/or worse).

Theoretically, if you built in a basically earthquake-free zone (most of Britain, say), built away from flood or strong winds or similar erosive forces, and used Incan or Greek construction methods you could probably have a structure that was still standing and in very good (not perfect, but very good) condition after early 5000 years, perhaps far, far longer. I expect there will be structures standing today which will still be standing 10000 years from now if no human or environmental event knocks them over.

And if you built into a rock face away from an earthquake zone? Then you're operating on cave time scales, potentially.