New Series--The Orville

[Ternaugh]

It does in the Star Trek universe, and this show is a devoted homage to Star Trek. Given all the other similarities (including replicator technology), the lack of transporters makes little sense to the average viewer (who is probably a ST fan).

 

The replicators on the Orville could be thought of as really fast 3D printers. Now, the problem with using that type of technology as a transporter is that you'd essentially be destroying the original and recreating it at the destination using available materials (for those following along at home, this allows the William/Thomas Riker problem in the TNG episode). But that also means that the transporter is essentially a suicide box/scanner with a really good printer on the other end. Sure, if it's done well, the end product "thinks" that it's the same person, but it really becomes a philosophical exercise at that point. I'd certainly not step into one willingly.

 

Now, there have been discussions from various folks associated with TNG who said that the matter/energy/matter explanation for transporters shouldn't have been used, as it opens up all sorts of problems. Most advanced technology in Trek is based upon some kind of manipulation of subspace fields, and Transporters wouldn't have the problems described if what they actually did is shunt the person or object through a subspace conduit of some kind*. That appears to be the method used in Orville episode 5 by Pria to get onto the bridge.

 

Star Trek TOS went with Transporters as a way to avoid the costs associated with showing a shuttlecraft each week. It then became overused as a plot device. Captain turned into a being of pure energy? No worries, just beam his consciousness into a stored pattern. Doctor has uncontrollable aging? Find a stored pattern and then run the Transporter to "fix" the problem. I'm kind of glad that The Orville can't do stuff like that.

 

 

 

*Bamf!

[Spence]

Spence, I think we're old enough to "get the message" without shows like The Orville needing to feed it to us on a weekly basis. However, there is a whole generation of viewers who are only now beginning to wrap their brains around social issues, and sometimes the only way to get new ideas past their indifference or their biases is to sneak it in the way Trek did. But you're right about one thing: if the show can't find a way to be entertaining to those of us who don't need the lecture, then it will lose us as viewers.

 

Exactly.  And I really don't expect to have none.  But the shows these days are beyond heavy handed.  They are hamfisted to the extreme.

In shows like TOS seasons 1 & 2, in most issues you could actually miss the commentary the first time around.  They understood subtlety.

[zslane]

Star Trek TOS went with Transporters as a way to avoid the costs associated with showing a shuttlecraft each week.

 

I kind of feel that the plethora of potential problems of an impossible technology is really rather besides the point. TOS used transporters to keep production costs down. The Orville could be expected to use them in homage to one of Trek's most famous tropes. Both are meta reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with how easy it is to discredit or dismiss the concept on so-called "logical" grounds.

[Ternaugh]

I kind of feel that the plethora of potential problems of an impossible technology is really rather besides the point. TOS used transporters to keep production costs down. The Orville could be expected to use them in homage to one of Trek's most famous tropes. Both are meta reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with how easy it is to discredit or dismiss the concept on so-called "logical" grounds.

 

I can't think of a plot that hasn't been done on some form of Star Trek before that would make it worth including them. We've already had two characters fuse, one character split into two halves, another character duplicated, and multiple transits to an alternate dimension. I'd say that, at least for Transporters, Star Trek long ago moved into the realm of self-parody.

 

That said, the gamer in me would point out that nobody decided to play an Engineer PC this time around, but someone did dump a lot of points into "Best Pilot in the Fleet". It would be a shame not to use him to drive a shuttle once in a while. 

[Clonus]

Exactly.  And I really don't expect to have none.  But the shows these days are beyond heavy handed.  They are hamfisted to the extreme.

In shows like TOS seasons 1 & 2, in most issues you could actually miss the commentary the first time around.  They understood subtlety.

 

...I couldn't.  Seemed to me that they spelled things very forthrightly in dramatic speeches and arguments.  

[Hermit]

This is more TNG than TOS in a lot of ways, and TNG was always very "Oh, you poor primitives still cling to religion and spirituality, tsk tisk we out grew that long ago you sad sad little species. Don't worry, you'll evolve. ..mm I wonder why you don't like us?"*  where at least toS had one episode where the influence of Christianity was given a nod in the positive. And Seth has never been shy about his atheist views.  So knowing what was coming I mostly sighed, rolled with it, and then...

 

found myself pleasantly surprised as it actually got a bit deeper than "Religion bad, mmkay?"

 

 

 

So I'm still in.

 

 

* Props to DS9 for being more even handed by giving us people of faith who took it to dark places like Ki Wynn, and those who used it as a source of strength and goodness like Kira

[sinanju]

The replicators on the Orville could be thought of as really fast 3D printers. Now, the problem with using that type of technology as a transporter is that you'd essentially be destroying the original and recreating it at the destination using available materials (for those following along at home, this allows the William/Thomas Riker problem in the TNG episode). But that also means that the transporter is essentially a suicide box/scanner with a really good printer on the other end. Sure, if it's done well, the end product "thinks" that it's the same person, but it really becomes a philosophical exercise at that point. I'd certainly not step into one willingly.

 

Now, there have been discussions from various folks associated with TNG who said that the matter/energy/matter explanation for transporters shouldn't have been used, as it opens up all sorts of problems. Most advanced technology in Trek is based upon some kind of manipulation of subspace fields, and Transporters wouldn't have the problems described if what they actually did is shunt the person or object through a subspace conduit of some kind*. That appears to be the method used in Orville episode 5 by Pria to get onto the bridge.

 

Star Trek TOS went with Transporters as a way to avoid the costs associated with showing a shuttlecraft each week. It then became overused as a plot device. Captain turned into a being of pure energy? No worries, just beam his consciousness into a stored pattern. Doctor has uncontrollable aging? Find a stored pattern and then run the Transporter to "fix" the problem. I'm kind of glad that The Orville can't do stuff like that.

 

 

 

*Bamf!

 

Plus, when they had to rescue Charlize Theron from the asteroid...they couldn't just BEAM her off the ship. They had to physically go and get her. That's not something you see in Star Trek, and I liked it.

[zslane]

Oh, I agree that the lack of transporters makes The Orville stand out from Trek in a refreshing way. I just find it surprising (and illogical) given how closely it clings to the skirt of Trek and it's tropes in every other respect (like, for example, replicators and holodecks, two technologies directly connected to transporter tech).

[mattingly]

I can't think of a plot that hasn't been done on some form of Star Trek before that would make it worth including them. We've already had two characters fuse, one character split into two halves, another character duplicated, and multiple transits to an alternate dimension. I'd say that, at least for Transporters, Star Trek long ago moved into the realm of self-parody.

 

I quite liked "Realm of Fear" in which Barclay saved people who were trapped in the stream.

[Starlord]

Krill were trying to destroy Rana 3.  The population of Rana 4 was destroyed in the Star Trek episode "The Survivors".  Planets named 'Rana' seem unlucky to me.

[zslane]

Along with Ceti Alpha?

[Clonus]

Oh, I agree that the lack of transporters makes The Orville stand out from Trek in a refreshing way. I just find it surprising (and illogical) given how closely it clings to the skirt of Trek and it's tropes in every other respect (like, for example, replicators and holodecks, two technologies directly connected to transporter tech).

 

Macfarlane may share my opinion about the transporter, which is that there are too many problems that would be solved just by saying "Beam me up" and therefore too many transporter malfunctions and communications failures.  

[Grailknight]

Taken to just a little extrapolation, there's very few problems that replicator technology can't solve. Infinite resources means that the only constraints are how quickly you can build  more replicators and distribute them. There will still be philosophical and religious arguments but no economic stress to escalate any conflicts.

[Jagged]

It does in the Star Trek universe, and this show is a devoted homage to Star Trek. Given all the other similarities (including replicator technology), the lack of transporters makes little sense to the average viewer (who is probably a ST fan).

Not at all. Replication technology, even in the Startrek universe, is only about copying things. Being able to non-destructively reduced something to it component atoms, shift them long distances and recompile them (often without any attendant machinery) is an array of extra godlike technologies.

 

I would also suggest that the typical Startrek fan is familiar with the philosophical argument that a Startrek teleportation actually kills you and makes a copy. :-)

 

The show has never address exactly how it goes about deconstructing objects. In many ways that is more problematic than replication, since if you can do that why isn't everything instantly destroyable?

[zslane]

All those issues are way beyond the intellectual interest of at least 90% of Trek's viewers. I say that because TNG widened the audience to a general audience base who doesn't give this stuff a moment's thought after an episode ends. The technological challenges of transporters in Trek are a non-issue even in TOS, and the philosophical questions are hardly introduced in any of the shows, and certainly not to an extent that most viewers would even remember them. To nearly anyone who has ever watched a Trek series, transporters are a ubiquitous and reliable way of getting characters where they need to, and nothing more.

 

Furthermore, it has been established in Trek canon that transporters were a development that grew from replicator technology. They are not identical, but they are in the same genealogical line, and it is purely a straw man argument to say that just because they aren't identical technologies that it makes more sense for The Orville to have one but not the other, than it does for The Orville to have both just like Trek. Especially given the immense extent to which The Orville consciously strives to be just like Trek. (Everyone seems to ignore the significance of that last point.)

[dmjalund]

Furthermore, it has been established in Trek canon that transporters were a development that grew from replicator technology.

In Star Trek Enterprise, they have transporters, but they don;t hve replicators - they use protein resequencers for food creation

[zslane]

Okay, I have the genealogy order wrong. Replicators came from transporter technology. That makes the situation on The Orville even less logical.

[Jagged]

 it is purely a straw man argument to say that just because they aren't identical technologies

Not at all. Replication is exactly one half of the startrek teleportation process. So its an entirely reasonable supposition. There is also nothing implicit in being able to assemble some objects from energy that would allow you to disassemble something without completely destroying it.

 

Lets face it with 3D printing we might soon be able to approximate something like replicator technologies for food. However we are probably never going to be able to teleport.

[zslane]

Only if The Orville reverses the line of development (compared to Trek). In Trek, transporter technology came first and that led to replicators. The claim here, I guess, is that in the Orville-verse, it was the other way around. That still presents an unexpected incongruency with Trek.

 

I'm not saying that you can't easily rationalize an explanation for the way things are on The Orville. I'm saying that it is surprising that they did so given the almost slavish devotion the show exhibits towards all of Trek's other tropes.

[Jagged]

True

[Grailknight]

There are ways to do replication thru nanotech and that could be the way The Orville Universe functions. The ST transporter is matter energy conversion and energy matter conversion controlled by a ridiculous amount of computer processing and data storage.

[zslane]

I'm regretting ever pointing out the incongruency... (facepalm)

[Ternaugh]

All those issues are way beyond the intellectual interest of at least 90% of Trek's viewers. I say that because TNG widened the audience to a general audience base who doesn't give this stuff a moment's thought after an episode ends. The technological challenges of transporters in Trek are a non-issue even in TOS, and the philosophical questions are hardly introduced in any of the shows, and certainly not to an extent that most viewers would even remember them. To nearly anyone who has ever watched a Trek series, transporters are a ubiquitous and reliable way of getting characters where they need to, and nothing more.

 

Furthermore, it has been established in Trek canon that transporters were a development that grew from replicator technology. They are not identical, but they are in the same genealogical line, and it is purely a straw man argument to say that just because they aren't identical technologies that it makes more sense for The Orville to have one but not the other, than it does for The Orville to have both just like Trek. Especially given the immense extent to which The Orville consciously strives to be just like Trek. (Everyone seems to ignore the significance of that last point.)

 

[sinanju]

Okay, I have the genealogy order wrong. Replicators came from transporter technology. That makes the situation on The Orville even less logical.

 

Only if you assume that the way Star Trek did it is the only way to do it.

 

Real-world 3D printers are a very, very, very primitive version of what we'll one day have--atomic scale manufacturing, where things can be assembled atom by atom. If you accept the wildest imaginings, we'll be able to grow starships. But it won't happen in a quick flash of light in mere seconds, the way Replicators work. But it will probably be possible. Ditto for creating foodstuffs, or anything else you like. Everything is just a specific arrangement of specific elements. But building them will require having the "ingredients" (the right amounts of various elements) handy, and plenty of energy.

 

But none of that suggests that we'll ever be able to have "transporters" beaming people digitally across space in mere seconds.

 

Even if you give them the "it happens in a flash of light in seconds", the fact that the Orville has replicators in no way implies that transporters are even possible, much less a good idea. A copy that's 99 percent right is probably fine for a cup of coffee or a pint of ice cream. It's not nearly good enough to create living creatures that don't have...problems.

[Clonus]

Taken to just a little extrapolation, there's very few problems that replicator technology can't solve. Infinite resources 

 

Are not something replicators should be providing.  Replicators should not be magic boxes that produce anything you want in unlimited quantities with no costs.  They should require a pool of raw materials that needs to be replenished as well as requiring power to run.  

 

It is not, however necessarily to use transporter technology to get them.  You can always use the "nanotechnology" handwave instead.