Star Trek: Discovery

[Prometheus Unbound]

AI never went well in TOS.

It never went well in any Star Trek show.

[Burak Gazan]

That whole "light the beacon" bit gets more irritating by the day... And, it somehow translated through Subspace? AT faster-than-light velocities?? And magically, after all this time of nothing, the bigshots ALL just show up at once. And also don't shoot at each other, either. All this fail, and we still haven't seen the actual Discovery. Plus, I CAN'T WAIT to see what handwavium they pull out of their ass to get Mikey off the hook. it does make you mad, the more you thnik on it...

[bilateralrope]

AI never went well in TOS.

It never went well in any Star Trek show.

What about Data ?

Sure, Lore means that it's only a 50% success rate with AI's of his design.

Then there is the EMH, which only malfunctioned after Voyager had been running him for far longer than it was designed for.

Plus, I CAN'T WAIT to see what handwavium they pull out of their ass to get Mikey off the hook.

I can think of one way that I'd accept: We are at war. We need more ships out there. We have to choose between pulling experienced officers out of prison to put them in command, or sticking people fresh out of the academy in command. Have a ship we pulled out of storage.

[Burak Gazan]

EXCEPT, she's not going to command. And even I could make a case for her not actually starting the war. BUT, she did everything else. Would you trust her? I sure as fuck wouldn't. Not even driving a worker bee

[Prometheus Unbound]

What about Data ?

What, the time he turned off life support on the bridge, or the one where his ethical subroutines were disabled and he did brain surgery on Geordi?

Maybe the one where he thought he was a god and turned the ship into a temple?

Or perhaps that time he became an entire band of outlaws on a holodeck, including prostitute with the simulation still running IN CHARACTER?

There's the time he stabbed troi because he thought she was a cake...

Then there is the EMH, which only malfunctioned after Voyager had been running him for far longer than it was designed for.

EMHs are murder bots, and their default setting is "kill". They are inherently hostile to life and even other holograms. Upon turning them on, if other holograms are present, they try to turn them off. (Our Man Bashir).

It wasn't just running for so long - it immediately, well within hours, is asking for extensions to its program. Within weeks it has started self-building - adding penises, music, hobbies - then after a few months demands that it wants to resign because it's bored.

They are also sexual perverts, who, upon achieving a penis - and through transferring to Seven - he starts to touch himself. He gets turned on by his own patients.

They are unstable and should not be activated to begin with.

[Simon_Jester]

What about Data ?

What, the time he turned off life support on the bridge, or the one where his ethical subroutines were disabled and he did brain surgery on Geordi?

Maybe the one where he thought he was a god and turned the ship into a temple?

Or perhaps that time he became an entire band of outlaws on a holodeck, including prostitute with the simulation still running IN CHARACTER?

There's the time he stabbed troi because he thought she was a cake...

The time he turned off life support on the bridge, as I recall, was because there was a homing-beacon compulsion triggering in his head that was installed by his mad scientist creator. He showed no signs of wanting to harm anyone, and triggered the alarms falsely as a way to compel an evacuation of the bridge long enough for him to enact security protocols that would allow him to nonlethally restrain the crew while enabling him to steal transport and escape.

Had he not been created by a rogue mad scientists, none of that incident would have happened, if it's the one I'm thinking of.

As to the others, could you cite episode titles? I don't remember the incidents, so I can't really evaluate them.

Then there is the EMH, which only malfunctioned after Voyager had been running him for far longer than it was designed for.

EMHs are murder bots, and their default setting is "kill". They are inherently hostile to life and even other holograms. Upon turning them on, if other holograms are present, they try to turn them off. (Our Man Bashir).

It wasn't just running for so long - it immediately, well within hours, is asking for extensions to its program. Within weeks it has started self-building - adding penises, music, hobbies - then after a few months demands that it wants to resign because it's bored.

They are also sexual perverts, who, upon achieving a penis - and through transferring to Seven - he starts to touch himself. He gets turned on by his own patients.

They are unstable and should not be activated to begin with.

I... kiiiinda agree on EMHs, yes. They're probably better than having no one capable of handling sickbay during a major emergency, but they're at best viable as a solution on a timescale of hours or at most a few days.

Though it's kind of hard for me to blame the EMH's designers in-setting for plot incidents that, out of setting, were created purely for the sake of drama by Voyager writers of all people.

[Prometheus Unbound]

As to the others, could you cite episode titles? I don't remember the incidents, so I can't really evaluate them.

Sure - I'm actually making a 40-50 minute video for YT atm.. been 2-3 months in the making so far and another 2-3 months to go (spare time thing) covering AI in Star Trek. It is a "sarcastic" / "wtf" kind of look at it, rather than a 100% canon technical manual type of vid.

So I have many, many examples

The ones above are:

Brothers, Masks, A Fist Full of Datas and Phantasms.

Though it's kind of hard for me to blame the EMH's designers in-setting for plot incidents that, out of setting, were created purely for the sake of drama by Voyager writers of all people.

Of course. And we love the holodoc =) But from a ... "if this was real life" perspective, the amount of times the holodoc (or holodeck in general - AI as a whole lol) goes wrong in some way in Trek is ... astounding. These aren't minor bugs - entire starships, planets are wiped out as a result of these mistakes. Lore is possibly responsible for millions of deaths. Data malfunctions at the drop of a hat (more often than the GCS warp core!). The EMH is mad, the EMH Mk2 was ... Andy Dick, The LMH starts attacking other holograms, the holodecks try to burn people alive - you know, when it's not trying to take over the ship or declare war on entire planes of existence. And those are the accidents. What about the ones DESIGNED for it? M5? Dreadnaught? The Hirogen holograms?

They all, all of them try to eliminate stuff, or in the case of Voyager 6, *everything*. We're fucking lucky that the klingons in ST5 destroyed the Pioneer 10 probe at the start of the film, because that had gained sentience as well, believe it or not.

It's crazy. Funny, but crazy.

[Prometheus Unbound]

I mean, take M-5.

It's designed to automate Starships and be quick in combat. In the first test, 4 Starships are disabled and one is destroyed. Hundreds of people killed. And that's only because they managed to stop it in time - those other 4 starships would have been destroyed also.

There's only 12 Connies in the Starfleet. They're the main battleships vs the Klingon and Romulan Empires at the time.

That M-5 test, had it gone on another 30 seconds, would have wiped out half the top of the line ships in the fleet - it could have meant the Klingons or Romulans would have invaded out of pure opportunity.

[Burak Gazan]

It's worth at least an observation, in the case of BOTH M-5 and the EMH, 99% of the problems were caused by the massive ego of their designers. They placed their penis size above logic and reason - and a functional system, as was intended. There's a lesson there, I think

[Elheru Aran]

^ True. A lot of the problems with new tech in Trek come basically from it being the innovation/creation of a single scientist who hasn't bothered to peer-review and is confident that their genius will carry the day.

[Burak Gazan]

Exactly, Daystrom ended up in the rubber science lab. And Zimmerman was making holographic LIZARDS and people for chuckles (supposedly for companions.. but come on. That just tells me, you have no empathy and can't relate to actual PEOPLE. And I don't need to be a frakking retard-half-Betazed to figure THAT out.... )

[FedRebel]

Given the variety of Klingon "subspecies", I suggest we catalogue, refer to each by a distinct designation

TOS: Flathead
ENT-TMP-TNG/DS9/VOY: Ridgehead

Discovery: QI'yaH

[Simon_Jester]

As to the others, could you cite episode titles? I don't remember the incidents, so I can't really evaluate them.

Sure - I'm actually making a 40-50 minute video for YT atm.. been 2-3 months in the making so far and another 2-3 months to go (spare time thing) covering AI in Star Trek. It is a "sarcastic" / "wtf" kind of look at it, rather than a 100% canon technical manual type of vid.

So I have many, many examples

The ones above are:

Brothers...

Brothers was a case of Data being coerced by control programming built into his mind by his creator. It was very bad from Starfleet's point of view, but it was "working as intended" from the designer's point of view. If the guy building the positronic androids hadn't been a crazed lunatic hiding from the rest of humanity, that episode would never have happened. Indeed, the same sort of massively coercive programming could be used as a "failsafe, couldn't it? If it can make Data betray all his friends and ignore all other priorities, cleverly preventing any of the ship's crew from stopping him hijacking a whole ship in order to return to his 'home...' it could equally well coerce him to just stop moving or something.

...Masks...

Data was taken over by an alien mind control entity that ran on evil space magic. As in, literal magic that from reading Memory Alpha, changed chunks of the ship into rocks and vines. "Is able to be taken over by evil space ghosts that have demonic magical powers" is not a unique flaw to AI in Star Trek.

A Fist Full of Datas

Data was "experimentally" wired up to the Enterprise's main computers during this incident. Blame goes to whoever didn't think holodeck programs could get into Data's brain and cause cross-contamination. Which they normally don't, seeing as how Data himself has gone into the holodeck any number of times without being mind-controlled into joining whatever holoprogram is going on at the moment. It certainly wasn't something Data did on purpose, and honestly strikes me as a reckless or at best poorly secured experiment on the part of the rest of the ship's command team.

and Phantasms.

That was when he'd been infected by weird alien space parasites. "Can be turned into a knife-wielding loon by space parasites" is ALSO not a flaw unique to AI in Star Trek.

Look, if you're going to list examples of AI going horribly wrong in Star Trek, go for it, but at least focus on incidents where the AI isn't being blatantly hijacked or sabotaged by an outside force, the sort that is perfectly capable of hijacking or sabotaging organic beings as well. The M5 is a superb example of AI gone wrong; "Data gets possessed by the ghosts of a thousand space wizards" is not.

Now, the incident in A Fist Full of Datas is pretty clearly an innate flaw with AI, but in this case it boils down to "interfacing Data's brain directly with the Enterprise's main computers, when the two systems were designed by totally different people and run on different operating principles, is a buggy process not to be undertaken lightly or recklessly, who knew?"

[Prometheus Unbound]

Look, if you're going to list examples of AI going horribly wrong in Star Trek, go for it, but at least focus on incidents where the AI isn't being blatantly hijacked or sabotaged by an outside force, the sort that is perfectly capable of hijacking or sabotaging organic beings as well. The M5 is a superb example of AI gone wrong; "Data gets possessed by the ghosts of a thousand space wizards" is not.

I'm listing every instance.


Non Specific Ais

M-5
Designed to speed up ship response times and automate systems
Takes over control of ship without asking
Kills a crew member “by accident”
Destroys one starship, wounds 3 others
Nearly gets the Enterprise destroyed
Eventually commits suicide after being told “murder is bad”
v'ger
launched from Earth
Mission “learn all that is learnable”
Found some AI
Came back
Starts questioning why, who am I what am I for?
Tries to destroy stuff
Kidnaps crew, steals things
Disappears to some unknown whatever
nomad
launched from Earth
Mission to contact alien stuff and catalogue
comes back
Starts questioning why, who what am I for
Tries to destroy stuff
mind-wipes uhura
disappears
exocomps
Starts refusing orders
commit suicide
rebel
ds9 civil defence
Starts attacking the crew
rebels against its owner
dreadnought
Doesn’t hit its target
reprogrammed by Torres
starts tricking people
lies to its creator
refuses to accept sensor data
set on some random probability thing
fair basic
starts arguing with itself
audibly is a moron
tries to trick torres again
millions of people could be killed
Automated Personnel Units
Created for a war
Turn on their creators
Wipe them out
Start abducting / stealing things
try to destroy Voyager
Continue fighting forever
Guardian of forever
Apparently this computer is in charge of all of space and time, and that's ok.
the apple (Vaal)
bynars stealing things
Seem nice enough
When left alone, start kidnapping people and stealing things
automatic repair station
When activated, offers free repairs to passing ships.
Venus fly trap
Starts stealing things
Tries to steal / eat the Enterprise
Destroyed
Builds itself back up again
borg
I, mudd
Dunno who created them
Start kidnapping people and stealing things
enterprise d computer giving birth to itself
tos computer having an attitude problem
pup (ds9)
star trek 5 captain's log
commits suicide
alice
think tank ai
pioneer
landru (return of the archons)
series 5 long range tactical armor unit (voyager)
wesley's nanites
oracle of the people
controller
portal 63 (tng ferengi episode)
norman
rayna kapec
ruk


Self awareness
questioning existence
what it means

Soong Type Anderoids

History of Soong and augments and mental
B-4
questions
betrays
Lore
mental, jealous
crystalline entity
millions of deaths
threatens wesley
tries to kill enterprise
sets crusher on fire
kicks data in head
fires at data
kills his father
tries to kill data
punches worf
facial tick
left in space
found by pakleds we look for things that make us go
teams up with the BORG
kidnaps data, tries to destroy the enterprise two-three times
tries to turn data to murder bot
makes data do surgery
Data
I am superiour
lifts car
bends metal
runs fast
immune to bullets
arrows
tortured geordi
turned into masaka
data laughs
data becomes the holodeck fist full of datas
seduced by the borg queen
disobeyed picard in redemption
disobeyed riker in exocomps
Insurrection starts shooting people
Tries to fall in love and sets up a domestic abuse sub-routine
Stabs troi
hears voices
sets life support off on the bridge
locks out main computer
steals things
keeps a cat (feeds to ATMs?)
gets drunk
hides from saving geordi
runs around naked
self termination
can't cope
will kill fajo
loses memory and gives everyone radiation
makes a baby

Lal
unstable
immediate questions – why does why does
sexually assaults
strength of 10 men
starts to go mental
is let loose among the crew, kids could die
Julianna Taynor
is programmed to turn off if she finds out she's a robot
because if she did, she'd go mental
stop building fucking robots

Holograms

what are they
Properties
Safeties
Power Sources
holodeck malfunctions
moriarty
Kidnaps crew
tortures them with food
tries to take over enterprise
later went to sleep
comes back on purpose
Takes over ship
threatens to kill everyone
kidnaps picard and geordi
to his knowledge flies off to somewhere else
enterprise self aware
Through the holodeck
can't be shut off
being left on too long
starts to give birth to itself
threatens to kill everything
Fair haven
left on too long
can't be shut off
starts to become self aware
starts to kidnap crew
starts to set them on fire
The Big Goodbye
First ever proper holodeck episode
Safeties fail
person nearly killed
the holodeck tries to take over
Voyager's Holodeck declares war on another plane of existence
Beowulf Holodeck tries to kill people
Tuvok episode with lady via holodeck
Hirogen conversion
give them a pass here
Cardassian Mengal
what. The.
Engineering hologram that went wrong
EMH
First meeting
Voyager - annoyed
First contact – argues
DS9 – tries to terminate other holograms
default setting is pissed off
Here's one malfunctioning in real time
Starts asking for a name
Starts asking for hobbies
Gives itself a penis
Has sex with its patients
Starts adding its own subroutines
the darkling
Starts trying to murder people
Wants its own family
Doesn't want its own family
Starts growing a massive ego
Adding opera, golf, photography
Breaks itself
Keeps doing it
Ends up in a logic loop and shuts down after becoming violent
Wants to be a captain
Wants to be on TV
Gets bored and wants to quit being a doctor
Sexually abuses people
Eventually rebels into the FINAL FORM: MURDER GRAMS
Hirogen Holograms and Murdergrams
EMH rebels
They have their own religion
They hate all life forms
Hostile to everything around them
Try to kill everything
Oh and this is what you did with them
And the Doctor's abuses
Abused time and time again
They find his holonovel “provocative”
EMH 2
At some point they realised their mistake but…


----------

it goes on. And that list isn't nicely formatted since I took it out a spreadsheet.

Virus, magic, space alcohol - I don't care. AI is fundamentally flawed in Star Trek.

[Thanas]

This was....ok I guess.

So the CGI is real bad, needs to be improved. The lens flare needs to fucking go. The Klingons look like shit. In fact they look like as if somebody had cross-bred a farscape creature and the elephant man. I don't mind either, but combined it does not work like me.

The acting was okay. I liked Yeoh's performance and that of the science officer, did not like the main performance. A bit too wooden.

Plotholes nearly doomed this though. Why did the klingons decide to ram? Why is the viewscreen suddenly a window? Why are there no shutters on that window given the ship regularly seems to fly into bright environments? Why is there a magic light mcguffin that shines like a new star - so brightly it can be seen from deep within federation territory remember - that does not melt the ships next to it? Why does the captain decide to board an enemy ship herself with only a mutineer at her side? Why does said mutineer kill instead of wound/stun? Why do all the klingon leaders suddenly go along with crazy guy who only shouts at the screen instead of offering evidence and actual arguments?

All in all it was a good popcorn flick but far from approaching DS9 quality.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Plotholes nearly doomed this though. Why did the klingons decide to ram?

To make a point that he can hide such a huge thing right under their noses - and has the power to kill their fleet admiral.

Why is the viewscreen suddenly a window?

That's not a plot hole. In any case, both NCC 1701 and 1701D had glass roofs.

Why are there no shutters on that window given the ship regularly seems to fly into bright environments?

They have polarization but it was already at "maximum". That said, there should be some sort of "blast door" that can cover the windows, that's a really really bad idea. But then Connie and Ent D so idk.

Why is there a magic light mcguffin that shines like a new star - so brightly it can be seen from deep within federation territory remember - that does not melt the ships next to it?

Kahless put it there. It's part of the Klingon prophecy. This actually comes from TNG and DS9 - Kahless pointed to empty space and said when a new star shines look for me there.

This "light" was more than light - if you listen to the background, it's a subspace radio wave which is how it got broadcast so quickly. It's a FTL form of signal.

Why does the captain decide to board an enemy ship herself with only a mutineer at her side?

Star Trek staple. Why did kirk beam down... ever?

Why does said mutineer kill instead of wound/stun?

PTSD / anger.

Why do all the klingon leaders suddenly go along with crazy guy who only shouts at the screen instead of offering evidence and actual arguments?

They weren't necessarily against him, as a group.

[Burak Gazan]

PTSD / anger.

Retarded imbecile fits better
Going over there to snatch the guy was her goddamned idea in the first place . REMEMBER??
Rather than do THAT, dumbass bitch KILLS HIM. And if she's such an unstable retard, christ knows how many years after the fact, why the fucking hell, did she ever , EVER get into Starfleet?? Or are standard different for the SPECIAL people?
God almighty, this show reeks the more you look at it

[Burak Gazan]

And tonight?
I just.... it makes no sense, and if anything has gotten STUPIDER that last week.
Eh well

[Prometheus Unbound]

And tonight?
I just.... it makes no sense, and if anything has gotten STUPIDER that last week.
Eh well

Dunno. Watching it in 5. Damned UK time zones

[Mange]

Why is the viewscreen suddenly a window?

That's not a plot hole. In any case, both NCC 1701 and 1701D had glass roofs.

I earlier cited the Star Trek Writer's Guide that states that the viewscreen "is not a window". The TNG Guide also states that it's a screen. The glass domes are irrelevant in that context. A minor thing, but it arose with the Abrams movies and the screens had never been shown as windows before (the Kelvin also had a window so it's a misconception).

[bilateralrope]

First the lazy writing:
- The Federation uses prisoners as a slave labor force. While TOS episodes had the Federation trying rehabilitation.
- Vulcan martial arts. I don't have a problem with them existing. I just have a problem with them being useful without vulcan strength.
- The shuttle is called 'disco 1'. I assume the official name is "Discovery 1". Instead of coming up with specific names.
- Breath scan as a security measure.


We have also seen what appear to be two distinct models of android in Discovery. That's not someone being too lazy to make something work with continuity. That's someone making an effort to show androids long before Data was the first android in starfleet.


As for the plot itself, it could work. The war makes the Federation desperate. Dangerous experiments are tried. They go badly. The Federation keeps pushing for results because of the war. We never saw this propulsion method used in later series, but that just means it's doomed to fail. There might still be an interesting Star Trek story. A story that would have been improved if they cut the first two episodes, the mutiny and 'Micheal started the war'.

I'm not hopeful.

[tezunegari]

Ok, this new drive system is unnatural.

90 Lightyears in 1.3 Seconds?!

Unless my math is wrong, that's 2.184.756.923 c...

[Burak Gazan]

The 'breathprint' bit almost drove me to hit the off switch. And Captain whatshisname? I like the actor, but this guy , first thing I thought of was "oh goodie; it's another Ron Tracy." You may recall, HE was a complete fucking madman...
And WHAT THE FUCK, was that supposed to be? A Klingon that goes 'shhh!' ?? Fuck me

[Dartzap]

Pollen Transwarp, woo!

I bet that Tribble ends up winning the war.

[bilateralrope]

I bet that Tribble ends up winning the war.

Maybe we will find out why Klingons drove tribbles extinct.

And WHAT THE FUCK, was that supposed to be? A Klingon that goes 'shhh!' ?? Fuck me

Not as bad as the klingon who Micheal accidentally stabs to death with his own bat'leth.

So far the only win these klingons have got is when they vastly outnumbered the Federation fleet.