to do good speculative fiction, that is, sci-fi by a less polarized name, you've got to know how things, people, and organizations work in reality (Whether historical reality, or current.)
pretty much the entirety of Season 1 of Discovery shows the writing staff don't. From how military or paramilitary hierarchies work, to basic strategy and tactics, it's pretty clear that "Idealist" and "Activist" were more important to the hiring process than "knows how to do a story" or "Knows How This Stuff Has To Work (in order to work and not kill everyone involved)"
And it's not even enough to know how things work, you need to be able to make connections and extrapolate. You need to be able to think about how the ecology of a species' home planet will affect their psychology, how their geography will influence their politics, and how their psychology and politics will affect how they respond to the things going on in your plot.
Something I haven't seen mentioned. Lets look at Trek's abused and neglected TRIBBLE child Andromeda. AI in that series were common, and several episodes talked about how in the Systems Commonwealth ship AI were legally people and officers, though still subject to various laws, much like any officer, even the regulations that can lead to an AI being wiped is not that much different than a court martial ending in a death sentence.
Not only that, we saw that Commonwealth ship AIs were capable of controlling their associated ship without a crew at all. Although I would imagine that it would come at a cost in system effeciency due to having to dedicate more processing power to various systems that would normally be handled by crewmembers. But at the same time it would also mean being able to shunt power away from systems that aren't needed at the time, like Life Support.
I mean there were a few episodes that covered that, such as some kind of ship graveyard where several old Commonwealth ships actually sacrificed themselves to protect Andromeda, and a renegade Commonwealth dreadnought that went religious zealot or something along those lines.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Something I haven't seen mentioned. Lets look at Trek's abused and neglected TRIBBLE child Andromeda. AI in that series were common, and several episodes talked about how in the Systems Commonwealth ship AI were legally people and officers, though still subject to various laws, much like any officer, even the regulations that can lead to an AI being wiped is not that much different than a court martial ending in a death sentence.
Not only that, we saw that Commonwealth ship AIs were capable of controlling their associated ship without a crew at all. Although I would imagine that it would come at a cost in system effeciency due to having to dedicate more processing power to various systems that would normally be handled by crewmembers. But at the same time it would also mean being able to shunt power away from systems that aren't needed at the time, like Life Support.
I mean there were a few episodes that covered that, such as some kind of ship graveyard where several old Commonwealth ships actually sacrificed themselves to protect Andromeda, and a renegade Commonwealth dreadnought that went religious zealot or something along those lines.
We at least saw something similar to that with the doctor in Voyager in Workforce when he was given command, he shut off life support as the ship was repaired as it wasnt needed.
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
Comments
And it's not even enough to know how things work, you need to be able to make connections and extrapolate. You need to be able to think about how the ecology of a species' home planet will affect their psychology, how their geography will influence their politics, and how their psychology and politics will affect how they respond to the things going on in your plot.
Not only that, we saw that Commonwealth ship AIs were capable of controlling their associated ship without a crew at all. Although I would imagine that it would come at a cost in system effeciency due to having to dedicate more processing power to various systems that would normally be handled by crewmembers. But at the same time it would also mean being able to shunt power away from systems that aren't needed at the time, like Life Support.
I mean there were a few episodes that covered that, such as some kind of ship graveyard where several old Commonwealth ships actually sacrificed themselves to protect Andromeda, and a renegade Commonwealth dreadnought that went religious zealot or something along those lines.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok