If Star Trek's Federation Contracted With 21st Century CEOs

The Final Frontier would be a very different place to work

The resemblance is uncanny. Credit: Ferengi by Marcin Wichary, CC BY 2.0, Musk By NORAD Public Affairs; Bezos by Van Ha. (Musk & Bezos images public domain) Whole image arranged by author.

I didn’t mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage. I meant to say that it should be hauled away as garbage.

— Korax; The Trouble With Tribbles

It has long been a cinematic trope that the USS Enterprise — the United Federation of Planets’ flagship — was the only vessel available to handle some intergalactic crisis, often while it was understaffed or critical (to the plot) features just weren’t working right. The opening scene of the first TNG movie, Generations, was possibly the quintessential example.

But plot mechanisms involving an Enterprise-with-a-limp aside, imagine if the Federation’s fleet was built by and under contract with the companies of today’s CEOs. The lives of the crews on the Final Frontier would be very different even during the most mundane of times.

Cue the opening…

Batten down the hatches!

Interstellar flight is perilous. Hostile species in battle-hardened warbirds patrol star systems, many on the lookout for a fight. Unknown phenomena damage life support systems and threaten warp core breaches, some even cause… shall we say… nocturnal emissions.

Nexus ribbons, volatile quasars, black stars, black holes, and temporal distortions that wreak havoc on fingernail growth, all present imminent dangers to spaceships and their crews. Not to mention those dastardly, Renaissance-fair-loving Qs.

Travelling in the great beyond clearly requires a sturdy ship.

But what if David Calhoun, the former chief executive of Boeing, was in charge of building them?

The Enterprise would have to expend a lot of energy maintaining its shields or force fields to accommodate all the cracked windows, perhaps doubly so when external hatches blow out because of some missing bolts. Engineers would have their work cut out for them when the impulse engines shoot flames (or plasma, or whatever) for no apparent reason. Perhaps later they would find that mysterious software systems meant to conceal design flaws were the cause.

Fortunately, starships generally do not land (unless you count slamming the Enterprise-D into Veridian III’s forest). That’s good because it would be hard to do so with sticky controls or without landing wheels after they had fallen off during takeoff. But at least shareholders would get their billion-latinum buybacks.

Hello, computer!

On Federation ships, the word “computer” was the trigger for initiating audible commands or requests, the 24th century’s version of ‘Hey Alexa’ or ‘Siri.’ It was a dangerously casual term in places like the bridge or engineering, but it worked fine for the most part. Although, it seems a small miracle that random chatter never accidentally caused an existential crisis.

Regardless, the computer’s ability to save the day by accurately responding to spoken requests cannot be overstated.

In one instance, Picard was faced with the pending annihilation of a human colony settled on Tau Cygni V by the Sheliak. Practical challenges made it impossible to evacuate the people before the Sheliak’s deadline of three days, so the captain asked the computer for a copy of the treaty between them and the Federation in the hopes of finding something to buy him the necessary time. The computer supplied Picard a copy, he negotiated based on an obscure arbitration provision, and the people were saved because the Sheliak felt duty bound to honor the text of the agreement.

Now imagine that the Enterprise computer worked like a modern LLM.

“Computer. Retrieve Sheliak-Federation treaty regarding Tau Cygni V,” the captain orders.

The Enterprise computer, built by FutureOpenAI, launches a document on screen. Neither Picard nor the computer find a loophole, so the captain determines that without taking defensive, or possibly even offensive, action, the Sheliak will eliminate every human on the planet. Other sections of the on-screen document reinforce this belief.

After a conflict in which some Sheliak craft are lost and many are killed, a damaged Enterprise jets off with the few remaining survivors from the colony. Following the event, relations between the Sheliak and Federation sour to the point that the latter is banned from all Sheliak territories, and the existing treaty between them is dissolved. Perhaps they even cozy up to the Romulans.

In a later hearing with Star Fleet Command, Picard explains to his superiors that he based his decisions on the text of the treaty, and the implication that the Sheliak would turn to violence. Upon reviewing the document upon which Picard relied, Star Fleet engineers discover that the entire text was a hallucination. After all, LLMs have been known to fabricate legal cases, why not dream up a fake treaty as well?

The content of the hallucinated treaty appeared to draw from commentary by many across the universe who wrote highly unflattering things about the Sheliak, rather than the actual agreement, perhaps because Picard did not request it by its formal name.

The computer’s training set consisted in very large part of posts from intergalactic social media, it turned out. Mostly conspiracy theories and politically biased drivel. Content moderators were a lost relic of the early 21st century, abandoned by CEOs desperate to suck up to authoritarian governments. Still, corporate black-boxing prevented them from finding the precise cause for the fabrication.

Federation authorities would also want to take extra precautions against spying on its crews. Their ships are filled with smart-TV-styled equipment along with the ever-watchful computer. Twenty-first century televisions already relay watch history and other data to the manufacturer. Doorbell cameras do the same. Voice activated devices like Siri and Alexa constantly listen in so they can get “smarter” — or, put another way, improve their ability to sell people crap.

In the 24th century, enemies of the Federation would love to buy info of this sort. And 21st century CEOs — who show no loyalty to concepts like patriotism, morality, or security — would readily oblige. Dr. Soran rigged Geordi La Forge’s visor precisely to steal critical shield data, but Soran needed a confluence of circumstances and luck to succeed. Nevertheless, the results of his act proved how dangerous data leakage from the Enterprise could be. (Klingons nearly destroyed the Enterprise).

Perhaps the Federation would not be stupid enough to put its data in the hands of one of these amoral freelancers. Would any government? Oh wait…

Source: Techcrunch

The holodeck

One of the coolest features in later models of the Enterprise was the holodeck. It provided an “artificial, fully immersive environment” chosen by the user, not that Play-Dough avatar shit Mark Zuckerberg tried hawking, but a strikingly realistic virtual fantasy land. Numerous episodes of The Next Generation (TNG) and other series centered their plots on this technology.

Crewmembers on the Enterprise could use the holodeck for practically any purpose. Some recreated settings similar to their homelands, others ran combat training programs, and some even used it for kinkier — and often weirder — scenarios, such as when first officer William Riker seemed to build his own sex-bot, or when engineer Reginald Barclay created “fantasy” versions of his crewmates. Set phasers to bone, as they say.

In Star Trek, citizens of the Federation allegedly did not use money, but currency was certainly exchanged among others (the Federation did use credits, so… tomato — tomahto, maybe). Indeed, the security officer on Deep Space Nine, Odo, once noted, “The Ferengi holds onto life like it’s gold-pressed latinum.”

Our present-day innovative geniuses like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos bear a far closer resemblance to the Ferengi than other species, so they would definitely demand that the Federation pay for the holodecks their companies produce and license. Blowing up space penises is expensive business.

Not only would they charge exorbitant rates, they would collect every user’s data for sale to the Cardassians, Borg, or any buyer, really. It would be like how 21st century companies steal incognito browser history, but worse… and creepier. What happens on the holodeck does not stay on the holodeck.

Eventually, profiting off their users’ very thoughts alone would not satisfy them or their shareholders, so they would start inserting ads into the experience.

One day, Captain Picard, primped in his Dixon Hill trench coat and fedora, loads his gumshoe adventure program, commands the computer to run it, and opens the door to a 30-second spot offering discounted rates to the ‘pleasure planet’ Risa. The choice of ad content is no accident; Picard has been there before — maybe they tracked his space phone.

Lt. Commander Worf engages in Mok’bara training. Upon completing a level, the simulation shifts to the interior of Kahless’s Unforgettable Armory. Martok, the great revolutionary soldier, steps forth wielding a Bat’leth that he claims is made from a secret formula that Klingon blacksmiths “don’t want you to know about!” Worf stumps about in irritation, impatient to face his next, more difficult, adversary before his muscles stiffen up. On the holodeck, there’s no skip button.

A holodeck built by tech bros would have innumerable imperfections. Commander Riker’s erotic chimera might occasionally have six fingers, or a Total Recall number of breasts. Engineer Barclay’s fantasy shipmates might speak using the wrong crewmember’s voice. Troi’s sultry advances would have a whole new flavor when spoken in La Forge’s cadence. But, who knows, maybe Barclay would be down with that. Riker almost certainly would.

Flaws in another piece of tech, however, would be far scarier — the transporter.

Have you got some reason why you want my atoms scattered all over space, boy?!

— Doctor Leonard McCoy; Encounter at Farpoint

Beam me up!

The inventor of the transporter, Emory Erickson, himself shivered from the experience of de-atomizing his body into data and blasting it across physical space:

That original transporter took a full minute and a half to cycle through. Felt like a year. You could actually feel yourself being taken apart and put back together. When I materialized, first thing I did was lose my lunch. Second thing I did was get stone drunk.

Doctor McCoy absolutely hated using the device, as did Barclay. They were right to be concerned. Experts identified transport-induced illnesses, such as transporter psychosis, people had been killed due to malfunctions, and in at least one instance, a genetically identical copy of Commander Riker emerged from a transport anomaly. Which was just what the Enterprise needed — a carbon-copied horn-dog stalking about.

Enter the tech bros.

If Boeing is any illustration, even engineering firms with exemplary records will eventually sacrifice safety for profit. Tech bros don’t worry about safety at all, they prefer to go straight for the profits. Thus, like doors blowing off of 737s, the Enterprise’s transporter will ‘break down’ with alarming frequency.

Unlike sophisticated jets that can still safely land despite myriad malfunctions, including missing doors or broken landing wheels, transporters do not enjoy a margin of error. A successful transport entails breaking a person apart into subatomic particles, launching those particles through a matter stream to a set of predetermined coordinates, and then rebuilding them into the original person.

A single error, a single misplaced atom, means catastrophe: death, severe disfigurement or, perhaps worst of all, long-term imprisonment in a sort of semi-stasis.

What sane person would stake their life on the absolute accuracy of a machine built by companies whose self-driving cars can be defeated by traffic cones?

What spacefarer would allow themselves to be de-atomized by a device whose CEO calls it ‘entertaining’ when his rockets explode?

What galactic interloper will trust that her body can be correctly reassembled by a bunch of guys who claimed to have recently invented the train? Not a euphemism here… literally, the choo choo. If you don’t get the reference, watch the hyperlinked video.

Not to mention, how often will the transporter fail — either before activation or mid-stream—due to unexpected updates launched by the company at the most inconvenient times?

Please wait while Microsoft Transporter version 24.1 updates. Do not turn off your computer… PS, sorry about away team members Smith and Jones.

This guy doesn’t belong anywhere near an electric pencil sharpener, let alone a starship. Source: Reddit

Don’t worry, it’s fine

The Federation held some lofty views about its purpose. In its charter, it proclaimed:

We the lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, and to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, in the equal rights of members of planetary systems large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interstellar law can be maintained…

If all that was true, it is hard to imagine that billionaire-like figures could still exist. After all, wars might be among the most profitable business ventures while dignity and worth are all but antithetical to corporate avarice. And corporate-favored, one-sided terms of service have abrogated any semblance of justice or respect for law.

No government or interplanetary council that declares as its mission, equal rights and freedom and dignity for all, would allow such vicious, profit-driven people into its ranks.

Right?

Source: Barrons.com

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