
Never mind the Star Trek computer, Star Trek engineers are stupid - jacques_chester
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Engineering.html
======
btilly
I love how he first dismisses real life reactors that publicly failed before
he finds an example of how real engineers work. Was TMI not designed by real
professional engineers?

But it gets worse. He uses the safety of a large, stationary object as his
example of how well engineers design systems. Why not hold up something that
moves as his example instead? Like a helicopter? Oops, helicopters have a
nasty tendency towards fatal failure modes. You can have redundant engines,
but if you lose a helicopter blade, not much can be done other than provide
you with an ejection mechanism.

But what about airplanes? Much better than helicopters. They can lose power
and be landed safely. Heck, as
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232> documents, one plane
was mostly successfully landed with no hydraulics, no control of its flight
surfaces, and just 2 operational thruster engines.

But add an interesting constraint, such as desire to make it hard to spot on
radar, and the next thing you know you get something like the B-2 stealth
bomber. Unstable on all 3 axes, and will fall out of the sky like a rock the
second the automatic computer corrections stop going. Do you think that the
air force spends $737 million per airplane on something that wasn't designed
by engineers? Yet they built something that will literally fall out of the sky
if there is a problem with the computer!

While I agree that Star Trek has lots of plot holes that you can drive large
trucks through, I don't think that their lack of engineering mindset deserves
to be near the top of the list. The warp engines are unstable? Well they need
to burn a lot of energy, which means you need an intense energy source. They
use matter/antimatter. Doesn't take much going wrong for that to blow, and
anything less energy dense won't cut it. Not really a plot hole.

They use force fields everywhere? Well it takes energy, serious energy, to get
actual matter up to warp speed. By using force fields preferentially and for
structural integrity they save incredibly on weight, and therefore efficiency.
Those engineers are to be commended for figuring out how to strip out even
more matter, and not criticized for failing to use poorly suited low tech
solutions.

A lot of his "problems" just aren't.

~~~
Semiapies
Eh, to go blatantly ad hominem, _it's StarDestroyer.net_. It's a site devoted
to arguing that the technology and militaries of one not-remotely-hard SF
setting are "better" than the technology and militaries of another not-
remotely-hard SF setting.

When I've looked before, there were straight-faced essays on there about the
wonders of Imperial stormtrooper armor (augmented reality HUDs, sensors, etc.)
that would have ended the Star Wars series about two minutes after the
_Millenium Falcon_ got tractor-beamed into the Death Star. There were deadpan
articles about the military skills and discipline of those stormtroopers that
don't at all fit with their getting slaughtered by Ewoks or a formation of
them running in panic from a single charging man in their own base.

The wacky justifications for all the "canon" they contradict with their claims
make it clear - this stuff is not meant to be taken any more seriously than
the puddi puddi meme. It's meant to amuse people and troll Trek fans.

ETA: I mean, really, do we want to look at the engineering practices in Star
Wars? Huge walking tanks you can trip or take out with one grenade, near-
absence of railings, etc... It doesn't bear worrying about. :)

------
jarin
Perfect counterexample: Battlestar Galactica (the newer one).

Bullets and nukes for weapons, CDC deep within the hull of the ship, damage
control stations throughout the ship, sound-powered emergency telephones that
do not require a power source (similar to the ones still in use in the Navy),
pressure bulkheads, non-networked computers, emergency jump coordinates
coordinated between ships BEFORE emergencies, etc.

~~~
sliverstorm
To be fair the Galactica is supposed to be a warship, while IIRC the
Enterprise is basically a science vessel with a couple self defense
capabilities.

~~~
philwelch
This excuse gets a lot less tenable about halfway through DS9, when the
Federation is in the middle of a gigantic, potentially genocidal war against a
far more powerful opponent. Especially when the Jem'Hadar ships have the exact
same flaws (and for that matter, the Klingon ships always did).

~~~
jsz0
The real reason is after Gene Roddenberry left in Season 2 of TNG the writers
didn't stay entirely true to his original vision. When DS9 came about they had
zero obligation to that vision so they went in a different direction. The
writers could have done a better job putting it into context on-screen.

~~~
philwelch
They couldn't exactly rewrite the fictional rules of a universe where bridge
consoles explode whenever the ship gets hit and so forth. I don't know how
Gene's presence or absence makes much difference; a lot of the dumb
engineering ideas (like the exploding consoles) originated in work beyond his
control. The first exploding bridge console in Star Trek history was in the
Kobayashi Maru sequence in _Wrath of Khan_ , a film that Gene had virtually no
creative control over.

Still, even in the original series it's intended that the Enterprise is a
capable warship; the original show bible compares it to an imperial warship of
the colonial era, and on multiple occasions (the Romulan incursion in "Balance
of Terror"; the near-war with the Klingons in "Errand of Mercy") the
Enterprise is deployed directly to the front line of potential combat. (The
Enterprise-D would fulfill similar roles in episodes like "Best of Both
Worlds", "Chain of Command", or even the first season episode "The Neutral
Zone".)

------
stretchwithme
Without system failures and alien possessions, life on the Enterprise would be
pretty damn mundane.

I've always thought they should use more drones to do things. I mean, why do
they have to drag that huge monstrosity of a ship all over the nebula to chart
it?

And those shuttles. How dangerous are those? You just know when they hop on
one of those things, a crash is imminent.

And for god's sake, if Scotty can keep himself alive in a transporter buffer
for 80 years, why can't they keep backups of the aweigh team!

Sorry, just never got over the loss of Tasha Yar. :-(

~~~
jarin
Away team, "aweigh" is a term used to indicate that a ship is in transit (as
in "anchors aweigh") :)

~~~
stretchwithme
Standing correctedly by the anchor.

------
mayank
I've seen some valiant attempts at procrastination, but boy--this really takes
the cake. Cross-examining engineering dialogue diagnosing fictional
technology? Really?

~~~
Locke1689
A lot of it's wrong too.

 _Instead of minimizing excess reactivity, they seem to be doing everything in
their power to increase it. Evidence of the high excess reactivity of a warp
core can be found every time one of 'em blows up. For example, in
"Generations", they knew the reactor was going to blow five minutes before it
actually did, and they couldn't do anything but evacuate. In "Disaster", we
saw a similar scenario; the reactor was counting down to doomsday throughout
the entire second half of the episode. The only way they could stop these
catastrophes was to eject the entire warp core or restore the containment
field. You would think that they could simply shut off the flow of antimatter
into the chamber (or at the very least, redirect it out into space), but it
appears that even if they do so, the warp core contains enough unreacted fuel
at any time to destroy the entire ship. It's a textbook example of extreme
excess reactivity._

This is completely ignorant. Given that there's no such thing as an antimatter
reactor, we have no idea how one works. Applying design principles from some
trivial mechanical system to a fictional science fiction super-reactor just
doesn't make sense.

~~~
kylec
Exactly what I was going to say. Maybe the warp cores are dangerous because
it's simply not possible for them to build one that's completely safe. It's
actually reminiscent of the accidents that we've had with nuclear power in the
last century - creating a reactor that won't ever go critical is something
that's only been possible recently.

Though I do have to admit the holodeck failed far, far too often.

~~~
wlievens
The holodeck is one of the most-abused plot elements in Star Trek. Basically
every time budget was short or the production crew felt like using other
costumes, they'd just use the holodeck as magical plot element. With grave
plot inconsistencies as a consequence.

~~~
philwelch
Hey, at least they stopped the TOS practice of using the "it's the
Roman/Nazi/postapocalyptic Cold War/Amerindian/Ancient Greek planet!"
principle to use other costumes.

------
RodgerTheGreat

      "How are you supposed to create drama and tension if the 
      technology never fails? My answer is that ... you need look
      no further than ... numerous Japanese animé series to see
      the proof."
    

It's probably unfair, but this part of the conclusion just jumped out at me as
a hilariously stereotypical "Internet Argument". It's almost like a godwin for
Sci-Fi.

~~~
jarin
I enjoyed the completely unnecessary diacritical mark over the 'e' in anime.
"Pretentious? Moi??"

~~~
Natsu
Actually, sometimes I wish we used accent marks more. You have no idea how
hard English is to pronounce until you try to teach the "rules" to someone
else.

I mean, one could claim that "ghoti" is pronounced the same as "fish."

~~~
philwelch
_I mean, one could claim that "ghoti" is pronounced the same as "fish."_

Yeah, if you ignore all the heuristics about where letters are placed in a
word. "gh" is only an "f" sound at the end of a word and "ti" is only a "sh"
sound in the middle of a word.

~~~
frobozz
What was that? I couldn't hear you over the coughing. Once I've sloughed off
this layer of mucus, it should quieten down.

------
sliverstorm
I've never really understood why it matters. I appreciate accuracy in a movie
or show based on something very closely tied to technology (for example, in a
movie titled "Hackers" I'd expect at least a little accuracy on the subject),
but Star Trek is obviously not a technical show. It's about the people.

~~~
jacques_chester
Look at the conclusion of the piece. He agrees: it should be about the
stories. His beef is with the writers lazily resorting to retarded engineering
time after time.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
Perhaps this stems from the fact that few writers also have an engineering
background, and as such don't look at the plots they assemble the same way we
might?

~~~
SkyMarshal
They're also under alot of time pressure to produce scripts so the filming,
and retake after retake, can get done. IANAE but I imagine for a weekly show
that's not easy. Having tried to both a regular blog and a book, it's harder
than it seems.

------
metageek
> _Worst of all, this flying disaster-in-waiting is supposedly the product of
> the finest engineers the Federation has to offer._

I've thought about this one before. Imagine how bad the _other_ ships must
have it. They must be failing all the time (not just when the cameras are on).
For Starfleet to operate it all, they must need a fleet of repair ships,
spacedocks with warp drive, which come along and rebuild the _USS Irreparable_
every time the captain forgets not to drag the boot disk to the Trash.

------
GrandMasterBirt
I'm sorry to all you who disagree. The guy is right. While his nitty gritty
details are wrong, lets look at a few pieces of empirical evidence.

An aircraft carrier with destroyed pumps, engines, everything, as long as the
structure is more or less ok, will stay afloat. Wait... An aircraft carrier
can withstand a nuclear missile, and then keep sailing (the people are going
to be dead through). This was proved in the 50s (old tech baby) when the
government tested nuking a retired navy fleet of carriers and destroyers to
see if they will sink. They didn't understand radiation, but the ships still
sailed home. 5% of the fleet was destroyed.

Lets look at the stealth bomber example as noted by btilly. While its true if
the computer dies, the plane falls like a rock. However the pilot can still
eject. The ejection mechanism is not linked to the computer except for maybe
the automatic mode.

I think the two "worstly" engineered vehicles are airliners and helicopters.
Small planes can land without power due to the aerodynamics and weight, as
long as hydrolics work. Airliners are not able to glide so well, nor are they
light.

Airliners though do still demonstrate the redundant designs, each critical
system has a backup which is a completely different in both their physical
location and approach to solving the problem. If one fails the other can take
over because a completely different set of conditions will cause the other to
fail.

I think Battlestar Galactica did a good job showing REAL engineering. Those
ships took a lot of pounding before they got destroyed. The only time the
battlestars were just easily obliterated (like the enterprise was in every
other episode) is when they were hooked up with a new computer system that
connected every part of the ship to itself (and the computer was compromised)
this was in the very first episode. Galactica survived BECAUSE it had all of
it's systems disconnected and redundant, so when some shut down, people took
over operations of that one back in manual mode. Hell part of the plot was
that galactica was being sabotaged. In startrek sabotage was "opse the ship is
going to explode now" while in galactica they just had some damage, or had
their fuel blow up, or something (can't remember 100% of the details) but
point being that you can't just blow the damn ship up. Maybe a civilian ship,
not the warship. The only stupid thing in galactica was the cylon battleships
had that central column which was succeptable to being blown up and destroying
the ship, and that resurrection ship which if destroyed would fuck up
resurrection for an entire cluster. I would have expected redundant
resurrection ships/hubs.

In any case, the most unbelievable part of this whole ordeal is that you have
a very large ship, full of civilians, armed to the teeth, the damn flagship of
the fleet. That is all. Since when does the united states (or any country
EVER) pack their destroyers or stealth bombers with civilians? Preach all you
want about "exploration", in a real scenario you would have a mostly unarmed
science vessel armed to the teeth with sensor gear, and a warship next to it
for protection. Hell maybe the science vessel docks in the warship most of the
time. The second an enemy approaches, the science vessel is already in high
warp with every bit of stealth engaged getting the hell away from there until
the warship signals them that it's safe to return.

~~~
philwelch
_Hell maybe the science vessel docks in the warship most of the time. The
second an enemy approaches, the science vessel is already in high warp with
every bit of stealth engaged getting the hell away from there until the
warship signals them that it's safe to return._

The _Star Trek: TNG_ term for this was "saucer separation". Not that it wasn't
woefully underused.

