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Star Trek & Star Wars favors machines over human beings

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    Star Trek & Star Wars favors machines over human beings

    While I very much enjoy both Star Trek and Star Wars for their sense of its futuristic depiction of humanity, taking place on various planets and worlds, full with a sense of wonder and excitement, the one thing I don't like about both of them is its favoritism of machines over human beings. For example, in Star Trek: The Next Generation during Picard's academy years, he is severely injured when he engages in a fight between three Nausicaans, where one of them stabs him in the back, severely injuring his heart, forcing him to be fitted with an artificial heart. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Nog's leg is shot by one of the Jem'Hadar soldiers and Dr. Bashir is forced to amputate it, and Nog is later fitted with a prosthetic leg. In Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back, both Anakin and Luke loses their good hand in lightsaber duels and are fitted with mechanical hands. The thing is, both universes have established that they have cloning technology and both had their wars against this technology, for instance, in Star Trek it was the Eugenics War and in Star Wars it was the Clone Wars. But despite their dark history with cloning technology, why were these aforementioned characters never fitted with clone limbs as opposed to mechanical ones? Picard, Anakin, and Luke appear to like having mechanical limbs or parts, particularly Luke when he receives his new mechanical hand, even though it looks indistinguishable from a real hand and has sensors that enable him to feel cold, heat, and pain. With the exception of Nog, none of them has ever felt initially uncomfortable about having an artificial limb or part.

    To me, this represents the coldness of both Star Trek and Star Wars. In fact, I'm surprised that that both universes never had a cybernetic war, particularly in Star Trek (that is, before they encountered the Borg). And even after the Federation encounters the Borg, why didn't they feel a little bit concerned about Data becoming like a potential Borg after their ordeal with them? Anyway, this led me to think that both universes favors more the machine than the man. If I were Picard, Nog, Anakin, or Luke, I would very much prefer to have a clone limb instead of a cold mechanical limb. Just leave the mechanical limbs and parts for constructing androids, not people because it sounds inhuman and cruel. Cloning technology is now a reality and even though its in its infancy, it shows great promise to provide people with lost limbs. In science fiction, people have often worried about cloning technology and the potential dangers of having an army full of cloned soldiers, but personally, I find an army of cybernetic beings to be far more frightening than cloned soldiers because they are machines. Cloning is no different than identical twins when they are born. I prefer cloning technology to cybernetics because we could reach a point where our machines could eventually turn against us like in Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica. I just pray that this never happens because this causes me great concern. Am I the only one who feels this way?
    Last edited by Whitestar; 08 June 2007, 03:08 PM.
    Have you ever remembered what life was like before you were born? That's how it will be like after you're dead.

    #2
    you cant just create clone limbs, you have to create a clone being then take his limbs and to do that would be against his rights as a being. i do not think that both series favor machines over humans, they just show that in the future man and machine are finally in communion with each other

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      #3
      Its a pretty common concept. Goes back to the tales of Pirates with wooden legs and hooks. Its a sacrifice for Heroes, and something to make villains look more evil...
      Science Fiction is an existential metaphor; it allows us to tell stories about the human condition.

      Isaac Asimov once said individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

      [/QUOTE]

      SENFORUMS.com

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        #4
        It's probably easier to get the mechanical limbs, with a cloned organ you have to sit around waiting for it to grow. Whereas with the machine organ, it's just plug and play, no waiting. Also you can put cool stuff in your machine parts, like a built in swiss army knife. Picards heart had to be replaced every so often, did it not? I would think 24th century tech would have been beyond that.
        All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing-Edmund Burke

        The question which once haunted my being has been answered. The future is not fixed, and my choices are my own... and yet, how ironic! For I now find, I have no choice at all! I am warrior... let the battle be joined.-Dinobot-Code of Hero

        Don't blame me, I voted Cthulhu

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          #5
          Machines maybe a necessity even to you one day. Don't underestimate their power.

          On the other hand, "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that".
          "I have never understood why it should be necessary to become irrational in order to prove that you care... or why it should be necessary to prove it at all."

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            #6
            the technology did back great advances, which would make sense if people continue to try to solve more problems.

            and I love that ds9 had that story with Nog struggling over the loss of the leg. It made it realistic, and would be how a soldier would feel after being injured in a war. Everything wasn't all happy afterwards.
            sigpic

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              #7
              Unlike some movies show, WAR IS NOT FUNNY.
              "I have never understood why it should be necessary to become irrational in order to prove that you care... or why it should be necessary to prove it at all."

              Comment


                #8
                There was an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation where Worf received a cloned spinal cord to treat paraplegia that resulted from an accident.

                If I recall correctly, the cells that were cloned came from Worf. They did not have to clone a whole body.

                However, the episode was about medical ethics. The doctor who came up with the technology to clone body parts quickly was testing some of her other theories on live human subjects without consent. That and the fact that the procedure done on Worf was only experimental had Crusher disapproving of her methods.
                Last edited by tlw; 14 November 2012, 08:00 AM.

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                  #9
                  Cybernetics is simply a science-fiction staple. It's also going to be a lot faster than cloning new organs, limbs, tissues, or whatever. If the prosthetic is indistinguishable from the original, why bother with the cloning process? In Star Wars, there may not be a capability of cloning parts of people, but only whole people. In Star Trek, cloning has been frowned on, largely due to the Eugenics Wars. Screwing around with DNA lead to genetic supermen who tried to conquer the world. Anything involved with messing with DNA (cloning included) totally freaks out humanity in Star Trek's future.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Whitestar View Post

                    why were these aforementioned characters never fitted with clone limbs as opposed to mechanical ones?
                    If the area around a severed limb or organ suffers necrosis before the damage can be repaired, it can cause problems with the nerve endings, surrounding tissues and blood supplies. It might be impossible, even in the age of Trek and Wars, to attach a cloned limb once the tissue has atrophied beyond a certain extent, and if there is extensive nerve damage, it might also be impossible to make the afferent neurons respond to external stimuli, much less react to efferent transmissions.

                    In the case of Nog, his injury was sustained on the battlefield, leading me to believe that his wound was cauterised at the site of the injury. To attach a cloned limb would have involved expunging the damaged tissue and attempting to reattach nerves that may have been damaged beyond repair.

                    In the case of Picard, he was stabbed in the heart and needed an immediate replacement. We have seen in Trek that cloning is not an immediate procedure, and it's very likely that without a false heart, he would have died whilst waiting for a cloned organ to be grown.

                    I can't speak for Star Wars as I'm not that big a fan.
                    Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.


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                      #11
                      So....using technology to improve the quality of life of organics, in universes where a) the lone artificial being has to be defended as equal on court; and b) where droids are subservient appliances owned as property by organics -- somehow favours tech over human?

                      Wat.
                      "A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After Life

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Actually I think you are all wrong in the case of Nog. His replacement leg (unlike Luke’s replacement hand, which was clearly shown to be mechanical in nature) was specifically referred to as a “bio-synthetic limb” which would seem to clearly imply some kind of artificially grown limb—i.e. a biological rather than mechanical replacement. I do find it interesting, however, that Dr. Bashir refers to the bio-synthetic limb as having “artificial” muscle tissue. This might suggest that the replacement limb is not truly organic (like in the sense a cloned limb) but rather some other kind of bio-engineered matter that looks and functions very much like real bone, muscle and skin tissue but is actually synthetic. But even if this is the case, it still sounds to me like it would fall more closely into the category of a biological rather than mechanical replacement.

                        Originally posted by The Urban Spaceman View Post
                        In the case of Nog, his injury was sustained on the battlefield, leading me to believe that his wound was cauterised at the site of the injury. To attach a cloned limb would have involved expunging the damaged tissue and attempting to reattach nerves that may have been damaged beyond repair.
                        In “The Siege of AR-558” Dr. Bashir tells Quark that there might be complications, that Nog had suffered severe thermal damage to his femoral motor nerves and as a result they might not be able to stimulate artificial muscle tissue but they wouldn’t know until after the surgery had been preformed. Clearly though this did not end up being a problem as Nog’s new leg worked just fine.

                        Originally posted by blueray View Post
                        I love that ds9 had that story with Nog struggling over the loss of the leg. It made it realistic, and would be how a soldier would feel after being injured in a war. Everything wasn't all happy afterwards.
                        I really appreciated that too. It was certainly one of the few examples in Star Trek where a character had to deal with the repercussions of an injury beyond the episode where the injury occurred. In most cases of injury in Star Trek someone ultimately just waves some “works-like-magic”, “insert techobabble here” device over the injury and it’s instantly healed and the person goes on his or her merry way as though nothing had ever happened. Technically though, Nog was not actually dealing with lingering medical issues related to his replacement leg in “It's Only a Paper Moon”, rather he was suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and trying to come to terms with his own mortality.

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