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So in the Immortality thread I suggested talking about what the Trekverse would be like if they kept and used everything they found. So here's the chance to do that...

1) Functional immortality.

In Unnatural Selection, they use a sample of Pulaski's DNA as a pattern to transport her, repairing her own DNA and undoing the de-ageing. The changes required for this were quite simple - a few modifications to the transporter that took very little time.

This grants immortality. Federation citizens can now sample their DNA at age 20, put it in stasis, and whenever they feel they're getting on a bit they just perform this process and have a 20 year old body again.

One possible downside - does the process reset the person's memory and personality to the way it was when the sample was taken? The episode does not seem to make this completely clear.

Even assuming it did, the possibilities are quite startling. People would be able to "back themselves up" by taking a quick DNA sample before away missions, battles, or other dangerous events. If they are injured or killed, simply beam up another version of yourself.

2) Personnel replication.

In Second Chances we find that atmospheric on a planet can cause the transporter to duplicate a person. Assuming this effect became reproducible, Federation personnel could simply beam up copies of themselves when required. Egotistical persons might do this all the time, with hundreds of copies of themselves wandering around.

The above method also implies this - if you can beam a copy of a person up from their DNA, then why not beam up multiple copies of them?

3) Ultra-transwarp.

Federation ships are capable of travelling at infinite speed. The downside is that your turn into that most evolved of all creatures, the giant newt. But that happens slowly, and the process is easily reversed. Federation ships can now reach any point in the entire universe instantly.

4) Beaming through shields.

Both Section 31, the Dominion, and even normal Starships have been able to do this on occasion (Relics). Shields are thus really obsolete in Star Trek. Combat should largely be a matter of who has the longest ranged transporters, because as soon as you're in transporter range you beam a photon torpedo in the enemy's engineering section and they die.

5) Transwarp beaming.

But then ships are pretty much obsolete anyway, since the technology to beam across multi-lightyear distances is commonly available.

6) Telekinetics.

In Plato's Stepchildren, we find that injections of a certain substance cause ordinary Humans to gain extremely powerful telekinetic abilities. This should be routinely available within the Federation.

7) Time Travel.

Time travel is a commonplace technology in Trek, any warp capable ship can do it. Therefore never mind the "temporal cold war". The Federation should be more akin to the Time Lords.

8) The Psychotricorder.

It is impossible to lie or withhold information in the Federation. Even if you don't remember the info yourself, the psychotricorder can tell. All inquests, court proceedings, etc are obsolete. All criminal investigations should simply be a matter of interviewing all the suspects until you find the guilty one. Politics as we know it should be impossible - no politician would ever be able to make any statement that isn't objectively true, even if they believe that statement to be true.

9) Gender reversal.

Bashir was able to flip Quark's gender quite easily. Although they don't go into the details of just how 'complete' the change is, the Federation is a society in which anybody who dislikes their gender can simply change it. There would people who choose to do this much as we choose to change hair colour or fashions.


Anybody with any more implications of these, or any more examples of forgotten technology?

Genesis. Admittedly the sole example of a full-scale deployment didn't work out too well, but the cave was showing no signs of instability, and it was designed to be deployed on pre-existing planets rather than inside a nebula.

Well, Doctor Ira Graves was able to download his brain into Data's positronic brain. Admittedly getting a poistronic brain to function is pretty tricky, but Doctor Bashir was able to do... something with Vedek Bariel. So it's entirely possible to download your mind into a very advanced android body.

In the ST III Novel, they revisit the Genesis cave and it's all fallen apart - it's their first clue that something's wrong. But not canon, sure.

But even if they could never do another thing to it, Genesis would make a hell of an anti-planetary weapon. Imagine firing one at the Founder's homeworld, for example.

About downloading brains... they've already got that technique! Remember the TOS episode What Are Little Girls Made Of, they find an alien machine that can do it. So that's another path to eternal youth and immortality for the Federation folk.

I wonder if what you term "personnel replication" - i.e., duplication via transporter - would be regarded with the same general disdain shown by UFP citizens toward mechanical cloning, as evidenced in TNG: "Up the Long Ladder" et. al. It certainly wasn't in TNG: "Second Chances," but TBF that was a case of duplication by accident rather than by intent.

For all Riker's whining about how clones would "diminish him" in Ladder, he didn't seem all that diminished by Tom's existence. He was pissed off about it, sure, but got over it in a matter of a day or three.

Hell, whatever his attitude is, it's ridiculous to assume that everyone else would feel the same way.

For that matter, isn't there a whole species that's supposed to be made of clones in the Federation? Arcturians, I think?

Graham Kennedy wrote:In the ST III Novel, they revisit the Genesis cave and it's all fallen apart - it's their first clue that something's wrong. But not canon, sure.

But even if they could never do another thing to it, Genesis would make a hell of an anti-planetary weapon. Imagine firing one at the Founder's homeworld, for example.

Yeah, at worst you've got a torpedo that can render a planet unusable.

About downloading brains... they've already got that technique! Remember the TOS episode What Are Little Girls Made Of, they find an alien machine that can do it. So that's another path to eternal youth and immortality for the Federation folk.

Gah, good catch, Graham! oh, and Sargon, too, from Return to Tomorrow had a technique for that, too. They've got brain downloading coming out of their ears!

I seem to recall Mudd's androids promised it to Uhura, too. A positive cornucopia of download options.

Graham Kennedy wrote:I seem to recall Mudd's androids promised it to Uhura, too. A positive cornucopia of download options.

You are correct on that. Good lord, at this rate the entire Federation population could become nigh-immortal androids!

Also worth considering that Mudd's planet was described to be a treasure trove of advanced technology, far beyond anything the Federation had at the time, and able to build things in virtually unlimited quantities. And all of that was still presumably just sitting there after the androids were defeated. There should have been a major technical revolution over the next few years.

Graham Kennedy wrote:For all Riker's whining about how clones would "diminish him" in Ladder, he didn't seem all that diminished by Tom's existence. He was pissed off about it, sure, but got over it in a matter of a day or three.

Hell, whatever his attitude is, it's ridiculous to assume that everyone else would feel the same way.

For that matter, isn't there a whole species that's supposed to be made of clones in the Federation? Arcturians, I think?

a) In "Ladder," it seem implicit (if not explicit - I don't recall) that the Mariposans could only practice wholesale cloning outside the auspices of the UFP.

b) Riker's dichotomy of reaction could very easily be explained by the difference in situation - in "Ladder," it was a philosophical argument; in "'Chances," he was actually looking at an extant human. I fully support the right to choice, but not the right to murder 8-month-old infants.

c) I recall absolutely nothing about a Fed culture of clones.

There's a planet of clones in the old Star Wars EU. I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but one of them became a Jedi in Luke's new Academy. Maybe that's what you're thinking of?

Found it, it was the Arcturians

In an interview appearing in the March 1980 edition of Fantastic Films, entitled "The Star Trek Costumes", Fletcher revealed information about the Arcturians and the design of their costumes:

"Only one society was militaristic in our sense of the word. That was the Arcturians, the cloned people who all looked alike. The only way to tell them apart was the coloring of their uniforms."...

The 1979 documentary The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture confirmed the militaristic intent for the Arcturians, where it was specifically mentioned that they provided the "infantry for the Federation", and which was reaffirmed decades later in an article appearing in the January 2002 edition of Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 9, entitled "Who is that Alien?", which stated:

"A race of clones from the densely populated Arcturas [sic]. Fred Phillips and Robert Fletcher speculated that they provided the backbone of the Federation infantry – not least because, if needed, they could clone billions of new soldiers overnight.".

It stuck in my mind because although that aspect never made it into canon, it seemed to me that they took the idea and used it for the Jem'Hadar.

Graham Kennedy wrote:Found it, it was the Arcturians

In an interview appearing in the March 1980 edition of Fantastic Films, entitled "The Star Trek Costumes", Fletcher revealed information about the Arcturians and the design of their costumes:

"Only one society was militaristic in our sense of the word. That was the Arcturians, the cloned people who all looked alike. The only way to tell them apart was the coloring of their uniforms."...

The 1979 documentary The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture confirmed the militaristic intent for the Arcturians, where it was specifically mentioned that they provided the "infantry for the Federation", and which was reaffirmed decades later in an article appearing in the January 2002 edition of Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 9, entitled "Who is that Alien?", which stated:

"A race of clones from the densely populated Arcturas [sic]. Fred Phillips and Robert Fletcher speculated that they provided the backbone of the Federation infantry – not least because, if needed, they could clone billions of new soldiers overnight.".

It stuck in my mind because although that aspect never made it into canon, it seemed to me that they took the idea and used it for the Jem'Hadar.

Hmm, interesting and informative read. Thanks, Graham. Kind of... odd-seeming to me. But yeah, I can definitely see this changing into the Jem'Hadar.

The Extended Universe stuff has some really weird aliens in the Federation - even on Kirk's ship. It's a real shame the budget and tech never existed to show them.