[UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well he is substantially more compact than a ship's mainframe and still superhumanly intelligent.

I think a more important in universe reason is that Data was willfully created via stable technology rather than one of the ubiquitous miracles of "evolution".
I all but negated my ST headaches by just pretending each episode occurs in its own parallel ST universe.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Are you making the case that a Star Trek ship is sapient/superhumanly intelligent? In one episode, Data has to go to court to be declared a person. The judge called this "unprecedented." If they already had sapient, super-intelligent ship computers, this wouldn't be "unprecedented." Either they would know that he was property, like a ship computer, or they could have known that he was not property (hence why they do not build sapient ship computers), and Noonian Song was a jerk for building this miniaturized ship-level AI....

I see one mistake in your logic. Just because Data was the first to legally declare personhood has little bearing on what other Starfleet A.I.s are sapient.

The Federation's insane moral superiority and biochauvenism, hell, humanoid bigotry, would make ship computers considered property regardless of any hypothetical behavior.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I see one mistake in your logic. Just because Data was the first to legally declare personhood has little bearing on what other Starfleet A.I.s are sapient.

The Federation's insane moral superiority and biochauvenism, hell, humanoid bigotry, would make ship computers considered property regardless of any hypothetical behavior.

On what do you base all of this? Are you suggesting that Gene Rodenberry intended to show us a transhuman future where ship-level AI is unrightly enslaved, but is largely okay with it? What about the episodes where you have genuine AI run amok? How does the Federation avoid this?

I think it's more accurate to say that Gene Rodenberry never intended to show his ships as super-intelligent, that Data was the only AI the Federation had ever developed at that point, and the implication of super-intelligent ship-AI is more writer-screw up than writer-intent.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Are you making the case that a Star Trek ship is sapient/superhumanly intelligent?

Nah. Just that it could be if they allowed that. Of course since AI is a crapshoot, Data's stability is also another selling point. I mean superhumanly intelligent and crazy doesn't work out so well.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Nah. Just that it could be if they allowed that. Of course since AI is a crapshoot, Data's stability is also another selling point. I mean superhumanly intelligent and crazy doesn't work out so well.

So why not just destroy Data? Or Lore? The answer given in the series is because they're unique. Why allow sapient holograms on their ship? It seems really inconsistent to know you have the capacity to have super-intelligent and malevolent AI on your ship, and then to give people a toy that can create super-intelligent and malevolent AI. Furthermore, in VGR, which wasn't the most well-written series by any stretch, they regularly imply that the Doctor was never intended to work this way.

I think you're reading a lot into this that was never intended by the author, in an attempt to turn it into something more like the Culture. Which is cool, if you want to meld the Culture with Star Trek, I think you can make the case that you can do that. I think it's a neat idea. But I don't think you have enough ground to shoot down someone else's idea over it. If we're talking about "being true to the series," if you value that kind of thing, you're pretty far off base.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

On what do you base all of this? Are you suggesting that Gene Rodenberry intended to show us a transhuman future where ship-level AI is unrightly enslaved, but is largely okay with it? What about the episodes where you have genuine AI run amok? How does the Federation avoid this?...

Who cares what he wanted, intended, or imagined? We're discussing what occurred on screen.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Who cares what he wanted, intended, or imagined? We're discussing what occurred on screen.

You may be, I am not. Look at the original topic. This is not a random "Ooo, let's talk about Star Trek in general" thread. This is a request by Phantasm on how he can model Star Trek. There are lots of answers, but you and David Johnston2 are insisting on your vision over his, which isn't helpful.

I think it was John Wick that pointed out that when someone asks for help, you should try to give them the help they asked for, not interject your personal preference. That is, if I ask the forum for a beer recommendation, people shouldn't jump on and say "Ugh, I hate beer! You should drink wine instead!"

If someone says "I'd like to run something like Star Trek, but I don't want it to be exactly Star Trek, and I'm trying to figure out what TL to run it as. After some discussion, I think I like TL 10^ best." You do not try to "prove him wrong" by citing your personal interpretation of what Star Trek should have been. That's bad form.

[kdtipa]

Seems like this conversation is getting a little heated. I'm no stranger to getting frustrated, so I get it. I'm going to try to post without inciting argument. :)

I think it's probable that it doesn't really matter what tech level the campaign is. If the available tech is from such varied TLs, as a GM I think I might just provide the category list, and define what each TL is. And I'd probably use custom Legality Classes too for some of the technology that's outlawed.

Just a personal addition: I would define the campaign to not include the possibility of time travel. It happens often enough in Star Trek, but... it's a huge pain. Just a recommendation.

As for Phasers... I agree with many of the other posters that this (and the other technologies) suffered from filling whatever role the writers needed at the time. I'd be tempted to just pick a basic blaster or laser as the base to get useful numbers for gameplay and add a stun setting. I think I'd probably leave out the disintegrate setting... mostly because "one shot instant death" means it's way too easy for the main characters to die too. One bad die roll means that character is gone. It might be something normal to Star Trek, but when it's entirely in the control of the writers, it can be used however they like. When characters have access to everyday weapons that can do it, the bad guys have access to it easily too, and there's no reason to skip using it... characters will die a lot.

So for phasers I recommend sticking with something simple.

And ships... well... I don't know the spaceships rules well enough to advise you on those.

Good luck on defining your setting.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

I think it's probable that it doesn't really matter what tech level the campaign is. If the available tech is from such varied TLs, as a GM I think I might just provide the category list, and define what each TL is.

This is *always* true. Numerical TLs are actually pretty useless, it's the descriptive paragraphs about what is and is not available in your particular campaign setting that matter. This is true even in historical games, given that not everything comes available in the same year, or in every place on the planet at once. It's often useful to not bother to assign a number and just call it TL (campaign name). It doesn't even mean you can't use many of the numerical rules, you can have TLworldname+1 just as meaningfully as you can add 1 to a numerical TL.

[Fred Brackin]

Probably far more important as a measure of Federation computer's complexity is not those computer's tendency (or lack there of) to say "Me! Me! Me! I'm a _Person!_" but their ability to successfully answer requests for aid such as "Computer, tell me how to solve this situation.".

They do the latter all the time. _Very_ complex computers that are not independently sapient are more than possible. They are also almost certainly more desirable.

It's fairly indisputable that the Federation has very advanced computers. It's also a matter of record that multiple psychopathic sapient computers have existed. If your goal in building computers is to make a problem-solving machine that does what you want rather than create a "special friend" who might go crazy and try and kill you then computers with independent personhood are not the be all and end all of this technology.

We describe Star Trek as "safetech" frequently as if they just didn't do certain things because they're touched in the head. To the contrary, their history shows multiple examples of technologies that are _not_ safe to use. The federation avoids these technologies. It doesn't mean they're primitive.