I hate Star Trek fans doing this.

[abaris]

and one of the clerks in my wife's shop believes, with full-throated sincerity, that John Lennon is alive and is writing most of the charting pop songs of the present day.

Quite of an insult to John Lennon, by the way.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

and one of the clerks in my wife's shop believes, with full-throated sincerity, that John Lennon is alive and is writing most of the charting pop songs of the present day.

Quite of an insult to John Lennon, by the way.

I've never talked to this bloke about his particular mental aberration, but I'm sure he's able to rationalize how the same man who wrote 'Imagine' also wrote 'Shake It Off'.

Boru

[Jehanne]

The only thing that can be said about Star Trek is that is was popular and influential, but it was not a lab. Roddenberry was a story teller, and like any artist, they draw from prior and surrounding motifs.  I am fine with being a fan of si fi, and it is a great franchise most certainly, like Star Wars too, but please do not treat it like a religion and don't treat Roddenberry like a prophet.

There are nuts in every walk of life; sometimes, they are referred to as "stalkers".  Star Trek lives on; Tom's hardware has a great overview of the games of the franchise:

http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory...games.html

As a lifelong Trekkie, I was completely unaware of the 1971 game, as well as most of the others!  One game that they did not list is NetTrek, which I used to play online long ago before the invention of the WWW:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek

It's pretty much dead now; haven't played in many years.

[TheRealJoeFish]

I mean, Galaxy Quest was a rather well-done take on exactly what OP's talking about, yes?

[abaris]

I mean, Galaxy Quest was a rather well-done take on exactly what OP's talking about, yes?

Galaxy Quest was great in it's own rights. One of the select few well done persiflages of the series.

[The Grand Nudger]

Good sci-fi is never about the tech.  It's about how that tech affects people..individually, and collectively.   The accomplishments and failures of man.  Verne set his rocket in the aftermath of the american civil war, in which what we would call the military complex devises a gun and subsequent interpersonal relationships and manouvering between power players threatens the process.  His sub, ofc, has problems with the crew.  The Nautilus merely provides a manner of commentary on various political axes Jules wanted to grind regarding british expansionism in the middle east and India. What a person motivated by the loss of their family might do (and how it would affect them) if they could make unilateral moves against a real or perceived oppressor - role reversal.  1870's

Dicks scanners are a way to view and empathize for the abusers, addicts, and other forms of "human waste" (like himself) that society had, at that time...roundly demonized.  The conflict between the perceptions and interests of the state (and those who enforce them) with their own interests.  Flavored with a hefty dose of cynicism as regards the ultimate dependencies between drug warriors and the element which they profess to be eliminating.   1970's

The stories are prophetic only insomuch as they're really about us..in the here and now, and what will happen if we keep doing this or that.  Conveniently, in the case of the stories mentioned we did.  Did the authors know that we would?  No.  Does it matter?  No. I think Dick would have preferred a different future, whereas Verne was more clearly focused on the past and what he took to be the consequences of yesterdays mistakes in the context of what was then the exponentially growing power of scientific innovation. In either case the stories and authors were prophetic (in terms of tech..sure..but that;s just a plot device, more importantly in terms of the state of far reaching social and political affairs), in the only sensible meaning of that term.

(As a point of interest..this is -also- what biblical "prophecy" actually was. Socio-political commentary on then-current events and what they meant for affected people. Gods and magic drive that plot just like the Enterprise, handheld comms, and teleporters drive the other.)

[Galach]

Kate Mulgrew said that her favourite thing about playing Captain Janeway was how many young women were inspired to pursue careers in the sciences because of the character.  Nichelle Nichols planned on leaving the show in the second season to pursue a stage career until Martin Luther King asked her to stay in the role, as he believed Uhura was a crucial part of making African-Americans a visible presence on television screens.  James Doohan said his most meaningful act through playing Scotty was convincing a young female fan not to take her own life.  I think that's how Star Trek will be remembered in the future.  Not for its ability to predict broad technological trends or weird science, but for breaking down doors and inspiring people to do better for themselves.

[Alex K]

I agree. But still, Verne *also* was into the tech and fascinated by it . In 20000 leagues, the wide eyed descriptions of how everything works almost magically because of electricity, are striking (the book was written in 1870). I think reducing it to a political allegory would also be missing something

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not a reduction at all.  Yes, he was fascinated.  The setting of sci-fi is sci. The authors are nerdy as all get out (lol).  That's both why and how the genre works. It doesn't detract from (nor is it a detraction from) what the vehicle of sci-fi is used for. In Vern'es case, and particularly in the cases of 20k....the social message was more prophetic than the, as you put it, almost magical descriptions of how everything just worked because of electricity. People are impressed with the scuba analog...but forget that we're discussing an author who needed his characters free from lines attached to their diving helmets to drive the plot. So yes, fascination...but also narrative convenience and efficiency. Verne -may- have thought that scuba was possible...but maybe not. In the narrative, it's fully realized for reasons not at all related to it's scientific plausibility.

[Silver]

Useless thread.