I feel like there’s a difference between a worker robot deciding it doesn’t want to live or die at the command of its humanoid creators, or a collections of nanites establishing an emergent intelligence, and a Federation Starship locking out its crew of 1,014 people and seeking out a white dwarf star like a salmon swimming upstream so it could give birth to an entirely new lifeform.
Even setting aside the ethical implications of using a ship capable of such a thing as transport, and putting into dangerous combat situations, is Starfleet prepared for similar events to happen on all their ships? What happened to the emergent lifeform after it left the Enterprise? Is it still out there? Why did it look like a screen saver from 1992?
But the crew of the Enterprise are fundamentally uncurious about the wider implications of the event.
“Amazing, isn’t it captain? An entirely new lifeform brought into being by the very ship we sail through the stars.” “Quite so, Number One. Tell me, what’s our next stop?” “We’re going to rendezvous with the USS Hood to pick up lieutenant Ro; she just finished her advanced tactical training.” “Excellent! We’ll have to throw her a ‘Welcome Back’ party in Ten Forward.”
I feel like there’s a difference between a worker robot deciding it doesn’t want to live or die at the command of its humanoid creators, or a collections of nanites establishing an emergent intelligence, and a Federation Starship locking out its crew of 1,014 people and seeking out a white dwarf star like a salmon swimming upstream so it could give birth to an entirely new lifeform.
Even setting aside the ethical implications of using a ship capable of such a thing as transport, and putting into dangerous combat situations, is Starfleet prepared for similar events to happen on all their ships? What happened to the emergent lifeform after it left the Enterprise? Is it still out there? Why did it look like a screen saver from 1992?
But the crew of the Enterprise are fundamentally uncurious about the wider implications of the event.
“Amazing, isn’t it captain? An entirely new lifeform brought into being by the very ship we sail through the stars.”
“Quite so, Number One. Tell me, what’s our next stop?”
“We’re going to rendezvous with the USS Hood to pick up lieutenant Ro; she just finished her advanced tactical training.”
“Excellent! We’ll have to throw her a ‘Welcome Back’ party in Ten Forward.”
We’ll have to have it somewhere else. They’re still cleaning up bits of that guy who’s head I exploded in there.