You aren’t out of order and you are correct that Robert April was the first Commander of the Enterprise. Great first post Strahven, and welcome to the forum!
Welcome aboard. You are correct on all counts. That youtube video doesn’t embed, but click here to meet Commodore April.
I loved the continuation of the discusion guys! this is such a great arc!
I regards to an AI/Human Romance that has a happy ending, I would qualify Athena/Helo as being a mostly happy ending.
How could we have missed that one untill now! :eek:
After discussing Data and Tasha Yar’s little trist, Audra mentioned she remembered some other situation in sci fi where an AI had a relationship with a woman and couldn’t provide the emotional support for her. I wonder if she was actaully thinking of Data again in the TNG episode In Theory where another officer has a crush on him and they attempt to date for a short time. Anyway the crux of the episode can be summed up here:
I would imagine though that this kind of dynamic would have been played out before in scifi as it seems to be an extreme play on the stereotypical trope of the emotionally repressed male and sensitive female.
Anyway also remindes me of the old (if politically incorrect) joke:
HER DIARY
Sunday night – I thought he was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a bar to have a drink. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment.
Conversation wasn’t flowing so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk, he agreed but he kept quiet and absent.
I asked him what was wrong – he said, “Nothing.” I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said it had nothing to do with me and not to worry.
On the way home I told him that I loved him, he simply smiled and kept driving. I can’t explain his behavior; I don’t know why he didn’t say, “I love you, too.”
When we got home I felt as if I had lost him, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there and watched TV.; he seemed distant and absent.
Finally I decided to go to bed. About 10 minutes later he came to bed and to my surprise he responded to my caress and we made love, but I still felt that he was distracted and his thoughts were somewhere else.
I decided that I could not take it anymore, so I decided to confront him with the situation but he had fallen asleep. I started crying and cried until I too fell asleep. I don’t know what to do. I’m almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else.
My life is a disaster.
HIS DIARY
Today the Yankees lost, but at least I got laid.
Great post Strahven, and welcome to the forum!!
Yup, whether it’s official Star Trek canon or not, in my Trek world view Robert April was always the first captain the constitution-class Enterprise. (well I guess it is canon actually cuz he was portrayed in that animated series episode).
There’s a couple Star Trek novels were Captain Robert April’s character is fleshed out. “Final Frontier” is one them (not to be confused with fifth star trek movie).
In Final Frontier April has a lot of interaction with James T Kirk’s dad (security chief) George Kirk. Great book.
Regarding Audra’s description of the original plans Roddenberry had for Star Trek (USS Yorktown, Jose the navigator etc etc.): There’s a number of old-timer Trekkies like myself in the GWC Community who are quite familiar this book: The Making of Star Trek.>>
It includes all kinds of notes about that stuff Audra mentioned. This book was published many years before things like Star Trek movies or ST TNG ever came to be, so it was a big of Star Trek preciousness we Trekkies would cling too. Sat on my beside in a place of honor as a kid.
I was yelling at my I-pod, but they never mentioned it. So I thought I probably should.
Coincidentally, in reference to AI and world domination, I just stumbled upon this:
“European scientists have embarked on a project to let robots share and store what they discover about the world. Called RoboEarth it will be a place that robots can upload data to when they master a task, and ask for help in carrying out new ones.”
Read the BBC’s full article here.
Eeep.
RE:
Totally seconded!
The novels Final Frontier (see above) and Best Destiny by Diane Carey both feature Robert April, good stories as well dealing with a Jim Kirk who has yet to fully realise his potential and we learn a lot about his father which isn’t canon but more satisfying than the version seen in the recent movie.
Totally agree. I loved Best Destiny. Love the relationship between George Kirk and his son.
Helo and Athena aren’t the only cyborg/human couple to have a happy ending, I’d say Baltar and Caprica Six do OK at the end. 
Hi Crue, great cast. One thing that resonated with me was the discussion in how one art form doesn’t replace another if there is still value in the earlier form. Sean used the example of digital fine arts, but it made me think of a related example, or two.
In the 50’s acrylic paint emerged as a fine art medium. To this day some people still don’t believe its as ‘true’ a form of painting as using oil paint - but there are huge advantages (no linseed oil, no turpentine, faster drying). However, there’s still immense value in oil-based paints, and I don’t think we’re ever going to see oil paints disappear.
What’s funny is that in the 1500’s when oil painting was developed, the primary method of mixing paints was something called egg tempera, where egg yolks are used to suspend the pigment. I can imagine that purists in the 1500s had the same objection to those new-fangled oil paints. What’s even cooler is that Sean’s comment about something not disappearing if it has value still holds. A great example of a contemporary master that worked in tempera was Andrew Wyeth.
…and on a different note, I always think of Jane from Xenocide (the third book in the Ender’s Game series) by Orson Scott Card when I think of emergent AI. Really similar to the concept of emergent AI in the internet, but on a galactic scale. For me, its one of the more memorable Ghosts in the Machine.
Keep up the great work guys!!
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I loved the point that AI doesn’t necessarily have to be a computer-based intelligence, that it could be organic. I immediately thought about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Though the creature is made from corpses, his mind is a blank slate and he learns language from listening to others and educates himself in secret. Audra made a point about this deep-seated fear that our own creations will overpower us and Frankenstein perfectly embodies this fear.
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On the topic of human/AI “relations”-- romance, sex, etc.-- I think there is a huge stigma to overcome for something like that to happen. In Battlestar Galactica, there’s the huge problem of the toasters having decimated humanity and the associated bias against having relations with one of “them,” but even without something like that, I think we would have a hard time accepting human/AI relationships as something more than – forgive me-- elaborate, high-tech masturbation. Even though Tasha Yar and Data get it on, it’s done while Tasha is intoxicated. Even though there are a handful of holodeck “romances” they are regarded as less than mature replacements for real human relationships. In short, they are regarded the way a sexually “enlightened” society would regard masturbation: necessary, not wrong, but not on par with interaction with another human.
I also thought about the film Lars and the Real Girl, about a socially and emotionally stunted man who develops a relationship with a sex doll. Even though his family and friends begin to regard “Bianca” as something like a real person, it’s well understood that they are really interacting with an aspect of Lars, a reflection of his needs, not an independent entity. In the end, Lars matures enough to have a relationship with a real woman.
In Roman mythology, though, there’s the story of Galatea, a statue created by Pygmalion. He fell in love with her and Venus gave her life and Pygmalion married her… one example of a successful human/AI relationship, maybe?
In comic books, a couple of human/AI marriages: in Marvel, Scarlett Witch and The Vision were married, but I don’t recall many details about that; in DC, Red Tornado was married or had a relationship with a human woman, but I honestly can’t recall if he was an android that because human-like or a human who was inside a mechanical body.
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On the topic of repression of the “other”-- and humanity’s poor track record… The crew talked about Bicentennial Man and Andrew’s eventual acceptance by humanity as “human.” If you recall, he is only accepted as human when he allows his positronic brain to begin to decay, suggesting that one of the things we fear – and therefore discriminate against-- is that which is perfect. Consider other examples of “perfected” or at least “improved” humans-- Gary Mitchell in Star Trek’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before”-- he becomes an object of fear and then becomes monstrous. Would he have become destructive if the Enterprise crew had not looked on him with fear and horror? In comics, the X-Men are feared and hated because they are homo superior, again suggesting that our bigotry is really based on an inferiority complex.
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One more thing: considering benevolent vs evil AI, don’t forget Joshua from Wargames. He was going to start thermonuclear war, but only because he thought it was a game.
Love the discussion…!
What is this quote from?!?!?!
Just me!
(baltar)
Ohhhhhh! But why does it seem so familiar to me? Or is maybe it’s just one of the voices in my head…bwahahaha!
You’re not alone, Gryper. I was thinking the same thing and then I realized it was Chuck voicing Watson’s response. At first I thot it was a ‘The Last Starfighter’ quote but it didn’t make sense. Then I thot it was Kevin Smith or something.
This blogger beat ya to it, Chuck.
http://blog.kazbad.com/2011/01/watson-what-is-destroy-all-humans-alex.html
Sports Night is one of my favorite shows of all time, and probably my favorite comedy.
This is the cold open from one of my favorite episodes, along with some clips from later:
And yes, when originally aired, there was no laugh track. Then when Comedy Central aired it in reruns, they added one it, which was horrible.
Oh, and here is one with Robert Guillaume:
Guess I should replay last week’s cast. I was so sure it was a movie quote too but couldn’t place it. Glad it wasn’t just me! 
Just wanted to comment on the Torchwood talk. It was a bit of a yell at the ipod moment (only silent cause i was in Borders at the time). Aliens are known to the whole world by the time Children of Earth comes about. By that point the Earth has had multiple contacts with aliens through Doctor Who which exists in the same universe as Torchwood.
a few examples are
[spoiler] Every Christmas Special Earth gets invaded to some degree. A space ship crashes thru Big Ben in the third episode of season 1. At the end of season 2 you have the Battle of Canary Warf which had London flooded with Dalek and the world flooded with Cybermen. Then at the end of Series 4 the whole earth was taken by the Dalke. [/spoiler]
Also as i remember it Torchwood is sort of like a NSA an organization that folks knew existed but “officially” didn’t exist for many years.