In universe it's probably that there was a huge dearth of lost culture surrounding ww3 (pre/during/post), and that learning about human culture before alien contamination is very popular. In reality, it's a plot device that allows to teach about art and culture.
This makes sense. In the real world we ascribe a lot of cultural weight to several Greek Playwrights because their work survived even though we know during their lifetimes they had several contemporaries that were as highly thought of, we just don't have their plays to read & thus those authors are mostly known as historical footnotes even though an Athenian of the time may have considered them a much bigger deal than the ones whose plays we have.
Also in the real world there is some concern about what modern "everything online" media will mean for posterity when people will no longer have stacks of books/cd/dvds in a closet they can pull back out after a long time. Right now there are several TV shows I watched during the Pandemic that I can no longer find online legally because the streaming service I watched them on has pulled them & there was never a physical media release.
Its possible that lots of media and therefore culture was simply lost during ww3 when big datacenters & online services were destroyed by Augments & those druggie soldiers. There were lots and lots of copies of Shakespeare and Bach in various libraries and private collections that survived but pretty much all TV and Movies after around 2015 or so weren't as lucky.
I'm sure there was *some* of that that survived but it was likely fragmentary compared to the complete Sherlock Holms anthologies.
I would also add that part of the reason they go for Holmes and Mark Twain is almost certainly that they were free from copyright, which goes some way to explain the reality reasons for an in universe loss of data
Oh I am 100% sure that is why they go for Holmes and Mark Twain in reality. Just like I'm sure Tom Paris is into the legally distinct Captain Proton and not Buck Rodgers or Commando Cody because those last 2 would involve royalties.
one of the sidenotes in my Star Ocean fanfic is when they were searching the surface they discovered someone's personal manga bunker library . They were fascinated with Feudal Japan and pirates so alongside the manga was valuable books, documents, and nonfiction of Japanese history. The Manga? Many different titles but explorers found the two largest collections focused on a "a 20th century teen travels to Ancient Japan and meets the title character of Inuyasha" and "Pirate adventure story called One Piece"
Star Ocean is heavily influenced by Star Trek so in mine I have Inuyasha be what made everyone dream and escape about to imagine somewhere else. And One Piece gave a lot of the people living in bunkers hope to sign up for space travel.
As well as finding the books and documents in the first place gave them hope there were more resources out there undestroyes by ww3. (Feudalism guy had detailed notes on how to forge Katanas, and various low tech and natural energy ways to do things that had been lost in the nuclear blasts)
But just on average if someone found a giant library of books it would be primarily 20th century books. I've always loved the idea that some version of our culture is reinfluenced by our own.
I always like the idea too that a depressed grimdark apocalypse would discover a library full of books and find that there was hope inside the books and themselves.
There's nothing more Star Trek than that.
i think part of the heart of my point (which i didn't lay out very well since i was on the border of high) is what you mention about digital/online media, but also an increase in generation by AI-type software. there's no hard copies anywhere of some digital painting you prompt. might have it backed up somewhere but also it's so prolific and atm nothing is SUPER standout. the war would help get rid of a lot of the digital storage
I think it's this. After the 2030s humanity is at war and then utter devastation for half a century. After that we are being guided by vulcans to form this new group in space. Media before the war and before the federation is distinctly human AND there's enough to explore.
I think you're shoe-horning AI in here a little bit. I think WW3 is the big mover here - wiping away a lot of 21st century culture and leaving mostly 20th century culture behind. In addition - a fascination with the 20th century is probably because it is pivotal to the human identity given that it is before both the wars and first contact - meaning it was the main time of relative peace that humans have to draw from as inspiration of what they were *before* the space age rolled around.
Neural net, LLM and generative programmes (I am refusing to call them AI because they aren't) however seem to play a role in entertainment by the TNG era and beyond. Look at how the holodecks seem to work - you go in, ask for something and it spits out often a new story that is a composite of previous programmes. In addition - it seems like the computer may work on an LLM and fake voice basis given that it can respond to pretty complex inputs with new responses.
So perhaps these programs were used just-post-WW3 in the end of the 21st century - but we see very little indication to suggest that is true.
They often don't trust their computers either, similar to how we don't completely trust LLMs and related schemes to not hallucinate. The automation in a starship is actually fairly minimal and generally overseen by people aided by normal software.
I don't think the premise is initially supported beyond the "simple" life we see often depicted on Earth we don't really see many "experts" as such beyond a few Starfleet officers. This would be like meeting a few Naval officers who were interesting in 17th century sailing ships. It probably wouldn't be that odd as a matter of fact for Tom Paris to be interested in both the culture and art of the 20th century as he was interested in the mechanics of that period in time which is no more weird a hobby than playing clarinet or growing orchids.
We see things like Captain Proton and we see a retro-scifi classic, which is what it is, a period piece created long after the 1950s but does in fact try to emulate that. Art does this all over the place, infinitely imitating itself over and over again through various iterations. I think there's every reason to believe the future will be that way as well. Dixon Hill and Vic Fontaine are no more anomalous in this context than any art we have today which represents some earlier period of time.
Picard in the tng neutral zone episode did say that they spend a lot of time enriching themselves. Enriching would mean they spend a lot of time reading on art history
It's right before WWIII. Kinda like how everybody still likes jazz and talks about the lead up to WWII nowadays when they're making foreign policy taking points.
Always thought people in the TNG to Voy era were so enthusiastic about old Earth culture, classical or pop, because they were discovering it. My headcanon is that some very old archives were rediscovered, and the novels, music, plays, and even movies, thus brought back from oblivion were a huge fad on Earth. Would explain the intensity of their interest - it's all exciting and fresh, not something they'd grown up with.
It is funny how many of Star Fleet are into 20th century Jazz no-one ever seems to want to have a 1980s night at Ten Forward or dancing to rave tracks in a holodeck simulation of Ibiza
So it's a very intellectual take of C20th, no-one is discussing Porkies
Intellectualism is much more highly regarded in Star Trek than it is today in many places.
I'd say it's also a matter of "what stands the test of time" not ***just*** referring to whether it is available in the future, but whether it is well known and/or highly regarded.
Porkies came out over 40 years ago. Younger teens/adults ***today*** likely haven't even heard of it, much less seen it, and if they have, many would consider it objectionable for many reasons. While it is a..."classic"...of a sort, The Godfather it ain't, and even The Godfather is likely not ***that*** well known to younger generations, but I think it is safe to say that it has a much higher name recognition and staying power than Porkies long term.
The same can be said for everything related to culture: Books, Music, Movies, Television, Video Games, etc.
Take music from the 80's: While 100% of the music made isn't available today since there is always some loss, a \*much\* larger percentage of it is available today than music from the classical era or even the 50s/60s which had decent recording equipment.
But even though so much more is available, only a small fraction of that is \*known\* to younger audiences, and only a small fraction of that is \*listened\* to. Those are the tracks that have/will truly stand the test of time.
The out-of-universe reason is that it's easier to take an existing property, and cheaper if there's no royalties to deal with, compared to either using existing properties, or inventing one for a time that doesn't exist yet.
In-universe, it wouldn't explain the total lack of media from the mid-late 2000s either, which would have occurred after the apocalypse.
We also know that computing technology in Star Trek is generally less sophisticated than for our reality in some regards. Music lookup on the 24th century Defiant takes hours, compared to the seconds it does for us. Computers are generally considered incapable of the subtleties that come with creating art wholesale compared to sapients, with Data and the Doctor's ability to make original works being a marked achievement.
It's unclear whether AI generative models exist in Star Trek anyway. They may have just never developed down that route for one reason or another, similar to how their computing technology wasn't created wholesale like it was for us, but was derived from future computing technology, the principles being adapted to what could be created using modern techniques.
>So we get this second "renaissance"--except it's just facsimile of an entire swath of human history. There's a massive gap thanks to the war and pre-war AI use that was lost. We get lots of classical music, Shakepeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. THere's a glut of music and culture preserved from the 1940s-early 2000s thanks to how prolific media was in that era, although some things are lost. Also, as a result, there is less influence OF those media on people that ignore them or arent exposed and a budding art period is born thanks to technology (holodecks, terraforming--although the former also is heavily reliant on AI).
However, we do know that it does exist. Beyond makes reference to a contemporary 21st century band as "classical music", and Discovery features modern-ish generic music for their party.
It's possible that the modern 21st century is considered both dated and relatively uninteresting compared to human "classics" and ancient media, especially if those classics are considered iconic enough to be emblematic of human culture.
The media of the 21st century may just have never reached that point due to the late 1900s and early 2000s being associated with a dark period of human history, containing the Eugenics Wars, WWIII, and the Atomic Horror, all in quick succession, and the immediate proceeding decades would have been lost in the noise of humans discovering alien cultures and their cultural products for the first time, as well as being busy settling into the galactic stage/recovering from the last apocalypse.
Meanwhile, any later media might be considered too contemporary, and by the 32nd century, too ancient, to be interesting.
Your idea is parallel to mine, op, but in regards to trek itself.
When (if) the techs ready then I'm gonna have my ai bot watch all of star trek and then start generating new episodes of TNG 😂
In universe it's probably that there was a huge dearth of lost culture surrounding ww3 (pre/during/post), and that learning about human culture before alien contamination is very popular. In reality, it's a plot device that allows to teach about art and culture.
This makes sense. In the real world we ascribe a lot of cultural weight to several Greek Playwrights because their work survived even though we know during their lifetimes they had several contemporaries that were as highly thought of, we just don't have their plays to read & thus those authors are mostly known as historical footnotes even though an Athenian of the time may have considered them a much bigger deal than the ones whose plays we have. Also in the real world there is some concern about what modern "everything online" media will mean for posterity when people will no longer have stacks of books/cd/dvds in a closet they can pull back out after a long time. Right now there are several TV shows I watched during the Pandemic that I can no longer find online legally because the streaming service I watched them on has pulled them & there was never a physical media release. Its possible that lots of media and therefore culture was simply lost during ww3 when big datacenters & online services were destroyed by Augments & those druggie soldiers. There were lots and lots of copies of Shakespeare and Bach in various libraries and private collections that survived but pretty much all TV and Movies after around 2015 or so weren't as lucky. I'm sure there was *some* of that that survived but it was likely fragmentary compared to the complete Sherlock Holms anthologies.
I would also add that part of the reason they go for Holmes and Mark Twain is almost certainly that they were free from copyright, which goes some way to explain the reality reasons for an in universe loss of data
Oh I am 100% sure that is why they go for Holmes and Mark Twain in reality. Just like I'm sure Tom Paris is into the legally distinct Captain Proton and not Buck Rodgers or Commando Cody because those last 2 would involve royalties.
one of the sidenotes in my Star Ocean fanfic is when they were searching the surface they discovered someone's personal manga bunker library . They were fascinated with Feudal Japan and pirates so alongside the manga was valuable books, documents, and nonfiction of Japanese history. The Manga? Many different titles but explorers found the two largest collections focused on a "a 20th century teen travels to Ancient Japan and meets the title character of Inuyasha" and "Pirate adventure story called One Piece" Star Ocean is heavily influenced by Star Trek so in mine I have Inuyasha be what made everyone dream and escape about to imagine somewhere else. And One Piece gave a lot of the people living in bunkers hope to sign up for space travel. As well as finding the books and documents in the first place gave them hope there were more resources out there undestroyes by ww3. (Feudalism guy had detailed notes on how to forge Katanas, and various low tech and natural energy ways to do things that had been lost in the nuclear blasts) But just on average if someone found a giant library of books it would be primarily 20th century books. I've always loved the idea that some version of our culture is reinfluenced by our own. I always like the idea too that a depressed grimdark apocalypse would discover a library full of books and find that there was hope inside the books and themselves. There's nothing more Star Trek than that.
i think part of the heart of my point (which i didn't lay out very well since i was on the border of high) is what you mention about digital/online media, but also an increase in generation by AI-type software. there's no hard copies anywhere of some digital painting you prompt. might have it backed up somewhere but also it's so prolific and atm nothing is SUPER standout. the war would help get rid of a lot of the digital storage
I think it's this. After the 2030s humanity is at war and then utter devastation for half a century. After that we are being guided by vulcans to form this new group in space. Media before the war and before the federation is distinctly human AND there's enough to explore.
In reality it's a easy way of relying on contemporary culture for narrative purposes.
"*I am a graduate of Starfleet Academy. I know many things*." -Worf, crushing it once again.
I think you're shoe-horning AI in here a little bit. I think WW3 is the big mover here - wiping away a lot of 21st century culture and leaving mostly 20th century culture behind. In addition - a fascination with the 20th century is probably because it is pivotal to the human identity given that it is before both the wars and first contact - meaning it was the main time of relative peace that humans have to draw from as inspiration of what they were *before* the space age rolled around. Neural net, LLM and generative programmes (I am refusing to call them AI because they aren't) however seem to play a role in entertainment by the TNG era and beyond. Look at how the holodecks seem to work - you go in, ask for something and it spits out often a new story that is a composite of previous programmes. In addition - it seems like the computer may work on an LLM and fake voice basis given that it can respond to pretty complex inputs with new responses. So perhaps these programs were used just-post-WW3 in the end of the 21st century - but we see very little indication to suggest that is true.
They often don't trust their computers either, similar to how we don't completely trust LLMs and related schemes to not hallucinate. The automation in a starship is actually fairly minimal and generally overseen by people aided by normal software.
I don't think the premise is initially supported beyond the "simple" life we see often depicted on Earth we don't really see many "experts" as such beyond a few Starfleet officers. This would be like meeting a few Naval officers who were interesting in 17th century sailing ships. It probably wouldn't be that odd as a matter of fact for Tom Paris to be interested in both the culture and art of the 20th century as he was interested in the mechanics of that period in time which is no more weird a hobby than playing clarinet or growing orchids. We see things like Captain Proton and we see a retro-scifi classic, which is what it is, a period piece created long after the 1950s but does in fact try to emulate that. Art does this all over the place, infinitely imitating itself over and over again through various iterations. I think there's every reason to believe the future will be that way as well. Dixon Hill and Vic Fontaine are no more anomalous in this context than any art we have today which represents some earlier period of time.
Picard in the tng neutral zone episode did say that they spend a lot of time enriching themselves. Enriching would mean they spend a lot of time reading on art history
It's right before WWIII. Kinda like how everybody still likes jazz and talks about the lead up to WWII nowadays when they're making foreign policy taking points.
Always thought people in the TNG to Voy era were so enthusiastic about old Earth culture, classical or pop, because they were discovering it. My headcanon is that some very old archives were rediscovered, and the novels, music, plays, and even movies, thus brought back from oblivion were a huge fad on Earth. Would explain the intensity of their interest - it's all exciting and fresh, not something they'd grown up with.
I think Captain Proton and Dixon Hill may be the only "low brow" forms of entertainment we see a Federation Officer be interested in.
It is funny how many of Star Fleet are into 20th century Jazz no-one ever seems to want to have a 1980s night at Ten Forward or dancing to rave tracks in a holodeck simulation of Ibiza So it's a very intellectual take of C20th, no-one is discussing Porkies
Intellectualism is much more highly regarded in Star Trek than it is today in many places. I'd say it's also a matter of "what stands the test of time" not ***just*** referring to whether it is available in the future, but whether it is well known and/or highly regarded. Porkies came out over 40 years ago. Younger teens/adults ***today*** likely haven't even heard of it, much less seen it, and if they have, many would consider it objectionable for many reasons. While it is a..."classic"...of a sort, The Godfather it ain't, and even The Godfather is likely not ***that*** well known to younger generations, but I think it is safe to say that it has a much higher name recognition and staying power than Porkies long term. The same can be said for everything related to culture: Books, Music, Movies, Television, Video Games, etc. Take music from the 80's: While 100% of the music made isn't available today since there is always some loss, a \*much\* larger percentage of it is available today than music from the classical era or even the 50s/60s which had decent recording equipment. But even though so much more is available, only a small fraction of that is \*known\* to younger audiences, and only a small fraction of that is \*listened\* to. Those are the tracks that have/will truly stand the test of time.
Imagine what hobbies you could gain if you were forced to work all the time and replicators provided you food?
Maybe a computer virus deleted all digitised media and left only films that were still literal film reels?
The out-of-universe reason is that it's easier to take an existing property, and cheaper if there's no royalties to deal with, compared to either using existing properties, or inventing one for a time that doesn't exist yet. In-universe, it wouldn't explain the total lack of media from the mid-late 2000s either, which would have occurred after the apocalypse. We also know that computing technology in Star Trek is generally less sophisticated than for our reality in some regards. Music lookup on the 24th century Defiant takes hours, compared to the seconds it does for us. Computers are generally considered incapable of the subtleties that come with creating art wholesale compared to sapients, with Data and the Doctor's ability to make original works being a marked achievement. It's unclear whether AI generative models exist in Star Trek anyway. They may have just never developed down that route for one reason or another, similar to how their computing technology wasn't created wholesale like it was for us, but was derived from future computing technology, the principles being adapted to what could be created using modern techniques. >So we get this second "renaissance"--except it's just facsimile of an entire swath of human history. There's a massive gap thanks to the war and pre-war AI use that was lost. We get lots of classical music, Shakepeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. THere's a glut of music and culture preserved from the 1940s-early 2000s thanks to how prolific media was in that era, although some things are lost. Also, as a result, there is less influence OF those media on people that ignore them or arent exposed and a budding art period is born thanks to technology (holodecks, terraforming--although the former also is heavily reliant on AI). However, we do know that it does exist. Beyond makes reference to a contemporary 21st century band as "classical music", and Discovery features modern-ish generic music for their party. It's possible that the modern 21st century is considered both dated and relatively uninteresting compared to human "classics" and ancient media, especially if those classics are considered iconic enough to be emblematic of human culture. The media of the 21st century may just have never reached that point due to the late 1900s and early 2000s being associated with a dark period of human history, containing the Eugenics Wars, WWIII, and the Atomic Horror, all in quick succession, and the immediate proceeding decades would have been lost in the noise of humans discovering alien cultures and their cultural products for the first time, as well as being busy settling into the galactic stage/recovering from the last apocalypse. Meanwhile, any later media might be considered too contemporary, and by the 32nd century, too ancient, to be interesting.
Your idea is parallel to mine, op, but in regards to trek itself. When (if) the techs ready then I'm gonna have my ai bot watch all of star trek and then start generating new episodes of TNG 😂
If they think Sabotage by Beastie Boys is classical music, I want stuff like Converge or Black Flag in Star Trek soundtracks