Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
This type of diagnostic frustration is one that is familiar to anyone who has used
a piece of technology that isn't working properly. While the struggle with the
replicator in the video in question is exaggerated for comic effect well beyond the
circumstances of the original episode, the sentiment that it expresses highlights a
fundamental truth about our relationship to technology, especially when we don't
understand the underlying systems that we interact with. Replicators in Star Trek
are “black boxes”—their functions are opaque and almost magical most of the time.
It also highlights an important property of matter replication which we will see
recurring throughout all of our considered design fi ctions: that physical making has
nontrivial consequences that cannot be ignored. An error in a piece of software that
governs a digital system of some sort can be put aside until one is ready to deal with
it. An error in a replication system creates a material problem that must be dealt with
immediately, lest it spiral out of control and threaten one's safety in the physical
world.
In the “post-scarcity” economy of Star Trek, matter replication has taken the
place of most other industrial processes. The world includes portable replicators,
replication parlors, and industrial sized replicators, capable of creating large-scale
components for starships and other vehicles. At the same time, the replicator appears
to have reduced the need for designers: seldom do we see someone programming a
new design into the replicator. The central computer of the ship seems capable of
instructing the system to create any object that might not already exist in the system's
database, with only minor verbal specifi cations from a human interlocutor. The only
real limitation of the replicator seems to be whether or not it can be provided with
adequate energy to operate properly: in one of the sequels to TNG—
Star Trek:
Voyager
—replicator access is rationed due to an energy shortfall when the ship
fi nds itself stranded far from home.
8
Unsurprisingly, the reintroduction of scarcity
into the world of Star Trek results in a return to previous economic tropes including
black markets and gambling for replicator ration cards.
11.3.2
Transmetropolitan: The Maker
A stark contrast to the optimistic minimalist utopia of
Star Trek
, Warren Ellis
describes a disturbingly familiar, far-future dystopia in
Transmetropolitan
. Ellis's
graphic novel follows the exploits of Spider Jerusalem: a futuristic Hunter
S. Thompson-esque journalist whose commitment to ferreting out the truth earns
him the ire of the city's immensely corrupt police department and sociopathic
political administration. Part sociopolitical commentary, part gonzo reporting, and
part post-humanist rumination, Transmetropolitan envisions a future of radical
technological body modifi cation, rampant consumption, and hedonistic abandon
where nothing is too shocking or too extreme. Against this landscape, Ellis explores
