posted
I would say that holodecks are available to the civilian populace but are probably not as heavily used by 24th century Humans as they would be by 21st century Humans.
Transporters are definitely available as Sisko has talked about his family "beaming in the furniture".
My guess is that things like tricorders would be generally unnecessary to the average person, but are likely available to police, medical personnel, and any other specialized field that would need them.
posted
Well, we've seen a number of civilian ships running around with all the basics -- transporters especially, and also tricorders on occasion.
After all, there was that nutcase woman in DS9's "Paradise" who wanted to get away from all the technology, so it's GOT to be widespread...
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posted
One wonders about commtech especially. Surely there would be a pressing need for Universal Translators in the civilian life. Where are these? Tastefully implanted out of sight?
And what is being used instead of telephones? Are portable comm devices simply out of fashion (replaced, perhaps, by comm systems built in to the furniture and the cityscape), or are they just hidden well? Or is *communicating* out of fashion?
What about mass media, commercial or otherwise? Are they in fact absent? And does this lead to people ceasing to act uniformly, so that everybody does *not* rush to buy new commtech just to be "compatible" with the Joneses?
posted
There are a couple of very minor references throughout Trek to various forms of media, but no one's ever told a story that involved one, even tangentially. (Well, I take that back. The episode of Voyager where the Doctor tried to publish his "holonovel" was sort of about this, but then, it was only about the experience of creating it, not of the experience of watching it.)
As for future cellphones, here I guess we see the limitations of science fiction. Cellphones and their ilk are arguably the most important technology to come along in some time. The difference between being able to communicate from an isolated location and being able to communicate from anywhere is really pretty epic, and is liable to mutate any society which experiences it in wildly novel ways.
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posted
Would not everyone presumably have personal "video-phones" for two-way communications? You know, something similiar to a ships viewscreen (on a much smaller scale) or the captains personal computer or a comm station. Seems that whenever captain Sisko was talking to his dad from DS9 or the SB his dad was using some sort of comm station/"video phone"...
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posted
I'd think that would be a standard in every home. Sort of a combination of computer and "video-conferencing" system that we have now adays. Several older SciFi Role-Playing Games have had something similar w/the home entertainment center also being your video phone and computer all wrapped up in one large communications center that can fit into a small apartment.
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Phasers and tricorders were available to at least some elements of civilian society in the 2260s. The miners on Janus VI were armed with phaser I, and there seemed to be no evidence that the colony was a military outpost.
As for tricorders, Jadzia mentioned owning a TOS-era model in "Trials and Tribble-ations." Given the era, the symbiont's host would have been either Emony or Audrid, and I don't remember either one of them being mentioned as being in Starfleet.
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