Memory Alpha’s riot timeline:
Early in the morning of September 1st, a fight between a guard and a dim sparked a riot, wherein the ghosts led by B.C. attacked the Sanctuary guards and quickly captured the Sanctuary Processing Center as well as the rest of the district. Armed with the weapons of the overpowered guards, the ghosts took six center employees hostage, including Vin, Calvera, and Lee. They were joined by “Gabriel Bell” and Michael Webb, who acted as the voice and face of the riot while dealing with police negotiator Detective Preston.
Chris Brynner, who owned Brynner Information Systems (which operated Channel 90 on the net), was convinced by Dax to break the law and to reconnect the Processing Center after the police cut it off. Reconnected on September 2nd, many Sanctuary residents (such as Henry Garcia) were able to tell their stories of imprisonment to the outside world. As a result, the American public became aware of the great injustice that had been hidden from them and further riots broke out in Sanctuaries across the US.
Despite protests from Detective Preston, the governor of California ordered National Guardsmen to retake the Sanctuary by force on September 3rd at 0500 hours. In the melee, hundreds of Sanctuary residents were killed, including B.C. and Michael Webb. “Gabriel Bell” was shot, protecting Vin and the other hostages (all of whom remained unharmed).
I always find how current (for the time) ideas are used to shape the vision of the future. In the 90s cable was still extremely relevant but the internet wasn’t. So the idea of “channels” was mapped to it. And flat panel screens hadn’t become widely used (or even invented) as well as compute was in big gray boxes so that’s how they continued big honking computers. Even though it was supposed to be 30 years in the future from when the show was written.
You saw the same think in ToS and Star Wars too (mainly the tech difference between the OT and the prequels)
AOL was still pretty widely-used then, and it used the concept of “channels” so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. I suppose the writers figured that paradigm used for the early internet would stick.
Alternatively, they were accidentally right in that the internet, streaming specifically, is looping back around to become cable TV again.
I was telling my daughter a couple of days ago about how the internet was before the web and how you had to have separate software for IRC and for MUDs and for FTP and for USENET and for Gopher and so on, and then I suddenly realized that’s what it’s gone back to. A different app for everything.
OMG you’re right. I didn’t even think of it that way. Except now it’s worse because every little thing has its own pointless app rather than just things on different protocols.
The protocols used to be the point. Now folks consider that noise and variations in access and experience cause more friction than cohesion.
YouTube has “channels”
Every computer on TOS fits into room sized cabinets and has rows of blinkenlights on the front panel. This is what computers looked like when the show aired.
The blinkenlights are there to report the contents of the registers in binary code. This helps a lot when you are debugging by single-stepping the entire computer one instruction at a time. Any programmer today would think this is incredibly quaint.
The show completely missed the microcomputer revolution that was brewing in the real space program at the same time they were on the air. There was a period where Apollo Guidance Computer was consuming nearly the entire national supply of integrated circuits.
The blinkenlights are there to report the contents of the registers in binary code. This helps a lot when you are debugging by single-stepping the entire computer one instruction at a time.
And now we have redstone torches for this.
The blinkenlights are there to report the contents of the registers in binary code…Any programmer today would think this is incredibly quaint.
True!
…
I still want one, though. They just look so cool.
by the time DS9 was aired, there were very informative blinkenlights on modems, and the Be (or was it Bee?) had a set of averaged ones measuring things like CPU and memory utilization.
Up to this day computers still come with one for disk IO. And it’s still useful.
only if you have one disk… then the light stops being useful, because you don’t know which disk is I/O’ing, and needed to debig further…
I suppose the modern equivalent would be looking at machine code with a hex editor.
Ooh. That’s an interesting thought!
Maybe with an external pixel display.
Any programmer today would think this is incredibly quaint.
Like using a keyboard :D
True, although I was already on the internet in 1995 when this came out and it was clear to me even then that the writers didn’t really do their research. But yeah, for most people it was still something that said “future.” The web itself had only been invented three years before. The dot-com bubble wouldn’t start for another couple of years. So it was this weird in-between time where the internet (or net or information superhighway as we now no longer call it) was the hot new thing but most people really didn’t know what it was.
I always think that every time I watch the original alien movies. It’s this big technologically advanced ship in the distant future, and yet all the screens are still CRTs.
Part of that was a design choice of course but they tried to make it a little bit more modern in the later films.
Same with Star wars of course as well.
and Star Wars too (mainly the tech difference between the OT and the prequels)
My headcanon between OT and PT was the galaxy was kind of in a technological recession because the Empire nationalized a some industries and hoarded the high end tech for building their massive new navy and military, kinda how resources were rationed in WW2. It’s even stated in some sources that the rebellion had to use cheaper or older equipment/vessels because they weren’t as well-funded
i think they just called it the ‘net’. i remember thinking it weird they didnt use the word ‘internet’
They did, but so did that Sandra Bullock movie. I think it was supposed to be the internet.
“Hey, I was in that movie, too! They used to put my face on the cover…Of course, Sandra did do most of the work on that one…”
Wrong Sandra Bullock movie.
Oh gosh. I’ve already established myself as a die hard defender of all Sandra Bullock movies that aren’t “All About Steve”… But I forgot about “The Net”. Uh… I like my answer better.
There are no wrong Sandra Bullock movies.
Except “All About Steve”. That one is wrong.
Spoiler for 'All About Steve'
It was not.
The one where she forces her employee to marry her is pretty cringe, oh, so is that one where you can’t make noise or the boogie men will get you. Edit - or was it you can’t open your eyes? Yes, I think that was it. The Bird Box?
Great points.
I’m realizing a picked a poor hill to defend.
Though I’ll admit I did enjoy both of those.
I did enjoy the HR nightmare one. I wanted my time back after watching The Bird Box.
And yet, both were horrible and not worth watching.
Come to think of it, that describes a huge number of movies she’s been in.
How dare you?! Lol.
I’m can’t decide if this is a joke or not, and whether it’s better that way or the other way around.
She was certainly a lot prettier.
— From the Net?
— No, from the Web.
Net channel 90 is fake news. I always tune my giant computer with small screen to channel 36.
I mostly watch Network 23. On channel 23.
The only problem I have with them is they don’t seem to be covering that story about people exploding in their homes…
Oh, that Chris Brynner!
“Did you get jacked?”
In even the horrible dystopian future Star Trek writers came up with, the homeless were still treated better than they are today in the real world. At least they’re given shelter, food, and a place to live in DS9. We have an equivalent level of homelessness IRL now, but instead of camps, the government has made it illegal for them to exist, and raids their encampments, steals their few possessions, and/or imprisons them for slave labor.
For most of this year, it has been just a meme, but people have gotten more and more reasons to actually riot. That makes me sad. Please don’t actually riot.
but people have gotten more and more reasons to actually riot. That makes me sad. Please don’t actually riot.
So despite knowing that there are reasons to riot — even good ones — you’d prefer that society stay in the state that it is in?
“Pls maintain status quo, I’m scared of change”
No, but Star Trek shows us we can change for the better. I’m not saying I have a solution to offer, but violence shouldn’t be encouraged or pushed higher up in the list of things to try…
Whops I responded to a wrong comment before.
Anyway.
Lt. Commander Data : But if that is so, Captain, why are their methods so often successful? I’ve been reviewing the history of armed rebellion, and it appears that terrorism is an effective way to promote political change.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Yes, it can be. But I have never subscribed to the theory that political power flows from the barrel of a gun.
Lt. Commander Data : Yet there are numerous examples when it was successful; the independence of the Mexican state from Spain, the Irish Unification of 2024, and the Kenzie Rebellion.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Yes, I am aware of them.
Lt. Commander Data : Then would it be accurate to say that terrorism is acceptable, when all options for peaceful settlement have been foreclosed?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Data, these are questions that mankind has been struggling with throughout history. Your confusion is… only Human.
Well, you replied to the original poster so that’s hardly a mistake :)
The thing is that I agree. I don’t see Star Trek being a realistic future in any way, unfortunately. Now, the Terran empire on the other hand, minus the space faring stuff? Can’t be too far away. Doesn’t change my thoughts about violence though.
Based on nothing else than “nothing ever goes well”? You do remember that even in Star Trek, the early 21st century was garbage, historically?
There’s the post-atomic horror, but we get to meet a few aliens who will help us slowly get back on track.
Just like with the bad predictions about the internet, if one were to jokingly interpret ST as prophecy, one could say that maybe they had the gist of it, but the details wrong. It’s probably not Vulcans we’ll meet, but perhaps we can manage to upturn the prohibition of ecstasy, LSD, shrooms etc and through that, we’ll notice a marked difference in the world when people aren’t getting drunk anymore and fighting, but rolling, being nice to everyone, etc. Deep cultural paradigm shift that’s comparable to meeting Vulcans (who are more or less human).
Maybe don’t give into the apathy and it won’t win as easily.
This is a far larger discussion than I’m willing to get into, and I know it’s not one that’ll cheer me up too, so I’m going to bow out of it while in agreement with
don’t give into the apathy and it won’t win as easily.
That’s why in a many countries we still have a right to vote. :)
Elections don’t make a democracy. Fair ones can do, though.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-parliament-elects-xi-jinping-chinas-president-2023-03-10/
That’s why in a many countries we still have a right to vote. :)
Because I said you shouldn’t give into apathy…? No. Because you think people haven’t given into apathy? “It’s not as shit as it COULD be”? Because I think that is a somewhat strong indicator that you’re already an apathetic pessimist.
“I’m not willing to get into it” <— case in point
You do realize that the Bell Riots are what led to that change. Right? It also took a Eugenics War, and WWII to get to the Federation and Starfleet.
Yes, and I also realize that there’s a message about being better, even if we’re going to have ups and downs. Past that, it’s an entertainment product: what tells you that hypothetical Bell Riots wouldn’t just lead to increased surveillance and armed law enforcement?
that hypothetical Bell Riots wouldn’t just lead to increased surveillance and armed law enforcement?
It almost certainly would. The Bell Riots were successful because they exposed the conditions in the camps which earned sympathy from the masses. Our society has no sympathy.
But it made things better!
(Until WWIII a few years later.)
I am legitimately frightened that it might happen. Though, in a sense, it would be epic if the Irish came together and told the rest of the world what they thought with Guinness and rude gestures before it happened.
Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
– Dr. Martin Luther King, speech to Grosse Point High School. March 14, 1968.
https://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/
Something for you to consider.
Lt. Commander Data : But if that is so, Captain, why are their methods so often successful? I’ve been reviewing the history of armed rebellion, and it appears that terrorism is an effective way to promote political change.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Yes, it can be. But I have never subscribed to the theory that political power flows from the barrel of a gun.
Lt. Commander Data : Yet there are numerous examples when it was successful; the independence of the Mexican state from Spain, the Irish Unification of 2024, and the Kenzie Rebellion.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Yes, I am aware of them.
Lt. Commander Data : Then would it be accurate to say that terrorism is acceptable, when all options for peaceful settlement have been foreclosed?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Data, these are questions that mankind has been struggling with throughout history. Your confusion is… only Human.
Narrator: and that one post on Lemmy changed the time line - there were no Bell Riots, and mankind did not change their outlook on compassion and social unity.
Instead, everyone spend all of there time on Lemmy
As far as I’m concerned, this can still happen. The date might even be right, but the year certainly isn’t.
IMO, DS9’s creators just gave us more credit than we deserved about the technological progress we would make between when the episode aired and when the bell riots were supposed to start.
It’s been a while since I watched the episode, but if I recall correctly, they had technology in the episode that we do not currently have.
I’m still convinced this is pretty much inevitable given the current state of the world, it’s only a question of when.
“Hmm. Computer says no.”
I don’t want riots to break out today. Or ever, really.
