Why dosent the Fed "exploit" alien tech?

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

I was watching an old TNG episode a few days when I realized that you never see the Federation taking advantage of all the ancient alien tech that seems to be lying around/near their territory. We KNOW that such advanced alien technology exists; in fact we need only look at a few episodes to see concrete examples of the superior alien technology (the Iconian teleporters come to mind). We also know that at LEAST 4 to 5 space faring Races/Civilizations that "disappeared" (Who are these people.... the Orions ) are known to the Federation.

1. Iconians
2. Tkon Empire
3. Promillians
4. Menthars
5. Dyson Sphere Builder's (could have been built by the Tkon's or Iconian's......... so this "race" is only a possibility)


We know the Fedeation knows all this, but I have to to hear of any Federation or Starfleet agency dedicated to the locating and analysis of such ancient artifacts. Do they not see the value? Even the "primitive" Menthars had technology, the Aceton Assimilator, which could have been useful for the Fed, I mean this technology almost depopulated a Galaxy Class Starship after almost 1000 years of inactivity.

In my opinion it is simply sheer stupidity that Star Fleet or the Federation dosent have an IPX equilvent (IPX was an agency in Babylon 5 dedicated to the finding and exploiting of ancient alien technology) or a program dedicated to gaining technological advancements (even from races with technogical superiority and vast databases, like the borg..... just imagine what Starfleet could learn if they accessed the Borg "Library of Congress".

[Stormbringer]

IPX was a corporation with heavy government ties as a nitpick.


Seriously, it's mostly the Federations own stupidity. It's probably some archeological finds preservations laws. The UFP has shown over and over again that they'll screw it up. Any in universe reason is going to be dumb; nothing that would make sense in the real world.

[Patrick Degan]

Why doesn't the Federation exploit alien tech, eh? "Because they're stupid" is a nice quick answer for a nice quick laugh. But consider how difficult it really would be to reverse-engineer a piece of alien technology.

Take the Iconian Gateway system, for example. Essentially, a direct hyperspatial dimension bridge linking point A to point B with no respect to the intervening distance between either. Persons can see to the other side of the space bridge and step directly through to the destination. The first question any research team would have to tackle are the basic principles of the device. How does the dimensional bridging occur? What powers it? How can it be sustained? How can it fix on a given space/time locus? How much information does the control computer require? It does not help that this is also essentially a lost technology. The only two known working examples of the Iconian space bridge were destroyed by seperate Federation and Federation/Jem'hadar teams; in both instances to prevent their capture by an enemy faction. No research information or data exists on either device. There are no records, at least none that have been recovered to even provide a basic description of the technology.

The Federation does not even have knowledge of the basic principles of such a device from which to begin any research programme. The only other known example of any such device is the Guardian of Forever time portal, and Federation researchers have no solid data on how it functions. The similar-in-principle Atavachron device was destroyed when the planet Sarpeidon's primary star went supernova, and the Enterprise landing party which visited the planet briefly did not collect enough data on that device before being compelled to depart the system ahead of the supernova blast.

Even if the Federationists knew the basic principles behind the space bridge, it is likely that Federation science is nowhere near up to the level required to support any attempt to construct such a device.

Given all these conditions, reconstructing an Iconian space bridge would be about as feasible as Leonardo daVinci trying to build his own nuclear reactor —even if a time traveler handed him a complete set of blueprints to one.

Just about the same set of difficulties would prevent any practical exploitation of unknown alien technologies produced by a science beyond that of the Federation.

[MKSheppard]

Given all these conditions, reconstructing an Iconian space bridge would be about as feasible as Leonardo daVinci trying to build his own nuclear reactor —even if a time traveler handed him a complete set of blueprints to one.

Just about the same set of difficulties would prevent any practical exploitation of unknown alien technologies produced by a science beyond that of the Federation.

Actually, all these examples were destroyed very quickly. I wouldn't be
surprised if a LONG TERM scientific survey of alien artifacts yielded some
surprising results, such as new ideas on how to do things, etc etc. Sure,
you wouldn't be able to reproduce them right away, but you could get
IDEAS from them....

[data_link]

Even if the Federation was too stupid to reverse engineer the alien tech (probable, given that reverse engineering is no easy process), why don't we ever see them using the devices that are already there? I mean, they were designed for human use, and figuring out their control principles can't be that hard (indeed, with the iconian gateway, they did it during the course of the episode), so why not use the devices they already have?

At this point, "because they are stupid" sounds like the only reasonable explanation.

[NecronLord]

IIRC the iconican gatway ep picard and little trained minions destroyed the gatway to prevent the romulans getting it? why not simply have a poton torp beamed down and roll it through onto the Romulan ship. (and he ended up there, and saw it beforehand so it clearly goes to nearby ships.)

[Alyeska]

I think the Dyson Sphere is the single biggest mistake. That thing should have been MASSIVELY important. With a structure like that and seemingly indestructable, it should have been featured in the Dominion war even.

[NecronLord]

Maybe they couldn't get back onto it.

[paladin]

IIRC the iconican gatway ep picard and little trained minions destroyed the gatway to prevent the romulans getting it? why not simply have a poton torp beamed down and roll it through onto the Romulan ship. (and he ended up there, and saw it beforehand so it clearly goes to nearby ships.)

I like it!!

[Patrick Degan]

Even if the Federation was too stupid to reverse engineer the alien tech (probable, given that reverse engineering is no easy process), why don't we ever see them using the devices that are already there? I mean, they were designed for human use, and figuring out their control principles can't be that hard (indeed, with the iconian gateway, they did it during the course of the episode), so why not use the devices they already have?

It was more that they stumbled onto the control operations by accident. It helped that there were two languages which provided clues to the root Iconian language which facilitated Data's being able to access the central control. But if you recall, he was only 50% —he tapped one sequence and activated the gateway without intending to. He tapped another and got hit with a probe-scan that inflicted serious software damage on his positronic net, again without intending to.

As for using what they had available, the first priority was to deny its capture by the Romulans; a rare instance when Picard had his priorities straight. And even if they had destroyed the Haakona; as one poster suggested, the planet Iconia was within the Neutral Zone. I'd think the Romulans would tend to notice the presence of Federation science teams on a planet within space declared forbidden to both powers and would proceed to do something about it.

[beyond hope]

I agree with Patrick Deegan on this one: it's easy to say "the Feddies must be stupid because they never use this stuff" but can you imagine the difficulties involved? Imagine if a bunch of people from the 18th century found a fission reactor, for example. I can picture it now: the cases of radiation sickness because they don't know fuel rods are dangerous, the sirens blaring as they play with the control rods... technology that you don't understand can be downright dangerous. Give them a few decades (or maybe centuries) to grasp the principles behind what those gates are doing, and they *still* might not be able to understand it. What's unrealistic are the episodes where they find some strange alien device and in no time at all understand what it's doing and know how to use it.

Now for a good "what the hell is wrong with the Federation" topic, why is it that they invent new tech themselves and then it vanishes into the ether as soon as that episode is over?

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Now for a good "what the hell is wrong with the Federation" topic, why is it that they invent new tech themselves and then it vanishes into the ether as soon as that episode is over?

Because it's a plot device, and plot devices are immediately confiscated after every episode so that Berman and BRaga have a next episode to write.