Last time on Deeper Side, I ventured a bit into the mostly uncharted territory known as "average" civilian Federation society -- realizing we really don’t know a whole lot about it.

This time, I’d like to single out a specific subset of Federation society that we can’t fully comprehend: the technology.

Warp drive was invented circa 2063 by Zefram Cochrane in the aftermath of the third world war. I’m certainly no physics expert, but I’d imagine approaching the threshold of light speed is not something one does casually. Even if you could find some way to approach the speed of light, chances are you’re not going to survive the process.

Never mind, though, because such concerns -- and rightly so; it's only television -- are not on the minds of the creators of Star Trek stories. We’re not sure how Cochrane invented the warp drive, or what resources he had available. First Contact didn’t even explain Cochrane’s scientific background.

And yet the warp drive is the cornerstone of Star Trek technology, just as faster-than-light velocity is central to any space opera involving interstellar travel. It’s the barrier that must be overcome if you’re going to tell these stories. The audience easily goes along because it’s fiction. It’s just there.

Once we accept warp speed at face value, logic suggests we could accept almost anything. It's up to the writers to avoid crossing the hazy line separating suspension of disbelief and total incredulity.

For example, there’s the whole issue of replicators and transporters, devices that have the ability to manipulate objects at a molecular level. With transporters, we have the ability to dismantle a person at the molecular level, send them thousands of kilometers to another location, and then precisely reassemble their molecular being. And they survive this process? Just where does your consciousness go when you’ve been dismantled molecularly?

Don’t get me wrong -- the transporter is an ingenious narrative tool (said to have been conceived when Gene Roddenberry realized it would’ve been prohibitively expensive to show the Enterprise landing on planets), but it demonstrates a great technical power that could be used and abused if the writers wished to do so.

For that matter, wouldn’t molecular-level precision surgery with transporter technology solve a lot of problems? Yet the medical staple on Trek is still the updated version of a shot in the arm.

As for replicators, I’d be interested in finding out what kind of limits these things have. Replicators can apparently create objects with some sort of energy-to-matter conversion, but what kinds of objects are they able to create? You’d need to find the raw energy somewhere, but once you do, couldn’t you use a replicator to build almost anything? Charged energy weapons?

Surely there are lockouts that would prevent a child or other unauthorized user from replicating a phaser. (Of course, this assumes that anybody has access to replicator technology, which may not be the case in the civilian Federation we don’t see.)

Indeed, the best way to explain something in terms of Trek tech is to not explain it: A machine can do X for the purposes of this story, but it will not do Y because Y is simply not what the writers want it to do.

Fans and critics are quick to use the terms "technobabble" or "Treknobabble" to describe dialogue that doesn’t really mean anything but is inserted to move a story quickly from A to B. Truth be told, I have zero interest in technobabble and generally tune it out. The story has to work on its own merits, because tech generally cannot drive a Star Trek story.

But occasionally we get a good techno-thriller. While the franchise's general position on advanced technology is that it’s a good thing that has made the world a better place with improved quality of life, the Trek scribes have supplied us with stories that comment on the dangers of technology when applied irresponsibly.

In "The Ultimate Computer," Starfleet plans to replace starship captains with the M-5 supercomputer. The episode of course ends in disaster, with the computer making decisions that cannot be overruled and taking drastic actions that cannot be prevented.

Other episodes like "The Changeling," "The Apple" and "The Return of the Archons" feature stories about machines imposing their will over helpless people.

To offset the notion of machines overwhelming man, a running gag on TOS was the way Kirk could outsmart the computer by trapping it within its own contradictory and inflexible logic. I’ve always wondered why these computers haven’t been given the ability to see beyond absolute directives if they're so advanced. I guess it wouldn’t be as dramatic that way -- the intimidation factor is a good selling point, and if one cannot negotiate with something, it’s pretty intimidating.

Once again, like everything else in Trek, the "problem" of why everyone builds inflexible supercomputers comes down to the simple matter of telling the story at hand.

As for technology as a Trek "issue," it really isn’t one.

When I think about it, I for one find it amazing that the technological societal infrastructure of today works as well as it does considering its complexity. The Federation's infrastructure must be a hundred times as complex, and yet it still works -- and the people living in the era probably still take it for granted.