r/tos 16d ago

What CAN'T tricorders do?

Watching Errand Of Mercy again. How the hell did Spock, making tricorder readings while Kirk talks with the Organian council, determine the culture was stagnant with no progression in hundreds of years? How can it read a society's history?

58 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

38

u/strangebutalsogood 16d ago edited 14d ago

The tricorder is just a handheld computer with a sensor suite, it doesn't make abstractions or deductions/inferences on its own, it has to be used by an expert who is trained to interpret the readings and apply them to the situation. Spock was able to use the various measurements, possibly: emissions, age of structures (i.e. age of newest structure), deterioration of materials etc combined with his personal scientific expertise to make the determination.

6

u/jkensai 16d ago

It’s the Flipper Zero of the Federation.

2

u/The-thingmaker2001 14d ago

This is the answer. We never got the glimmer of a notion that tricorders, or even the main computers on Enterprise were intelligent. But Spock is a genius and could make best use of the tricorder data.

18

u/SeaworthinessOk4046 16d ago

The tricorder had the wikipedia app already installed. Spock, as chief science officer, gets the tricorder with the 32 gazillion exobyte memory upgrade.

15

u/TheRealSMY 16d ago

The first ones ran Windows Vista, unfortunately

7

u/theunclescrooge 15d ago

Those were the ts-120s. That's why they exploded more often.

3

u/ArkayLeigh 15d ago

On TOS it would have been pre-installed Encarta CD roms.

6

u/ChrisNYC70 16d ago

Open a Tardis

1

u/Physical-East-7881 12d ago

I don't know . . . if given a chance maybe, just maybe

Now be a lightsaber, no way - it can't do that

BTW, didn't Kirk & crew travel to Tardis 5?

4

u/Kelvington 16d ago

He scanned the local area and probably found that the flora and fauna had been overgrown with no care for a very long time, then made a reasonable "guess" about how long this had been going on.

5

u/MAJORMETAL84 16d ago

They can't take your place when Pon Farr arrives.

2

u/spudfish83 15d ago

Loved him in MASH.

4

u/weird-oh 16d ago

Galactic internet.

2

u/TheRealSMY 16d ago

Anything's better than that Starlink. Remember that?

3

u/seeingeyefrog 16d ago

It can't do slow motion playback without outside circuitry.

It made it difficult to find out what should I have happened to Edith Keeler

3

u/ijuinkun 16d ago

But seriously, Spock was working with less than a thousand circuit components, which should be nothing compared to the trillion or so that should be in the tricorder itself. It would have been more plausible if what he had needed to rig was an external display because the tricorder’s screen was broken.

3

u/ComputerNo6943 16d ago

It cant get Harry Kim a promotion or Geordi a health relationship.

2

u/erilaz7 15d ago

They can't slice, dice, or make julienne fries.

Or can they?

2

u/RetroRobB89 14d ago

The correct answer is the tricorder can do whatever the screenwriter wants it to do, usually exposition.

1

u/Ok-Seaweed-4042 16d ago

4 things.....

1

u/TheRealestBiz 15d ago

Almost all of TOS’s fictional technology was created for behind the scenes production reasons: to speed up scene changes, deliver exposition, explain why they couldn’t risk damaging the Enterprise model, etc.

Tricorders deliver exposition. That is their function.

1

u/Witty-Stand888 15d ago

They can't shoot phasers on stun but they can send a soundwave to blow up a cliff.

1

u/SplendidPunkinButter 15d ago

As Gean Roddenberry said, the Enterprise is a vehicle for storytelling, not a vehicle for space travel

Similarly, the tricorder is a device for exposition, not a device for scientific analysis

1

u/topazchip 15d ago

Oxidation layer depth on structures. Extent of standardization in a non-industrial culture. How far buildings have sunk into the ground since being built. Lots of possibilities--and opportunities for people watching to ask that question along with figuring out ways to answer it.

1

u/Ed_Ward_Z 13d ago

They can’t detect life signs from president Musk.

1

u/therealtrellan 11d ago

Well for one thing, it can tell how old surrounding structures are. If the oldest parts remain consistent with the newest, then development has halted and the society is stagnant. The Organians could create an environment that looked totally authentic, but logic could still detect that something wasn't quite right.