A Star Trek worldbuilding issue that I have been pondering

[Thebestoftherest]

Hey would star fleet have ships for dealing with disaster like crystal line entity.

[Riedquat]

Of course practically speaking it's just going to be confusing if your main characters look completely different every week.

[McAvoy]

You know. This actually brings up a question. Can Star Trek medical technology 'fix' body dysphoria and by extension gender dysphoria. Is there a medical industry or sorts to give a person the physical appearence they want? And what about the addicts that we have that will constantly change their body due to addiction to plastic surgery?

Does that sort of thing go away in Gene's utopian future?

What about gender dysphoria? Did they figure out what causes it? Should there be a fix? Something recognized at birth or something they discover later in life and it is 'fixed'?

Honestly sounds like a damned good episode if done properly.

[Nealithi]

So much to comment on. Star Trek surgery has been cosmetic in nature, so you might appear romulan or klingon. But underneath you are still a human. It is just advanced cosplay, and most people I have seen don't do cosplay. Many think it is weird.
Then you get the point Durandal_1707 made, the anti-augment laws. Those laws might limit someone having access to such experimentation.
If the Federation did not have this particular law. I think they might look a bit more like the world depicted in the Dirty Pair manga and comics. Basically everyone has some kind of genetic augmentation. They even have specific lines of them. Which would be cool, and also hard to show on 21st century television.

Stryke wondered about stuff and why there is no clutter of objects. First off I am going to use me. I appreciate lots of different subjects and items. I am keeping what I have out to a relative minimum because doing it all would fill the house. And second my father introduced scale discipline in me at a young age. So out of scale items makes me more picky.
But with a replicator you may not need to worry about scale. But the at a young age thing comes to mind. You do not need permanent items with a replicator. A 'toybox' replicator could generate the toys of your child. Then putting them away would just be sweeping them back into the reclamation box and they are gone till next time. So collecting is not much of a 'thing' as it once was. Most of your possessions could be on a thumb drive to replicate at your destination instead of needing a moving van.

[Riedquat]

You know. This actually brings up a question. Can Star Trek medical technology 'fix' body dysphoria and by extension gender dysphoria. Is there a medical industry or sorts to give a person the physical appearence they want? And what about the addicts that we have that will constantly change their body due to addiction to plastic surgery?

Does that sort of thing go away in Gene's utopian future?

What about gender dysphoria? Did they figure out what causes it? Should there be a fix? Something recognized at birth or something they discover later in life and it is 'fixed'?

Honestly sounds like a damned good episode if done properly.

That sounds rather too much like going back to thinking that you could "cure" people from being gay. Even if you could, which by all accounts you can't, why should you?

[CharlesPhipps]

Our one example is Quark who let's be honest looks exactly what it is, Quark in drag. The medical technology of Star Trek you would think they could do a better job of turning a male into a female. The amount of ass pulls Star Trek does with transporters and other medical miracles, you would think they should be able to.

That being said, the way Gene Roddenberry described the future, transphobia would be a thing of the past. But that being said, I do wonder if transforming yourself into an alien by still be a threshold they are still working on. At least in some parts of the Federation.

If I were to treat the episode seriously versus exiling it into discontinuity, I'd point out Quark ISNT trans. He doesn't WANT to look like a woman and doesn't intend the surgery to be permanent. So doing the matter as less traumatizing as possible (which is probably impossible) seems reasonable even if it doesn't mean he's conventionally attractive by Ferengi standards of beauty.

But I imagine the Federation would dismiss transspecism the same way we dismiss Rachel Dolze's transrace belief.

You may be born a woman with the wrong body but you'll never be born a klingon with the wrong body.

[Madner Kami]

You may be born a woman with the wrong body but you'll never be born a klingon with the wrong body.

Have you heard of "Otherkin"?

[hammerofglass]

I think Klingons are the one Star Trek culture who would be cool with you doing that. Every time someone from another species shows the slightest respect for Klingon ways they seem ready to adopt that person within like a day.

[CharlesPhipps]

You may be born a woman with the wrong body but you'll never be born a klingon with the wrong body.

Have you heard of "Otherkin"?

And given how Trek portrays thing, I'm fairly sure that's how the Federation would do it.

[Madner Kami]

You may be born a woman with the wrong body but you'll never be born a klingon with the wrong body.

Have you heard of "Otherkin"?

And given how Trek portrays thing, I'm fairly sure that's how the Federation would do it.

I don't quite follow your particular train of thought there. Could you elaborate?