(or are) within a compelling plot via the tools of the trade: conflict, wry twists, suspense - and via fathomable characters we quickly-enough want to care about - wtf's the use of the science also seeming to be 'correct'?

I always deemed ST to be a soap; clearly the focus was upon new? approaches to all those present dilemmas which consciousness + duality guarantee: just as in that other Monopoly game. I never cared 'how' a phaser might work - the Point was: it had a stun setting! unlike a .44 Magnum and other testosterone-crazed gadgets as still pander to beastly reptile-brain solutions for all temporary ego conflicts.

'Course the 'science' has to be plausible, however advanced, but that line can become blurred too, Ex:

In The Light of Other Days, Arthur C. Clarke as-mentor-to one Stephen Baxter:
cheap & dirty devices were created -- invoking worm holes within the techno for the viewing of people/events of the past and present (quantum quiddity?). The actual "extrapolated problem of today" (basis for most-all sci-fi plotting) was that of privacy and its future - surely a real Question, if somone imagines any plausible Answer.

Implicit secondary thesis: whatever becomes technically Possible, homo-saps Will generally and immediately entrepreneur blindly.. wherever a large personal profit appears to ensue. ==>
Can't get rich? why bother to investigate. (Nobody's giving away the formula for \ufffdAspirin anymore.)

(Somehow too, the Atlas Shrugged shtik of the rogue Lone Hero Capitalist has become a depressingly familiar model; as if techno could not survive via the immanent curiosity about a one's environment -- unless each investigator dreams of possessing All the Power\ufffd cha cha.)

What a perfect MO for achieving yan boring dystopia just. like. This. one.
Is "Sci-fi" in a mindless rut, just like political, religio thought '06?
(Well.. not Terry Pratchett's. At least. And it's all still about Us.)



\ufffd Recently, the govt. of India has been compiling an official list of ingredients of naturopathic (incl. Ayurvedic) remedies extant -- to abort the trend of corporations (mainly US, Euro referenced) seeking to patent anything not-yet appropriated. Billy's meta-greed has now become the norm for all those me-toos, each seeking personal Trillionaire status this millennium (or Bust.) Capitalism/mammon as religion -- just as pathetic a plot as it is Live on Trump-TeeVee.