Ancient robot technology and a brilliant but misguided scientist leave Kirk, Chapel and the crew of the Enterprise in a lurch. “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” We’ll find out on this week’s Mission Log!
Mission Log #8: Episode 008- What Are Little Girls Made Of?
This is the first episode where Kirk proves irresistible to the female aliens, if you consider an android an alien intelligence.
I think the episode was a little more ambivalent on the question of AI than you guys seem to. While Kirk definitely saw the robots as dangerous and wanted to shut the whole thing down, the relationship of Korby and Andrea is not played black and white. Andrea has emotional outbursts and might eventually have developed “real” human emotions. The fact that Korby hands his phaser to Kirk implies that some spark of humanity still remains in his android mind. Korby kills himself when he realizes what he has lost but then the question becomes why would a robot care and the fact that he does care might mean he hasn’t lost as much as he thinks. Also, he was frozen and near death when he made the transfer. Maybe he had some brain damage and a transfer from a health person might be more successful.
Also, Star Fleet does have a habit of suppressing technologies which it finds potentially dangerous. Several times the crew of the Enterprise stumble upon advanced robotics technology but it doesn’t gain acceptability until 100 years later with Commander Data. It is stated point blank in DS9 that Star Fleet suppresses genetic engineering technologies.
When I transfer into my android body I plan on adopting it as my son.
Maybe Corby was just inherently “a dick” and Christine fell for a bad boy. His transfer of his “soul” into a new machined body had nothing to do with his lack or absence of compassion and understanding. He was screwy to begin with.
You speak about copies not being the same as the original entity in Star Trek, but this means that *nobody* on the cast is the same person from week to week, as transporters work by completely destroying a person’s body and then creating a new, identical body by rearranging the existing matter at the target destination.
What are little girls made of? Apparently, of sugar, spice, and something skimpy, designed by William Ware Theiss.
As far as people being replaced by robots, one of the TNG episodes had Data’s body taken over by a dying scientist and he plans to make a robot body for her. She’s utterly aghast by the idea and refuses to let him do any such thing. But one wonders what she’d think if she were dying. It’s easy to refuse such an offer when you’re in good health, but if you are on the verge of disappearing as a person, you might reconsider.
You guys failed to mention the greatest line in Star Trek history.
Sulu: “I’ll protect you, fair maiden.”
Uhura: “Sorry, neither.”