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Grrl Power #1319 - The Full Peggy
🕑 Added 2025-01-06 11:00:11 +0000 UTCThank you for the support! You guys are awesome!
Weren't everyone's family portraits done under some sort of duress? Usually it's mom cracking the whip, or sometimes it's mom and dad, but I never met any kids that were excited to be forced into a collared shirt so you could go rest your arm on that fuzzy saddle thing while mom glared at you to "smile nice."
Peggy's foot is attached and functional, but Frix gave Peggy a few instructions like to avoid heavy exercise for the first week, to some toe dexterity exercises, stretch out the muscle, etc. He probably gave her a few pills to help the "seams" in the tissue integrate optimally. Stuff like that. The general tech level of "space" in the Grrl-verse is good, but it's not "I'll just run you through the transporter and perfectly re-trans-integrate your missling leg, and also screen out any potential hereditary diseases and also make your hair longer if you want."
Honestly, I think it's a missed opportunity in Star Trek that they never dealt with the ethical implications of what you could really do with transporters, like "Oh, you're 40 pounds overweight? I can transport that away no problem." which then leads to all kinds of shenanigans. I can fix your fertility issues, I can ensure your baby is perfectly healthy. Runaway gene editing, the pursuit of super soldiers, so called "master races" etc. And don't tell me transporters can't do that, they've definitely done little tweaks here and there before. Sure, maybe Starfleet transporters aren't set up to do that, and they probably have a raft of regulations discouraging that sort of behavior, but you'd never convince me that the Founders wouldn't exploit that stuff, or some obscure alien race wouldn't do everything they could to become the ultimate warrior species or whatever. And sure, that race would inevitably wind up in a Morlock/Eloi kind of situation, or they'd all devolve or produce incurable cancers and are desperately searching for an exemplar of their race preserved in hypersleep or in a transport buffer so they could do a reset, because a lot of sci-fi writing is a bit predictable, let's be honest.
It is amusing all the storylines that did spring from transporter technology though, because - and let me be clear that I have no evidence of this, it's only conjecture - that the whole idea of transporters had nothing to do with a vision of futuristic technology, it was all about keeping productions costs down. A cross-fade with some overexposed static is a heck of a lot cheaper than having to shoot a bunch of miniature and full-sized prop shots of shuttles leaving the docking bay and flying down to a planet. Granted, O.G. Star Trek had like six shots total of the Enterprise that they kept reusing, with the exception of a few episodes like when they fought the doomsday ice cream cone, so they could have economized shuttle footage if they really had to. But I'm still convinced it was about saving money, and also a four second shot of a transporter dis-and-reintegration probably saves more screen time than shuttle launch and landing sequences, leaving more time for interracial and interspecies kissing.
I do think there are limits to some technologies. Handkerchiefs probably have an upper tier. That said, you could keep pumping improvements into a thing until it only superficially resembles its antecedent. Like a hanky that Star Trek-style transports tears and snot into nothingness, but also analyzes all fluids and proactively applies a cure for that corneal cancer that it predicted and also perfectly moisturizes your skin and also leaves your fingers dry and clean but also not so dry that trying to pick up a piece of paper becomes an iffy proposition - and if you unfold the hanky it's also a portable hole with access to essential survival tools and a pile of Werther's candies and everything else available from the Warehouse at the End of the Universe so if you get Isekai'd with your hanky, you can blow your nose and cure the Oblivophage and produce a jar of honey because honey is more valuable than gold in the world you got sent to.
So when I say there are limits, I guess I really mean that there are limits to how advanced a thing can be and still be considered that same thing. But it still looks like a hanky. So... people would call it a hanky. At least colloquially. I suspect the Dictionary definition of "hanky" would still be limited to "a square of fabric people blow their nose into then stuff back in their pocket." Because if you're living in a world where a hanky is also a wormhole and a tricorder, then imagine what your shoes could do, or your belt, or your everyday carry pocket knife. In a world like that the dictionary would either constrain itself to defining words by their original meanings, or there would be only a single entry that just says, "Look, anything can be anything else and it can all do everything. Form is meaningless. What do you want from me?"
Comments
John Anderson
If they can replace a foot, they should be able to make it with calluses; either have a range of callus grades, or just make it like the other foot.
IvyReed
and then Sydney went under-cover as Patricia Parker, because paparazzi sucks at its job. Nobody got a photo of her glassing the entire desert? Or thought to take a majestic picture of her larger than life stained glass window? HECK go steal a copy of her "I ate the spiciest curry on earth" picture. J Jonah Jameson has it out for her I swear. All joking aside I've really liked Peggy's arc here, she's been thinking about this opportunity for a while, and it's really good character work
Ascender
There, I added the /s, just for you.
Magraal
Just thought of the same thing. Breaking in a new boot sucks, but you've already got thicker skin around most of the parts that wear. An entirely new foot wouldn't, so it's going to be like breaking in 20 different sets of new boots all at once...
Kazzellin
Just add some cherries in there, and it'll be the ice cream version of a black forest cake! :d
Kazzellin
You mean the one he rarely ever drew? O_o
AlpineBob
Oh! Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Thanks!
Martin Drkoš
I wonder if it feels weird to walk on a meat leg again after getting used to a prosthetic. I imagine it like that over sensitivity you get when your leg is coming back from being asleep.
Martin Drkoš
Maybe she should have both legs replaced so they have the same amount of wear on them.
eddi_TBH
Consider the operation included the rewiring of the reflexes around the lower spinal nerves that handle casual movement without bothering the higher brain. She may need to relearn martial arts moves and such to adjust to the new situation though. (saves Dave from needing two pages of rehab montage)
eddi_TBH
Sydney builds one as fast as you can describe it.
eddi_TBH
Sydney is teasing about the special half foot off deal.
eddi_TBH
I like how Sydney makes Peggy smile just a touch.
eddi_TBH
My mom would have loved her. Frequently the only normal one in the room. But she could hold her own when things got weird.
eddi_TBH
I have a feeling something so obvious wouldn't be overlooked.
eddi_TBH
My photos have two looks. Blank terror or zombie.
Eric Loken
This, it was exactly this.
Teksura
I think it's weird that you assume the only way to make a transporter double out of a volunteer is to do it in secret. Maybe consider the situation but be less evil? So we have a brilliant scientist who has so much theyvcan contribute but not enough time. They agree to duplicate themselves because they probably have an ego and want to be known for more accomplishments. One copy stays at the Daystorm Institute, another goes off to some other research center. Maybe another decides to continue life but on a starship. All copies of the same dude who knew what was going on and was okay with it. It only becomes a problem when you make yourself the villain of an episode trying to do something questionable.
MaxBigfoot
She must have had a heck of a round of physical testing on her real leg to make sure the artificial one exactly duplicates it's capabilities.
JasonAW3
Of course not! Wikipodia is for people with all kinds of ambulative appendages! Be they hooves, tentacles, slime foot, roots, etc. Wikifeet is specifically for people with feet. Otherwise, the whole purpose would be de-feet-ed...
NickG
I think it's Peggy's prosthetic leg.
JasonAW3
Yes... Doomsday Ice Cream Cone, dark chocolate flavored, filled with Dark chocolate Ice Cream and Dark Chocolate Syrup, coated with a DARK Chocolate Magic Shell, with DARK CHOCOLATE sprinkles. Also known as Death By Dark Chocolate...
JasonAW3
I think they probably tried the scientist one once... they would have killed each other for being insufferabe.
Mark Magagna
So you're one of the best and brightest. One day, you discover you now have a thousand copies of yourself. Not just twin brothers or sisters, but other "you-s". Note: those other "you-s" are not just physical copies, they also think they are you. With some reason, I don't think there's a way to tell who's the "original". From what I remember, the two Rikers did agree which one kept being the executive officer of the Enterprise, and the other one went off and did something else. How do you come to an agreement with a thousand copies? Maybe you're the type who has a bunch of possible paths and you're torn because you can only pursue one. Congratulations! Now you (or some other you) can do them all! Of course you don't actually get to experience those other paths yourself, you just have the abstract satisfaction that society has the benefit of you pursuing that path. Or maybe you're not built that way. You're one of the best and brightest at something, what if that's because you're obsessed with it? The Rikers came to an agreement because the show was out of run time. But it's inconsistent with other episodes where he's gotten a chance for a promotion and not taken it because he wants to stay where he is. These are some of the objections to doing that. It does assume that your society cares about what you think; I think the Federation is generally presented as doing so.
Tim
Just realized; brand new foot, no calluses, military girl. She’s gonna blister like nobody’s business the next few weeks.
AlpineBob
Anyone know what Frix is carrying? It looks a little like a bicycle horn... A space bicycle horn! Maybe he was planning to walk before her, honking and clearing the way? Some people are repatriated, others are repudiated. Peggy has been repodiated. Repodiation: to regain a foot. I hereby claim this word for all humankind! To boldly go where no word has gone before!
Hugh Eckert
IIRC from "The Making of Star Trek," you are correct- they didn't have the budget or the time to land the Enterprise (or a shuttle) every episode, and the transporter was a workaround.
Anton Schleef
O.G. Star Trek had it for the first season. It was rebuilding it for the second season that caused a budge hurdle, so they tried to come up with an alternative that would also seem appropriately sci-fi. They talk about it in one of the documentaries about the show from a couple of decades ago.
James
Search up Utility Fog for an interesting take on tech where "anything can be everything". Unlike transporter tech, no new physics required.
George Gray
I had heard that the transporter was introduced because the shuttle craft that was supposed to be built was behind schedule due to budget issues.
Brian Holt
Give her tattoo artist some weird deja vu.
You_With_The_Face
Oh shit MY DISCOUNT!!!
Town Crier
Is Peggy gonna get her art restored on the new leg?
Town Crier
Ba-da-da-dum *snap-snap* Ba-da-da-dum *snap-snap* Ba-da-da-dum Ba-da-da-dum Ba-da-da-dum *snap-snap* "They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and ooky. They're altogether spooky...
Nicholas Cordero
No, no I do not
Greg Morrow
The Scoville family portrait is so good. I want to see Mama Scoville herding her ADHD family some more!
Ascender
You meean Wikipodia.
Ascender
TBF, though, Scotty was the most brilliant engineer in ST history, and he pulled off a miracle by modifying his transporter in a moment of desperation.
Ascender
Just admit you were tired of drawing her prosthetic, already... /s
Philip Masters
Presumably "The Doomsday Machine" (TOS, S2E6).
Sarazarus
Okay, until I read the comment, I was thinking of a different kind of hanky (as in panky), and boy, did I not get why it would wick...
William Elliott
Khan Noonien Singh, Dr. Julian Bashir, whole few episodes involving Dr. Arik Soong developing "Augments" in Enterprise [Yes forefather of Dr. Noonien Soong]
Teksura
You don't research it using your best and brightest as test material. You research using a box. Then a rat. Then a volunteer. And once you have that mastered, then you use your best and brightest. But you're mistaken, it wasn't that they didn't know it was possible. And it wasn't that it requires special circumstances. It requires special circumstances to happen by accident and when it happened by accident they didn't know. But the theory that you can turn matter into an energy pattern and then replicate that matter on demand using transporter technology has literally been used in TNG. A lot. It's called a Replicator. And they absolutely have them as a common thing.
James C
Star Trek absolutely has a bunch of plot lines about genetic-engineering, "super soldiers" and "master races". They just don't use the transporter for it, and make it clear that the Federation has VERY strict laws against it.
James C
I think the thing with the Transporter Doubles is that it only occurs under very rare circumstances, and it was a decade before they found out it happened so they couldn't just check the logs. It's not something they know how to reliably replicate, and they don't want to accidentally waste their best and brightest recreating that scene from The Motion Picture
Tristan N Milner
Fairly sure Peggy still gets her Military Discount, if the pedicure place honors those.
Michael Obert
If the tickling feels good, my understanding is the pedicure should feel amazing. And, yeah, walking with two legs after only walking with one takes some doing. A came, at least, until balance is regained. Still, good for Peggy!
Teksura
Changing someone in a transporter is apparently very hard because if you don't already have a pattern for what they're supposed to be, you can't just improv it. But one thing that DOES happen in Star Trek that is 100% possible with Transporters is creating a transporter double of someone. This actually happened to Riker once. But considering that it is possible to do, it raises the question of why Star Fleet doesn't take their best and brightest and just make a bunch of doubles of them to go off and be awesome. You can simply things by spreading them out across the quadrent if they want, or some of those anti-social scientists might work well with themselves. Even if Starfleet thinks this is terrible and immoral, some other alien race should be down for it. But at the very least, it raises a question of why Star Fleet doesn't just save copies of everyone's patterns in a massive buffer while they're away on missions, and if they die or their ship is destroyed then Starfleet Medical just pulls them out of the buffer and *not• have to tell any grieving widows that James has to grow up without a father now. And don't tell me "pattern degradation" because Scotty kept himself alive in a transporter buffer until he was found in The Next Generation, all without any engineers outside to make sure everything keeps working right. Sure the guy he was with didn't make it, but they were also working with equipment not designed for this use. So if some equipment was designed for that use and was properly maintained by engineers, I could see it working. Besides, you wouldn't need any single pattern to be maintained for decades, just while the ship is out on mission.
Thomas Dorner
Never underestimate the space hanky! :-)
Fogel
I'm sorry, "Doomsday ice cream cone"?
Playwars
I just look forward to her waking up and still trying to put the prosthetic on. Also, wouldn't she have to relearn how to walk properly ? I was under the impression that prosthetic required their own particular way of movement, which wouldn't be suited to a normal, living limb.
Nicholas Cordero
Time for Peggy to update her Wikifeet profile
