A Question for all Trekkies

[Yavin4]

Why didn't any of the Star Trek shows, books, characters, etc. mention the internet?

[thatcrowwoman]

1. Who needs the internet when they have Lt. Uhura?

Just saying the first thing that popped into my mind.
🕊🩵💫🎶thatcrowwoman

[underpants]

2. I'd never thought of that.

I don’t think they have their commo a name. They may have just thought the viewer would be awed by what did become the inspiration for a lot of what he think is normal now (like cell phones).

The internet did exist when TOS (The Original Series) debuted on 1966 thanks to Lucille Ball.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

Roddenberry was visionary but maybe he wasn’t aware of the internet as it existed then.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. How often do you mention stone tablets?

[TexasTowelie]

4. While they didn't mention it specifically it by name

there was some reference to some type of platform where information was shared in one of the DS9 episodes. It was the two-part episode when Sisko, Bashir, and Jadzia were trapped in the year 2026 due to a transporter accident. Jadzia ended up with a wealthy person while the other two ended up in the "District" for the unemployed. One of the residents there died earlier and Sisko assumed that man's identity to lead the Bell riots to maintain the timeline in the future.

Jadzia was able to search a network to see if either Sisko or Bashir were admitted so there was an Internet, even if not named so.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. The internet did not exist for the first series

For the later series they dealt with this by assuming that it was simply common knowledge/history.

[Irish_Dem]

6. The obvious answer is that the show was written before the internet was invented.

The show did predict future events but they obviously weren't psychic.

[Yavin4]

7. Subsequent shows and movies have come out since the internet and social media

Would think that they'd come up in conversation.

[Irish_Dem]

10. People in movies may not talk about mundane and ordinary things.

Toilets, telephones, how the lights work, how the refrigerator keeps food cold.
Librairies.

Maybe the internet in the future is just considered another boring utility they take for granted.
No big deal.

We only talk about the internet because it is a relatively new and amazing thing to us.

In the future it may not be considered as such.

[Mr.Bill]

8. Maybe by that time in the future

they realized the internet was garbage and got rid of it.

[sanatanadharma]

9. If the Internet had existed in the alternate time line wherein Spock lived, ...

If the Internet had existed in the alternate time line wherein Spock lived, society would have collapsed before the science-future could have come to be.
The bright and inclusive future of the Star Trek world is inconsistent with today's internet society of false fact, science rejection, societal splintering, and dark motives within the fad-movers.

[Earth-shine]

11. Who needs the internet when Starfleet databases are accessible seemingly instantly over many lightyears

of subspace carrier waves?

Hailing frequencies open.

[mitch96]

12. What I always wondered was that with all that technology they could not figure out how to grow

hair on Picard's head..
m

[OldBaldy1701E]

15. To quote Patrick Stewart.

"By the 24th century, no one will care."

[DoBW]

13. Open a channel

and subspace coms

[lapfog_1]

14. two reasons...

while the first node of the Arpanet ( The progenitor for the Internet ) wasn't online until 1969... the concept of the Internet had been bouncing around for at least 4 years before that. By 1975's "Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner, the concept of IOT and hackers and viruses ( worms ) were predicted.

Even General AI was evidenced in Science Fiction ( "Moon is a Harsh Mistress, many others ) as well as Star Trek (V'ger, other episodes), but almost always as a cautionary tales.

We have Generative AI now ( sort of ), but not General AI.

The other reason it wasn't mentioned is that such things would have been considered by the time of Star Trek to be ubiquitous... sort of like how we take the Power Grid for granted and don't really mention it in day to day conversation unless it is widely unavailable.

BTW, I wrote some of the software for the Arpanet IMP while a very young college student. That was when there were maybe 12 nodes total on the Arpanet when I was involved.

Also, Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet, he was a co-sponsor of a bill that commercialized the Arpanet, allowing non military, non university, and non-contracted DOD companies to use the Arpanet... thus becalming the Internet. And for the people that claim "if government had been in tasked with solving polio, instead of a vaccine we would have the very best iron lung machine"... I would remind them that the Internet was conceived as a government project ( ARPA net ) to allow communication after a nuclear strike. And stayed a government directed project for something like 25 years.

[SalamanderSleeps]

16. I've never seen anyone on Star Trek use the toilet.

hmm, fascinating

[LudwigPastorius]

17. "Why didn't any of the Star Trek shows, books, characters, etc. mention the internet?"

In space no one can hear your modem dial and log on.

[malthaussen]

18. For the same reason nobody today mentions the New York Herald.

By the time of the shows, the Internet will be obsolete ancient history.

-- Mal

[soldierant]

19. The internet as we know it is already getting replaced

by cell phones.
By the time of even the first Star Trek it will all be "communicaors."