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Los Bros Robo

From: Marc Thomas

Hi trekTV Friends Doctor Noonian Soong,as a character, embodies a through back to the Doctor Zarcovs of sci fi. A mad scientist. This is one of the earliest genre arch-types. Reminiscent of primordial science's 'lone' genius, before inventiveness required the large infrastructural framework which only a governmental, academic or corporate institution could provide. Of course innovation never truly happened in a vacuum as Newton noted from the shoulder tops of giants who preceded his work on Principia. But Frankenstein reanimated the dead without society's help and that doesn't happen anymore. Mad science is fun. My physics friend Fritz is so non-insane it's sad. It seems odd that The Federation can't reproduce Soong's work. Com'on Daystrom Institute! Ol' Doc Day'd had a crazy on now 'n' then...Frankly I'da thought they'da worked out androids after the discovery of anthropomorphic AIs by Roger Korby or those others by Harry Mudd. If in fact...oh sorry. Dr Zarcov? That's from Flash Gordon. Flash Gordon was a popular science fiction property that would have been familiar to a young Gene Roddenberry. Doctor Zhivago? No, nothing to do with this. Star Trek is largely a counterpoint to Flash Gordon. The idea behind Trek was to make a smart sci fi, more inline with the headier literary stuff, something for grown ups. Interestingly, Star Wars was a reaction, in part, to Trek's high mindedness and a reversion to the innocence of comic strips and weekly Buster Crabbe movie house serials. Star Wars is Flash Gordon with a dash of dumbed down Dune. But let's not get diverted into that subject cuz this is about android science. Vaughn works in the same general area as Doc Soong right? Vaughn, is it possible that you are a mere break with wits away from making robots? If so, go crazy man, that'd be cool. Marc