What can Star Trek's worst episode teach us about autonomous vehicles?

This is what happens when people believe one tech development can instantly fix all our transportation problems (Still from "Threshold," the 30th episode of Star Trek: Voyager, courtesy of Memory Alpha)

The date was January 29, 1996. Donald Trump hadn’t followed through on plans to run for president in the year’s presidential election. WMATA was still in the midst of aggressive Metro expansion. Twitter would not exist for another 10 years.

All was good with the world…until 8pm that night. Then, a new episode of Star Trek: Voyager aired. 

Normally, this would have made the evening a time to look forward to.

But this was no ordinary episode. Instead, it was “Threshold,” or, as I prefer to call the debacle, just “Janeway Lizard.”

A short summary of the plot:

• Tom Paris, the pilot of the show’s namesake ship, discovers a way to upgrade Voyager’s engines, allowing for instantaneous travel to anywhere in the universe. He hypes his discovery as something that would both solve the crew’s immediate transportation problem – the ship’s journey home is scheduled to take over 70 years using normal engines – then, upon return to Earth, solve all of Starfleet’s transportation problems.
• Paris conducts a successful infinite-speed shuttle test flight using the upgraded engine. However, soon after, he begins to mutate into a lizard, due to some sort of accelerated evolutionary process the infinite-speed travel caused. The ship’s doctor fails to stop Paris’s mutations, and soon enough he kidnaps Capt. Kathryn Janeway and takes her on another infinite-speed shuttle flight, causing her to turn into a lizard as well.
• Paris could have taken Janeway anywhere in the universe, but he decides to head to a planet near Voyager’s original location. Voyager (whose doctor has discovered a cure for the lizard mutation) detects them, but before the ship arrives at the planet, the mutated captain and pilot hook up and she gives birth to a litter of lizard babies.
• Though there’s now a cure for the health problems resulting from infinite-speed travel, the crew never uses the new technology again.  

Star Trek is an excellent TV and film franchise, but with more than 700 aired episodes a few bad outings were inevitable. The majority of the clunkers fall into the “so bad, it’s funny” category, but this one was…well, just bad. Even Brannon Braga, one of Voyager’s writers, called Threshold “a royal, steaming stinker.”

Some visions of future transportation make “Threshold” seem logical

“Threshold” was doomed to fail due to its basic premise: the idea that a new mode of transportation could render all alternatives obsolete and solve all known mobility problems.

But these days, lots of people talk about emerging autonomous vehicle technology the same way that Paris bragged about his infinite-speed engine. Enthusiasts for the new mode insist that the self-driving cars will virtually eliminate car crashes, traffic congestion, and even stoplights as, separated by mere inches, they travel at NASCAR speeds.

Some feel this future is such a certainty that we should forgo all investment in all options that are not car-based, from local buses and subways to high-speed rail. The nonstop flow of traffic through intersections would make biking or walking in our cities virtually impossible, but we’ve been told that the benefits will justify the sacrifice.

But what if we follow orders and go all-in for autonomous vehicles, only for them to fail to bring their promised perfection? Will we be out of options, just as Paris and Janeway were on the surface of that planet? 

We’ve already witnessed the results of blindly prioritizing a single transportation mode – regular automobiles – above all others. Given the tens of thousands of needless car crash deaths each year, the choking impact vehicles have on cities, and the high stress of driving or traveling in a car that we’ve subjected ourselves to, we might as well be lizards – or be forced to re-watch the hour-long “Threshold”.

A more effective approach is to use technology to enhance and build upon the ways we get around, rather than hope it will provide some magical fix-all.

The Voyager crew – and the show’s viewers – would have been better served had Paris put his efforts into practical upgrades of the ship’s engines, transporters, or shuttles to enhance the ship’s capabilities and speed up its trip home, rather than just plop an outlandish modification on everyone. He puts his talents to better use later in the series when he collaborates with other crew members to construct the state-of-the-art Delta Flyer shuttle, ensuring important missions succeed and propelling the plot of many excellent episodes. 

The American public would be best off if we use autonomous technology to fill gaps in our transportation systems and make it easier to use the options we have, rather than just throw everything we’ve worked for away.