10 Background Star Trek Items More Important Than You Think

In the Original Series episode Whom Gods Destroy, we met Garth of Izar, a former famed Starfleet Captain, turned genocidal madman.

We saw in that episode that, as part of his mental health treatment, Garth was forced to use a rehabilitation chair. This rehabilitation chair raised so many ethical questions. It appeared to have the ability to numb violent tendencies, completely pacifying those who used it.

Garth later transformed his rehabilitation chair into a torture device, but its intended purpose also seems sinister. It's not hard to imagine how a tyrannical government could use this pacifying tech to control populations and prevent them from rebelling. The galaxy is lucky that the Federation chooses to use this tech only for rehabilitation because they could easily turn it against their citizens to control them. In fact, this is only one example of many devices in Star Trek that could potentially be used in much more nefarious ways, including transporters, holodecks, and many more.