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Old 10-31-2021, 05:15 PM
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October 21st, 1991, "Disaster"

Fiver by Marc

The Episode

Captain's log, stardate 45156.1. Our mission to Mudor Five has been completed and since our next assignment will not begin for several days, we are enjoying a welcome respite from our duties.

So as a change of pace from "the next assignment is boring, so just wait for something interesting" we're on "nothing is happening for awhile, so of course something will happen." At least say that you're en route for the next mission and it will take a couple days to get there!

Furthermore, if you've got nothing to do for several days, try visiting a planet that hasn't been studied thoroughly yet! You know, "boldly going where no one has gone before?"

(Keiko O'Brien is a good eight months pregnant)

We haven't seen Keiko since "In Theory", Stardate 44932.3. It's now 45156.1, three months later. Gotta love how the creators don't seem to care in the slightest how much time passes between episodes. Makes you wonder why they bothered with declaring 1000 stardates=1 year in the first place.

Just for curiosities sake, I looked it up. Keiko's second pregnancy was announced in "Accession", Stardate unknown, but using surrounding episodes let's say 49615. Kirayoshi was born in "The Begotten", Stardate also unknown, but let's estimate again at 50450. 10 months, oops.

LAFORGE: I cannot sing in front of people.
CRUSHER: You were terrific! You were a little off pitch, but I think I can take care of that.

Or autotune can. Let's just toss up a link to "In Your Imagination" by Pogo.

PATTERSON: Can we see the battle bridge and torpedo bay?
PICARD: No, I'm afraid not. But we will be visiting the hydroponics and astrophysics laboratories.

"The" torpedo bay? Only on the 1701 is there only one torpedo bay. The 1701-D has three; forward stardrive, aft stardrive, and the saucer section one that's normally blocked by the stardrive.

I do wonder why they couldn't visit the battle bridge (beyond the fact that the set no longer exists, of course). In docked mode none of the consoles would be active, after all.

O'BRIEN: The computer's down. It looks like we still have impulse power but not much else.

Even if you forgive something as stupid as "the computer's down", which I don't (even if the quantum filament took out all three cores I expect there to be emergency backups able to do the basics), I fail to see how you can do ANYTHING if the computer is down. How would your commands get to the impulse engines?

PICARD: Bridge, this is Picard. This is the Captain. Can anyone hear me?
PATTERSON: Why don't they answer?
PICARD: I don't know.

Neither do I. I get that when you're on the ship your commbadges are routed through the comm system, but if the comm system is out I fully expect the commbadges to be able to independently link to each other just like if they were on a planet. Plus, it's not like the quantum filament is still around jamming signals, it's GONE. The damage is done.

O'BRIEN: If the computer senses a hull breach, it automatically closes emergency bulkheads to isolate the breach. Until we can clear those bulkheads, we'll be cut off from the rest of the ship.

I do wish that they could've tossed in a line about how the bulkhead subprocessor couldn't tell where the breach is without the main computer so it closed all of the bulkheads just in case. In ordinary circumstances I expect the ship to know where the breach is so it can just close the emergency bulkheads in that location.

MANDEL: I have partial sensors back online. I'm picking up sporadic life signs throughout the saucer section. There are definitely survivors.

Are you telling me that an ordinary tricorder couldn't have found that out way before now? And don't tell me that a tricorder can't detect all lifesigns within a kilometer, because that's absurd. I hope they're not implying that the emergency bulkheads block all communications and sensor sweeps, because that's ridiculous.

RO: Could the sensors be malfunctioning?
MANDEL: There's no way to know. Without the main computer, I can't run a full diagnostic.

The bridge should have a dedicated backup computer core for exactly this kind of situation. Enough for basic sensors, navigation, etc. Keep it manually disconnected until you need it, of course.

O'BRIEN: Lieutenant Monroe was in command, but she's dead. I believe Counsellor Troi is the senior officer on the deck.
RO: Counsellor Troi?
O'BRIEN: She carries the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

This has been stated elsewhere, but this is ridiculous. Troi may have the rank, but not the training in Command duties. O'Brien should have command in this case. In situations like this, Command officers should be in command, that's what they were trained for. If no Command officers (redshirts) are present, go to Operations officers (goldshirts), then Medical/Sciences (blueshirts)! Remember that Crusher has Command training, Spock has Command training, even O'Brien has Command training!

DATA: I have surveyed all the turbolifts and service crawlways on this deck. Access to the Bridge has been completely severed by emergency bulkheads.

I expect Data to be more thorough than this. Riker has to ask later if they can reach Engineering. Data should've anticipated this and presented the option earlier.

Furthermore, I wonder what the options are for retracting the emergency bulkheads. You can't design these things to only allow commands from the main computer, that's asking for trouble!

CRUSHER: This wall is hot.
LAFORGE: Where?

Like SF Debris said, this is stupid. LaForge should be able to detect changes in temperature WAY before a person feels it. His VISOR can detect infrared, right?

LAFORGE: I'm all right, but I think we've got a new problem. One of the energy conduits must've ruptured and ignited the polyduranide inside the bulkhead. That's a plasma fire.

This seems like a problem that could've been solved at the design stage.

LAFORGE: We've got a bigger problem than that. The quaratum in these containers is used in emergency thruster packs. It's normally pretty stable stuff but when you expose quaratum to radiation, it has a way of exploding.

Only mention of quaratum. I do wonder how these emergency thruster packs work without putting out radiation.

MARISSA: Number One?
PICARD: That's what I always called my first officer. So, here.
(He puts two of his rank pins on her top)

I've brought up the pip thing before. Either these things have hooks, or all Federation clothing has a corresponding mesh for a magnetic grip.

"Number One" for the first officer goes back to the sailing days. The First Lieutenant was second in command.

Meaningless aside, but I found out that Pike's Number One has now been given the name Una in Discovery. I'm so used to knowing her as Morgan Primus. I also refer you to John Byrne's Star Trek comic called "Crew", which went through all sorts of hoops to avoid pinning a name on this woman.

CRUSHER: We can withstand this level of radiation for another three or four hours without any permanent damage. We'll need a few days of hyronalin treatments.

Hydronalin has popped up here and there in Trek as an anti-radiation drug, going all the way back to "The Deadly Years." In "Real Life" the Doctor even gave it to Paris before he was exposed to radiation as a protectant.

RO: Nothing. Field strength's at forty percent and falling. We've got a problem. The quantum resonance of the filament caused a polarity shift in the antimatter containment field.
O'BRIEN: When the filament hit us, the ship was momentarily charged, as if it had come into contact with a live electrical wire.
RO: That weakened the containment field surrounding the antimatter pods. The field strength is at forty percent and it is still falling.

I fail to see how O'Brien's line has anything to do with what Ro is saying. If it was supposed to be a metaphor to help the audience understand, I don't think it worked.

O'BRIEN: If it falls to fifteen percent the field will collapse and we'll have a containment breach.
TROI: Which means?
RO: Which means the ship will explode.

Why did they make Troi look like an idiot here? I expect something as simple as "containment breach"="exploding ship" to be something covered in the basic engineering course that all cadets had to take.
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