Persistent, Niggling Questions

[DrWho42]

Why won't IKEA ship me the blahaj shark?

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching a review of "The Pegasus" again and the following occurs to me...


PNQ: Even if the Federation doesn't believe in cloaking devices, what about all the other galactic powers?


I mean, surely the Ferengi could've bought or stole cloaking tech by now. The Obsidian Order could've stolen cloaking tech by now (they had an embassy on Romulus, after all). The Breen, the Orion Syndicate, the list goes on and on.


Gene's admonition that Starfleet doesn't sneak around is idealistic but not realistic.



I wish that they had introduced more restrictions on cloaking devices than just "no shields or weapons". The most obvious one that I can think of is "no cloaks while at warp."



Second is "cloaks are so energy-intensive that you can only use it for X minutes." Or to follow up on STVI, say that ships under cloak must be specifically modified to contain all impulse and thruster exhaust until the ship drops cloak. After X minutes the tanks are full and you need to decloak to vent before you can cloak again.


Third is some sort of technobabble to say that cloaking devices put out some form of radiation that Klingons and Romulans can handle just fine, but is cumulatively toxic for all other races. Perhaps when the Romulans gave the tech to the Klingons in the first place they also shared the needed genetic modifications. This would be a good place to explain the Romulan forehead ridges.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: What TV show have you seen all (or at least the vast majority of), but now regret wasting your time with?

Every so often I regret watching Love Hina. There are only like three jokes in that show that are repeated over and over.

I know that a lot of early dubbed anime have that problem, but still…

I don’t know how many of you have heard of Kimagure Orange Road. It also had a rather limited premise, but at least it had heart and made you feel for the characters.

[Nate the Great]

A comment on a YouTube video of Janeway's cameo in Nemesis...


"I don't want her as guest character-I WANTED A VOYAGER MOVIE."


PNQ: What could've been the plot of a Voyager movie?


Or a DS9 movie, while we're talking about it. Obviously an ENT movie would be our heroes preventing the Klingons or Romulans from interfering with the creation of the Federation, but what about the other two?


I mean, you couldn't have saved arriving home for a Voyager movie, it would've short-changed the TV viewers. And a key problem with Voyager is that there really isn't a reason for the crew to remain together after they get back.



An interesting TV movie would be Voyager returning to the Delta Quadrant ten years later with some sort of Federation-built equivalent to the Borg transwarp conduits and revisit some old friends like Neelix, but you couldn't put that in theaters.



Obviously a DS9 movie would be Sisko returning in time for Bajor to join the Federation. The enemy wouldn't be the Cardassians, it would be the Maquis (I refuse to believe that the Maquis could ever be completely eradicated, they have enough sense to remain decentralized enough to allow for a comeback). But again, TV movie, not theaters.

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

PNQ: What TV show have you seen all (or at least the vast majority of), but now regret wasting your time with?

Every so often I regret watching Love Hina. There are only like three jokes in that show that are repeated over and over.

I know that a lot of early dubbed anime have that problem, but still…

I don’t know how many of you have heard of Kimagure Orange Road. It also had a rather limited premise, but at least it had heart and made you feel for the characters.

Aside from sitting through Disney Afternoon day after day despite not being too fond of several of its cartoons? Nothing really. Slayers was mostly a disappointment, but even it had three or four good episodes in that first season and, like, I get the references in fanworks better now.

[Nate the Great]

A Reddit post brings up an interesting question: Is it really okay to superglue your LEGO sets together, especially if they're fragile?


I'm conflicted. LEGO is a construction toy, not a model set. The idea of paying that much money only to build a very specific thing and then putting it on a shelf seems...unnatural to me. That's what plastic models are for.



Then again, maybe I'm just an old fogey. I remember when LEGO was the following and nothing else: Castle, Town, Pirate, Space, DUPLO, Technic. That was it. No licensed nonsense, no set-specific pieces. You build, you take it apart, you build again.



Then again, the Reddit post was about LEGO flowers, which are more fragile than the usual creation. As long as you're not filling whole shelves, is it okay to superglue once in awhile?

[Nate the Great]

We're now two years away from the Bell Riots, and it's sad how close we are to Sanctuary Districts actually happening.


PNQ: What near-future event in Trek are you most scared of and most looking forward to?


Not counting World War III and the first warp flight, of course. I want to stay away from that stuff.



The cure for cancer will be found in this century according to "Fury."
According to "Where No Man..." the genetic potential for ESP will first be quantified.


The ozone layer is said to fail in this century, luckily this seems to have been averted.


"The Slaver Weapons" indicate that the Kzinti wars will also occur in this century, but one has to wonder how a planet that has just invented warp drive can effectively wage an interplanetary war.

[Nate the Great]

It's been a long-standing question, and today I saw that another YouTube video had been made on the subject:


PNQ: Why didn't Voyager set course for the Gamma Quadrant end of the Bajoran Wormhole? Wouldn't it be a shorter trip?


Well, I have another question...


PNQ: How did they know that they were in the Delta Quadrant in the first place?


Okay, let's handwave that one away, even if it implies that the locations and movements of all major stars in the galaxy have been charted (a dubious claim if you ask me). Voyager disappeared Stardate 48317. While the DS9 crew had heard rumblings of the Dominion, First Contact wasn't really had until "The Jem'Hadar", Stardate 48212. It had only been a month or so! The full picture of the Dominion couldn't have been known, especially the extents of "Dominion Space".



On the other hand, Janeway seemed to know that Borg space was on their present course at one point or another. Did she pick the lesser of two evils? Did she think that it would be easier for Voyager to slip past the Borg unnoticed than to go through the Dominion?