Some Questions to Spur Discussion

[Nate the Great]

Sorry, but that seems a little too easy. There's always a catch. If the cost isn't monetary, it must be piles of spam, cans of computer worms, or something like that. I'm cynical. Prove me wrong. I'm glad to admit that I'm wrong if I actually am and it means that the world is a better place than I thought.

[Zeke]

Speaking of Nathan Hale, people have suggested that his name be used as a nickname for the asterisk. Why? Because he regretted that he had but one asterisk for his country....

[mudshark]

Ba-da-bum!

Still, that's probably more fit for general consumption than Kurt Vonnegut's use of the asterisk in Breakfast of Champions and subsequent works.


Nate, I haven't experienced a discernible increase in Spam, nor have I acquired any worms by the can or other unit of measure. Yeah, there are ads but, aside from this Five-Minute place and a few other similarly ad-free havens, those are everywhere.

[Nate the Great]

To change to a lighter topic, does everybody know the stance the makers of SPAM have taken on the modern definition? It's actually okay, as long as you always capitalize the whole thing if you mean the food.

What I'd like to know is how the word got associated in the first place.

[mudshark]

Spam history

I'm not sure about Hormel's official position on the subject.

[Nate the Great]

Um, the official stance is right there in that link. To quote:

"Hormel Foods Corporation, the makers of SPAM luncheon meat, do not object to the Internet use of the term "spamming." However, they do ask that the capitalized word "SPAM" be reserved to refer to their product and trademark. [10] By and large, this request is obeyed in forums which discuss spam—to the extent that to write "SPAM" for "spam" brands the writer as a n00b."

It's that "n00b" that irks me. I prefer "newbie," but I'm told that there are people who use quite different definitions for the two. That's an odd thing about me. I know all about Leet, but I never use it, even though I also proudly call myself both a nerd and a geek. I guess I'm one of those "english purists." I'll rant about farther vs. further all day, and yet I still use corruptions like "till." For that matter, I still try to use the word "gal," even though I am told repeatedly that the feminine form of "guy" these days is (prepare to be shocked!) "guy." That's alliterative.

I'm still wondering whether my shazam joke was understood and dismissed or just ignored. Come on, it was a subtle joke that I was Captain Marvel! Am I preaching to an empty room, or did the joke just leave a rotten taste in people's ears? Savor that joke, why doncha?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Sorry, but that seems a little too easy. There's always a catch. If the cost isn't monetary, it must be piles of spam, cans of computer worms, or something like that. I'm cynical. Prove me wrong. I'm glad to admit that I'm wrong if I actually am and it means that the world is a better place than I thought.

Photobucket is pretty good, actually. I even got myself a paid account, and I've never had any trouble with it at all.

[catalina_marina]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

1. What do you think really happened to the Xindi in the hundred years before Kirk? Are they still there and we just never saw one, or were they assimilated by the Borg when no one was looking, or what?

Maybe they were wiped out, like predicted.

2. Do you prefer Mark One Assimilation (beam you away and insert implants manually and probably surgically) or Mark Two Assimilation (inject you with nanoprobes and manufacture implants using metal from hammerspace)? As a plot device, I mean, not as the way you'd prefer to be assimilated.

Mark one, I guess.

3. Can you think of a reason why Andorians' antennae never moved in TOS? Was it bred out of the genepool, or is it a trick that only certain Andorians can do, akin to wiggling ears?

Er, I just blame that on the budget. Mostly becaus I never actually watched TOS.

4. Regardless of the way the dictionary says it, do you prefer "few-tile" or "few-till?"

Few-tile.

5. Do you think Voyager really had an aero-shuttle? Why didn't they use it? Was it in the plans but never made, or were some crucial parts going to arrive "next Tuesday" and Janeway had to leave with an incomplete ship because of the Maquis threat?

I've never heard anything about an aero-shuttle... So I guess they didn't have one.

6. Is it really reasonable that there are only X torpedoes on Voyager? Surely they can replicate casings and trade for antimatter with other spacefaring races, right?

I don't think they'd sell weapons that easily. And I guess it might take time to replicate them.

7. Would you have prefered Ro Laren to have starred on DS9 instead of Kira, as was in the original plans?

I probably would have when I watched Enterprise and no DS9, although I'm not sure Ro Laren was there yet, back then.

[QUOTE]8. Are you a Wesley/Lefler shipper?
Wesley/who now?

9. You think Captain Bateson was still in command of the Bozeman in First Contact, or was he swapping drinks with Scotty on Wrigley's Pleasure Planet?

Sounds like TOS.

10. Do you disregard all mention of lasers and lithium crystals and Vulcanians and time-warp factors in the early episodes of TOS, or do you think that they really were in a transition period in the mid-2260s?

Er...

11. Those STTMP uniforms really did stink, didn't they?

I wouldn't know.

12. You think that Commodore is still a valid rank in the 24th century?

No.

13. Should Picard have retired to serve as Commandant of Starfleet Academy and given the Enterprise to Riker a long time ago? I think so.

No. Picard, like Kirk, liked being a captain, I think.

14. You think Riker's ticked off that Janeway made Admiral before he did? They are in the same class, you know.

Probably.

15. You really think it would've been an "unheroic dead" if Soran had just shoot Kirk in the back, like it was originally shot?

Yup.

16. If there was one Trek game that Paramount decided to market in real life, which game? Taking out Fizzbin as insanely complicated, would you prefer Parrises Squares, Kalto, Anbo-jytsu, Tongo, Dabo, what?

Didn't they already market 3D-chess? I still want to know the rules to that.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I'd make a joke about strapping you to a chair and conditioning you with a whirly-light machineamajig until you not only watch TOS of your own volition but then proclaim it to be your favourite series of the lot, but you just wouldn't get it.

[catalina_marina]

I guess I don't, but if you can provide me with TOS, you can strap me to a chair to watch it any time. And I don't care how wrong the previous statement sounded.

[Nate the Great]

Bateson is not TOS, exactly. Sure, he's from TOS times, but we see him in TNG after he spends a year stuck in Groundhog Day. Okay, it's a temporal causality loop, but it's the same thing. Played by Kelsey Grammer, plenty of people have made Frasier/Bateson jokes, so I'm not gonna bother.

Basic Biography of Morgan Bateson
Note: As we only saw and spoke to him for under five minutes in canonical Trek, most of this is from the excellent book Ship of the Line.

Morgan Bateson is the captain of the Soyuz-class USS Bozeman. Soyuz-class is kinda like Miranda-class (think Reliant) only without a sensor strip and a longer engineering deck in the back, plus a few sensor pods added to the sides. In 2278 (Towards the end of the second five-year mission of the Enterprise 1701) it was sucked into a temporal rift. For the next ninety years he hung out in Puxatawney with Phil Connors, Jack O'Neill, Teal'c, Xena, Gabrielle, and Autolycus.

After emerging from the rift and almost smashing into the Enterprise-D, the Bozeman crew decided to stick together, get reeducated in the innovations of the twenty-fourth century, and return to service. The original Bozeman was destroyed by the Borg cube in First Contact, and a Bozeman-A was built. Bateson also reconnected with Scotty (they were old friends, and a crewman from the Enterprise had just barely transferred to the Bozeman) and they helped design and test the Enterprise-E. In fact, for a little while there he got a little obsessed and planned to command the E-E. But that's another story...

[Zeke]

What I liked best about Ship of the Line is that Bateson finally made a point I'd been waiting to hear someone make for years: why do we want the Klingons as allies? These are people whose whole society revolves around violence and bloodshed. Assassination is a legitimate career track in the Klingon fleet. They're absolute bastards and they kill people's sons. Obviously these points can be answered, but it was high time they were at least raised.

[ijdgaf]

It's all about tolerance.

I was always waiting for an allegory involving the Klingons, a sex-based race, and a media-based race.

And a child-based race that did nothing but watch the media-based race all day.

[Nate the Great]

Why do we want the Klingons as allies? Think about them in comparison to the other major powers in the quadrant, then tell me that the Klingons aren't the best bet to becoming the next member of the Federation.

Klingons: They party hearty. They believe in family values. They avenge crimes. They don't spend all of their time looking around corners and behind their back seats for members of the Tal Shiar or Obsidian Order. They have the hearts of poets. Sure, they fight and pillage, but they have a code of honor that prevents assasination and back-stabbing. Heck, anyone who's a Shakespeare fan can't be ALL bad.

Romulans: They believe that the state is infallable, that anyone and everyone is inferior to them (even the genetically identical Vulcan race). They have no problem with back-stabbing. They never looked ahead. Consider the Romulan/Klingon alliance. They gave away the secret of cloaking technology just to get some ships? This is a race so consumed with the ratrace of today that they can't be depended upon to worry about their future.

Cardassians: An entire race of second-guessers and backstabbers. The Obsidian Order has infiltrated the society so much that everyone just admits that they're living under a microscope. They're so deluded that in the same breath that they claim genetic superiority they complain about the cold and want to go to the sauna.

[Derek]

I always figured with the Klingons it was one of those "Keep your friends close..." things.

I've also always wondered what happened to Bateson prior to the Ent-D. What did he keep running into and exploding with before the Ent-D was similarly trapped?

[Nate the Great]

Easy as pie. He was stuck in that loop for eighty years or so. The E-D was stuck for like two weeks. Maybe Bill Nye can help with...The Calculator of Science!

80 yrs=30000 days, give or take.
2 wks=15 days, give or take. Hey, I'm an engineer, not a mathematician.

30000/15=the timeflow rate for the Bozeman was 6000 times more than that of the Enterprise. This may mean that even though the Enterprise was a safe distance away (I jolly well hope so, given all the weird stuff they've already encountered around spatial rifts), the Bozeman was going so fast relative to them that there wasn't time.

[catalina_marina]

I don't think Star Trek believes in relativity.

[MaverickZer0]

I don't think Star Trek believes in time, period.

[ijdgaf]

Franchises can possess beliefs now? Sweet.

[Nate the Great]

Maybe Trek doesn't believe in time, but time believes in it. Here we are, forty years after the saga began.

On a sidenote, when do you think they'll attempt the next series? I hope they don't connect the likelihood of the next series with the sucess or failure of Star Trek XI.