Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

Perhaps some of you have heard about Grant Morrison's summary of Superman in eight words:

Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple.

On Twitter someone (http://noblemania.blogspot.com/2013/03/superman-and-batman-origins-in-eight.html) recapped Batman simularly:

Murdered parents. Broken window. Cowardly lot. Greatest detective.

PNQ: Do you care to attempt the same for other heroes?

Spider bite. Murdered uncle. Great Power. Great Responsibility.
Miracle child. Champion princess's secret. Win with love.
Spoiled brat. Deserted island. Survival training. Hunt evil.
One who lived. Lonely child. Magical discovery. Endure.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching a YouTube video and one person asks another something to the effect of "if you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?"

Yikes. There's a toughie for you.

PNQ: What's your one book? All nonfiction (aside from humor) and religious texts are off the table, only pure entertainment books.

[Nate the Great]

So after the unfortunate passing of Anton Yelchin and the news that Chekov won't be recast, I've been wondering what they'll do (not that I'll be watching any Abramsverse films, understand)...

(Incidentally, apparently we're supposed to call it the Kelvinverse, but they took too long to decide on that, so I'm sticking with Abramsverse)

PNQ: Would it be cool to go the route that TAS took and replace Chekov with a new version of Arex? Would a fully CG alien on the bridge work?

[NAHTMMM]

So I'm watching a YouTube video and one person asks another something to the effect of "if you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?"
Well, the --
religious texts are off the table, only pure entertainment books.
Oh. Uh. Imagine asking that, except it's only one particular thing you can eat. It wouldn't necessarily be your favorite food, it'd have to be a food you like that provides all the nutrition you need. Same thing, books nourish the mind. If I want something funny, something serious, something that goes down easy, something thought-provoking, I can't change my decision.

If the question were about movies, I'd probably go with Close Encounters based on that logic. I don't know of any book that would fit such a criterion, so I guess I'd go with Fellowship of the Ring and hope that nobody notices it's technically a volume of two books. There's enough going on in there to keep me entertained over many rereads.



PNQ: Would it be cool to go the route that TAS took and replace Chekov with a new version of Arex? Would a fully CG alien on the bridge work?
They could go the CG route nowadays, it could be fun, but (still not having seen Beyond yet) I wouldn't expect them to do anything to justify the investment.

[Nate the Great]

So if readily published omnibuses like The Lord of the Rings were options, you'd choose one of those? I've seen Narnia, the Baum Oz books, etc. as single volume omnibuses as well.

[Nate the Great]

I have an interest in topology, so I've known about the Klein Bottle for awhile. Cliff Stoll makes glass Klein Bottles (http://www.kleinbottle.com/index.htm). They're beyond my budget for now, but eventually I hope to have one.

Anyway, let's get on to today's PNQ. On this page (http://www.kleinbottle.com/double_and_triple_Klein_Bottles.html) they show double and triple Klein Bottles. At least, they look like two and three Klein Bottles that have been linked up. Anyway...

PNQ: The page says that only one of these has the topological properties of a normal Klein Bottle (or as he puts it, "One of these is homeomorphic to a Klein Bottle. The other is homeomorphic to a Torus."). Which is which?

[Nate the Great]

I rewatched the SF Debris review of "Skin of Evil" and the discussion about Yar's departure today...

PNQ: What plotlines can you envision for Yar had she stayed on board long enough to get into the era of the show that was more focused on the ensemble?

Granted, had Yar stayed "Yesterday's Enterprise" would've been very different and the Sela arc never would've happened. But what would have taken place instead?

Would there have been a gradual romance between Yar and Data? What would've happened to Worf? Would she have helped harden Troi, who would've helped to soften her in exchange? Would Ishara Yar have been created? Would she have been friends with Ro Laren?

[Nate the Great]

I haven't seen Rogue One yet...

PNQ: Does the CGI Carrie Fisher look that bad?

Because in my experience, this is a problem that if, not solvable, can be severely alleviated by throwing enough money at. And Disney would certainly have deep enough pockets and a deep enough desire to not enrage Star Wars fans.

[Flying Gremlin]

Yes, it was obviously CGI - they still haven't quite figured out that ALL the skin doesn't need to move when someone talks - but I thought it was pretty good.

The first 30 seconds of this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFQWLfJggB8) has some stills of the CGI of Carrie Fisher, and the rest is the CGI'd Peter Cushing.

[Nate the Great]

Egads. Can you say "video game cutscene from five years ago?" Makes me think someone was stealing money from the CG budget under the table.

In this case, I would've just had a view of Leia from behind. The costume and hairstyle would've been enough, and only have her be onscreen long enough to get the job done and not one second more.

[Flying Gremlin]

They did only have her on screen for one job and not one second more. That scene happens near the end of the movie, it's less than 10 seconds and nothing more than a brief cameo, which that movie had plenty of.

Scene for scene, Cushing was done a lot better, and I do agree that they should have spent some more time on Fisher. However, if ILM is to be believed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMB2sLwz0Do), Fisher liked it. Can't exactly ask her directly now, can we?

[NAHTMMM]

I think I figured they had a near-enough lookalike for Tarkin and CGI'ed/makeupped him the rest of the way, and CGI'ed Leia. She did look a little off to me.

[Nate the Great]

For complicated reasons the following questions occurred to me...

PNQ1: If the creators had wanted the Bajoran and Starfleet crews on DS9 to be more balanced, which main character could've been made Bajoran?
PNQ2: If the creators had wanted the Maquis and Starfleet crews on VOY to be more balanced, which main charater could've been made Maquis?

Okay, DS9 first. Looking over the main cast, I'm led to believe that Bashir could've been made a Bajoran with minimal tweaks. Let's say that his grandparents fled Bajoran space when the Cardassians invaded at the start of the Occupation. His family has enjoyed the prosperity of the Federation for decades, but Kira thinks his family are traitors for not staying behind and fighting in the Occupation. Keep the genetic modifications, Kukalaka, and so forth. His relationship with Garak would also have new dimensions.

Now VOY. This one's more of a toughie. I get it that between them Tuvok and Paris sort of had the "third Maquis" quota met, and Seska had that role early on, but still...

[Nate the Great]

That does raise the question....

PNQ: They couldn't find a suitable Princess Leia cosplayer that could be tweaked with CGI without making a complete virtual actor?
PNQ: For that matter, I'm reminded of her first confrontation with Vader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7rXTB5H_o). Pull her out away from the background, mirror image it, and tweak the lip movements a bit. Wouldn't that avoid most of the Uncanny Valley?

[Nate the Great]

So today I was reminded of an odd tradition...

PNQ: Do you dip your french fries in your milkshake?

[Nate the Great]

It should be noted that I'm not really a milkshake guy, unlike the rest of my family. I lean more toward root beer floats, and you'd never dip a french fry in one of those, would you?

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ1: If the creators had wanted the Bajoran and Starfleet crews on DS9 to be more balanced, which main character could've been made Bajoran?

I would have liked to have seen the original plan for the series come to fruition, with Lieutenant Ro being in the Major Kira role. Would have really thrown the Emissary in with not one but two Starfleet officers struggling with the concet.

Besides that, Bashir was a good candidate, but Dax would be my pick. Granted, the Trill did bring in some good stories, but the whole change the entire species thing to suit the one actress with a skin condition? Also, with the personal connection with Sisko could have made the decision in the pilot a whole lot more complicated.

PNQ2: If the creators had wanted the Maquis and Starfleet crews on VOY to be more balanced, which main charater could've been made Maquis?

None. It struck a good balance in between the different factions.

PNQ: They couldn't find a suitable Princess Leia cosplayer that could be tweaked with CGI without making a complete virtual actor?

That was a Leia cosplayer (of sorts).

PNQ: For that matter, I'm reminded of her first confrontation with Vader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7rXTB5H_o). Pull her out away from the background, mirror image it, and tweak the lip movements a bit. Wouldn't that avoid most of the Uncanny Valley?

I think they were trying to show off a little too much. After the success with Cushing (despite the problems noted above), I think they just went for a double down.

PNQ: Do you dip your french fries in your milkshake?

Only if it's a Wendy's Frosty, and that's not even a milkshake per se. Any other one is disrespecting the fry... and the milkshake.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Are there any Francophones out there that could tell me how the humor translates in the French versions of these web animations?

Poor Monkey: English (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4ozf2rh5Vc) and French (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW8Vj1KgSbE)
Naughty Heffalump: English (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjdPNGbdJ8M&t=41s) and French (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_V7U2Kd048)

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching the SFDebris review of "And The Children Shall Lead" again, and I notice the early Federation flag (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/c/cc/Federation_pennant_on_Triacus.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090306223729&path-prefix=en).

Thirteen stars. We know that the four founding members were Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar Prime, so what could the other nine be?

PNQ: Speculations?

Memory Alpha (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Federation_members) posits Alpha Centauri as a fifth founding member. "Journey to Babel" features six other races that could plausibly be founding members, with Alpha Centauri possibly being among their number.

Memory Beta (http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Federation_members) places Alpha Centauri as fifth and Rigel as sixth.

Other planets from the Memory Beta page that seem likely as old members include Benzar, the Medusans, and Regulus.

But that's just a theory, a (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/that-s-just-a-theory-a-game-theory)...oh, wait, that's another show.

[NAHTMMM]

I would absolutely agree Alpha Centauri is a founding member. There might be a few independent Vulcan colonies as well -- I don't think we hear much about Vulcan's colonization efforts in canon, but they've been exploring space longer than Earth has.

[Flying Gremlin]

Likely in addition to the ones cited some other independent Earth colony worlds. I know you don't like discussing ENT, but the best one I can think of is Terra Nova. Mars might actually be that way too, which is terraformed by the 24th century and seen in the 22nd in the early phases.

Rigel is also very likely... and the planet Babel.

[Nate the Great]

Regarding this strip (http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/113.html) of Irregular Webcomic...

PNQ: That's a Hitchhiker's Guide joke, not The Far Side, right?

[Nate the Great]

So the Switch is getting a version of Street Fighter II. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Street_Fighter_II:_The_Final_Challengers)

Depending on how you want to count them, that makes this around the seventh version of Street Fighter II.

PNQ: Considering that Street Fighter V came out last year, why can't this be Street Fighter VI?

Look, my experience with 2D brawlers basically starts and stops with Smash Brothers. However, I never got the impression that things like "plot" or "continuity" were important in these things. So why can't the entries just be numbered sequentially?

PNQ2: Was Street Fighter II just that legendary that it will sell the game sight unseen, hopefully selling a few more Switches in the process?

[Nate the Great]

The Irish folks over at Tested trying ice cream floats. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW5vYzx26J8)

PNQ: What's your favorite float?

And I mean a float as in "a scoop of ice cream in soda pop."

Before this all I'd heard of is either root beer or coke in vanilla ice cream. I love root beer floats.

Strawberry ice cream in lemonade sounds kinda interesting.

Chocolate ice cream in cream soda...NO. That's just wrong. Then again, I don't really like cream soda by itself anyway...

Wikipedia has a whole page on the subject. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_float)

A "purple cow" (i.e. vanilla ice cream in grape pop) sounds interesting.

On a related subject, I'm also a fan of the wedding reception staple: rainbow sherbet in ginger ale. Whether or not that still counts as a "float" if the sherbet is half-melted is up for debate as well.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: If you could see any five movies from the past on a theater screen again, what five?

This question is inspired by a fan commentary of Singin' in the Rain, where they recommend watching the movie on a big screen if possible.

The thing is, I have seen movies on a big screen that get a lot of their value from the "wow factor" I'm talking about. The Hitchhiker's Guide and Speed Racer movies come to mind immediately. I believe I also saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on a big screen as well.

However, in the name of more interesting answers I'll lay down a few ground rules...
1. No Star Wars.
2. Pre-2000 only.
3. Live action only.

Would I want to see Singin' in the Rain on the big screen? Of course, but does it reach the top five? I'm not sure. I think the Sound of Music could make better use of the wow factor. Going a bit more obscure, I could only imagine how good Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines would look. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, just think of it!

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ: If you could see any five movies from the past on a theater screen again, what five?

No fair on the Star Wars thing, by the way.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The Matrix
The Fifth Element
The King and I

[NAHTMMM]

PNQ: If you could see any five movies from the past on a theater screen again, what five?

However, in the name of more interesting answers I'll lay down a few ground rules...
1. No Star Wars.
2. Pre-2000 only.
3. Live action only.
1. Close Encounters is the easy pick.
2. Wrath of Khan
3. The Last Starfighter while we're at it.
4. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
5. The Wizard of Oz

[Nate the Great]

You did mean WILLY WONKA and the Chocolate Factory, right?

Of course, the Wizard of Oz!

The Ten Commandments springs to mind once I start to think about it.

[NAHTMMM]

You did mean WILLY WONKA and the Chocolate Factory, right?
I most certainly did.

[Nate the Great]

I hope so. Have a nice piano cover of "Pure Imagination (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMpL3ySZ6lY)" someone made last year to commemorate Wilder's death.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: If you could take any five side characters from TOS or TNG and promote them to regulars in other (imaginary) spinoffs like O'Brien, which ones?

Note One: No DS9 because all of the characters got the exposure they needed, there really weren't any who were so shortchanged that there were tons of unexplored possible storylines.
Note Two: No VOY because there really aren't any such candidates. Half of the main characters were shortchanged, so what's left? Samantha Wildman, Carey, and Hogan?
Note Three: No ENT because I don't know enough about the subtleties of the characters as written to speculate. The only one that even vaguely springs to mind is that MACO that had tension with Trip, who I had to look up-->Amanda Cole.

My list:
1. Ro Laren: Even putting aside the Kira role drama, she had the backstory and personality to carry a show week to week. Especially if you built in a long-term romantic subplot (and I mean way longer than Torres and Paris) and a position where she had to be a leader and teacher. While Security Chief seems like an obvious position, Command would be a bigger challenge. Could you mold her to be a good first officer?
2. Kevin Riley: His conduct under polywater intoxication shouldn't be held against him. Certainly he couldn't be the captain, but he could provide a new spin on a Tom Paris-like character, as Security Chief or something.
3. Peter Kirk: What would life be like as the nephew of a living legend? What if he chose to avoid Starfleet, joining a crew as a civilian advisor?
4. James Moriarty: Now that Voyager has returned and the specs for the mobile emitter are available, he and the Countess Regina can be retrieved from their holocube. What if there was a newly-encountered species that was much like Victorian Europe, where a specialist would be necessary to understand them? How would he interact with the Ferengi?
5. Sela: A series based around a joint Romulan/Federation mission in deep space. Perhaps there's a newly-discovered area in Romulan space that only a Federation starship can reach, and Sela believes that she can manipulate said starship into finding new resources and subjects for the Empire. She comes into conflict with the Starfleet crew who seek friendship with new species.

[Nate the Great]

Wandering around TVTropes again...
(http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/IAmNotShazam/LiveActionTV)
"Plenty of people who have never watched Star Trek (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarTrek) still assume the ship's name is the Star Trek. Casual fans who only watched the original series or perhaps TNG believe that the Defiant (from Deep Space Nine) and Voyager are called Enterprise. After all, aren't all the ships on Star Trek (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarTrek) called that?"

PNQ: Have you ever known anyone to make either of these mistakes?

[Nate the Great]

PNQ1: Would anyone be interested in a "Nate watches Babylon 5 for the first time in 20 years, seeing if it's really as good as everyone says" thread?

I would set a strict limit on the amount of complaining that I can do, but I would be allowed to ask questions to see how long it takes for them to be answered.

Yes, this is inspired by SFDebris' reviews of the show. He does his best, but it still seems like "the viewer is held responsible for every word said in every episode since the beginning." I want to be proven wrong, I really do.

PNQ2: How do the B5 fans out there feel about the essential episode lists on this page (https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/babylon-5-condensed-how-to-watch-sci-fis-most-intimidating-masterpiece-1613627/)?

There's the minimum list of two movies and 60 episodes, with 17 more recommended. Should I do 60+2M, 77+2M, or just give up and do all 110+6M? I don't care about Crusade in the slightest.

[Nate the Great]

Every so often I do a Gotham Girls (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJNFeMGuirLB1uo7-VCHS3wwrI7diO9lC) marathon. (If you watch the playlist, take note that Season 2, Episode 1 is out of order).

The reactions seem to fall along generational lines. Older people toward the top, younger people toward the bottom:

1. Oh, this is so great, I remember when they were made fifteen years ago!
2. I love the DCAU voices, but the animation could be better.
3. Ugh! Ugly Flash animation! How can anyone enjoy this?

PNQ: Why do some people apply modern technological standards to older products that didn't have said technology available?

You know what I mean. Silent movies gave way to sound, some people thought that all silent movies were worthless and boring. Black and white gave way to color, some people thought all black and white movies were worthless and boring. SD gives way to HD, some people thought all SD movies were worthless and boring. It'll happen again when glasses-free 3D is perfected, count on it.

Gotham Girls was made in 2000-2002, of course the animation looks bad. It was the age of dialup, anything better would've taken forever to download. Heck, one of the first episodes had to be split into two files because it committed the unforgivable sin of being more than three minutes long!

This is the abridged version of the lecture that I had typed up. I was clearly veering off into "young whippersnappers these days" territory.

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ: Have you ever known anyone to make either of these mistakes?

Oh yes. I mostly pity those people that make mistakes of that calibre.

PNQ1: Would anyone be interested in a "Nate watches Babylon 5 for the first time in 20 years, seeing if it's really as good as everyone says" thread?

I would, on one condition: relinquish one of the other review things for someone else to do. I would gladly take on TOS or TNG if you wanted to.

PNQ2: How do the B5 fans out there feel about the essential episode lists on this page (https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/babylon-5-condensed-how-to-watch-sci-fis-most-intimidating-masterpiece-1613627/)?

The avalanche has already started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

PNQ: Why do some people apply modern technological standards to older products that didn't have said technology available?

There is always that general group that says "newer is better", with varying rates of truth to the matter.

When I was interviewing for one place to be a network admin, one of the things the interviewer told me was that there was this particular person whom thought all backups should be done on CDs or DVDs because they were newer than all other backup media at the time. If you know anything about server data storage, you'll know how false this is: tape backups are still the way to go in any data center environment, as they can withstand a lot more punishment than any other media plus have the advantage of using less room for more storage and being rewriteable.

[Nate the Great]

Technically I never called dibs on the TOS episodes, it's just that no one else seemed like they were going to do them on the anniversary dates. No one even said "Nate, give me half a day to do it first." If you want to cover a TOS or TNG episode, be my guest.

I take it you're of the mindset that I should just do all B5 episodes.

[Flying Gremlin]

I take it you're of the mindset that I should just do all B5 episodes.

As I seem to be the only one responding, my statement was more pointing out that you seem to have made up your mind on the subject and it seems to be too late to give us (or me in this case, unless people are feeding you opinions in another way) the choice in the matter.

A Kosh quote that actually works for the context in which it was intended. What are the odds.

[Nate the Great]

I'm not sure where the miscommunication was. 110 episodes and six movies is quite the commitment. If enough people think that all of them are essential, so be it, but the shorter lists were made for a reason.

I specifically looked up a list of what people thought were the essential episodes. A lot of shows, even the continuity-heavy ones, have episodes that are essentially meaningless when it comes to the overarching plot. For example, "Move Along Home" might be a bit of fun, but it hardly ties into any of DS9's big plots (Dominion, Cardassia, Bajor, etc.) It could be skipped and not be missed since nothing from it will be referenced later.

So I really am asking for opinions vis-a-vis the three possible lists.

[Flying Gremlin]

All right, then. IMHO, all or nothing, for three reasons - two personal, one more logical.

First, I'm a little bit of a completionist, which is actually part of the reason why I asked Zeke for a VOY episode to Five first. If you're going to do something, might as well get it all in, right?

Second, B5 is a second love of mine; I preferred B5 more than DS9 when it first aired in the 90s, and I would love to see if it stands up to the test of time. It's not on any streaming service in Canada that I have access to right now, so this would be the second best thing for me.

Third, I know B5 has a list of "essential episodes", but ignoring those "non-essential episodes" is ignoring character development. In those, you see great moral dilemmas, inner workings of the station proper, and character development. Using the first season as an example, the Doctor Franklin vehicle "Believers" comes to light, as that doesn't really contribute to the arc, but is an incredibly good episode... that now that I think of it, was ripped off wholly by one of my favorite Trek novel writers. DAMN YOU PETER DAVID!

[Nate the Great]

So I'm thinking about Voyager's variable geometry pylons again...

PNQ: What's the purpose of these things again?

I mean, it's not like the angle gradually increases or decreases as warp speed increases (angle X for Warp 1, angle Y for Warp 2, etc.), it's just zero degrees for impulse speeds (i.e. no warp field present) and thirty degrees or so for warp speeds (i.e. a warp field is present).

Furthermore, why is there a specific angle for impulse speeds anyway? It's not like you really need to worry about the coefficient of drag in space after all.

And while we're at it, supposedly these things were in response to the events of "Force of Nature" and the subsequent warp speed limit. My response to the response is...so what? We are consistently shown that the Delta Quadrant is sparser in terms of populated planets, interplanetary governments, and warp-capable ships in general than the Alpha Quadrant. Less warp traffic means Voyager will hardly be the domino that sets off a chain reaction of rifts and destroy subspace.

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ: What's the purpose of these things again?

I mean, it's not like the angle gradually increases or decreases as warp speed increases (angle X for Warp 1, angle Y for Warp 2, etc.), it's just zero degrees for impulse speeds (i.e. no warp field present) and thirty degrees or so for warp speeds (i.e. a warp field is present).

Furthermore, why is there a specific angle for impulse speeds anyway? It's not like you really need to worry about the coefficient of drag in space after all.

And while we're at it, supposedly these things were in response to the events of "Force of Nature" and the subsequent warp speed limit. My response to the response is...so what? We are consistently shown that the Delta Quadrant is sparser in terms of populated planets, interplanetary governments, and warp-capable ships in general than the Alpha Quadrant. Less warp traffic means Voyager will hardly be the domino that sets off a chain reaction of rifts and destroy subspace.

The treknobabble argument is that a combination of re-engineered warp coils and an elongated Z-axis either reduced or completely eliminated the environmental damage that was taking place. The Intrepid class' variable geometry is the design's way of achieving this as one of the first classes that had this fix implemented in this small of a package. Also, the impulse engines are on the nacelle pylons, so returning them to the 0 degree angle is most likely for efficient impulse flight and maneuverability. This is also why you see only elongated saucer sections from Starfleet from that point forward, none of that round business on-screen from newer ship designs. (At least, I think that's how the thing worked. Been a while since I was immersed in Trek-engineering.)

The real reason is probably Rule of Cool.

[Nate the Great]

I never did understand the impulse engines on the pylons. At sublight speeds standard Newtonian physics apply, right? Therefore you want the engines as close to the center of mass of the ship (or rather, the horizontal plane running through said center of mass) as possible, right? That's what the Enterprise-D did.

But Voyager? If you want the impulse engines to be centrally located, you'd want the pylons up at an angle!

Furthermore, when the impulse engines are on the pylons all of the stresses from the engines are going through the hinges!

[Nate the Great]

So I'm in the "Han Shot First" camp, or more precisely, the "Han Was the Only One Who Shot" camp.

PNQ: Opinions?

What annoys me is George Lucas' recent assertion that...

The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn't. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first)

How is Solo shooting Greedo a cold-blooded kill? He says that he has the money that he owes Jabba. Greedo says that he doesn't care; he'd rather kill Han. I call that a death threat, therefore even if he's the only one who shot this is still self-defense.

The Legal Geeks weigh in on the matter. (http://thelegalgeeks.com/2012/08/20/han-shot-first-a-legal-discussion/)

[NAHTMMM]

"a little wider shot" = Greedo shot originally, too, honest, you just didn't see it. :rolleyes:

We have ears, George. We can tell the difference between one blaster shot and two.

[NAHTMMM]

I seem to have missed this one:
PNQ: If you could take any five side characters from TOS or TNG and promote them to regulars in other (imaginary) spinoffs like O'Brien, which ones?
1. Harry Mudd
2. Sela
3. A tribble is a tribble, of course, of course . . .
4. Amanda (probably a prequel of her adapting to Vulcan society)
5. Pike (prequels ahoy)

[Nate the Great]

Over at the Straight Dope forum (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=738758) the following question is being debated quite fiercely:

PNQ: Are Reese's Peanut Butter Cups a candy bar?

Full disclosure, I love just about anything with "Reese's" on it.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reese's_Peanut_Butter_Cups)doesn't use the term "candy bar" anywhere in the article to refer to the original cups. Futhermore their article on candy bars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_bar) specifies a bar shape.

Me? No, it's not. "Bar" has a quite specific definition in this case: a roughly prismatic piece of candy in a wrapper. Usually covered in chocolate, not always. Just because things like peanut butter cups, Starburst, Rolos, Necca Wafers, and such are sold in wrappers next to the candy bars doesn't make them candy bars, just another sort of candy.

[Flying Gremlin]

I don't care, peanut butter is gross.

(I am the one person on this planet that cannot stand the taste of peanuts.)

[Nate the Great]

Get out the giant scales and a duck!

[Nate the Great]

So MovieBob made a video recently where he poked fun at all of the different pronounciations Mr. Mxyzptlk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Mxyzptlk) has gotten over the years...

PNQ: How do you pronounce it? (YouTube compilation of various versions here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuRqVg6tHcE))

I tend toward the shorter "mix-il-plik", even though I know that's not canon unless you're talking Superfriends (and I never even watched that show until I was an adult!). It's just easier for me to say. Alternatives like "mix-il-pittle-ik", "mix-is-pittle-ik", "mix-yes-pit-lick", "mix-yes-pittle-ik", "mix-yez-spit-lick", "mix-yell-pit-lick", and so forth get tiring even when you're not getting stuck in the tongue-twister.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Can anyone recommend a good starter RPG?

Criteria:

1. Free and single-player.
2. My Windows 10 computer is fairly up to date, but I don't want or need anything too resources-intensive.
3. Preferably compatible with a simple USB controller (this one (https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-940-000110-Gamepad-F310/dp/B003VAHYQY), to be precise), but at minimum primarily controlled by mouse with keyboard only for healing item hotkeys (closer to King's Quest Mask of Eternity than Dragon Age, please).
4. Simple plot, simple language. I'm here to play a game, not watch Lord of the Rings. And as Yahtzee put it, I shouldn't have to learn a second language to play a game.

I'll probably think of more later, but lets get the ball rolling. Thanks in advance.

[NAHTMMM]

D&D Online is going to get keyboard-mashy, so that's out. Star Trek Online likewise. Those are the two "big name" RPGs I've played.

How about the Mardek series? I remember that being pretty good and the plot simple, though I didn't get past Chapter Two.

I'm looking at Kongregate's other RPG badges and a lot of them are point-and-click or platformers or other not-really-RPG genre stuff. I remember when everyone was bowled over by Sonny back when zombies were the new hip thing, it's not amazing but it's good.

The Epic Battle Fantasy series tends to have good mechanics, a good "starter" RPG series, but, uh, the little girl gets the Gainax treatment if you get my drift.

Oh yes! Flagstaff series is a good starter RPG. Simple and easy. Looks like you need the keyboard to pan the map.

[Nate the Great]

Flagstaff is a little too simple. Move, attack, heal. Move, attack, heal. I fail to see how that's fun.

Epic Battle Fantasy is a little better. If nothing else it's good training for juggling attacks and healing. I wish there was a little more "meat" to it, if you get my drift.

Thanks anyway.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: What's the biggest difference between the spelling and pronunciation of a word that you've ever seen?

Today I re-encountered Goethe (pronounced "ger-teh"), although I know that's probably not the biggest difference between the two that I've encountered, it was still a catalyst.

[Nate the Great]

Inspired by today's Vlog Brothers videos...

PNQ: Do you pronounce .gif as "giff" (like "gift" without the "t") or "jiff" (like "jiffy" without the "y")? (henceforth "hard g" or "soft g")

I think it's supposed to be the former, but I use the latter, it just rolls of the tongue easier.

Wikipedia says that the creator intended soft g, while the Cambridge Dictionary says hard g. Merriam-Webster places hard g ahead of soft g.

The New York Times says take the cue from the "graphics" that the acronym is formed from and use hard g. (https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/battle-over-gif-pronunciation-erupts/?_r=0)

[Nate the Great]

I'm starting to get tired of my Kid Radd avatar, so it's time for a change...

PNQ: Does anyone remember my spinning Kataan probe avatar?

And more precisely where I can find it again? I can't seem to find it in my files. No wonder, that was over ten years and several computers ago.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching the SFDebris review of "The Trouble With Tribbles" again, and once again I wonder why Cyrano Jones would bother dealing with tribbles when he'll only make a couple sales before they multiply to the point of worthlessness...

PNQ: How about the following as a slight plot modification?

Quadrotriticale is a a recent invention, right? Of course the full effects on humanoids would've been studied before it was sent to Sherman's Planet, but what about the effects on tribbles?

Let's say that in their natural state tribbles age and reproduce at a safe rate: they're great pets! But what if you feed them quadrotriticale? Suddenly the tribbles' metabolism mutates to the point where they age to maturity very quickly and breed much larger litters.

Furthermore, what if it's not the normal quadrotriticale after all: it's the poison that Darvin added to it that mutates tribbles? He inadvertantly laid the seeds for his own exposure and defeat. This would be a plot twist that could've provided for an explanation why McCoy takes so long figuring things out: he's never seen the poison before so he wouldn't know it's effect on humanoids, much less tribbles.

Would this have worked?

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Hey, Z, new avatar means new title, right? Until I can track down that spinning Kataan probe again I can tiptoe a little away from the air guitar.

PNQ2: When's the last time any of you jumped on your bed?

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: How much of the premise of Discovery requires its current placement in the timeline?

Not counting cameos from people who happen to have the same names as TOS characters (it's amazing how many Sareks and Harry Mudds there are, aren't there?), of course.

As a prelude to the following, I'm about to compliment Enterprise again, so feel free to mark your calendars before I go back into my groundhog hole for another year.

At least Enterprise talked about issues central to its placement in the timeline. What are the implications of entering the larger universe? What are the implications of being on a long-range mission when most ships you meet will have more advanced technology than yours? How will our laws and directives have to evolve as we learn more about the consequences of our actions? What can go wrong with first contact?

Does Discovery address questions like this that depend on being where it is in the timeline? Does it feel like we're evolving towards a place where it makes sense that Kirk/Spock/etc. can be on their adventures ten years from now? If both DIS and TOS were radio shows and we couldn't see the technology or uniforms, will the events being discussed mesh?

Or are the creators using the good will generated by names like "Sarek" and "Harry Mudd" to get viewers, just like they did with the Kelvinverse?

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching "The Way of the Warrior" again and notice that Kasidy says that Cestus III is eight weeks away at maximum warp...

PNQ1: Is that "maximum warp" for her ship specifically (i.e. her freighter can only go warp six or something), or is "maximum warp" just shorthand for the fastest any starship can go at the moment (i.e. warp 9.9)?
PNQ2: How large is the Federation in the 24th century?
PNQ3: Should there be a practical maximum size for a nation-state in terms of travel time?
PNQ4: In "Family Business" a one-way subspace transmission takes two weeks to get to DS9 from Cestus III, doesn't this seem odd (i.e. subspace should be way more than four times faster than maximum warp)?

Memory Alpha indicates that the Federation is eight thousand years across (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Federation), which would be eight years of maximum warp according to the Voyager scale.

However, it seems reasonable that you could "slow down" Voyager and say that 1000 LY/yr is based on less than maximum possible warp. That is, if Voyager was in the Federation and could regularly stop at starbases for refit and maintenance it could go much faster than 1000 LY/yr. The slower speed is a result of the need for more frequent stops for maintenance.

So let's say that if supported by a network of starbases and regular supply stops at Federation worlds a starship can go 2000 LY/yr. That's still four years to travel across the whole thing.

As for the two week transmission from Cestus III, I hope that's a combination of outdated civilian subspace technology and some sort of black hole/nebula/subspace anomaly causing interference between here and there, and it really doesn't take that long to transmit a message across the Federation.

As an aside, I am appalled at the inconsistencies of how fast warp factors are (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_factor), even if we limit ourselves to the 24th century (23rd century speeds being on a different scale is already well-known). And if you look at how Enterprise tortures the scale from episode to episode, it gets downright painful.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching "The Ascent" again, and Quark offers to teach Odo how to play fizzbin, claiming that "it's a very simple game".

Let's put aside the fact that Kirk made it up back in "A Piece of the Action", either he or the Iotians have had over a hundred years to defictionalize it.

PNQ: Were the rules simplified in the intervening decades, or was Quark being sarcastic, or are the rules simple from the Ferengi perspective?

It stands to reason that Ferengi games would be more complex, and that they'd be treated as training for business dealings as well as just entertainment.

[Nate the Great]

At intervals I try to make PNQ posts about how mishandled the Maquis were. I keep going off onto tangents (as I did today twice before I had to delete them), ranting about many different things. Let me try to keep things simple and relatively civil...

PNQ: Was the basic premise of the Maquis ever properly developed or even followed up on consistently?

In my opinion, no. Bulletpoints:
* Supposedly there were also Cardassian colonies left high and dry on the Federation side of the DMZ, but we never saw them (and for that matter, it was never stated whether or not the Federation became landlords to them). This would've provided for some interesting plots: Cardassian High Command asks how things are going and the colonies admit that the Federation has left them completely alone, not even trying to create their own colonies elsewhere on their planets. There couldn't have been one episode of DS9 based on this premise? It would've been useful leverage to make the Cardassians stop hassling the Federation colonists so much, right?
* Okay, the Cardassian colonies in the DMZ was mentioned, but only to tell us that the Cardassian military was secretly gave them weapons so they could hassle the Federation colonies. That sure seems like an act of war to me! Why not give this information to Starfleet and let them handle it?
* The Maquis kept demanding the rights and powers of a nation without ever actually owning the space that they claim. It seemed like every parsec was still "owned" by either the Federation or the Cardassian Empire, so the DMZ residents were either of no nation or of the nation of their landlords. All they could do was petition both sides to cede the territory to them.
* The Maquis kept complaining that Starfleet stop treating them like terrorists and refugees (even though they were). Eddington claimed that if left alone the Maquis would've focused all of their attention on the Cardassians. Yeah, that's a suicide mission, dude. He could never grasp the simple fact that his people could live "in paradise" had they just relocated to a Federation world in the first place.

You'll note that Voyager never really came up. It's well established how mishandled the Maquis were on that show. If the creators were so scared of the Starfleet officers looking like the bad guys the premise should've been not Starfleet and Maquis, but Starfleet and another group. A group that has their own morals and values that happen to be quite different from Starfleet, but still valid. Have the other ship be Vulcans with little experience with humans, or Ferengi, or Andorians, or Binars, or Klingons, or even another Delta Quadrant race that we've never seen before. Maybe tweak the Talaxian race to be a little less annoying. The possibilities are endless!

[Nate the Great]

Today I rediscovered the cliche: "In Europe 100 miles is a long way, in the U.S. 100 years is a long time (https://imgur.com/gallery/h6tdXtp)."

PNQ: Have any of you been to Europe? How accurate is this?

[Nate the Great]

This one's been niggling at me off and on for years, but it came back today. Regarding Earth Station McKinley (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Earth_Station_McKinley)...

PNQ: What's the point of putting massive parts of the station on hinges to "grasp" a starship if the ship isn't actually docked to it?

All I can conclude is that the "fingers" create their own shield bubble to protect the ship inside.

But then you wonder what happened to Spacedock (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Spacedock_(Earth)). At least that facility fully enclosed a number of ships (but don't ask me how Starfleet built the thing, it's just too big!)

As for the other single-ship spacedocks (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Earth_spacedocks)(lower-case "s"), at least those facilities could protect workbees (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Cargo_management_unit), shuttles, and workers in EV suits (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Environmental_suit) within.

[Nate the Great]

I finally bit the bullet and signed up for Reddit...


PNQ1: Does anyone have communities that they'd like to recommend?
PNQ2: I don't intend to post for a long time, but any advice (do's and don't's) along those lines?

[Nate the Great]

Rewatching "The Most Toys"...

PNQ1: Why would Worf be promoted to Chief of Operations to replace Data?

It's a matter of training. Being COO requires science training that is on a completely different career track than tactical officers. I can understand either Data or Worf being transferred to Command to be first officer (take that, Eddington!), but being shunted into each others' jobs is just weird.

PNQ2: Why were Data and Kim called COO when they're really the Science Officer and O'Brien called COO when he's really the Engineering Officer?

I can sort of understand operations=engineering, but operations=science is just baffling.

Memory Alpha seems to treat "Operations" (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Operations_division) as a catchall for the goldshirt divisions-engineering, security, and tactical. This troubles me. So is the COO supposed to be an intermediate liason between the goldshirt senior officers and the first officer? What's the point?

PNQ3: Who else assumes that O'Brien was named Chief of Operations just so people could still call him "chief"?

It's not like "chief" is his rank or anything--oh, wait!

[Flying Gremlin]

It doesn't really help that Data is the first one we see, whom basically can do anything on the ship.

But the Ops officer can probably do whatever the writers want them to that particular episode.

[Nate the Great]

SFDebris again...


Do you pronounce it "muu-ga-two" or "muu-ga-toe"?

[Flying Gremlin]

Do you pronounce it "muu-ga-two" or "muu-ga-toe"?

I pronounce it "space dinner".

[Nate the Great]

The MECO remix of the Star Trek Love Theme. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mA7dxPm_vY)


PNQ: While I recognize a few bits here and there as being very TOS-like, where is the original version of the love theme from?

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: What is the most pompous alternative job title you've ever seen?


I don't mean your generic "'Secretary' is apparently sexist now, so let's call them 'Administrative Assistants'" scenario. There's this gas station chain called Maverick, and they call their cashiers "Adventure Guides" (https://rn21.ultipro.com/FJM1000/JobBoard/JobDetails.aspx?__ID=*C18C44D4423B7C17).

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: How do you feel about people reposting stories from other sites without properly crediting them?


Story from Retail Hell Underground (September 2018) (http://www.retailhellunderground.com/my_weblog/2018/09/tech-support-hell-her-memory-was-wiped-no-not-the-computer-memory.html)


Story from Computer Stupidities (the site hasn't been updated since 2013, and I personally know the story is much older than that) (http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_amnesia.shtml)


I understand that Computer Stupidities is a relic from the days of dialup (I read the site during those days), but that doesn't forgive blatant plagiarism. The RHU poster could've said "this is one of my favorite stories from rinkworks.com" and I would've been fine, but s/he didn't. It sounds like a recent personal account.

[Nate the Great]

Today is Mark Hamill's birthday...


PNQ: What is your favorite role of his? You can't say Luke Skywalker, Trickster, or Joker because I want more interesting answers.



I've never played any Wing Commander games and only know of his connection through Spoony.



I'll have to go with Hobgoblin from Spider-Man the Animated Series.

[Nate the Great]

In The Voyage Home the Klingon Ambassador (Kamarag (http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Kamarag), ahem) calls Kirk a "renegade and terrorist." Renegade, granted. He defied orders and stole a starship.


PNQ: How was Kirk a "terrorist"?

[NAHTMMM]

Well, he was kinda "freedom fighter"y on Organia, wasn't he?

It doesn't have to make sense to us, it just has to make sense to those who believe the Klingon Empire's official version of events.

[Nate the Great]

This month is Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday...


PNQ: Favorite classic Mickey Mouse shorts?


By "classic" I mean the original run, i.e. pre-Mickey's Christmas Carol. You can find a list here (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Mickey_Mouse/Filmography), and an incomplete YouTube playlist here (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0F62C579C11A8393).


Mickey's Band Concert (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLvnCxVds2c&t=110s)-my only problem is the early deformed Donald Duck design
Through the Mirror (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUDc78znrLM)-I like the use of small objects as substitutes for human-sized props a la Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and I like Alice in Wonderland, so this one's obvious
Mickey's Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok6UedttIEg)-props folding in and out of hammerspace, and the classic corn on the cob typewriter gag are just the tip of the iceberg
The Brave Little Tailor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3tzrgpHW54)-to anyone who says that Mickey is boring, show them this short

[Nate the Great]

Today I was reminded of the Smash Brothers "No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination" meme...


PNQ: Why are the hardcore fighting gamers even playing Smash Bros in the first place?


SSB isn't supposed to have mechanics akin to serious fighting games anyway!

[Nate the Great]

So someone drew fan art of what the Rescue Rangers would look like if their show was rebooted today (https://twitter.com/beckyandfrank/status/987011956262354944)...


PNQ: Would a new show use the Indiana Jones and Magnum PI-inspired costumes for Chip and Dale, or would more current culture icons be used?


I suppose Indiana Jones is iconic enough (and bomber jackets ubiquitous enough) that it would still work for Chip, but the whole "Hawaiian shirt=goofball" thing is a bit outdated these days, right? I'd think to modern audiences Hawaiian shirts have reverted to their original meaning of "wacky tourist." Wouldn't a modern Dale be more likely to go with something more akin to Jude from 6teen; the whole slacker skater knit cap and baggy pants thing?

[Nate the Great]

Nintendo rereleased the Gamecube controller adapter again for the Switch for Smash Bros Ultimate...


PNQ: Why do we still have to use the Gamecube controller port format for these things? Can't they make a Gamecube controller with a simple USB connector?

[Nate the Great]

Watching "Indiscretion" again...


PNQ: Why would Kasidy want quarters on the station, and why did Dax suggest she move there?


Think about it, her quarters on on her ship and she's fully capable of sleeping there whether or not it's docked at Deep Space Nine. Then again, Morn also runs a cargo ship and has quarters on the station. Are we to believe that nobody is allowed to sleep on their own ships when they're docked at Deep Space Nine?

[Nate the Great]

Watching "Trials and Tribbleations" again:


PNQ: Why is everybody using hand tricorders?


Think about it. Hand tricorders are useful if you're exploring a new planet and need a scanner to detect everything. But the need to scan a large area for explosives only, don't they make a larger, more powerful model of scanner (a backpack model, perhaps) that could be calibrated specifically for this task? Surely there are scanning methods that would be undetectable by 23rd century sensors, no matter what the range.



For that matter, why is everyone putting tribbles up against the sensor diode when every tricorder we've ever seen can cover several dozen feet at minimum? If Darvin built his bomb to be undetectable except at short range, they could've dropped a line of dialogue to that effect.

[Nate the Great]

It's official-there will be no N64 Classic. Nintendo says that the NES and SNES were just to kill time until the Switch, and they'd rather not sell us games once if they can get us on the hook for a monthly subscription instead.


PNQ1: Do they not grasp in the slightest that there's a demographic that will never pay for Nintendo Online? Ever? (Like me, but that's another story...) For that matter, a demographic that will never ever ever buy the Switch, but might buy more Classic consoles?

PNQ2: How about making the Classic consoles continually profitable by including a cartridge port to sell us packs of 25 more games every so often? Maybe make the cartridges more expensive to pay for the licensing fees for certain popular third-party games?

[Nate the Great]

In my Netflix watching I tend to stick to TNG and DS9, with the occasional TOS...


PNQ: Would anyone be interested in a "Nate Finds Five Good Things About Every Episode of Voyager" thread?


Some ground rules off the top of my head:


1. I have to watch it, not just read the script like the anniversary retrospective threads.
2. No more than two of the five can be quotes. I can add more quotes for six, seven, etc., but there have to be at least three non-quote positive things per episode. Just tossing off five lines that I like seems lazy.
3. I won't promise one episode a week. Maybe it'll be monthly, maybe I'll do one every other day. Whatever. Stress would tempt me to get cynical and nitpicky.


Or I suppose...


PNQ2: Would you prefer me to do a B5 thread instead? There will probably be more nitpicking there, I'm warning you.

[Nate the Great]

Watching the SFDebris review of "The Pegasus" again...


PNQ: Did the Federation no-cloak rule make sense in universe?


SFDebris suggests that the Romulans may have made equal concessions that we never knew about.


To me, it falls in the same category as the no-money rule. It's okay to be high and mighty about not using money just as long as we don't interact with other races that do use money. But if we do, protesting the existence of money sounds like idiocy or lunacy. Likewise, choosing not to use cloaks if we can makes the Federation look like idiots.

[Nate the Great]

In watching SF Debris' review of "Family" again, I was reminded of his conclusion that it's worth watching once, but doesn't stand up to repeat viewings.


PNQ: Opinions?


I actually like the episode and always include it in my TNG marathons of good episodes. Who says Star Trek has to be high stakes and phaser shootouts all the time? At its heart Trek has always been about how characters react to the events that happen around them and whether they regret the actions that they took in response to these events. These characters don't become beloved by just giving orders to attack this or scan that, we have to know how their decisions affect them.

[Nate the Great]

Regarding Q's conclusion in "Tapestry" that Picard "isn't that important."


PNQ: What events can you think of that Picard would do drastically differently from any alternative or substitute?


Let's go straight to his Memory Alpha (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Jean-Luc_Picard)page and start at the Starbase Earhart bar fight in 2327.


The Stargazer Years



* One wonders how his relationships with Walker Keel, Jack Crusher, and Beverly Howard would've emerged. Probably nothing more than passing aquiantances.
* If he was on the Stargazer at all he wouldn't have taken command, or if he did he wouldn't have had the necessary skills to keep it for 22 years.
* No doubt his relationship with Jenice Manheim wouldn't have gotten very far, certainly not the "love" stage that was implied.
* One wonders if a different captain could've saved Jack Crusher's life.
* No Battle of Maxia, no Picard Maneuver. The Stargazer would've been destroyed.



Overarching TNG issues



* His replacement's relationship with Q would've been quite different, but that's a completely different essay, particularly if Riker had been in command from the start.
* Data wouldn't have been defended and would've died after "The Measure of a Man." No Data means a host of other problems, but that's another list.
* Worf would've died after "Sins of the Father" since it's doubtful that another captain would've defended him. Duras would've taken over the Klingon Empire, which would've slowly been assimilated by the Romulan Empire after Sela and her group killed him. No more Federation treaty, the events of "The Defector" would've killed the Enterprise crew, the Dominion would've conquered the Alpha Quadrant, etc. This is a whole nother list, folks.



If someone else wants to cover Season One, feel free. If nobody else does, I'll probably return to this eventually.

[Nate the Great]

I don't watch "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night" very often, I'm not fond of episodes set during the Occupation, with the exception of "Things Past." However, Kira says that to use the Orb of Time she must petition the Prophets and let them decide if her proposed time journey is worthwhile or whatever.



PNQ: Then how did Arne Darvin use it in "Trials and Tribbleations"?


I doubt revenge or intended murder would be considered a reasonable time travel mission statement.



PNQ2: Kira claims that since she's not a Federation citizen the usual time travel rules don't apply to her. Huh? Isn't time travel a big enough risk that the Department of Temporal Investigations would poo-poo any unauthorized time travel, regardless of who's doing it?

[Nate the Great]

So I just saw a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBfNYVwj8lw) about why a fourth Kelvinverse Trek film never happened...


PNQ: Why isn't it a matter of law that when a studio declares things like how much a movie cost to make and how much they made from it, that the numbers have to be accurate?


It annoys me that movies always cost more than the studios admit, and that the "profit" declared isn't really what the studio gets to keep. You know, the numbers that help decide whether a sequel is viable?

[Nate the Great]

Today I stumbled upon the expression "parental units" for the first time in awhile...


PNQ: Does anyone ever use this expression sincerely, not as sarcasm or a joke?

[Nate the Great]

Watching SF Debris' review of "The Drumhead" the following occurs to me that completely escaped Chuck...


PNQ: What do the crimes of one's ancestor's have to do with the the person in question?


Case 1: Simon Tarses lied about his grandfather being a Romulan.


What does this have to do with anything? As Picard says in "Reunion", he can't punish Duras for the crimes of his father Jarod. At worst Tarses is guilty of lying about his background, that's it. Then again, why did he do this in the first place? If we're to believe the expanded universe, Saavik is half-Romulan and grew up in the Romulan way of life before Spock rescued her. I thought 24th century humans were more tolerant than 23rd!


Case 2: Sabin says Worf shouldn't be trusted as security chief because his father collaborated with the Romulans.


Okay, fine, at this point the only ones in the Federation who know the truth are the Enterprise senior staff. But again, what does this have to do with anything? Are you telling me that humans of today, who don't suspect Germans with Nazi ancestors, are better than 24th century humans?

[Nate the Great]

After today's recap of "Unnatural Selection" I found myself wondering if there were more reasons why the Pulaski/Data dynamic never worked as well as McCoy/Spock, besides the obvious, of course.


PNQ: Feelings about the following hypothesis?


McCoy's serious jabs were about Spock's philosophy. He knew that Spock had emotions, so he could target there. Plus he knew that Spock could give as well as he got, he could defend himself.


Pulaski's jabs are about Data's construction, things that are out of his control. And Data could never defend himself because everything Pulaski said was either true or a matter of opinion. And debating opinions that have no empirical right or wrong is impossible if you don't have emotions. Pulaski was being insensitive and sometimes even a bully because of this.

[Nate the Great]

In yesterday's video Nintendo Collecting asked something akin to the following...


PNQ: What is your Holy Grail when it comes to console gaming? (You can substitute whatever hobby you follow)


For PC games the answer is easy: The ID Anthology (https://www.amazon.com/ID-Anthology-book/dp/B0029K9Q0E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549369191&sr=8-1&keywords=id+anthology). And the weird thing is that I only care about one of the four discs: the Vintage disc. These days it's the easiest way to own Commander Keen 6 due to the complicated rights issues behind that game. Good luck finding a copy these days for a reasonable price!


But console games? Of course there are the obvious things like Nintendo World Championship, but that would just be a trophy, I'd never actually play it. It's a hard question, but maybe you guys have better answers.

[Nate the Great]

Going through my archive of the old Troper Tales...


PNQ: A troper mentions studying Paleontology, Hydrogeology, and International Relations. What job would be at the intersection of this particular Venn Diagram?


The only one I can think of is studying fossils on the ocean floor in international waters. But how many people do that?

[Nate the Great]

Every once in awhile SF Debris converts one of his video reviews into a shorter, slideshow format to get around YouTube's content ID claim system. Today's video was "The Visitor." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KJXmSuA-NA) One of the comments on the video is:


This episode is just one of many episodes that are one and done and don't actually matter in grand scheme of things that Star Trek likes to do. This is why I prefer Babylon 5 over any Star Trek series and why I don't hate Star Trek Discovery like some others. My personal taste is more towards one big story with beginning, middle and end rather than episodic were single episodes don't matter and everything is reset after episode so that later on no one even mentions what happened.


PNQ1: What does serialization vs. episodic have to do with the quality of a show as a single, standalone factor?



Is this guy claiming that any given serialized show is better than any given episodic show, a single factor deciding everything regardless of acting or directing? Because I have a real problem with this philosophy. He can prefer serialized shows, but that's not an objective judgement even though he's claiming that it is. This is one reason why I didn't like Stargate Universe and gave up on it relatively quickly. Supposedly it was more serialized and everything mattered, but they did it very poorly. Often they had scenes that reminded us that a given plotline existed but really didn't add to it.



PNQ2: There's a difference between "events are never called back on" and "events don't matter", right?


Let's take "The Visitor", for example. Sisko remembers what happened, he has to explain what happened to Jake. This episode will affect his decisions as a father even if he never explicitly says "oh, it's because of that time with the wormhole inversion."



Picard's experiences in "The Inner Light" definitely affected his attitudes going further, even if we only saw direct ramifications in "Lessons." Look at him in "Generations", wanting a wife and family. He doesn't have to look at the camera and say "this is because of my experiences on Kataan", but as the audience we get more meaning from the action if we remember. And that's another thing: if we as the viewer remember previous events and the actions on screen can be enhanced by the memory even if technically the prior episode wasn't referred to, it still means that the previous episode matters!


And think about Pulaski's relationship with Data. The episodes are standalone, but you do see her relationship with Data evolve. Sure, she still throws jibes at him, but it's only because she knows he can take it, like Spock and McCoy.



PNQ3: Isn't "episodic=bad" a similar inane opinion to the ones I mentioned earlier in this thread (http://www.fiveminute.net/forums/showpost.php?p=80880&postcount=784)....


PNQ: Why do some people apply modern technological standards to older products that didn't have said technology available?

You know what I mean. Silent movies gave way to sound, some people thought that all silent movies were worthless and boring. Black and white gave way to color, some people thought all black and white movies were worthless and boring. SD gives way to HD, some people thought all SD movies were worthless and boring. It'll happen again when glasses-free 3D is perfected, count on it.


So, what? Now that serialization is popular that automatically means all episodic shows are worthless?

[Nate the Great]

Fanart of the Zelda trinity via reddit. (https://www.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/awsyy3/zelda_in_ghiblis_by_salvamakoto/)


PNQ: Supposedly this is "Ghibi"-style. Doesn't it look more like generic '80s anime?

[Nate the Great]

Sheet Music Bros presents "Wipe Out." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TydFvGOHTsU)


PNQ: Is it just me, or does this rendition seem a little...flat? Like there needs to be a third hand playing a third melody line?

[Nate the Great]

A video discusses the most reckless time travelers in Trek. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e7CXa04w_s) The question is raised: why did Admiral Janeway just go back to Season Seven instead of preventing the Delta Quadrant excursion entirely?


I'm not going to attempt to explain all possible futures, but let's look at a few answers to the question:


PNQ: How would the Delta Quadrant have gone on if Voyager had never gone there?


Just a few highlights:
1. The Equinox would've poisoned Delta Quadrant opinion of Starfleet so much that when the Federation expanded that far legitimately it would've been an uphill struggle to gain a foothold there.
2. Seven would've died along with the rest of the Borg Continuum at the hands of Species 8472. Furthermore, when Species 8472 invaded the Alpha Quadrant it would've taken longer to mount a defense without the unique medical knowledge of Doc.
3. The Kazon would've been slowly assimilated by the Vidiians. No Seska means continual squabbling and no alliances.
4. The Ocampa would've died out the hands of the Kazon.

5. A huge chunk of the Delta Quadrant would've been made warp-impossible because of Omega.
6. The Unimatrix Zero crew never would've had any sort of life outside of the Collective.
7. No Q Civil War, no Q Jr., imprisoned Quinn. And as a matter of fact Q never would've become rebellious again, who knows what would've happened there.

[Nate the Great]

Watching "Trials and Tribbleations" again...


PNQ: Why do both Spock and Dax assume "one tribble, multiplying with an average litter of ten, producing a new generation every twelve hours over a period of three days."?


Cyrano Jones must've arrived with at least a few dozen tribbles, right? Let's assume that he knew about the need for minimal feeding for minimal reproduction and the population exploded only upon arriving at K-7. Therefore the 1,771,561 estimate has to be multiplied by at least a factor of ten, right? And given his dialogue with the bartender, he must've had at least a few dozen for sale immediately, right?


I'm also reminded of Childcraft's proof (https://www.redclayinteractive.com/with-apologies-to-count-chocula/) that vampires don't exist because if a vampire has to turn someone else into a vampire every so often, there wouldn't be anyone other than vampires within a short passage of time.



Incidentally, someone did the math (https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/7356/how-many-tribbles-were-there) about how much volume the tribbles would occupy and concluded that there would be almost two hundred feet of tribbles above Kirk's head, which would kill him when they landed. Of course this is ridiculous, there was hardly only one compartment and Sisko and Dax showed that there wasn't much grain left and the tribbles were only a foot or so deep.

[Nate the Great]

Watching "Blaze of Glory" again...


PNQ: The writers really fumbled the ball with Eddington, didn't they?


The guy's a raving loon. He rewrites the situation in his head to make himself look like an oppressed man fighting back at the heartless bureaucracy. He's the hero, the Federation is the villain, full stop. He always annoyed me. I thought that Trek was supposed to be about well-rounded characters, but he isn't. When oneshot Klingons in TOS seem more sane and grounded than Eddington, someone really screwed up.



I'm reminded of Kurn in "The Sons of Mogh":


Is that how you rationalise this? By calling your people cowards so you can be a hero?

[Nate the Great]

Ignore.

[NAHTMMM]

WD-40?

Sorry, I'm no mechanic.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Should companies be allowed to call offers "free" if they ask for your credit card information even if "seriously, we won't charge you anything (yet, mwahaha!)"

[Nate the Great]

Watching SF Debris' review of The Voyage Home again, and I was reminded that when Spock nerve-pinched the bus punk, he did it overhand instead of underhand (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr82dZpCr48).


PNQ: Theories?


1. It's a legitimate nerve pinch and doing it overhand was just more comfortable (and logical) given the respective positions and postures of Spock and Punk.

2. Spock is still a bit muddled from the fal-tor-pan ritual and accidentally did a Tal-Shaya instead.

3. The telepathic abilities of a Vulcan can instantly detect the most efficient nerve pinch location for a given victim. The punk's substance abuse altered his physiology enough to move the points apart so Spock's overhand maneuver was required.

[Nate the Great]

Regarding "Things Past"...


PNQ: Does Garak deserve a nametag with "Former Cardassian Oppressor" on it?


Unlike many other Cardassians I don't recall him being biased against Bajorans. Not that he would've fought against the Occupation, but it was just "something that exists" to him. Furthermore, do we have any evidence of Garak even being near Bajor until just before his exile?

[Nate the Great]

The season is almost over for recaps, but I would like to start another, more informal, review series for the rest of the summer. Babylon 5 isn't in the cards right now, I'd have to actually watch the episodes instead of working off transcripts. We'd have to stick to Trek.


PNQ: Opinions on the following scenarios? Preferences?


1. Add a subplot to every episode of TOS to add focus to the non Kirk/Spock characters.

2. Find a way for Tasha to contribute to each episode of TNG as though she never died. Assume that "Yesterday's Enterprise" never happened and all Sela episodes are instead Tomalak episodes, making the appropriate changes. Worf remains a general bridge officer, assisting Tasha, Data, or Riker as appropriate.

3. Rewrite Voyager episodes with the intent to remove the Janeway/Seven/Doctor focus (making Janeway actually sane and competent, of course) and dealing with the Maquis conflict where appropriate.
4. A more basic form of 3. Toss out all Borg episodes of Voyager and replace Seven with Kes. What would've happened had she stayed? Would she still have chosen to have a child with Neelix? What other telepathic abilities would she be able to unlock and use for the crisis of the week? Would there have been a love triangle with Tom and Torres?

[Nate the Great]

Watching "Second Chances" again...


PNQ: How strong is the telepathic bond between Riker and Troi, anyway?


Tom Riker is sitting in his quarters when Troi arrives to talk to him. She rings the doorbell and he lets her in, but he gives no indication that he knows who's there before he sees her.


What? If Troi can sense Will's general emotional state when he's down on a planet, and this bond is supposed to be strong enough to allow for telepathy, shouldn't Tom be able to at least sense her through the door? It stands to reason that by now Will can block her presence from his mind unless he chooses to "look" for her, but Tom's been fixated on her for years.



Furthermore, wouldn't it serve the plot better if he gets a distracted look, the chime rings, he says in shock "It can't be...", THEN lets her in?

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ: Should companies be allowed to call offers "free" if they ask for your credit card information even if "seriously, we won't charge you anything (yet, mwahaha!)"

As someone that has to do this for a living, yes.

It's actually a very good age validation tool. An authorization charge of $1 that refunds back on the card verifies that the person is above 18 and can legally accept terms of contracts, is OK to see certain content that may not be acceptable for minors (read: porn), or in the case of what I do accept packages from UPS or FedEx.





(Granted this entire argument goes out the window when I mention that my company accepts Paypal, but whatever.)

[Nate the Great]

So I just read an article about the ongoing war between calling them "Christmas Trees" and calling them "Holiday Trees"...


PNQ: Am I the only one who thinks this is silly?


Decorated pine trees are not associated with any other religion! If we tried to rename menorahs to "holiday candelabra" the Jews would go crazy, right? And they would have every right to! I don't know much about Kwanzaa, but I did some research and just one example is the Unity Cup. If we started using "holiday cup" they would have every right to go crazy as well!


If anything a handful of holiday symbols should be clustered into a joint display. Anyone who visits the "holiday grove" or whatever could see what they want and know that the symbolism of their beliefs wasn't being diluted by political correctness. It might even be a chance to have informational displays to explain the symbolism to people who don't know about it!

[Nate the Great]

I wandered across this clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ijnkx94XMs&list=PLG4mzCmslehp3NbLDDOlgQ-fY_wKfs_gB)and one of the viewers wondered...


PNQ: As leader of the Bajoran militia on the station, why doesn't Kira have a ship at her disposal?


One commenter suggests the the Bajoran ships available are slower and less equipped than runabouts, which I call nonsense. It just seems weird. Maybe the Federation can't overhaul the Bajoran fleet until they join the Federation, but giving the station's detachment of the Bajoran militia one runabout to do whatever they want with doesn't seem unreasonable.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching CGP Grey's History of Santa (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbUVKXdu4lQ&list=PLqs5ohhass_QhOSkrNqPFEAOv5fBzTvWv&index=16) again, and some of the comments discuss the different things people leave for Santa. I knew of the mince pies in England thing, but I'm wondering...


PNQ: Do any of you do variations on Christmas customs like this, whether as a result of national heritage or whatever?


For example, while my family makes Christmas cookies like many people, my mother would also tap into our Scandinavian heritage and make lefse, rosettes, and krumkake. I was never a fan of lefse but I like the others.

[Nate the Great]

It's a long story how I stumbled upon this one...


PNQ: Do you think that the bridge dome of the TOS Enterprise was clear or opaque?


"The Cage" implied a transparent dome, but the critics say that the transition was artistic license only. The E-D does have a "skylight", so who's to say?

[NAHTMMM]

A transparent dome is just begging for trouble. Even if the material filters out harmful radiation outside human vision, bright lights from close stars or explosions or weapon bolts will cause distracting shadows at best and blind bridge crew at worst.

[Nate the Great]

I just watched the start of "One Little Ship" again... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgkP-f1Fqpo)


PNQ: Did the runabout follow the Defiant out here? The shuttlebay is only big enough for two shuttlepods, right? Did the Defiant tow the runabout?

[Nate the Great]

I'm watching Trek tribute videos again...


PNQ: In "Relics" Scotty says "show me the bridge of the Enterprise." Aren't there dozens of ships that fit the description of "a ship called Enterprise that has a bridge"?



A quick look at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise) shows that there have been dozens of Enterprises with bridges. Aircraft carriers, schooners, civilian craft, etc.



I found myself wondering if "starship Enterprise" would've been adequate description to make the computer limit itself to the NCC 1701 series. What about the XCV-330 (the "ring ship") (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(XCV_330))?


That led me to the definition of "starship" as opposed to "spaceship". In TOS we see many usages of "spaceship" to indicate a something smaller (except for cargo vessels, of course) and slower than a "starship." What's the boundary line? Could it be that there's a threshold of warp power between the two? That is, lower speed ships have simpler warp drives and engineering systems that need a much smaller crew than the behemoth of a starship?



Of course, Scotty should've been more specific to begin with, but you can forgive a bit of this due to his current state of inebriation.

[Nate the Great]

A YouTube video asks men of various ages how many times they've been in love...


PNQ: How often do you think REAL romantic love can happen to someone in a lifetime?


I'm not a fogey who believes in once-in-a-lifetime soulmates, but people who give numbers in the dozens make me incredulous. It annoys me when people equate "sexual partner" or "long-term casual relationship" to "love", it leads me to believe that they haven't put much thought into the questions of what love is or what they want from a loving relationship.


(Meaningless aside, the autocorrect on this forum doesn't accept "fogey" as a word. A quick Googling lists several online dictionaries who have entries for it. Weird.)

[Nate the Great]

Watching SF Debris' review of "Skin of Evil" again, and I get annoyed by this bit...


In describing how he didn't have enough material to make a Tasha Yar tribute: "If it's not her being violent, making a report, or trying to get laid, it's just nothin'."


PNQ: Is that really all she had to do?


They gave Tasha plenty to do and talk about...


1. She is ready to indulge Wesley's questions because she didn't have a childhood of her own and wants Wesley to have every advantage.
2. She was envious of Troi's beauty because she never had a chance to channel her feminine side.
3. She was rescued by the Federation and so was its most vocal supporter to anyone who would mock it.


You see what I'm getting at, right?

[Flying Gremlin]

Finally sitting down and rewatching Deep Space Nine from episode one.

PNQ: Why didn't anyone point out the major plot hole of having a family on the very small, Miranda class Saratoga?



Which probably leads to...

PNQ: Am I turning into Nate, and becoming too nitpicky?

[Nate the Great]

What a terrifying thought.

[Nate the Great]

Watching SF Debris' review of "Firstborn" again...


PNQ: How come the Universal Translator never translates Klingon?


All I can think is that a condition of the Federation/Klingon alliance is that Federation translators don't translate Klingon by default, at least for commbadges and other unofficial communications. It would stand to reason that Klingons would learn the major languages of their enemies (Romulans seem to learn Klingon in this era, so there's precedent) and have demanded that the translators operate like this so they can keep certain secrets to themselves.



And it would stand to reason that not all Starfleet officers learn Klingon, relying on their translators when interacting with them. Picard, Riker, and Data seem to be the only ones on the E-D who have learned Klingon besides Worf himself.



Note that in TOS the Klingons seem to be speaking English and specifically point out that the Starfleet officers don't know "Klingonese".

[Nate the Great]

Re: SF Debris review of "Timescape"...


PNQ: In universe, why did Troi collapse a bit when the subspace forcefield was turned on?


I figured it out years ago: Troi is used to having the emotions of the people around her as a sort of white noise, a backdrop that always there. The subspace force field cut her off from all those emotions and it caught her by surprise.


(I know, I know, in "Night Terrors" they said blocking telepathy is impossible. But in that episode they were talking traditional blocking, not using a time differential as in here. These armbands aren't putting a shield over the target, they're pulling the target out of the arrow's line of sight altogether)



Without that explanation Troi just looks weak. Furthermore it looks like a Chekhov's gun that is never fired later.

[Nate the Great]

On the Straight Dope forum (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=895240) they are debating whether Kirk should be court-martialed for all of the redshirt deaths under his command.



PNQ: How many of the redshirt deaths can be attributed to him?


I'll go by the Ex Astris Scientia list of crewmen deaths in TOS (https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/database/redshirt_deaths.htm).


Ground rules:


1. Only deaths caused by a deliberate act against the crewman count. The Galactic Barrier, generic deaths during battle, etc. don't count.
2. I'll be covering all deaths on the page, not just redshirts. If Kirk can be court-martialed for the needless deaths of redshirts, he can be tried for deaths of blueshirts and yellowshirts as well.


Season One:

Where No Man Has Gone Before: None. All due to galactic barrier.

The Man Trap: Four salt vampire deaths. Not Kirk's fault. In general, deaths by shapeshifter can't be directly attributed to Kirk.

The Naked Time: Tormolen, complications from polywater intoxication on a hostile planet. Not Kirk's fault, there was nothing he could've done.
Balance of Terror: Tomlinson, this is an indirect result of battle.
What Are Little Girls Made of: Matthews and Rayburn, killed by Ruk. Not Kirk's fault, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Galileo Seven: Three crewmen killed by natives after a shuttle crash. Not Kirk's fault.
Arena: None. All are in battle.
The Devil in the Dark: Crewman killed by Horta. Not Kirk's fault, unpreventable given current information.


Season Two:
Catspaw: Jackson, killed by Sylia. Not Kirk's fault, he couldn't have prevented it given his knowledge at the time.
Friday's Child: Grant, killed by Capellans. Not Kirk's fault, the guy was just a hothead. Kirk also tried to get him to stand down.
Wolf in the Fold: Tracy, killed by Redjac. Not Kirk's fault, he had no way of anticipating or preventing it.
The Changeling: Three killed by Nomad. This one is debatable, given that Kirk knows that Nomad has onboard weapons and is immune to hand phasers. However, circumstances forced Kirk to let Nomad on board knowing his destructive capability. I'll chalk these down as unpreventable.
The Apple: Two killed by natural hazards. Not Kirk's fault. One struck by Vaal's lightning, not Kirk's fault (what could Kirk have done?).

The Deadly Years: Galway, died of hyperaging. Not Kirk's fault, in general uncurable diseases don't count unless they were easy to avoid and he didn't.
Obsession: Five killed by dikironium cloud. The first three are from the initial attack, unpreventable by Kirk. The other two are as a direct result of his continued attack when he could've left. It could be argued that these aren't Kirk's fault because had he not hunted and killed this thing it would've killed countless others, especially were it to spawn.

By Any Other Name: Thompson, killed by Rojan. Unpreventable, not Kirk's fault.
The Ultimate Computer: Harper, killed by M-5. Technically preventable, there was no reason to get that close to M-5 to cut power to that panel.
The Omega Glory: Galloway, killed by Tracey. Not Kirk's fault, it's not like phasers can be dodged.


Season Three:
Elaan of Troyius: Watson, killed by Kryton. Kirk didn't know until after the fact.
And the Children Shall Lead: Two killed by being mistakenly beamed into space. Kirk had no way of stopping Gorgan at this point, not his fault.
Wink of an Eye: Compton, killed by cellular decay while hyperaccelerated. Not Kirk's fault.
That Which Survives: Three killed by Losira. Not Kirk's fault.
Requiem for Methuselah: Three died of Rigellian fever during crisis. I'm calling this extenuating circumstances.


So being especially cruel, of the 56 confirmed "redshirt deaths" on the page, maybe half a dozen could've been prevented by Kirk depending on your definition. The only two episodes that I feel Kirk could be brought to charges on are "Obsession" and "The Changeling".

[Nate the Great]

So I'm on an Ex Astris Scientia binge at the moment, and I stumble upon the page discussing the multiple chief engineers in TNG Season One (https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/chief_engineers_tng.htm)...


PNQ: Opinions?


I'm still sort of surprised that a Chief Engineer wasn't part of the main cast from the beginning. Scotty proved that such a position was required for any Trek series.



Ex Astris Scientia posits that there could be multiple Chief Engineers for the first year because of the newness of the tech. I dispute this, since as I've discussed elsewhere the bugs would've been worked out in the U.S.S. Galaxy, and this second-model warp engine would've needed less supervision.



An option that occurs to me is that a Chief Engineer is something that a starship would need on-staff 24/7. While the "night crew" up on the Bridge could be less experienced, you need experienced engineers watching the warp core 24/7. Perhaps some of these characters weren't really THE Chief Engineer, but instead just the "Chief Engineer on Duty", in charge for the current shift.



Of the four S1 Chief Engineers, MacDougal, Argyle, and Lynch were Lieutenant Commanders and Logan was a Lieutenant. I'd put MacDougal as the "main" Chief Engineer with the others as shift assistants. Logan was lower on the totem pole, but perhaps he had more command experience than the other three, putting him into conflict with Geordi in "The Arsenal of Freedom."



In "Where No One Has Gone Before" Argyle is specifically called "one of our Chief Engineers."



Mention must also be made of Shimoda and Singh, the "Assistant Chief Engineers." What's interesting is that Shimoda wasn't wearing a Starfleet uniform, his outfit looked more like a a noncommissioned crewman. Of course in a situation like this it's time for Nate to bring up his all-purpose plot hole fixer: UESPA! What if Shimoda wasn't Starfleet, but UESPA? Given the "new age" of exploration that the E-D had just started, it stands to reason that UESPA would want to send along one of their own officers for the mission. Maybe he's still heading up the night shift or something for all we know.

[Flying Gremlin]

The simplest explanation: the chief engineers got fired every time Wesley showed them up. If you can't outsmart a sixteen year old, then get off my ship.

[Nate the Great]

The Cinemassacre crew travels to Oregon to visit the last Blockbuster Video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJc3X6wzW1A)


PNQ: What bankrupted/defunct franchise stores do you miss the most?


If you need a starting point, there is this Wikipedia page. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_retailers_of_the_United_States)



One that comes immediately to mind is B. Dalton's bookstores. Barnes and Noble bought them out in 2009.



I also miss Hollywood Video, Circuit City, Builder's Square, Knox Lumber, FuncoLand, on and on...

[Flying Gremlin]

Canadian, so a slightly different list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_Canadian_companies).

Arby's went belly up locally here, so that counts - you have to cross an international border for some sweet, sweet beef and cheddar action.

Future Shop was definitely one that is sorely missed. I could spend several hours in there as a kid; Best Buy just isn't the same, too flashy and a little pushier even though their sales rep don't get commissions.

[NAHTMMM]

B. Dalton and Waldenbooks in the same mall? Mm-mm good.

Still mad at Toys 'R' Us for driving out Children's Castle,which was a bigger building than "the biggest toy store there is" and was shaped like a castle in front.

Oh, and where's my Quizno's?! Or Blimpie's? :mad:

Oh, and JCPenney has declared bankruptcy, I believe.

[Flying Gremlin]

Oh, and JCPenney has declared bankruptcy, I believe.

See, I was more surprised that they still existed.

[Nate the Great]

In his review of the Good Times version of Snow White (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQQTp9EP5sU), Bobsheaux refers to Snow White as "the most passive of princesses."



PNQ: Opinions?



In terms of "existing as a plot point and not a real character", I would put Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel above Snow White.



I am of course referring to the original fairy tales, not any particular adaptation.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: So how does the Defiant dock? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=201&v=naQf0dKGs5U&feature=emb_logo)


After all, the entire "nose" of the ship is covered by the deflector array, right?


A reddit thread speculates that the station's docking ports are adaptable. (https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/d9ggdd/how_does_the_defiant_dock_to_ds9/)



I dispute that. The station was designed to accommodate Cardassian ships (hence the pylons can arc inward because the front of Galor-class ships are narrow and three could branch out like a fidget spinner).


Some think that the orange panels can slide back to reveal a docking port. (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs33.postimg.cc%2F4u6fu 4rof%2Fdefiant-front.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trekbbs.com%2Fthreads% 2Fdefiant-docking-port-on-the-front.295933%2F&tbnid=805-DEPEle1aaM&vet=12ahUKEwjH_Pf80trpAhWFAs0KHRHaBNUQMygAegUIARD6 AQ..i&docid=mqIDdZCAPp42yM&w=458&h=496&q=u.s.s%20defiant%20front&safe=active&client=firefox-b-1-d&ved=2ahUKEwjH_Pf80trpAhWFAs0KHRHaBNUQMygAegUIARD6A Q)


I don't like this idea. The Defiant is only four decks (for some bizarre reason). A docking apparatus this big would be a waste of space.


There is a little circle below the deflector dish, (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftechspecs.acalltoduty.c om%2Fimages%2Fdefiant%2Fdefiant_dev.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftechspecs.acalltoduty.com%2 Fdefiant.html&tbnid=NYIlS5s_pQ4v-M&vet=12ahUKEwjH_Pf80trpAhWFAs0KHRHaBNUQMygfegQIARBO ..i&docid=yH48FYBEEC1lAM&w=560&h=408&q=u.s.s%20defiant%20front&safe=active&client=firefox-b-1-d&ved=2ahUKEwjH_Pf80trpAhWFAs0KHRHaBNUQMygfegQIARBO) but it's usually a torpedo launcher. Besides, it's too small to be a docking ring for a four-deck ship (why was the ship so small again?).


The LCARS puts the airlock on the upper side of the nose, above the torpedo launcher. (https://twitter.com/spaceshipsporn/status/1177492872158834691/photo/1)


This would correlate with the orange panel theory, but the problem is that the station's docking port links with the deflector dish, not the orange panels.



LCARS floorplan (https://i.stack.imgur.com/nWc7l.jpg)


One corridor splits into two for the airlocks to correlate with the orange panels, but it still doesn't make sense. Even if the panels slide aside and docking corridors extend forward towards DS9, where would they dock to on the station?



A closeup of the Defiant docked at DS9 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=p8mM5esWhRk&feature=emb_logo) clearly shows that the docking ring touches the front edge of the ship, between the orange panels and the deflector dish. The docking port can't touch anything except the front edge of the ship.



A theory that the torpedo launcher below the deflector dish is actually a turbolift pass-through. (https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/40072/how-do-people-exit-an-airlock-from-the-defiant-to-ds9/182208#182208) After all, a turbolift car has its own gravity plating and could go horizontal if needed and nobody would notice. They also point out that ships having turbolift hookups is nothing new (and of course they're right, just look at the Enterprise D (https://www.universostartrek.com/USS-Enterprise-D-NCC-1701-top.jpg))

[Nate the Great]

A followup to yesterday's post...


PNQ: How do Klingon Birds of Prey dock at DS9?


Here's a ship at the docking ring. (http://infotitanic.tripod.com/deepspacenine/images/storylineseason4/klingonshipdocked.jpg)

(https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/caps/bop-2-stiii.jpg)
Here's the front of a Bird of Prey. (https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/caps/bop-2-stiii.jpg)


The circle in front has always been depicted as a torpedo launcher.



In fact, I'm not seeing anything remotely like a docking hatch on the "head" of a Bird of Prey, not even the emergency hatch that was used in The Voyage Home.


On this view (https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/27852) there might be something like a turbolift connection on the top of the "head", but once again, DS9 doesn't have anything to connect to it!


And for that matter, how would Federation or Klingon turbolifts be compatible with Cardassian ones?

[Nate the Great]

In "A Time to Stand" our heroes use integer warp factors despite being on a Jem'Hadar ship...


PNQ: They say over and over again that Dominion ship and engine design is wildly different from that of the Alpha Quadrant. Would they use the same warp scale on the other side of the galaxy?


The tech manuals make it clear that the integer warp factors exist where they are because they represent natural lulls in the speed/energy requirement curve (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/Warptable.gif). That is, going at Warp 2 takes much less energy than Warp 1.9. But that's based on the engineering of conventional matter/antimatter reactors and the physics of warp plasma based on such.



It stands to reason that Federation and Klingon warp engine design is based on similar principles. Of course the Romulans use a completely different principle (meaningless aside, how does an artificial singularity generate warp plasma?), but I expect that their system doesn't have the natural lulls, so they convert to our warp scale as a matter of efficiency.



So did our heroes hardwire the warp controls to conform to Starfleet standards? That would look weird to other Dominion ships that they encounter, right? "Why is that ship going at Technobabble Speed 5.78?"


I know, I know, Nate's being pedantic again. But I really do think about this stuff, and at least I'm putting some thought into my discussion and not going "rawr rawr, the writers don't care about continuity, they stink" like most of my Kelvinverse and Enterprise ranting.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: How could you turn metaphasic shields into a weapon?


Not a nit, just a chance for speculation. One possibility that immediately comes to mind is equipping a torpedo with them. Surely a ship near a star wouldn't be able to detect the torpedo coming at them through the "noise" of the star. A situational weapon to be sure, but definitely a dangerous one.


Another possibility is modifying the energy profile of the phasers to a sort of "anti-metaphasic" one. That is, while a ship's shields can easily handle ordinary stellar output, they really aren't designed to handle higher intensities or focused versions of it. It stands to reason that a ship with metaphasic shields would be in a position to examine stellar output more closely, enough to duplicate it.

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ: How could you turn metaphasic shields into a weapon?

If I remember my Treknobabble right, metaphasic shields are self-regenerating shields in the face of intense radiation from star-like bodies.

In theory, you could project a metaphasic shield around an enemy, possibly with a limpet-style mine, which would lock the ship and crew in itself. Then redirect the ship into the corona of a star using a thruster pack. They deactivate the mine, they die. They do nothing, they bleed off their power reserves until they die. And even if they are able to get out of it for whatever reason, you've still taken the ship out of the fight for enough time to do whatever you need to.

[Nate the Great]

Like I said years ago, it was time to change my avatar...


PNQ: Z, can you update my title to reflect the change?


I miss classic Yu-gi-oh...

[Nate the Great]

There are episodes that I choose not to revisit not because they're "bad", per se, but because they're just so depressing. "Course: Oblivion" is one of them, and I just made the mistake of watching it again after many many years. Toss in "Remember Me", every single DS9 Mirror Universe episode, "Before and After", and so forth.


PNQ: What are episodes like that for you?

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ: What are episodes like that for you?

Lately, "Far Beyond The Stars".

[Nate the Great]

Oh yeah, totally forgot about that one. Also "The Seige of AR-whatever."

[Flying Gremlin]

Because of how episodic and positive it all is you could make an argument that most series outside of DS9 don't have that problem, although I guess for some Spock's death in The Wrath of Khan might count, or when they blow up the Enterprise in The Search for Spock. And sometimes I have problems with watching the crewman begging for Picard to help him in First Contact.

Surprisingly, I can't think of a part of Discovery or Picard that I would include on this list either.

[Nate the Great]

I may have posted the Real Lawyer reacts to "Measure of a Man" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVjeYW6S8Mo) video already, but another bit interested me that totally flies over the guy's head.


MADDOX: Let me put it another way. Would you permit the computer of the Enterprise to refuse a refit?
PHILLIPA: That's an interesting point. But the Enterprise computer is property.



The Enterprise computer wouldn't refuse a refit because it doesn't have the capacity to. And we're not just talking about refusing the refit, we're talking about making a choice that can't be based on solid evidence. It's not sentient. Data IS sentient, so he can refuse a refit.



If you asked the computer if it would object to a refit that might alter its personality, you wouldn't get a yes or no, you'd get the computer asking you to restate the question into one that it can answer based on the logic within it.

[Nate the Great]

Regarding Garak being sentenced to six months in a holding cell at the end of "Broken Link"...


PNQ: Given his claustrophobia, would this be considered cruel and inhuman punishment?
PNQ2: How long can someone really be kept in a holding cell (i.e. just a bed with a built-in bathroom and food on trays, no PADD for diversion) without it being considered cruel and inhumane? Tie this into Tom's punishment in "Thirty Days." Wouldn't relegating him to grunt work doing the equivalent of changing fuses be a greater punishment?

PNQ3: Would shipping him off to a penal colony on Bajor be cruel? Would he be mistreated there?
PNQ4: Suppose he was sent to a Federation penal colony, would Garak see this as a punishment? Is one reason he stays on DS9 the ability to stay near his people and hear the latest news?

[Nate the Great]

So I'm reading Around the World in 80 Days again, and I thought the French speakers in the audience could help with this one...


PNQ: If you're speaking with a French accent, how do you pronounce "Passepartout"?


I doubt it's just "passport out" as is implied in the novel. But is it "pass e par two" or "pah say par two" or what?

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: If you had to be reborn in the 24th century as a race other than human, what would you choose?

[Nate the Great]

MovieBob covers Big Bad Beetleborgs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwtwTK6Ml2o)


PNQ: If you were a Power Rangers fan, what other tokusatsu/sentai shows did you enjoy or not enjoy?


I never really watched Beetleborgs. I was a devout Power Rangers fan and enjoyed Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, VR Troopers, and Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog (although MKTNN isn't technically tokusatsu, but merely a copy in that style).


Masked Rider never connected with me, Ultraman was before my time, and I was past my Ninja Turtles phase when The Next Mutation came along. Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills I believe I was ignorant of until after it had aired.

[Nate the Great]

So Harry Potter would turn 40 tomorrow if he actually existed.


PNQ: What's your history with Harry Potter?


I chose to do a book report on Sorceror's Stone back in school. There were a number of options, and I admit that I chose one of the easier ones. I followed up with books 2-4, they were the only ones out at that time. After Goblet of Fire I never really had the desire to read anymore, the number of possible plot points and characters that may or may not have importance later just kept piling up until I lost interest. I think I watched the movies up to Order of the Phoenix, by then I could see that it was even worse than the books in terms of keeping a coherent narrative. Entire plotlines were ignored from movie to movie, but they still kept trying to stuff details in just in case they paid off in future movies.



When they eventually reboot the films, I hope having the entire series to start with yields a more coherent storyline. That is, irrelevant sideplots can be ignored and irrelevant details can be downplayed.

[Nate the Great]

Food Theory tackles a perennial question... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxhrZBO4jY0)


PNQ: Is a hot dog a sandwich?


To me, no.



I had to erase a rant again.



Precise definitions of "sandwich" vary, but can we at least agree that the mechanics of holding and eating a sandwich and a hotdog are different?

[NAHTMMM]

Technically, a cross-section of a hot dog is the cross-section of a sandwich, but a hot dog is not a "sandwich" any more than a burger is. Unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise.

[Nate the Great]

Why isn't a burger a sandwich? If you tried to limit "sandwich" to "stuff between two slices of bread" I'd think you'd get a lot of complaints.



A cross-section of a hot dog is not the cross-section of a sandwich. Rotate a hot dog 180 degrees and you get an empty bun and a sausage on the floor. Rotate a sandwich 180 degrees and you get a sandwich with a unusual filling arrangement.

[NAHTMMM]

Top to bottom, a hot dog has bread, filling, bread. The fact that the bread connects on one side is trivial to address by cutting through the hinge.

Psychologically a burger is not a sandwich. If I asked for a sandwich and someone brought me a burger, or vice versa, I would feel they did not fulfill my request properly.

[Nate the Great]

When holding a hot dog in the usual way how often is there bread above the sausage?


Today's pile of junk mail included a toy store ad. One item is a set of headphones, including a 3.5 mm-to-0.25 in converter.


PNQ: When's the last time you used such a thing?


I have a number of them kicking around just in case, remnants of my parents and older siblings coming from the pre-3.5 mm era. Of course 0.25 inch plugs still exist, but I thought they were reserved for serious audio/music users and creators. Even then, I thought they would be more likely to use 0.25 inch plugs with 0.25 inch inputs, not mix and match.



PNQ2: Would it be worthwhile to stick cheapo 3.5 mm headphones into a serious stereo system that only has 0.25 inch outputs anyway?

[Nate the Great]

Regarding "Way of the Warrior"...


PNQ: Would it have been possible to program the replicator autophaser from "Civil Defense" to only target Klingons?

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Could the human body adjust to the 26-hour Bajoran clock? Would our heroes just need to sleep an extra hour each day?

[NAHTMMM]

Probably, yeah. We find a way to adjust to everything else.

[Nate the Great]

Certifiable Ingame covers the Mugato... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUSuqwN3eiw)


PNQ: Do you use "mu-ga-toe" or "mu-ga-two"?


C.I. uses the first, and it's probably more correct, but I prefer the second. It just rolls off my tongue easier.

[Nate the Great]

Courtesy of Stand-up Maths... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7eJb8n8zAw)


PNQ: What is your favorite meganumber?


He uses "meganumber" to mean a number larger than a million. Most of us have favorite numbers smaller than a hundred, after all.



Apparently many math YouTubers have made videos on this topic. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2eQVqdUQLI&list=PLar4u0v66vIodqt3KSZPsYyuULD5meoAo)


I can't say I have one. Like most people my favorite number is under a hundred.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: How come the Trek screenwriters keep using impulse when thrusters would be more applicable?



In Wrath of Khan Kirk orders impulse in Spacedock and Saavik specifically mentions only thrusters in Spacedock. Kirk does it again in Search for Spock. I decided to Do The Math on how long it would take to cross Spacedock at one quarter impulse.


The diameter of Spacedock is 4,600 meters (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Spacedock_(Earth)) and the Enterprise is 305 meters. Quarter impulse is one sixteenth the speed of light or 18.7 million meters/s. It would take 0.00025 seconds to cross Spacedock. If we set the crossing time at a minute to follow the movies, Spacedock would have to be 18,000 km across! So the rule "only thrusters in spacedock" isn't just red tape created by people in cubicles, it's just common sense! Even if the Enterprise was aimed directly at open space doors, I wouldn't attempt impulse in there at all! Somehow I doubt a collision at those speeds wouldn't be scraped paint, it would overwhelm the structural integrity fields and rip ship and Spacedock to confetti!

[Nate the Great]

Janeway can't promote Harry because there's nowhere to transfer to and you need a certain mix of ranks on a starship. So...


PNQ: What rank do you think everyone was promoted to upon Voyager's return?


It stands to reason that everyone was moved at least one rank up (Chakotay to Captain, Tuvok to Commander, etc.), but are there some that would get more?


I don't think anyone would dispute Harry's right to Lieutenant Commander status. Icheb could probably jump to junior status at Starfleet Academy at minimum. But what about the others?

[Flying Gremlin]

Icheb could probably jump to junior status at Starfleet Academy at minimum.

I can tell you that by 2386 he was a Lieutenant. I won't elaborate further than this.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching The Undiscovered Country again, and I'm thinking about the purple blood and McCoy's declaration that he doesn't know enough about their physiology...


PNQ: Opinions?


What if Gorkon wasn't a "regular" Klingon (which we have always seen have red blood), but was a subspecies a la the Remans? A subspecies that forms the nobility? What if Kor, etc. were also members of this subspecies? Just like the multiple species of Xindi or Rigelians, could "Klingon" be a collective name for a few related species? McCoy doesn't know anything about the purple-blooded variety of Klingons because they're a minority and he's never seen one in a medical setting before?


If only they were speaking Federation Standard which could allow for this ambiguity when translated into English, right?

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching Ella Enchanted clips for some reason...


In one scene Char asks Ella to kiss him (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayjftbSDeVA), but it could be taken as a command. Ella replies that she didn't take it as one. We know that this is true because we didn't hear the bell ringing sound effect that indicates that she has just received a command and now the curse will compel her to obey.


PNQ: How is this supposed to work with the curse?



We've seen before that the curse is remarkably strict about accepting any random incoming phrase that could possibly be taken as a command to Ella AS a command to Ella. The movie is actually more strict than the book in this regard, FYI. In the book the speaker clearly has to mean Ella in particular when saying the command. On the other hand, the movie is more lenient in accepting commands even if they defy the laws of physics (i.e. "freeze" will make her levitate in a frozen position).



Sorry, I'm being pedantic again. Nothing to see here....

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching a DS9 music video, and I see the scene where Sisko takes a glass of champagne away from Jake after one sip...


PNQ: Would the legal drinking age be different for synthehol as opposed to normal alcohol in the 24th century?


I'm not touching the different ages of maturity or different biologies between species, that's a whole other can of worms, let's stick to near-humans here. One has to imagine that you need to practice "dismissing" the synthetic inebriation of synthehol. You can't just hand a five-year old a glass of synthehol and trust them to know how to stop being drunk, can you?



But it does make you wonder. Furthermore, would there be a standard minimum drinking age in the 24th century at all? I mean, if we're trusting Wesley to pilot a starship we can trust him to enjoy a drink after work, right?



There's another tangent to be had here speculating who in Trek would be pro- or anti-synthehol, but that would get really boring really fast.

[Nate the Great]

Regarding Kira's initial ambivalence about the holodeck...


PNQ: Isn't it a little short-sighted to claim that "anything worth doing in the holosuite can be done better in the real world?"


How many holodeck programs replicate things that could reasonably be done in the real world?



I should note that I'm just talking about recreational programs here, not training programs.


Off the top of my head I can only think of one: Yar creating a sparring partner in "Code of Honor." There must be other martial arts practitioners on board she could spar with.



Everything else requires an environment that's sufficiently alien to ship's conditions, dangers too great to be allowed onboard ship, etc.


The episode in question is "Second Skin", where Dax and Kira were supposed to go antigrav sailing. This sounds like something they could do on Bajor, but would it really be worth a six-hour runabout ride both ways?



Which leads to another question: would Kira's belief count as a reasonable accommodation? i.e. she's entitled to take a runabout to Bajor once a week to experience fresh air and do whatever recreation she doesn't want to do on the holosuite?

[Nate the Great]

I found myself pondering Q's remark about the Klingons and Romulans being "nothing" compared to what lies ahead.



PNQ: He meant the Borg, but what other major threats could he equally be referring to?

[Nate the Great]

I found myself wondering about the appropriateness of using the name "Maquis" for the DMZ rebels...


PNQ1: Despite what Picard would tell you, French is an obscure language in the 24th century. Why use it instead of, you know, a BAJORAN word? How many native French speakers are even members?

PNQ2: The name "Maquis" isn't even appropriate, is it? The original Maquis were resistance fighters DURING war against and OCCUPYING force. The DMZ residents never officially declared war against the Cardassians, nor are the Cardassians "occupying" their colonies. The Cardassians are their landlords, as agreed to by the colonists in the first place when they refused to leave.
PNQ3: If anything, the more clear parallel to the Maquis in the context of Trek would be the resistance fighters during the Occupation, not after it, right?
PNQ4: Actually the word "maquis" in French referred to the shrubland and thickets that the resistance fighters would hide in. While a parallel could be drawn between that and the DMZ, it was never explained in that context. And again, you run into PNQ1 again, it's an obscure word in an obscure language!
PNQ5: Presuming that the word is unmodified for the French dub, how many French viewers would make the connection?

[Nate the Great]

In "Time's Orphan" Dax says that Alexander was four when he came to live with Worf.



PNQ: How well does this jibe with the established chronology?


If she means when K'Ehleyr died, Alexander was barely two, IF that. Memory Alpha puts his birth at Stardate 43205, K'Ehleyr's death at Stardate 44246, and Alexander's return from the Roshenko's at Stardate 45376. There's nowhere to get "four years old" from these dates unless there's some SEVERE warping of spacetime going on here.



Okay, what if Alexander was conceived during her first brief relationship with Worf (which seems unlikely, but let's run the numbers)? That was in 2359, "The Emissary" is 2365, and "Reunion" is 2367. That means eight, not four. Oops.


I guess we have to conclude that as an exploratory ship the Enterprise was really warping space and time around themselves and less time was passing for them. To be more exact, two days passed outside the ship for each day that passed onboard ship. Stephen Hawking would be spinning in his grave.

[Nate the Great]

Re: My previous entry. I forgot that Worf and K'Ehleyr explicitly said that they didn't sleep together during their first relationship.



So I'm watching "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" again, and I suddenly wonder...


PNQ: Was Sisko's preoccupation with black rights or the lack thereof in the twentieth century always part of his character, or was this a subtle callback to "Far Beyond the Stars"?

[DrWho42]

if the enterprise-d has a battle bridge, is there a battle brig?

[Nate the Great]

In "The Changing Face of Evil" Sisko calls the recently destroyed Defiant "the finest ship I ever commanded."


PNQ: What other ships has he commanded?


I know that the runabouts have individual registries closer to starships than shuttles, but you can't say that they "count". Sisko never officially commanded a runabout, he was just the senior officer on duty during specific missions.



Couldn't he have said "the finest ship I ever served on" and achieved the same point?

[Nate the Great]

So Nog stays on at DS9 after the war...


PNQ: Why wasn't he sent back to Starfleet Academy to finish his training?


He started at the Academy after "Little Green Men", 2372, stardate not given but somewhere around 49000 given surrounding episodes. By the time of "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" (49170.65/49364) he's at the Academy and has been there for a semester or so.



(FYI, I find it odd that the two-parter would take place over 70 days, is it seriously too hard to block out specific stardates for each episode at the start of the season and then tweak them later depending on how long each story is supposed to take in-universe?)


He returns to the station for "The Darkness and the Light", 2373, Stardate 50416.2. So he was only at the Academy for a year.



While one might wonder how much equivalent credit he can get through station duty, my mind also goes to Wesley. Wesley was essentially a senior officer for over two years before he even started at the Academy, and it certainly seemed like he still had to do the full four years (or shall we say five after "The First Duty").

[Nate the Great]

In "The Emissary" Worf pretends to be captain of the Enterprise. However, he does so from the main bridge...


PNQ: Doesn't the main bridge look too "human" to pass as a Klingon vessel? Too bright, too big, etc. Wouldn't using the battle bridge make it easier to pass as a Klingon-run ship?


I know, I know. The battle bridge was a temporary set and would've added cost. They could've at least turned down the lights when Worf was "in command." And probably altered the camera view to focus on the captain's chair.

[Nate the Great]

It occurred to me later that Sisko could also have been influenced by his knowledge of the history of black baseball players AND his experiences during "Past Tense."

[Nate the Great]

So Kivas Fajo has the Mona Lisa in the future....


PNQ: Do you think by the 24th century the Louvre would consider selling it, or allowing it to be stolen?

[Nate the Great]

Which of these 8 dropped Star Trek plots would you most like a continuation to? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF6SAauhIBc)


8. Gary Seven. Actually, he was good in the John Byrne comics and in the novel Assignment: Eternity, but recasting him to appear again would be fun, maybe in conjunction with the Department of Temporal Investigations.


7. The kids from Miri. Actually, I don't really think we need to return to this plotline. What else is there to say about them?



6. Balok. I don't agree with this one. One of the Strange New Worlds collections features a story about Voyager encountering Bailey in the Delta Quadrant, that's enough for me.



5. The Kelvans. Unless Trek gets to the point that intergalactic travel is possible, I don't really see the point. It would make an interesting seasonlong arc akin to the Xindi or Stargate Universe, but you must remember that only the Kelvans that we met assumed humanoid form, the rest would be very alien.



4. Gillian Taylor. What else is there to her story that needs to be told? Again, there's a Strange New Worlds story (costarring Carol Marcus!) that continues her story enough for me.


3. The Gorn. You'd have to do a lot to flesh out this culture to make them interesting enough to visit. Let them stay in the novels and comics.


2. Charvanek. This one I agree with. They could've done so much more with her. Eventually she could've become sort of the Romulan version of Commander Shran (Nate just referenced Enterprise, lock your doors!). Her appearances in the TOS novels and the Vulcan's Soul trilogy were great.



1. The Guardian on the Edge of Forever. I agree with this one as well. The Guardian had tremendous potential. The Yesterday Saga books are great, his interactions with Q in the Q Continuum Trilogy, etc. A Strange New Worlds story even showed that the Department of Temporal Investigations has been known to use the Guardian on occasion.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: What do you think is the stupidest or most unnecessary subplot in a two-parter?


I'm watching "Time's Arrow" and it's amazing how much the Mrs. Carmichael subplot annoys me. She uses up screentime that could've been better spent fleshing out the villains or making the Mark Twain stuff a bit more meaningful.

[Nate the Great]

In "Trials and Tribbleations" Worf says that Darvin's real name is Darvin.


PNQ: Huh? The guy's name is Gralmek (https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Gralmek), "Arne Darvin" is just an alias!

[DrWho42]

why do they wear spacesuits in among us if they breathe air

[Nate the Great]

In "Blaze of Glory" Eddington complains about the replicated food. I suddenly wonder...


PNQ: If you're so uptight about replicated food, why would you join Starfleet in the first place?



I mean, one of the unspoken rules of Starfleet is "the vast majority of your food will be replicated", right?



I'm sorry, I just hate Eddington in particular and DS9's handling of the Maquis in general.



I rewatched "The Maquis" the other day and got so annoyed about how they handled the introduction. They were building on multiple NextGen episodes from the past, and STILL didn't write them correctly. The only way any of this makes sense is if the original DMZ leaders lied to the colonists in the beginning. Every single DMZ leader, every single colony. Which will never sound plausible to me.

[Nate the Great]

I've been pondering how to flesh out the Voyager aliens so there are fewer blatant knockoffs of Alpha Quadrant races...


PNQ: Other ideas?


The first thing that comes to mind for the Kazon is a twist on the Ferengi. Instead of money (the Delta Quadrant doesn't seem to have anything approaching a de facto universal currency like gold-pressed latinum), they covet resources. In their area of the quadrant water isn't as plentiful as elsewhere, and they don't have anything approaching replicator technology. Expand it beyond just water, what about fertile cropland, mines of usable ore, fungi with medical purposes. They play Settlers of Cataan instead of Monopoly like the Ferengi do.



KAR: I must protect my territory. Territory is power.


As for the Hirogen, hunting shouldn't be their only hat (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats). Emphasis shouldn't just be on the kill, but it should instead be on showing superiority by becoming better than their prey. Outthinking them, predicting their movements, and above all not being discovered. Good predators don't reveal themselves until just before they attack. The Hirogen shouldn't even be a known quantity, nobody should know their name until Voyager outthinks them. What if Voyager encounters a number of races who talk of their destroyed ships and outposts, but who have no idea who did it? The sensor network should be hard to find and extremely resiliant. There was no need to destroy it, just have the Hirogen increase their computer security and increase the number of ships guarding the network. Eventually Voyager would be made to detour around it to avoid the Hirogen.

[NAHTMMM]

Which of these 8 dropped Star Trek plots would you most like a continuation to? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF6SAauhIBc)


7. The kids from Miri. Actually, I don't really think we need to return to this plotline. What else is there to say about them?
Very unhappy things in The Cry of the Onlies.


6. Balok. I don't agree with this one. One of the Strange New Worlds collections features a story about Voyager encountering Bailey in the Delta Quadrant, that's enough for me.
They also encounter First Federation technology in Ragnarok.



5. The Kelvans. Unless Trek gets to the point that intergalactic travel is possible, I don't really see the point. It would make an interesting seasonlong arc akin to the Xindi or Stargate Universe, but you must remember that only the Kelvans that we met assumed humanoid form, the rest would be very alien.
The Kelvans could be a starting point for brainstorming a Starfleet ship that ends up in the Andromeda galaxy or whichever galaxy they were from.

1. The Guardian on the Edge of Forever. I agree with this one as well. The Guardian had tremendous potential. The Yesterday Saga books are great, his interactions with Q in the Q Continuum Trilogy, etc. A Strange New Worlds story even showed that the Department of Temporal Investigations has been known to use the Guardian on occasion.
Also First Frontier.

why do they wear spacesuits in among us if they breathe air
There's so much sabotage and general shenanigans in space that life support is on the fritz more often than not, wearing the suits just saves time

In "Blaze of Glory" Eddington complains about the replicated food. I suddenly wonder...


PNQ: If you're so uptight about replicated food, why would you join Starfleet in the first place?
Why would you join Starfleet if you don't like the transporter?

[Nate the Great]

Ah, the transporter. One place where I have to admit that Pulaski's character wasn't well written. McCoy would gripe, but he never avoided the thing. He understood that it was a necessity to do his job. Except for that one time, Barclay sucked it up and beamed anyway. But Pulaski? She didn't even have a transporter trace, which meant that she almost died in "Unnatural Selection" because of her stubbornness. "Unnatural Selection" was Stardate 42494.8, "The Child" was 42073.1. That means that she avoided using the transporter for FIVE MONTHS! For a starship I find that inexplicable, especially the flagship. Especially for the Chief Medical Officer.



I recall McCoy referring to himself as "Chief Surgeon" of the Enterprise once. I wonder if some ships have two separate jobs for this, one to handle the crew as a whole along with away missions (McCoy was also the ship's psychologist, remember) and one to stay in Sickbay to handle the bigger medical problems. What if Pulaski wasn't really "Chief Medical Officer" but was really "Chief Surgeon", a non-senior officer position that stays onboard ship at all times. What if there was another unseen doctor who handled the away team stuff?

[Nate the Great]

One of the TNG TV Tropes pages (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/StarTrekTheNextGenerationTechnology) calls the Universal Translator "maybe above all the rest, the single biggest "don't think about this too much" technology in all of Star Trek."


PNQ: Opinions?


After all, as presented the UT has to be able to do the following:
1. Scan the language centers of the brains of everyone in range to form a translation matrix that can be used on the fly.
2. Listen to the speaker's voice to not only translate the words, but also create a copycat artificial voice so everyone doesn't sound like Stephen Hawking.
3. Not only translate based on universal linguistic principles (and let's not even get into how THAT works), but restructure the translation to sound more natural to the ears of the specific person wearing the combadge.

4. Create holographic projections of lips over everyone in range so the lips look like they're speaking the language of whoever is wearing the UT AND not conflict with the projections of the other combadges in range.
5. Obey rules specialized for each language on what to translate or not translate (i.e. say "bat'leth", not "sword of honor", say "Gul" not "Captain").
6. Mute the sound of the original words to not overlap with the computer-generated translation. Oh, and be able to do this for dozens of people in dozens of different places speaking dozens of languages SIMULTANEOUSLY.


Kinda makes the Babel Fish sound less implausible, doesn't it?

[Flying Gremlin]

One of the TNG TV Tropes pages (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/StarTrekTheNextGenerationTechnology) calls the Universal Translator "maybe above all the rest, the single biggest "don't think about this too much" technology in all of Star Trek."


PNQ: Opinions?


After all, as presented the UT has to be able to do the following:
1. Scan the language centers of the brains of everyone in range to form a translation matrix that can be used on the fly.
2. Listen to the speaker's voice to not only translate the words, but also create a copycat artificial voice so everyone doesn't sound like Stephen Hawking.
3. Not only translate based on universal linguistic principles (and let's not even get into how THAT works), but restructure the translation to sound more natural to the ears of the specific person wearing the combadge.

4. Create holographic projections of lips over everyone in range so the lips look like they're speaking the language of whoever is wearing the UT AND not conflict with the projections of the other combadges in range.
5. Obey rules specialized for each language on what to translate or not translate (i.e. say "bat'leth", not "sword of honor", say "Gul" not "Captain").
6. Mute the sound of the original words to not overlap with the computer-generated translation. Oh, and be able to do this for dozens of people in dozens of different places speaking dozens of languages SIMULTANEOUSLY.


Kinda makes the Babel Fish sound less implausible, doesn't it?

I taste pennies now after reading this. That's bad, right?

[Nate the Great]

Of course, the weird thing is that in TOS the only confirmed appearance of the UT was in "Metamorphosis." You know, the one where they try to translate energy pulses being "spoken" by a creature that doesn't have vocal chords or any of a thousand different reference points that a UT would need to extract a language? In all other episodes everyone just happens to speak English! Not even "Federation Standard", but outright English!



Maybe I'll buy that the Klingons learned English to communicate with the Federation. Maybe I'll buy that the Guardian of Forever has something akin to a UT to allow it to talk to visitors. But that doesn't allow for the dozens of other cases where everyone just speaks English. How did the residents of Sigma Iota II read The Book? How can the Fabrini speak anything close to our language if they've been isolated for ten thousand years! Even Vulcan society doesn't go that far back!

[Nate the Great]

And don't forget that a big chunk of a combadge is just solid gold.

[Flying Gremlin]

Too bad you'll never see Discovery. S2E4 "An Obol for Charon" will throw three more monkey wrenches into your thought process about the UT.

[Nate the Great]

So a comment on a random YouTube video suggests that Uhura couldn't speak Klingon because Nomad wiped that knowledge from her mind and she didn't relearn it.


PNQ: Opinions?


Yeah, no. She had over twenty years to relearn a language as important as Klingon. Remember that she was an instructor at Starfleet Academy for many years, she had the time.

[Nate the Great]

So I watched a fan trailer for DS9 again... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPCmyJpfHZI&list=PLAFA0ED30CAF978E4&index=67)


PNQ: What kind of plot could a DS9 movie have had?

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching yet another Shakespeare adaptation that moves the setting to the present but keeps the original prose...


PNQ: Is keeping the original dialogue necessary for a true adaptation of Shakespeare? Is his genius only present in his dialogue, with the characters, plotlines, etc. secondary in importance?


I wish I could see an adaptation of Shakespeare that had the original setting, characters, plot, etc. but updated the language. No more iambic pentameter, no references to obscure myths that were well-known to the Elizabethans but not to us, no words that are now extinct. It must be possible.

[Nate the Great]

Frank Sinatra, "The Way You Look Tonight" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gab2Vuz2Nk)


(still think Fred Astaire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsALgi5yM_A) did it better, but I have a question about Frank's version...)


Some commenters are saying that Frank is pronouncing "warm" more like "worm" at 0:50.


PNQ: Do you hear it?


I don't. I hear "wahrm", sure, but it never gets to "worm." That's just his accent, it's not something to make fun of.


EDIT: Upon rewatching I realize the joke was about a typo with the onscreen lyrics. Oops.

[NAHTMMM]

PNQ: Is keeping the original dialogue necessary for a true adaptation of Shakespeare? Is his genius only present in his dialogue, with the characters, plotlines, etc. secondary in importance?

It turns out he dropped a lot of references to current events into his plays as well. The porter in Macbeth who goes on about equivocating, for example, is referring to the then-recent discovery that Jesuits had been teaching English Catholics how to not-lie in order to hide priests from the authorities.


At the end of the day, it all comes down to what you feel is important to you, to the integrity of the play, and to the audience.

[Nate the Great]

Doomcock made a video about Brie Larson and Captain Marvel. I won't link to the video because you guys don't seem to like him, although I must mention that he made a Voyage Home joke in this one.



PNQ: Was Brie Larson herself the problem in the Marvel movies?


I don't care about behind the scenes drama. That's the director's problem, not mine. Star Trek itself has had its share of demanding and hard-to-work with actors, with the Shat himself as only one example.



My problem with her performance in Captain Marvel, etc. was that she didn't have enough to do to showcase a wide variety of emotions and performance types. And that's a writing problem, not an acting problem. I won't be watching Captain Marvel again because I don't like the fundamental story and tone, not because of Larson's performance. She didn't have enough to work with in the first place.

[NAHTMMM]

There's a few Marvel movies I haven't seen, and Captain Marvel is one of them. I haven't heard anything that would turn me off from seeing it.

[Nate the Great]

Watch it once for the connections to the rest of the MCU, but don't expect to enjoy yourself very much. Or maybe I'm just bored of fish-out-of-water plots, or amnesiac-must-rebuild-their-past-life plots, or whole-life-turns-out-to-be-a-lie plots, and so on and so forth.

[Nate the Great]

Who owns DS9? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnhA_-hNd84)


An odd name for a video about the history of the station. After all, the answer is Bajor, of course. The Federation was only administering it, Starfleet was only protecting it.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm reading a DS9 novel and there's a named Dominion ship in it...


PNQ: Does the Dominion seem like the kind of organization that would name its ships as opposed to alphanumerical designations?


Most known races name their ships for reasons that wouldn't apply to the Dominion, right? The Jem'Hadar and Vorta aren't bred with artistic sensibilities, and the Founders wouldn't want to follow the customs of solids, would they?

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching "Birthright" again...


PNQ: Did they do the "everyone thinks the food is awful except for Worf" joke more often than Riker's eggs and Geordi's pasta?

[Nate the Great]

I found myself pondering this question. I'll expand the parameters...


PNQ1: When/if you have children old enough to watch Trek, in what order will you introduce them to the franchise?
PNQ2: What Trek won't you show them, letting them discover it on their own if they want to?


A key issue is that the primitive (I hesitate to say "cheap") style of TOS will be a major turnoff for some. I refer you to earlier comments I've made about people not liking black and white movies JUST because they're black and white, it's the same thing.


In many ways STIV would be a good intro, it's lighter on the scifi and heavier on the humor and character work. Too bad it refers to STII and STIII events.


PNQ3: Would the bite-sized nature of TAS be a reasonable introduction, or does it rely too much on TOS lore and '70s weirdness?

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ1: When/if you have children old enough to watch Trek, in what order will you introduce them to the franchise?

I can answer this one really easily: I showed my daughter who she was named after first and let her make up her mind.

It probably was the wrong move, but she was curious and asked me.

(Her name's Annika, BTW.)

[Nate the Great]

I wouldn't try to introduce a child to ALL of TOS at once, but they should at least see Trouble With Tribbles, Balance of Terror, Journey to Babel, etc. towards the start.


Then TNG starting at Season Three.



I would never use TAS as an introduction to children. Yeah, it's only half an hour and it's a cartoon, but it's an OLD cartoon. Putting aside the continual references to TOS (which aren't a bad thing for older viewers who have seen TOS), it's cheaply animated and falls victim to the the old trap hole I've mentioned before: older filmmaking tech is offputting to those not used to it.

[Flying Gremlin]

I would never use TAS as an introduction to children. Yeah, it's only half an hour and it's a cartoon, but it's an OLD cartoon. Putting aside the continual references to TOS (which aren't a bad thing for older viewers who have seen TOS), it's cheaply animated and falls victim to the the old trap hole I've mentioned before: older filmmaking tech is offputting to those not used to it.

I can agree with this.

Hopefully Prodigy is a good jumping off point for younger audiences. I hope it will be good to go when my son is old enough to start understanding that stuff.

[Nate the Great]

So STIII made the mistake of calling the Enterprise "twenty years old" when it's really forty. Whatever, the point is that Admiral Morrow called it too old to bother repairing.



PNQ1: Why did Starfleet send years to do a complete overhaul on the ship if it's going to be called out of date and useless in ten years or so?
PNQ2: Don't we see oodles of OLD Excelsior classes in TNG? Like, a LOT of them. I can't buy that the majority of them were built in the 24th century, the Ambassador-class should've overtaken them if so.

PNQ3: Building starships takes years, even in the 24th century (you have to assume that "Best of Both Worlds" made the shipyards start production full-time and never stopped due to the increased threats). If Scotty can get the ship back to spec in a few weeks, why not let him? It's gotta be cheaper to fix a ship than build a new one.

PNQ4: What's the most damage we've seen a starship suffer and still be able to be repaired to full capability? The E-D was pretty battered after Best of Both Worlds, Voyager after the Borg/8472 War, etc. Did Khan really do that much damage all things considered?

PNQ5: If you really think about it, the worst of Khan's attack would be those initial phaser hits when the Enterprise didn't have its shields up. Of course ablative armor didn't exist yet, but the damage seemed to be concentrated on the warp distribution system in order to cripple the Enterprise. Plasma conduits can be replaced, hull segments can be replaced. And Scotty was ready to do it.

[Nate the Great]

So in "The Ultimate Computer" M-5 didn't recommend McCoy for the landing party because any injured crewman could be beamed up.


PNQ: How often has a doctor been essential on a landing party because contact is lost with the ship?


The answer is: A LOT! While I could certainly argue that you don't need the CMO on every away mission, someone trained in medicine should whenever they're going into an unknown environment. And in the episode this is the first time anyone from Starfleet will be visiting this planet, who knows how many exploding rocks or salt vampires or dikronium clouds or mugatos or whatever else could be down there? Unless they really do treat the redshirts like mineshaft canaries on purpose, a doctor will always be necessary.

[Nate the Great]

I found myself wondering the following...


PNQ: Which Star Trek captain actor was most well-known before joining Trek?


To the general TV-watching audience, I mean. I don't want to get into the intricacies of who might've seen Shatner or Stewart on stage.



It seems that it would be Bakula, but am I missing something?



As for which actor I knew best before they appeared on Trek it would be Bakula of course (my parents were HUGE Quantum Leap fans). However, I did see Chris Pine in Princess Diaries 2.



As for ALL Trek actors, in terms of sheer popularity across the spectrum, could it be LeVar Burton? Between Roots and Reading Rainbow I think he had his place in pop culture solidified.



Mention must also be made of the 1988 movie Roots: The Gift. It features LeVar Burton, Kate Mulgrew, Avery Brooks, AND Tim Russ.

[Nate the Great]

In "Rascals" Guinan refers to a planet as "the most beautiful in the quadrant"...


PNQ: Given the range of species in the Federation (assume we're just talking about the Federation), could they really agree on one planet as "the most beautiful?"


Yeah, Guinan was using hyperbole, but it makes you think. Most of the humans irrationally consider Earth the most beautiful, but what about other races? It's noted that Trill can handle the cold easier than most races, Ferengi don't like bright light, Klingons seem to prefer forests, Cardassians love the heat, etc. There are even humans who don't like nature at all and love to stay inside.



This of course opens other questions relating to internal clocks and other nuances of biology. I wonder how long it takes for a 26-hr/day Bajoran to get used to a 24-hr/day, it probably took Sisko and crew weeks to get used to it. Frankly it made sense for DS9 to match a Bajoran day when the station was in orbit, but now that it's in deep space and the planet is a three hour trip away, a different "time zone" seemed to be indicated.


Then again, did everyone in Bajoran space agree to follow a 26-hour day system to facilitate trade? Is the entire DMZ operating on a 26-hour day? It makes you wonder.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching "Descent" again, and I note that when the holodeck shuts down it removes the characters before removing the room itself.



PNQ: While it stands to reason that the "puppets" require a lot more processing power than a simple "set". But could it be that each category of projection has its own category of projectors?



Think of sprite comics. The artists put down a "backdrop", then put sprites on top of it on a different "layer". What if holodecks also have different "layers"? You could imagine the illusionary food being its own layer. Perhaps when musical instruments are present they have to be on a layer that's more "real" than ordinary props, an almost-but-not-quite replicated layer.

[Nate the Great]

Following on from a YouTube video... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCT8DLAuBsU)


PNQ: .gif-is it "jiff (jiffy without the y)" or "giff (gift without the t)"?


I use the former, it's just easier to say.

[Nate the Great]

How commas have affected government/legal matters. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zim09f0VsQ)


PNQ: Do you use the Oxford comma?


That is, the comma before the "and" at the end of a list.


X, Y, and Z or X, Y and Z?

[NAHTMMM]

jiff and of course I use the Oxford comma, it is best practice.

[Nate the Great]

So I stumbled upon the old saying "a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into" again...


PNQ: If you had the money for storage, maintenance, etc. for a recreational vehicle, what kind would you want?



By "recreational vehicle" I'll cast a wide net. RVs, ATVs, canoes, sailboats, dirt bikes, hang glider, whatever. We'll also assume that you have the time and opportunity to actually use the thing on a regular basis.



If you already have one, you have to choose something in a different category.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Vulcan mind-meld vs Jedi mind-trick-who wins? (https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/165159699_1194329127678552_4702551905396702733_n.j pg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=GMYoVxgglcgAX8bvceY&_nc_ht=scontent-den4-1.xx&oh=42bec6d1802c195dfff6def2568464dd&oe=6082E1F2)


An interesting question. It depends on the mental training of both sides. Spock vs. Obi-Wan? Are we talking at a distance, or within the mindscape of a mind-meld? Does Spock get to use the Stone of Gol?



Give each of them the weapon of the other (lightsabre and lirpa, say the lirpa is lightsabre-proof)? I think Spock is more trained in traditional weapons, he'd win.



I think if Spock managed a mind-meld, he'd win. Jedi don't look like they deal with direct mind manipulation, that's a Sith thing.



Can Spock be tricked with a mind-trick? Also an interesting question. A casual "you want to go home and reevaluate your life", not a chance. A directed "see what I want you to see", possibly. Then again, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Vulcans can train themselves to see through illusions like that.



So after achieving near-Kolinar on Mount Seleya, I think Spock would win.

[NAHTMMM]

I'm sure KJ would like a little ~4-person fishing boat to putter around in.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: In "Best of Both Worlds" did Guinan know that Picard would be saved because she knows that he hasn't gone back in time to meet her in "Time's Arrow" yet?


Because it's an interesting question. El-Aurians can sense changes in the timeline, so is it possible that they know that their knowledge of future events can be changed, or can be fulfilled by alternate timeline versions of people?

[Nate the Great]

So I just watched The Giver movie for the first time. Like everyone else I had to read the book in school. I've even read the sequels (FYI: don't bother, the connections to the first book are weak at best and introduce even more plot holes). However, I'm not as passionate as some about "they changed X, Y, and Z from the book, this is a disaster!" with this book. (If the remake of The Phantom Tollbooth is ever made, expect me to be passionate about THAT!)



PNQ: Was it even worth trying? Are there some books that just can't be translated to the screen without serious damage to the message that was intended?


A key problem that I found was the amount of exposition that was blatantly left out because we didn't have a Jonas inner monologue. I know that this dates me even more, but upon reflection I think that the book falls into the Flowers for Algernon trap (yikes, I haven't thought about Flowers for Algernon in like twenty years). Some books are supposed to be about the inner workings of a person, and those kind of stories just can't be told well in movie format.



PNQ2: What books can you think of that are also focused on the inner workings of the main character?


One that comes to mind immediately is Dear Mr. Henshaw. (PNQ: Are kids still made to read Dear Mr. Henshaw these days?)



Think about it, the reason why a lot of books work is because there's the audience POV character that responds to the main character. That can be translated to the screen a lot easier. But in The Giver a key plot point is that nobody can relate to Jonas except the Giver himself.

[Nate the Great]

So yet another article on the changes made to the Trill between TNG and DS9 is making the rounds on Facebook...


PNQ: Why did they bother calling the DS9 race the Trill?


I mean, "The Host" wasn't a particularly good episode to begin with. Looking back they never really did a good job with love interests for Beverly besides Picard. I don't revisit that episode, and I doubt many viewers cared to see more of the Trill. If they had renamed the race to go with the new makeup and backstory I doubt anyone would have cared.

[Nate the Great]

So Washington, D.C. wants to be a state...


PNQ: Opinions?


The latest news is that the supporters want to name the new state "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth" (https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/04/22/dc-statehood-faces-a-crossroads-with-congressional-vote/), which I think is a horrible name.


Personally I'm in favor of retrocession (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_retrocession), i.e. returning everything except the formal government buildings to Maryland. And even if I wanted it to be a state, I'd just call it Columbia.

[Nate the Great]

Courtesy of Facebook...


PNQ: Could a lightsaber cut Captain America's shield?


Personally, I doubt it. The shield specifically spreads out energy applied to it.


Times the shield has been damaged. (https://www.cbr.com/15-times-captain-americas-unbreakable-shield-was-shattered/)


Usually it's magic. Don't ask me how Ultron destroyed it. Molecule Man is an essay by itself.


(https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2021/04/14/may-fourth-mandalorian-star-wars-shirts-fun/)
Mark Hamill votes in favor of lightsaber. (https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2021/04/14/may-fourth-mandalorian-star-wars-shirts-fun/)


Kyle Hill (he makes videos tackling pop culture science) also votes for lightsaber. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xFM-eq_ej8&t=287s)


Personally I think Cap would be smart enough to not allow continual contact in order to protect the shield.

[DrWho42]

what's after vapourwave?

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: How often do you refer to the 2009 film as Star Trek XI?


If Not Always Right is to be believed (https://notalwaysright.com/retail-the-final-frontier/232775/), not very many people call it that.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching the Garak tribute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyWfcHnUGLo&list=PL66277669B03474B1&index=106) again, and I got to wondering...


PNQ: What Trek character would've made the greatest changes to history if they had never existed?


Think about it. Garak changed the course of the Dominion War many, many times. So many times that I can't even list them all without going episode by episode.


Then again, no Worf means Duras would've become Chancellor, broken the Federation Alliance, and the Klingons would've become pawns of the Romulans.



Without Kirk the Klingons would've gotten a much larger foothold in Federation territory in the TOS days PLUS the Chang conspiracy would've taken control of the Empire.


No Picard means the first Borg invasion would've gone quite differently. And frankly Q's interactions with the Enterprise would've been much different. For that matter, would Riker have figured out the Devron anomaly paradox?


No Spock means no Khitomer Conference. Another ambassador wouldn't have gotten things done so fast. Chang would've had a much easier time taking over the Empire.


No Data...wow. Once again the first Borg invasion would've gone very differently. Not to mention the Klingon Civil War.


Scotty has a good shot at the title as well. Not for any one thing, but for lots of little examples of miracle repairs.



No Sisko...yikes. That's a thread by itself.

[Nate the Great]

In "Meridian" Quark pulls a con on Kira, claiming that she's his one millionth customer...


PNQ: How plausible is this?


We don't know when Quark's opened beyond "before 2363." Meridian is 2371, so let's say it's been open ten years. The bar runs on a 26-hour cycle like Bajor, so that's 337 Bajoran days per year, or 3370 total. A million customers is 300 per day. We've seen that Cardassians enjoy their gambling and drinking as much as anyone else, so let's call this reasonable.



An episode in the first season claims 300 people on board, which I find dubious. Upper limits on a steady population for the station are usually around 7,000, which I also find dubious.



The writer's guide for the first season apparently claims 200 Bajorans and 50 Starfleet on board. I'd say Quark had about 20 Ferengi and assorted alien Dabo Girls working for him before the FCA ban.



Memory Beta claims almost 700 permanent residential quarters in the Habitat Ring and another 350 in the Central Core.



Okay, so it's not plausible for Quark to take ten years to get to a million customers, let's say that he means AFTER the Occupation. Two years or 700 days means over 1400 people per day. Over 50 people per hour. That's a lot of visitors, but I'm not sure about that either. He'd have to wait until Season Five and the Klingon peace for that kind of business.

[Nate the Great]

So in "Disaster" Picard gives away one of his pips, easily attaching it to civilian clothes...


PNQ: How do the pips and commbadges attach to their uniforms?


If they only attached to uniforms, we could assume that there is a corresponding magnet or other device built into them to allow for easy attachment. But this happens to civilian clothes all the time, whatever mechanism is in play must be confined to the devices only.


Could there be some sort of spring-loaded hook mechanism built into them? Press the thing into cloth and hundreds of tiny hooks extend to grab the cloth. Press again and they retract.


Could all clothes come equipped with a mesh that has a function other than attaching pips and commbadges? I'd suggest temperature control or stain resistance, but we've seen plenty of sweat and dirt on clothes. Another possibility is identification, instructions for people who find survivors, etc., but once again people seem to act like the commbadge itself is all the ID needed. Low-level armor also seems unlikely, we've seen phasers leave very clean wounds that don't seem dispersed in the slightest.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching the "Inspirational Speeches of Trek (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNu1cdISsvY)" video again...


PNQ: How is ANY Starfleet career "playing it safe"? If Picard wanted to "play it safe" wouldn't he have left Starfleet to work the family vineyard or become Professor Galen's assistant?



Okay, you could argue that there are "safe" Starfleet careers like working at Utopia Planitia or one of the embassies on the core worlds, but those are few and far between, and I'm not sure a timid Picard would like working there, either.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Suppose Seven never replaced Kes. No Borg stories, no Species 8472, none of that. What could you see as replacement stories?


Undoubtedly a key one would've been Kes having a baby. The way they wrote themselves into a corner with that one means they never could've gotten away with her chosing not to get pregnant again. And given her lifespan it's not like she could've frozen an embryo for later or something like that.



Perhaps there would've been a progression of her mental abilities, even to the point of letting her extend her lifespan.



There would've been a need for another major villain besides the Hirogen.



It saddens me to think of how much better certain episodes could've been without resorting to the "Seven learns something about humanity" trope. I get that it was done well with Spock and Data, but the law of diminishing returns was inevitable.


I wish that Voyager's reputation could've improved gradually, even to the point of a coalition like in Enterprise's later seasons (Voyager would've been better if it was more like Enterprise? Is it Opposite Day or something?).


A proper romance for Chakotay (NOT Janeway) would've been nice. Perhaps adding another member to the crew as a guide and doing it better than Neelix this time.

[Nate the Great]

In The Undiscovered Country Spock makes reference to "almost seventy years of unremitting hostility" between the Federation and the Klingon Empire....


PNQ: Really?



It seems to be a given that the Organian Peace Treaty didn't last very long, but it DID exist and would seem to qualify as a "remittence" of hostilities.



STVI is set in 2293, so what happened in 2223 or so to start things off?



What's weird is that "In A Mirror Darkly" makes reference to this 2223 event without specifying what it is.



Oh, and Sybok and Kirk's brother Sam were also born in this year. Odd coincidence.

[Nate the Great]

Inspired by a Deepfake video....


PNQ: If they remade Back to the Future, only with a current kid being sent back to the '80s, would it work?


I mean, there are plenty of culture shock possibilities there. No Internet, no cellphones, etc. There are plenty of jokes to be built around the evolution of slang.



Of course you couldn't have the same George/Lorraine plot and a lot of the other interactions would change (it would be harder for older Biff to make George do his "homework" at work these days, for instance), but it would be possible.


Getting plutonium from terrorists probably wouldn't fly today, but that wasn't an important plot-point anyway. In fact, it would be better for the Marty equivalent to know about today's circuitboards and have to teach the Doc equivalent how to recreate them with '80s tech.

[Nate the Great]

So I watched a clips video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTJ0RcP7__w&t=173s) from the Friends episode "The One Where They All Turn Thirty"...


PNQ: What was your big "I'm getting old" birthday?


When I turned 30 I was too preoccupied by other problems to really worry about it. It wasn't until 31 that I had to leave a young person's group that I really loved. I turn 40 next year, and it doesn't seem like such a big deal.

[Nate the Great]

Inspired by a YouTube video...


PNQ: In what order should you read Jane Austen's novels?


I've only read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, so I don't really qualify as an informed judge. Personally I would suggest S&S first, as the plot is much simpler with less of the subtext found in P&P. P&P requires a lot more intimate knowledge of the dos and don'ts of Regency life.



What Austen novels have you guys read? What would you recommend for the order of the rest of the six?


I've watched bits of a couple different versions of Emma and have read an abridgement, but I don't like it. People who think they're perfect and always make the right decisions until they figure out how wrong they are is not the kind of plot that I enjoy. Well-intentioned meddling leading to disaster is not fun for me as a novel-length plot, that sort of thing should be limited to a chapter at a time.

[NAHTMMM]

I only just read P&P recently and enjoyed it. I found a paper online talking about the choice of card games in the book, and what they all would convey to a contemporary audience, but it seems to be buried in all the other Austen card game results in my search results now.

[Nate the Great]

So I've seen a few YouTube videos trying to explain inconsistencies in stardates. This question even came up in the TOS days, so Gene said (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Stardate)...


This time system adjusts for shifts in relative time which occur due to the vessel's speed and space warp capability. It has little relationship to Earth's time as we know it. One hour aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise at different times may equal as little as three Earth hours. The star dates specified in the log entry must be computed against the speed of the vessel, the space warp, and its position within our galaxy, in order to give a meaningful reading." Therefore star date would be one thing at one point in the galaxy and something else again at another point in the galaxy."


PNQ: Why is the ship's location and speed a factor? Doesn't this imply that every single ship, starbase, planet, etc. has an independent stardate system that must continually be corrected against each other?

PNQ2: Furthermore, isn't the entire point of subspace to correct for relativistic effects? I can understand full impulse (0.25c) messing things up, but not warp speeds?
PNQ3: Shouldn't the current date and time at Starfleet headquarters be the "official time" against which all logs are marked? I mean, I can understand each ship, etc. having a local clock for shifts and missions, but everything should be correlated back to the official clock for the ship's logs, right?

[Nate the Great]

Courtesy of Facebook:


PNQ: What's the first major world event you remember as a child?


I was a little too young for the Challenger disaster, I don't recall the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc.


Truth be told, the first major world event that I witnessed knowing that it was a BIG DEAL was 9/11, and I was 19 at the time.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Do you think they'll eventually do a Kelvin-style reboot of TNG?

[Nate the Great]

Ed Asner died today. (https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/08/29/ed-asner-lou-grant-dies-at-91/)


Yet another in a long line of "I thought they were already dead" entries.



PNQ: Favorite Asner role?


The Mary Tyler Moore Show and similar are way before my time. I had completely forgotten that he voiced Hudson in Gargoyles, so I guess that would have to be my pick in retrospect. Second would be J. Jonah Jameson, and third is his various appearances as Granny Goodness.



As for Mike Cosgrove on Freakazoid, I never really watched that show. The whole Animaniacs-style of overly topical jokes doesn't appeal to me.

[Flying Gremlin]

PNQ: Favorite Asner role?

Easily Carl from Up.

[Nate the Great]

I only watched Up once. They were trying too much for a kids movie (I've noticed that Pixar tends to do that, with varying levels of success). And like everyone else, I would've rather have had the whole movie be the "Married Life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIZrzHZduCk)" stuff. That scene still tugs at the heartstrings.

[NAHTMMM]

PNQ: What's the first major world event you remember as a child?
Watching the 1992 presidential election returns on TV.


PNQ: Do you think they'll eventually do a Kelvin-style reboot of TNG?
I think Hollywood will eventually do a reboot of everything that smells like they can make even a shred of money off of it.

[Nate the Great]

Regarding Colonel Kira being made a Commander in Starfleet...




PNQ: Shouldn't she be a Captain?



As an aside I decided to look up a chart comparing Army (i.e. Bajoran Militia) and Navy (i.e. Starfleet) ranks (https://www.factmonster.com/us/military/us-military-ranks). Major is equivalent to Lieutenant Commander, which is odd is retrospect. I think Kira was in charge of the entire Militia within the Bajoran system (besides Bajor, of course).



Perhaps she was really a Lieutenant Colonel, which is equivalent to Commander. A full Colonel is equivalent to Captain. Memory Alpha confirms the Colonel/Captain thing and brings up Colonel West.



Then again, Colonel West wore uniform decoration above the level of a Captain (and again, insert Nate's theory that army-ranked people were really members of UESPA integrated into Starfleet).



Of course, I suddenly wonder why Bajor would use Earth rank titles anyway.



And while we're on this rank kick, I found myself wondering why the Romulan Commander would equal a Starfleet Captain and where the term "Sub-commander" came from.



Apparently for Sub-commander T'Pol it was declared that the rank was somewhere between Commander and Captain.



Memory Beta has a chart (https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Subcommander) comparing Vulcan and Romulan ranks. Which is odd, you'd think they'd be the same. And don't forget, the Vulcans have their own fleet separate from Starfleet.


The Trek BBS forum (https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/commander-and-sub-commander.83720/) has a nice conversation comparing Vulcan and Starfleet ranks.

[Nate the Great]

Inspired by a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ1BVlURwfI)...


PNQ: What does it mean to "prepare" to go to warp?


Sometimes the command is given, sometimes not. What does this entail?


It stands to reason that there are some systems that need to be switched on to activate warp drive, but how many need ten seconds to "warm up"?


Do the warp engines have a proverbial clutch? Does warp plasma not enter the nacelles until you actually go to warp?



If the warp core wasn't actually needed for anything except warp drive you could imagine "prepare to go to warp" meaning "activate the warp core using the slower and safer matter/antimatter injection process rather than the faster and more damaging one". And while I could see that in TOS, I'm pretty sure that in the TNG era you need an active warp core for most systems like the main deflector dish.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm binging Friends clips on YouTube, and a commenter compared David the Scientist Guy to Leonard from Big Bang Theory...


PNQ: Really?



It always offends me when people think that there's only one kind of nerd. There's not. And while the awkward may classify themselves like this (https://blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org/allin/files/2013/09/geekvenn_300.jpg), to the world in general there are only two camps, nerd and geek.



David is more socially awkward than Leonard, Leonard is more insecure than David. David is definitely closer to "nerd" and Leonard to "geek", but the complete picture is way more nuanced.

[Nate the Great]

I have Amazon Prime, so I get to stream things that I've never heard of. The shocking discovery for me is how much I enjoy Chinese historical romance dramas.



PNQ: What's a genre like that for you, where you quickly go from finding out about something to really liking it?


On the whole I don't even enjoy subs. It has to be something special for me to enjoy that sort of thing. I think my first real enjoyment at the sub experience was the uncut Cardcaptor Sakura. As for historical romance dramas, probably my earliest experiences were the works of Miyazaki.

[DrWho42]

okay, but what happened to the Avenues 1-4 in the television series Avenue 5?

[Nate the Great]

So someone beat the OOT demo within Smash Brothers Brawl in under five minutes, and someone on Twitter complained that speedrunners don't know how to have fun.



PNQ: Isn't this sort of thinking rather short-sighted?


I find it amazing how blind some people can be about other people's hobbies. People are different, and their hobbies are different. Just because I wouldn't find fantasy football fun doesn't mean that I bash people who enjoy that. I obsess about the minutiae of Treknology, but I don't bash people who don't.



Besides, when it comes to speedruns the fun doesn't just come from the final video, it's knowing HOW that final video happened. Where did this or that glitch come from? How can we apply it to this or that route? Could we combine it with a strategy that was eclipsed years ago, giving it new life?

[Nate the Great]

I found myself pondering Scotty's statement in The Voyage Home that the time travel "drained" the Klingon dilithium crystals.


PNQ: Opinions?


In TOS they were all over the map regarding what dilithium actually was or did in the engines. I don't think the modern concept of matter/antimatter reaction transformed by dilithium into warp plasma existed in final form until TNG.



It's true that in STIV the crystals weren't explicitly called "dilithium", but for the sake of argument let's say that they are, as all Alpha/Beta quadrant powers other than the Romulans operate on the traditional matter/antimatter technology.


Spock speaks of recrystallization. Scotty was concerned about fracture in the E-D crystals.



As an aside, the novel How Much For Just The Planet (which I highly recommend) goes into a bit of depth about how dilithium works. Dilithium crystals extend past the standard three dimensions into the higher realms, which is essential for matter/antimatter reaction. Presumably the portion of crystals lying in the higher dimensions can't interact with matter OR antimatter and in fact deflects the streams away from the portion in standard space. Thus if matter is "twisted" in one way and antimatter in another, perhaps regulated matter/antimatter collisions are even more powerful than the ordinary kind because they've been focused. Like how ordinary crystals disperse a light-beam into a full spectrum or condense a spectrum into a single white light beam.



Furthermore, let's consider how in TOS they're always looking for dilithium. The tech isn't good enough for a full match on the focused streams, you end up with a lot of excess energy that must be contained and then expelled as "exhaust". Furthermore, it could be that the extra unfocused energy is the part that decrystallizes the dilithium.



Think of it like a filter that gets gunked up. In TOS the gunk eventually makes the crystals unusable. In TNG we know how to prefilter the fuel AND create "backwash" to remove the gunk.



Furthermore, suppose that Klingon crystal tech is less advanced than the Federation. They need raw dilithium even more than our heroes because the gunk builds up faster. Furthermore, suppose that their supply is smaller than ours, so they have to build their ships to handle lower-quality dilithium. Plus, y'now, you have to imagine that they run their engines hotter than our heroes because of the need to be battle-ready 24/7 (or whatever the Klingon version of that expression is).

[DrWho42]

when will MST3K riff Plan 9 from Outer Space?

[Nate the Great]

A boy's mother has very strict rules about acceptable books for her son. (https://notalwaysright.com/may-we-offer-the-poor-boy-a-dictionary/248973/)

(https://notalwaysright.com/may-we-offer-the-poor-boy-a-dictionary/248973/)
1. No princes or princesses.
2. No knights.
3. No dragons or other fantasy animals.
4. No talking animals.
5. No men that have to save women.


PNQ: How many books can you think of that meet these criteria?


One thing that springs to mind immediately about these criteria is the assumption of fantasy only. There are children's book genres other than fantasy, lady!


Let's get real, the big sticking point here is Point 5.



And since it's the Christmas season, I have to be reminded of Miracle on 34th Street here. Poor Doris...

[Nate the Great]

Today's Star Trek entry for Ashens' Advent Calendar is a set of coasters with TOS-style computer graphics (pre-LCARS) on them.


PNQ: What era of computer graphics do you like the best?


The TOS-style of computer interface never got a name. Since the later movies used TNG sets you'll see a bit of LCARS in them, but we'll chalk that up to real-world events, not proof that LCARS existed in the 23rd century.



The Amazing Thing I Learned Today is that Wikipedia has an article on LCARS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCARS). Weird.


Of course the Kelvinverse totally ignores canon and includes touchscreen tech called PCAP-SYS (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/PCAP-SYS). Abrams himself felt that they should be full-blown holograms.


The 29th century timeships used TCARS instead of LCARS (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/TCARS). Temporal computer instead of library computer. I do wonder what a "temporal computer is".

[Nate the Great]

Actually there's a Department of Temporal Investigations short story that says that they have the ability to make PADDs whose stored data will not be altered by changes to the timeline. Hence agents can see that an alteration has been made and a hint of what was changed and when. One wonders if they use TCARS.

[DrWho42]

what happened to the xindi in the 24th/25th centuries?

[NAHTMMM]

when will MST3K riff Plan 9 from Outer Space?
Didn't RiffTrax already get it?

A boy's mother has very strict rules about acceptable books for her son. (https://notalwaysright.com/may-we-offer-the-poor-boy-a-dictionary/248973/)

(https://notalwaysright.com/may-we-offer-the-poor-boy-a-dictionary/248973/)
1. No princes or princesses.
2. No knights.
3. No dragons or other fantasy animals.
4. No talking animals.
5. No men that have to save women.


PNQ: How many books can you think of that meet these criteria?


One thing that springs to mind immediately about these criteria is the assumption of fantasy only. There are children's book genres other than fantasy, lady!
Yeah, there's quite a few. Within fantasy, and suitable for children, I don't know. The animals are the sticking point for most of what I've read. And if there's danger then sometimes the men might have to save the women and the women might have to save the men without it being remotely sexist at all.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Why does everyone hate Pulaski?


When it comes to Trek characters far too many people latch onto the writing alone as a reason to hate them, with no thought to the actual performance. Neelix comes to mind immediately.



Pulaski's Spock/McCoy dynamic with Data was poorly written and it took the writers way too long to put an end to it. But that's not the fault of Diana Muldaur. In fact I think she did a worse job performing her TOS roles.



Neelix was written poorly, but Ethan Phillips gave it his all. Janeway was written poorly, but Mulgrew acted it well.



Oh boy, now I have to talk about Enterprise. That's a show where I'm not sure how much blame I have to place on the writer, how much on the director, and how much on the actors. At least I have another ten years to think about it before the ENT recap (I might move that one up five years, but we'll see).

[Nate the Great]

In my research, this quote from Ronald Moore came up (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Replicator)...


"Replicators are the worst thing ever. Destroys storytelling all the time. They mean there's no value to anything. Nothing has value in the universe if you can just replicate everything, so all that goes away. Nothing is unique; if you break something, you can just make another one. If something breaks on the ship, it's "Oh, no big deal, Geordi can just go down to engineering and make another doozywhatsit." Or they go to a planet and that planet needed something: "Oh, hey, let's make them what they need!" We just hated it and tried to forget about it as much as possible."


PNQ: Opinions?


I think that Moore is overreacting. The writers did a good job explaining why certain spare parts can't be replicated ("Empok Nor" comes to mind immediately). Sure, almost every food ever discovered can be replicated with a margin of imperfection (insert rant about how much I hate Eddington here), but that doesn't extend to spare parts or more complex medications. Furthermore, remember that food is reconstructed from a base material specifically designed to be turned into food. Spare parts have to come from pure energy, a much more resource-intensive process. It gets worse when you think about the more exotic base materials that have to be transmuted from the more common stuff.



Even so, I never like "Planet A needs a medicine that can't be replicated, but a plant over on Planet B can be turned into the medicine" plotlines.



Plus gold-pressed latinum is specifically nonreplicatable (although I wonder how anything that can be transported can't be replicatable even if it's not economical).

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: Three favorite Christmas movies?

1. Had a theatrical release.
2. Feature length (90 minutes or more).

Miracle on 34th Street (the original), White Christmas, Muppet Christmas Carol.

[Nate the Great]

Someone on Reddit makes a good point: after DS9 Kira had to replace half of the senior staff...


PNQ: Would this really be her job? Wouldn't Starfleet send replacement crew?
PNQ2: Until Bajor officially joins the Federation, wouldn't Starfleet still want a Starfleet officer in charge?
PNQ3: Now that the war's over, does the station still need a Strategic Operations Officer?
PNQ4: Was Odo grooming a replacement? What with the time he spent in Cardassian space and the virus, wouldn't somebody already be doing his job?

PNQ5: Who's commanding the Defiant now? Even if Starfleet is willing to have Kira pinch-hit unofficially, the ship would need a full-time Starfleet captain, wouldn't it?