February 7th, "Lower Decks"
Fiver by IJD GAF
The Episode
RIKER: Fletcher has more experience with propulsion systems.
TROI: But Carstairs is better with people. Considering this is a supervisory position, I'd go with her.
RIKER: I guess you're right. Didn't we just do crew evaluation reports?
Why are they doing this in Ten Forward? Both of them have offices!
RIKER: It seems like three weeks. Why don't we just give everybody a promotion and call it a night, Commander?
TROI: Fine with me, Captain.
Always funny.
RIKER: Could we have two coffees, please.
Given the sheer number of coffee options available, this seems simplistic to the point of meaningless. At least throw in a "black" to somewhat narrow it down!
LAVELLE: Think promotion. Promotion. Promotion.
TAURIK: (a vulcan) You can't really believe that what you are doing will influence the outcome of your evaluation.
(actually, he will become Vaurik of Voyager)
You mean Vorik, Chakoteya? I assume the reason that they didn't carry over Taurik is the Locarno Problem again. You'd think by now the contracts would be modified to allow for character reuse without paying episode writers for EVERY episode their creations appear in.
SITO: The Vedeks of the Janalan order maintain a round the clock chant for the benefit of the Bajoran people.
TAURIK: Considering the history of your planet, that doesn't exactly validate what he's doing.
I get that this is supposed to be dry wit, but it seems a bit callous once you think about it.
LAVELLE: Promote me, please, so I can make Lieutenant and have my own room.
TAURIK: If you're unhappy sharing quarters with me, then you should put in for a new room assignment.
On a ship this big the idea of involuntary roommates seems rather ridiculous. It's a good gag, but the scale of the break from reality should match the hilarity of the joke, and this joke isn't good enough for a break this big.
RIKER: I've been thinking about who to promote to Ops.
TROI: The new night duty officer?
RIKER: Lavelle is an obvious candidate, but I'm also considering Ensign Sito.
As Sito will point out, she's not even in the right department for this. I sort of wish they'd brought back the idea that Worf was more of a general duty officer in the first season. If Sito was doing duty rotations, it would make more sense.
RIKER: End simulation sequence. Secure from drill. Alpha shift, your response time was seven percent slower than the gamma shift. All departments, submit drill evaluation reports
While I suppose the bridge and engineering controls could be temporarily turned into simulator mode like the Kobayashi Maru fake bridge in Wrath of Khan, this does seem like prime holodeck stuff. Remember what happened when the Ferengi interrupted a simulation? You'd think they'd want to avoid that.
RIKER: What happened back there, Ensign?
SITO: I'm sorry, sir. When we changed course I had to re-lock phasers before I could fire.
RIKER: Next time, try letting the locking relay float until the actual order to fire is given.
This is ridiculous. The "locking relay" would have to be tied into both the sensors keeping track of the other ship's location AND the conn system's internal sensors of where the ship thinks it is and how it's moving. Given the complexities of ship movements during a battle a large percentage of targeting would have to be automatic to have any chance of actually hitting.
LAVELLE: Aye, aye, sir.
RIKER: One aye is sufficient acknowledgment, Ensign.
And this is where my compassion for Riker in this situation runs out. This seems like a petty excuse to pound Lavelle down. And for what, to deflate Lavelle's ego or inflate his own?
SITO: How'd you like to be a spider under that table?
LAVELLE: What?
SITO: A spider under the table.
LAVELLE: Is that like a fly on the wall?
SITO: I guess so.
It's nice to see colloquialisms from other cultures, but it does introduce more questions about how the Universal Translator works and whether or not all cadets have to learn English.
LAFORGE: Your plasma flow to the nacelles is out of sync.
TAURIK: Actually, sir, that was done deliberately. As you can see, this configuration has increased overall warp field integrity by seven percent.
LAFORGE: You're right.
This seems like nonsense to me. How can plasma flow be out of sync, and what does the plasma flow "frequency" have to do with the warp field integrity? Are they implying that the warp field from each nacelle pulses with the plasma flow and having the two nacelles pulse out of sync leads to the wave form of the two warp fields covering a wider range than just a simple "sine wave"?
SITO: I only filled in at Ops for a half hour, but I had to degauss the main deflector dish, recalibrate the navigation grid, and use internal sensors to find a lost puppy.
None of these seem like Ops jobs. For that matter, wouldn't all of the pets be chipped to allow for instantaneous locating?
SITO: I can't figure out why I'm even being considered for this assignment. I'm a security officer.
WORF: I recommended you.
SITO: I'll try not to let you down, sir.
For a duty change this drastic, wouldn't you want the officer's consent before they were even considered?
BEN: He likes Jazz, poker. He's Canadian.
LAVELLE: Yeah? My grandfather was from Canada.
It's an honest mistake for Ben to make, but Lavelle's idea of connecting though a grandfather is pathetic. Talk about grasping at straws. Furthermore, if Lavelle wants to find a commonality with Riker, wouldn't it be better to look at his personnel file instead of relying on second-hand information?
PICARD: How close to the Cardassian border are we?
DATA: Less than five thousand kilometres, sir.
Sheesh, talk about dancing on the line!
PICARD: Can we get within transporter range without crossing into Cardassian territory?
DATA: We would need to boost the gain on the confinement beam by at least seven percent.
The range of the transporter is forty thousand kilometers. The escape pod is fifty thousand kilometers inside Cardassian space. Even if I'll buy that you can temporarily boost the range by seven percent, it wouldn't be enough.
It occurs to me that a useful tool would be a probe designed to be a transporter relay. Send the probe over into Cardassian space, have it beam the survivor over but instead of materializing inside the probe it forwards the signal to the Enterprise.
TAURIK: Bio readings indicate that passenger's humanoid. Attempting life form identification.
LAFORGE: No one told you to do that, Ensign.
Why would Taurik care about the species? It's not going to affect anything!