Feature: Five-Minute "Eleven Is Prime"

[Zeke]

For all its virtues, Wowbagger's "Eleven is Prime" is definitely long. No surprise, really -- the man is infinitely prolonged. If only there were a site out there that condensed Trek-related things for the reader on the go!

...Hmm?

Oh, right, that's me. Then I guess it's time for Five-Minute "Eleven Is Prime"! It concentrates on the points of difference between XIP (as I call it) and canon, and you don't have to read Wowbagger's whole dissertation to enjoy it. (Of course, if you find bits in the fiver that intrigue or puzzle you and want to understand them, welllll...)

That's my little tribute to Wowbagger's magnum opus. A few other followups:

• We have a comment thread going, in which I posted the commentary I promised last update. All are welcome to participate. (By the way, if you've tried to register at the forum recently and found it impossible, that was a temporary thing. You should be able now, and if not, email me.)
  
  
• There's also an XIP discussion going on at The Daystrom Institute, Reddit's "scholarly" Star Trek board, a very interesting place to visit. By the way, if you weren't aware of this, Reddit's boards are called "subreddits". I'm still waiting for my royalty check.
  
  
• After Wowbagger watched Star Trek: Into Darkness (I haven't decided yet if I'm willing to write it without the colon), the first thing he did was assure me that Twelve Is Prime. As a mathematician, I knew that already (base 5), but let that be the answer to anyone saying the new movie has fatally damaged this thought experiment. He's not claiming there aren't contradictions, of course; he's saying XIP's methods are equally applicable to them. Quite frankly, I hope the next movie makes his job harder. I'd love to see an XIIIP that had to justify stuff like Species 8472 showing up and Chekov getting a sex change.

By the way, we have a Trek quote game going on. What does that have to do with anything? Eh, we need more players, and if we let Wowbagger in he'll just prove that every quote was really said by Morn between episodes.

[Wowbagger]

Needless to say, this is amazing. From now on, whenever I get asked for a TLDR, my problems are solved.

Picard: You know, there's a book that might give you some ideas...
Spock: That book is ridiculous. Who ever heard of combined Romulan/Borg technology?

I laughed once, because Shatner.

THEN, I laughed again, because Countdown!

Fun fact: "Spock wept" is the shortest line in the King James Version of Star Trek.

Man, I hoped someone would do something with this.

Immediately after the end of this fiver, Morn shouted, "GIT DOWN!"

[NAHTMMM]

Also good stuff!

Nelvana: (BOOOM)

Spock: Oh no! Why would the red matter horn in on other stars?

It's a Cardcaptor Sakura fan?

[Zeke]

Heh, very clever. Explanation for the perplexed: the Nelvana system (from "The Defector") was named after a Canadian animation studio. The TNG Companion calls this a "rare verbal homage to anime", but it's actually a rare slipup on the book's part -- Nelvana hadn't done any anime dubbing at that point. About ten years later they did try their hand, and the results were... unfortunate. Nelvana's bread and butter is kids' cartoon shows, so they basically beat their anime licenses into that shape. The most notorious example is Cardcaptor Sakura, which Nelvana made into a mishmash called Cardcaptors. (That said, the Japanese original has its own problems as a kids' series.)

Me, I was just making a joke on "matterhorn".