Persistent, Niggling Questions

[NAHTMMM]

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

[Nate the Great]

Certifiable Ingame covers the Mugato...


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...


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.


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 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]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

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, 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?