Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

So I'm reading the TV Tropes page Voodoo Shark, and the following issue is brought up that I'm ashamed to admit that I never thought of before...


PNQ: If non-Command officers have to take the Bridge Officer's Test to be eligible to take command, why was Troi in command in "Disaster", anyway?


Especially when "Disaster" was the impetus for the Bridge Officer's Test in the first place.


Like many have said, Troi wasn't ready to take command in "Disaster". Personally I would've put O'Brien in charge, but technically Ro was Command track and a commissioned officer.



A related question is how Pulaski was a full commander. Troi says that you don't have to be a Commander to be chief medical officer, and it doesn't seem like Pulaski had passed the Bridge Officer's Test. She never even seemed to be on the Bridge unless specifically required (unlike Crusher who seemed to like hanging around on the Bridge when things were slow in Sickbay).

[Nate the Great]

PNG: If you could go back and redo Star Trek V (without Shatner in the director's chair), what kind of plot would you like to see between 4 and 6?

I would've liked a Romulan-centric story, they didn't make enough appearances in the movies. Have a different sort of threat than the Klingons. A conspiracy that forces the Federation into a no-win scenario that Kirk and company find a third option for.

[Nate the Great]

So apparently the creators have rewritten Trek canon to put the Eugenics Wars into the future and possibly merging it with World War III instead of being in the past...

PNQ: What's the point?

Does anyone REALLY think that Trek takes place in our universe?

Besides, we're on like the third Trek canon at this point (TOS/TAS only, the movie/TNG/DS9/VOY era, and the current century stuff). Even throwing the Kelvinverse out the window, everything else would never fit into one consistent universe.

The Eugenics Wars novels actually make a good point. What with all the time travellers leaving behind advanced tech for the secret governments to find and develop, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that important stuff could happen that won't be fully explained for decades afterwards.

Think about it, the Voyager crew left behind stuff in Los Angeles, the Enterprise crew left behind stuff in San Francisco including a phaser and the formula for transparent aluminum, Gary Seven is running around, etc.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm rereading the DS9 Retrospective entries and the following occurs to me....

PNQ: Suppose the TNG creative staff never had a movie on the horizon and they wanted to transfer one of the TNG main characters to DS9 instead of O'Brien, which one would be a good idea?

Clearly not Riker. He wouldn't want to be planetside.

Making Riker captain of the Enterprise and moving Picard to DS9 would've been interesting. Not as commander of the station, of course, but as the captain of a dedicated ship that patrols the DMZ, helps with reconstruction efforts on Bajor, etc. A recurring character instead of a regular one. Picard would have a different negotiating style with the Bajorans. Plus having Picard backing one Bajoran faction and Sisko another, with neither side being 'the bad guy", would open up dramatic possibilities.

Troi wouldn't have worked. Garak and Quark would've steamrolled her in no time flat. Plus she couldn't resigned, married Riker, and stayed on the Enterprise as a civilian counsellor.

Worf couldn't have handled DS9 in the chaotic early days.

Geordi was too dedicated to the Enterprise. Scotty's words would've been fresh in his head, he wouldn't leave.

Data would've had an interesting character arc. For five years on the Enterprise he was exposed to the best of humanity, but what if you surround him with Bajorans as role models? Definite dramatic possibilities. His dynamic with Quark and Garak would've been interesting as well.

Beverly...I don't know what to say. She has the chops for the job and would certainly be better than early seasons Bashir. Having her command the Defiant sometimes as well would be awesome.

[Nate the Great]

Inspired by "I Knew You Were Tribbles When You Dropped In..."


PNQ: What would you use as the appropriate verb for Tribble movement?


They don't exactly "walk." One of the comments guessed "scuffle", but I'm not sure about that one.


The closest real-world animal motion that I could come up with is snails. Each muscle contracting and extending and acting as a "foot" and "leg" in turn.



The real name for snail movement is "crawling" or "gliding" or "sliding" or "creeping."



I don't have much problem with "creeping".



When it comes to worms, "crawling" is up there with "squirming" and "wriggling", none of which seem to fit tribbles.

[Nate the Great]

In STVI the Federation President talks about evacuating Kronos within 50 years....


PNQ: Was Kronos really evacuated to another planet and the Klingons decided to name their new homeworld Kronos, or did the scientists figure out how to save the ozone layer so an evacuation wasn't needed?


Unlike the stupid situation with Vulcan, I can buy that the Klingons would name their new homeworld after the old one. However, the amount of construction that would be required for the new capital (the First City, FYI) to reach its TNG size in only fifty years is absurd, and there are landmarks linked to Kahless in the TNG era that still exist.


Then again, perhaps the planet was evacuated, the atmosphere was "rebooted" by Federation technology toxic to humanoids, and then the Klingons returned when it was safe.



Then again, I'm not sure of the technological level of the age of Kahless. The book implies something akin to the nomadic tribes of Russia in the 19th century with reasonable forging technology. Not much technology is mentioned.

[Nate the Great]

Inspired by a "First Time Watching" video of Mary Poppins...


During "A Spoonful of Sugar" Mary Poppins talks to a bird singing outside the window...


PNQ: She can talk to animals, does that make her a Disney Princess?


I'll put aside all of the animals in the "Jolly Holiday" segment, they don't count. But she can talk to Andrew the dog.

[Nate the Great]

It was inevitable that this question would come up eventually...


PNQ: Which Lantern Corps. would you be in?


I took several online quizzes on this subject. They were split 50/50 between Green and Blue, but personally I think Green would fit me better.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: What transformative works can really be done with "Steamboat Willie" without infringing on other Disney copyrights?


I've seen a few of the attempts from the last few weeks, and I have yet to see anything that wouldn't already be legal as a parody or transformative work. A few covers of the background music (of which most was "Turkey in the Straw", which was already public domain), but mostly fandubs that include profanity, toilet humor, and other adult content.



It makes you wonder how long it'll be before someone tries to create a new animation using these character models. Especially since Disney would never let them make any money on this stuff past YouTube ad revenue.

[Nate the Great]

A Facebook meme


Person A connects Sean Astin with Stranger Things
Person B (presumably older) remembers him from Lord of the Rings
Person C (presumably older) remembers him from The Goonies


PNQ: What is Astin's iconic role for you?


I've never seen The Goonies and didn't know that it was a pop culture icon until the current millennium. I remember him from The Brat Patrol!

[Nate the Great]

So I'm reading a book about the making of TNG and the following occurs to me...


PNQ: In Generations, how would it help Picard if Guinan came along?


A mean, Guinan is not a fighter, and while I have no doubt that she's competent in common civilian Federation tech, the Klingon controls of the probe launcher would be beyond her. So what else is there? Could she stall Soren through talking so he forgot about Picard or the missile?



For that matter, did Soren avoid Guinan because he saw her as a threat, or is it just because he wanted to avoid distractions?

[Nate the Great]

Inspired by this music video...


PNQ: Let's say that Deanna was never a romantic option for Will, which "girl of the week" could you see him marrying in the right circumstances?


Let's go with the Memory Alpha list for a larger list that we can trim to get a proper candidate roster...


Beata
I won't count Minuet, that's a special case
Brenna Odell

I won't count Yuta either, murderers don't belong on this list
Lal
Lanel doesn't count, that was coercion
Carmen Davila
Etana Jol doesn't count either
Ro Laren
I'm taking Soren out of contention as well, that's a kettle of fish that I don't care to open
Kamala wasn't really interested in him
He wasn't interested in Amanda Rogers like that, in addition the age difference was too great
Rebecca Smith was a plot device, not a real relationship



So serious candidates are Beata, Brenna, Lal, Carmen, and Laren. Opinions?

[Nate the Great]

So I'm watching a video where they try to pin a real-world value onto gold-pressed latinum, and a comment makes me think...


in the context of tng voyager etc the replicated food is stated to not taste as good because it's altered to be healthy which loses taste

PNQ: Did they ever say that?


I'm having trouble accepting this notion. In today's world we know that the technology to make healthy food taste good doesn't work because most of what makes food taste good is either sugar or fat, neither of which are healthy.

[Nate the Great]

So I'm binging through Trek filk songs and I see a shot of Picard reading a book on Risa...


PNQ: Why would Picard go to Risa in the first place?


I understand that he can't be tagging along on archeological expeditions every time he takes shore leave, but Picard doesn't seem like a lie-on-the-beach-and-get-a-tan type of person.

[NAHTMMM]

I think that would be from "Captain's Holiday" when the crew made him go on vacation.

[Nate the Great]

Yeah, but he didn't have to go to Risa. The crew wanted him to go on vacation, but they didn't care where he went.

[Nate the Great]

This one is straight from Facebook...


PNQ: Are Zorro movies Westerns?


It's an interesting question. What makes a Western a Western? Do they have to be set in the United States? Is there a distinct "era of the cowboy" (quick Googling places the cowboy era at about 1870-1880, and the Zorro stories about 1810-1820)? Or is it a cultural division (Zorro may take place in California, but it was still Spanish and not American)?


I'm not sure.

[Nate the Great]

So a random clickbait article questions whether Voyager had the best pilot of the Star Trek series...


PNQ: Which pilot is the best?


I'm going to specify pilot, not just "first episode." TOS and TAS had no pilot, that is a specific start-of-the-adventure-set-up-the-status-quo episode.


A key problem for me is whether we treat a pilot as a standalone TV movie or judge it by how much of the stuff established actually continues in the following episode.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: If Paramount wanted to do a Kelvin-style reboot of TNG, what kind of plot could they use?


As I think about this question, one problem that comes to mind immediately is that the TNG crew need a lot more setup than the TOS crew. Let's face it, the TOS crew fit quite neatly into archetypes and the TNG crew doesn't. You can watch Wrath of Khan without seeing any other Trek because it doesn't take a long time to explain who these people are. You can't really do that with the TNG crew. Generations needed ample setup from the show to work (and you'll note that Kirk and company really didn't), First Contact needed ample setup from not only TNG but TOS as well, Insurrection was just a supersized episode of the show so it required knowledge of the show, and Nemesis...well, Nemesis tried too hard to get rid of the nuance from the show to be more independent and failed miserably.

[Nate the Great]

PNQ: We can all admit that "Deep Space Nine" is insultingly Earth-centric, and calling the show "Starbase Whatever" would be boring, so what would you name the station and show?


You certainly couldn't call it Terok Nor, that would be offputting to the casual viewer.



I'd be all for calling the show "Star Trek: Bajor", but you'd still have to call the station something else. It occurs to me that if Kai Opaka died in the pilot you could rename the station after her. Starbase Opaka, so to speak.