Link Thread

[Nate the Great]

A fan is making LEGO dioramas of NextGen episodes.



I always like it when two of my interests intersect.

[Nate the Great]

In honor of Star Wars Day, it's Star Trek/Star Wars Crossover Deviantart Day!


Spock beats Darth Vader
Data can't analyze Yoda
Spock vs. Darth Vader
Data helps C-3PO and R2-D2

A standoff between Wars and Trek. Note how off-model Chekov is, he looks more like Davy Jones than himself (I have noticed the irony)
Star Trek vs. Star Wars poster

[Nate the Great]

In case you haven't watched the DS9 documentary "What We Left Behind" yet...


Salient points made in the documentary:


1. The viewers didn't swarm to DS9 like they did to TNG and VOY because it didn't have exploration. If anything I think DS9 had MORE exploration, it was just internal rather than external most of the time. I can't think of a Trek crew that changed more over their series' run.



Think about it. What "evolved" in TOS besides McCoy and Spock's relationship and opinions of each other? Episode to episode continuity just didn't happen back then. What you saw is what you got. Furthermore, how often did TNG actually "explore strange new worlds"? Was it even a quarter of episodes? No, they were doing the same character exploration that DS9 did!


2. The fans didn't like that DS9 was "darker", Star Trek isn't supposed to be "dark" (Oh, the irony in hindsight...) This ties back to my all-purpose argument whenever someone says that extreme changes "can't" be done. Of course it CAN be done, the question is how well.



On Stargate some thought that O'Neill WAS the show, and that the show should've been cancelled when Richard Dean Anderson left. They proved that SG-1 can happen without O'Neill. Alternatively, trying to do Joey without the rest of the Friends was ultimately a failed experiment because the character had to be modified so much that it wasn't the Joey that people liked anymore.



3. The studio didn't like the serializing of the show. It makes you wonder how Babylon 5 pulled it off. I've said it before, watching Babylon 5 made me feel like if I hadn't seen every single episode I would never understand what was going on, and therefore there was no point in watching it. SF Debris' reviews of B5 aren't altering that opinion. DS9 never made me feel that way. They were always very good about recapping what you needed to know.

[Nate the Great]

Like everything else back in the '80s, the Star Trek movies had story records. Well, someone took their Star Trek action figures and made skits backed by the records. They're almost like fivers, only without the jokes (which is kind of where the analogy breaks down). Give them a watch, if only for the overdramatic narrator and the choices of non-Trek action figures to play the minor characters who never got official action figures.


The Motion Picture

(cameos by the Teen Titans, Supergirl, Buzz Lightyear, Mulan, etc.)
The Wrath of Khan
(cameos by Aladdin, He-Man, Elongated Man, etc.)
The Search for Spock
(cameos by Sisko as a Klingon?, Harry Mudd, Monster Maroon Picard, etc.)
The Voyage Home
(cameos by Black Canary, Doctor Strangepork, various Dragonball characters, Monster Maroon Janeway?, etc.)


And a bonus...


Star Wars A New Hope
(no cameos here, it's amazing how many Star Wars characters got action figures...)

[Nate the Great]

Explaining Errors in Star Trek


I just discovered this today, so I haven't read much. It appears to take common nitpicks, especially from the Nitpicker's Guides, and tries to explain them. I look forward to seeing how rational the explanations will be.

[Nate the Great]

Thus far I am disappointed in Explaining Errors in Star Trek. Many "explanations" seem to be desperate rationalizations. Most of the rest are just stupid.



However, the one that really ticked me off is...


Error: The Universal translator not working on whale song

"Explanation:" "The capability may have lapsed following the encounters with the Xindi, due to the need to have a living member of the species to provide reference samples."


I grant Anti-Enterprise sentiment here, but at least in that show the device was still in its infancy. On TOS the Universal Translator worked on the Companion, an energy-based being with no comprehension of spoken language at all. No doubt it took her ages to establish telepathic communication with Cochrane, and anytime he "spoke" to her, she was interpreting his thoughts anyway.



Furthermore, the idea that you can listen to an alien language over and over again and decode not only the vocabulary, but the rules of grammar in a few hours or days is ludicrous. That's why the Universal Translator exists, to sweep this problem under the rug so we don't have to worry about it, just like Heisenberg Compensators and subspace fields and inertial dampeners.



Why can Data use contractions sometimes?



"This is likely due to a minor, intermittent fault in the voice control unit – possibly a corrupted subroutine in the operating program."


Even if Data's self-diagnostics wouldn't catch this, he plugs himself into the computer often enough for an external scan. You see what I meant about desperate rationalization?


How can Spock assume command if he "murdered" Kirk in "Amok Time"?


"Spock is the most qualified - or he would be if Kirk was actually dead! (If Kirk was actually dead, Spock would probably remain in command until a permanent replacement can be selected.)"


How did that answer the question?



Why did Tormolen remove his glove in "The Naked Time"?


"He did this in order to properly scratch his nose."


Well, duh! That wasn't the question! We're not asking "why did he want to take off his glove," we're asking "why was he allowed to take off his glove, and why didn't he remember that he's in an isolation suit for a reason!"


Why did Admiral Morrow call the Enterprise "over twenty years old" when it's actually closer to forty?


"It is irrelevant how old the Enterprise is. It could be 35 years old, or 100 years old, the fact remains that all of these dates are technically 'over 20 years old.'"


Sheesh, talk about desperate. The simple answer is THEY JUST DIDN'T CARE!



How did the Enterprise reach the center of the galaxy so fast in Star Trek V?


"There could have been a number of warp highways in the area, which temporarily allows faster than normal travel."


Warp highways? Transwarp conduits won't be discovered for a hundred years. I'd almost prefer it if the God of Sha Ka Ree told Sybok how to increase warp speeds a la the Kelvans.



Why doesn't the Enterprise keep spare dilithium crystals on board?


"There may be too much risk of them getting damaged in storage."


Dilithium crystals? I definitely get the impression that unless you run energy through them they're practically indestructible. As a meaningless aside in the novel "How Much For Just The Planet" there's so much dilithium on a planet that they make indestructible cooking pans out of them.



How did Kirk beam to the Romulan ship and back through the shields in "The Enterprise Incident"?


"Scotty probably used the transporter sensors to match the sensor windows of the Romulan ship with those on the Enterprise, thus allowing Kirk to beam to the Romulan vessel and back again."


This isn't the only reference on the site of the transporter working through a "sensor window". I'm not sure where this idea came from. I'm not even sure what a "sensor window" is. Do they mean that the sensors need a hole in the shields to scan other ships? That's dumb. Do they mean a particular sensor array, and with enough tweaking two sensor arrays can be linked with a carrier beam for the transporter, bypassing the shield issue? If so, I would imagine that would work if the two ships are cooperating on this (use of prefix codes, and so forth). Even if the Romulans allowed this for a prisoner exchange, the codes would be scrambled at all other times, right?


Why would Layla say that she's never seen a starship before in "This Side of Paradise."?


"She's using the term starship in reference to a Starfleet vessel, as opposed to the obviously commercial transport ship used to transport the colonists."


I've covered my speculations on "spaceship" versus "starship" and "starship=Constitution class" in other posts, so this one isn't that bad.



That's some TOS highlights. I'll probably return for DS9, TAS, and VOY.

[Nate the Great]

From the 40th Anniversary thread....

Is there such a thing as "lousy Star Trek?" There are lousy episodes, lousy books, lousy scripts, lousy acting, etc, but if it's worthy of being called Trek, then by it's very nature it ain't lousy.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. How much Trek would I now call unworthy of the name?

[Flying Gremlin]

Reading that thread, first off you have gotten much more cynical since 2006, Nate. Second, PointyHairedJedi certainly got future history right.

[Nate the Great]

I try not to be cynical, but I admit that I enjoy nitpicking. At least these days I'm more prone to suggest tweaks to make things more reasonable instead of just saying, "this is stupid, therefore the entire episode shouldn't exist." Just like I intend to "rescue" Voyager episodes when I get to their retrospective in 2024, I intend to do the same with Enterprise in 2031. Yikes, will we all still be here in ten years, or will the site be a ghost town?

[Flying Gremlin]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Yikes, will we all still be here in ten years, or will the site be a ghost town?

Considering that this forum was already almost dead when I signed up, maybe? Who knows?

Greater awareness of the site's existence, some new content, and a newer CMS with an updated site design might help give some new blood, but honestly I have no way of making any of this happen unless I volunteer time that I really don't have considering I'm typing this out while a 18-month old baby is literally trying to use my head as a jungle gym. Besides, I'm an amateur at HTML and would probably suggest vB5 CMS, MediaWiki, WordPress with one of the publishing mods or something like that because it's a more familiar system to work with even though it's probably not the best one for the purposes of this site.

Might be a good topic for a separate thread, not the link thread.

[Nate the Great]

You'd think I wouldn't be surprised by all the fad food mashups that are filling the shelves these days, but...


Sour Patch Kids inside Chips Ahoy cookies.






Look, I could see Sour Patch Kids baked into sugar cookies or something, but this is just ridiculous!

[Nate the Great]

Pushing Up Roses' latest Murder She Wrote review.


Angela Lansbury, Mr. Belvedere actor Christopher Hewett, Anthony Newley, and Jane Leeves in the same episode? Wow.



Does anyone remember Mr. Belvedere? My family loved the show back in the day.

[Nate the Great]

George Takei posted a collage of pop culture robots on Facebook


I'm irked that both the TV and film versions of Marvin are included.
I'm also irked that the Tin Woodman is there. He's not a robot, he's a magically animated automaton! At least Tik-Tok is there...
Can you find Satan's Robot?
Can you find Nomad?

Bicentennial Man got in there, but not Data?

[Nate the Great]

The Hydraulic Press Channel asks what bridge design can handle the most loading per mass of bridge.


As a civil engineer I find it interesting to see what kind of stresses and deformations are shown at different parts of the structure.

[Nate the Great]

Happy Towel Day!


I'm not sure if I've actually posted the main Towel Day site before.
There are still events happening around the world!



This year is the 42nd anniversary of the original radio series!


Someone is reading the book on livestream today.



Lofty Pursuits is selling Babel Fish candy again.


A timeline of Towel Day celebrations, including the fact that the original Star Wars was released to theaters on Towel Day before h2g2 even existed!


Facebook page, including many pictures of people with their towels


Fan-made animation set to Douglas reading the towel h2g2 entry from the audiobook

[Nate the Great]

Virtual Tour of the E-D


It's an impressive CG model, it's a shame that there are so many errors in it.


The shuttlebay is way too big. Way way WAY too big. There are shuttles all over the place parked without rhyme or reason. You'd think there'd be a "parking lot" for all the workbees, one for all the shuttlepods, one for all the runabouts, etc.



The runabout is completely powered down, we've never seen nacelles completely darkened, that would indicate no warp plasma flow at all. It would take time to get the ship up and running again, so it's a bad idea to have such a ship parked next to the doors.


No OSHA compliance on the "starboard elevator". (Elevator? Since when do we use that term on starships?) Furthermore, the top of the shaft looks like it should have a turbolift passthrough, but of course there is no such thing. Cargo is transferred with transporters and shuttlecraft, not turbolifts.


The three light bars for the transporter light up for the beaming process and then go dark again, they don't stay lit until something beams back. That's just silly.


While I can accept a lounge for people who want to watch the shuttles go in and out, I can't accept a full bar in it. There would just be a replicator.



Ten Forward seems a bit too small.


Pushing the Enterprise models out to the hallway seems weird, but at least it gave us the chance to give the XCV 330 (the ringship) some love. Even if it also had to have the NX-01 in there as well, grrr....


The Demolition Man three seashells was a cute gag, even if I only got it because of Spoony's review...


It's always nice to see the Kurlan naiskos, but why didn't we see Livingston's fishtank?

[Nate the Great]

Virtual Tour of Voyager


Another good effort, but I can see even more mistakes than the E-D video. I won't go into as much detail this time, but...


* I see more blocky furniture than I would expect, probably in the name of easier modelling.

* The brig is way too big.
* Shuttlebay is way too big.
* Weird warp core pattern.

* Appearance of "main bridge" on the turbolift controls. I'm pretty sure that Voyager doesn't have a battle bridge, you'd have to use Engineering or Astrometrics as one instead.

[Flying Gremlin]

It was based on the Star Trek Voyager Elite Force maps, and that one was based on the Quake engine. It could handle the curves, but not on smaller objects. Also explains why certain maps were larger.

[Nate the Great]

How to build a winning Pinewood Derby car


I was a Pinewood Derby champ a few times in my youth, and I didn't know about many of these tricks.

[Nate the Great]

The Eight Rules of Starship Design


Once upon a time there were definite rules to make sure that Star Trek ships looked like they belong in the Star Trek universe. No further comment.


One thing that stuck with me is the lack of a deflector dish on the Soyuz class of ship. While the Miranda class doesn't have a traditional deflector array either, you could argue that the rollbar would have an equivalent to a deflector dish, even if it doesn't glow. But the Soyuz? It does have "turrets" extending from the top and sides of the saucer, but if they had deflectors in them would it allow for full coverage of the space ahead?



Then it occurred to me that while a turret could handle specific incoming chunks of rock, how could they combine to create a reliable deflector field for stellar dust and such? The overlapping bubbles would create "valleys" that incoming rocks could collect in, perhaps with enough force to punch through?