I’m always bugged more by individual moments than bigger things. So while T’Pol might be wearing an old fun center carpet as a uniform, and the temporal Cold War is both overly complex and excruciatingly boring neither of those things bothers me more than the following.
In season one, there is an episode titled ‘Unexpected’. In this episode Tripp becomes space pregnant from an alien space mama. During his pregnancy he is framed as becoming irrationally overconcerned about the safety of very minor or unlikely hazards.
At one point, he is in engineering and complains that if you hold onto the handrail of the elevator while it moves, your fingers will be sliced off against the scaffolding since there is no gap.
A crew member brushes him off by just saying, essentially, “Lol skill issue, just don’t hold the handguard.”
Again, Tripp is the one being framed as irrational in this discussion. Because he has a problem with a handguard that slices your fingers off.
Space hormones or not, he’s right that it’s a terrible design.
I had to reset my expectations after they dropped off that space slug on another planet cause it wasn’t doing well. Like what’s your mission to explore the galaxy and spread invasive species??
Also Archers dog went on away missions.
To be honest, all of this sounds like exactly what humanity would do if we stopped having scientists in charge of implementing space exploration.
Especially after Humanity’s existing exploration at the time amounted to just a few colonies on otherwise uninhabited planets where WE are the primary invasive species, and limited exploration outside our immediate vicinity due to speed constraints.
The Vulcans were right about humanity in many ways, humaity is very reckless, as evidenced by many of the issues we see like these in Enterprise.
ENT gets a ton of flak for this in general, but I’m not quite sure how else might a prequel to TOS look? Kirk and the band were space cowboys without a lot of rules, then a few decades later we have the super-professional Federation…
The trajectory is clear, if you go some decades back, to humanity that is only starting to do space exploration, then it has to be very very rough.
Besides, humans even in the TNG era have the reputation of being reckless, unpredictable and emotional. So I think ENT quite nailed that more often than not.
Yes I know SNW is doing it differently, but it just rehashes stories from other shows, and I do quite question its positions as a prequel. It could be set at any time really.
(And let’s not talk about how DIS works as a prequel…)
I liked the sort of blundering honesty that the ENT crew approached galactic politics with. The Vulcan temple that was being used as a cover for a spy operation being the big incident.
Even seasons later, the Vulcans still complained about the ENT cowboy antics causing the loss of the temple, but quietly didn’t acknowledge the Vulcan spy activities.
The ENT crew’s choice to side with the truth over political allegiance convinced Shran to trust the humans to be honest negotiators and set a path to Andorian-Vulcan peace.
OHNO MY DOG GOT SICK
RUSH THIS CHEESE TO SICKBAY!
I mean… he didn’t even get on about the lack of seat belts.
Federation space ships are in fact horribly designed. - thruster placement is off balance with CoG requiring constant control inputs to go in a straight line.
- seatbelts.
- surge protection.
- replicator technology exists, yet they don’t design ships capable of being repaired with self created parts. (Even if they have to build the replicator large enough first….)
- replicators take energy and convert it to matter- or matter into energy. Yet they don’t design ships to use this as fuel.
- they send ships that are expected to go into battle- and carry children and civilians on board-but this ships are also able to go toe to toe with their equivalents from hostile races 1v2-3. But then insist they’re not warships.
- insist on not having a unit of exchange or currency, but then some how having massive amounts of trade and economy.
- their ships waste a shit load of internal volume with the saucer, the neck and the nacelles.
Hello fellow space alien posting on Terran communications boards.
All of your points are correct with the following exception:
• Matter replicators expend energy to convert it into matter, or do the opposite. It is a lossy process, meaning you do not get 100% as a return. The best S+ or A-5 engineered units are 88-98% efficient.
• Theoretically, fuel in space is “infinite” as stars and hydrogen are literally everywhere, so going to planets to gather resources to disassemble in replicators is both a literal waste of time and energy. Dilithium crystals in the show are a hilarious example of contrived scarcity for plot.
- They have carpets on the TV show. Carpets. On a space ship. That is guaranteed not a warship, because carpets.
I’ve taken the mass hit and installed gray carpets in key locations of our own ships and instigated a no shoes policy and I’ll tell you what, it’s never been more comfortable :)
You should definitely try installing carpets
- Naz
Fuel sources in Voyager are very canonically “not common.” But then that probably has more to do with using antimatter as fuel, instead of your nearest asteroid or gas pocket.
While you are correct that it is not perfectly efficient… the ability to stop off at a random star and expect to find some form of matter that can be turned into fuel simply by transporting it aboard and processing it into a singularity or something… would be extremely useful for an “exploration” ship
At least the the ships being warships carrying civilians things has a real life analog. Many (but not all) colony ships sailing Earth oceans were usually heavily armed. This was to deter pirates or privateers from raiding the ships the day after they left port and taking all the supplies they’d need for their colony. And the ships were full of women and children. And more than a few got into battles somewhere along their voyage. Then when the colonists got where they were going, in some instances they’d just pull the guns off the ship and set them up to defend the colony.
It is not canon but one of the novels mention that it was an idea to break species nationalism and encourage a meltingpot. All those kids onboard the starships would identify as Federation not as whatever planet their parents were from.
- insist on not having a unit of exchange or currency, but then some how having massive amounts of trade and economy.
As you mentioned before, they have replicators, so why would they have currency inside the Federation?
They don’t need money in the Federation, but since they have limited resources on a spaceship and also interact with other species, they kinda have to barter, mostly to curry favor with these species.
They have trade. Inside and outside.
Currency facilitates trade. Next question: why do they need trade? (Besides cultural exports- let’s…. Not get into that.)
Goods can be exchanged without currency. It’s called barter and has been around longer than money.
This is essentially not true.
There’s this popular notion that “There was the bucket maker and the fisherman. I’ll trade you a bucket for some fish, said the bucket maker. Sounds good, said the fisherman. Then when the bucket maker finished eating his fish, he went back to the fisherman and said I’ll trade you another bucket for some more fish and the fisherman said No thanks, the first one is doing just fine.” and the side quest for the bucket maker to find someone who wants a bucket right now got to the point where we just need to invent some universal third good: Money.
This is a fallacy. Small communities like those humanity started out with operate on a sort of social credit. “Ah you gave me those fish last month, we’ll call it even.” Eventually a community gets big enough that you start using a more formal credit system, then once the community gets big enough that you don’t personally know everyone in your community, you adopt a hard currency.
In practically all cases, barter is an ad hoc system used between communities with incompatible currencies and then only briefly until relations can be established, or by individuals for whom hard currency is unavailable or inconvenient at the moment.
I’m glad we could find consensus; as you confirm barter has been around longer than money (or the time it takes to build the relationship required to trust currency exchange) and it can be used where money isused too.
Yours builds on the idea, which is fine. But the point is that The Federation doesn’t need money - the gold pressed latinum is where they explore currency and seems to be missed by OP.
And there’s a reason most places use currency.
It’s quite a bit more convenient than having to actually have other goods to barter with,
But what will be stored in all those boxes on the cargo decks? Something needs to hit Worf!
(Besides cultural exports- let’s…. Not get into that.)
The British Museumthe Doctor wants to know you location.I mean, why do you think Picard was a student of archeology? You thought it was just being ‘well rounded’… nuhuh.
the only thing of value are the intangibles- culture, art, etc. even that can be quickly and near-perfectly reproduced. the reality is the only things worth trading are either illegal (see Mudd), new technology (also see Mudd) or cultural.
They have trade. Inside and outside.
Outside sure, but I don’t think I have seen any internally. Do you have examples?
Currency facilitates trade. Next question: why do they need trade? (Besides cultural exports- let’s…. Not get into that.)
They can just replicate the other’s civilization money if it is at a lower stage of technology advancement. In the scenario of the same or later technology stage, like the Ferengi Alliance, they would trade for technology, information and/or territories.
The one resource they have a desperate need is dilithium, which they had automated the extraction using the Doctor holograms lol.
the trouble with tribbles grain deal comes to mind. The grain is being held/shipped for a member world.
Then there’s Cassidy Yates and all the federation traders in ds9 (though that’s not a solid argument.) there’s also the cargo ships frequently used in tng as background.
Dilithium deuterium minning are also frequently mentioned… usually the federation being interested in minning for its own use. (Just another reason to build the power system off something else…actually.)
the trouble with tribbles grain deal comes to mind. The grain is being held/shipped for a member world.
Being shipped doesn’t mean it is a trade deal, they offered assistance due to its strategic position as it is a disputed planet between the Federation and the Klingons. And if you’re talking about the deal between the bartender and Cyrano Jones, he is independent from the Federation, like Quark’s bar, any deal between would be external (and they seem to use credits as a currency?).
Then there’s Cassidy Yates and all the federation traders in ds9 (though that’s not a solid argument.) there’s also the cargo ships frequently used in tng as background.
In a similar situation, Deep Space Station 9 is close to disputed territory and Federation candidate members. So again, they deal between Federation and others species. And the cargo ships in TNG aren’t necessarily, doing any sort trade, they may simply hauling supplies for Federation planets and colonies.
Dilithium deuterium minning are also frequently mentioned… usually the federation being interested in minning for its own use. (Just another reason to build the power system off something else…actually.)
Since they need it for every warp drive spaceship, I assume it would be a very well controlled resource. And due to its importance I don’t think they would hire external help, so it would be fair to assume they use Federation miners and scientists to extract it. But again I don’t think they mention any internal trade, so I assume they distribute it accordingly to each species or organization.
The romulans don’t need dilithium for theirs. They use singularities instead of antimatter- the stuff somehow regulates the flow or the reaction or something.
In any case…. It’s pretty inconceivable that there are that many member worlds with private captains running trade routes through ds9 without there being robust trade.
“Oh that’s just private people” is a cop out. It’s a matter of semantics- the federation has extensive trade networks and economic product. It hires people to design and build… everything… and to be baristas at StellarBucks (or did you think they were just doing that for the lulz?)
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it’s almost like they got this guy instead of proper engineers:
Explosions
“Haven’t any of you guys invented fuses!” - John Crichton
Farscape is one of those shows I can only tolerate in small doses but still love. Also it’s science is too bad, considering.
I tried watching it through as a background thing while playing podcast games and found it really hard to do more than a couple episodes.
It’s damn near soap level plots for a lot of it, but I really love the characters.
Yup.
A lot of the plot is just straight up bizarre. On the other hand the characters are fairly compelling, and the comedy is classic.
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Handrails slicing off fingers is why the Star Wars universe doesn’t have railings at all.
Remember, there’s crewmen stationed in the fucking Death Star main laser tunnel, right next to the firing beam.
How else would they make sure the laser is, indeed, firing?
Laser Verification Technician / Body Disposal Unit
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Plus all the old and decrepit people fall to their deaths, thus removing dead weight and allowing space communism to function. It’s a win-win!
The gap was pretty big. No way fingers were getting sliced off. Trip was being overly dramatic.
Still not a great design, but Trip being the chief engineer, he could have ordered it changed AT ANY TIME, but never did. He just complained like an annoying pregnant woman, which was the intention of the scene.
That bothered me too. Any rational group of engineers with space laser tools would have fixed that immediately.
Enterprise is watchable and has that classic 90’s trek feel to it. That said, I can barely name or identify a single character on the show or tell you anything about their character, personality, hopes fears dream strengths weaknesses etc.
Captain Archer, has a pet dog, is pretty down to earth and chill I guess…that’s pretty much it…
There’s a guy with a southern accent from I dunno maybe Louisiana? He likes catfish. Those are pretty much his only defining features.
T’pol is a stoic emotionless boring Vulcan. There’s a pretty sexy and out of place scene with her and some other scantily clad attractive characters in a space sauna that didn’t seem appropriate for Star Trek but whatever. She seems annoyed and judgmental about humans. That’s about it for her personality.
The bird like doctor guy is kinda weird. Can’t tell you much about him.
That’s pretty much all I got. There’s really just nothing else to say about any of these characters. I can write books about Captain Picard, Janeway, data, sisko, et all.
Tl;Dr Poor character development bugs me the most about enterprise
Honestly dr phlox is my favorite. He’s that annoyingly cheerful kind of guy and a bit of counterpoint to “normal human things”- he could have been a great character if they just didn’t try to play up the shock value.
Also like he’s low key a sadist. Maybe more a mostly-reformed sadist? There’s definitely moments.
It definitely has its moments and it scratches that itch when you really want classic 90s Trek but you’ve watched TNG/DS9/VOY a zillion times each and want something new.
The comforting ambient hum of the engines really does the trick. That sound is conspicuously missing from New Trek (besides, you know, creative integrity?).
I swear. St:Discotheque makes more sense if you just assume the entire show, they’re all tripping balls off space shrooms.
Bitterness is a bad look.
I can tell you more about them, but obviously you’re correct that they’re nowhere near as developed as the other 90s Trek shows.
-T’Pol might be the best Vulcan character in the franchise next to SNW Spock. She has a tinge of that Enterprise Vulcan arrogance, becomes less emotionally-guarded as she spends more time among humans, has an interesting moderate attitude toward humans, and probably has the best acting on the show.
-Phlox is the best doctor in the franchise, fight me.
-Reed is a British weirdo
-Mayweather is an overly peppy cornily-acted son of a freighter captain raised in space
Captain Archer, tries very hard to be laid back but he’s actually a prep school prick at heart. Smiles like he’s running for congress. Beagle owning water polo enthusiast.
Charles “Trip” Tucker The Third. Chief engineer, catfish lover from Sarasota Florida before it’s trenched by the Xindi. Kinda happy-go-lucky at first then turned real f’n broody because of course. He works out, ends up in his boxer briefs occasionally because “See, we’ve got stuff for the girls to look at too.” Beefcake #1
Malcolm Reed, British tightass who basically has Worf’s job. Spends a lot of an episode inventing the red alert because this series fully intends break into your home at night, hold you down, squat over your face and prequel right in your mouth. Also works out, ends up in his boxer briefs occasionally too, but he’s a bit shorter. Beefcake #2
T’Pol. An attempt by Paramount to make the Seven of Nine lightning strike twice. Same stern humorless member of a conformist society who grows as a person from her outside perspective as a member of the ship’s crew, now with even more blatant thirst bait. To their credit, they almost pulled it off. Cheesecake #1-6.
Hoshi Sato, Uhura but Asian and worse. She’s the same brand of useless that Troi was. Mostly there so they could say “No, see, not all of the female cast was hired for how their nipples look in a grey tank top” but she ended up half naked a few times anyway. Cheesecake #7.
Travis Mayweather, helmsman, raised on a space ship by parents who are upset he took a job working on a space ship. Mostly just happy to be here.
Dr. Phlox, happy go lucky alien doctor, mostly used for comic relief though he delivered one of my favorite lines in all of Star Trek: “It is unethical to harm a patient; however I can inflict as much pain as I like.” Overall deserved a better Trek series.
I’ve seen similar problems on actual escalators. It might not slice your fingers off, but if your arm was stretched out it would snap your arm off at least. But then again I have a phobia of elevators and escalators so it is particularly apparently to me. I blame that Resident Evil movie when the person got their head cut off trying to exit a stalled elevator.
The scariest thing is when escalators malfunction.
At least with an elevator you’ll either drop to your death or the brakes kick in making you just stuck for a few hours.
But an escalator, that’s a cheese grater powered by a motor strong enough to lift dozens of people up a flight of stairs.
Why do we even bother with them?
They’re just elevators with extra steps.
They’re have more throughput. If you’re somewhere high enough traffic they’re pretty clearly the only way to serve it.
If I had to take a guess, its because elevators have to start and stop a lot - whereas escalators operate contiguously. So in an often (well maybe not so much now) crowded place like a mall, you could be waiting a bit if you needed to change floors.
Contiguously and continuously.
Because people don’t want the exertion of actual stairs.
Guys, it is a pun. 😅
I thought you were going to segue into the Mitch Hedberg “the escalator is now stairs, sorry for the convenience” joke.
I damn near had my head taken off one time when I was a kid. I was leaned over the side looking down as the escalator went up. My mother grabbed me and yanked me back just moments before my head got stuck in the scissor trap caused by the bottom of the down escalator intersecting with the up escalator.
A couple years later I noticed the started putting plexiglass a foot or two in front of that part. I wonder how many kids didn’t get their head pulled back in time before they started doing that.
Eugh, I still get nervous walking in/out of elevators because of that movie.
I’m high, too
What always bugged me in Voyager was that the Doctor didnt get any story lines really exploring what he is. After he got his mobile emitter from the future, he basically was a near immortal AI made of light. He could still be around doing snarky remarks during the heat death of the universe. What a waste of story potential.
There was an episode where a copy of him was brought online in a museum centuries after Voyager had visited the planet featured in the episode
That was a great episode.
Robert Picardo directed a lot of those episodes, so I’m sure he could have written in that recognition…but preferred the tension of having talent and ability mixed with a personality that made him unbearable. His character recognized this at times but never really grew. One of the better jokes was that all the other EMRs of him were so toxic that they were decommissioned as doctors and put to work piloting garbage transports.
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he deserved the same respect data got in tng.
The Enterprise crew is a bunch or warlike cowboys hopping at random and breaking things everywhere.
The series actually acknowledges that. Several times.
What I really like is the soothing and cheerful opening theme, that tends to play just after some 2% of Earth is destroyed, or somebody decides to kill half of the galaxy.
The opening theme is garbage. I say that as someone who actually enjoys the most cheasy opening themes from the worst TV shows of all time, because horrible TV shows opening themes are a very unique style of jingle composition.
The opening theme for Enterprise is not an opening theme at all. It’s just some random song that maybe someone on set liked at the time.
Honestly I liked the opening to enterprise, tho I think mainly because of the visual sequence that plays with it.
This put me on Reed Alert.
Gentlemen, to your phase pistols.
I’m bugged by decontamination gel.
Why is it so randomly used? Why doesn’t Shran have to use it ever? Did Phlox have to rub it on all of his animals? What’s in it?
To show the audience Jolene Blalock’s oiled up tummy and thighs, it’s that simple
And side boob.
Ah, the side boob hour.
Do I remember them decontaminating the dog at one point? I haven’t seen the show since its original run.
But yeah the decontamination chamber was pretty much someone at Paramount saying “Guys I’ve got this great plot device we can use to peel our cast of pretty people down to their undies sometimes, and even rub lotion on each other!”
I wonder what he got paid for that idea?
Someone probably noticed it after the set was already built, complained, and it was a thing on set.
The one that irrationally bugged me was when Tripp told the captain that he lowered the chair by 1cm, and the chair was still too high for everyone who sat there… I know it’s not supposed to be noticable but I could tell somehow that it wasn’t lowered at all
Call UFP OSHA!
UFP didn’t exist yet. You’d need Starfleet OSHA.
Ya that was an odd moment, sfdebris called it out too. I think I was just too annoyed by the silliness of the premise to really realize it one way or another.
Either way, I find the meta bigger picture just as interesting. Actors act, directors direct, to indeed portray something as X. In this case Tripp was painted as the weird one, but honestly, we as viewers should be able to make our own judgement on the situation without having to go against the story or against the suspension of disbelief.
