[OT] 10 Things Wrong With Star Trek

Mathew_Freeman

First Post
Shamelessly stolen from another messageboard...:D

10.
Noisy doors.
You can't walk three feet in a starship without some door whooshing or screeching at you. My office building has automatic sliding doors. They're dead silent. If those doors went "wheet!" every time a person walked through them, about once a month some guy in accounting would snap and go on a shooting rampage. Sorry Scotty, the IEEE has revoked your membership until you learn to master WD-40

9.
The Federation.
This organization creeps me out. A planet-wide government that runs everything, and that has abolished money. A veritable planetary DMV. Oh sure, it looks like a cool place when you're rocketing around in a Federation Starship, but I wonder how the guy driving a Federation dump truck feels about it?


And everyone has to wear those spandex uniforms. Here's an important fact: Most people, you don't want to see them in spandex. You'd pay good money to not have to see them. If money hadn't been abolished, that is. So you're screwed.

8.
Reversing the Polarity.
For cripes sake Giordi, stop reversing the polarity of everything! It might work once in a while, but usually it just screws things up. I have it on good authority that the technicians at Starbase 12 HATE that. Every time the Enterprise comes in for its 10,000 hour checkup, they've gotta go through the whole damned ship fixing stuff. "What happened to the toilet in Stateroom 3?" "Well, the plumbing backed up, and Giordi thought he could fix it by reversing the polarity."


Between Scotty's poor lubrication habits and Geordi's damned polarity reversing trick, it's a wonder the Enterprise doesn't just spontaneously explode whenever they put the juice to it.

7.
Seatbelts.
Yeah, I know this one is overdone, but you'd think that the first time an explosion caused the guy at the nav station to fly over the captain's head with a good 8 feet of clearance, someone would say, "You know, we might think of inventing some furutistic restraining device to prevent that from happening." So of course, they did make something like that for the second Enterprise (the first one blew up due to poor lubrication), but what was it? A hard plastic thing that's locked over your thighs. Oh, I'll bet THAT feels good in the corners. "Hey look! The leg-bars worked as advertised! There goes Kirk's torso!"

6.
No fuses.
Every time there's a power surge on the Enterprise the various stations and consoles explode in a shower of sparks and throw their seatbelt-less operators over Picard's head. If we could get Giordi to stop reversing the polarity for a minute, we could get him to go shopping at the nearest Starship parts store and pick up a few fuses. And while he's shopping, he could stop at an intergalactic IKEA and pick up a few chairs for the bridge personnel. If you're going to put me in front of a fuseless exploding console all day, the least you could do is let me sit down.


5.
Rule by committee.
Here's the difference between Star Trek and the best SF show on TV last year:

Star Trek:

Picard: "Arm photon torpedoes!"
Riker: "Captain! Are you sure that's wise?"
Troi: "Captain! I'm picking up conflicting feelings about this! And, it appears that you're a 'fraidy cat."
Wesley: "Captain, I'm just an annoying punk, but I thought I should say something."
Worf: "Captain, can I push the button? This is giving me a big Klingon warrior chubby."
Giordi: "Captain, I think we should reverse the polarity on them first."
Picard: "I'm so confused. I'm going to go to my stateroom and look pensive."


Firefly:

Captain: "Let's shoot them."
Crewman: "Are you sure that's wise?"
Captain: "Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I'll BEAT YOU WITH until you realize who's in command."
Crewman: "Aye Aye, sir!"

4.
A Star Trek quiz:
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and 'Ensign Gomez' beam down to a planet. Which one isn't coming back?

3.
Technobabble.
The other night, I couldn't get my car to start. I solved the problem by reversing the polarity of the car battery, and routing the power through my satellite dish. The resulting subspace plasma caused a rift in the space-time continuum, which created a quantum tunnelling effect that charged the protons in the engine core, thus starting my car. Child's play, really. As a happy side-effect, I also now get the Spice Channel for free.

2.
The Holodeck.
I mean, it's cool and all. But do you really believe that people would use it to re-create Sherlock Holmes mysteries and old-west saloons? Come on, we all know what the holodeck would be used for. And we also know what the worst job on the Enterprise would be: Having to squeegie the holodeck clean.

1.
The Prime Directive.
How stupid is this? Remember when Marvin the Martian was going to blow up the Earth, because it obstructed his view of Venus? And how Bugs Bunny stopped him by stealing the Illudium Q36 Space Modulator? Well, in the Star Trek universe, Bugs would be doing time. Probably in a room filled with Roseanne lookalikes wearing spandex uniforms, walking through doors going WHEET! all day. It would be hell. At least until the Kaboom. The Earth-shattering Kaboom
 

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Elemental

Explorer
11: Computers. Look, if you don't want your systems continually hacked by every Tom, Dick and Harry who boards your ship or is up to no good, don't design your systems so that some panel linked to a vending machine on Deck 4 has the power to control the navigational computer, transporters, and internal forcefields.


And with regards to #2, I think that if the Federation had been serious about beating the Dominion, they should just have exported holodeck technology to them, and wiped them out while their leaders were trapped in some unlikely crisis inside them.
 

Nightstorm

First Post
The real problems with Star Trek:
1. Rehased plot lines and recylced character concepts.
2. NO gay people in the future? On a show that is suppose to be all inclusive?
 

s/LaSH

First Post
Tallarn said:

9.
The Federation.
This organization creeps me out. A planet-wide government that runs everything, and that has abolished money. A veritable planetary DMV. Oh sure, it looks like a cool place when you're rocketing around in a Federation Starship, but I wonder how the guy driving a Federation dump truck feels about it?


And everyone has to wear those spandex uniforms. Here's an important fact: Most people, you don't want to see them in spandex. You'd pay good money to not have to see them. If money hadn't been abolished, that is. So you're screwed.

Didn't China abolish wage variation? OK, so it led to massive corruption as you were guaranteed a certain government stipend, but then someone else would promise you a little more if you did something for them, and next thing you know you've got an army battalion guarding a warehouse full of Triad plutonium. Or something. Doesn't sound good for the Federation, then. (Which is a sector-spanning government, not a planet-spanning government. Vulcans get paid exactly the same as humans, that is to say diddly.)

As for the spandex, well, I imagine those Eugenics Wars in the 1990s (see ST:TOS: Space Seed) cleaned out all the ugly people. So moot point.

7.
Seatbelts.
Yeah, I know this one is overdone, but you'd think that the first time an explosion caused the guy at the nav station to fly over the captain's head with a good 8 feet of clearance, someone would say, "You know, we might think of inventing some furutistic restraining device to prevent that from happening." So of course, they did make something like that for the second Enterprise (the first one blew up due to poor lubrication), but what was it? A hard plastic thing that's locked over your thighs. Oh, I'll bet THAT feels good in the corners. "Hey look! The leg-bars worked as advertised! There goes Kirk's torso!"

Maybe they use the 'inertial dampeners' to avoid this. Thus the ship can't shake around unless it's in relation to itself, and that's impossible so you don't need seatbelts. (Well, unless you're in a war zone, but the Federation is Peaceful and Enlightened.) It makes sense to the beureaucrats who fund seatbelts, I guess.

6.
No fuses.
Every time there's a power surge on the Enterprise the various stations and consoles explode in a shower of sparks and throw their seatbelt-less operators over Picard's head. If we could get Giordi to stop reversing the polarity for a minute, we could get him to go shopping at the nearest Starship parts store and pick up a few fuses. And while he's shopping, he could stop at an intergalactic IKEA and pick up a few chairs for the bridge personnel. If you're going to put me in front of a fuseless exploding console all day, the least you could do is let me sit down.

But... but it builds character! Unless you're Captain, in which case you get to sit around drinking tea. Evidently captains are characters already. (Side note: Why didn't Janeway shave her head upon achieving Captaincy? That's what made Picard and Sisko so cool!)

5.
Rule by committee.
Here's the difference between Star Trek and the best SF show on TV last year:

Star Trek:

Picard: "Arm photon torpedoes!"
Riker: "Captain! Are you sure that's wise?"
Troi: "Captain! I'm picking up conflicting feelings about this! And, it appears that you're a 'fraidy cat."
Wesley: "Captain, I'm just an annoying punk, but I thought I should say something."
Worf: "Captain, can I push the button? This is giving me a big Klingon warrior chubby."
Giordi: "Captain, I think we should reverse the polarity on them first."
Picard: "I'm so confused. I'm going to go to my stateroom and look pensive."


Firefly:

Captain: "Let's shoot them."
Crewman: "Are you sure that's wise?"
Captain: "Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I'll BEAT YOU WITH until you realize who's in command."
Crewman: "Aye Aye, sir!"

Or Babylon 5, in which everyone's such an inspired speech-maker they can unite both sides in a genocidal war with five minutes of emphatic oration, so nobody ever acts up.

4.
A Star Trek quiz:
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and 'Ensign Gomez' beam down to a planet. Which one isn't coming back?

See also: Yellow-shirted Ensign Gomez manning some station on the bridge of any next-gen series vessel. The moment someone gets unusual energy readings, he'd be parting the Captain's hair - if the captain had any hair.

3.
Technobabble.
The other night, I couldn't get my car to start. I solved the problem by reversing the polarity of the car battery, and routing the power through my satellite dish. The resulting subspace plasma caused a rift in the space-time continuum, which created a quantum tunnelling effect that charged the protons in the engine core, thus starting my car. Child's play, really. As a happy side-effect, I also now get the Spice Channel for free.

Were chronatons involved? If so, you could get a visit from a certain Mister deLancie in the near future, and be taken on a roller-coaster ride of surreal visions of the past and future to see the repercussions of your actions as they wipe out entire civilisations distant throughout time. You're probably also your own grandfather.

2.
The Holodeck.
I mean, it's cool and all. But do you really believe that people would use it to re-create Sherlock Holmes mysteries and old-west saloons? Come on, we all know what the holodeck would be used for. And we also know what the worst job on the Enterprise would be: Having to squeegie the holodeck clean.

Two words: Quark's Bar. Besides klingon romance (see also genocide), nothing in there but ahem.

1.
The Prime Directive.
How stupid is this? Remember when Marvin the Martian was going to blow up the Earth, because it obstructed his view of Venus? And how Bugs Bunny stopped him by stealing the Illudium Q36 Space Modulator? Well, in the Star Trek universe, Bugs would be doing time. Probably in a room filled with Roseanne lookalikes wearing spandex uniforms, walking through doors going WHEET! all day. It would be hell. At least until the Kaboom. The Earth-shattering Kaboom

That's why nobody follows the damn thing. "Hey, it's Thursday!" "Quick, find a non-warp civilisation with hot women! We've got a directive to break!" You know where it says NCC-1701 on the Enterprise's hull? That's the current count of breaches of the PD by the captain.

OK, I made that up. So sue me - for however much of my nonexistant Federation paycheck you want.
 


Chun-tzu

First Post
Tallarn said:
Firefly:

Captain: "Let's shoot them."
Crewman: "Are you sure that's wise?"
Captain: "Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I'll BEAT YOU WITH until you realize who's in command."
Crewman: "Aye Aye, sir!"

Footnote:

I'm 95% sure this quote was from Jayne, the big thug with a girly name, and not the captain, Malcolm Reynolds. But it was definitely the best sci-fi show of last year.

I think at least one of those unaired episodes has even seen daylight, over in the UK!

Edit - Here's the actual quote:

JAYNE: “You know what the chain of command is? It’s the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who’s in ruttin’ command here!”

After he says that, he falls asleep, because the doctor drugs the big ape. :)
 
Last edited:

durath

First Post
7.Seatbelts

It's kind of funny this came up. Check out the deleted scenes on the Star Trek:Nemesis DVD which was just recently released.

I believe it is the final deleted scene where Picard is inspecting his new Captain's chair. The eager officer who installed it tells him to push a certain button and *ta-da* a seatbelt pops out of the thing to restrain him.
 


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