Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 3 Viewing (Spoilers)

[Umbran]

** = I feel like Pelia has the moral flexibility and survivor's instinct that she's probably been on the "wrong" side of quite a large number of conflicts historically.

If you define "wrong side" as "those who avoided the conflict when folks started getting hauled out of their homes and shot", then yes. It seems like she's a member of a species that has had galaxy-spanning interstellar travel since before humans had writing. Getting the heck out of Dodge when things get messy should not have been an issue for her.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I gotta say, I'm not loving the ... striping in PIke's hair? I'm all for him being well-coiffed, but the white on grey flame effect he has going seems like he'd have to be in Mr. Mot's chair more than the Captain's chair.

Yeah him and also the Vulcan captain (B'rel?) of the Farragut have some pretty seriously high-maintenance hair! Is there some Star Fleet directive that got sent out a few months ago saying "As captain, you must be a badder bitch than any of your crew. Your coiffure should ensure that they do not forget this." or something?

Like most Vulcans we've ever seen have "every couple of weeks I put a bowl on my head and set my phaser to "trim"..." or "I just cut my fringe straight across, it is the only logical haircut", but she must have spent hours gelling that elaborate do into place. I guess Vulcans don't sweat so she wouldn't lose it that way at least...

 

[Umbran]

to this week where apparently shooting the nacelles at this super advanced armored ship disabled it....somehow.

That scene is not how you describe it.
They establish that the scavenger ship is in search of aldentium - yes, they like to eat their ships al dente..
They establish that the tentacles disable ship power systems.
They establish that Scotty can make ship parts look al dente.
They launch the nacelles, al dente, so that the scavenger ship punches itself with its own tentacles, disabling its own power systems.

 

[Umbran]

But a hairdresser than can manage Pike's hair? They probably have strict orders to stay completely out of harms way!

Why? Is his hair an alien being that, if not placated, will take over the ship?

Headcanon accepted!

 

[Mort]

Why? Is his hair an alien being that, if not placated, will take over the ship?

Headcanon accepted!

That would explain the eventual falling out with Captain Batel. Only room for 1 weird alien hybrid!

 

[Morrus]

The ship, including sick bay, was without significant power. You want M'Benga to work with stone knives and bearskins? Dude can't even replicate sutures without power!

C’mon, it wasn’t that, it was the extras budget. It’s been a problem this whole season.

 

[Mort]

C’mon, it wasn’t that, it was the extras budget. It’s been a problem this whole season.

Thinking about it, hard not to agree.

Both TOS and TNG did a really good job showing just how fully/well crewed the Enterprise is. SNW kind of gives the impression the ship is seriously understaffed.

 

[Vael]

As far as truly little things that made me laugh.

When the mask comes off and there's the big reveal:

The baddie has an immaculately groomed moustache and goatee.

I just couldn't help laughing and thinking the real reason he didn't shoot was because he got a look at Pike's hair and couldn't shoot at someone with grooming as good as his.

I thought we'd gotten some weird crossover with the Expanse, because he looked like Jim Holden.

 

[Stalker0]

That scene is not how you describe it.
They establish that the scavenger ship is in search of aldentium - yes, they like to eat their ships al dente..
They establish that the tentacles disable ship power systems.
They establish that Scotty can make ship parts look al dente.
They launch the nacelles, al dente, so that the scavenger ship punches itself with its own tentacles, disabling its own power systems.

Makes sense, I would have loved that noted in teh show. Of course we can argue why the heck a ship wouldn't have protections against its own tentacles to ensure a mistake didn't fry the ship....but hey ST is sometimes cavalier with its engineering.

I admit the tricky balance, normally I respect the show not dumbing things down to much for its audience. But I think part of my issue is that the pacing of this season is so damn quick I sometimes struggle to keep up.

 

[Stalker0]

With respect, it ain't that simple. Because error correction means keeping around the data that defines "without error", and that data is subject to the degradations of time, too. One cosmic ray going through your data store, and you no longer have pristine data.

So you keep a backup of your backup, right? And when cosmic rays go through both the original and the copy at different points, which copy do you trust? You technically need to keep a number of backups so large that the probability of bit-rot over enough of them becomes vanishingly small over the expected lifespan of the structure.

And then, you need to have an energy source that lasts as long as well - correcting errors and making repairs cost energy.

Overall, the laws of thermodynamics amount to: You cannot win, you cannot break even, and you cannot quite the game.

Its basically the blockchain concept. You need enough copies of the OG programing set in various locations. Every so often, they all have to communicate their entire code base. Any inconsistencies have to be checked across the network, and if 51% of the network agrees it should be X....all copies are updated with that X. And so you have to do that periodically to ensure the integrity of the code.

For those who are curious about the issues with long term maintenance on a project, I highly recommend looking at the Millenium Clock project (or Clock of the Long Now): Clock of the Long Now - Wikipedia

Its a project designed to construct a clock to run for a "meer" 10,000 years. The engineering challenges and planning that have to go into it are quite extensive, and it really shows you how you have to change your thinking when you are talking those kinds of timescales.