Isn’t that what NG does allot of the time? There’s a bunch of episodes that start with them leaving a spaceport or station. They just never show them at those places.
It's a plot point in the Scotty TNG episode that Scotty outright doubles and triples time estimates as well as lowballs system specifications in documentation. And teaches Geordi to do the same.
It’s a plot point on Lower Decks that lower deckers employ buffer time
From memory alpha:
Buffer time was a means of creatively estimating or exaggerating how long it takes to complete an assignment. A lower decks tradition, it was built on the premise that command level officers had no idea how long it took to complete a task, combining the “you never admit the actual amount of time it takes to finish a job…” so that “you’re a hero when it’s done early.” This allowed the crew time to relax between jobs.
The immediate hackles up/rage from the Captain at discovering buffer time has always been hilarious to me. I swear to god I saw my former micromanaging manager in those crazy eyes.
“Do you mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.”
“Yeah, well, I told the Captain I’d have this analysis done in an hour.”
“How long will it really take?”
“An hour!”
“Oh, you didn’t tell him how long it would really take, did ya?”
“Well, of course I did.”
“Oh, laddie. You’ve got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.”
"We need more power! What can you give me?"
"Uhhh... if we get all of the shuttles and EVA suits out pushing I guess that'll technically be more power?"
"How much faster will we go?"
"Literally not at all, due to warp mechanics you told me not to mention again. Might make you feel better, though."
That is a good episode idea. Their warp engine dies, so they have to send a shuttle to go get parts to fix it. In the mean time, they jury rig the remaining shuttles life support into the main ship and put as many crew members in medically induced comas as possible to reduce the load on it.
Reminds me of the Scott Manley video where in Kerbal space program he explored the idea of a stranded spacecraft where the astronaut joking asks if it’d help if he got out and pushed.
I always appreciate how the game FTL made “diverting power from life support” make sense. You don’t do it when your shield generators are damaged, you do it when your reactor is too damaged to output enough power for both shields and life support.
I mean, if diverting life support power would make the FTL engines work, so you could effectively teleport from A to B in seconds or minutes, it could be worth it? Especially if the destination is a safe harbor for repairs. Then resume life support. Not likely to cause instant death?
Yeah, life support being off or at reduced power would mean carbon dioxide build up and it would probably get a bit sweaty, but you can survive for quite a long time in a sealed room, especially with how much spare space is in Star Trek rooms.
Unless life support includes something like “shields that keep all the air in” or something.
I agree with the theme of the post, but some of the examples need more work, possibly at the expense of being less quippy
Yup that’s actually a tradeoff you have to consider in the game, putting more power into the engines speeds up how long it takes to make an FTL jump. So if you don’t think you can beat the ship you’re fighting, it can make sense to put all power into the engines to try and jump away before they destroy your ship. Turning off life support still leaves you with the air currently in the ship which lasts for some amount of time depending on how big your ship is/how many crew members you have/how many hull breaches, open airlocks, or fires there are.
Or when the generator simply isn’t powerful enough to supply everything. Because resources are finite and you don’t always have enough power for everything.
All of these are just willfully misunderstanding the point of these things to the point of idiocy.
Usually, the rigid time constraints are shown to not work, and something else happens that solves the conundrum. Either that or the engineer overestimated the time with regards to security protocols, testing and so on, implying that cutting time will be significantly more risky.
The shields are offline because power generation is failing. Diverting power from life support is the last resort, implying that either we get the shields online at the expense of long-term life support for a small chance at survival, or keep them offline for a guaranteed death. It makes sense to divert power from life support.
They are frequently in unfamiliar or entirely deserted locations. Who has every close space station in mind at all times? Are you implying that someone on a long highway cannot be surprised by the distance to the next gas station if gas runs out?
This never happened.
This never happened.
I always held the opinion that “treknobabble” was largely internally consistent and made sense within the established technologies of the universe, with notable exceptions in the biology department (TNG: “Genesis” anyone?). I dislike when people make fun of Trek engineer speech as if it was completely incoherent made up words á la “it’s a unix system”. “Treknobabble” is consistent and believable, and I don’t think it’s cute to insinuate that it’s all some kind of silly in-joke.
Dude… calm down. We all understand that the things make sense in-universe. We’re also able, however, to take a joke. To the layperson its easy to misunderstand and even to some veteran Trekkies it doesn’t always make sense. That’s where humor comes from. It’s the same thing with Worf having his ass kicked jokes or jokes about Data misunderstanding something. I’m not a huge fan of jokes about the Spore Drive and how people don’t understand that but I also understand that they’re just that. Jokes.
You really need to be able to parse the difference between legitimate complaint and humor. That or at least take a step back so you don’t get so worked up about it. Especially when this is on the Risa community…
Oh I love it. Especially the animation of the Voyager spore-jumping and just the super anti-climax. Also, arguably, that’s still a better final shot than what we got in Endgame. Not landing on Earth? Fuck off.
I guess it’s better to say that I love the jokes like that but dislike some of the malice that comes behind some of the jokes, if that makes sense. Like for a while before the DSC S2 Finale, people were really riding that “Well why didn’t Voyager jump back?” thing and some of the jokes were either based around a misunderstanding or outright hatred. If that makes sense. Don’t wanna seem like I’m coming off like a crybaby because people are making fun of a show that I like. It’s just hard to explain. I ain’t good with dem der words.
Christ, don’t remind me. I’m only 31 but I have pretty vivid recollection of the Prequels release. When I was starting to realize I was gay (around 11-12ish) that homophobia around Jar Jar was extremely loud. It’s no surprise why both Star Trek and Will & Grace became my safe havens on TV. Also no surprise why I fucking immediately latched onto Stamets. From the second he appeared on screen I related to him. The moment we found out he was gay? I was floored. He had been on screen for like two episodes, been in a scene with his husband, and was never mentioned. No one made a deal out of it because it didn’t matter. Because it doesn’t matter. But my god the hatred that spunout around him was over the top. A lot of the “Oh well why is he gay? Why does that matter? They’re shoving it down our throats” garbage but then the utterly fucking insane take of ‘Star Trek is woke now’ as if it hasn’t been ‘woke’ (whatever the fuck that means) since 1966.
Then Discovery had the audacity to include a non-binary character and a trans character as if they were, you ‘people who deserve dignity and love like anyone else’ and the same shit started up again. I am fucking tired bro.
However, my ADHD ass says as he goes off on another slight tangent, that is not the types of jokes that bother me the most. I’ve been stabbed for being gay so words/jokes don’t bug me as much as they used to. What gets on my tits in a huge way are the outright ignoring of shit in lore. Like people saying “Spock would NEVER hide the fact he doesn’t have a sister” as if he didn’t hide the fact he had a wife, his father was Sarek and that he had a fucking brother. Or the misunderstandings about how the Spore Drive work because they didn’t even take 5 seconds to read the opening paragraph on Memory Alpha.
I so get you about why Stamets mattered. He was a fun recurring guest character on Star Trek Online too and had lots of spoken dialogue with the usual “funny yet depressed” vibes.
What gets on my tits in a huge way are the outright ignoring of shit in lore.
I’m old enough that I still groan when I hear percolating returns of the “DAE KIRK KILLED OR FUCKED EVERYTHING THAT MOVED” ultra-Flanderization brainworms of decades past.
How much actual Those Old Scientists did those people watch? It’s hard for me to think of a single Klingon that Kirk actually killed with direct action on-screen in the original show, for example. warf-wtf
Very little Im guessing. People are doing a lot of bitching with no basis lately. Generally why I ask for sources or examples now. Astounding how often it turns into “Oh I can’t think of any”.
I guess it’s better to say that I love the jokes like that but dislike some of the malice that comes behind some of the jokes, if that makes sense. […] some of the jokes were either based around a misunderstanding or outright hatred.
Why do you ridicule me then all over these comments for making that same observation with the meme you posted?
It’s interesting because it kind of highlights how a lot people perceive Star Trek technobabble (or at least, the pop-cultural understanding they have of it) as being incoherent nonsense when a lot of the shows have put in a lot of effort into making it not that. One of the most annoying things about the newer Treks is that apparently the writers at CBS started believing it too, causing them to take less care with technobabble in those shows and actually writing a bunch of nonsense.
I’m thinking of Picard being a cyborg now (before everybody just agreed not to talk about it), but I’d have to rewatch disco to get a more specific example and I’m not doing that. It’s a feeling I have that I admittedly could be off base on.
First off, a massive portion of Season 3 of Picard revolves around the fact that Picard is a cyborg. So I’m not entirely sure where that “before everybody just agreed not to talk about it” bit comes from. There’s even a reference to him having a synthetic body in Discovery Season 4.
Second, I’ve asked that question of everyone who says that the treknobabble in ‘NuTrek’ doesn’t make sense. No one has ever been able to give me any answer on that at all. A considerable portion of complaints about Discovery, as an example, are wildly unfounded. The ‘it breaks lore/retcons’ complaint is another. There is nothing that I can find that outright breaks lore. Either it’s a misunderstanding, due to it being a visual reboot, or was set up previously by Enterprise.
There was an episode of Stargate SG-1 where the Stargate is broken and General Hammond shares this (paraphrased) exchange with Sergeant Siler:
Hammond: How long until you fix it? Siler: About two hours sir. Hammond: Not fast enough, you have 30 minutes. Siler: No sir, it doesn’t work like that. 2 hours is the best I can do. Hammond: Then get back to it.
Respectable. Anxious commander attempting to cut down the time that a critical mission will take, and accepting the response that it isn’t possible with a minimum of further distraction.
Risa randomly started showing up a lot in my feed this week and I’m better for it. That last one made me laugh out loud, which made my injured sides hurt
I might be to blame on the Risa front. I’ve been posting every 2-5 hours on Risa to shoo away the lonely. I am, however, truly glad that I was able to provide some giggles. The pain not so much. Heal up buddy. <3
I had only watched the three modern movies. And the memes were the thing that finally made me watch TOS this week for the first time. I plan to watch everything.
Don’t forget to join us for conversation! We try to be friendly. I’ve had very few bad experiences around here. I can’t wait until you get to the First Contact movie. Utter banger.
I probably have…fairly popular opinions on this, but:
The Motion Picture. Crap film. It’s the script for a TV episode, goatse’d out to an over two-hour run time. The pacing is just tectonic and it’s just way up its distended ass. A large part of the problem is the movie basically didn’t get edited; most of what they shot ended up in the final cut. You could improve it a lot by paring it down.
The Wrath of Kahn. Very good movie; I think it’s the closest to the franchise comes to being a classic. Some serious themes, exciting battles, a very good soundtrack, some really awesome hairdos, KAAAAAAHN!, some bagpipes…Probably the best of the movies to date.
The Search For Spock. A decent movie. If you subscribe to the “odd numbered Trek movies are bad,” this is the best of the odd movies. It’s not as exciting or tense or well paced as Wrath of Kahn but it’s still competent. Worth a watch.
The Voyage Home. The obligatory “travel to the present day at time of filming” episode of the original series movie era. It’s got a quirky and weird plot with a somewhat anvilicious environmentalist message, but it’s such great quality time with the characters, and it has such a wonderful soundtrack. Wrath of Kahn I think officially tops it but Voyage Home is so fun that it’s my personal favorite.
The Final Frontier. I think you can fix the Motion Picture, but I don’t think you can fix The Final Frontier. The plot doesn’t work. Did they actually shoot God to death? What…was all that? Fortunately nothing of importance is established here and you can safely just skip it.
The Undiscovered Country. I rank this one about on par with Search for Spock; it’s competent but not spectacular; it’s got too much of “it’s the last original series movie you guys” in it. As Mr. Plinkett said 'Then they pose for a picture that no one took.'
Generations. It’s as good as it is stupid. The executives didn’t have faith that the TNG crew could carry a feature film, so they had to contrive a way to have Kirk involved, and the plot they came up with required the villain and the protagonists to do exceptionally stupid things. With that flaw in place, they executed it about as well as they could.
First Contact. Dumb action movie. Instead of having any Star Trek in it, it’s got violence and body horror and swearing. If you want to see Die Hard, go watch Die Hard, because Die Hard is better.
Insurrection. This one comes the closest in terms of plot, tone and production value to the TV series. It really does feel like an episode of TNG…Oh no. Remember Season 7’s Journey’s End? Where the Enterprise is sent to force some Native Americans off their land because reasons? And Picard was going to go through with it until Wesley blew it up? Yeah turns out Picard would have sided with the natives if they were white. I mean at least Troi’s boobs are starting to firm up.
Nemesis. "What if we cram The Wrath of Kahn and First Contact together? Big dumb action movie with an asshole bent on revenge against the captain out of nowhere, and we kill off the main cast member we could most plausibly revive later?"
Star Trek (2009). Lots of trekkies have made mediocre fanfics of dubious quality over the decades, and among them is one J. J. Abrams. And I guess it was fun; we got to see Bones give Kirk shots he didn’t want, we got to see Scotty babble about how the engines can’t take it, we got to see Chekov fail to say the letter V, we got to see Sulu leave the parking brake on, we got to see Uhura wear a very, very short dress, we got to see Kirk bang a green chick…and I guess that’s enough. And that’s where I abandoned the franchise.
I’ve got a buddy who works aircraft maintenance in the US Navy. He’s told me about quite a few of those malicious compliance situations and all of them are both on par with everything else I’ve heard from engineers in civilian sectors. I’ve yet to meet an Engineer who was a bad liar. They washout way too quickly.
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