Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Star Trek: *hits blunt* The higher, the fewerrrrrr

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Mr. Midshipman Riker posted:

Acting-Lieutenant Riker was bringing the shuttle Le Rêve, prize of USS Indefatigable, to anchor in orbit of Altaïr VIII. He was nervous; if anyone had asked him if he thought that all the sensor arrays in the system were trained upon him he would have laughed at the suggestion, but he felt as if they were. Nobody ever gauged more cautiously the strength of the solar winds, or estimated more anxiously the distances between the big Ambassador-class ships of the line.

Yes, this is perfect Trek.

# ? Dec 17, 2018 21:07

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# ? May 31, 2024 23:39

Powered Descent: Jul 13, 2008; We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.

Cojawfee posted:

gently caress, Picard is using unicode and I only support ASCII.

For extra security, use EBCDIC. It's the computer equivalent of the Navajo code talkers from World War II.

# ? Dec 17, 2018 21:10

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Maybe the assumption was that Q was a charlatan playing at being godlike, and by using old school methods of communication he couldn't possibly be invisibly behind everyone's shoulder.

Like, the ridiculous technology of TNG would allow you to do everything Q does in Farpoint. (It's even the actual plot of Devil's Due.) He does crazier stuff in later appearances, but most of his gimmicks in Farpoint could be handwaved with transporters and holograms.

I remember Picard calling Q a "flim-flam man" early on, so I can easily believe that at one point someone on staff was thinking Q was just another rear end in a top hat with incredibly advanced technology, rather than an actual ~~demi-god~~ advanced energy-form entity (or whatever you think the technobabble description would be).

# ? Dec 17, 2018 22:18

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

What was it that Beverly's ghost-boyfriend got called by the science nerds? I don't think they actually used the term 'ectoplasm' but that's one of the big contrasts between TOS and TNG that always comes to mind for me; TNG would have called Jack the Ripper something like a "phase-shifted vertiform entity" and defeated him with a high-band nadion pulse from the lateral array, whereas TOS just got everyone doped to the gills and beamed the ghost out of the ship on max scatter.

# ? Dec 17, 2018 22:43

John Wick of Dogs: Mar 4, 2017; A real hellraiser

https://twitter.com/NanaVisitor/status/1074807183211061249?s=19

Not sure if this means she was a guest star or if she just went to their party

# ? Dec 18, 2018 02:11

McSpanky: Jan 16, 2005

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

What was it that Beverly's ghost-boyfriend got called by the science nerds? I don't think they actually used the term 'ectoplasm' but that's one of the big contrasts between TOS and TNG that always comes to mind for me; TNG would have called Jack the Ripper something like a "phase-shifted vertiform entity" and defeated him with a high-band nadion pulse from the lateral array, whereas TOS just got everyone doped to the gills and beamed the ghost out of the ship on max scatter.

Max Scatter is my holoporn name

# ? Dec 18, 2018 02:57

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

AlBorlantern Corps posted:

https://twitter.com/NanaVisitor/status/1074807183211061249?s=19

Not sure if this means she was a guest star or if she just went to their party

Seth loves him some Star Trek actors/actresses so who knows

# ? Dec 18, 2018 04:41

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I presume he's going to try to get literally everyone from Trek into an appearance on The Orville at some point. I know that's what I'd be doing in his position.

# ? Dec 18, 2018 05:12

Kazinsal: Dec 13, 2011

I just hope he follows through on his goal of season 2 being less comedy and more Trek than season 1.

# ? Dec 18, 2018 05:35

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

I figured it'd work because Q doesn't have the attention span to read.

# ? Dec 18, 2018 05:56

Paradoxish: Dec 19, 2003; Will you stop going crazy in there?

FuturePastNow posted:

I had that same moment as a teenager but then I shrugged and re-read the Technical Manual a dozen more times.

This was me too. Luckily, I ~~turned out okay~~ am still alive I guess.

# ? Dec 18, 2018 06:12

The_Doctor: Mar 29, 2007; "The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

AlBorlantern Corps posted:

https://twitter.com/NanaVisitor/status/1074807183211061249?s=19

Not sure if this means she was a guest star or if she just went to their party

Visitor has been on FG doing voice work before now, so it�s not unreasonable they�re in contact.

# ? Dec 18, 2018 06:21

galenanorth: May 19, 2016

Galaxy Quest was a good movie. The jokes are so much funnier than I thought they'd be, and I'm glad this thread told me about it

# ? Dec 19, 2018 23:12

WampaLord: Jan 14, 2010

galenanorth posted:

Galaxy Quest was a good movie. The jokes are so much funnier than I thought they'd be, and I'm glad this thread told me about it

It's secretly the best Star Trek movie.

# ? Dec 19, 2018 23:16

Zesty: Jan 17, 2012; The Great Twist

Low bar. What's the next best? Beyond? Save the Whales?

# ? Dec 19, 2018 23:26

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

I don't agree on Galaxy Quest being the best.

I wouldn't put The Voyage Home as best, but it's definitely very TOS (especially second season TOS).

The_Doctor posted:

Visitor has been on FG doing voice work before now, so it�s not unreasonable they�re in contact.

She also had a bit part on Ted 2.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 00:37

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Are we just ignoring Wrath of Khan now

# ? Dec 20, 2018 00:43

Phylodox: Mar 30, 2006; College Slice

Galaxy Quest is the best The Orville movie.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 00:44

The Bloop: Jul 5, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

Phylodox posted:

Galaxy Quest is the best The Orville movie.

So far

# ? Dec 20, 2018 01:02

whose tuggin: Nov 6, 2009; by Hand Knit

If Odo has the ability to assume the form of any object or being,

why has he chosen "GI Joe that was exposed to an open flame?"

# ? Dec 20, 2018 02:28

McNally: Sep 13, 2007; Ask me about Proposition 305

Do you like muskets?

The Scientist posted:

If Odo has the ability to assume the form of any object or being,

why has he chosen "GI Joe that was exposed to an open flame?"

because he's not good with faces

# ? Dec 20, 2018 02:37

LividLiquid: Apr 13, 2002

WampaLord posted:

It's secretly the best Star Trek movie.

This is the Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie of Star Trek fandom.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 02:49

Peachfart: Jan 21, 2017

The best Star Trek movie is the whale one because it is funny and interesting and doesn't rely on explosions for the plot to go anywhere.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 02:50

Brawnfire: Jul 13, 2004; 🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

LividLiquid posted:

This is the Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie of Star Trek fandom.

Generations is the best star trek Christmas movie

# ? Dec 20, 2018 02:57

Big Mean Jerk: Jan 27, 2009; Well, of course I know him.
He's me.

Brawnfire posted:

Generations is the best star trek Christmas movie

Also the best TNG movie.

I will gladly die on this hill, fight me nerds.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 03:01

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Discovery's version of Spock looks like a SNL parody and I will never watch that show.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 03:05

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Big Mean Jerk posted:

Also the best TNG movie.

I will gladly die on this hill, fight me nerds.

I agree but sadly it's not really saying much. I would hold up All Good Things or Bobw as far superior "movies" if they were cut together.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 03:18

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Big Mean Jerk posted:

Also the best TNG movie.

I will gladly die on this hill, fight me nerds.

*stands beside you, draws bat'leth*

Today is a good day to die.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 03:36

Zesty: Jan 17, 2012; The Great Twist

FlamingLiberal posted:

Are we just ignoring Wrath of Khan now

Not at all.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 04:01

FuturePastNow: May 19, 2014

Brawnfire posted:

Generations is the best star trek Christmas movie

Picard got the gift of his closest family burning to death in a fire

# ? Dec 20, 2018 06:35

simplefish: Mar 28, 2011; So long, and thanks for all the ~~fish~~ gallbladdΣrs!

Honestly it's taken a while for all Star Treks to get good, so Disco has until S3 to get some positive fan reaction or I'm just never gonna bother.

And by "has until S3" I don't mean I'm watching it during that time - I gave it a couple of episodes and it didn't impress me enough to follow along - but if it gets enough people saying "yeah it started poo poo but it's really picked up now" then I'll go back and watch from the start because I'm just wired to be that kind of ~~masochist~~ completionist

# ? Dec 20, 2018 06:42

Big Mean Jerk: Jan 27, 2009; Well, of course I know him.
He's me.

Generations also has a pretty good Picard epilogue speech that concludes with the absolute best Riker line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHSX9e1TadA

# ? Dec 20, 2018 06:51

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

You are referring to the anima, the machine-spirit. Our blessed technology is given life by the Omnissiah, merely one aspect of Him on Earth. When you rest, so too must the anima within your badge; only the proper Mechanicus shrine in your quarters will do. Remember to care for your badge, as it cares for you in turn. Show your appreciation for its service with a brisk polishing of its casing each morning.

If you suspect your badge has an illness of the spirit, bring it to Enginseer laForge for a cleansing. Then bring yourself to Ecclesiarch Troi for your own absolution.

I happen to have this more detailed explanation on hand,

quote:

This is why everything is hosed in the Imperium (courtesy of 1d4chan)
"The Mechanicus does NOT have the technology. They haven't been living on some fancy paradise planet since pre-Fall. Mars is an anarchic nightmare shithole the moment you leave the safe zones into the kilometers of labyrinthine corridors beneath it full of rogue machinery, self-aware and malevolent AI from before the Fall, and the daemon programs of the Heresy. EVERYTHING in the databases is hosed. The databases are fragmented over the entire surface to the extent that it would be impossible to see one tenth of the total files in the ludicrously extended life of a Magos even assuming that they are completely safe to visit. And they are not.
The files have been corrupted into madness by the Fall, and the unleashing of the most potent informational warfare systems ever to exist to defeat the Iron Men. Nearly all of Mars was rendered uninhabitable, what they live in now is built on the top of the ruins. They send archeotech expeditions in to find poo poo, nearly all of them never come back. The sheer number of rogue war machine running around in there is sufficient to rape the mind. Then came the Heresy, which was not earth-exclusive. Mars as the second most critical planet in the Imperium was the site of fighting nearly as ferocious as on Terra, with Mechanicus loyalists and Hereteks fighting tooth, nail, and mechadendrite everywhere. Ancient machines were unleashed, viruses both normal and daemonic unleashed into all the computer systems. Towards the close of the Heresy, Rogal Dorn sent some Space Marine operatives to wipe the planet clean of all life. Nearly every single stored record on Mars was rendered unusable, and those that survived are half the time self-aware and don't like you, or daemonic and actively try to kill you.
If you come back with a schematic, it is almost certainly gibberish, and if it isn't, it's probably corrupted into uselessness. If it does come back whole it was probably malevolently hosed with so that instead of a Lasgun power cell it's a loving grenade set to detonate the second you finish building it. Why do you think they want off-world STCs so damned much if they had them all here? The loving Heresy is why. Off-world they only have to contend with the Fall's war and its effects on the machinery plus twenty thousand years of degradation with no maintenance. But at least off-world it'll probably just not work instead of actively seeking to kill you.
Why do you think they seek to placate the Machine Spirit? It's because it exists. The fragments of trillions of self-aware programs, flourishing during the Dark Age of Technology and shattered by Man in his war with the Iron men, imprisoning the few who had not set themselves irrevocably into the machinery, a prison smashed wide open by the Heresy. Everything that can hold programming in the Imperium has a shard of a program in it. EVERYTHING. And you'd better loving please it or it will do everything in its power to make your day poo poo. Sure, if it's a Lasgun it'll just not work or start shooting off rounds by itself, but if you piss off a Land Raider you can say bye-bye to half a continent. They apply these principles to things without spirits by habit, since they're so used to dealing with tanks that if not talked to just right might go rogue and annihilate the Manufactorum before they can be killed.
This is why they do not like ANYONE loving with technology, because it is so rare to find anything that just works it is critical it not be compromised. That, and they do not have the actual knowledge to gently caress with it intelligently, just through experimentation, which inevitably leads to slaughter. Pressing buttons to see what works is fine in a 21st century computer, but it is a very stupid thing to do at the helm of a 410th century starship with the destructive power to end solar systems. The entire knowledge base of humanity was lost. Not forgotten, but outright lost. Everything at all, poof. Nobody knows anything because the Fall hosed everything up and the Heresy double-hosed it. To rebuild the theoretical framework needed to design new technologies that don't kill everyone near them would require starting from the ground up. They don't have the time, they never have, and they never will.
This gets on to the point of war and what it does to technology. Someone will parrot that it makes it go much faster. Yes, it makes practical applications of technology go much faster. It also utterly stops all research on the scientific theories behind those technologies. This means that when war chugs along for a decade or two things get done. It means when it goes on too long you run out of theories to turn into technologies, and then you run out of technologies to apply. You stagnate. When you have been fighting in a war for survival in a drastically overextended empire, this is what happens. You are desperate for any extra materiel that can possibly be produced. Half your entire loving military might went rogue, smashed the half that stayed and a whole swathe of the logistical side of your society, leaving you with the tattered shreds of a war machine to keep hold of an empire that was reaching straining point with an army far larger. There is no time for the sort of applied research programs that took Man twenty five thousand years to develop, in a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity.
This is also why the Adeptus Mechanicus insists on cargo cultism. It's because when you are dealing with things you barely understand because everything you knew about them was destroyed it is the safest and most reliable option. The rituals do not exists for mysticism, they exist because they are the most practical means of building, repairing and maintaining the equipment they have with the knowledge surviving. You don't understand why pressing that button makes it go, because the manual tried to take over your brain and the copies are all unreadable and the research base that would let you reverse-engineer it does not exist and cannot be built.
Why are the Tau doing so well with their technology? Because they had peace. Eight thousand years unmolested by any enemy and they were helped the entire time by the most advanced biological race in the galaxy. Give the Imperium eight thousand years of peace and I can guarantee you it will be harder than it was during the Great Crusade.
Since some still don't get the idea, try this:
Build a library, fill it with all human knowledge. You take it elsewhere when you need a book from it, but the book is only a simplified copy. You don't understand the real book, and you don't need to. Nobody takes the real books anywhere because why would you, when there's a whole library there?
Now that library goes rogue and the maintenance machinery starts killing everyone any-loving-where near it. Where the gently caress did they all come from, you swear to god there weren't this many, and there weren't because they're using the library's information to fight their war. The government fights a battle that destroys the planet against these robots and tears apart the library to stop them using it, only to be destroyed in the process. The library is leveled, cast into flames, every book burned and every computer virus-laden.
Then comes a man who worked there. He talks to the few surviving library workers, assembles their information, and starts rebuilding a city around the library and expanding it as the librarians find little scraps of paper and fragmented bits of files that stuck together just right read something. They rebuild a library from scrap on the ashes of the old. It isn't a shadow on the glory of the old, but it is all they have.
Then the city turns on itself, kills its master, and the librarians turn to rage. Half of them kill the other half and destroy the remnants of the library because where they're going they won't need science. Everything burns, and the city is left to a scattered few survivors, walls open to the world, with the hungry predators circling.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is the sole surviving librarian, desperately scrabbling through the ashes of paper and splinters of hard drives for anything to help him and the city he needs to survive just a second longer.
The Imperium isn't grim because things suck by choice and could be fine if a sensible person came along. That sensible person wouldn't survive fifty seconds of the reality. The Imperium is grim because every single poo poo decision, every single sacrifice, every single death, every single man woman and child suffering a poo poo life in the worst conditions imaginable, is the absolute best that can be done. It is a study of the worst happening to everyone and what part of your humanity must be sacrificed today just to stand a chance of survival, and all it asks is whether or not it would have perhaps been better to die."

# ? Dec 20, 2018 07:05

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

ugh will someone please stop the cycle of edging and write out the final fall of the imperium we all know is coming

# ? Dec 20, 2018 07:29

McSpanky: Jan 16, 2005

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

ugh will someone please stop the cycle of edging and write out the final fall of the imperium we all know is coming

# ? Dec 20, 2018 08:23

Cojawfee: May 31, 2006; I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Big Mean Jerk posted:

Generations also has a pretty good Picard epilogue speech that concludes with the absolute best Riker line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHSX9e1TadA

Oh poo poo, what if there was another transporter accident and a third riker was created and bounced back to the planet. And he has to spend years living in the wrecked saucer of the Enterprise. He really would get a chance to sit in that chair.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 09:04

Pascallion: Sep 15, 2003; Man, what the fuck, man?

^^^This but every time the transporter is used ever.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 12:54

galenanorth: May 19, 2016

A malicious party could hack into the transporters and replace people's transporter signatures with his or her clones in order to assist in the amassing of a clone army in order to take over world by world like the Borg, with numbers inflated by purposeful transporter "accidents", but there'd be too much clone-infighting for that plan to work

# ? Dec 20, 2018 13:01

Blade_of_tyshalle: Jul 12, 2009; If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Not even replace the entire person. Just the part of the datastream which is the mind. Have the transporter chief be a replacement already so he can quickly brief the new gestalt on who they appear to be.

# ? Dec 20, 2018 13:30

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# ? May 31, 2024 23:39

Wungus: Mar 5, 2004

simplefish posted:

Honestly it's taken a while for all Star Treks to get good, so Disco has until S3 to get some positive fan reaction or I'm just never gonna bother.

And by "has until S3" I don't mean I'm watching it during that time - I gave it a couple of episodes and it didn't impress me enough to follow along - but if it gets enough people saying "yeah it started poo poo but it's really picked up now" then I'll go back and watch from the start because I'm just wired to be that kind of ~~masochist~~ completionist

Being a star trek fan means embracing your masochism. None of us have ever enjoyed the first season of a trek - not even me, who thinks the Xindi arc of Enterprise is better than all of TOS and a fair chunk of Voyager

# ? Dec 20, 2018 15:08

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