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

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Still better than this dogshit

MikeJF posted:

I want a Trek where Deck 9 section 3 is vapour sulphuric acid atmosphere and section 5 is 400 degrees and deck 10 and 11 starboard are entirely submerged and etc

I mean the main characters would only go there occasionally, it wouldn't be too bad production-wise.

Although it's been implied before that Starfleet partially segregates ships based on species, which would make sense for those cases. But the Enterprise could be more diverse as the flagship.

And have an entire population of AI. Some manifest as humanoid holograms. Some look just like weird static.

Sector General TV show, got it.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2016 23:52

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 10:37

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Why the gently caress would a starship have a stun setting? What could you possibly use that for outside of this one specific case?

comes up more times than you think

# ¿ Jul 24, 2016 21:29

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Starfleet obviously randomizes registry numbers to defeat the German Tank Problem.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2016 07:19

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Can I post about how lego star wars was pretty good and lego star trek seems like a slam dunk even if the cg is obviously way more ambitious than they can handle?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2016 02:50

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

Because it's the fourth movie so they have to do time travel. It's like symmetry.

Star Trek 2: KHAAAAAAAN
Star Trek 3: Enterprise destroyed
Star Trek 4: Time Travel

see? so simple

Star Trek 1: Enterprise destroyed
Star Trek 2: Enterprise destroyed
Star Trek 3: Enterprise destroyed
Star Trek 4: Enterprise destroyed????

# ¿ Jul 26, 2016 21:31

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

I don't think Enterprise ever got wrecked in the first one

It was totalled when they blew themselves up to escape a black hole. Technically in one piece but...

# ¿ Jul 26, 2016 23:25

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Baronjutter posted:

What would that philosophy be be the way? The idea that it's ok for some people to have massive biological advantages over others so long as it's "natural" for their race, but trying to do it on purpose is playing god and horrible.

Why can Vulcans have super strength but humans can't? Why can tons of races of minor to major psychic powers but humans can't? And if all this technology does exist and is fairly easy to do why isn't every race that doesn't have the federation's hang-ups on engineering not turning them into super people. Do you really think the romulans would scoff at turning their race or at least their elite into genetic supermen?

If there's one thing you learn about the star trek galaxy from watching the tv shows, it's that the Milky Way is littered with the ruins of dead civilizations.

The best explanation for 'why doesn't starfleet do this' is that they found the results of loving it up in an episode-of-the-week and decided against it.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2016 19:57

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

were they even in orbit?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2016 20:53

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Reed is his job. He's the dude in charge of shootiness. Phase pistols, torpedoes, ship security, all that. He's not much more than that, and I've come to appreciate that as I've gotten older. He's mostly professional, but when he falls apart, he does so hard. The military is full of Reeds.

Trip is far more a lovely stereotype, to the point the show lampshades him as a lame southern stereotype.

He's not going to understand it if you explain like that.

Trip fixes things. Things to make them go.

Reed shoots things. Things to make them dead.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2016 02:21

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

The Dark One posted:

The "aghast at selling tobacco" thing isn't even consistent since Quark had no problem selling weapons to both sides of a bloody conflict.

Tobacco kills of the person paying you money, weapons kill off other people :pseudo:

# ¿ Aug 1, 2016 03:21

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Baka-nin posted:

The episode opens with Picard painting a nude model, his painting looks like an ugly attempt at Picasso's cubism, and Data mercilessly tells him how poor and ugly a painting it is. This now one of my favourite Data moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7jbP1_H9sA

# ¿ Aug 1, 2016 18:31

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Arglebargle III posted:

It's a bit confusing how Bajor struggles with environmental remediation in the first few seasons when the Federation is right there in orbit. Presumably that's the kind of thing the feds would be delighted to help with free of charge.

Star Trek Online reveals that the Bijoran civilians will shoot federation firefighters on sight.

They aren't exactly friendly to outside involvement.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2016 19:31

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Dirty posted:

Late-90s me can back this up. Late-90s me did extensive research. Leeta's boobs are part-costume.

EDIT: Now I think about it, I remember hearing that the starfleet uniforms also had all sorts of padding going on. Apparently it was against the rules for there to be any hint of a bra. If bras are obsolete in the 24th century, then starfleet must be using some kind of forcefield tech, which sounds about right for them. I remember reading an interview where Nicole de Boer mentioned her uniform was padded for size as well as smoothness, so I guess starfleet has a minimum boob size as well. I think some of the guys also had padding, like Worf, and I assume Frakes because past season 2 he just sort of became a smooth cylinder. Combined with the type of actors they used, the end result sort of gave all 24th century starfleet officers the same smooth body shape.

The original uniforms actually gave Patrick Stewart back problems.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2016 16:35

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Angry Salami posted:

Skin-tight spandex with no give whatsoever meant they were constantly pulling down on the actor's shoulders.

Yep. And ordered a size too small to make sure they absolutely had no wrinkles.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2016 16:53

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

He kept getting told to make the music worse because if it was too good it was too noticable.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2016 16:27

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Gaz-L posted:

Aw, that's cute, pretending like the first 2 seasons of Enterprise consisted of original material and not old VOY and TNG scripts with the names scratched out and replaced.

and VOY scripts were rejected TNG scripts, so it's double-rejected

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 02:10

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Arglebargle III posted:

Early 90s TV just isn't as good as modern TV admit it.

Babylon 5 was two seasons of absolutely gripping television crammed into a five-season run.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2016 05:32

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

Now Enterprise is coming along, and the producers are swearing up and down "oh, this series is gonna be totally different, it's going to be so different that we're not even putting Star Trek in the main title, we're really taking it back and changing it up," annnnnd first episode has Klingons, ~~phasers~~ phase pistols with stun settings, the transporter being used on a person and to whisk the captain out of harm's way. The producers had talked a big bunch of bullshit and then totally failed to deliver, again. I quit right after the first episode. I was done, I already knew it was going to be more of the same crap I was already tired of, so I walked away and didn't come back. I only started skimming episodes a year or two ago, well over ten years after the series had aired, and I have zero regrets about not giving that series a second chance when it was still airing.

'Aggressively bland and not trying new things' is exactly what Enterprise desperately needed to not do. They really needed to not do the same old poo poo again and again, and they couldn't help themselves, and they deserved to fall on their face for it.

'they aren't phasers, they're phase cannons'
'they aren't photon torpedoes, they're photonic torpedos'

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 03:42

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Mortanis posted:

Yeah, as someone that plays STO, I can't think of a non show/movie ship they've created that I don't immediately hate. There's a few that elicit an apathetic "meh" at best.

The risian luxury cruiser is pretty great

The top half is glass, with has a little beach with a desert island and a sailboat inside. :kimchi:

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 22:24

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Timby posted:

Didn't Cryptic have to rush it because the original developer (which had a much more impressive design for the game, as I recall) went broke and had to surrender the license?

Basically yes.

STO is a shambling frankenstein built on the corpse of Champions Online.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 23:35

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Why cookie Rocket posted:

Woah woah woah.

Back up.

How did you get STO to run instead of hanging at the loading screen?

Run it in safe mode from the launcher.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2016 06:19

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

remusclaw posted:

Which bring me back to Generations and all those people on the inhabited planet in the path of the Nexus that are never shown. Not that it really makes much of a difference with that movie. The 50 years documentary really made me realize just how Spiderman 3 that movie was. We want you to make a Next Gen movie, but it has to have the old crew, but only for about 15 minutes. It has to have a Picard story. It has to have a Data comedy story. We want a villain like Kahn. Ooh we also want the Klingons. Can there be time travel?

Sure, let's try premise mad libs.

Klingon separatists want to prevent the empire from going soft, and believe that the only way to ensure True Klingon Strength is to surround the klingon empire with equally warlike states. So they're going to go back in time to prevent the more two-fisted action federation of the original series to stay that way - by getting them embroiled in unending war. Either the federation turns into a worthy ally, or a worthy enemy - they don't really care which. The main klingon villain quotes shakespeare, but the bloodier plays, and considers the fact that shakespeare's comedies are now far preferred to his tragedies to be perfect proof of federation decadence.

Due to technobabble, the Enterprise is exempt from the effects of this time shift. The new Federation is far better at fending off the borg and dominion attacks, and Picard must struggle with whether he considers the many lives saved by the heavily militarized federation worth the uneasy ceasefires, reduction (but not lack) of personal liberties, and xenophobia. Eventually, he goes back in time to stop the klingons, meeting up with the crew of the original enterprise. There's moralizing about how in the past things were more like the wild west, but the goal was always to make for a more calm, peaceful, and understanding world - and that ultimately freedom is worth the cost.

Meanwhile, Data experiments with marijuana.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2016 08:10

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

FlamingLiberal posted:

The problem with Voyager/Enterprise weren't necessarily the ideas, it was absolutely the execution being botched and the writing was poor. It's very frustrating that they took good ideas like having a ship cut off from Starfleet and lost in the Delta Quadrant and messed it up. That and how Enterprise was pretty bland until the 3rd season, and it's not really until the 4th season that we get actual 'founding of the Federation' stuff like we were all promised.

It also occurs to me that the Starfleet/Maquis internal ship conflict was continued for the series about as well as Archer's grudge against Vulcans was. Meaning both poorly.

Reminder that Neelix was supposed to be 'Star Trek's Han Solo'.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2016 01:58

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Tsaedje posted:

Also Bashir's appalling medical ethics

Not as bad as the medical ethics on Enterprise.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2016 20:46

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Cardassians are consistently portrayed as victims of systematic racism, even throughout DS9.

Dukat was right.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 01:00

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Cat Hatter posted:

The Defiant isn't the fastest ship, it can only go Warp 9.5 (holy poo poo writers, a whole tenth of warp? Sure you don't want to bump it up to 9.55 so it doesn't lag too far behind the Enterprise? The loving war will be over by the time the Defiant shows up!).

The asymptotic warp scale is dumb as shiiiiiit

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 21:52

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Gaz-L posted:

I've seen this said a lot in the thread and I don't get it? I like it because it prevents constant inflation. Rules are good because they give you a framework for different writers to say within.

Because there's still inflation, it's just doing warp 9.9 instead of warp 9.8, and 9.95 instead of 9.9

End result is you have a scale where even fewer numbers are used than videogame reviews do, and it becomes impossible to communicate the viewer any meaningful differences.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 22:10

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

cenotaph posted:

The last episode of TAS has a ship going like warp 36 or something. It's dumb.

To be fair that was in the anti-time negaverse where Benjamin Button came from.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2016 22:16

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Gaz-L posted:

Yes, and when Picard says "go to Rigel 14 at warp 7" then they get a distress call and he says "increase to warp 9.5" you get that he's saying "GO WAY FASTER". But if he said "increase to warp 2000" you've lost all sense of scale.

And clearly there's a sense of huge changes in scale involved in going from warp 9.5 to warp 9.7!!!!!!!!!

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 00:40

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Also it's probably standard procedure to use serial numbers that avoid the german tank problem.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 02:49

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Fortunately all they need to know is 'we have a cloaking device'.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 19:03

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

If it's a good cloaking device nobody would ever have seen it before.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 20:33

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

MikeJF posted:

Basics was kinda meant to be their send-off, but they weren't sure if they'd have to revisit the well so they didn't make it solid and say 'this is happening because it's their last chance before we leave their range forever'

I still think that Voyager should've been structured like Buffy, with a new season-long enemy each season that corresponded to a new area of space.

That would have worked pretty well. It'd be cool if they changed the space visuals each season as well, like making season 3 near the galactic core so there are just shitloads of stars in all the space shots or something.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2016 09:07

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Rhyno posted:

Harry got sucked out a hull breach but then I remembered there's a backup copy.

That was the copy that was sucked out of the breach, Harry is the only survivor of the real voyager on a ship of duplicates.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2016 23:45

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Duckbag posted:

I don't think there was an original. They call the anomaly of the week a "subspace scission" which implies they sort of got split down the middle.

Except it didn't work on the antimatter, which means there actually was a difference between the two voyagers.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 01:05

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Cojawfee posted:

Computer, create an autist capable of outsperging Data.

Computer, turn that monitor back on.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 17:05

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

bull3964 posted:

The design language for those ships is still pretty confused as it also looks like a Klingon design. You can put a D7 and bird of prey side by side and say "yup, those came out of the same shipyard."

Really, if you cut the front pylon and bridge pod off of a D7, it looks a lot like a squared off TOS BoP.

So, we can just say both races were either sharing or stealing off of each other. It's not until the Romulans withdrew from attention that they emerged with a wholly different design language.

Turns out that's the best shape for a cloaking device.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 20:27