data1701d

joined 2 years ago
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[–] data1701d@startrek.website 5 points 19 hours ago

You're forgetting Ad Homicide: Just because you killed someone doesn't mean you're right.

(And of course, its vice versa, just because you (or someone with your views) got killed doesn't mean you're right, which admittedly is less common in history, but nonetheless something to be aware of to evaluate arguments critically.)

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 4 points 22 hours ago

You know, I think Paramount+ could increase its rating by one star just by replacing the mountain in its splash screen with Pike’s face and a huge Pike’s peak.

Of course, another star would come from the app actually working well and allowing you to actually use the resolutions you pay for on all the devices you owned, but the DRM cult continues, punishing paying customers and making pirating a more pleasant experience in some ways.

Another star or two would come from Paramount actually having the spine to stick up to authoritarians rather than sucking up to them in the name of profits, but that’s not going to happen with the oligopoly the American entertainment industry has become.

I mean, that's fair.

I feel that somewhat by accident, Lower Decks does better capture some aspects of classic Trek than other series, namely being mostly episodic and bringing a sense of humor back to Trek, and it sometimes even attains a level of dramatic skill comparable to the best of classic Trek (namely above all else the exchange between Mariner and Ma'ah in the S4 finale). Also, I'm honestly really impressed that Lower Decks managed to get me attached to its characters and make it feel like they've evolved so much in a total runtime less than that of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

That said, Lower Decks does lack the mellow charm and the long(er)-form storytelling of classic Trek. However, considering the Trekiness they otherwise pulled off, I kind of wonder how the Lower Decks writers would do if they were given the opportunity to do a 50 minute "standard" Trek series; I think they might be able to do pretty well.

Similarly, with SNW, while it has some of the strongest writing of social interaction, the sci-fi aspect is often weaker than it should be. For instance, "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans" is almost a brain-dead premise in terms of science fiction, but executed so well in terms of the social dynamics and character writing.

In other words, I can see your desire for a no-compromises, no catches Trek.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 5 points 2 days ago

You’re forgetting the 4th one.

Wesley Crusher: Jack Crusher was actually replaced by a surgically-altered Cardassian spy whose goal was to incriminate Picard by secretly impregnating his wife with Picard’s DNA, making it seem like they were cheating on him. Wesley is actually Picard’s child, thus why he’s so weird around Wesley.

(We love you anyway, Wes!)

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When you put it that way, I agree.

TNG made a point to avoid doing this as much as possible, and it ultimately worked and arguably usurped the original.

I guess that’s also part of the strength of Lower Decks and somewhat Prodigy; both shows are the only ones of this wave to be mostly focused on original characters. Lower Decks does bring in legacy characters frequently, and Prodigy does have Hologram Janeway and later starts to heavily feature legacy characters as part of the storyline, but both have an original cast as the core of the show that isn’t anyone we know’s brother or cousin. I superficially thought about this, but didn’t think about it in comparison to the other newer Treks before.

 

In the minute possibly that a TOS continuation were to happen, where should they start from?

Would they go from end of TAS in 2270, or would they start from end of TOS in 2269, overlapping in time with TAS?

In the latter case, I would hope they do it so it’s in-between star dates of TAS to avoid bungling the chronology.

This also opens up the possibility for retelling some TAS episodes; I think most TAS episodes best belong in TAS, with the TAS camp and overall continued TOS storytelling conventions being fundamental to their charm. Live action remakes of a lot of these episodes would probably serve just to strip them of their soul rather than add anything.

The main exception I can think of might be “Yesteryear”; I think having an “extended version” as a full 50 minute episode or even possibly a 2-parter could allow them to add more depth to the story in a way that doesn’t severely break canon, showing more of Spock’s family life and school life as well as Vulcan society in general. I think this is a big story well-suited to newer Trek’s more dramatic storytelling style.

I think the biggest difficulty might be how they would handle young Michael Burnham in this episode. I think the easiest thing to do would be to just say Burnham’s parents were killed in December 2236 and “Yesteryear” happened in January 2237 a couple weeks to a month before Sarek took in Burnham. While I don’t necessarily hate the idea of young Burnham, I think Spock dealing with suddenly having a new adoptive sister would unnecessarily convolute the plot, so my solution works around that. I don’t want Yesteryear to be turned from a coming-of-age and being different story to one about sibling bonding. Then again, maybe they can pull it off and make something good.

What are your thoughts on this? Any other TAS episodes you think could benefit from being adapted into a live action episode?

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I mean, if they struck a balance, it could be enjoyable enough.

It’s not a dynamic we’ve fully explored in Trek. We kind of got it with adult Jake and Captain Sisko in the later seasons of DS9, but we haven’t really fully seen the experience of a Starfleet empty nester.

Still, drama after drama is rather annoying.

After being disgusted by the horribly-done pre-school show, I’d much rather see a Star Trek done in the spirit of Craig of the Creek and Bluey that’s about a friend group of kids running around a star base and getting into fun and trouble and low-stakes ethical dilemmas, preferably while their parents (the crew and civilian residents) deal with DS9 levels of heavy stuff. After saying this to my younger sibling, they have a more developed pitch, having sketched up some concept art for fun.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I would certainly not reject a well-written Lower Decks season 6, so I don’t agree on the animated comedy front.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 9 points 4 days ago

What always drove me insane about DIS Orions is they all looked the same; same skin tone and same hair color.

Probably the only reason I could tell Osyraa from other Orions was she was the main woman Orion and usually in contexts where it made sense for the Emerald Chain leader to be there. Pretty much all the other people were barely distinguishable from each other.

Lower Decks did a better job on that front I feel; part of it is definitely just that it’s animated and so they can use character design to distinguish them. However, they also did so many things to distinguish one Orion from another that could be done with makeup; there were so many skin tone and hair color variations. For instance, in “Hear All, Trust Nothing”, Tendi has more of a lime green skin tone while Mesk has more neon green one.

To be fair, Discovery was the first series to roll out Orions as a regularly-occurring species. (I consider Enterprise’s use not so regular.) I think Trek has gotten better at it since then. Take SNW’s Remy for example:

I’m not forgetting that guy’s face any time soon. Granted, I don’t think I would count SNW as having regularly-occurring Orions yet. We’ll see if maybe STA does it better.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 1 points 4 days ago

How do we know the whole Star Trek franchise isn’t some Romulan plot to erase the Federation from the timeline via butterfly effect?

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I think they just had to put something there, so they threw in a joke. They probably never expected it to be visible or readable.

It’s similar in nature to how the DS9 promenade directory has “Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems” from Buckaroo Bonzai, albeit a more dark-humored example.

In universe, it doesn’t exist, I’d say. It’s just a part of the aesthetic, similar to how some things on TOS would look less hokey in real life.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 4 points 5 days ago

I think it was TNG Tech Manual?

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/29610115

For the two people on Earth who are both Trekkies and Team Starkid fans.

If you don't get this reference, fix yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrxKX44qBJ0

 

For the two people on Earth who are both Trekkies and Team Starkid fans.

If you don't get this reference, fix yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrxKX44qBJ0

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It has its weaknesses, but I think you should watch it if just to form your own opinion.

I’ve only watched through the middle of season 4, where I got a bit tired of it, though I might pick it back up.

Season 1 is interesting, season 2 is weird, and season 3 has its flaws but keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Season 4 I feel like squanders the new setting introduced in season 3; the plot they introduce feels so artificial to me, which is very upsetting because it feels like the new setting has so many stories that would practically write themselves even if you do decide to lean on “Big Bad Villain/Problem” storytelling.

 

Well, I just finished DS9 for the 3rd or 4th time, and to offset the despair of the finally, I've turned to an emotional coping rewatch of Lower Decks.

However, I don't necessarily enjoy a lot of the season 1 episodes; thus I often start at S1 E8 "Veritas". I feel like it's one of the first truly good episodes of LD, as its narrative structure is a comedic version of Star Trek's general experimentation with alternate narrative formats a la VOY:"Final Witness" or DS9:"Rules of Engangement", and the humor just generally starts to get better. I also find a bit of genius in the foreshadowing that Tendi is more than she lets on with her combat scenes.

Also, the S1 episodes after that are some of the strongest episodes of the seasons.

What are your thoughts? Where do you tend to start on an LD rewatch?

 

Once by Archer in ENT:"Carpenter Street" (though T'Pol did more of the work), and another by Paris and Tuvok in VOY:"Future'sEnd".

 

No answers like, "They're all from Earth", "They're all in some version of Starfleet or United Earth Fleet", etcetera.

My AnswerAll three have stolen a Dodge-branded car.

In fact, Paris and Archer stole nearly exactly the same kind of blue Dodge Truck, Archer in ENT:"Capenter Street" and Paris in VOY:"Future's End". I found this out while browsing the Memory Alpha facts for the Enterprise episode.


Bonus if you can think of other weird ones.

 

I’ve been on a bit of a button-making kick, and here’s my latest one.

Bonus: The earlier one I did for TMBW. It needs some work in the margins - I just haven’t gotten to it yet.

TMBW button

 

Has anyone else had the issue lately where when making a post, it gets posted twice?

I can't tell what's been happening, but it has occurred multiple times recently. I use Firefox, so maybe that's a factor, but I'd also guess Firefox usage per capita is higher than average in the Lemmy crowd.

In at least one case, I pressed the create button, and it appeared to not work, so I pressed it again.

I feel like I should file a bug report, but I first need to do more troubleshooting, but since I can't just go fill a random community with posts trying to reproduce this bug, I should probably set up a test instance. Before I do that, though, I was wondering if anyone else had experienced this problem.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/26158084

I wanted a very 90s web-feeling GIF of a TOS science division badge(technically animated WEBP, but whatever), so I threw together the badge in Inkscape, then imported it into Blender to do animation and rendering.

I decided to make the border gold instead of the canon black, as it just looks every so slightly cooler during the spin animation in a very dumb way. I also went for metallic rather than trying to mimic embroidery because I was lazy.

 

I wanted a very 90s web-feeling GIF of a TOS science division badge(technically animated WEBP, but whatever), so I threw together the badge in Inkscape, then imported it into Blender to do animation and rendering.

I decided to make the border gold instead of the canon black, as it just looks every so slightly cooler during the spin animation in a very dumb way. I also went for metallic rather than trying to mimic embroidery because I was lazy.

 

EDIT: Accidentally duplicated post. Please see https://startrek.website/post/25896181 for all responses.

EDIT: The Harry Kim thing is more of a joke. This is less a question about Harry Kim and more about Nog.

Something about Nog's literacy history brings up a ton of weird questions in-universe.

  1. How are the Ferengi able to be a functional space-faring species and business empire without at least a little emphasis on literacy?

Even for as class-based a society as the Ferengi, lower level workers have to have at least a little literacy to read instrument panels, repair ships, make sure they're carrying the right package, etcetera.

I think a key example here is Rom, who starts out a relatively typical exploited Ferengi - how would he read manuals to repair a holosuite without literacy.

I see two explanations. One, perhaps by "reading", they're referring to reading of a lengua franca like Federation standard - Nog has learned and is capable of reading the Ferengi language, but not another. When dealing with other languages, the general expectation is either a universal translator is used or they pick it up as they go.

Alternatively, it could be that it is expected in Ferengi culture that reading is just something you pick up on the job rather than in a concerted educational effort.

  1. How did Nog manage to "catch up" fast enough to attain the educational level needed for a Starfleet officer?

Of course, it is said and implied that after the school closes, Keiko teaches Jake and Nog one-on-one. Some education definitely happened off-screen.

Still, Starfleet seems to have educational requirements. In LD:"Something Borrowed, Something Green", Tendi mentions how she wouldn't have gotten into the Academy without having gone to high school, suggesting Nog needs the equivalent of a high school education to train to be a Starfleet officer.

It sounds a little ridiculous to go from being unable to read to a full high school education in less than three years, though that could be a bigger stretch than I'm making it out to be.

I'd say the simplest explanation is probably that again, Nog was more educated than we might interpreting being "unable to read" to mean.

It might be possible Ferengi also have higher-than-human-average neuroplasticity and simply adapt easier - this might even aid in the on the job theory.

So what are your ten cents? Also, it's been a while - glad to be back on Daystrom.

 

EDIT: Accidentally duplicated post. Please see https://startrek.website/post/25896182 for all responses and put future responses there. Also, I have more theorizing there.

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