data1701d

joined 2 years ago
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[–] data1701d@startrek.website 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yes and no. I think some people are intolerant out of true hatred and will choose to always act in bad faith. It is difficult to think of how they could coexist.

But also, a lot of people are just intolerant because they don't actually know the people they're hurting, only what they've been told. If they actually got to know the people their vote affects, they might have second thoughts - maybe not change their votes, but at the least be more prepared to live in a tolerant society. Automatically taking away this sector of the intolerant's "right to coexist" (assuming this is an accurate interpretation of your point - I don't intend to sealion, so correct me if I'm wrong) denies them the opportunity to learn and evolve as people and turns us into the intolerant in a sense.

This does not absolve them of their wrong, this does not mean we don't take concrete action against intolerance in society (and unfortunately, sometimes it does mean taking away people's "right to coexist" if they refuse to coexist, although we should avoid it as much possible), and this does not mean these people shouldn't face the consequences of their actions.

Honestly, I often very angry about the intolerant, and part of me wants to feel they've renounced their humanity (the good part, anyway) in some sense, but at the end of the day I have to remind myself such thoughts are not conducive to building a good society (that is, assuming we still have a chance for one, which is not a given).

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 1 points 1 month ago

Reminds me of Mariner jettisoning herself out the holographic airlock saying, "Fail me, fail me, fail me."

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 6 points 1 month 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 6 points 1 month 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.

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

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 1 month 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 1 month 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.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 1 month 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 4 points 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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.

 

I went through LD 5x09 "Fissure Quest" to try and count/estimate the amount of Kims on the Anaximander.

The most we see on screen together not including Lieutenant Kim is 8 Kims on the Beagle Bridge (6 First Contact Uniforms, 1 Voyager uniform, 1 Delta Flyer uniform):

In the scene immediately after the opening credit, we see two non-Lieutenant Kims with the Voyager uniform:

Combining the 8 Kims seen on the Beagle with the extra Voy Kim on the Anaximander, I estimate there to be at least 9 Kims (besides Lt).

However, there are some inconsistencies.

We only see 6 (non-Lieutenant) Kims in the prison, despite it being somewhat implied the Anaximander is mostly empty besides Garak and Bashir:

In one count the mess hall scene, I counted what was at least 6 and at most 11 Kims.

Overall, I'm sticking with my initial estimate of 9 for now.

I wonder what could account for variations in Kims. Were some actually locked up somewhere on the ship? Did Lieutenant Kim forget one?

Also, assuming there are 9-11 Kims, is 14-16 crew (adding Boimler, T'Pol, Curzon, Garak, and the LMH) enough to run a Defiant-class, which usually has compliment more in the 40s? It could be possible that since it's a Section 31 ship that it's outfitted to run with less agents.

P.S I find it a nice bit of canonical accuracy that most Kims are wearing First Contact uniforms (and likely made it home), as since most timelines are close to Prime, uniform designs shouldn't be that different.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/18851336

I usually don't post non-OCs, but this one seems relatively rare. The GIF quality was terrible, so I took the MP4 and encoded it into a high-quality animated WEBP. APNG was tempting, but when I tried that for my Prodigy meme, I ran into all sorts of issues. WEBP seems better supported.

Source: https://tenor.com/view/klingon-jump-rope-gif-7629146

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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by data1701d@startrek.website to c/risa@startrek.website
 

I usually don't post non-OCs, but this one seems relatively rare. The GIF quality was terrible, so I took the MP4 and encoded it into a high-quality animated WEBP. APNG was tempting, but when I tried that for my Prodigy meme, I ran into all sorts of issues. WEBP seems better supported.

Source: https://tenor.com/view/klingon-jump-rope-gif-7629146

 

I've once again noticed a delay of 10-12 hours with Lemmy.world. I just wanted to make sure someone's aware.

Glory to your houses, admins, and thanks for maintaining this instance.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/18753661

We'll see how big the intersection between Trek and TMBG fans is here.

Shut up and get with Garak, dude. (Also, a nod to the amusing show banter in the Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg recording.)

I also posted this on the tmbw Discord.

 

Shut up and get with Garak, dude. (Also, a nod to the amusing show banter in the Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg recording.)

I also posted this on the tmbw Discord.

 

In an attached clip from the video "game" Star Trek: Klingon (in-universe an educational holodeck program), a holographic Gowron violently shakes the player and yells player, "When I say jump out of an airlock, you will JUMP OUT OF AN AIRLOCK!"

My question is, outside of edge cases where it's actually necessary to win a battle, would this level of order-following actually align with proper Klingon theology?

I feel like this would be an honorless death (kind of like if your commander told you to stab yourself with a d'k tahg), and thus if you were actually given an order like this, the proper Klingon thing to do would be to challenge your commanding officer to honorable combat. I could see a more Martokian view that honor demands you follow your commander, though, but I feel like even he would have limits.

I can think of three explanations for what Gowron said: 1) It's simply a hyperbole. 2) Gowron isn't exactly a beacon of Klingon honor (as seen in the last episodes of DS9), so maybe it's a misinterpretation. 3) It's a mistake in the program. Either it's a glitch if it was made in cooperation with the Klingons or it was done entirely by Federation researchers who messed up a bit.

Obviously, this game falls more in Memory Beta territory, but I'd argue it's reasonably canon, as it's basically screen (live action or animated) Star Trek and a song in this game was later canonized in DS9.

 

That scene where they pull away from the station feels like an invisible hand is pulling on my brain.

Also, sometimes I think, "What if this could all be as beautiful as the remasters in What We Left Behind?"

Finally, why does my mind read this in the voice of Vic Fontaine?

 

I’ve made a bizarre observation: commemorative plates tend to be associated more with Star Trek or Star Wars more than other franchise (Stargate seems to have some, too.), and I kind of wonder why.

Obviously, they’re not actually that popular anymore and have faded into kitsch, as the only plate that seems to have come out since DS9/VOY era is the Lower Decks Tom Paris plate - there are no DSC, PIC, Kelvin, or even ENT plates, while newer Star Wars plates don’t seem all that common as well unless you want paper plates.

I’m wondering if it has to do with 2 factors, still somewhat true today but especially in the 1990s:

  • Both Star Wars and Star Trek are decently large fan bases with large proportions of very passionate fans that are more likely to make purchases based on their fandom.
  • Both tended to attract (and still do) an upper middle class to upper class demographic (Somehow, Bezos can call himself Trekkie 🤦‍♂️) with more disposable income to spend on collecting.

These would have made the plates commercially viable, meaning to both inside and outside observers, plates became a stereotype of the fandoms.

Anyhow, what are your thoughts?

P.S. Wow, this is starting to feel like a meta version of Daystrom.

 

Let's say we have a certain Trill symbiont with a host. What would happen if the symbiont was duplicated under the condition that:

  • The host and symbiont were transporter cloned. (2 Jadzia Daxs)
  • A person from an alternate timeline with the same symbiont ends up permanently marooned in the prime timeline. (Larry Dax from a timeline where Curzon didn't reinstate Jadzia coexisting with prime Jadzia)
  • A past host comes back from the dead with a version of the symbiont a la Spock or Shaxs, or even something similar to Doctor Who's concept of an extraction chamber (Jadzia got bored in Sto'Vo'Kor and decided to climb the Black Mountain, meaning her and Ezri exist simultaneously)

I imagine in all of them, the commission would at least let the duplicate live for the rest of the lifespan of the original host, much like the Federation at large treats transporter clones.

However, what happens when it comes time for the symbiont to be transferred? I can't imagine the commission's ideology would smile upon duplicate experiences under much of the same rationale against re-association: there would be a duplication of experiences rather than the acquiring of new ones.

I think in the first case at least, it is reasonable to assume that they'd begrudgingly transfer both symbionts, as both have the equally valid claim to being the original and randomly killing one is straight-up murder, which I imagine the rest of the Federation would dislike.

They might also do so in the second case, as at least our Larry boy has some different experiences even if some are duplicate with prime Dax.

The third one is where it gets very muddy. The nature of souls in general is a muddy subject - twofold when there are two beings involved. For the sake of argument, we'll say the Jadzia in Ezri's symbiont accessible by Zhian'tara is a "backup" of Jadzia up to her death and that a separate Jadzia Dax went to Sto'Vo'Kor^1^. What then?

1: I make this assumption because a) Ezri doesn't have Jadzia's memories of Sto'Vo'Kor and b) it was the combination of Dax and Jadzia that engaged in Klingon ritual and "just" Jadzia would not be the person that participated. Of course, this starts getting into the more mystical parts of the franchise, and it's probably good they keep it vague even through it makes canon discussion like this a nightmare... a FUN nightmare.

 

Okay, the title may be a bit of comedic overstatement. What I really mean is I love the Lower Decks soundtrack and think Westlake may have been meant for Star Trek. I don't know what it is, but it truly evokes TNG era background music but on steroids.

I can't wait for the second volume. RIP Lower Decks - may the next few years prove to be the "Search for Lower Decks" (minus the butchering of a good Vulcan character, the pointless death... okay, maybe that wasn't the most apt comparison).

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