Trek Thread

[RogueIce]

Look Torpedo Spread looks way cooler with QTs than photorps so fuck you and your logic.

[timmy]

True dat

[Stofsk]

I always thought THY looked pretty good with quantums. Spread is for photons.

[timmy]

High yield looks the best with the... Well, high yield weapons. Like tricobalt devices, and the Omega launcher.

[uraniun235]

Barely related: destroying the crystalline entity is one of the hardest PvEs in STO.

The fact that it's a thing at all says a lot about the broader fanon and the compromises that have to be made for the sake of a game.

And Borg cubes go down if you look at them funny

Bill, Picard made a comparison between this creature and the sperm whale. 'The animal is not evil, it is feeding.' Yet, they were going to try to communicate with it? Communication wouldn't be possible or necessary if it was just an animal. 'Datalore' established the precedent that it was intelligent, Lore was the one who lured it to Omicron Theta. Hell, Lore openly talks to it on the bridge.

If they communicate with it, great. But I seriously doubt that will solve the problem. It appears ready and able to consume entire biospheres, and Picard's analogy is totally inapt a comparison to make. As Dr Marr says, 'People are not cuttlefish.' And giant warp-capable snowflakes are not sperm whales either. And even Riker was telling Picard his whole 'let's not kill it unless we absolutely must' thing was too risky.

If Picard hadn't made that really godawfully stupid analogy, I wouldn't have a problem with the episode. If he had said instead 'Look we know from our past dealings with it, that it's at least intelligent enough to respond to directions. That implies higher cognition. Maybe we can negotiate with it, reach an understanding so that it doesn't murder whole planets.' Instead of saying 'There are those, Doctor, who would argue that the Crystalline Entity has as much right to be here as we do.' Picard comes across as a complete asshole in this episode. Or in that scene, at the very least.

I think the key question is: Is the Crystalline Entity malevolent? Is it purposeful in its murders, or does it not know any better? If it's the former, then yeah, it'll probably be a lot harder to convince it to stop, and we probably shouldn't trust it anyway.

That said, I actually just went back and skimmed Datalore, which really cuts out the knees from this episode. I remembered Lore talking to it in the cargo bay scene, but I'd forgotten earlier when he (posing as Data, on the Bridge, in front of everyone) tells it to stop attacking and back off (or else it's going to get fucked up), and it does.

[Bounty]

Can anyone recommend me some good Trek books? I've started How Much For Just The Planet and really enjoyed Ex Machina. Also read Ghost Ship, which was okay but weird, and I started some TNG novel with Q but gave up.

[Flagg]

The Buried Age is ok.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

There are some book threads on TEO to check out. Honestly, they vary so much in quality and style that I can't really recommend any of them with any confidence unless I know what you are looking for specifically.

I suppose anything by Peter David or some of short story collections are good.

[timmy]

Can anyone recommend me some good Trek books? I've started How Much For Just The Planet and really enjoyed Ex Machina. Also read Ghost Ship, which was okay but weird, and I started some TNG novel with Q but gave up.

Was Ghost Ship the TNG one with the Soviet aircraft carrier?

That was definitely kinda different.

[Bounty]

Can anyone recommend me some good Trek books? I've started How Much For Just The Planet and really enjoyed Ex Machina. Also read Ghost Ship, which was okay but weird, and I started some TNG novel with Q but gave up.

Was Ghost Ship the TNG one with the Soviet aircraft carrier?

That was definitely kinda different.

yup. I reread it a while ago and it's actually an excellent SF novel. It just doesn't really feel like Trek because it was written almost before the series started, so the characters and tone are a bit... off.

[Stofsk]

If you want to read a longish series (around 8 books, one of which is an anthology containing 4 novellas), you could try the Vanguard series. It runs contemporaneously through TOS, the first book in fact has the Enterprise cameo just after they got back from Delta Vega, while the final book ends around the end of the five-year mission.

A brief synopsis: Starfleet finds a macguffin on an uncharted planet in an uncharted sector, which trips several alarm bells to people in charge of the Federation; a few years later and Starbase 47, nicknamed Vanguard, comes online and officially is in charge of Federation expansion in the sector, which is bordered by the Tholians and the Klingons. Whatever the macguffin is, Starfleet is convinced it's dangerous; the Klingons don't know why Starfleet is so interested in the sector, but they're interested because Starfleet is; and the Tholians aren't forthcoming with what they know, but they've historically avoided the sector completely. The series is full of political intrigue and the writers push the whole Cold War aspect of TOS.

It has some good moments to it, but also it has some bad moments as well. On the balance, I'd say it was more successful than not at telling a good story. David Mack wrote four of the books, and they're the best ones, including the first and last books; he also wrote one of the novellas in the anthology book and that was also the best one out of the four. If you're familiar with his work then this might draw you to it (he also wrote DS9's 'Starship Down' so he's a legit Trek writer, if that means anything). There's a wealth of Trek references sprinkled throughout the series. Notable minor characters from TOS feature heavily, such as Dr M'Benga, Clark Terrel, and Admiral Nogura.

[timmy]

yup. I reread it a while ago and it's actually an excellent SF novel. It just doesn't really feel like Trek because it was written almost before the series started, so the characters and tone are a bit... off.

Not to mention that the first chapter reads like Tom Clancy, which doesn't prepare you for anything further. I read it after reading half a dozen of the later books(like The Romulan Strategem, which was politics, and Rogue Saucer, which was popcorn fun), so the high-tone sci-fi stuff and veiled Arthur C. Clarke tips of the hat were a big change of pace.

[timmy]

Another fond TNG book memory: E-D detects a warp signature near a planet not on The List. First contact protocols go into effect, and they discover that these people are preparing for invasion by a generational sub-luminal fleet that they've been able to watch slowly advancing. It's more complicated than that, but the writer appeared to have had as much fun producing it as I did reading it.

[Bounty]

I wish there were more episodes with the Mutants. They're probably the episodes that best mix comedy and drama. Patrick, Lauren en Jack getting into DS9 by dressing up in Starfleet uniforms and having Patrick say "that's a stupid question" whenever anyone questions them: classic.

[timmy]

So no shit, Wil Wheaton actually bought this for his infant nephew. Rest of the story here

As I said earlier, he grew up and embraced his geekhood. Bless him.

[RogueIce]

I wish Wil Wheaton was my uncle.

[uraniun235]

Hey Chris, just an update: turns out Data himself said nothing natural travels at warp speed during TNG Tin Man, so there's another strike against Silicon Avatar.

[Stofsk]

[Big Orangutan]

The Crystalline Entity was likely a machine, but when machines are so complex they become living beings themselves. Was it tricked into consuming people by a lying, manipulative Lore?

There the crew recognised the danger of the cloud creature and aimed to destroy it, but in a similar episode in TNG they were trying to communicate with it. Which is all well and good, but Picard's priorities were fucking wrong. And about the only person who actually stood up and told him so was Riker - this was after Picard actually had the temerity to question Riker's objectivity (earlier in the episode Riker lost an old lover to the Entity). And yet when Dr Marr took matters in her own hand, the narrative clearly paints her as the bad guy. Oh look, here's this vengeful mother, fucking it all up - how dare she.

From what I can vaguely remember, I found her motives understandable and it was not as if the Crystalline Entity didn't have it coming, with Picard ready to blow it up anyway, but on the other hand she was still taking things into her own hands and destroyed it when they were trying to understand its motives (also the Entity posed no danger to the ship which had a weapons trained upon it).

[Stofsk]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7Kazj4c1ULY
Uraniun posted this on Facebook, which then introduced me to this:


http://youtube.com/watch?v=gTAIET765Ts
I can totally see Quark doing this on the show

[timmy]

Classic TOS

Rojan was incited to a jealous rage by Kirk and Kelinda's repeated 'apology' sessions.

[RogueIce]

I have to say that the first minute of this trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness is fucking awesome. I loved every bit of it. If they had aired that with nothing else it would have been more than enough to get my butt into a seat.

The second half is cool too but pretty standard trailer stuff. And then the last bit brings it back to the mood of the first half.

Anyway I'm psyched for this movie, gotta admit. Glad nuTrek will be back soon.

[timmy]

I just read this and it cheers me that they cared enough to consider it

In early stages of the film's development, the ship was named the USS Iowa. While known by this eventually unused name, the vessel was given a registry number of 1201. In a later interview with screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Kurtzman explained that the ship's initial name was to have been "our nod" to the fact that the prime universe James T. Kirk had been semi-established as having been born in Iowa. "Then we decided that was too radical," Kurtzman said of the reference. Orci further explained that the writers imagined that – in the prime timeline, shortly prior to the birth of James Kirk – the Kelvin would have successfully completed the return journey to Earth, safely delivering the as-yet unborn boy, as well as his parents, to the planet.

[adr]

what's the thing fear itself fears most?

captain janeway!

lololol

[evilsoup]

wasn't that an actual episode? With an evil clown IIRC