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williams_482

@ williams_482 @startrek.website

Posts
53
Comments
155
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • DS9: Currency and the Federation

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  • That happened at least once, when Quark's employees formed a union and went on strike. I believe Sisko went to that well a number of times when Quark crossed a line or refused to do something important.

    Really, it makes sense. Quark is profiting hugely from the Federation's willingness to not only give him a bunch of business but also not collect on some key expenses. That's a great business arrangement, but also gives the Federation leverage over someone they wouldn't otherwise have any trust in.

  • Episode Analysis | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x01 "Twovix" and 4x02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"

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  • why restore the transporter patterns to their components rather than their Tuvix’d counterparts?

    Counterpoint: why would you restore the transporter merges? The Tuvix'd contingent occupies the exact same state as the original individuals: "dead", destroyed in the process of recreating another, larger being. Reverting to those obviously unstable and dangerous merged beings instead of the individuals who had been merged to create them would be absurd.

  • Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x01 "Twovix" and 4x02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"

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  • My first thought was Slave I from Star Wars, which doesn't really lend itself to any Trekverse theories.

  • Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x01 "Twovix" and 4x02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"

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  • So why did Boimler's between-the-holodecks room have the (embarrassing) events of both adjacent holodecks reverberating through it? One of the core capabilities of a holodeck is the ability to manipulate where sounds appear to be coming from, which must include the ability to dampen sounds enormously. And if that technology exists, it should likely be available for ordinary walls between quarters too.

    Is this just another case of Boimler not realizing that basic niceties (like viewscreen light filters) exist? And did both Freeman and T'Ana disable the audio dampening of their own holodecks?

  • Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x01 "Twovix" and 4x02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"

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  • I'm honestly disappointed about the double release, because now I have to process two awesome episodes at the same time and I keep getting them mixed up.

    Quick hitters, in no particular order:

    • love Ransom demonstrating competent personnel management, another "surprise" twist of stuff working as it should.
    • the Shax/Ransom exercise scene is fabulous
    • Did that macro virus really get stuck behind a panel on the bridge for a decade (ish), or did curator guy cook it up to enhance the exhibit?
    • the whole Tuvix sequence was the perfect absurdist sequel to the original episode. Apparently T'Lynn and all of the merged persons are also cold blooded murderers in their own special ways.

  • The rapidly declining state of La Liga.

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  • They (and the other major Continental leagues) need to take a page out of the English playbook and spread out the TV money across the league, instead of letting Barca and Real take their enormous share.

    English dominance in the sport right now is built on them having a strong base of support well down the pyramid, and lucrative rewards beyond that for simply existing in the Premier League. Continental pyramids have the same theoretical structure, but with PSG, Bayern, etc hoovering up all the attention and getting payouts to match, their competition is left in the dust and continues to decline. By contrast, English clubs get substantial revenue sharing assistance, and invest it into making their teams credible competitors domestically and in Europe.

    To oversimplify further, top English teams cede a much larger percentage of the revenue "they" earn to their inter-league competition, and are rewarded with a high quality and ultimately even more lucrative final product. Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, etc do far less revenue sharing, and the top teams gorge themselves on lacklustre competition as their leagues slowly fall further and further.

  • What exactly was the "security clearance" that La'an needed to run James Kirk through in Subspace Rhapsody?

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  • That suggestion actually makes sense: a standard procedure that doesn't apply for the vast majority of officers beaming over.

    The phrasing maybe a little awkward, but it works. Nice one!

  • 2023/24 Champions League Group Stage Draw

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  • Everybody pumped for Qatar vs Saudi Arabia?

    Because I know I'm not, at all. May they both manage a maximally embarasing flop.

  • What is the worst scenes in all of star trek?

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  • That scene is a triumph of Federation ideology.

    Finding the wormhole was a lucky accident, but everything else which lead to that apparent deus ex machina came about from Starfleet doing exactly what was needed to get the Prophets on their side: not with the intention or expectation of that ultimate result, but because it slotted right in with what the Federation wants to do anyway.

    Sicko and his crew communicate with these strange life forms in they find, and make an effort to not only understand them but respect their wishes. They offer enormous practical support to Bajor and attempt to encourage them to join the Federation formally, but they respect the wishes of the Bajorans even when highly inconvenient (such as the abrupt pivot away from Federation membership that preceded the Dominion War). In short, Sisko and the government backing him legitimately earned the trust of both Bajor and the Prophets by being explorers, diplomats, and excellent allies. The military payoff they got is hardly the point, but they earned it.

    Would any of the other races have earned the favor of the Prophets the way the Federation did? The Klingons, Romulans, and obviously the Cardassians would have taken over as brutal occupiers if they felt the need to get involved with Bajor at all. The Ferengi would have ruthlessly exploited Bajoran resources in their own way (which we know the Prophets were no fans of, see their temporary rewiring of Grand Nagus Zek), while the Borg would have simply consumed everything they found useful. Here, it's the uniquely decent actions and values of the Federation that win out.

  • What is the worst scenes in all of star trek?

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  • This is one of the many things that Strange New Worlds (and Lower Decks as well) have got right. Space battles in SNW are beautifully animated, but they aren't overwhelmed with excess visual spectacles and they tend to be fundamentally simple: you shoot at us, we shoot back or try to find some helpful obstruction to hide behind, etc.

    Even Prodigy's big space battle in their finale manages the task to some degree, despite it's scale. I remember watching it felt oddly sluggish, as the ratio of ships on screen to weapons being fired was surprisingly low, but it definitely made it easier to keep track of whatever specific event the camera was focussed on.

  • Why do adult Gorn even exist when the young can apparently reproduce immediately?

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  • The grandparents effect did occur to me, but I'm not sure what exactly these few Gorn who reach adulthood are doing to make their descendants (who they implanted in a host long before they themselves grew to maturity) more likely to survive. Even assuming these adults are in position to assist their offspring, the kids are quite capable hunters and don't seem to need protection against anything except eachother.

  • Why do adult Gorn even exist when the young can apparently reproduce immediately?

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  • Do they? In the wild, the babies burst out of a host and are immediately capable of running around and spitting on things, which become infected and eventually babies burst out, onwards and onwards.

    The Gorn practice of having separate breeding spaces is clearly an artificial construct designed (presumably by the Gorn themselves) to make it possible to have a functional civilization of adult beings. In the wild, anywhere that has viable hosts is a viable breeding area, and these creatures could not possibly have evolved this life cycle without viable hosts commonly available to them.

  • Why do adult Gorn even exist when the young can apparently reproduce immediately?

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  • This is Daystrom Institute, so although we both accept and encourage Doylist answers, "it's bad writing" is never a sufficiently substantive response.

  • Why do adult Gorn even exist when the young can apparently reproduce immediately?

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  • So we know Gorn capture other species, pit them against the Gorn and each other ala the strongest M&M copypasta, and then send the strongest M&M back to M&M Mars space. La’an was the strongest M&M, for example.

    I tried to touch on this in my OP, but the problem with this is that unless Gorn generations are very spread out (unlikely, given the rapid gestation period and rather ad-hoc method of implanting eggs), the odds of a "superior" elder beating out all of it's slightly younger competition remains quite slim. This is a brawl, not a neatly organized bracket, and random chance will invariably play a big role in who wins and who loses. The top Gorn from generation A suddenly finds itself as merely a slightly advantaged individual in a whole new field of competitors the overwhelming likelihood is that one of them will prove the ultimate winner, and then suffer the same fate. If the "strongest M&M" were thrown into a fresh bracket instead of being mailed to the parent company, it's almost certain to be toppled. You wind up with a species whose "true" lifespan and adult form is irrelevant, because every individual dies long before they come anywhere near adulthood.

    More importantly from an evolutionary perspective, though, the success or lack thereof of an individual Gorn has almost no effect on their ability to reproduce. All the Gorn need, apparently, is to survive long enough to spit on a viable host. Anything that happens after they do that is irrelevant, and thus won't be selected for evolutionarily. And it strikes me as highly improbable that growing to much greater size and having enormous strength (never mind developing sapience) are unlikely to emerge by pure chance without evolutionary pressures making those traits more likely to be passed on.

    The "Strongest M&M" problem is probably mitigated by lower density of baby Gorn in the wild than what we've seen on screen so far. If a brood typically manages to winnow itself down to a single individual before any of them can spit on a host, and the hist typically has enough time to travel somewhere else before the next generation hatches, then you have a situation where the strongest of the babies will generally reproduce and then generally have the chance to continue growing into "true" adulthood. Unfortunately that still doesn't answer my second question of how that adult form evolved at all when it's very existence has no clear benefit to the animal's ability to reproduce.

  • The elites are lying about the danger!

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  • The voice of an individual in the collective is roughly equivalent to a vote in a democracy: it's real and it's there, but there are so many other votes/minds involved that the chances of yours having any influence at are are negligible.

    I value democracy and community, but I'm not willing to put every single action I take,however small, up to a public vote.

  • The elites are lying about the danger!

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  • Assimilated drones immediately lose all autonomy, and can never regain it without outside influence (which they will likely be compelled to resist). It's functionally suicide, except that your body and mind continue to be used for whatever purpose by an entity you have effectively no control over.

    I understand joking about the benefits relative to the frequently unpleasant world we live in now, but I have serious concerns about anyone who would rather be a Borg drone than an ordinary 24th century Federation citizen.

  • I don't remember this other son of Mogh

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  • Of course Kurn is victimized by bad kerning.

  • AMA: Hi, I'm Patrick. I'm an admiral. Ask me anything.

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  • Umm, yes sir. My pleasure, sir.

  • AMA: Hi, I'm Patrick. I'm an admiral. Ask me anything.

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  • Admiral, this ship is scheduled to take 4,000 people to Delta Vega by stardate 52743.5. Are you seriously asking me to detour all the way to Deep Space Nine?

  • Regarding the reversibility of assimilation

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  • The Borg may believe in perfection, but I think they are on a fools errand.

    @T156@lemmy.world touched on this, but the whole point of the Borg's search for perfection is that it's an impossible task which will occupy them forever: a perpetual salve against boredom, for an entity which can (or at least thinks they can) trivially accomplish virtually any concrete task they attempt. I believe Seven even refers to this explicitly, although I am unable to find a quote.

    From this perspective, stumbling into the Omega molecule was actually an unfortunate accident. Instead of the slow, inexorable march of incremental progress towards their nebulous goal, the Borg found something so "perfect" that they felt they actually could achieve "perfection" by harnessing it, and will pay virtually any price to get there. The is dangerous both because it risks leaving them without a purpose if they "succeed", but also at great risk from the more conventional disasters that Omega particles are so prone to.