Editor's Note: Beam Me Up, Scotty

Russ Pitts

The Boss of You
May 1, 2006
3,240
0
0
Beam Me Up, Scotty

In this week's issue, we celebrate Star Trek, the chicken soup for the logician's soul.

Read Full Article
 

Rigs83

Elite Member
Feb 10, 2009
1,932
0
41
So the Escapist is run by Kirk Loving Spock Suckers!!!

All kidding aside I like Star Trek, like not love. Too Utopian in my opinion and it leaves too many of what I call logic holes. Example, let's build a starship, they don't have a currency so everything is free so how do they convince people to work hard grueling hours, self improvement, right that makes sense. In the later series they introduced latinum but the whole economics of Star Trek confuses me.

Star Wars is different; let's build a starship, got credits? No then, let's barter for it or we can sell your sister to the Hutts? Got credits, sorry about your sister, now who will build it? Droids, too expensive, let's use slaves I know a slave dealer?
Of course the whole notion of space wizards is far fetched too.
Luke "Let use a super computer to shoot a missile into a really small shaft."
Obi Wan "Use the Force Luke"
Luke "But I have a super smart computer that is made exactly to do that."
Obi Wan "Just use the Force *****!"
Ground Control "You have disengaged your targeting computer pilot is it malfunctioning?"
Luke "No I am going to use the Force."
Ground Control "Are you nuts? They are going to blow up this whole damn planet, killing us all and your going to shoot from the hip! Turn on your damn targeting computer!"
 

PlasticTree

New member
May 17, 2009
523
0
0
Woohoo! Nice to see the Escapist exploring new life fo..., eh, other fields of research.
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
3,829
0
0
Oh dear. That went off on a weird, vaguely offensive tangent at the end. XD

Of course, the biggest problem is that being such an incredible Star Trek nerd, you force me to try and repress my urge to correct a factual error...

Oh what the hell.
Let's not pretend I'm not nerdy enough to know way too much about this show. XD.

San Francisco isn't the seat of government in the federation.

The government is in Paris. (Hmm... I'd say the European Union took over, but if that were the case, it'd be Brussels, not Paris.)

San Francisco is however the base of operations of the military (or the nearest thing to it - Star Fleet). The home of Starfleet academy, but not the federation government.

Ahem. Thank you for making me feel about 100 times nerdier than I usually do. >_<
 

dorm41baggins

New member
Feb 24, 2009
70
0
0
CrystalShadow said:
San Francisco isn't the seat of government in the federation.

The government is in Paris. (Hmm... I'd say the European Union took over, but if that were the case, it'd be Brussels, not Paris.)
There seems to be some disagreement on that point. This site [http://www.trekmania.net/diplomatic/federation.htm] says that the President keeps his residence in Paris but conducts business from San Francisco. Wikipedia cites Star Trek IV as establishing the legislative branch of the Federation in San Francisco, but the executive branch in Paris. (I haven't watched the movie lately, so I don't know how accurate that is.)
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
3,829
0
0
dorm41baggins said:
CrystalShadow said:
San Francisco isn't the seat of government in the federation.

The government is in Paris. (Hmm... I'd say the European Union took over, but if that were the case, it'd be Brussels, not Paris.)
There seems to be some disagreement on that point. This site [http://www.trekmania.net/diplomatic/federation.htm] says that the President keeps his residence in Paris but conducts business from San Francisco. Wikipedia cites Star Trek IV as establishing the legislative branch of the Federation in San Francisco, but the executive branch in Paris. (I haven't watched the movie lately, so I don't know how accurate that is.)
Hmm. Well it's hard to disentangle the exact details without knowing the specific sources the material comes from.

I have reasonable recall and easy access to all of TNG and DS9, but anything established outside those two series is harder to verify from original sources.

Of course, not all such information comes from the show itself, which leads to long and tedious debates about what constitutes valid 'evidence' for a fictional universe. (I used to deal with debates that dealt with cross-overs, which forces you to be very specific in what does, or does not officially belong in any given universe.)

It's possible I got it wrong, because this isn't something explicitly mentioned all that often.

You see depictions of Paris and San Francisco on a regular basis, but it's much easier to find a reference to where starfleet academy is based than to the government itself.

Hmm...
A quick search seems to imply a split between novels and the shows themselves.
Also, the most direct evidence would seem to be from the original series and Voyager, which I'm the least familiar with.
Lol. That's the trouble with knowing too much about something, but not everything there's always room to be wrong.

I suppose it just made more implicit sense for a government that spans the whole planet (and more), NOT to be centralised in one specific country.

(Take the closest real-world analogy to the federation - the European Union... The Parliament is in Belgium, and the high courts are in the Netherlands. It has no military, so that doesn't say much. Of course, an immediate counter-point is how close these two things actually are to eachother. And the fact that they're located in 2 of the 3 countries that originated the idea behind the European union. Before it existed, there was the Benelux. Which had open borders, and several of the other characteristics of the European union. This consisted of The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. So... The location of the centre of the European Union is based on it's origins, more than any other logic...)

Anyway... Since the only thing I can easily find that explicitly says the government (and not just the president), is in Paris, are novels (which aren't generally considered to count), I guess I have to retract that statement. XD.
 

joe_dracos

New member
Aug 8, 2009
20
0
0
So, after watching a few documentaries before watching the Star Trek Marathon (excuse me while I put on my Nerd Cap) I came to realise something. Its a tiny detail which escaped me, and most likely others as well.

A flag ship is a ship with a flag officer on board (so in star trek II they got it right :p). Why would be called "the" flag ship of the federation. The federation has multiple fleets, and each particular task force would have its own admiral or comadore with the flag ship of his choice. Why wasn't picard an admiral? He bossed every other ship around all willy nilly.
Why is it the Enterprise D (the pinicle of federation technology) doesn't have any escorts? No wonder the admirals in charge of picard kept getting replaced.

So with that weird little point out of the way, lets continue on with what the Escapist started. List your favourite star trek whatever.

1. Favourite class of ship: Constitution (refit)
2. Favourite Episode: Sacrifice of angels (Break out the Photons and prepare to give them a Phaser emina)
3. Favourite character: Anything but Voyager
4. Favourite incarnation (movie): The new Star Trek (cause its not Happy Clappy... not sayin the others were bad... just happy clappy)
5. Favourite Quote: Romulan-"Your so pathetic that you can't even talk." Lossens grip. Kirk-"I've got your gun."
6. Favourite incarnation (TV): DS9