Seems like if you’re on an away mission to, say, a desert planet, sunglasses might be useful.
To a degree. Not all species need them, and it might not be considered necessary. Particularly since it adds the risk of you losing them, and inadvertently causing a violation of the Prime Directive.
Species like Vulcans have innate defences that are just as good, if not better than 21st century sunglasses, and they may rely on those instead.
Boothby sang the praises of Lorcano, fulfilling the roles of leader, parent, study manager etc… so I could be lead to believe that Lorcano managed to earn the undying loyalty of a few key members of each ship that he managed to place as heads of the respective ships.
But I have a hard time believing he’s got the loyalty of the entire crew, sans the commanders left on the glass rain planet. That’s not the sort of thing you can keep under wraps… and certainly not the sort of thing intelligence would manage to overlook.
There’s also some evidence that the crews weren’t in on it. The male Romulan admitted that Nova 1 wasn’t his scheme, suggesting it was the female’s. The Orion crew all seemed oblivious aside from the plagerist, who was focused on his console. And in the Ferengi ship it seemed to be one saboteur in particular.
That aside… it’s pretty amazing how he’s gotten all those species to cooperate. We have the opening credits battle to remind us how little they all get along-something the Federation itself has failed to accomplish.
The ship also can’t be interested in these ships for their intended purposes, since there’s nothing of substance that connects them all-beyond all having disgruntled lower deckers.
Coming back to read this again, it’s a bit amusing that the actual answer was right here and was dismissed.
In my defense, McMahan and his crew always give us something extraordinary that defies expectations. Cranky Lower Deckers who never developed into anything more seemed pedestrian by comparison.
I very much dislike the final episode of Prodigy. We have a ship controlled by a bunch of kids, an admiral who should be in charge of any mission but this one, and timetravelling assassins.
It's a great setup for literally anything but space fleet combat.
I hear that. I tried uploading to youtube about 8 times, they don’t give specific reasons for blocking video or removing it. I’m left with alternative websites =(
There have been some theories posted here that make a lot of sense for the DS9 episode, “In the Pale Moonlight”, such as:
The bio-mimetic gel was used to make a bomb
Garek already had an optolithic data rod
Garek killed Vreenak as a promise to his father
Garek didn’t contact any of his old friends on Cardassia, they weren’t killed
The Tal Shiar were involved in Vreenak’s death, feeding information to Garek
However I would like to put forward a couple more theories:
A. Vreenak believed in Sisko’s argument during the sit down, but it wasn’t the right time to join the war. Explanation: Vreenak was part of the war plans council, he must have known about Sisko’s argument about being surrounded after. Combined with the Romulans knew how the Dominion operated, they traded use of the cloaking technology for info on the Dominion in the gamma quadrant. Part of theat info was the Dominion using the quickening on planets that defied them.
B. Vreenak bluffed Sisko in annoucning the rod was a fake. Explanation: It didn’t make sense for a highly valuable rod to be given to Vreenak, from the Federation’s perspective who knew what Vreenak would have done with it, he could have discarded it or have been secretly working with the dominion. Why not escort the rod under heavy guard to Earth or to Romulus?
And I believe there is discussion for some more controversial topics:
I. The Dominion were a force for the greater good. The alpha quadrant will go on to have endless wars, if they were to all to fall under the Dominion there wouldn’t be any wars. Explanation: Weyoun prevents Damar from reclaiming Bajor after attacking DS9 station.
II. The Alpha quadrant players are bad people that the founders need to be protected from. They tried to commit genocide against the founders.
III. The writers wrote this episode to leave room for compassion towards Sisko and how he acted. Conveniently it was Tolar the criminal that harassed the dabo girl, a cold Vreenak willing to let the Alpha quadrant fall and some nameless Romulan Guards that died. How would the audience react if the plot involved sacrificing Sisko’s son and his wife? Probably a lot more negatively. How convenient that they are bad people that we can forget about. How convenient that Starfleet blessed the plan leaving Sisko able to wash his hands of everything.
IV. Sisko is hypocritical, he sentences Garek to jail for trying to take over the Defiant and trying to attack the Dominion but does not hold himself to the same standards over this episode. Should he sentence himself to jail, should he report everything up his chain and be court martialed, why does he get to escape punishment? War time scenario make him immune or is he protecting himself?
Now that you mention it, yes. However it’s probably so deeply ingrained in American authors that bicycles seem like uncool garbage that’s not very useful so they don’t even think about it.
I am so tired of sci-fi futuristic cities that just replicate a highway in the sky complete with crazy stressful traffic and all. It is kind of embarrassing how big of a flaw this is for sci-fi art when a fundamental aspect of the genre is the attempt to gaze far into real and unreal futures.
trek has had at least one place where people actively reject modernity because they simply don’t like it, so there’s that.
i think the expanse is the best portrayal of the future i’ve seen in terms of this, things generally look like they do now except everything’s walkable and public transport is utterly bog standard, and they casually use holograms for shop signs.
just like how we’re basically the same as in the past, except walking around with technology in our pockets that was idle speculation 100 years ago and would be considered magic 1000 years ago
Interesting, I have heard the expanse is good and that it is more realistic scifi than most. Honestly the reason I haven’t watched it is that people only really seem to mention the fact that the space combat is realistic in the expanse and I just don’t give two flying sh$%s how realistic a scifi universe’s space wars are… I am watching star trek for a reason and that reason is that it isn’t myopically obsessed with war and gritty dark grim universes like 99% of the rest of scifi is sigh. I am fine with space wars, I am fine with grim or dark visions of the future to a certain extent but most scifi can’t ever seem to tell stories about literally anything else. Everything is just black mirror it feels like.
On the subject of black mirror though, I really want to see a black mirror parody episode where bicycles aren’t invented until the 2020s when a techbro invents the “segway 2.0” which is just a normal bicycle. Everyone becomes so addicted to this invention that it tears apart families, society and economies (no more cars being sold??? no oil being sold?? all the car plants close and the economy crashes). Kids overthrow society because they all get bicycles and become addicted to them first and no one can stop them because they are too fast…
ST:Picard showed that Earth basically had a public transporter network around the world. It is how Picard goes from his vineyard in France to Starfleet headquarters. So, it isn’t all car flying cities.
However, if these are the people making decisions to deploy resources, why would they think of having ground vehicles at all? The only reason why the dune buggy was in Nemesis was because Patrick Stewart wanted it. Otherwise, it doesn’t really make sense.
Its honestly because its not interesting to watch people beam down and bike all the time. Usually shit happens almost immediately after the beam anyway. But yeah where are my turbo maglift bikes.
They could just take bmx bikes and beam down right into the action though, maybe even in the middle of a sweet handlebar spin. Are you going to tell me you don’t want to see bmx star trek action?
I never thought of that before, but I agree. Also, now all I can imagine is Riker walking up behind a bicycle and just effortlessly gliding onto the seat, swinging his leg gracefully.
I imagine Riker rolling up to home on his bicycle. He swoops up to Troi on his danish commuter bicycle, and in a stupendously effortless fashion goes from bicycling to standing while barely shifting his body in a reverse Riker sit that draws your eyes into those sweet, high hips if only to admire their power and charisma (that is what you tell yourself). As Riker extends his kickstand with a supple cock of the foot he he looks at the camera, rings the bicycle bell and says “Daddy’s home” with a smile.
I mean once you have flight/hovering vehicles than practically the only transportation that doesn’t make obsolete is a bicycle for transporting someone a mile or two daily from their spaceship to a residence or wherever.
How is using a bicycle clumsy? I mean I get if people don’t like bicycles but honestly a bicycle is just fun to cruise around on, they are the opposite of clumsy.
Bicycles don’t necessarily need flat terrain, especially with electric bikes that have futuristic insanely efficient batteries.
Yes bicycles do best on trails but anywhere that has humanoids is going to have trails. Anywhere that has any kind of large animal is going to probably have some degree of path system as well. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue compared to any other kind of ground vehicle.
You sound like someone who has never ridden a bike through broken terrain.
I'll argue that the "flat" used by the comment above might be better taken on a more granular level. You can go up and down mountains just fine so long as there are no logs, large rocks, pits, or gullies that are in the way.
I was doing some D&D world building a while back and wanted to really dive into transportation of people/goods and found the same problem. Tenser’s Floating Disk is a very low level wizard spell that basically does away with all but the heaviest ships and carts.
It's the same for the trek universe. They have personal transportation methods that mean there's literally zero need for a bicycle for anything other than recreation.
Hell, Lower Decks opens with Mariner pushing around a hover cart full of stuff. It's literally the cold open of the entire series.
If you can have a hover cart like that, then why bother with a bike? Need to move stuff to a remote area? Get the hover cart, you don't need to cut a trail, just go over the obstacles. And that's if the transporter doesn't work if the first place to beam the people and equipment to a nearby area.
I was doing some D&D world building a while back and wanted to really dive into transportation of people/goods and found the same problem. Tenser’s Floating Disk is a very low level wizard spell that basically does away with all but the heaviest ships and carts. It’s the same for the trek universe. They have personal transportation methods that mean there’s literally zero need for a bicycle for anything other than recreation.
I mean, its all just “magic” at a certain point, they could do everything with a transporter… but they dont so presumably there are reasons not to (even though the real reason is it is a tv show). I have never seen hovercarts used prominently in the live action shows, especially not as a vehicle.
I agree, in my utopian future it’s possible to leisurely bike everywhere. Why hurry anywhere in a post-scarcity society when you can cruise around and take in the scenery?
It would be a matter of public health policy that people had some kind of access to a short, physical commute to whatever place they worked/spent their day at, right? That is at least how I rationalize why they just don’t teleport people everywhere. They COULD technically teleport everywhere all the time… but the mental and physical health consequences to not getting some kind of mild daily exercise like bicycling are too intense (also having some kind of short, stress free commute helps one get into the mindset of work anyways).
Spock casually flies up a mountain using hoverboots in one of the movies. Why this isn't standard issue on away missions is beyond me. They don't need bicycles, they can fly.
There’s no point asking questions like this. Star Trek has routinely featured technology that is so powerful that it’s world-breaking, and then promptly ignored it. The greatest modern example is the spore drive from discovery, but TNG has several as well.
Well the whole franchise has issues with away mission equipment. They just beam down in their pajama uniforms, when they carry a phaser and a tricorder it’s already a lot.
Yup and then they constantly seem to end up embarrassed by the lack of preparation. Any EDC nerd would have more useful tools for an away mission compared to the average Star Trek explorer.
Although you are using it and pronouncing it correctly, the correct spelling for the phrase meaning “in a whole bunch” is “en masse” because it’s stolen from French.
I never had good enough balance or left-right coordination to learn to ride a bike, so I don’t miss them. But it would add an element.
I’m always reminded of Star Trek when I’m watching… Bond movies. The smorgasbord of over-the-top tech he’s using and the casual manner in which he keeps pulling them out at the right moment feels like should be right at home in the Federation.
They’re scientists that are exploring. You can’t see the forest for the trees when you’re barreling down a trail at 15-30kmh. You’re going to see a lot more hiking methodically through kilometers of new alien landscape than you would on a bike. If they want more range or speed they can shuttle, transport, or send a drone. When I explore a new city these days, I take a smart device and a wallet wearing my contemporary version space PJs, jeans and a T-shirt; either walking, ubering, or public transporting where I need to go. I’d miss a lot of interesting stuff by biking because my focus would be on biking, and less on the landscape around me.
Interesting, for me unless I am riding a road bike with a really heads down sitting posture, I find leisurely bicycling around to be a fantastic way to see explore a place and notice things (as long as the place is bike friendly… which in the US…). Far more than getting around by car.
I can't go very fast even on my (small/cheap) ebike and have definitely noticed (even with not-the-best-eyesight) plants/animals, flooding, nearby infrastructure/locations, smells etc. on the trail. I wouldn't say 15kmh is "barreling" and is my average comfortable speed. Slowing down or stopping to walking around a bit is also incredibly easy (and a thing already you stop to rest/drink/eat anyways), but you can still make up for lost time if needed.
In the context of a show, I could see a lot of angles to this. From somebody remembering something they briefly saw to 1 person in a group investigating something (staying behind, rushing ahead, taking a sample etc), also successfully evading chases and camp-y rock ambushes.
Personally I'd also say that biking long distances just seems easier than walking/hiking. Maybe mechanical advantage (esp. w/derailleur) or the speed, maybe health issues, or maybe there's just something about the feel of it that's boring/taxing to me. I can't imagine walking 20 km but is something I've done a few times on my weak ebike.
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