Author Topic: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)  (Read 428469 times)

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Offline El Barto

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3710 on: July 09, 2013, 06:26:15 PM »
Data's more than a walking calculator. For one thing, even if the first Pulaski test against Moriarty wasn't finished, all but one person thought he'd win, and he definitely won the second time around in the Ship in a Bottle episode. He figured out Moriarty's plan and turned it around on him. Furthermore, both times he was effectively in command of a ship he performed excellently, once relying completely on intuition. When he was alone or isolated he also handled himself well. The whole premise of the character is that he's a mimic of human behavior, so he's got access to a shit-ton of observed behavior to draw on. While I suppose he might have been less capable when he was actually in the academy, at the time we're seeing him he'd have been the all-time magna cul lauda.

As for the Kobayashi Maru, I believe they were under orders not to discuss it for that very reason. It's also possible that they changed the ship, or even the test around at random. I imagine a bridge officer in training takes all kinds of similar tests, so even if you knew that one of them was impossible to pass, schoolyard gossip and such, you wouldn't know when or where it would happen.

The only ST book I ever read was Kobayashi Maru, where six of them are stuck in a shuttlecraft for days and they all recount their experiences. Amusing read. The winner in the whole deal was Sulu, who decided that they shouldn't be in the neutral zone anyway, so fuck'em!  :lol
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Offline yorost

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3711 on: July 09, 2013, 06:58:33 PM »
Sigh, I never said he was only a walking calculator. My point is that sentience plus processing power does not make perfection. A) Comptuers have very real limits Star Trek does not challenge, so you can never use 'computational power' as a reason for him to just solve anything. B) There's no reason to presume superior computational power translates his sentience into superior everything else. He will excel in many things, but he could still struggle in others.

Offline El Barto

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3712 on: July 11, 2013, 11:22:14 PM »
Was looking up a side character in Voyager and came across this fellow. Going to guess that nobody's ever heard of "Danger" Mandalone, but he's pretty much the new Eddie Paskey. This guy's played over 45 different characters in every post-TOS series, and Undiscovered Country. He also seems to have been pretty much every known species at one point, including Human, Vulcan, Borg, Cardassian, Bajoran, Romulan, Klingon, Kazon, Breen and Morn, plus another dozen or so miscellaneous.


Argument, the presentation of reasonable views, never makes headway against conviction, and conviction takes no part in argument because it knows.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3713 on: July 12, 2013, 12:06:51 AM »
Dang! That guy really got around.
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Offline Orbert

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3714 on: July 12, 2013, 07:57:34 AM »
Guys like that remind me of unknown studio musicians.  No one outside the business knows their names, but they've played on countless albums, including a few gold or even platinum.  People have heard their work and never realized it, just as they've seen "Danger" Mandalone in countless scenes in TV shows and movies and never known who he was.  But he gets steady work, he does what he likes to do, and he's good at it.

Offline rumborak

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3715 on: July 14, 2013, 10:05:25 PM »
So, I'm watching "Homeward" right now (where Worf's brother saves those villagers), and one thing I never understood is, are those few people supposed to be the total complement of their race? Or are they the only ones saved, and billions of their brethren died on the planet when it keeled over?
"I liked when Myung looked like a women's figure skating champion."

Offline jammindude

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3716 on: July 14, 2013, 10:40:12 PM »
Just started in on The Animated Series tonight on Netflix.   I hadn't seen any of it since Saturday mornings over 30 years ago. 

I was immediately impressed that the story lines were at least the equal of TOS.   I'm impressed.  Can't wait to watch the rest.
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Offline rumborak

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3717 on: July 15, 2013, 12:46:09 AM »
I never managed to last for many episodes with the Animated Series because it's rather campy after all. I did like though that they had more interesting aliens overall because they weren't bound by budget and makeup constraints.
"I liked when Myung looked like a women's figure skating champion."

Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3718 on: July 15, 2013, 01:03:34 AM »
I've seen every single live action episode of Star Trek, but never bothered with TAS. I've seen plenty of clips, and I'm familiar with a lot of what happens, but I've never seen a full episode. I've never been that desperate for more science fiction, not even with the current state of scifi on television. :lol
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Offline El Barto

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3719 on: July 15, 2013, 01:10:32 AM »
So, I'm watching "Homeward" right now (where Worf's brother saves those villagers), and one thing I never understood is, are those few people supposed to be the total complement of their race? Or are they the only ones saved, and billions of their brethren died on the planet when it keeled over?
I always figured it was just the group Worf's brother was supposed to be observing, and the rest of the planet died. Something you always see due to budget constraints is that primitive cultures tend to always live in small, isolated villages. It often seems like planets have a population in the tens.

I thought that was a pretty good episode, although the whole Worf's brother thing got in the way. Sibling rivalry didn't improve the episode.
Argument, the presentation of reasonable views, never makes headway against conviction, and conviction takes no part in argument because it knows.
E.F. Benson

Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: All Star Trek Discussion Thread ("Into Darkness" trailer released)
« Reply #3720 on: July 15, 2013, 01:41:57 AM »
So, I'm watching "Homeward" right now (where Worf's brother saves those villagers), and one thing I never understood is, are those few people supposed to be the total complement of their race? Or are they the only ones saved, and billions of their brethren died on the planet when it keeled over?
I always figured it was just the group Worf's brother was supposed to be observing, and the rest of the planet died. Something you always see due to budget constraints is that primitive cultures tend to always live in small, isolated villages. It often seems like planets have a population in the tens.

This always bugs me in scifi, not just Trek, but other shows where there are other planets/worlds. Due to the limitations of budget and time and plot, they always treat a planet as one city or village, as if the rest of the planet is entirely empty. I understand why they do it, but it does affect the believability of the story for me.

Sometimes they justify it in-universe, such as The Apple, where they weren't allowed to freely multiply to create exponential population growth, but a lot of the time it feels like the crew just lucked out, or the scenario just isn't believable if you try to apply it to a realistic planetary-wide scope.
Only King could mis-spell a LETTER.
Yep. I think the only party in the MP/DT situation that hasn't moved on is DTF.