And with Holodecks you can see and interact with your family any time you want. At home.
More BS. If it ain’t military, I dunno what it is. Saying it’s only “semi-military” is like saying the National Guard isn’t really made up of soldiers.
A moot point, actually, since deep space exploration and fighting off alien invasions involves the same hazards as a “purely” military organization would encounter.
Please, let’s not open the “Is Starfleet military” can of worms again.
Heh. “Iso.” The last refuge of the scoundrel—well, lazy Voyager writers. 
(And, [del]just to be pedantic[/del] for the educational fact of the day, the combined yield of a Galaxy-class’ torpedo loadout would be about 6200 Isotons. But official quoted figures for the antimatter “warhead” about a Photon Torpedo allow the calculation of a yield in real-world figures, which comes out to about 64 megatons. The More You Know!)
Remember, while it was controlled, or at least guided, by Gene, his Technology Unchained Utopia was the backdrop.
As he he became less and less of a show runner, certain more realistic ideas finally started bleeding thru. Like Picard battling terrorists in “StarShip Mine” or seeing the ugly side of Federation politics thru the eyes of the Maquis.
Or the ugly side of government power with Section 31.
Of course, that technological utopia was made possible by the invention of three things: duotronic computing, the transtator, and self-sealing stem bolts.
Yeah, you should be able to find about 200 posts from me alone on that subject in any Trek Doper thread search.
I go all the way back to the Nitpicker’s Guild with Phil Farrand on that subject, corresponding via snail mail. SNAIL MAIL!
Transtator tech is still not fleshed out much in Trek circles. Seems a shame, as it should be, since it goes back to TOS eps like “A Piece of the Action.”
Section 31, yeah! now THAT was good. But didn’t we first see it in DS9, not TNG?
.
That was the only episode in which it was mentioned.
Frankly, I would have been a lot more worried about the phasers that ended up at the Ekosian SS weapons lab than the communicator left in Bela Oxmyx’s office. We never did find out what happened to those, did we? :dubious:
Yes, but I thought we were talking about post-GreatBird Trek in general in that immediate discussion, not just TNG.
These threads do always seem to end up in multiple universes, don’t they?
As for the transtator, in that very episode it was said that almost all of Starfleet tech was based on it.
It was mentioned in other eps, including Enterprise
Just seems odd, given the level of deep tech fiction on so many other things in the Trekaverse, that this has been left undone for so long. I guess warp and phasers are more interesting.
[Voice of Maj. Kabakov in Black Sunday]: What is this “transtator”? What does it do? :dubious:
Oh you 21st century proto-humans and your quaint ideals. Obviously you are all on narcotics or addicted to your tele-screen shows or whatever you all called them.
In the 24th century we’ve evolved past a fear of death. Having our families with us as we explore the great unknown is a wonderous experience. “Mandatory birth control”? “Sexist billeting”? Are you insane? Sounds like eugenics to me! And that’s illegal mister! So go smoke an urn, or whatever it is you Neanderthals smoked. We evolved humans will enjoy the company of our families while you fascists blow yourselves up.
That is my point. By now, we should know. Writers chose to say it was vitally important, continues to be referenced 30-40 years later, yet not even a trace of explanation. In Trekdom, that’s odd. I wonder if any of the (non canon) novels say anything? :dubious:
That is odd, for Trekdom. There’s not even any fanon about it?
ETA: After Googling around a little, it doesn’t appear there is. That’s just about unheard of for any kind of Trek tech.
When’s the last time, in real life, someone explained, in your hearing, what a transistor is and what it does?
[Voice of Sheldon Cooper]: Yes, but very few of us are required to go around spouting technobabble in our daily lives. People serving aboard starships would be.
