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*Originally posted by Colin Wilkinson *
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Bite your tounge! They’re nothing alike. The scary thing about the Blake’s Seven Federation was that it was completely totalitarian, yet maintained the sham that it was a free democracy.
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*Originally posted by SPOOFE Bo Diddly *
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[Ultra Nerd Hat On]
There’s NO down in space! There’s only TOWARDS and AWAY! Read your Bucky Fuller!
[Ultra Nerd Hat Off]
Additionally, doesn’t it seem like that there’d be significant alterations to language not only because people would be adopting words and phrases from other languages, but people who spent most of their time in space, or travelling from world to world would begin using words and phrases differently than those people who spent most of their time on a planet?
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*Originally posted by Lumpy *
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And this is different to Star Tek how? I don’t seem to recall any actual elections in Star Trek. And there is certainly no political dissent allowed. And Star Trek does seem to have a rather large fleet of battle cruisers it likes to throw around with alarming frequency.
The Federation is run by a President and a Council. He or she is not “President-For-Life”, so it must be an elected office.
Dissent is allowed, as long as it doesn’t evolve into outright rebellion (the Maquis; the last movie). Then they rightfully try to stop it.
It’s a dangerous galaxy out there. 
Besides, Star Trek has never been about life in the future in general, it’s been about life aboard a starship (or space station) in particular. Given this premise, you’re going to see a lot more about life in Star Fleet than you are about civilian life. Civilian life is referred to, but only enough to provide background for this week’s episode. Frankly, complaining that Star Trek doesn’t show enough about life outside the Enterprise is like complaining Gunsmoke didn’t show life outside Dodge City. What would be the point?
Yet there’s no mention of those elections. Even in the US the members of the armed forces are allowed to vote and do so. And just because you’re not called “President-for-life” doesn’t mean you AREN’T. What’s Quaddafi’s title? Col. Quaddafi? Does that mean he takes orders from his generals? Not on your life! The council itself, could be an appointed body like that of the US Supreme Court, or there could be some form of election. We simply don’t know. Its never been spelled out in an episode or movie to my knowledge. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard them use the word “democracy” in referring to the Federation in any of the episodes.
Hey, if that did that, at least we would have to endure another one of those damn holodeck episodes! How do they come up with those anyway? Is it that they’ve run out ideas for the season? Or that they can save money by shooting the thing on Paramounts backlot somewhere and don’t have to spend money on building sets, etc.?
In fact, Star Trek itself has been a bit of a cliche for some time now. In “Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said” by Philip K. Dick a character even refers to a sci-fi film as a “Captain Kirk.” Dick goes out of his way (and don’t ask me to cite it at the moment as I haven’t got my copy handy) to make sure you know that the character ISN’T refering to any possible Star Trek movie by having you realize that the character is referring to one of the classic sci-fi movies and NOT Star Trek.
Make that: If THEY did that, at least we WOULDN’T have to endure another one of those damn holodeck episodes!
The Federation is diplomatic indeed. We haven’t seen Presidents come and go in elections in the movies but we know they do change. Besides the Federation isn’t an all encompassing government, its an alliance where the different races involved come together on issues that concern them like trade and defence where they could lose out to larger more capable races like the Romulans. The member races of the Federation have their own Governments and sometimes do their own thing against the will of the Federation but this is really only alluded to in episodes and books. Maybe if Starfleet was more scummy and had more run ins with its politic masters we’d see more of the political process but I guess they’re too full of moral fibre (or just plain crap if you actually listen to Star Wars fans, if they really want to know the toilets are marked on the map of the ship in main engineering.)
But back to stereotypes.
Doesn’t there always have to be a mad scientist who has a weapon/creature/device so obviously and stupidly deadly infront of him who says “yes, now is the time for activation/awakening etc,” always accompanied by a humane sidekick who will point out how stupid his master is but will do nothing to stop him and will let his master proceed at which point the thing awakes and kills them both.
Besides, do you really think a TV series designed for 1960’s America would try to present a military dictatorship as the ideal government?
Erm, ayone ever notice how that even though storm troopers can be defeated by a single laser blast or rock, they still wear those ridiculous outfits?
They limit vision/hearing, and reduce agility/coordination.
If you’re still going to die in one shot, why bother?!
what would it take to kill them without armor? Stepping on a rock? being touched?
BTW, just because they’re cliches doesn’t mean it is in EVERY scifi movie…corrections (ST episode names, etc.) are cool, but sometimes its kind of annoying…
If you truly were an Ultra Nerd, you’d know that saying “down” in reference to a starship should be automatically translated as “down relative to the vessel’s current orientation.”
I hereby strip you of the title of “Ultra Nerd” and demote you to “Nerd Bulk Rate”!
Sure. Why not? You see all those stormtroopers falling down all the time? They’re not dead… just wounded. Those “ridiculous outfits” saved their lives (except for the unfortunate bloke that fell into the pit aboard the Death Star… such a shame for him). It’s like modern-day bullet-proof vests… they’ll stop small shots, but most rifle rounds will penetrate through a kevlar suit.
As for the rocks… well, NO suit of armor will stop inertia.
Bah. Amateurs. “Down” is towards any object massive enough and near enough to have a noticable gravity well. Since the Death Star is described as being the size of a small moon, it would certainly have gravity. As for the Super Star Destroyer, I think it would have been more likely that it would crash into the Death Star broadside, or maybe backwards. There’s no reason a starship should list hard to port after being disabled when it was previously going in a straight line. Hey, there’s another cliche: large starships act like naval ships, while small craft act like airplanes.
Quick latin lesson
Terra = Land or Earth. (ie Terraforming - to make Earthlike, Terra firma - solid ground)
Sol = Sun. Also the Roman god of the Sun (ie Solar - Of or related to the sun)
Luna = Moon (ie Lunar - of or related to the moon, lunatic - Crazy people were though to be influenced by the full moon)
It makes sense that in a interplanetary society where each system has a sun and most of the planets have at least one moon, people would use the a specific name to distinguish Earth’s sun and moon from the local sun or moon.
For example:
“Hey Bob.”
“Yes Xor’g?”
“I’ll meet you on the Moon in 20 minutes”
"Do you mean the 3rd moon of this planet, or Earth’s Moon, Luna?
Tuckerfan - Paramont doesn’t actually have a holodeck. Hollodeck episodes are probably MORE expensive since they can’t just use the regular ship sets and have to build or find a mockup of Nazi Germany, Mardi Gra, A Civil War battle or whatever else is playing on the holodeck.
Questions for anyone:
Can anyone give a reason Stormtrooper armor is SHINY and WHITE and not camofladged like the rebels?
When the Death Star exploded over Endor, what happened to the Ewoks after all the pieces fell to the ground?
Is the Federation in Star Trek a military dictatorship? There seems to be no distinction between civilian and military leadership. Diplomacy is always at the end of a phaser or photon torpedo. Kirk and Picard are essentially gunboat diplomats and DS9 is essentially an imperialist Deim Bein Phu (sp?) style base where the Federation vies with another superpower for influence over a third-world planet. The Federation is no more a “federation” that the Peoples Republic of China is a “republic”.
In which I reveal how low I’ve fallen into the depths of geekdom: Actually, they ARE cheaper in many cases. So help me, I read this in one of the “How To Write For Star Trek Guides” that was published in Starlog a number of years ago. For many of the episodes, they just hie themselves over to Paramounts backlot and find an already constructed set and start shooting. I forget the name for this kind of episode (almost all TV shows do it), basically, it allows them to bang out a show in half the time they normally would at a much lower cost. (No sets to build, no costumes to design). The other way they cut costs during a season is to shoot an episode that takes place entirely within the existing sets such as that one ST:TNG that had them colliding with a ship that had been caught in a time warp. (Don’t remember the name of it, but David Ogden Steirs aka Charles Emerson Winchester III from MAS*H played the captain of the other ship.) Personally, I HATE most of those episodes as they just plain suck IMHO.
Yeah, so there will be the ironic visiage of the bad guys wearing white.
One would hope that they were all killed, but sigh, it didn’t happen. Though I’m sure the rebels did manage to have some Ewok BBQ :D, the simple fact probably is that God, er, I mean Lucas, decided that they were too cute to kill and had the pieces all land in non-Ewok populated areas. 
My point exactly! Glad to see that someone else understands.
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IIRC, the first film had a very small budget (compared to the sequels) and George Lucas had to use the same stunt performers over and over. The helmets were designed so that you can’t see that it’s the same guys in every scene!
[Trek hat on]
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What you don’t seem to understand is the distinction between the Federation (the alliance where different races come together to decide policy) and Starfleet (the guys who actually go out and implement these policies and carry out the hard work.) Diplomacy is always over a viewscreen or a face to face meeting, many episodes have covered this one before. By sharing control of DS9 with the Bajorans (who are independent of the Federation) the Federation was stopping an authoritarian, militaristic race from gaining control of the all important wormhole. This policy was totally vindicated when the Cardassians joined up with the Dominion and tried to crush the whole of the Alpha qudrant via the wormhole. If push comes to shove the Federation is entitled to use Starfleet to defend itself using Phasers, Photon torpedoes or whatever else it needs to do so. Picard even refused to wipe ouit the Borg using a programmed paradox as this would be using genocide to defend the Federation (personally disagree on this one but then would I ever make Captain?) Remember the Federation is a group of weaker races coming together to face off against stronger races who would otherwise have wiped them out long ago.
[Trek hat off, wipes brow]
Because the Empire was arrogant, and they believed that the mere sight of their “invincible” troops would be enough to cause their enemies to surrender.
It was mentioned in the X-Wing series that the Empire supposedly learned after the failure of the troops at Endor and began producing jungle attire. The lack of camoflage is curious, considering that they had special suits for arctic weather and desert climates (the sandtrooper suits in Episode IV had stronger cooling systems than standard armor, even though they looked the same).
You need to read this. It explores this very topic, and finds it implausible that such a massive object like the Death Star can explode and leave Endor as anything but a smoldering landscape. The only not-entirely-implausible hypothesis would be that the rebel fleet took up a position 'tween the Death Star and Endor (they did, you know… you can see all the ships when it shows Wedge pop out of the superstructure), and they expanded the total size of their shields to prevent the bulk of debris from striking the moon, then had vessels flying around to keep the rest of debris from hitting the surface.
But, again, that is a bit of a stretch. The best explanation is simply that Lucas never even thought of that.
ORIENTATION: When the enterprise encounters an alien vessel, its oriented exactly as the enterprise is so that one of them isn’t looking at the other “upside down” for example. They’re facing each other directly and are oriented as if they were two boats floating in the same ocean. Similarly; One fleet can protect a region of space by forming a “blockade” as if the enemy were limited to movement that is “horizontal” to an imaginary plane. (i.e. the enemy cannot drop below the blockade or go above it, they can only try to go THROUGH it with no success).
Sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum, yet every time the enemy ship is destroyed the explosion can be heard (or the shots can be heard connecting with the shields of the other ship for that matter)
When the vessels are in deep space (not significantly effected by the gravitational pull of any particular planet etc), why do then need to have a constant propellant to keep them moving toward their destination?
How about this: Discovering a naturally-occurring chemical element not on the Periodic Table. (What the hell is dilithium supposed to be, anyway? Or Tibanna gas?) If you look at the P.T., you’ll see that there are no gaps in the Table at all, except at the end. If its place is at the end of the Table, such an element would be extremely unstable and highly radioactive, with a half-life measured in seconds. Or less.
If dilithium and Tibanna gas are supposed to be chemical compounds, what are they a compound of?