# Incredible powers discovered/revealed on Star Trek that are used once and dismissed forever **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** star-trek-paramount\ **Created:** [April 7, 2024, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963 "2024-04-07T01:17:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/121 "2024-04-10T15:35:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > How many times did Kirk or Picard cry… or a better analogy- Janeway? I think she got kinda emotional in one of the last episodes, with Kes? The problem is not that they’re crying, or experiencing emotion, it’s that it’s emotion that hasn’t really been earned. They’d barely introduced us to the characters, and given us no reason to like or identify with them yet, and yet, they expected us to be all distraught at the character’s emotional breakdowns. No, sorry, you can’t just _tell_ me I’m supposed to care. You have to do the work to make me _actually_ care. Show me why the hero is the hero, then put them through the wringer a bit, so they earn their Great Dramatic Moment. Disco never did this. We were simply assigned a main character, and told to care about them, even if they were objectively awful (see remarks above about starting a war, for instance). ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2024, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/122 "2024-04-10T15:57:45Z")
I have also been on a Trek rewatch lately. Near the end of DS9 last night I watched the episode with the serial killer. It involves a projectile gun with a tiny transporter on the barrel and a piece of lucite stuck over an eye that allows you to see through walls and apparently is telescopic. You can pick your target in a different room from a distance, fire the gun, and the bullet is beamed to just in front of the target. This is a incredibly dangerous combination of two hugely disruptive technologies, and I don’t think any of it has ever been used again. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2024, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/123 "2024-04-13T22:45:46Z")
I have yet to decide whether _Star Trek: the Orville_ is worth the trouble to watch. I think I have seen about a dozen episodes, and it is uninspiring. That one other series with the pizza delivery guy seems much better (and uses a lot more real science). ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/124 "2024-04-14T01:37:26Z")
The Orville was trying to be a stupid comedy _and_ sci-fi in the first season. By the second season it became, in my (non-sf fan) wife’s words, “What those other Star Treks should be.” ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2024, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/125 "2024-04-14T02:04:04Z")
Yeah that first season was clearly aiming for that **Galaxy Quest** sweet spot between tribute and parody and not quite pulling it off, but once they committed to a direction, it became at least a respectable facsimile of what an updated _TNG_ might look like. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/126 "2024-04-15T03:35:34Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > It also comes up in _Star Trek III: The Search for Spock_, and with Tuvok during an episode of _Voyager_. Pon farr was akso referenced in Voyager’s “Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy.” _Tuvok, I understand_ _You are a Vulcan man_ _You have just gone without_ _For seven years, about._ ETA: I just noticed this was already mentioned upthread. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/127 "2024-04-15T04:17:07Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Geez, I didnt know it was that bad. How many times did Kirk or Picard cry… or a better analogy- Janeway? Sisko was far more outwardly emotional than any of those three, but he always kept his dignity about him. I could see him crying, but rarely, and certainly only privately. Janeway had a severe bout of depression in one episode, but like Sisko, she remained dignified. Burnham just doesn’t comport herself properly as a starship captain. A captain should seem in command and in control. She’s just embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/128 "2024-04-15T06:38:01Z")
_Star Trek TOS_ adhered to the '60s scripture of episodic television, intended to allow randomized syndication of the show. There were really only three significant characters who appeared in more than one episode: crewmember Riley, Dr. M’Benga and Harry Mudd, and those episodes made scant, if any, reference to the other episodes in which those characters appeared. Basically, any episode was meant to stand on its own, which explains why things encountered in _TOS_ were not useful in other episodes.        As far as _TNG_+ is concerned, that is a little different. Why no exploration of things like the Talosian mind control abilities (or the tech depicted in _The Squire of Gothos_, _Catspaw_, _The Gamesters of Triskelion_, _Spock’s Brain_, _Spectre of the Gun_, or _The Savage Curtain_) was not more deeply studied is difficult to accept. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/129 "2024-04-15T13:47:43Z")
> [@digs](#): > > The Orville was trying to be a stupid comedy _and_ sci-fi in the first season. I’m convinced that Seth McFarlane always wanted to make it a straight sci-fi show, but being who he is, the studios would only invest in it if it was a “comedy”. So he made it a comedy, but with the intention of transforming it into an actual sci-fi show, much as we saw happen. It was a massive bait-and-switch. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/130 "2024-04-15T14:12:34Z")
I actually loved both kinds of Orville. The humour would have been grating if it had been in the family guy style, but, for me at least, the jokes landed and made the crew seem more relatable (which is also something star trek tries to do). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/131 "2024-04-15T14:21:11Z")
I don’t know if it’s yet been mentioned but there was a TNG episode where they used the transporter to literally remove a disease from someone. This genuinely astonishing ability isn’t mentioned again. If it were a thing, logically every sick bay and hospital should have a transporter to just beam a person from one bed to another whenever you want to remove a pathogen. The transporter in Star Trek was a writing catastrophe; I am pretty sure they inserted it to save money on sets, but it has required a thousand workarounds and excuses in the franchise to explain why it cannot be used to solve a zillion problems. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/132 "2024-04-15T14:36:30Z")
In SNW, the transporter can equip the landing party, change thier clothes and even medicate them. It has filters such that anything it doesn’t recognize is automatically filtered out (except when it isnt) and Medical has it’s own emergency transporter that can be used to indefinitely keep someone’s pattern around in the buffer (something they also alluded to with transporters in a battlefield during the klingon war). All of this was lost to all future iterations of the transporter - even on the ‘same ship’. Heck, the engineer tried to (and was largely successful with) beaming up part of the magma core of a planet… ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/133 "2024-04-15T14:37:21Z")
In the original series, there was an episode entitled, “The Tholian Web”, in which the Tholian space force was able to literally weave a power grid that, once finished, would entrap the Enterprise until in either ran out of energy or they destroyed it. I could be mistaken, but I never saw or heard of the Tholian Web in any episode after that in any of the series. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/134 "2024-04-15T14:38:04Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > for me at least, the [Orville] jokes landed and made the crew seem more relatable My favorite was just a tiny bit where the captain calls two ensigns to the bridge. And then we see them get the call, look at each other, and start running as fast as they can, down hallways, up stairs (because waiting for a turbo lift would take too long), and arriving a bit disheveled and winded. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/135 "2024-04-15T14:39:35Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The transporter in Star Trek was a writing catastrophe; I am pretty sure they inserted it to save money on sets My understanding is that it was, indeed, created to be friendly to the production budget, in particular so they didn’t need to doing visual effects shots of a shuttlecraft for every episode. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/136 "2024-04-15T14:41:13Z")
If my recollection is accurate - originally the ship itself was intended to land ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/137 "2024-04-15T14:44:09Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I could be mistaken, but I never saw or heard of the Tholian Web in any episode after that in any of the series. It looks like they appeared in two episodes of _Enterprise_, though they’ve been mentioned in several other instances. > **[Tholian](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tholian?so=search#Appearances)** > > The Tholians were a crystalline-based non-humanoid species from the Alpha Quadrant. (TOS: "The Tholian Web") Tholians were a crystalline species. They had a hard carapace that was chiefly mineral. There were six thin legs that made it possible for... ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/138 "2024-04-15T14:44:30Z")
> [@digs](#): > > My favorite was just a tiny bit where the captain calls two ensigns to the bridge. And then we see them get the call, look at each other, and start running as fast as they can, down hallways, up stairs (because waiting for a turbo lift would take too long), and arriving a bit disheveled and winded. I liked when they were visiting the Xelayan homeworld, remarking at its beauty, and then Gordan says something like “Seeing this makes me realize my family’s trash”. As someone who grew up in poverty and has seen how the other half live, I can definitely relate to that feeling, as well as it being a funny quip. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/139 "2024-04-15T14:46:30Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > It looks like they appeared in two episodes of _Enterprise_, though they’ve been mentioned in several other instances. But did they utilize their unique power and weave their web? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2024, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963/140 "2024-04-15T14:47:06Z")
Not sure; I don’t recall those episodes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredible-powers-discovered-revealed-on-star-trek-that-are-used-once-and-dismissed-forever/999963.md?page=8)