# Tell me about Star Trek **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 6, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254 "2013-06-06T00:49:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/121 "2013-06-08T22:41:02Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > You know what I’d do if I were commander of an enemy vessel? I’d take out the gunboat (a few direct hits is all it ever takes to knock down all of their deflectors and disable the warp drive) and then head out at full warp and deal with the impulse-driven saucer section. Or maybe I’d just ignore the gunboat and blow the saucer to smithereens first. > > I prefer the first scenario, because Terran women and children are welcome additions to slave markets all over the Galaxy. I like the cut of your ears ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/122 "2013-06-08T22:43:05Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > I like the cut of your ears I am honored. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/123 "2013-06-08T23:36:09Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > Why were the Klingons bad before, but good now? Because they were just a Cold War analog in TOS, and with that winding down they had to do something else with them. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/124 "2013-06-08T23:41:06Z")
Good they may be, tho difficult they remain. Honor, much importance to them it has. Mind what you have learned! Cut you up they will! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/125 "2013-06-08T23:55:07Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Cut you up they will! A thousand throats can be cut in a single night by a running man. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/126 "2013-06-09T00:31:33Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Good they may be, tho difficult they remain. Honor, much importance to them it has. Mind what you have learned! Cut you up they will! Hmmpf! Yoda of Borg am I. Assimillated you will be, yes. Futile, resistance is! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/127 "2013-06-09T02:47:15Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > The only way Barclay would be allowed onto an actual starship would be as a space tourist, provided he signed a written pledge not to touch anything beforehand… Despite his holodiction, he was a pretty capable engineer. > [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](#): > > Regarding the episode “Samaritan Snare”. > > There’s a really cool callback later in the series to a certain detail Picard reveals in the episode. Really blew my mind. One of my favourite moments in all of Star Trek. Remind us what that was, please? > [@terentii](#): > > A thousand throats can be cut in a single night by a running man. Ya gotta love a culture that comes up with maxims like that. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/128 "2013-06-09T03:54:09Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Despite his holodiction, he was a pretty capable engineer. Can you imagine NASA sending a mentally unbalanced yet highly capable engineer on a mission to Mars? People like that are simply not selected to serve for years in a confined environment populated by relatively normal colleagues, especially when billions of dollars of equipment are at stake. That’s why we have such things as psychological screening. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/129 "2013-06-09T04:54:15Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Hmmpf! Yoda of Borg am I. Assimillated you will be, yes. Futile, resistance is! Humor…it is a difficult concept. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/130 "2013-06-09T04:55:41Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Here’s some real Trek cosplay: [http://completenerdom.com/sexy-star-trek-cosplay/](http://completenerdom.com/sexy-star-trek-cosplay/) > > The link pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? > > ^:dubious:^ Fan pic. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/131 "2013-06-09T05:02:04Z")
But the Federation isn’t NASA. They send thousands to space. They are not all the best and the brightest. Someone has to be the C student. Not all of them can graduate top of their class. Barclay was one of my favorite characters because he was not a superman. (actually he was just shy at first, but later was turned super awesome and boring) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/132 "2013-06-09T05:04:23Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > But the Federation isn’t NASA. They send thousands to space. They are not all the best and the brightest. Someone has to be the C student. Not all of them can graduate top of their class. **[Beverly Hofstadter’s voice]:** You rationalize that very well. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/133 "2013-06-09T17:53:03Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Ya gotta love a culture that comes up with maxims like that. I’m not sure it was a maxim, or at least not before that episode. The leader Klingon is talking to his wife when one of the male officers pipes in: Leader: We must take the ship. Wife: They are four hundred to our forty! Officer: Four _thousand_ throats can be cut in one night - by a running man. The officer is pointing out that speed and determination can even the odds. I don’t get the impression he’s just quoting or paraphrasing some Klingon proverb. He might be _coining_ one, though… Later on, when the Leader says “Only a fool fights in a burning house”… _that_ sounds proverbial. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/134 "2013-06-09T18:12:40Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > The officer is pointing out that speed and determination can even the odds. **PICARD:** Thank you, Counselor. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/135 "2013-06-09T20:04:43Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m not sure it was a maxim, or at least not before that episode. It sounded to me as though it were. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/136 "2013-06-09T20:11:22Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > It sounded to me as though it were. Also, that “four thousand” figure seems a bit high to me. Is there a source for it? I saw “Day of the Dove” a couple of weeks ago on Space, and I remember it as “a thousand,” just like every other time I’ve seen the episode since 1970. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/137 "2013-06-09T20:22:51Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Also, that “four thousand” figure seems a bit high to me. Is there a source for it? > > I saw “Day of the Dove” a couple of weeks ago on Space, and I remember it as “a thousand,” just like every other time I’ve seen the episode since 1970. The Klingon opera. “The Death of Kayless”. 🙂 I also remember it as a thousand. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/138 "2013-06-09T20:26:57Z")
Kayless or Kahless? :dubious: “The Unforgettable.” Cool! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/139 "2013-06-09T20:39:09Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Kayless or Kahless? :dubious: > > “The Unforgettable.” Cool! [You are correct, Sir.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahless) Kahless (pronounced KAY-less; Klingon letters: “qeylIS”) ^:)^ ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254/140 "2013-06-09T20:48:43Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Kahless (pronounced KAY-less; Klingon letters: “qeylIS”) “Who set the pattern for his planet’s tyrranies.” Double-plus cool! 🆒 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-star-trek/660254.md?page=8)