The 33 things I will do should I ever become a starship captain:

Cafe Society
41

As long as the practical matters (width; security doors; death-ray emmiters, etc.) have already been taken care of, there’s nothing wrong with making the interior of my ship look like a brightly lit “Holiday Inn in Space.” It’s my ship, and I’ll make it look like the damned Circus Circus Casino inside if I want to.

I will remember that laws of the Federation are supposed to help and protect people, not just to be blindly obeyed—if following Federation law is just going to make people suffer for no reason, screw it.

My ship’s weapons are supposed to be able to hit a target as far away as half the distance from the Earth to the moon. There is no reason for me to be able to count the bolts on an enemy ship’s hull with my own eyes when I go into combat.

I will make sure that my photon torpedoes (or whatever I’m using in their stead) actually as impressive a yield as something with 1.5 Kilos of antimatter for it’s warhead should have.

I will let the viewers see the whale tank and the main shuttlebay, once in awhile.

If the Federation has already granted citizenship/acknowledged the sentience of an artificial lifeform that’s become part of my crew, it’s bad form to try and backtrack on it whenever it becomes convenient.

If a crewmember or a senior officer/old friend dies, I’ll keep in mind that I’ve personally encountered no less than a dozen ways of bringing dead people back to life over my career, some of which DON’T even involve the transporter.

I will try to cut back on badmouthing the 20th century—those poor dead slobs have suffered enough.

The Holodeck code
If I do have a holodeck onboard, there have to be a few conditions…

  1. Each holodeck will be big, easy to see, manual power switches, both inside and out. The ones inside the holodeck will be physically unable to be masked by holograms.
  2. The Holodeck design will be such that shutting the power off suddenly won’t vaporize the people inside it, or blow up the ship, or anything. (There was actually an episode, either of TNG or Voyager, where they said that shutting the holodeck’s power off under certain conditions might vaporize the people inside. No kidding. :eek: )
  3. The Holodecks will shut off automatically if any “unusual” activity is detected in the holodeck systems. I may also have an permenant “holodeck safety officer” position to monitor the holo systems, 24 hours a day.
  4. Every eight hours (at least), the Holodecks will be shut down automatically, the systems given a full diagnostic, and the safety of any users checked. This will also be the time for the dreaded “holodeck squegee duty.”
  5. My ship may have a dedicated holodeck system; and my ship may have a system able to create sentient holograms. But never the twain shall meet.
    5a. This is both for safety reasons (no Evil Lincolns), and the (gasp!) moral and ethical concerns of creating sentient, if artificial, slaves. And NONE of us wants to see a repeat of the unexpected Holohooker Unionization and general strike fiasco that happened on on Rigel IV.
  6. The holodeck safety system will be hardwired into the holodeck’s ROM (or whatever the hell the equivilant of a ROM is in the future). If, for some reason, someone wants to be hurt or someone needs an actual ass-whooping, they’ll have to find a flesh and blood person to do it. (Or possibly a Sillicon and Magmaglobin person, like Ensign Rockmonster. But only if he’s cool with it, or if I order him to.)
42

Ever been hit by a Taser? Those things will take down Andre the Giant on angel dust. It’s not a matter of pain or toughness: it’s your peripheral nervous system crashing.

43

I will mount extra engines on my starship that point up, down, left and right, allowing me to move in directions other than “forward” and “backward.”

44

A-men! You wouldn’t think that’d be so hard, would it?

45

What number are we up to? Screw it.

I willl get the Intergalactic Union of Electrical Workers to install a real power distribution system on my ship, not some screwy “plasma conduit” channeling nuclear hellfire all over the damned place like Satan’s Plumbing System!

I will also have Circuit Breakers installed all over the place so a damned power surge doesn’t cause my control consoles to explode like a damned grenade, killing my crew members off. I’ll do that myself, thank you very much!

My crew is free to hate me all they want, so long as they FEAR me even more.

46

-It will NOT be our policy to immediatley resist assimilation. Having seen Seven of Nine, we will investigate 1-6, and 8 & 9 first, then I will decide whether or not to resist. This is my decision: let it be so!

-My name is Captain, no other name will do. “Sir” may be used if the situation is SO dire that the time needed to utter the extra syllable will significantly increase our chances of death, but at no other time. And, as the Captain, I KNOW what your job is… if you persist in telling me (ala “Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor!”) I will introduce you to the inside of the nearest airlock.

That is all. Carry on.

47

There will be no railings on my ship. When things explode during battles or when the shooting starts, people who get shot will always fall over railings and die. Removing the railings will prevent these people from dying, and it will prevent others on the level beneath from being killed by having a person fall on them.

48

:cool: Ah, a person of great taste in movies, indeed…
103. If any crewmember suffers invasive contact with an unknown alien creature in a planet or boarded vessel, a mobile field-aid station will be sent down to the site in order to ascertain if said creature has in any way, shape or form invaded his body. He will not be returned aboard unless and until it is 100% certain he carries no larval aliens in his gut or parasites in his neural cortex.

  1. Although intimate contact with alien species is allowed and even encouraged, any instance of an adversary civilization’s Crown Princess/First Officer/High Priest/Babeous Ace Fighter Pilot/Spaceship AI apparently falling hear-over-heels in love with one of my government’s Starship Captains/Sentient Holograms/Studly Ace Fighter Pilot/Chief Diplomat/Top Scientists, to the point of abandoning duty, honor and country, within a day of first even laying eyes on one another, will be presumed to be an obvious attempt at espionage/sabotage, and treated accordingly.

  2. If we are in possession of a super-powerful, no-defense-against-it, 100% victory-guaranteeing weapon, the research office will have as Task #1 making sure said weapon can be fired safely, reliably, repeatedly, and quickly.

105a. And if so, said weapon will be used just as soon as the enemy’s in its range, not at the end of the day after we’ve taken scores of casualties.

41a. Specifically, I shall make Glorious Appearinces and lay down the Book Of Delirious in various worlds, and enjoy the idea of cultures across the universe walking nude around a bonfire at sunset every 40th day while chanting the Chipmunk Song.

49

Upon entering the Enemy’s territory, I will immediately lay in a course that will program my ship with a FTL collision with either the enemy’s flagship or the capital city of his homeworld.

Nobody expects a Kamikaze Run during First Contact. :wink:
My ship won’t just have a Cloaking device; it will have a CHAMELEON Device!
Being able to fool my enemy’s sensors into thinking my ship is either a one-man shuttle OR a battlestation the size of a small moon (amongst a multitude of ruses) has more strategic value than just being invisible.

My experimental personal phase cloaking device not only renders ME invisible, but also lets me pass through solid objects like bulkheads. However the deck beneath my feet is still solid to walk on, so I don’t fall through the bottom of the ship. Also, while phase cloaked, I cannot eat or drink anything, yet I can still breathe.

I will study these inconsistencies and discover a strategic/tactical use for them!

50

Are we inspired?

51

118.0 My bridge will have frickin’ 360-degree IMAX fer crissakes. How the hell am I going to fight three K9 cruisers if I’m only lookin’ towards the front all the damn time?

119.0 Shotguns for all the crew and passengers.

Tripler
Yeah, I’m starting the decimal thing just in case anyone’s got any exceptions to the rules.

52

Quoth Lumpy:

“Afterwards”? Afterwards nothing! My officers and security personnel will carry as their standard sidearm a gunpowder-propelled lead thrower, possibly with radiant energy weapons as backup. Unless, of course, lead-throwing weapons would be a risk to the integrity of my hull when used; in that case, I and my well-trained head of security would carry them, and enough for the rest of my officers and security team will be stored in a weapons locker on board the ship.

Speaking of those radiant energy weapons, any such weapon used by my personnel had better propagate at the speed of light, or a fair approximation of same. I will not tolerate any ranged weapon, radiant energy or otherwise, which propagates at less than several hundred meters per second, and certainly nothing slow enough for a humanoid target to dodge.

Furthermore, any light emitted by a radiant energy weapon in any direction other than straight towards the target is wasteful, and furthermore gives the enemy an undue tactical advantage in seeing where I’m shooting. Such wastefulness will be prohibited.

And on a completely different note, if I should ever happen to defeat a powerful enemy, or divert a nonsentient threat, or otherwise solve a difficult and threatening situation by means of some improvised use of obscure laws of physics and/or ship equipment, I will document such improvisation thoroughly, and consider using it or a variation thereof immediately, the next time I find myself in such a situation. If my vessel is a member of a fleet, I will share this information with other captains in my fleet, and expect and encourage them to do likewise.

53

My communications systems will be completely immune to dampening fields.

My self propelled weapons such as torpedoes will not require me to lock on, they will carry their own systems of detection and make their own way to the target. I will just tell them what to look for and let them go.

All crew on detatched duty will carry easily portable pattern enhancers at all times, and if there is any possible threat to my transporter lock, they will be taken out of there automatically and without any further discussion.

I will not need to reconfigure my sensors, as they will be able to detect everything, I will then instruct my scientists to decipher the recieved result into relevant information.

I will not forget that some substances are harmful, even if my civilisation no longer has use for them, and I will always ensure that my ship and crew are protected from such substances.

My deflector array will be able to transmit anything I choose at any power I choose, it will also be one of several.

All transmissions, fields, detectors, transporters or generators of any kind will have a large switch upon them that will allow them to reverse polarity or a large rotating knob which will allow it to change phase at any instant if it is necessary to do so.

I will not have a countdown self destruct device, it will be a small remote control style device that will respond only to a person with my exact DNA and brainwave patterns, and it will have one button on it.

If my enemy fires weapons at me from the planet below, I will withdraw to a safe distance and blow their sun apart.

All major pieces of equipment will have their own power supplies, they will not rely upon some distribution network.

I will have spare shield generator devices.

I will not use a touch sensitive keypad for continous control of steering in close engagements, but rather a joystick a viewing screen, and an accelerator pedal.

My engines will propel me far faster than plaid.

I will install toilets in my ship despite the fact that none have been observed on any spaceship in any film or tv series.

54

Any ship’s android which goes around saying things like “I am curious as to why your optical ducts are emitting moisture. Is this another manifestation of the human emotion you call ‘Sadness’?” will find itself sold to the Jawas for a tidy profit, where it can contemplate the nature of being human while breaking rocks in the hot Tatooine suns.

Oh, and the Starfleet anthem will be replaced by Another Girl, Another Planet by The Only Ones - except in times of battle, when the MC5’s Starship will be blasted over the ship’s PA. Extremely loudly.

55

Any robot/android which shows no interest in sex, alcohol, or “creative financing” shall immediately be sold/melted down for scrap.

56

Any technology that is restricted by other technology (i.e. can’t have shields up and do ____ at the same time) will be researched to allow this to be feasable, in that any situation I am in will not be hampered by some BS conflict with the technology I am dealing with.

My armory will be stocked wtih state-of-the-art weapons…from the present day, from 100 years ago, from 200 year ago, etc. Enemies that are phaser-proof will be tested to see if they are bullet and arrow proof.

The crew are ultimately the most important living things on my ship, and any situation I am in which involves being bogged down by ‘refugees’ or ‘stowaways’ will prompty be dealt with in the most efficient manner. If this means dumping them on the nearest M-class planet, so be it. I’m not driving a cruise ship here, nor am I some futuristic AAA service.

The interior of the ship will have powerful inertial dampeners to totally eliminate any sudden or jarring motions from receving enemy fire. Similarly, hits that are absorbed by shields will not cause the ship to rock about. I should be able to dance on a balancing beam while the ship is getting perforated by enemy fire. As a backup, there will be restraint devices as well.

Any critter-accessable shafts will be redesigned to prevent the accumulation of alien infestation, be it tribbles or facehuggers…why build a labyrinth of tunnels which are cumbersome for humans to traverse but offer excellent protection for parasitic alien species?! :confused: Similarly, any obscenely tall vertical shafts will have nets or other safety equipment to prevent falls. All ladders will have cages. Any energy conduits/generators do not have to have some transparent covering, rather they will be covered and any critical components of the ship de-centralized and scattered throughout the hull.

57

When in a “culture clash” disagreement with aliens, I will keep in mind that I come from a hundred-planet civilization that has eliminated hunger, poverty, crime, disease, and war, and is at the height of technological development in my half of the galaxy; while my opponent comes from a primitive backwater planet. I’ll let that influence my judgement on which of us more likely has the correct opinion.

All man-portable energy weapons are to have a rate of fire better than a lever-action slugthrower, unless the damage inflicted by the weapon is impressive enough to justify the slow rate of fire. (Something along the lines of “vaporize all matter within a 45-meter sphere.”)

In the interests of “equal opportunity,” I will try to have two weird/exotic-looking alien crewmen (like Selay, or Caitians) for every “generic forehead-lumps alien” crewman.

Actually, I’ll amend that to say that I’ll try to have at least one Caitian bridge officer at all times.

I will not delete data from my ship’s computer for “ethical” reasons.

58

In accordance with this rule, all androids will be replaced with bending robots.

59

These are all severly lacking in imagination. I’ll tell you what I would do.

120.0 I will strap a huge phonograph needle on the ship and drop it on the Rings of Saturn.

“Major Tom to Ground Control… I’m feeling mighty ~krack -ling mighty ~krack -ling mighty ~krack…”

60

Uh, you do realise this is the reason why consoles explode in the face of nameless redshirt ensigns during battles, right?

My cloaking device will have its own dedicated warp core powering it.

All crewmembers will have fetility inhibitors surgically implanted. I don’t need any “accidents” screwing up my mission.

I will identify my ship as the “Pink Fluffy Bunny”, and kick alien ass. If they don’t surrender, I will put in a call to the " Vampire Dragon" and let them stew over THAT one.