Superman and the Flash, having a race, running faster than sound, are able to talk to each other.
I believe various semi-canon sources like the Technical manuals say that the lowest ranking crew share two to a dorm room. The Defiant was unusual in that the ratings slept in barracks.
And how is the Atom able to breathe when he shrinks smaller than oxygen atoms?
I recall a panel from a Silver Age comic showing the Atom saying “inside this oxygen atom, I can breathe.” Which almost made my head explode. It shows the fantasy nature of the whole concept. As with MST3K, “I say to myself it’s just a show; I should really just relax.” Otherwise I’d be wondering how he could even see the atom, when both he and the atom are smaller than the wavelength of visible light.
How is he able to see atoms, and sub-atomic particles, when they are smaller than light waves?
Am I similarly invisible, despite being much larger than a wavelength of light?
But Starfleet does have enlisted personnel (at least in The Next Generation onward). Miles O’Brien was head of engineering on DS9 as a chief petty officer (NCO). Which seems odd to me, but that was more of a backwater space station than a true Federation ship like the Enterprise.
So where do these enlisted come from? Like do they sign up with a Starfleet recruiter at the local strip mall like they were joining the Army and then go through space boot camp?
And are there other paths to officer besides joining Starfleet (which seems to be portrayed as a highly competitive military/science academy equivalent to Annapolis meets MIT or CalTech). Like is there a Starfleet ROTC program?
That reminds me. Another thing that bothers me is “aliens putting Earth on trial”. You know, usually some variation of “prove humanities worthiness or we’ll obliterate your planet.”
Well…we generally don’t go around obliterating planets for one. At least not intentionally.
Star Trek: TNG kicked that off in the very first episode with Q’s trial of the Enterprise crew. Right, because Q later proved to be a great example of using your power responsibly (although I would imagine Q put humanity on trial simply because it amused him).
Bothers me, too. I’ve seen it in other places. The oldest one I know of is Heinlein’s juvenile Have Space Suit Will Travel. But it’s in the background of Stranger in a Strange Land, too.
O’Brien is an interesting case. He started out an ensign. (with no known name). He was called “transporter chief”, but he had officer pips.
Somewhere along the way, after he got a name, TPTB decided he wasn’t just a chief, but a Chief. Then I think it was on DS9 they had him saying old platitudes like “I’m not an officer, I work for a living”, which was old and moldy in the Napoleonic Era. So, I guess that means, “in canon” there are enlisted people. One, at least.
It makes no damn sense! If he’s “Chief engineering officer”, he needs to be an officer, dammit!
sorry, my interociter is broken.
In any sci-fi situation where a human can shrink and embiggen again, there are only two ways to accomplish that AFAIK, and both have their own issues.
Is mass reduced? If so, what mechanism can remove 99% or so of a person’s mass, while keeping the basic structure of a living human intact? Not to mention adding the mass back somehow.
Is the space inside the person’s atoms compressed? If so, and the tiny human’s mass is preserved, they become super-dense, and likely sink into any surface they tried to stand upon. I don’t think a human has enough mass to turn into a tiny black hole at a small enough size, but they’d have some big (heh) problems.
At some point, the civilians on earth really have to wonder if Starfleet is worth the trouble. They’re like a kid bringing home a puppy (can I keep him?) except the puppy is really Godzilla, and he’s pissed!
How many times has Starfleet “brought the puppy home” and almost destroyed humanity? V’ger, Borg, Dominion, Q, Xindi…
There has been some posts here that Starfleet isn’t really the “best and brightest”, but is really the misfits and arrested development cases. It’s a giant Boy Scout jamboree. It’s cosplay, except that the Starfleeters don’t know they’re playing. As long as they’re “out there”, they can’t cause trouble at home. I sort of enjoy that idea, but the first paragraph proves it can’t be true.
“I was eighteen, and eager. The last thing I wanted to do was spend four years sitting in classrooms. I wanted to be out there, travelling the stars. I didn’t want to wait for anything.”
—an enlisted guy in Starfleet, giving his backstory in THE DRUMHEAD.
He can shrink small enough to land on entire planets smaller than any sub-atomic particle. Those planets have air, water, food, and little itty bitty people. The Atom has an advantage on those worlds because not only can he get even smaller than the itty-bitty people, he can also grow and be a giant among them as well.
Starfleet definitely had enlisted ranks. They even had Mustangs (joined as enlisted and progressed to officer). Janice Rand was a Petty Officer on TOS, Chief Petty Officer in Star Trek, The Motion Picture, and by Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country she was a Lt. JG.
Was she? I don’t recall her ever being called anything but “Yeoman” (which is a rating, not a rank).
Despite Roddenberry supposedly saying that everyone on the Enterprise was an officer, TOS had all those anonymous guys wandering around called “crewman,” who I always assumed to be enlisted folks.
On Lower Decks ensigns on California Class ships sleep in bunks in hallways.
Never mind, got my shrinking heroes confused.
Antman? He’s making a comeback thanks to the movies. Back in the day I wanted to see both him an the Atom more often but they both got pushed aside for bigger attractions. Both of them had the ability to change their mass at will.
Yeah, I was thinking Antman, who can get bigger than a human as well as smaller. I don’t really know the Atom that well, but a quick Google indicated that the current incarnation, at least, only gets smaller.