All that Kirk needs to say to crash a three-hundred-thousand-year-old working computer is:" I am lying."
Kirk's reputation with computers..
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
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All that Kirk needs to say to crash a three-hundred-thousand-year-old working computer is:" I am lying."
Kirk's propensity for destroying computers was part of an overarching humanistic theme of TOS. We are better than our machines. Our emotions, our flaws, the whole package, is something special. So you can throw in By Any Other Name and Who Mourns, too, where the very qualities of being human are why Kirk prevails.
"There are some things men must do to remain men."
It's no coincidence that Spock's struggle to control his emotions was set up in contrast to Kirk's embracing his.
Indeed, the entire TOS crew (including Spock, when called for) utilized their humanity, including their emotions, their will to live, and their sexuality, on their missions. It's what set them apart from the later shows (and, sadly, from modern life).
I don't know if modern sci fi has lost this theme, but modern life certainly has.
"There are some things men must do to remain men."
It's no coincidence that Spock's struggle to control his emotions was set up in contrast to Kirk's embracing his.
Indeed, the entire TOS crew (including Spock, when called for) utilized their humanity, including their emotions, their will to live, and their sexuality, on their missions. It's what set them apart from the later shows (and, sadly, from modern life).
I don't know if modern sci fi has lost this theme, but modern life certainly has.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of Piper and Leinster, as well as Doc Smith. I never noticed the near-constant backdrop of a future ruled by corporations and bureaucrats the way I do now. Depending on the author—Pohl and del Ray come to mind, too—the inhuman nature of business-as-salvation is either a good or bad thing. TOS and its humanistic vision can be seen as part of that tradition.
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Of course not. Wrath of Kahn is.I mean, seriously, TMP is the best Trek movie?
If you people remember "The Avengers" was an Old British spy series that was contemporaneous with TOS. John Steed in that series that was somewhat Sci.fiish, once defeated a sophisticated computer by ordering it to destroy itself. In "The Prisoner"
Patrick McGoohan destroys a computer by asking it "Why?". Apparently back then they thought that computers were supposed to answer all the questions that were put to them or cease to function.
In reality, nobody would ever build a computer like that.
Patrick McGoohan destroys a computer by asking it "Why?". Apparently back then they thought that computers were supposed to answer all the questions that were put to them or cease to function.
In reality, nobody would ever build a computer like that.
Indeed. Whatever Rodenberry's limitations as a writer, he (and, of course, the other writers who graced Trek) was au current with the then-prevalent themes of literary sci-fi. Would their successors were so literate.
Another quote comes to mind, from Conscience of the King - Lenore says something like, "and women? Has the machine changed them? Made them just people?"
- I love the "just" there. We have lost a lot.
Kirk's reputation as a computer killer is legend! Our Twitter group on Saturday nights (@TOSSatNight) loves this special skill our beloved captain has. Makes him rather unique among the various ST captains! 
If I ever saw Capt. Kirk at a help desk of a computer store, I would run.
WorthlessFYI, the only computer thing I could destroy was an application on a computer. I opened a resource editor upon itself. It kinda freaked out and went catatonic.
WorthlessFYI, the only computer thing I could destroy was an application on a computer. I opened a resource editor upon itself. It kinda freaked out and went catatonic.
Or a trainer, LOL
Kirk was like human malware. He talked computers to death or defeat all the time.
...
The man was a menace.
Can we give him the V'ger defeat, too?
Young Kirk also reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru computer just to save his pride. His computer-breaking days are far and wide.
That's right. I counted the three androids he messed up in WALGMO as Ruk, Andrea, and Korby. But he also sabotaged his double. So that was four machines that were thrown off their game by Kirk's "message as malware" strategy.
Add Mike Nesmith to the list:
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