Why not 'Blue Alert' for DASH drive?

[ED-209]

On DS9 and Voy they had 'Blue alert' for cloaking and landing, I always took 'Blue Alert' to mean 'Unusal Activity' so why not Blue instead of Black alert or Spore drive use? I know the real reason is because it sounds cooler but I'm trying to come up with an in-universe explanation.

 

[Amaris]

Maybe they thought audiences would confuse blue alert with code blue? A blue alert in the Star Trek universe might mean heavy casualties? Not sure.

 

[ED-209]

Possibly, but I'm sure they used Blue Alert in previous series.

 

[Turtletrekker]

They have used blue alert in the past.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_alert

However, I think you answered your own question. Blue alert is already used for various things. However, there's no confusion what a Black Alert is, because it only means one thing.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I think an equally important question is why no one ever refers to it as the DASH drive.

 

[Noname Given]

On DS9 and Voy they had 'Blue alert' for cloaking and landing, I always took 'Blue Alert' to mean 'Unusal Activity' so why not Blue instead of Black alert or Spore drive use? I know the real reason is because it sounds cooler but I'm trying to come up with an in-universe explanation.

Because at the start the Spore Drive was a Starfleet Black Ops project.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I think an equally important question is why no one ever refers to it as the DASH drive.

I do!

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think an equally important question is why no one ever refers to it as the DASH drive.

Because Displacement Activated Spore Hub Drive is a try-too-hard acronym. They want us to call it that, which makes it so unappealing even the in-universe characters can't do it.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Because Displacement Activated Spore Hub Drive is a try-too-hard acronym..

So was "Visual Instrument and Sight Organ Replacement".

 

[F. King Daniel]

So was "Visual Instrument and Sight Organ Replacement".

Except nobody knew it was called that and I'm not sure it was ever used on the show (DASH was at least said once in full by Lorca). "Visor" has been a generic term for "thing worn over your eyes" forever.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

The anime Gundam SEED had some of the best stupid try-hard acronyms:

ZAFT - Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty
OMNI Enforcer - Oppose Militancy and Neutralize Invasion Enforcer
METEOR - Mobile suit Embedded Tactical EnfORcer (seriously?)
GUNDAM - Generation Unsubdued Nuclear Drive Assault Module

DASH seems less stupid after typing these out.

 

[David cgc]

I personally want to retcon "Black Alert" to applying to every next-generation experimental drive system. The Excelsior firing up the transwarp drive in TSFS? Black Alert. "Kosinski's" new warp equations in early TNG? Black Alert. Voyager's quantum slipstream drive? You better believe they went to Black Alert for that. There's a project for me if I get bored one weekend.

It's a shame they (inexplicably) didn't include the spore-drive action theme on the soundtracks yet, despite being the most-used bit of music on the show after the opening credits. That'd be enough to make me start working on it today.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I personally want to retcon "Black Alert" to applying to every next-generation experimental drive system. The Excelsior firing up the transwarp drive in TSFS? Black Alert. "Kosinski's" new warp equations in early TNG? Black Alert. Voyager's quantum slipstream drive? You better believe they went to Black Alert for that. There's a project for me if I get bored one weekend.

It's a shame they (inexplicably) didn't include the spore-drive action theme on the soundtracks yet, despite being the most-used bit of music on the show after the opening credits. That'd be enough to make me start working on it today.

What about entering a wormhole? I could see using Blue Alert for wormholes in your headcanon system.

 

[Ithekro]

They'd have to change the bulb.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

The anime Gundam SEED had some of the best stupid try-hard acronyms:

ZAFT - Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty
OMNI Enforcer - Oppose Militancy and Neutralize Invasion Enforcer
METEOR - Mobile suit Embedded Tactical EnfORcer (seriously?)
GUNDAM - Generation Unsubdued Nuclear Drive Assault Module

DASH seems less stupid after typing these out.

NASA's space probe that is currently at asteroid Bennu and will return a sample in 2023 is called Osiris-REx.
Osiris-REx -- Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer

The words just were strung together characteristics separated by a comma. And "Security?" Really?


Similarly, there's "SPHEREx".
SPHEREx -- Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx)

I guess the "Ices" part wasn't important enough to make it into the acronym/backronym (nor the "Universe" part).


NASA's latest Mars Lander is InSight:
InSight -- Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport

They conveniently skipped the "E". And it might be a bit of a stretch to say that InSight is engaging in Geodesy; it is investigating Mars' rotation, which is more of an effect of planetary geodesy rather than an aspect of it.


One of my favorites from NASA is the "EPOXI" mission, which is the follow-up mission to NASA's Deep Impact. They re-targeted an old spacecraft that sent a projectile into a comet (the original Deep Impact Mission) so it would flyby yet another comet to observe it. Additionally, a whole separate mission using the same spacecraft used the camera onboard the craft to investigate extrasolar planets. EPOXI itself is not an acronym for the mission, but is a mash-up of two other acronyms EPOch and DIXI

EPOCh is the Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization
DIXI is the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation

 

[Tuskin38]

NASA's space probe that is currently at asteroid Bennu and will return a sample in 2023 is called Osiris-REx.
Osiris-REx -- Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer

The words just were strung together characteristics separated by a comma. And "Security?" Really?


NASA's latest Mars Lander is InSight:
InSight -- Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport

They conveniently skipped the "E". And it might be a bit of a stretch to say that InSight is engaging in Geodesy; it is investigating Mars' rotation, which is more of an effect of planetary geodesy rather than an aspect of it.


One of my favorites from NASA is the "EPOXI" mission, which is the follow-up mission to NASA's Deep Impact. They re-targeted an old spacecraft that sent a projectile into a comet (the original Deep Impact Mission) so it would flyby yet another comet to observe it. Additionally, a whole separate mission using the same spacecraft used the camera onboard the craft to investigate extrasolar planets. EPOXI itself is not an acronym for the mission, but is a mash-up of two other acronyms EPOch and DIXI

EPOCh is the Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization
DIXI is the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation

Don't forget
Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT)
Though that one was def on purpose.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Don't forget
Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT)
Though that one was def on purpose.

How convenient for them that was his name!

 

[Qonundrum]

Maybe they thought audiences would confuse blue alert with code blue? A blue alert in the Star Trek universe might mean heavy casualties? Not sure.

Lowest common denominator being a factor, nobody wanted to change the light bulb to a blue one.

 

[Timo]

The ship has non-blue lightbulbs?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vger23]

Because "Black Alert" is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY cooler than "Blue Alert"