I think etching a giant smiley face on the moon with your phasers would cheer a lot of people up.
Hypothetical Situation - Could you be in my crew?
- Thread starter USS Triumphant
- Start date
Or boobs.
This is, of course, a completely hypothetical situation, so I would appreciate HONESTY in your responses, please. Don't try to trick me, "just in case", because this will NEVER happen.
Suppose that one day a couple of years ago, my cell phone rang and it was my ship calling, the U.S.S. Triumphant, which had mysteriously become real and entered Earth orbit, crewless. It was calling to ask me if I was ready for beam-up, and I said "oh HELL yeah!"Further, it recognises me as a Starfleet Fleet Admiral (since that is in my written specs for the ship) and gives me full control.
About two dozen of my friends and family and I have now spent the time since then living on the ship, checking it out and making certain that, despite its mysterious origins, it seems reasonably safe. And, of course, flying around in the fighters and shuttles and enjoying the replicators and holodecks.
I've reached a point where I really want to start doing something with the ship. I have three projects in mind:
A. I want to take some time to use the might and tech of the ship to try to resolve some long-standing and seemingly unsolvable global issues. Things like repairing the ozone, fixing Ethiopia so that it is easily farmable again, putting a stationary platform in orbit that continuously uses transporters and sensors to confiscate any weapons more advanced than knives from the Middle East, releasing shielded drones to provide free and uncensored internet access EVERYWHERE.
B. During that time, I want to very carefully use the technology to raise the general quality of life on Earth - as far as I can without providing anyone with tech that could actually endanger my ship or allow Earth nations to go conquering. I could probably safely advance Earth tech to most of 23rd century Trek standards, I think.
C. After doing a reasonable amount of A and B for, say, no more than 5 years, it would be time to go exploring. During the five years, I'd also have been using the holodecks to train crew.
So here's the question all of that is leading to: Provided that my continuing goals would be the promotion of truth, justice, freedom, and positive relations for Earth, and I would be falling back on the advice of holodeck versions of Kirk, Spock, and Picard when in doubt, could I trust YOU to be a member of my crew, and actually follow a chain of command? Or would you mutiny and try to take control of the ship? Or would you just not want to be a part of any of it?
Or what? And why?
A. Your plan seems to be very intrusive to the people of the planet. Almost as if 'might makes right.' So that said your might makes what you think is right. And what hole?
B. Same as point A. Who says your view is the way the Earth should be? And in fact a sudden in flux of super advanced technology is a great way to completely destroy society and cultures and economies.
C. Exploring is great, maybe just doing that and not mucking with the Earth is the way to go.
1) Nerys Ghemor's response has no bearing upon mine.Nerys Ghemor is responding in character, but I'm almost certain that in his case, it is simply a creative writing style laid atop his REAL WORLD feelings on the matter. (Nerys can feel free to correct me if this is incorrect.)
In other words, try again. I want an answer from YOU for this hypothetical situation, not the character you play on TV (or in this case, the Internet.)
BTW - What the hell outranks a Fleet Admiral?!
2) You, in your ignorance, assume much more than you know about me. I am a combat veteran in real life; including membership in VFW, DAV and American Legion. My real life experience, of course, will affect my answer to an internet fantasy situation as would the response of anyone else.
3) Fleet Admiral? Your posted rank on this board is Fleet Captain, whereas mine is Commodore; hence the humorous reference.
Your immature response to my post leads me to conclude that I would not serve under your command in real or fantasy life. I would grade your responses in general with "does not play well with others". Please enjoy yourself. I, sir, could not in good conscience be in your crew.
Last edited:
It does insofar as that you both seemed to be responding in your board personas. You outrank me on this board. You may outrank me in the real world as well. But for the purposes of the scenario, the ship recognises me as Fleet Admiral. The rank is less relevant, however, than the fact that the purpose of my original question was to ask how people would respond to my scenario. Not how they try to go around it.
Unless, of course, you meant to say that you would take your real world rank to be worth more than the rank the ship was allocating to me, mutiny, and take the ship. In which case, that would have been a perfectly fine answer. Hell, it may have even been the answer you meant, but that wasn't clear.
You used exactly the right word - "ignorance". How was I supposed to know any of this, since you didn't lay it out in your original response, and I'm not your very own personal Internet stalker?
Without this key piece of info, I mistakenly assumed you were referring to board ranks.Thank you for your service, btw. Which action were you involved in, if I may ask?
See, here you turn around and say you ARE referring to board ranks. Confusing. The "Fleet Admiral" rank is part of the scenario in the OP. Board ranks have nothing to do with this.
There was nothing immature about my response. If you took offense, I assure you none was meant, and it is all too easy to read whatever tone you would like into things on the 'net.
And also, I play extraordinarily well with others. Which is why this post is written politely and with an eye to what you might have thought I meant before, rather than as an irritable tirade against things that I might have taken as impolite provocations in your post.
I'll go anywhere with you, Frasier Crane!
I could not in good conscience join any effort that would single out one area of the world as unworthy of bearing arms greater than knives or trying to force one's viewpoint on an entire collection of cultures that are much older than western civilization. You think they should sit down and talk it out, because that is based on your own personal and cultural ethos. Your personal and cultural ethos is no more valid and no more "right" than theirs is. It is simply different. The fact that you don't seem to have the ability to see beyond your own sense of right and wrong tells me that you are the wrong person to have mucking with the path or destiny of the people of Earth.
I would not join the ship, and I would actively and vociferously oppose your efforts here on Earth if they involved singling out the Middle East for that sort of treatment. While I don't like violent conflict, I view it as part and parcel of human nature. You will never take the ape nature out of man, even by providing superior or plentiful resources. People will still find something to fight over and with. Reduce them to knives, and you will simply see a lot of very brutal, very bloody deaths. You already have kids throwing rocks at men armed with machine guns in the streets of Palestine. You honestly think knocking down the tech level will change that?
As for climate change and issues surrounding it, who are we to say what is ultimately harmful and what is ultimately beneficial? We have a narrow scope from which we view geological events, and we still don't even fathom one tenth of how the global ecosystem works. As a species, we have only been here for the blink of an eye in relative time. Were it not for the cataclysmic events that combined to bring an end to the era of the dinosaurs, it's very likely we would not be here at all. Who is to say what else might evolve from another cataclysm? Who is to say it would not be something far superior to what is in place now?
It is arrogant to assume we are the end all be all of the evolutionary scale or that we are somehow the most important life form on earth. It is dangerous to insert changes into a closed system when you don't even know how that system works. You could very well end virtually all life as we know it and never even fully understand what went wrong or how.
No, if you want to explore space, terraform, and whatever else you have in mind beyond this solar system, go right ahead. Keep your mits off Earth at large. Nobody died and made you god, and I can't think most people would want you to be. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Today it's the Middle East. Tomorrow it's Toys for Tots, or whatever else you decide that day you don't agree with.
I would not join the ship, and I would actively and vociferously oppose your efforts here on Earth if they involved singling out the Middle East for that sort of treatment. While I don't like violent conflict, I view it as part and parcel of human nature. You will never take the ape nature out of man, even by providing superior or plentiful resources. People will still find something to fight over and with. Reduce them to knives, and you will simply see a lot of very brutal, very bloody deaths. You already have kids throwing rocks at men armed with machine guns in the streets of Palestine. You honestly think knocking down the tech level will change that?
As for climate change and issues surrounding it, who are we to say what is ultimately harmful and what is ultimately beneficial? We have a narrow scope from which we view geological events, and we still don't even fathom one tenth of how the global ecosystem works. As a species, we have only been here for the blink of an eye in relative time. Were it not for the cataclysmic events that combined to bring an end to the era of the dinosaurs, it's very likely we would not be here at all. Who is to say what else might evolve from another cataclysm? Who is to say it would not be something far superior to what is in place now?
It is arrogant to assume we are the end all be all of the evolutionary scale or that we are somehow the most important life form on earth. It is dangerous to insert changes into a closed system when you don't even know how that system works. You could very well end virtually all life as we know it and never even fully understand what went wrong or how.
No, if you want to explore space, terraform, and whatever else you have in mind beyond this solar system, go right ahead. Keep your mits off Earth at large. Nobody died and made you god, and I can't think most people would want you to be. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Today it's the Middle East. Tomorrow it's Toys for Tots, or whatever else you decide that day you don't agree with.
One strategy I could condone: Beam all the world's leaders to a deserted island together and let them get to know each other and sort things out without the backing of pretense and military might.
Though maybe it should be a holodeck island with safety protocols engaged
Though maybe it should be a holodeck island with safety protocols engaged
Why should your anti-weapon regulation apply only to middle-eastern nations? Clearly, that part of the world has its problems, but so does every other part of the world. If you are going to use your newfound ship to act as a world police officer, do not count me as a member of your crew unless you make and enforce laws that apply to all nations. Earth would be a better place if all its nations were under a 'knife-only" weapons regulation.
With fairness and justice for all.
id much rather be on a starship in the ST universe than in reality. we have no aliens to blow up!
either way, i like data's job: hes on the bridge, but does a lot of engineering/computer work.
either way, i like data's job: hes on the bridge, but does a lot of engineering/computer work.
This is, of course, a completely hypothetical situation, so I would appreciate HONESTY in your responses, please. Don't try to trick me, "just in case", because this will NEVER happen.
Suppose that one day a couple of years ago, my cell phone rang and it was my ship calling, the U.S.S. Triumphant, which had mysteriously become real and entered Earth orbit, crewless. It was calling to ask me if I was ready for beam-up, and I said "oh HELL yeah!"
About two dozen of my friends and family and I have now spent the time since then living on the ship, checking it out and making certain that, despite its mysterious origins, it seems reasonably safe. And, of course, flying around in the fighters and shuttles and enjoying the replicators and holodecks.
I've reached a point where I really want to start doing something with the ship. I have three projects in mind:
A. I want to take some time to use the might and tech of the ship to try to resolve some long-standing and seemingly unsolvable global issues. Things like repairing the ozone, fixing Ethiopia so that it is easily farmable again, putting a stationary platform in orbit that continuously uses transporters and sensors to confiscate any weapons more advanced than knives from the Middle East, releasing shielded drones to provide free and uncensored internet access EVERYWHERE.
B. During that time, I want to very carefully use the technology to raise the general quality of life on Earth - as far as I can without providing anyone with tech that could actually endanger my ship or allow Earth nations to go conquering. I could probably safely advance Earth tech to most of 23rd century Trek standards, I think.
C. After doing a reasonable amount of A and B for, say, no more than 5 years, it would be time to go exploring. During the five years, I'd also have been using the holodecks to train crew.
So here's the question all of that is leading to: Provided that my continuing goals would be the promotion of truth, justice, freedom, and positive relations for Earth, and I would be falling back on the advice of holodeck versions of Kirk, Spock, and Picard when in doubt, could I trust YOU to be a member of my crew, and actually follow a chain of command? Or would you mutiny and try to take control of the ship? Or would you just not want to be a part of any of it?
Or what? And why?
I wouldn't want any part of it.
Because nobody elected you GOD, and that's exactly what you'd be playing. What part of the Prime Directive don't you understand?
Exactly, in fact I would down resist someone like you.
^ AND ^^ theyve got points. i know what id wanna do aboard ANY starship, but i might just mutiny to bug the hell out of you and your I'm-A-God-Mind frame. why are u automatically an admiral? admirals dont captain ships, sir: they sit behind a desk and lecture.
I'm going to use comments from two posters to respond to the same general ideas as they have also been expressed by several others....
That said, we aren't talking about our current understanding. I was taking into account that the ship's computer would contain information on planetary ecology available to Starfleet in the 26th century. If that information were less than certain, then of course I would set a project like that aside.
I'll admit that many, and maybe even most, people who gain power will abuse it. But there are also examples of people who have held the opportunity for greater power in their hands and turned it away, simply because it was the right thing to do. George Washington is one example. The general (whose name escapes me at the moment) who led the successful Bush-backed coup in Venezuela earlier this decade and then turned power back over to the rightful government because he decided he had been wrong is another.
Several of you have asked who made me God. No one, obviously. But, given the power I describe in the OP, I feel it would be just as wrong to not use it to try to help people as it would be to use it for wholly selfish ends. But I am well aware of what happens when one person tries to run too many things for too long - they lose focus, get tied up in personal crap, and forget why they are there. And even if they don't, eventually they will die, and heirs, biological or otherwise, are frequently disappointing to say the least.
So I would try to raise the common standard of living with a few things that I could do in a reasonably short period, and then leave.
Why me? Because I would have the power, and because I know I can be trusted. I can also rely on the fact that after a few years I would be sick of hearing people nitpick minor drawbacks in major improvements, and I would want to leave. And that's all I've got.
Maybe the Middle East idea isn't the best. But if you'll read back, I said as much, and also that I would be gathering ideas from the crew on better things to do or better ways to do them. Also, again, maybe the ship's computer would provide some insight.
1. In the plans for my ship, I included myself as Fleet Admiral in the ship's computer in a nod to the completely ridiculous but still somewhat entertaining idea that, were I to ever really be on the ship, I would be able to access everything, including the classified stuff.
2. I like the design of the rank pin better than the one for Captain.
With our current understanding, I think I agree with you, mostly. There are certain things that we could do that mainly involve changing our own behavior to reduce the effect that our industrial process are having - things like not kicking coal ash or car exhaust up into the atmosphere - that I think pretty much anyone could it agree that it would be a good thing to reduce, but that's pretty much it.
That said, we aren't talking about our current understanding. I was taking into account that the ship's computer would contain information on planetary ecology available to Starfleet in the 26th century. If that information were less than certain, then of course I would set a project like that aside.
I don't think I agree that power has to corrupt.
I'll admit that many, and maybe even most, people who gain power will abuse it. But there are also examples of people who have held the opportunity for greater power in their hands and turned it away, simply because it was the right thing to do. George Washington is one example. The general (whose name escapes me at the moment) who led the successful Bush-backed coup in Venezuela earlier this decade and then turned power back over to the rightful government because he decided he had been wrong is another.
Several of you have asked who made me God. No one, obviously. But, given the power I describe in the OP, I feel it would be just as wrong to not use it to try to help people as it would be to use it for wholly selfish ends. But I am well aware of what happens when one person tries to run too many things for too long - they lose focus, get tied up in personal crap, and forget why they are there. And even if they don't, eventually they will die, and heirs, biological or otherwise, are frequently disappointing to say the least.
So I would try to raise the common standard of living with a few things that I could do in a reasonably short period, and then leave.
Why me? Because I would have the power, and because I know I can be trusted. I can also rely on the fact that after a few years I would be sick of hearing people nitpick minor drawbacks in major improvements, and I would want to leave. And that's all I've got.
Maybe the Middle East idea isn't the best. But if you'll read back, I said as much, and also that I would be gathering ideas from the crew on better things to do or better ways to do them. Also, again, maybe the ship's computer would provide some insight.
Two reasons, and two reasons only:
1. In the plans for my ship, I included myself as Fleet Admiral in the ship's computer in a nod to the completely ridiculous but still somewhat entertaining idea that, were I to ever really be on the ship, I would be able to access everything, including the classified stuff.
2. I like the design of the rank pin better than the one for Captain.
This thread has offically turned stupid.
I think the OP was unprepared for the veracity of our disapproval for his intentions and now he's back-pedaling.
If I was to stumble across a derelict-but-working Federation starship, it seems clear to me that the first thing to do would be to issue foodstuffs for every nation with a starving population. Secondly, I would release helpful medical information to the world's medical associations - the cure for cancer, AIDS, etc. Lastly, the ship remain forever out of the hands of any government.
I would recruit a small number of like-minded individuals to help me explore the neighborhood while returning now and again to ensure Earth's peoples have enough food and medicine. A small crew will suffice because we won't have to face fearsome enemies or wild space anomalies that threaten the ship. Real space is boring.
By that way, if tensions on Earth ever rose to the point that nations were to fire nukes, I would remain in orbit, tractoring and destroying them until the threat passes. Interfere as little as possible but don't let us destroy ourselves.
It would all be pretty hard to do, psychologically speaking. Best to blow thew damned ship up when I find it, I suppose.
If I was to stumble across a derelict-but-working Federation starship, it seems clear to me that the first thing to do would be to issue foodstuffs for every nation with a starving population. Secondly, I would release helpful medical information to the world's medical associations - the cure for cancer, AIDS, etc. Lastly, the ship remain forever out of the hands of any government.
I would recruit a small number of like-minded individuals to help me explore the neighborhood while returning now and again to ensure Earth's peoples have enough food and medicine. A small crew will suffice because we won't have to face fearsome enemies or wild space anomalies that threaten the ship. Real space is boring.
By that way, if tensions on Earth ever rose to the point that nations were to fire nukes, I would remain in orbit, tractoring and destroying them until the threat passes. Interfere as little as possible but don't let us destroy ourselves.
It would all be pretty hard to do, psychologically speaking. Best to blow thew damned ship up when I find it, I suppose.
Not sure where you think I'm "back-pedaling". Seems to me that you should go back and reread my posts in this thread, because I've been entirely consistent.
No, it did that when I first posted it. It's a hypothetical scenario about a situation that can't happen.
This thread has offically turned stupid.
But the responses have been enlightening, and somewhat disappointing, even though they mostly confirm what I already thought. People want a bright future like that shown in Starfleet, but we're sooooo cynical about everyone. How are we ever supposed to get there if we can never trust? Not me specifically. Anyone, really.
And I'm about as guilty of that as anyone. I'd want to be trusted, but I certainly wouldn't trust much of anyone else in the situation described. So I can't really blame those of you who wouldn't trust me, either.
People want a bright future like that shown in Starfleet, but we're sooooo cynical about everyone. How are we ever supposed to get there if we can never trust? Not me specifically. Anyone, really.
Why would you assume we would be happy to see the future world of Star Trek come to life? Personally, I think it would be horrible. I prefer to live in my free world, not the obviously totalitarian government that's hard at work in 24th century Earth. No money? What-the-f*ck-ever!
You have a point.
