Endless list of Treklit trivia

[Stevil2001]

The Orions have been slaves since 12,000 BCE, when a group of primitive Orions attacked one of the many alien settlements on their home planet, Botchock, drawing attention to themselves. Numerous cultures used them as slaves, rising and falling across time, with the Orions the only constant. They finally liberated themselves in 56 BCE.

 

[captcalhoun]

in theory there should be Federation councillors for every colony, planet, lagrange outpost and station, in practice however, they often represent systems as a whole rather than single worlds.
[Prime Directive]

The Richter Scale of Culture is so complex, ratings often run to multiple letters and qualifiers, but are often rendered down to one or two letters for convenience.
[Prime Directive]

 

[Christopher]

Ah, so that was always the intent with the Kinshaya, was it?

Well, not always, as in going back to when John M. Ford coined the name; just since Keith concocted his worldbuilding notes for A Singular Destiny.

So KRAD already had the answer, and established the structure of their society "behind the scenes"? You turned it from "Word of God" (to borrow from TV Tropes) into fully established "fact"?

Well, I think that's overstating it a little. He had some extra culture notes he didn't get to use, and I asked him about them and incorporated his ideas. If his ideas had conflicted with what I wanted to do, I would've certainly been free to change things, but I was fine with using his ideas as a starting point and elaborated on them to some extent (with his approval).

I didn't realize it was quite so absolute; I sort of assumed you had the odd exception in terms of where a Kinshaya of a given sex ended up. I don't know why I got that idea.

It's rigid among the upper, ruling classes, but there's more social mobility in the lower classes. And again, see the spoiler.

I suppose given the Kinshaya's pre-Pact disinterest in diplomacy or the wider galaxy it makes sense that anything external be placed in the same category (pertaining to "outside the circle", I assume?).

Even without that, it strikes me as a plausible division of labor -- one sex responsible for internal matters, the other for dealing with outside interactions, whether peaceful or not. After all, they say diplomacy is war by other means (or is it the other way around?)

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Ah, so that was always the intent with the Kinshaya, was it?

Well, not always, as in going back to when John M. Ford coined the name; just since Keith concocted his worldbuilding notes for A Singular Destiny.

Whoops. Yes, sorry, I meant "always the intent with modern Trek lit's Kinshaya, since they were promoted to an actual player".

I suppose given the Kinshaya's pre-Pact disinterest in diplomacy or the wider galaxy it makes sense that anything external be placed in the same category (pertaining to "outside the circle", I assume?).

Even without that, it strikes me as a plausible division of labor -- one sex responsible for internal matters, the other for dealing with outside interactions, whether peaceful or not. After all, they say diplomacy is war by other means (or is it the other way around?)

Indeed.

I find I've grown quite fond of the Kinshaya. In fact, I think a good job has been done on each of the Pact members. We've now got six fully realized peoples rather than "Romulans plus five vague allies" (of course, I assume that was the intent of the series). I hope further novels now build on the good work. I'm starting to get a good idea of what makes each Pact member tick; now I hope they'll be played against each other in interesting ways. Actually, to be honest, we could do with more of that within the Federation - now that Efrosians, Tellarites, Deltans, Tiburonians, etc have been better defined, I'd like to see how they all interact.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Romulan Empire of the 2350's had a population of 200 billion spread across 90 planets. (Double Helix #3: Red Sector)

 

[Mr Silver]

The Ice Age on Earth was caused by Q diverting an asteroid into the Sol system (The Q Continuum)

Which ice age? There have been at least five major ones.

The Chicxulub impact is theorised to have caused a significant drop in Earth's temperature, leading to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. This wasn't a true ice age if it is correct, some scientists theorise that the Chicxulub impact would have raised the temperature.

I was thinking the same thing. As most people only think or know about the most recent one, I assumed it would be that one.

Yeah, I was thinking about the event that's theorised to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. This is if it actually caused a ice age and was indeed connected with the extinction of the dinosaur species. Since it's the most popular theory, I went with that rather than just say that Q caused the extinction of the dinosaurs when he diverted an asteroid, because I don't think the entire dinosaur species would be living within the impact range.

Unless it made planet fall, I'm not sure how an asteroid being diverted into the system would cause problems on Earth given the shear amount of them in the system already.

An asteroid did impact the Earth leaving behind a crater 180km's in diameter near Chicxulub, Mexico. I'm not a geologist, but I would assume that an impact that size would cause a significant amount of chaos throughout the world.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

The first Cardassians, according to one popular myth, were named Ailam and Neroon (Millennium trilogy)

Neroon is not to be confused with a certain Warrior-Caste Minbari...

 

[DimesDan]

The Ice Age on Earth was caused by Q diverting an asteroid into the Sol system (The Q Continuum)

Which ice age? There have been at least five major ones.

The Chicxulub impact is theorised to have caused a significant drop in Earth's temperature, leading to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. This wasn't a true ice age if it is correct, some scientists theorise that the Chicxulub impact would have raised the temperature.

I was thinking the same thing. As most people only think or know about the most recent one, I assumed it would be that one.

Yeah, I was thinking about the event that's theorised to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. This is if it actually caused a ice age and was indeed connected with the extinction of the dinosaur species. Since it's the most popular theory, I went with that rather than just say that Q caused the extinction of the dinosaurs when he diverted an asteroid, because I don't think the entire dinosaur species would be living within the impact range.

Unless it made planet fall, I'm not sure how an asteroid being diverted into the system would cause problems on Earth given the shear amount of them in the system already.

An asteroid did impact the Earth leaving behind a crater 180km's in diameter near Chicxulub, Mexico. I'm not a geologist, but I would assume that an impact that size would cause a significant amount of chaos throughout the world.

I was going by what you originally said, one you said it was just an ice age and there have been several of them over the fourish billion years Earth has been around, secondly, you didn't say anything about it hitting the Planet, you said it was diverted in system, there is a big difference between the two.

And just for the record, the Earth has been hit by probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of asteroids throughout its existence and one causing a one hundred and eighty kilometre impact crater would have caused extinction on a mass level (something like 95 - 98% of species are theorised to become extinct in that event) and killed off the vast majority of Dinosaurs, those that didn't die off probably evolved, either like the Voth and escaped the planet or into birds.

 

[Christopher]

The Ice Age on Earth was caused by Q diverting an asteroid into the Sol system (The Q Continuum)

Which ice age? There have been at least five major ones.

The Chicxulub impact is theorised to have caused a significant drop in Earth's temperature, leading to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. This wasn't a true ice age if it is correct, some scientists theorise that the Chicxulub impact would have raised the temperature.

You're confusing two completely different phenomena. The impact didn't cause an ice age, it caused a mass extinction event. The mechanisms behind that extinction did not include glaciation. ("Ice age" doesn't just mean the climate gets cooler, it means that a substantial portion of the Earth's surface is covered in ice sheets and glaciers.) And it certainly didn't cause "the Ice Age," a term which is generally used to refer to the one that began about 2.6 million years ago and is technically still ongoing today (because there are still polar icecaps).

Since it's the most popular theory, I went with that rather than just say that Q caused the extinction of the dinosaurs when he diverted an asteroid, because I don't think the entire dinosaur species would be living within the impact range.

Uhh, "dinosaur" is a term encompassing thousands of known species and genera belonging to two distinct taxonomic orders. And the "impact range," in terms of the area affected by the consequences of the impact event, would be planetwide. The impact would've caused firestorms sweeping most of the planet, thrown up enough dust and debris to block or reduce sunlight for years, caused megatsunamis, etc. Heck, just read the TOS novel First Frontier by Diane Carey and Dr. James I. Kirkland. It gives a detailed description of the impact and its consequences.

 

[F. King Daniel]

"Archerian slug wine" is a thick and pulpy, yellow-brown drink originating on Archer IV. (The 34th Rule)

Many Earth museums became rich overnight when it was discovered that many of their exhibits contained dilithium crystals which had been long misidentified as quartz. (Prime Directive)

Some time after TOS, a book entitled "A Historical Analysis of the Five Year Missions" by Admiral Glynis Kestell Tabor will be published by Stellar Institute Press. (Prime Directive)

 

[captcalhoun]

Leonard McCoy met the future Admiral Glynis Tabor when she was a small child on Luna, near Tranquility Base. McCoy was immensely impressed that she knew the names of the ancient NASA astronauts even if she did think they were 'sorta crazy'.
(Prime Directive)

 

[Kertrats47]

After the 5-year mission, Captain Kirk recommended Spock to Starfleet for promotion and command of the USS Grissom, later commanded by J.T. Esteban and destroyed over the Genesis Planet. Spock instead retired from Starfleet. (The Lost Years)