General Trek Questions and Observations

"Alpha Child", Space:1999

 

There's the simple explanation that Pulaski just meant "besides that", but let's go really crazy here. We can take a chance from "Genesis" that Betazoids are descended from some kind of amphibian (somehow). What if they're different from Earth mammals in other ways as well? What if Betazoid gender isn't chromosome-based, but rather based on some sort of environmental stimulus, akin to temperature-dependent sex determination in some reptilian species on Earth?

When it comes down to it, after all, it's not genetics directly that determines gender, it's just some physical trigger for the production of one set of hormones or the other. Just so happens that in most (but not all) Earth species, that trigger is genetic.

 

Onto an observation about something else. I was watching TNG's Cause and Effect last night. Why was Riker's suggestion about decompressing the main shuttlebay ignored out of hand. Why would Picard think that the tractor beam would work any better than all the other high tech stuff that wasn't working? The only reason I can think of is the danger to crew that might be working in the bay.

 

Eh, people don't usually actually have reasons for snap decisions, they just go off pure instinct and confabulate reasons after the fact that they think were the motivation. (In fact, you can actually see this neurologically; when someone makes a snap decision, you can see the decision-making part of the brain activate, and a few fractions of a second later you see the part of the brain that determines reasoning for decisions activate. And yet from the perspective of the person themselves, they reasoned and then decided, because the brain is very good at lying to itself to keep a consistent internal narrative.)

 

What the shit? Oh man, in like 30 some odd years I never saw that guy before. You just KNOW this guy is connected to settlers on Dorvan V. I guess Chakotay wasn't the first of his kind to show up on Starfleet's doorstep

 

Lanai Chapman, who also played Damphousse on Space: Above and Beyond.

 

There was also a Native American woman in TMP: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/American_Indian

Kor

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowb...rek-costume-to-board-the-starship-enterprise/
keep an eye out for this I guess

 

Was George Takei's pitching for Sulu's Captaincy all of those years really about trying to get off of STAR TREK with Shatner? My feeling was that he didn't really care about Sulu's rank, or position, he was just looking to get his own slice of the pie, without any glory hogs taking the wind from his sails. Now, I must admit, I never gave a shit about Sulu products, like novelisations about his adventures on the Excelsior. Takei certainly hung in there all of these decades, in Shatner's shadow, so ... whatever the case, his insistence on Sulu's promotion still mystifies me. Especially, when he made Captain, by happenstance, because of Nick Meyers just putting that in the script for TUC, completely on his own.

 

Making Sulu a captain doesn't automatically lead to a good show. It's irrelevant to creativity. So it should have been embarrassing to promote the idea. I saw again his Voyager episode on the Excelsior... I hate to say it, but his acting was just plain bad, overblown.

 

Oh, I completely agree about Takei's overblown performance in VOY. What I thought he was after, though, in his push to get Sulu promoted, since TWoK, at least, was to keep his involvement in STAR TREK, without having to deal with Shatner. That was the main thrust of it, it seems like, to me. He just hated the Man that bad, where he didn't want to deal with him, without losing access to his only Cash Cow. It's not a bad idea, necessarily, but instead of being upfront about his motives, his insistence did make him seem as though, he'd started taking all this STAR TREK stuff a little too seriously. So ... it went against him. But with Captain Sulu onscreen and in books and audiobooks, even, Takei could've kept his finger in the till, without The Shat (or Shat's character), getting involved.

 

Did Shatner alienate all of his Trek castmates?

 

I'm not really up on all of that. But George Takei and Jimmy Doohan seemed to have the biggest problem with William Shatner. Walter Keonig, apparently would chime in, a little, but it was really those two who were on the warpath.

Apparently, during the 3rd Season, Yvonne Craig, who played Marta the crazy Orion girl, had a bad experience dealing with Shatner. He was losing his show and getting a divorce from his first wife, the mother of his 3 kids, so ... maybe he was taking it out on people then ... who knows? I remember reading that Yvonne was given grief about her green paint getting on Shatner's last clean costume. So, she came up with the idea that she'd play with his hair ... only to pass the makeup department, where she saw a bald Shatner cradling his rug in his lap.

Still ... during TOS' initial run, apparently, nobody had shit to say about Shatner. It seems that once Trekkie Conventions became the mainstay of the 2nd bananas of the show, they started bitching about Shatner's ways to spark the interest of their paying customers.

At the same time, it could've been sour grapes behind it, as well. And also, with The Shat getting paid acting gigs, he kind of dismissed the Trekkies, and didn't have to cater to them, so ... he likely never knew about, much less felt, that stinging blow. By the same token, William Shatner has never been friendless, or unloved.

 

De wasn't speaking to WS for a year... Nimoy, WS's only friend in the cast.

 

Relationships have their ups and downs.

 

What do you think happens to a Trill's Goa'uld when a joined Trill is assimilated?

 

- This (ignore the Dolphin-Xenomorph...) :

 

What ever happened to Vorta telekinesis?

Is it really possible to build your own spaceworthy ship with some centuries-old plans like the Bajoran lightship?

Kor

 

I always thought Eris only had it because it was necessary for her mission. (There's no reason for most Vorta to have it, because they're always accompanied by Jem'Hadar.)