• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Least favorite single word in all of Trek?

I know it's actually two words, but: "EPS Conduit", heard in Enterprise most I think, but I don't know what it is. It can be messed with by aliens, overheated, it can be boosted, you can even hide yourself from sensors near it, seems real neato and a huge part of the ship... so what the hell is it?

(Waiting for the nerd-bots in this forum to put me "in-the-know") :whistle:
 
It's not a word, but more a general idea: the Captain/someone else/ the entire ship is diseased/in an area with lots of radiation, and the doctor warns that they've got 17 hours, 47 minutes left. After 17 hours, 46 minutes, nothing is the matter, and there will be no long-term damage, if there is even any damage at all, but after 17 hours, 47 minutes, they will just drop dead.
 
"Engage!" - finger pointing an' all... Yeah, I get it that the helmsman has to wait for you to tell him start driving but why don't you spice it up a bit with something new? Again: "Let's get out of here"; "Start her up"; or even "Take your marks - get set - go!" would likely break an annoying cliche...

Oh, and put the finger away, baldy: it's rude to point and we know where we're going...

So what would you have preferred? "Let's Punch it"?
 
EVOLVED: When I hear Picard preach about how 24th century people are so much more "evolved" than us, I want to throw something at the TV. His nephew, Renee, quoted Picard's brother precisely when he said, "Ar-ro-gant son of a---".

The "evolved" 24th century gave us Section 31, advanced lava lamp warp cores which breach at the drop of a hat, insane Admirals, and Deanna Troi... that's evolved?!?!?! :cardie:
Prime Directive
I'm torn between those two - because of the way they've been (over)(ab)used in Trek, especially TNG.

DS9 was free of the former and had very little of the latter, which is probably one of the main reasons why it's my favorite Trek.
 
Must everything be made of quantum energy, tachyons, or neutrinos? I get it when using it for real world science, but Trek is famously rife with made-up science (and rightfully so), and if it's made up, let's have some variety, eh?

On the other hand, there are already lots of "exotic" particles.. even warp particles, blegh! I'd hate to see what the equivalent to the Standard Model in the 24th century would look like...

Also, the word reroute. Because everyone knows you can solve many problems if you just reroute power from life support. :p

The thing is, technobabble is the Trek equivalent of magic incantation, so I don't mind the exotic particles. Just make sure they're exotic and not repeated ad nauseum!

But I agree so very much about reroute. "If you can't reprogram, then reroute!" just sounds ultra cheesey to me, and worse, the word gets used in every other episode.
 
Must everything be made of quantum energy, tachyons, or neutrinos? I get it when using it for real world science, but Trek is famously rife with made-up science (and rightfully so), and if it's made up, let's have some variety, eh?

On the other hand, there are already lots of "exotic" particles.. even warp particles, blegh! I'd hate to see what the equivalent to the Standard Model in the 24th century would look like...

Also, the word reroute. Because everyone knows you can solve many problems if you just reroute power from life support. :p

The thing is, technobabble is the Trek equivalent of magic incantation, so I don't mind the exotic particles. Just make sure they're exotic and not repeated ad nauseum!

But I agree so very much about reroute. "If you can't reprogram, then reroute!" just sounds ultra cheesey to me, and worse, the word gets used in every other episode.


I think what always bothered me about that is how many things in the Trek universe that when they go wrong go wrong on the sub-atomic level. People never have a headache it's that their sub parietal lobe is being bombarded with anti-bosons. It's never that a circuit is blown it's a negative neutrino field is shifting phase variance in the tachyon matrix. No wonder so many things go wrong around us we can't even see what the problem is.
 
What actually bothers me is when they use stilted, overly formal terms in place of common terms.

Example: TUC, Colonel West talking about "cleaning chronometers." Could he not have just said "clean their clocks?"
 
I know it's actually two words, but: "EPS Conduit", heard in Enterprise most I think, but I don't know what it is. It can be messed with by aliens, overheated, it can be boosted, you can even hide yourself from sensors near it, seems real neato and a huge part of the ship... so what the hell is it?

(Waiting for the nerd-bots in this forum to put me "in-the-know") :whistle:
Well, it's an electroplasma conduit, which makes sense in context of warp nacelles and maybe replicators and what have you, but is about as silly a thing to provide electricity to your light bulbs and computers as it sounds.

I like the person who said "evolved." You can bank that whenever that word is used in Star Trek, as a scientific concept or as a philosophical conceit, you're in for some bullshit...
 
What actually bothers me is when they use stilted, overly formal terms in place of common terms.

Example: TUC, Colonel West talking about "cleaning chronometers." Could he not have just said "clean their clocks?"

I don't know how often this is the case, but in that example, it sounds pretty obvious to me that whoever wrote that is purposely being excessively wordy for comedic effect. In other words, using unnecessary jargons just for 'shits n' giggles'. :p
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top