The Apple Store sells the newest version of Kirk's captain's log, and every time I go to CVS Pharmacy, they give me a yard-long receipt from something that looks just like Spock's science station printer.
I think they're singlehandedly responsible for deforestation.
Pretty basic SF.
I said it was sound, not complicated . That said, I don't recall any other sci fi show of that era using it.
People come to Trek and watch Trek for their own reasons. Some people really get into the hardware and technical specifications and that's cool if you're into that kind of thing and keep it in perspective. Other people are more into the characters, or the social allegories, or the optimistic vision of the future, or the space opera excitement, or the far-out sci-fi concepts and exotic aliens or whatever. A certain degree of consistency regarding the tech is probably not a bad thing, but I suspect that most viewers aren't going to care or notice if the starboard auxiliary deflector array switches location from one series to another.
Says the guy who, honestly, cannot tell a Ford from a Chevy and tends to scratch my head when folks see vast differences between the various different versions of the Enterprise. As long as it's got a saucer and a couple of nacelles, it looks like the Enterprise to me . . . .
Antimatter as fuel is pretty common place in SF lit. Probably where TOS nicked it.
That might be true but as I said, it's a sound engineering principle as opposed to, say, Star Wars, where a flick of a leaver activities non-specific engines to enter 'hyperspace'. Even Battlestar Galactica, which used real world equipment on the bridge, just used a made up fuel to activate hyperspace travel.
One word: Dilithium.
Also true, because the amount of energy required to warp space would exceed the amount you can get from an anti-matter explosion so a fictional substance was invented to plug the science gap. It's fictional but there are scientific and engineering principles surrounding its inclusion.
It's not clear if they use ions to propel the ship or just plasma. Later movies imply plasma.
You know that there was a vast amount of written material dating back decades that skiffy shows mined, right?
Yeah, I think scientists have demonstrated that ions or plasma would work , although presumably acceleration would be an issue.
Well yes, but I thought the thread was discussing whether a TV show should use engineering principles and technical specs to assist with world building and suspension of disbelief? I didn't think that Star Trek invented anti-matter.
Which is also basic SF. Ad a prefix to something and make it sound futuristic.
