Silly tropes in every iteration of Star Trek

[angry apple panda]

There's a trope that I've always found absurd that shows up in pretty much every iteration of Trek. It's always some plot point about to happen where someone has to contact the captain or whomever is in charge, and they always have some variant of this conversation:

"Ensign Whatever to Captain Person."
"This is Captain Person! What's going on?"
"I think you...better get up here and see this."
"I'll be right there, Ensign Whatever."

Can't you just tell the captain what's going on over the intercom? Like, why on earth must they go all the way "up there" to find out what dangerous thing needs solving right now? Can't you give the captain a, I don't know, some kind of idea in advance? The ship is in danger! It's silly.

I realize that the reason for this trope is the real world explanation of "it's called suspenseful television drama." Still, I can't help but always notice it now when I see it, and I can't unnotice it. It's not like it actually bothers me, but it is noticeable and somewhat illogical in-universe.

What other silly tropes in Trek do you notice?

 

[Sgt_G]

What other silly tropes in Trek do you notice?

This one right here: "Ensign Whatever to Captain Person."

It drives me nuts. Proper military radio protocol would be, "Captain Person, Captain Person; this is Ensign Whatever." When there's a ton of chatter on the air, you tune it out but subconsciously listen for your name / call-sign. As soon as you hear that, you pay attention to the next, which should be who is calling you. Ergo, the example above would be more like:

"Ensign Whatever to Captain Person."
The Captain wakes up upon hearing his name: "This is Captain Person. Say again; who's calling?"

Oh, and one more item in the above example: Ensign Whatever says, "I think you...better get up here and see this." Why isn't the Ensign calling the Captain "Sir" (or "Ma'am" as the case may be)???

 

[DimesDan]

Proper military radio protocol would be

And what has that got to do with anything, Starfleet is not a military and they'll have their own protocols.

 

[{ Emilia }]

And what has that got to do with anything, Starfleet is not a military and they'll have their own protocols.

This. Star Trek already reminds me of the Navy too much so I'd hate for them to ever include even more military-speak.

 

[Sgt_G]

It's not just military, but also police, fire, tow truck dispatch, and anyone else using a radio, including civilian truckers CB radio, does it that way. Heck, even BSG and B5 got it right. Star Trek is the only one I can think of that got it wrong.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Probably the trope of "You're the only ship in the sector" (they used to say quadrant) or "You're the closest ship".

 

[Forbin]

Also, who the hell is Ensign Whatever to decide what the captain has to do right away? Give the captain the exact required information, and HE'LL decide if he has to get up there right away.

 

[-Brett-]

I've always found the planet of hats trope particularly ridiculous. Especially taken to the absurd extreme the spin offs did, where every member of a given species has to look, sound, and act virtually identical. Even down to the same haircuts.

Kind of ironic and funny that the Borg, whose "hat" was collectivism and conformity, displayed more individualism in both looks and character than most supposedly individualistic species.

 

[Tracy Trek]

^This is one thing that has always bugged me about Trek. It makes some of the alien races seem so one dimensional.

 

[TommyR01D]

I am reminded of this passage in TNG novel The Romulan Prize:

Most Romulans believe that a human morality makes a virtue out of weakness, and that human philosophical beliefs are decadent and pointless. However, the fact is that their morality is often complex. It varies with their different cultures, as does their philosophy. We Romulans possess a greater unity of culture and cohesiveness of beliefs, but that does not make humans inferior to us. It merely makes them different to us, and there are some humans who would find our ways quite appealing and agreeable.
​

There are some other observations like this scattered about the franchise. Perhaps cultural and ethnic homogeneity is the norm among most of the universe, with them looking at us as being weird for overvaluing diversity.

 

[Elder Knight]

This one right here: "Ensign Whatever to Captain Person."

It drives me nuts. Proper military radio protocol would be, "Captain Person, Captain Person; this is Ensign Whatever." When there's a ton of chatter on the air, you tune it out but subconsciously listen for your name / call-sign. As soon as you hear that, you pay attention to the next, which should be who is calling you.
...

I wish that the radio traffic reports did that! I'm driving up Maple Street, letting the radio stuff go in one ear and out the other, then hear the announcer mention "... Maple Street at Garden Avenue! Also, we have moderately slow going on Highway 1 ... ."
"What? What's happening at Maple and Garden? I'm almost there! What is it??"
If they gave the location first, I might have a chance to take note of a traffic jam, a wreck, a riot, and so on.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I am reminded of this passage in TNG novel The Romulan Prize:

Most Romulans believe that a human morality makes a virtue out of weakness, and that human philosophical beliefs are decadent and pointless. However, the fact is that their morality is often complex. It varies with their different cultures, as does their philosophy. We Romulans possess a greater unity of culture and cohesiveness of beliefs, but that does not make humans inferior to us. It merely makes them different to us, and there are some humans who would find our ways quite appealing and agreeable.
​

There are some other observations like this scattered about the franchise. Perhaps cultural and ethnic homogeneity is the norm among most of the universe, with them looking at us as being weird for overvaluing diversity.

Which makes me think of that scene in Enterprise where Ambassador Soval is telling Admiral Forrest something to the effect that they don't know how to categorize humans because they have traits that are similar to Andorians, Tellarites, Klingons and even Vulcans themselves.

 

[JeffinOakland]

The dire situation being deux ex maxinaed at the last second w fake science.

 

[Push The Button]

"I'll have to reroute the plasma from the starboard nacelle through the communications subprocessor using an inverse tachyon filter."

Accomplished in 0.2 seconds by pressing 2 buttons.

Sure. It takes me about four minutes just to turn on my PC and log into my company's network in the morning.

 

[angry apple panda]

The dire situation being deux ex maxinaed at the last second w fake science.

Taken to its logical extreme in Voyager, where entire episodes consisted of a technobabble problem that requires technobabble to solve. There's no tension, because no one watching has any clue what is happening, and you have to just assume the characters know what they are doing, like in "Parallax."

Oh, Voyager, you and your absurd science. It's weirdly adorable.

 

[cultcross]

"I'll have to reroute the plasma from the starboard nacelle through the communications subprocessor using an inverse tachyon filter."

Accomplished in 0.2 seconds by pressing 2 buttons.

Sure. It takes me about four minutes just to turn on my PC and log into my company's network in the morning.

Rerouting power from one thing to another, and the implied strengthening of one thing by sacrificing another "divert all remaining power... even life support" is absurd, and became a more and more common trope asking with its close cousin on the battlefield, the shield percentage. Even Beyond has a percentage quoted at one point. Give it up!

The communications being backwards - "person A to person B" instead of "person B from person A" - is a Star Trek idiosyncracy, but equally they don't have radio chatter, everything is point to point, so I suppose the computer is actually detecting what is said and then directing the call appropriately. Comms are wildly inconsistent in function anyway - do you tap the badge to hang up? Do you even have to tap to answer on ship, or just sort of look at the ceiling?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Human's being the driving force of Starfleet and the UFP. In reality they are a bit player, the only thing that makes them stand out is that their homeworld is the base for both--which also leads to the notion that if Earth is attacked/destroyed then both would collapse. Surely, such entities as the Federation and Starfleet would have contingencies in place for such an eventuality.

 

[cultcross]

Not unique to Star Trek at all, but the honourable warrior race thing? So sick of it.

Edited, Thought of another - evolution. Star Trek has a really bizarre view of evolutionary theory, with sub tropes like:
"More" or "less" evolved - evolution is a relentless march from "worse" to "better".
Evolutionary destiny - the path a particular species takes is "meant to be" and interference with this is wrong.

 

[FreddyE]

This one right here: "Ensign Whatever to Captain Person."

It drives me nuts. Proper military radio protocol would be, "Captain Person, Captain Person; this is Ensign Whatever." When there's a ton of chatter on the air, you tune it out but subconsciously listen for your name / call-sign. As soon as you hear that, you pay attention to the next, which should be who is calling you. Ergo, the example above would be more like:

But there is NO chatter in Star Trek in most instances. It´s portrayed more like "WhatsApp"..a direct point-to-point communication...where a private connection is made via a voice command "x to y". Heck...I can do pretty much that by saying "Call my mum" to my cellphone.

 

[Forbin]

The shield percentage thing always drove me nuts too, but it got worse on Enterprise - they didn't HAVE shields, just "polarized hull plating." So they'd take a hit, and Reed would look at a screen and say "Hull plating down to 80 percent!"

WTF does that even mean?!!?