Note what happened when he used it in Journey to Babel: he fell down, and his opponent had enough time to wheel around and stab him. Very realistic!
Silly tropes in every iteration of Star Trek
- Thread starter angry apple panda
- Start date
How about when in an emergency when it's stated their minutes from total destruction of massive death, characters are seen running (and at a leisurely pace I might add) to important places to prevent it, when there's been no word of the transporters being offline and therefore they could have done a sight-to-sight transport?
A trope that irks me [in a gentle way, of course] is a little tricky to explain but I'm sure many of you will know what I mean.
So...something happens on the ship. Or on an away mission on a planet/starbase. And the thing that happens is weird, right? Like a shiny sparkly thing is floating, or some alien being has just appeared, or someone just vanished, or something like that...
And the crewman taps his/her communicator and says:
"Lieutenant Steve to Captain Joe"
" Go ahead Steve"
"There's something here/something just happened"
"uh-huh, what do you mean Steve?"
"I don't know/I can't explain it!"
I'm always left thinking...really? You can't explain it? You don't know? Some metallic, sparkly thing has just materialised in your beer! You can TOTALLY explain what has happened. Ten Forward has just disappeared, the floor on deck 10 is now bright green and fizzing...you can TOTALLY make an attempt at telling your captain what the hell you are seeing.
Instead, we usually get a follow-up scene where Captain Joe has to COME TO WHERE THE GUY WAS, to 'see it for himself'. Now look, I don't mind the captain popping down for a look but not popping down completely oblivious to the situation because Lieutenant Steve couldn't use basic English to try and formulate some kind of description over the communicator.
I always end up picturing myself, as captain. After the shiny, sparkly thing nearly destroyed the ship, I would call Lieutenant Steve to my ready-room after the crisis to explain to him:
"Steve, when some bizarre object just appears on the ship...you tell us that. You don't mutter that you "have no idea" and waste valuable time waiting for me, my first officer or a security party to rush to your position in order to better ascertain WHAT IS GOING ON...is that clear? No matter how stupid you think you sound, it is better than saying nothing. Please feel free to tell me some bizarre alien object just appeared in your soup, or that the walls of deck 6 appear to be dripping a substance that looks A LOT like blood...do NOT just say "I have no idea" when YOU call ME to say something is wrong."
I REALLY needed to get that off of my chest.
So...something happens on the ship. Or on an away mission on a planet/starbase. And the thing that happens is weird, right? Like a shiny sparkly thing is floating, or some alien being has just appeared, or someone just vanished, or something like that...
And the crewman taps his/her communicator and says:
"Lieutenant Steve to Captain Joe"
" Go ahead Steve"
"There's something here/something just happened"
"uh-huh, what do you mean Steve?"
"I don't know/I can't explain it!"
I'm always left thinking...really? You can't explain it? You don't know? Some metallic, sparkly thing has just materialised in your beer! You can TOTALLY explain what has happened. Ten Forward has just disappeared, the floor on deck 10 is now bright green and fizzing...you can TOTALLY make an attempt at telling your captain what the hell you are seeing.
Instead, we usually get a follow-up scene where Captain Joe has to COME TO WHERE THE GUY WAS, to 'see it for himself'. Now look, I don't mind the captain popping down for a look but not popping down completely oblivious to the situation because Lieutenant Steve couldn't use basic English to try and formulate some kind of description over the communicator.
I always end up picturing myself, as captain. After the shiny, sparkly thing nearly destroyed the ship, I would call Lieutenant Steve to my ready-room after the crisis to explain to him:
"Steve, when some bizarre object just appears on the ship...you tell us that. You don't mutter that you "have no idea" and waste valuable time waiting for me, my first officer or a security party to rush to your position in order to better ascertain WHAT IS GOING ON...is that clear? No matter how stupid you think you sound, it is better than saying nothing. Please feel free to tell me some bizarre alien object just appeared in your soup, or that the walls of deck 6 appear to be dripping a substance that looks A LOT like blood...do NOT just say "I have no idea" when YOU call ME to say something is wrong."
I REALLY needed to get that off of my chest.
But they really can't describe it, because the effects haven't been done yet. 
But they really can't describe it, because the effects haven't been done yet.
But dammit, they could totally ask for the script and be like "I see a strange alien device".
"What do you see, lieutenant?"
"Insert technobabble here, sir."
"I'm on my way!"
"Insert technobabble here, sir."
"I'm on my way!"
Hey that'd be more productive than:
"I have no idea"
Great, so it's something between a type of beetle you have never seen before and an exotic, alien, doom-weapon.
How about when the warp core is about to blow, the ejection systems always seem to be offline. Or is that one that could actually make sense, because if the core is damaged maybe everything around it is damaged too?
The ships are always right side up.
Space is three dimensional, yet somehow the ships are always oriented "correctly" when they encounter each other.
Space is three dimensional, yet somehow the ships are always oriented "correctly" when they encounter each other.
Somewhere I saw a depiction of what it might look like in reality when two ships encountered each other. Seems like one was on its side and the other was upside down (I know...there's no such thing as upside down in space). Can't remember where I saw it.
The "correct" orientation bit also goes along with them needing to view a crisis on the viewscreen before taking action.
"Captain the sensors are detecting horrible death coming our way"
"On viewscreen - magnify"
*Sees horrible death
"Evasive maneuvers!"
*Kablooey
"Captain the sensors are detecting horrible death coming our way"
"On viewscreen - magnify"
*Sees horrible death
"Evasive maneuvers!"
*Kablooey
The Chief Medical Officer personally going on so many away missions, both in shuttles and beam downs. You'd think the ships had only one doctor and absolutely NO medics, even the big Galaxy class ships. And on DS9, why on Earth was Julian Bashir manning a console on the bridge of the Defiant, instead of doing medical stuff down in that ship's tiny sick bay? None of the doctors in the other shows manned a bridge station.
Didn't he do that more after it came out about his genetic engineering though? Like because he could do sums really fast and stuff? Before that, didn't he just kind of hang around on the bridge until his services were required in sickbay (like Bones and sometimes Crusher did)?
It's a small thing, but it's always slightly annoying: nobody every finishes his/her drink! Nobody!
They order it, have a quick convo with Guinan/Quark or over the intercom or a quick convo in the captain's ready-room, then leave.
Sometimes they take a sip before the convo, sometimes they don't even touch the drink. Have the writers never actually been to a bar?
They order it, have a quick convo with Guinan/Quark or over the intercom or a quick convo in the captain's ready-room, then leave.
Sometimes they take a sip before the convo, sometimes they don't even touch the drink. Have the writers never actually been to a bar?
Doubt the writers have anything to do with it...more of a bit of acting business. Some combination of not wanting stuff actually in your mouth when you have lines to deliver, and having to do multiple takes, so it's impractical to gulp it down each take.
It's a culture of unwasteful wastefulness. Anything unfinished can just be fed back into the replicator and replenish the supply of bulk replicator matter or whatever it's called.
Lieutenant Steve: "Since I can't properly describe it sir, I'm sending you video using the micro-holographic-camera built into my combadge."
The Captain always goes on the dangerous missions. This was prominent in TOS (obviously, they are the heroes) and TNG almost bypassed it, before they decided that Picard also needs to go in to dangerous situations.
Seriously, there are security officers who should at least be equipped enough to determine if it safe for the CO of a ship to actually go somewhere. No? Ok, guess Security was on a coffee break.
Subset-red shirts. I don't need to see people die to prove the situation is serious. No, I really don't. The bad guy of the week can blow a hole in the ship while whistling "God Save the Queen" in Klingon and cause the warp core to meltdown. Clearly, this is dangerous. Stop killing people to show me the danger.
Seriously, there are security officers who should at least be equipped enough to determine if it safe for the CO of a ship to actually go somewhere. No? Ok, guess Security was on a coffee break.
Subset-red shirts. I don't need to see people die to prove the situation is serious. No, I really don't. The bad guy of the week can blow a hole in the ship while whistling "God Save the Queen" in Klingon and cause the warp core to meltdown. Clearly, this is dangerous. Stop killing people to show me the danger.
Sending command crew on dangerous missions makes for great storytelling but is really dumb and simply would not happen in real life. A security detail would almost always be sent first to assess the situation.
Yes, I know. It's not a matter of waste. It's just that, when I order a drink, it's because I want to drink it! To the last drop.
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