So name a Star Trek moment that you just didn't "get".

[ZapBrannigan]

Why does everyone in TMP act like McCoy is being silly for not wanting to get into the transporter when we just saw it hideously kill two people not half an hour before?

That's been bugging me literally since the moment I saw it in the theater 35 years ago. When Uhura says "Someone is refusing to get into the transporter," I thought it was a deadly serious moment, and whoever was refusing was absolutely right. Because two people are dead just now and it wasn't pretty at the other end.

But the TMP script is so psychologically inauthentic, so artificial throughout, that the moment was intended to be funny. The writers didn't take their own scenes seriously and figure out how real people would feel.

The Deltan oath of celibacy bit was just cringe-worthy, embarrassing to me, especially in the extended cut where Sulu makes a fool of himself trying to stand up.

 

[at Quark's]

...but am I really to believe that the 24th Century Borg in the DQ never found out any of the details of what happened in First Contact? They had to have known about 1) the destruction of the cube that invaded thee AQ, and 2) the time travel bit, because of the signal that connects them all.-----

The 24th century DQ Borg do know. In 'year of hell', 7 of 9 is capable of answering 'the phoenix' to a guessing game Kim and B'elanna played, much to their suprise, because 'the borg were present during those events'.

Kim and B'elanna didn't seem to know the borg were there 300 years ago; that could be because Cochrane never talked about it (save once, and he denied the story afterwards), and Picard couldn't have told them since FC was 2-3 years after Voyager got stranded in the DQ ...

 

[T'Girl]

And as humanity was not interested in significantly expanding the Federation's borders

Excuse me?

We see the Federation constantly growing, especially during TNG. The whole thing with the Cardassian was owing to the Federation's attempt to expand.

We'll travel back in time here, in the Delta Q, and THEN assimilate earth

A thought I had on that is the time travel method or device was something that was only recently assimilated by the Borg, they didn't understand it and possessed just the one.

They could make it work, but they couldn't reproduce it.

 

[Cyke101]

Why does everyone in TMP act like McCoy is being silly for not wanting to get into the transporter when we just saw it hideously kill two people not half an hour before?

That's been bugging me literally since the moment I saw it in the theater 35 years ago. When Uhura says "Someone is refusing to get into the transporter," I thought it was a deadly serious moment, and whoever was refusing was absolutely right. Because two people are dead just now and it wasn't pretty at the other end.
.

I kind of expect Kirk and Rand to put their arms akimbo and mug for the camera like a campy 70s variety show, complete with a sad trombone's "wah-wahhhh."

"Oh, MCCOY! You kidder you."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Why does everyone in TMP act like McCoy is being silly for not wanting to get into the transporter when we just saw it hideously kill two people not half an hour before?

That's been bugging me literally since the moment I saw it in the theater 35 years ago. When Uhura says "Someone is refusing to get into the transporter," I thought it was a deadly serious moment, and whoever was refusing was absolutely right. Because two people are dead just now and it wasn't pretty at the other end.

The transporter had been thoroughly inspected and fixed by that time, and I'm sure everyone knew it. Besides, McCoy was the last of that group to go through, and I'm also sure HE knew that the rest of them made it through OK.

 

[The Wormhole]

I kind of assumed the Borg just wanted Earth off the playing field, and since they couldn't take them out in the present, they were eliminating them in the past.

But they can easily eliminate humanity in 2063 without assimilating it.

I also really didn't get how Tuvok having sex with a holographic version of his wife did the trick. I thought the whole Pon Farr experience would be a lot deeper than that, requiring a telepathic component. Just doing it with a hologram seems like a cop out, and it undermines the whole biological complications of Pon Farr.

If holographic sex works, shouldn't masturbation? Wouldn't it be so embarrassing if ponn farr had such a simple and obvious solution?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Why does everyone in TMP act like McCoy is being silly for not wanting to get into the transporter when we just saw it hideously kill two people not half an hour before?

That's been bugging me literally since the moment I saw it in the theater 35 years ago. When Uhura says "Someone is refusing to get into the transporter," I thought it was a deadly serious moment, and whoever was refusing was absolutely right. Because two people are dead just now and it wasn't pretty at the other end.

Another thing that bugs me about the transporter accident scene: The way that Kirk turns to Rand and says, "It wasn't your fault."

Yeah, NO SHIT it wasn't Rand's fault, Kirk. You shoved her aside and took over the transporter controls. If anyone's at fault for the accident, it's you!

I like to imagine that the look Rand has at the end of the scene is just her giving Kirk an "F YOU" death glare.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Another thing that bugs me about the transporter accident scene: The way that Kirk turns to Rand and says, "It wasn't your fault."

Yeah, NO SHIT it wasn't Rand's fault, Kirk. You shoved her aside and took over the transporter controls. If anyone's at fault for the accident, it's you!

I like to imagine that the look Rand has at the end of the scene is just her giving Kirk an "F YOU" death glare.

Yep. But Scotty is more directly culpable. He knew the transporter mechanism was in pieces and didn't notify anybody.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^Not sure where you're getting that from, as Kirk clearly knew something was amiss with the transporter (hence his giving Scotty the third-degree). I don't know that any single person is to blame for what happened--although Kirk appears to shoulder a great deal of the blame, as he rushed the launch of the Enterprise even more than was already being done, ordered Sonak to beam up within an hour of speaking with at Starfleet, and distracted both Scotty and Decker while they were in the process of identifying and correcting the problem.

--Sran

 

[ZapBrannigan]

^Not sure where you're getting that from, as Kirk clearly knew something was amiss with the transporter (hence his giving Scotty the third-degree). I don't know that any single person is to blame for what happened--although Kirk appears to shoulder a great deal of the blame, as he rushed the launch of the Enterprise even more than was already being done, ordered Sonak to beam up within an hour of speaking with at Starfleet, and distracted both Scotty and Decker while they were in the process of identifying and correcting the problem.

All true. If anything comparable happened in the Navy, the captain and chief engineer would both be relieved of duty.

As movie characters, they get a break because they turned around and immediately saved the planet Earth.

 

[Tiberius]

The Borg are capable of time travel--we know this from First Contact. Ok, we can say they don't travel back in time in the Delta Quadrant and THEN assimilate earth because they'd rather have 24th Century earth and not 21st century earth, check. But once plan A failed, they DID use time travel and took 21st Century earth. SO, once THAT failed, why wouldn't Borg still in the Delta Quadrant say "f it, these humans/Federation are way too much trouble. We'll travel back in time here, in the Delta Q, and THEN assimilate earth." I mean, ok, the Borg back in time were stopped from getting their beacon to work, thus stopping those Borg from communicating with 21st Century Borg, but am I really to believe that the 24th Century Borg in the DQ never found out any of the details of what happened in First Contact? They had to have known about 1) the destruction of the cube that invaded thee AQ, and 2) the time travel bit, because of the signal that connects them all.

At some point, why would't the Borg just use this devastating weapon (time travel) in complete safety, and change history without that pestilential Enterprise D around? Just saying.


-----

I guess this really isn't a "moment."

I always figured that the Borg weren't actually interested in assimilating Earth. It was just icing on the cake. They were more interested in sending information about the future to the Borg living in the past.

I mean, what did the Borg actually do to stop first contact and assimilate humans? There was the initial attack which was cut short. ANd then the Borg fuck around with the Enterprise's deflector trying to make an interplexing beacon. WHat were they trying to do? Get help? They were over-running the Enterprise easily enough. They could have beamed down even a single drone, and it could have gone assimilating its way acros the world, creating more borg to help it. Humanity would have been gone very quickly. But no, the Borg only try again to stop first contact after the beacon is destroyed and the Queen says there has been a change of plan. So it seems to me that building the beacon and sending information to the Borg in the past was the primary plan all along.

And when the Borg are revived in "Regeneration", the first thing they do is try to send that message - and they are eventually successful.

 

[Tiberius]

Honestly, the Borg assimilating Earth in the past makes no sense at all. The Borg are interested in technology, not people. What's so technologically impressive about humanity the day they launch their first warp flight?

^That never made sense to me, either. And as humanity was not interested in significantly expanding the Federation's borders, it's not as though any territory occupied by the Borg would have been threatened by the Federation.

--Sran

I see it as the message that the Borg from Regeneration sent had information that basically said, "Yeah, this Federation group kicked our butts in The Best of Both worlds, and they kicked our butts again at the beginning of First Contact."

So the Queen gets curious, and sends a few cubes. One is eventually followed by the Hansens and the Queen says, "These guys are nothing, so I'm bringing this first cube home." But she decides to see what the other cube finds out, which does the stuff from The Neutral Zone. The Queen figures that the first Cube was right, these Feds are nothing special and there's no point in going all the way across the galaxy to assimilate them. So the second Cube heads home as well. But then Q flings the Enterprise into its path, the Borg are like, "How did they get out here? Let's assimilate and find out." Then Q sends the Enterprise back, the Borg want to know how the Enterprise escaped, so the Queen sends this Cube back, resulting in the Best of Both Worlds. And we know how it goes from there.

 

[MarsWeeps]

^Not sure where you're getting that from, as Kirk clearly knew something was amiss with the transporter (hence his giving Scotty the third-degree). I don't know that any single person is to blame for what happened--although Kirk appears to shoulder a great deal of the blame, as he rushed the launch of the Enterprise even more than was already being done, ordered Sonak to beam up within an hour of speaking with at Starfleet, and distracted both Scotty and Decker while they were in the process of identifying and correcting the problem.

None of the whole "transporter accident" made any sense whatsoever. If there were truly a problem, the system would have been offline and Rand never could have attempted the transport. Not to mention, the question of why two transporter systems is needed begs an explanation. They routinely beam people to and from planets with only the ship's transporter in use so why did they need Starfleet's transporter and the Enterprise's transporter working in tandem to make a successful transport? I can see having 2 as redundancy but if the Enterprise's transporter wasn't working, why couldn't Starfleet simply use their transporter to do the job?

Yeah, and joking about scrambled molecules right after 2 people were killed was in pretty poor taste but we're used to Kirk and crew joking at the end of TOS episodes in which crewmembers have been killed so it wasn't a huge surprise.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^The issue of two transporters working together has come up before, and the best answer I can think of is as follows: Starfleet protocol likely requires that basic site-to-site transport involves two transporters--one beaming the officers off-site, and another acting as the receiving transporter for the officers beaming to the new location.

This hand-off probably happens for several reasons, which may include safety and power conservation (it may require more power for a single transporter to complete the sequence).

Additionally, it's not appropriate for Starfleet officers to randomly beam onto a ship unless the ship itself is in distress (which wasn't the case with the ship in dry-dock). Even Kirk--who had been granted command of the Enterprise by Nogura--had to ask permission to formally board the vessel when he arrived via shuttle-pod. Had Sonak and Ciana successfully materialized, they'd have been required to observe the same reguations.

The reason why only a single transporter was used to beam people to and from planets was because there was often no transporter on the planet.

--Sran

 

[MarsWeeps]

This hand-off probably happens for several reasons, which may include safety

But the whole accident throws that theory out the window. The fact that the Enterprise's transporter had a problem shouldn't have prevented Starfleet's transporters from successfully completing the transport or retrieving the personnel. Isn't that the whole point of using 2 transporters?

Additionally, it's not appropriate for Starfleet officers to randomly beam onto a ship unless the ship itself is in distress

Nobody is "randomly" beaming anywhere. Crewmembers assigned to the ship are the ones beaming up.

The reason why only a single transporter was used to beam people to and from planets was because there was often no transporter on the planet.

More like there was NEVER a transporter on the planet and using the ship's transporter in every series (except Enterprise) was standard practice.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I don't get why they were so upset or even upset at all by Doctor Marr's decision to kill the Crystalline vermin. I mean I understand that their principles and some stupid rule, although I'd like to know what king of rule compels you to dialogue with cancer, but to go after poor Doctor Marr like a bunch of lunatics for having the balls (which is ironic since she was a woman) of doing what they were collectively to cowardly to do themselves, is outrageous.

end of rant.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

There's an early TNG episode where Picard has a headache and everybody acts like this is this strange, archaic illness that people don't experience anymore.

Seriously, people don't get plain old headaches in the 24th Century? Even after too much Romulan ale?

I can buy transporter beams and holodecks and warp travel, but that one had me rolling my eyes?

Which if done too often can give you a headache.

 

[MarsWeeps]

I don't get why they were so upset or even upset at all by Doctor Marr's decision to kill the Crystalline vermin. I mean I understand that their principles and some stupid rule, although I'd like to know what king of rule compels you to dialogue with cancer, but to go after poor Doctor Marr like a bunch of lunatics for having the balls (which is ironic since she was a woman) of doing what they were collectively to cowardly to do themselves, is outrageous.

You'd make a good Klingon!

TNG made it a point to show that humanity had evolved enough to attempt communication with the entity before resorting to destroying it. In fact, it looked like they were beginning to communicate with it when Doctor Marr caused its destruction. Wouldn't it have been better to try and understand the entity and its needs instead of destroying it?

Sure, Kirk would have destroyed the entity like he did to the vampire cloud in Obsession but Picard was written to be more of a diplomat (wimp).

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

No, Spock said "take a wife," not have sex.

You missed it. Spock won the challange, T'Pring was his property by custom and law, end of that particular story.

Subsequent to that, Spock gave her away, but that was separate.

No, he needed to take a wife, which he did.

Still I do not buy it. How would standing at some ceremonial place and saying some words (whatever they say when they get married) change his hormonal problem? 'Take a wife' seem to me more like ' take a wife and have sex with her'- I do not recall the word 'sex' (or any other word describing this activity) being ever said in TOS, not even once, but there was always somehow suggested some sex has been done, or is going to be.
There were two instances of Spock (supposedly) having sexy time, and there was nothing explicit shown or said, some people would argue, if he had sex or not.

On a similar I never really got why they included pon farr in TSFS, except as a nod to TOS. If it is all they say it is would Savvik's little finger game really fix him? Did she actually have sex with him? And wouldn't Spock have gone through pon farr 2 or 3 times during his rapid growth period.

Yeah, I had no idea that "pull my finger" was a way to resolve Pon Farr before this.

Seriously though, I think we're supposed to believe that they had hot Vulcan sex while we were not looking.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

...

You'd make a good Klingon!
...

I could do without the personal attack, thank you.

TNG made it a point to show that humanity had evolved enough to attempt communication with the entity before resorting to destroying it. In fact, it looked like they were beginning to communicate with it when Doctor Marr caused its destruction. Wouldn't it have been better to try and understand the entity and its needs instead of destroying it?

That pablum has been served on toasts many times but it doesn't apply to situations like this. The entity had already conspired with Lore to consume the crew. If it escaped Enterprise that time, there was a good chance that it would do what it had done so far, IE kill more people.
Taking that kind of risk with the lives of countless innocents is unworthy of so called civilized people.

If some crazy man is at the top of a tower shooting people at random, you're allowed to take him before he does more damage. That's called defense of others.

Sure, Kirk would have destroyed the entity like he did to the vampire cloud in Obsession but Picard was written to be more of a diplomat (wimp).

There are several times when Picard acts like an imbecile. Of course that's only because he's been written this way.