So what are entertainment tapes? Charlie X episode

[ZapBrannigan]

The implication in the transcript is that taking away his power would be like trying to unscramble an egg. But it's only implied.

And from a dramatic standpoint, the ending was better as a tragedy. Taking away his power and "making it all better" would have been too much like Saturday morning kid vid. Like Shazam and Isis.

 

[Christopher Miles]

The implication in the transcript is that taking away his power would be like trying to unscramble an egg. But it's only implied.

And from a dramatic standpoint, the ending was better as a tragedy. Taking away his power and "making it all better" would have been too much like Saturday morning kid vid. Like Shazam and Isis.

Agreed. A poignant ending- I like that there is absolutely no humor at the end (I could have done without the Yeoman moving to cling onto Kirk at the end) but just to end with quiet... really nice.

There was no interest among the Thasians to repair Charlie. He is one of them now- and they have no concept of why in the world he should be changed back. From their standpoint they'd evolved him- and he would find no place among the humans.

 

[telerites]

The implication in the transcript is that taking away his power would be like trying to unscramble an egg. But it's only implied.

And from a dramatic standpoint, the ending was better as a tragedy. Taking away his power and "making it all better" would have been too much like Saturday morning kid vid. Like Shazam and Isis.

Agreed. A poignant ending- I like that there is absolutely no humor at the end (I could have done without the Yeoman moving to cling onto Kirk at the end) but just to end with quiet... really nice.

There was no interest among the Thasians to repair Charlie. He is one of them now- and they have no concept of why in the world he should be changed back. From their standpoint they'd evolved him- and he would find no place among the humans.

Oh I agree completely. If Charlie were in fact allowed to stay with his powers removed which may or may not leave him insane. Or he is tried for mass murder and found guilty to spend his remaining days in a penal colony.

If he were able to plead some type of mind control and found not guilty, his integration back into society would be extremely difficult and may leave in who knows what kind of state - both mental and social ineptness.

His best interest was served to go back. Now he just makes nice-nice with his guardians and they let him play around with some more creatures. Not a bad life - especially to have such omnipotent powers.

 

[E-DUB]

Back on topic. I'd always figured it to be movies, music etc. (Porn works too.) Because a starship would have the latest stuff and a transport's inventory might be outdated.

Of course, no one foresaw that data storage would become trivially cheap and compact to the point where you can haul your video collection around on a detachable hard drive.

And they were so close with the "floppys" and the CDs that they should have nailed this aspect of the future.

It is possible, however, that in TOS times the ships computer, massive though its' capabilities might be, was needed, almost in its entirety, for ships operations, and there was no extraneous space avail for "non-essentials", necessitating the crew to possess separate units for personal media, including "entertainment tapes".

This was certainly not the case by TNG time.

 

[Timo]

So, can we invent a fitting scifi explanation for "tapes" that does away with the twin problems of there being no actual tapes involved in any known recording media of any of the Trek eras and it being silly for Ramart to lack access to recorded entertainment to start with?

The concept of "nicotine tapes" has already been brought up: these could be physical items that are taped onto your body for entertainment. And lest you worry about it, TOS never offered any anti-recreational-drugs sentiments. They only worried about illusion replacing reality in the Pike adventure, but then negated that by having it be okay again in the second Pike adventure.

How about deciding that "tape" in the future has gained a new meaning, like "boot" or "cloud" today? What might that meaning be, keeping in mind that it shouldn't relate to abstract entertainment as Ramart ought to have access to that without Kirk already?

While we're at it, how about the other terminological anachronisms of TOS? Spock's medical in "Annihilate" included "plates" that the lab needed to process before they could get results, but there's no need to think these would be primitive X-ray films rather than, say, labs-on-a-chip for cultivating some sort of samples taken from Spock.

What else?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marsden]

The Antares is also referred to as a "Science Probe Vessel" which would suggest some kind of double duty mission to me, and they picked up Charlie during the survey portion of their job rather than the other thing.

Alternately, the ship may have been built as a transport but later repurposed as a scout ship and they are strictly on a survey mission, but the ship may still be referred to as a transport due to its original type.

--Alex

I always thought is was a bit of a flub from UESPA, specifically the "S" meaning space or science, which in the 60s seemed almost interchangeable on tv shows. So, iow, it should have read Space Probe Vessel, but that sounds a bit worse even than Science Probe Vessel. All of this probing is making me uncomfortable.

As for tapes, I'm assuming it's those little plastic cards they use for different things. Maybe those cards are read only and they can't download the movies and need to buy the media, for copyright purposes. No ITunes in the UFP.

 

[ToddPence]

Well, currently we are seeing in today's world a curious revival in vinyl record technology to the point where store shelves look eerily like the 1970's and 80's all over again, despite the fact that we've advanced well beyond that technology from an audiophiles perspective. So maybe in Star Trek's time there is a revival in audiotape technology again.

 

[Rojixus]

Maybe the tapes are a miniaturized and evolved version of this.

 

[Timo]

The Antares is also referred to as a "Science Probe Vessel" which would suggest some kind of double duty mission to me

Or then the Antares merely worked for the UESPA, which made her a "(UE)SP vessel" the same way the Enterprise would have been a "(UFP)SF vessel".

This wouldn't specify the actual role of the Antares in any way: she could have been a UESPA cargo vessel.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ToddPence]

In E.C. Tubb's massive saga featuring the adventures of Earl Dumarest, his universe features something called "sensi-tapes". These are some kind of device that causes the user to experience hallucinatory stimulation somewhat akin to a virtual reality experience - one can even experience what it is like to be killed. It is not fully explained what the tapes are or how they work, though.

 

[Elder Knight]

Maybe when they replaced tape with more advanced media, they retained it as an acronym, e.g., Total Audio Pictorial Experience, and that stuck, no matter what the medium.

 

[Timo]

It's still problematic to think that Ramart would lack access to recorded abstract entertainment (sounds, visuals, holograms, whatever) when his ship has a subspace transceiver. Surely most things in starship communications consume way more bandwidth than movies?

Sailors on today's freighters may still rely on DVDs or even videotape, but I know the crew of the local oceanographic research vessel here stream their movies like the average landlubber...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

"Entertainment" tapes. Well, the crew of the Enterprise are space sailors right? Those tapes are porn.

 

[Captain Rob]

Do you really need porn tapes when you have a bunch of porn actress wannabes running around on board in red miniskirts?

 

[Timo]

Ramart and his XO wore the "Where No Man" style of uniform. No miniskirts for the possible females in their crew...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Drone]

In E.C. Tubb's massive saga featuring the adventures of Earl Dumarest, his universe features something called "sensi-tapes". These are some kind of device that causes the user to experience hallucinatory stimulation somewhat akin to a virtual reality experience - one can even experience what it is like to be killed. It is not fully explained what the tapes are or how they work, though.

Sounds like a perhaps advanced version of SQUIDS, as mentioned earlier. Considering the latter were floating around the black market on Earth in 1999, the former doesn't sound like much of a step-up.

Ramart and his XO wore the "Where No Man" style of uniform. No miniskirts for the possible females in their crew...
Timo Saloniemi

I rather liked what we saw of the women's apparel in Where. In the rec area, it was a nice summery type feel that looked to be pretty comfortable. When they were working, plausibly justifiable utilitarian was the order of the day, not a mindless mimicking of mid-60's style. What might the in-universe explanation for this rather drastic change be in the relatively short period between Where and Man Trap?

 

[Timo]

What might the in-universe explanation for this rather drastic change be in the relatively short period between Where and Man Trap?

...Kirk decided he liked his Vulcan XO after all, and decided to raise the onboard temperature?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Maurice]

Do you really need porn tapes when you have a bunch of porn actress wannabes running around on board in red miniskirts?

Nor do you need tacky comments to the effect that women in short skirts are porn actress wannabes.

 

[Timo]

How's that different from stating that sailors are porn addicts? These are stereotypes, and employed in attempts at levity. Whether they are stereotypes because of statistical evidence supporting them, or because they are such fun claims to make, we can debate separately. But "tacky" started early on in this thread. With nary a comment.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Maurice]

Are you seriously equating a joke about sailors on long voyages with how an entire gender is routinely sexualized and portrayed as prostitutes and whores? We have nothing to talk about.