Starfleet Academy General Discussion Thread

[Guy Gardener]

Anyway, trying to tie this back into Starfleet Academy, an interesting idea I had that would fit the series is ... what about a transporter-facilitated eating disorder?

Seems to me that it would be possible to engage in binge eating, and then beam your stomach contents into space, waste disposal, whatever. Bulimia without all the muss and fuss. Except, of course, a young person probably won't be able to do things perfectly with the transporter, and thus could end up with all sorts of side effects from the process. Which would provide the ability to discuss a contemporary issue that impacts young people within the framework of Star Trek, while putting a sci-fi spin on it.

I'm going to go out on three limbs here.

1. You can't get fat from eating replicated food, even to excess.
2. If you try to eat to excess, they are watching you, it will trigger a health check from an IRL therapist.
3. If you try to eat to excess, they are watching you, the replicator will eventually say "No".

 

[Jason X-Mas]

Anyway, trying to tie this back into Starfleet Academy, an interesting idea I had that would fit the series is ... what about a transporter-facilitated eating disorder?

Seems to me that it would be possible to engage in binge eating, and then beam your stomach contents into space, waste disposal, whatever. Bulimia without all the muss and fuss. Except, of course, a young person probably won't be able to do things perfectly with the transporter, and thus could end up with all sorts of side effects from the process. Which would provide the ability to discuss a contemporary issue that impacts young people within the framework of Star Trek, while putting a sci-fi spin on it.

I love this idea because it gets around some of my issues with modern day social commentary and that is the over saturation of topics. I can't think of any show on right now dealing with Bulimia except for The Boys college spin-off. It's also a good use of of the shows sci-fi setting with it being using transporters

 

[Detached Nacelle]

I'm going to go out on three limbs here.

1. You can't get fat from eating replicated food, even to excess.
2. If you try to eat to excess, they are watching you, it will trigger a health check from an IRL therapist.
3. If you try to eat to excess, they are watching you, the replicator will eventually say "No".

Kayshon said it was hard not to gain weight when you can replicate any food you want.

Deanna's replicator did tell her chocolate ice cream wasn't nutritious, she may have chosen to manually apply this warning as more than once in TNG she mentioned watching what she eats.

Sisko also said there was always the temptation to eat too much as well as drink too much.

I strongly doubt their society is that Orwellian.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kayshon said it was hard not to gain weight when you can replicate any food you want.

Deanna's replicator did tell her chocolate ice cream wasn't nutritious, she may have chosen to manually apply this warning as more than once in TNG she mentioned watching what she eats.

Sisko also said there was always the temptation to eat too much as well as drink too much.

I strongly doubt their society is that Orwellian.

They can't replicate alcohol. (Then how did Seven get drunk? And why was Tom going into debt borrowing replicator rations to "make" a bottle of chateau Picard, which is basically fruit juice with out the alcohol, which is therefor unlikely to make B'Elanna more receptive to his advances?) Maybe Janeway just said one day "Fuck it, Kirk's crew was shitfaced 24/7, and they saved the whales, what's the worst that could happen?" So she removed the prohibition mandate. How the Hell did Jim Kirk survive in the prohibition era New York for a month?

Kayshon was the first of his species in Star fleet. The computer had a minimum idea or what was healthy or poisonous for this guy.

(Troi ordering Chocolate is why said most of what I said above, in my previous post.)

TROI: Computer, dispatches.
COMPUTER: A research enquiry from the Manitoba Journal ofInterplanetary Psychology and threecommuniqués from your mother.
TROI: Transfer the letters from my mother to the viewscreen. And,computer, I would like a real chocolate sundae.
COMPUTER: Define real in context, please.
TROI: Real. Not one of your perfectly synthesised, ingeniously enhancedimitations. I would like real chocolate ice cream, real whipped cream
COMPUTER: This unit is programmed to provide sources of acceptablenutritional value. Your request does not fall within currentguidelines. Please indicate whether you wish to override the specifiedprogramme?
TROI: Listen
PICARD [OC]: Picard to Counsellor Troi.
TROI: Now what? Yes, Captain?

I "always" took this to mean that over-riding the computers nutritional mandate required the authority of a high ranking officer like a commander, or a high ranking medical officer like the ship's Councillor.

The text is more vague than my 40 year old memory of watching a 6 inch black and white screen on a fishing boat in the middle of Auckland harbor, and maybe anyone can opt out of the nutritional mandate, just from "asking" the computer, but we have seen other situations when the computer said "no" and then heroes and villains had to get very creative to tame the computer.

...

Orwell?

Everything everyone says is recorded by the universal translator just like how your speech to text engine on your phone, zips all your "talking" to the google or apple servers, and then they send back to you as "text".

Maybe the universal translator does not share it's logs with security, or maybe the universal translator logs are inadmissible in court, or maybe any one thinking about committing crime is not a moron and turns off their universal translator or removes themselves from the coverage area, before masterminding a heist.

Quark's UT is in his ear, so his logs stay in his ear? He doesn't use a public communal universal translator that could be processing and recording his every word to be used against him in a court of law. I'd go so far as to say that he has a second device that disrupts the telepathic fields of any Universal translator that he has not white listed, as if he trusts any one, even Rom that much to brazenly Donnie Brasko the unassuming and perfectly legit businessman.... Although he was using the communal replicator in season 1's Babel, and the Babel virus may just be why he decided to switch to a personal translator.

 

[Set Harth]

How the Hell did Jim Kirk survive in the prohibition era New York for a month?

 

[Jarvisimo]

Nope.

While Star Trek, pre Discovery, might have been blunt and hit you in the face with a thing it didn't really soapbox because the issues it brought up were done organically in the episode.

I would suggest reading the DS9 companion and what the writers and cast talk about with some of its more progressive episodes!

 

[Jason X-Mas]

I'm going to go out on three limbs here.

1. You can't get fat from eating replicated food, even to excess.
2. If you try to eat to excess, they are watching you, it will trigger a health check from an IRL therapist.
3. If you try to eat to excess, they are watching you, the replicator will eventually say "No".

They can just say the character has some med tech reason as to why he or she can't eat most replicated food. The one issue is being overweight is not going to be frowned on in this society. So you got to give him or her a motive that somehow gets around that while also still having something to say about the issue as a real life issue.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

.(Troi ordering Chocolate is why said most of what I said above, in my previous post.)



I "always" took this to mean that over-riding the computers nutritional mandate required the authority of a high ranking officer like a commander, or a high ranking medical officer like the ship's Councillor.

Just seems like a vague are you sure check programs often have to me.

Computer, chocolate.

Chocolate is unhealthy are you sure?

Yes.

*produces chocolate*

Not that such a warning was ever given again when Barclay ordered chocolate ice cream for Deaanna or when Seven or Raffi ordered half a dozen slices of cake or Daj ordering milkshakes.

I would argue this check was manually imposed by Deanna who more than once commented on being concious of what she ate.

Orwell?

The whole they are watching thing.

It is far more likely you can eat whatever you want and if you cause yourself some health problems then some professionals will intervene to try and help you. Your dystopian regulated food scenario just seems a bit too farfetched.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They can just say the character has some med tech reason as to why he or she can't eat most replicated food. The one issue is being overweight is not going to be frowned on in this society. So you got to give him or her a motive that somehow gets around that while also still having something to say about the issue as a real life issue.

Like those assholes from Lonely Among Us?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Just seems like a vague are you sure check programs often have to me.

Computer, chocolate.

Chocolate is unhealthy are you sure?

Yes.

*produces chocolate*

Not that such a warning was ever given again when Barclay ordered chocolate ice cream for Deaanna or when Seven or Raffi ordered half a dozen slices of cake or Daj ordering milkshakes.

I would argue this check was manually imposed by Deanna who more than once commented on being concious of what she ate.

The whole they are watching thing.

It is far more likely you can eat whatever you want and if you cause yourself some health problems then some professionals will intervene to try and help you. Your dystopian regulated food scenario just seems a bit too farfetched.

They had a Eugenics War.

8 hundred million people died because someone decided that fatties are a liability.

 

[Jason X-Mas]

Like those assholes from Lonely Among Us?

That would work but it means the character would be alien and not human. Which of course is a Trek staple. Exploring human issues through alien surrogates. I think though in this case I would rather the character be human and also a girl because I don't think men really have this issue as much as women do.

That means the character could come from a human colony or maybe they are genetically engineered. To be genetically engineered to be perfect only to have to deal with a genetic flaw that makes you not be be able to process replicator food could be something that would maybe cause the character to have self hatred.

Which then would cause depression and with depression comes the desire to over eat but you still also feel pressure to physically look like most humans who are genetically engineered so you start using replicators to transport the food out, even though it is established this is a dangerous thing to do. The stress it puts on your body, not to mention with one slip up you could transport a whole organ out of your body and die instantly.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That would work but it means the character would be alien and not human. Which of course is a Trek staple. Exploring human issues through alien surrogates. I think though in this case I would rather the character be human and also a girl because I don't think men really have this issue as much as women do.

That means the character could come from a human colony or maybe they are genetically engineered. To be genetically engineered to be perfect only to have to deal with a genetic flaw that makes you not be be able to process replicator food could be something that would maybe cause the character to have self hatred.

Which then would cause depression and with depression comes the desire to over eat but you still also feel pressure to physically look like most humans who are genetically engineered so you start using replicators to transport the food out, even though it is established this is a dangerous thing to do. The stress it puts on your body, not to mention with one slip up you could transport a whole organ out of your body and die instantly.

Last time I noticed Assistant Chief Engineer Signh in TNG season 1, I was doing cartwheels about a descendant of Khan serving on Picard's Enterprise...

Is this guy La'an's grandchild?

What's worse for a crewman with weight issues? Serving on a ship that's 0.9 standard Earth gravity, or serving on a ship that's 1.1 standard Earth Gravity?

 

[eschaton]

Going back to the discussion upthread about social media, I do think that it changed our media consumption patterns in one, very important way, which led to the rise of franchises, and the decline in interest in new things.

Let me use myself as an analogy here. I watch a fair amount of booktube, mostly covering sci-fi and fantasy. What types of videos am I most likely to click on? Videos about new books in the genre? Absolutely not. I'm more likely to watch people talk about books I've already read, because I'm interested to hear if their takes on them differ from my own.

And that pretty much works everywhere. Older media has a built in fan base already, meaning there's a built in audience for clicks/views. So while there are still people out there who have built successful audiences talking about new movies/music/games, etc., there are much larger, safer audiences for discussion of things at least 10-20 years old. And so the money flows in this direction.

It's important to note that a lot of the distribution systems across media used to involve both the marketing of new things, along with the suppression of old things. Much of radio and MTV focused on new music only. It was incredibly hard to see old movies with any regularity until home videos. Over time this weakened, but now everything is always in competition for attention with the backcatalogue of decades and decades.

We're seeing the results of this across all forms of media. Older songs now routinely hit the Billboard Top 100. New video game sales are depressed, and Steam stats show a large part of it is people will happily play 10-20 year old games. And people can just rewatch (or discover) old, already produced media rather than take a risk on something new few people are talking about.

The whole rise of franchises, reboots, and remakes is an attempt to short-circuit this, and give fans the best of both worlds. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't. But Hollywood (hell, all media) is struggling because they're not just competing with the new product from others, but the backcatalogue, where the production costs are already sunk in.

 

[Jason X-Mas]

Going back to the discussion upthread about social media, I do think that it changed our media consumption patterns in one, very important way, which led to the rise of franchises, and the decline in interest in new things.

Let me use myself as an analogy here. I watch a fair amount of booktube, mostly covering sci-fi and fantasy. What types of videos am I most likely to click on? Videos about new books in the genre? Absolutely not. I'm more likely to watch people talk about books I've already read, because I'm interested to hear if their takes on them differ from my own.

And that pretty much works everywhere. Older media has a built in fan base already, meaning there's a built in audience for clicks/views. So while there are still people out there who have built successful audiences talking about new movies/music/games, etc., there are much larger, safer audiences for discussion of things at least 10-20 years old. And so the money flows in this direction.

It's important to note that a lot of the distribution systems across media used to involve both the marketing of new things, along with the suppression of old things. Much of radio and MTV focused on new music only. It was incredibly hard to see old movies with any regularity until home videos. Over time this weakened, but now everything is always in competition for attention with the backcatalogue of decades and decades.

We're seeing the results of this across all forms of media. Older songs now routinely hit the Billboard Top 100. New video game sales are depressed, and Steam stats show a large part of it is people will happily play 10-20 year old games. And people can just rewatch (or discover) old, already produced media rather than take a risk on something new few people are talking about.

The whole rise of franchises, reboots, and remakes is an attempt to short-circuit this, and give fans the best of both worlds. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't. But Hollywood (hell, all media) is struggling because they're not just competing with the new product from others, but the backcatalogue, where the production costs are already sunk in.

I agree but to me this sort of goes back to my argument about over saturation. Their is more of everything. More tv show, More movies. More political talk. More places to rant with liked mind folks. More places to bond with liked minded folks. And thanks to how easy it is to use the internet, people have access to it all the time. It's like that Bo Bumham song. The lyrics " Could I interest you in everything? All of the time? A little bit of everything? All of the time." also 'It was always the plan, To put the world in your hand."

 

[Christmas Canon Spock]

I strongly doubt their society is that Orwellian.

Well, Spock did describe their society as artificially balanced.

 

[flyerdog]

Going back to the discussion upthread about social media, I do think that it changed our media consumption patterns in one, very important way, which led to the rise of franchises, and the decline in interest in new things.

Let me use myself as an analogy here. I watch a fair amount of booktube, mostly covering sci-fi and fantasy. What types of videos am I most likely to click on? Videos about new books in the genre? Absolutely not. I'm more likely to watch people talk about books I've already read, because I'm interested to hear if their takes on them differ from my own.

And that pretty much works everywhere. Older media has a built in fan base already, meaning there's a built in audience for clicks/views. So while there are still people out there who have built successful audiences talking about new movies/music/games, etc., there are much larger, safer audiences for discussion of things at least 10-20 years old. And so the money flows in this direction.

It's important to note that a lot of the distribution systems across media used to involve both the marketing of new things, along with the suppression of old things. Much of radio and MTV focused on new music only. It was incredibly hard to see old movies with any regularity until home videos. Over time this weakened, but now everything is always in competition for attention with the backcatalogue of decades and decades.

We're seeing the results of this across all forms of media. Older songs now routinely hit the Billboard Top 100. New video game sales are depressed, and Steam stats show a large part of it is people will happily play 10-20 year old games. And people can just rewatch (or discover) old, already produced media rather than take a risk on something new few people are talking about.

The whole rise of franchises, reboots, and remakes is an attempt to short-circuit this, and give fans the best of both worlds. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't. But Hollywood (hell, all media) is struggling because they're not just competing with the new product from others, but the backcatalogue, where the production costs are already sunk in.

what you are discussing raises good points. I would add that movie making has lost it's core element and appeal...escapism. The whole point of going to a movie is to experience a couple hours away from the "noise" of the real world and lose yourself in action, adventure, emotion etc...
However when that 'noise' infiltrates the media we consume, then there is no more escape...and 'fatigue' sets in...especially when it is injected in places that makes it gratuitous and shoe horned in simply to make a point. every day we are accosted with polarity, identity politics, and the like, that's the real world, but when you start injecting into people's "escapism"...

'Give the people what they want' - if you don't they will not come.

Nothing exemplifies this better than Top Gun: Maverick. A movie that crushed it amidst a floundering movie season where blockbuster after blockbuster was tanking...because they were all the same retread. Tom Cruise proved that a good story will attract people no matter the age or demographic, despite the lead being in his 60s

I remember seeing it on the second week of release in a theater...all around me there were teen girls and boys, 20 somethings, middle aged men and women, elderly men and women..and they all said the SAME thing: "That was really good!"

I do not listen to rap and i know nothing about rap culture but I LOVED 'Straight Outta Compton', very good movie, yet another example, or Bohemian Rhapsody, same concept

if you start making content that is TOO specific to a particular audience, you run the risk of missing with that audience and tanking because no one else will even bother...

some of this is arrogance by studios who think that their IPs are a guarantee, and finally they are learning this is not the case...

It's the same in the music industry, (and more disheartening because of AI)...I tell people that the 19702 was the golden age of music. you could turn on the radio and hear: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, Styx, Kiss, Van Halen, Kansas, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Queen....all huge selling acts but completely unique from each other in sound and compositions.

Corporatizing of the industry changed the paradigm into a assembly line process where 'copycat' became the process...and MTV amplified the effect.

Lastly, Studios need to suck it up and start PAYING GOOD writers! many of the newest writers have little to nothing on their resumes, but I'm sure they work for cheap...and will follow a checklist without complaint...

whew! that was a mouthful

 

[flyerdog]

edit: 1970s, not 19702..."D'OH!!!"

 

[Detached Nacelle]

.We're seeing the results of this across all forms of media. Older songs now routinely hit the Billboard Top 100. New video game sales are depressed, and Steam stats show a large part of it is people will happily play 10-20 year old games. And people can just rewatch (or discover) old, already produced media rather than take a risk on something new few people are talking about.

Economic factors certainly come into play. Cinema tickets cost more, new games cost more, there are more streaming services now all demanding increasing subscription costs and adding adverts which undoes the entire point of them in the first place.

The safe comforts of the familiar is absolutely going to factor in but it does seem like new stuff is less accessible because we have less money and costs increase. But then of course it is determined that the product is the failure if it can't get us to choose it over heating.

 

[Fateor]

I think there's a ton of stuff within Discovery that you can argue "doesn't make sense within the greater context of the Star Trek universe." However, very little of it had to do with the presence of gay people, trans people, women, etc.

Nobody here is arguing that it did.

Right, because TNG's "Just Say No" ad they shoved into "Symbiosis" was the height of subtlety.

Given I directly said "blunt and hit you in the face with a thing", I am not sure why you are arguing from the position that I claimed there was subtly involved.

Then how did Seven get drunk?

On Synthehol because her borg implants couldn't handle it.

 

[eschaton]

what you are discussing raises good points. I would add that movie making has lost it's core element and appeal...escapism. The whole point of going to a movie is to experience a couple hours away from the "noise" of the real world and lose yourself in action, adventure, emotion etc...

I dunno if I'd say that's the "whole point" of a movie. Certainly that's the point of many movies. But was escapism why people went to see Oppenheimer? Seems doubtful.

However when that 'noise' infiltrates the media we consume, then there is no more escape...and 'fatigue' sets in...especially when it is injected in places that makes it gratuitous and shoe horned in simply to make a point. every day we are accosted with polarity, identity politics, and the like, that's the real world, but when you start injecting into people's "escapism"...

Exactly what movie are you referring to here?

When talking about theatrical releases in particular, "issue" movies almost never intersect with blockbusters. That's the realm of Oscar-bait - movies made largely in an attempt to win awards. Though there are of course exceptions here. Sinners was a smash hit, and it's hard to just sit back and "enjoy" that movie, given how much of it is wrapped up in the realities of the Jim Crow south.

A lot of times when people say "political" they mean something like the all-female Ghostbusters reboot - things which don't look political at all once you get past casting. It's gimmicky, and arguably pandering, but there's no politics to speak of within the confines of the narrative.

I tell people that the 1970s was the golden age of music. you could turn on the radio and hear: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, Styx, Kiss, Van Halen, Kansas, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Queen....all huge selling acts but completely unique from each other in sound and compositions.

Wrong side of the 70s for me. Though so much of the foundation of what was later to come was set in the 1970s, from the Ramones to Kraftwerk. Everything that split off of punk, techno, even hip hop was pretty much in place by 1979.

Nobody here is arguing that it did.

As I said upthread, I think Season 1 of DIS has incoherent politics, and after that, the show was essentially apolitical. I simply don't see where the politics are, unless you think putting a black woman into a lead role is a political statement in and of itself.