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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • I believe there was originally a line of dialogue about there being resistance when they pushed through objects, which was supposed to explain why they don’t just fall. That line was cut, but IIRC it is still referenced indirectly when Geordi’s hand gets zapped and he says that there was more resistance to pushing through stuff afterwards.

    That wouldn’t explain why there is enough resistance in the floor to stand and walk, but not enough resistance in walls to prevent them from easily passing through. Presumably their mass and the pull of gravity are unchanged, so the resistance would have to be enough to counteract their weight. And even if they did weigh less, they still propel themselves forward through walls by pushing off the floor, so either the floor needs to be more solid, or they should be nearly weightless and move by paddling their feet through the floor until they build up momentum enough to smash through a wall. Also, if they are applying pressure to objects they pass through, shouldn’t people they touch feel it?

    Personally, I’d probably explain the floors specifically being impassable by blaming it on the way the artificial gravity is generated.

    I don’t have a good explanation for how they can breathe, how they see without interacting with light, how they can hear clearly when matter isn’t really touching them and therefore can’t conduct sound, etc.




  • Just realized I forgot the time that his wife got turned into a 10 year old. A 10 year old who got mad at him for being uncomfortable with physical affection at a time when she is going through something crazy and wants to feel comforted. Forget the Kobayashi Maru, that right there is the real no-win scenario.

    Now if only I could go back to forgetting that episode.


  • The more mundane, day to day stuff is where there’s a big difference.

    (Young) Obi-Wan gets super powers and a highly respected position in society that allows him to operate independently on a day to day basis.

    O’Brian gets dragged out of bed in the middle of the night because a hypochondriac feels a tingle, and after extensive diagnostics show nothing is wrong, he’s ordered to take the transporter apart piece by piece and put it back together again.

    During a disaster where he is the most experienced person left on the bridge, he has to take orders from Troi (who needs him to explain everything to her)

    Has arachnaphobia, gets stationed somewhere that’s overrun by giant spiders, just has to deal with it.


    Let’s not forget that Miles fought in a war against the Cardassians, which caused some serious psychological scars that don’t seem to be getting addressed. Those same events broke his commanding officer, and Miles is the only one who really understands why.

    Then he goes on to take a quiet post at a space station in the middle of nowhere, only for it to become the frontline of an even bigger war.



  • Let’s not forget that time when primitive 20th century freezer jockeys were thawed out on the Enterprise D and a sleazy 80s business man was able to do pretty much whatever he wanted with the computer. When Picard yells at him, he replies that if there were things he shouldn’t be allowed to do, why didn’t they set the computer to not allow it? And Picard replies that people shouldn’t have to be told they aren’t allowed to do certain things, they should be able behave without the computer forcing it.

    So, the reason they have such a huge security issue is that they run everything on the honor system. Though I suppose this was right after Worf took over security, so I guess that makes sense.


  • Give Tom a break. He got forced into being the nurse because he took biochemistry classes before getting kicked out of the academy.

    Plus, he’s juggling nursing duties with his full time job as the pilot. And his side gig as a commando team leader. While moonlighting as a spy. And despite all that he’s still finds the time to develop an encyclopedic knowledge of twentieth century earth. And let’s not forget that he also designed engines with a top speed of infinity. He’s the most competent man in Star Fleet. Not bad for a dropout and ex-con.

    Pretty sure if you Tuvixed Paris and O’Brian, combining Paris’s competence with O’Brian’s work ethic, you’d get some sort of god.






  • I laughed at titanic.

    You want to talk moments that kicked you in the soul? Lore saying “I love you… brother” as Data is deactivating him.

    Maybe it just hits too close to home after being in a similar situation with my own evil brother. But that’s one of those moments that always catches me off guard. Especially since the rest of the episode isn’t all that great, so it’s easy to let your guard down.


    While I’m feeling nostalgic, here’s a few other honorable mentions in the “I wasn’t prepared to feel emotions today” category:

    • Ivanova after getting healed - Babylon 5
    • I didn’t count on being happy - Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
    • Demona’s password - Gargoyles



  • If we aren’t being strict about warp technology specifically as the measuring stick, I think the gate network itself would qualify, even if they weren’t the ones that built it.

    That said, the principle of noninterference likely should apply to some extent at least. After all the trash talking they’ve done over the years about people in the 20th/21st century, it would be crazy to let a military unit from that era get access to anything that might help them advance technologically. Especially when they’ve already got a history of capturing and reverse engineering alien technology. And all the more so when it becomes clear that any technology they do get their hands on will be used almost exclusively for the purpose of fighting alien civilizations (and perhaps even others on their own planet).

    In the long run, if a stargate found it’s way onto DS9 or Bajor and permanent relations were established, I could see the federation providing aid to the Tau’ri to help them fend off the Goa’uld and/or the Ori, which they could justify because they would be preventing an advanced civilization from exploiting a technologically inferior one. But I have to think it would take them a while to get to that point.


  • SG1 and DS9 would be a weird crossover.

    You have the humans of the enlightened future meeting a team of military personnel from the past, lead by a man who tries to avoid enlightenment whenever possible. He’d probably end up in Quark’s playing darts.

    Carter is going to immediately frustrate any attempts to limit damage to the timeline (not that it makes sense given that they’d have to be from a parallel reality) or invoke the prime directive. She’s going to be full of questions, and she knows enough about advanced alien technology that she’ll probably be able to figure out more than they’d want just from observation. She’d also probably figure out how to use the wormhole to get back home, being something of an expert on the topic.

    Daniel is going to have the unique experience of being an archeologist that is now a relic of the past. Not much for him to do as a linguist since they have universal translators, though it would be funny if they brought it up and he thought they had all just been speaking English, since everyone in their galaxy does for some reason. It’d also be funny for him to be recognized by the prophets or Q, as though they knew him from his brief period as a vorlon or whatever.

    I think Dax and Teal’c would hit it off, they have so much in common.

    And things would get very confusing if someone activated an emh.

    Also probably for the best that the Atlantis team isn’t there, as O’Brien would have some awkward questions to answer. Besides, they’re already too busy crossing over with Enterprise and answering their own awkward questions about Tripp.

    Oh, and I really hope Jellico is visiting the station.




  • Who says he didn’t? We only know he sensed that Luke was strong in the force during the death star trench run because he said it out loud. Presumably he has encountered many people with relatively strong force potential, but that’s probably something he’s going to keep to himself unless he has a reason to act on it. She’s a prisoner that he’s unlikely to recruit, and it’s not like she’s had any training. Hell, he probably dismisses people like her as being too old to start training anyway. (And if we bring in stuff from outside the movies where they explain that force sensitive people often become leaders, or larger than life figures that shape the course of events, then one would expect a lot of those people to run into Vader eventually.)

    It may also be that force ability is more apparent once someone actually starts using the force. That would be logical and consistent with the fact that Luke is only really noticed by Vader once Obi Wan started telling him to use the force, and the fact that Vader and Luke could sense each other in space over Endor, but apparently that didn’t apply to Leia.

    And again, he wasn’t trying to reach Luke on the radio to make him an offer once he noticed the force was strong with him, he was trying to kill him. The empire wasn’t determined to capture Luke until the emperor was able to sense him making waves in the force, when he was at the point where he was already using a lightsaber and capable of telekinesis, and when he had been identified as Vader’s son. At that point he had demonstrated actual ability, not just wasted potential, and the familial connection offered a plausible way to work around his opposition to the empire.


  • They really could have done themselves a favor by adding some clear limitations to her abilities.

    • Proximity required: No sensing through the view screen.
    • Surface impressions only: Disciplined minds can fool her
    • Background noise: The more people are around, the harder it is to get a clear read on someone.
    • The more alien a mind is, the more difficult or painful it is to interact with.

    There you go, she can still use her abilities to help the crew, and sometimes to solve problems, but you can also get stuff past her without making her seem oblivious. Then all they have to do is consistently write her as an intelligent and competent member of the crew, and we’re good.