Star Trek: stuff that grinds my gears...

About the food... well, tastes change. Look at what people were eating 400 years ago, compare that to now: "Everyone consumes fancy 'alien' (foreign) food and drinks" like potatoes, tomatoes and coffee, all from the Americas and unseen in the rest of the world. In 400 years time who knows what we'll be eating, especially if there's hundreds of alien cultures out there. As for the lack of food allergies, remember there'll also be 400-ish more years of medical advances, cures, and probably (almost certainly) a ton of inoculations and preventatives vaccines for anyone whose job involves repeated exposure to alien worlds/bugs/environments. Heck, there's even a scene where Dr Pulaski takes a shot of an anti-toxin so she can enjoy Klingon tea, so who knows what everyday medicines are available? It could be a 24th century equivalent of those little yoghurt drinks full of friendly bacteria to help your gut health. We just never saw it because it was way more interesting to see the ship getting attacked by the Borg.
 
About the food... well, tastes change. Look at what people were eating 400 years ago, compare that to now: "Everyone consumes fancy 'alien' (foreign) food and drinks" like potatoes, tomatoes and coffee, all from the Americas and unseen in the rest of the world. In 400 years time who knows what we'll be eating, especially if there's hundreds of alien cultures out there. As for the lack of food allergies, remember there'll also be 400-ish more years of medical advances, cures, and probably (almost certainly) a ton of inoculations and preventatives vaccines for anyone whose job involves repeated exposure to alien worlds/bugs/environments. Heck, there's even a scene where Dr Pulaski takes a shot of an anti-toxin so she can enjoy Klingon tea, so who knows what everyday medicines are available? It could be a 24th century equivalent of those little yoghurt drinks full of friendly bacteria to help your gut health. We just never saw it because it was way more interesting to see the ship getting attacked by the Borg.

Good point. Forgot about the heritage of the potatoe.
I just noticed the same enigneers who designed the exploding bridge console must have been responsible for the holo deck, too. Can pretty much create any environment, will most likely be used to create antique superlethal scenarios like Wild West, Prohibition or Middle Ages and at the slightest power surge the entire software breaks, traps people in the holodeck and the first thing to bug is the security protocol making all weapons lethal. Plus non of the software engineers every heard about capsulation so you can create an omni-potent console to control the entire ship overriding bridge contorls or make a holograph aware of being a holograph. Starfleet spaceships are death traps, how do they still get cadets to join ?
 
Good point. Forgot about the heritage of the potatoe.
I just noticed the same enigneers who designed the exploding bridge console must have been responsible for the holo deck, too. Can pretty much create any environment, will most likely be used to create antique superlethal scenarios like Wild West, Prohibition or Middle Ages and at the slightest power surge the entire software breaks, traps people in the holodeck and the first thing to bug is the security protocol making all weapons lethal. Plus non of the software engineers every heard about capsulation so you can create an omni-potent console to control the entire ship overriding bridge contorls or make a holograph aware of being a holograph. Starfleet spaceships are death traps, how do they still get cadets to join ?

Must be them fancy starfleet infomercials ;) either that or large portion of humanity has gone suicidal :wacko, who knows :p

Last but not least: The food. Noone eats pizza or a steak or drink orange juice. Everyone consumes fancy alien food and drinks like klingon coffee, romulan ale, andorian backed space-beans, talaxian vomit-stew. I mean, there's people on earth who can't eat certain earth food because of allergies and the future-folks can simply eat anything from every planet in the galaxy ?.

Allergies are futile. We will adapt. Your food will be assimilated. ;)
 
I've always found it funny how on TNG era shows that nobody on the bridge can handle anything beyond routine cruising, the minute anything comes up they're almost immediately replaced by a senior bridge crew as if they're the only ones capable of doing anything more than just manning the ship while flies in a straight line. I've also wondered where these extra crew members go when they get replaced by their senior counterparts, they just go back to their quarters or they do hang out in Ten Forward (or the equivalent on other shows) until the crisis is over and they get to resume their stations again? For that matter, where do these crew members come from and how do they know they're needed whenever a senior bridge crew member like Worf or Data gets assigned to an away team right after something comes up on the view screen?
 
I recall all kinds of earth food being eaten... Chicken sandwich and coffee (with tribbles), steak, turkey, caviar, eggs, pizza, split pea soup, banana pancakes, peanut butter and jelly, coffee- Jamaican blend, beets, all kinds of creole food... The list could go on forever.
 
I've always found it funny how on TNG era shows that nobody on the bridge can handle anything beyond routine cruising, the minute anything comes up they're almost immediately replaced by a senior bridge crew as if they're the only ones capable of doing anything more than just manning the ship while flies in a straight line. I've also wondered where these extra crew members go when they get replaced by their senior counterparts, they just go back to their quarters or they do hang out in Ten Forward (or the equivalent on other shows) until the crisis is over and they get to resume their stations again? For that matter, where do these crew members come from and how do they know they're needed whenever a senior bridge crew member like Worf or Data gets assigned to an away team right after something comes up on the view screen?

BAD writing or perhaps lazy writing :p

Reading this is making me hungry :lol

Time to get off your behind and go visit the nearest replicator :p
 
I've always found it funny how on TNG era shows that nobody on the bridge can handle anything beyond routine cruising, the minute anything comes up they're almost immediately replaced by a senior bridge crew as if they're the only ones capable of doing anything more than just manning the ship while flies in a straight line. I've also wondered where these extra crew members go when they get replaced by their senior counterparts, they just go back to their quarters or they do hang out in Ten Forward (or the equivalent on other shows) until the crisis is over and they get to resume their stations again? For that matter, where do these crew members come from and how do they know they're needed whenever a senior bridge crew member like Worf or Data gets assigned to an away team right after something comes up on the view screen?

Ever catch the season seven episode "Lower Decks"? That was a good episode that focused on a couple of background characters and how they deal with being managed by our main cast.
 
The one thing that bothers me is the Star Trek utopian "economy" where every endeavor and profession can be driven only by our need to "better ourselves."

I don't know about you but, in a future of limitless abundance, I would probably spend most of my time in my personal holodeck instead of risking my neck in space fighting aliens.
Don't get me wrong I have a sense of duty to society and humanity (I'm a physician) but, if this were a Star Trek future, I wouldn't be working 50-60 hours per week as I do now. I'd work half that and spend most of my time with my wife and kids. If you're a patient then good luck finding a doc available at 3am.
Granted, I haven't researched the ST economy much but isn't that the essence of it?

I find it easier to suspend disbelief with "The Force" than with the socialist utopian ST fantasy.
 
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Yeah, also if there is no money in the future, but they still have shops, what is to stop someone going into a model shop and just asking for one of everything he has?

If noone gets paid, do people still clean poop out of sewers for the love of the job?
 
Sewers? Probably do not exist anymore such is the level of ability to alter and transport matter.
Post WWIII, post first contact, post human awakening to those new realities, massive advances in technology to such
a level that it would transform society in all ways, many sucky jobs would simple be extinct.
 
I've never understood the 'no money' scenario. I don't care what happens, money is never going to go away. It may not be physical money, but having to pay for service will never leave us. I don't see how it could.
 
I don't think the "no money" thing was ever really thought out. The writers always said they had no idea how it worked. Even in First Contact, Picard says that the economics of the future were quite different and that wealth was no longer the driving force in their lives. But when Lilly says "you don't get paid?" The conversation is cut off by coming across the Borg. But we've seen them use money with other species. On DS9 it's pretty much a requirement to have it. I'm sure compensation and trade still occur all the time. It's just that no one knows how it would work. How does this utopian society function where so many things can be made at the touch of a button? Precious metals and jewels by today's standards can be man made as easily as a cheeseburger. It's just something that no one in the 20th and 21st centuries can figure out how it would work... Like the Heisenberg compensators, it just does.
 
Yeah, also if there is no money in the future, but they still have shops, what is to stop someone going into a model shop and just asking for one of everything he has?

If noone gets paid, do people still clean poop out of sewers for the love of the job?


I think they just beam it into another parallel universe. They probably do it with some kind of modified tricorder. :lol

As far as the no money thing, I always thought that everyone had access to replicators so everything you needed was available. Maybe certain things are trade based?
 
I don't think the "no money" thing was ever really thought out. The writers always said they had no idea how it worked. Even in First Contact, Picard says that the economics of the future were quite different and that wealth was no longer the driving force in their lives. But when Lilly says "you don't get paid?" The conversation is cut off by coming across the Borg. But we've seen them use money with other species. On DS9 it's pretty much a requirement to have it. I'm sure compensation and trade still occur all the time. It's just that no one knows how it would work. How does this utopian society function where so many things can be made at the touch of a button? Precious metals and jewels by today's standards can be man made as easily as a cheeseburger. It's just something that no one in the 20th and 21st centuries can figure out how it would work... Like the Heisenberg compensators, it just does.

It must have been really hard on Gene to try and convey this "no money" society when he was all about making it at the cost of others. It's like Kirk in "The Omega Glory" when he states,

Kirk: It seems impossible. A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.​

And how many times has Kirk violated the Prime Directive?
 
I've never understood the 'no money' scenario. I don't care what happens, money is never going to go away. It may not be physical money, but having to pay for service will never leave us. I don't see how it could.
And where are the incentives for good (or any) work and repercussions for sucking?

"Crewman, I need you to repair this console."
"You mean the one that runs on 240 volt, three phase AC and explodes every time we get shot at?"
"Yes."
"Pffft, screw that. I'm going to my cabin and watch porn."
"You'll be drummed out of Starfleet for this!"
"Meh."
 
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I was watching a TNG episode today and got to thinking about something that always bugs me. If the ship goes Warp 10, why go anywhere at Warp 3? I get that the highest speed might over stress the engines, which they've mentioned, but how about going Warp 9 then?
 
I was watching a TNG episode today and got to thinking about something that always bugs me. If the ship goes Warp 10, why go anywhere at Warp 3? I get that the highest speed might over stress the engines, which they've mentioned, but how about going Warp 9 then?

Technically the ship never reached Warp 10 under it's own power.

My money is on the power consumption and wear and tear on the ship. If the ship went at maximum warp the whole time, it would probably drain the Dilithium cystals at a much faster rate. Whenever maximum warp is needed, it's for dire emergencies so at least getting to the destination is more important than worrying if warp drive won't work within a week. But this is a stretch because as we all know, Voyager was able to go seven years without a visit to a star base to resupply (GRR on that series). It's a question I've always wondered and wish was better explained in the series.
 
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