Star Trek: Questions you always wanted answers to

[robn1]

So I was correct that they did beam that far?

The only other thing that really bugs me is the lame engine room. I Think they just used a power plant or something for that set. That's just lazy when even back in the 80s they had a whole engine room set.

It was a brewery, and TOS had an engine room set in the 60s.

 

[SmilingOtter]

And as to why it's called a cold fusion device...
Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? Makes no sense.
We have no idea why it's called a cold fusion device... Might make perfect sense if you understood the technology or it could be a quirk in naming based on who knows what.

In the 21st century we have a term "cold fusion" that means a certain thing. Granted not all that many people know what the term refers to, but a lot of people have heard the term bantered about. Abrams and the scriptwriters decided the term meant something completely different, when they could have made up their own technobabble (perhaps an "energy absorber") just as easily.

And yeah, the engine room was an undisguised Budweiser brewery. Dumb. And lazy.

 

[robn1]

But you have no idea what occurred to get them there . It would be like starting an episode of classic trek in the last 10 minutes and saying this makes no sense...

It was a James Bond/Indy type opening.

And as to why it's called a cold fusion device...
Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? Makes no sense.
We have no idea why it's called a cold fusion device... Might make perfect sense if you understood the technology or it could be a quirk in naming based on who knows what...

Cold fusion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Captain Dunsel]

And as to why it's called a cold fusion device...
Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? Makes no sense.
We have no idea why it's called a cold fusion device...

I, for one, smiled an idiotic grin of pride—akin to the type of grin a simpleton flashes when farting silently in a crowded room—when the Kelvin Enterprise crew announced they would be using a “cold fusion device” to freeze an active volcano.

After witnessing them perform what seemed to be the ultimate feat of stupidity, by “hiding” a starship in a body of water, they raised the level of stupidity to another level through the use of “cold fusion”.

 

[Lost in Trek]

Of all the things that don't make sense in the movie I think getting hung over cold fusion is at the bottom of my list. Again, we don't really know in what context it was called that.

Now I so agree with the brewery acting as a engine room set... That just didn't work.

 

[Caveneau]

But you have no idea what occurred to get them there . It would be like starting an episode of classic trek in the last 10 minutes and saying this makes no sense.

But I think a very plausible explanation is the Enterprise needed to use its phasers to drill holes in the crust to relieve the volcanic pressure until Spock could create the cold fusion device and deploy. Firing phasers from orbit would have been seen by the natives so the Enterprise went underwater to keep their work out of view of the population.

And as to why it's called a cold fusion device...
Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? Makes no sense.
We have no idea why it's called a cold fusion device... Might make perfect sense if you understood the technology or it could be a quirk in naming based on who knows what.

Cool. I guess I totally misunderstood that plot line. Yeah those ideas would definitely never have occurred to me. Good thing JJ had it all planned out, having been a huge Star Trek fan in his youth.

 

[Lightning]

I Think they just used a power plant or something for that set.

It was a brewery, they wanted larger scale than you can get in a studio and didn't want to rely on (pay for) CGI set extentions. A laudable goal even if they didn't dress up the location enough (isn't there a brick wall visible in one shot?)

 

[patrickivan]

I, for one, smiled an idiotic grin of pride—akin to the type of grin a simpleton flashes when farting silently in a crowded room—when the Kelvin Enterprise crew announced they would be using a “cold fusion device” to freeze an active volcano.

After witnessing them perform what seemed to be the ultimate feat of stupidity, by “hiding” a starship in a body of water, they raised the level of stupidity to another level through the use of “cold fusion”.

View attachment 1357801

They had to use something with the word cold in it. Because volcano hot. And fuse the two into canceling each other out. Well, fusion, I reckon.

Because me and audience dumb.

*sigh*

I miss it when they at least tried sometimes.

 

[renaissance_man]

That's one thing that bugged me about ST, and I've mentioned this before, that they routinely contradict things or forget what they did in previous episodes. They will encounter a similar situation and then conveniently forget they had the tech to fix it.

One thing I always questioned is, TNG and newer series, they will have a medical emergency and get a gurney to wheel the person to sick bay. Why don't they just beam them there? I saw an episode the other day where Geordi asked Wesley to go get some part out of storage. Why would you not have a quartermaster in there who would beam it right to you?

They often beamed injured patients to sickbay either within the ship or directly from a planet or ship.

As for beaming a part from storage to where you need it, two things there, unless it is critical or bulky then the crew would use that opportunity to get some exercise and walk to the turbolift and then to the cargo bay, there is a real risk of becoming sedentary if you had transporters beam everything to you. Secondly think of the power drain on the ship if potentially hundreds of people aboard a ship the size of the Enterprise D were just beaming everything constantly, plus it would mean you would need the transporters in constant use.

 

[patrickivan]

They often beamed injured patients to sickbay either within the ship or directly from a planet or ship.

As for beaming a part from storage to where you need it, two things there, unless it is critical or bulky then the crew would use that opportunity to get some exercise and walk to the turbolift and then to the cargo bay, there is a real risk of becoming sedentary if you had transporters beam everything to you. Secondly think of the power drain on the ship if potentially hundreds of people aboard a ship the size of the Enterprise D were just beaming everything constantly, plus it would mean you would need the transporters in constant use.

Beaming from within the ship wasn't a thing until it had to be. The point being that the transporter platform was needed to beam you out because the arrays were outside the ship, and it was dangerous to try to pick people up inside, outside their intended focal range. Some other reasons as well.

Then it was written in as needed, and became more common.

But I think for after it became common and more safe, the explanations for not using it for everything would be: power allocation, you'd have to install transporters everywhere, safety could still be an issue with beaming within the ship, and because encouraging people to be lazy is not a positive step forward in society.

 

[somerset fox]

Turbo lift conversations which seem to go on for many more decks than the Enterprise ever had, if every flash on the light panel is a deck. Either that or the lift isn’t very turbo, and moves at the speed of a Victorian hotel elevator!

 

[Bigdaddy]

It moves at the speed of plot!

 

[Strikerkc]

Don't they also move in all three axis? meaning you can go from lower decks, to upper decks, port to starboard, and aft to fore, all in one turbo lift ride? That's why it took so relatively long, sometimes, wasn't it?

 

[chrisd]

Ooooh... ooooh...

Why does a starship have to go under water to remain hidden from the local primitive inhabitants when all it has to do is remain in orbit and use its transporters?

For that matter, why does the Federation need starships if their transporter technology is so advanced that it can be used to teleport from one planet to another across parsecs of space?

Why does a guy named Khan Noonian Sing look like a skinny English dude?

:angel

India was an English colony. Nothing like imperialism!

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Don't they also move in all three axis? meaning you can go from lower decks, to upper decks, port to starboard, and aft to fore, all in one turbo lift ride? That's why it took so relatively long, sometimes, wasn't it?

I just assumed they would move every direction because to go from aft of the main "fuselage" to the bridge it would have to make a turn and go vertical.

 

[Lost in Trek]

I just assumed they would move every direction because to go from aft of the main "fuselage" to the bridge it would have to make a turn and go vertical.

Yes, they moved up down and sideways.

There are scenes in TOS where the moving light panel on the wall will shift directions and the sound effect will have a slight pause to show the lift changing its direction of travel.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

I just assumed they would move every direction because to go from aft of the main "fuselage" to the bridge it would have to make a turn and go vertical.

Well, according to the makers of the television show called Star Trek: Discovery, the inside of a Federaton starship, around the time of TOS, is like Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory, with HUGE open spaces and rollercoaster tracks for the turbo elevators—or, in this case, “Starfleet Wonkavators”—to endlessly roll around on.

 

[robn1]

The STD infection just won't go away, it still Burnhams when I pee.

 

[RedheadKevin]

It was a brewery, and TOS had an engine room set in the 60s.

Well, if I was designing a long-duration starship, I think there would have to be a brewery somewhere.

 

[robn1]

Well, if I was designing a long-duration starship, I think there would have to be a brewery somewhere.

I won't argue with that