TNG - A Matter of Honor

[Scififan]

Reminds me of the time in Relics where Scotty tries Synthehol Scotch and knows it's not the real thing.

[Nealithi]

Synthehol is one of the odd bits to me. Please bear with me a moment. My family tried champagne last night. My father commented that he thought it was great since it was 40% alcohol by volume or 80 proof. Better than the rum he drinks by a few points. I thought he was way off since while his rum smells nice. Trying to drink it curls my tongue. The champagne by contrast was fine. So after he went to bed I checked the bottle. 12% alcohol by volume. Up to 40% Pinot Noir per bottle. (Not a wine person or much of a drinker so I don't really know what that even means.)
But my point was if you took the alcohol out of Rum and thus is tasted as it smelled. It would actually taste wrong to someone who has had it before right?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

It gets weirder. Professed wine experts have claimed a range of flavors that exceeds what sensory scientists have proven humans can actually detect.

Then there's the "Triple X Beer" experiment. College students were given beer that they were told was three times as strong as normal beer. They had to complete certain tasks, based on dexterity and cognition speed, for which they would receive tokens they could exchange for more beer. Some of them complained about the taste, some didn't. Some of the participants began failing the tasks due to their decreased manual dexterity and response time.

The thing was, the "Triple X Beer" was just water. It still affected a lot of the participants as if it was high-concentration alcohol.

[Marveryn]

and now we have these women - who are thirsty for Riker. That's it.

I'm pretty sure they were just fuckin with him. And these ones didn't have the boob armor, I thought that was specifically a Duras sisters thing.

Yeah, I always thought that was a Lursa and B'tor thing, I don't recall any other female Klingon in the series having such an obvious target space right in the middle of their chest.

Yes but let's be honest in a universe of space ship and laser guns the only people who would used melee weapons are other klingons.

here the thing with meelee weapons in a starship. Particular if you are in one and you don't wear armor. First balistic weapons and i think even weapons like phaser tend to put hole in thing. Starship don't fly well when they got hole leading outside, put too many holes and you may not any star ship. Also there a lot of very important machinary that if damage (especially in the bridge or engineering ) could end a boarding very quickly. one way to avoid accidently hitting a very imporant piece of equiptment with an explosive effect would be meelee weapons. in fact star ship crew should be carrying sword instead of phasers.

[Nealithi]

here the thing with melee weapons in a starship. Particular if you are in one and you don't wear armor. First ballistic weapons and i think even weapons like phaser tend to put hole in thing. Starships don't fly well when they got holes leading outside, put too many holes and you may not have any star ship. Also there a lot of very important machinery that if damage (especially in the bridge or engineering ) could end a boarding very quickly. One way to avoid accidentally hitting a very important piece of equipment with an explosive effect would be melee weapons. in fact star ship crew should be carrying swords instead of phasers.

There are some science fiction where they do this. Swords, knives, and even pikes for some defenses. I could even see riot shields being useful. However, with stun settings being wide spread. Why would you limit yourself to a melee weapon?

[Marveryn]

here the thing with melee weapons in a starship. Particular if you are in one and you don't wear armor. First ballistic weapons and i think even weapons like phaser tend to put hole in thing. Starships don't fly well when they got holes leading outside, put too many holes and you may not have any star ship. Also there a lot of very important machinery that if damage (especially in the bridge or engineering ) could end a boarding very quickly. One way to avoid accidentally hitting a very important piece of equipment with an explosive effect would be melee weapons. in fact star ship crew should be carrying swords instead of phasers.

There are some science fiction where they do this. Swords, knives, and even pikes for some defenses. I could even see riot shields being useful. However, with stun settings being wide spread. Why would you limit yourself to a melee weapon?

Yeah you caught me out on this. I got the idea from sci fi book i read in the past so its a stolen point from an author from another setting. Giving Phasers and disrupter, plus shields. borders may not need to go go explosives when invading another star ship. Heck with teleporters borders only need to hit the bride and engine room so there are no need to destroy half the ship to reach vital areas. The question then comes to the training of the border and avoiding hitting stuff that make the entire shop go boom. One other point star trek don't do a lot of boarding action in the first place giving self destruct option. So most navies tend to blow up the ship then try to board them.

[RobbyB1982]

I think my favorite though has to be Quark showing them who's taking advantage of the honor system through basic accounting. What a house of cards.

That was truly a magical scene.

When they let Quark be a real Ferengi and show just how sharp they should be depicted if they weren't usually relegated to being comic relief, it's a thing to behold. His conversation about the price of peace with the Maquis Vulcan was brilliant as well. Highlighting the strategical focus the Ferengi mind has in anything that can be put in terms of a game-theoretic calculation of outcomes and their assigned values... ah what could have been. Nog's expert navigation of the Great Material River is a favorite runner-up demonstration too.

And those scenes highlight how easily you can still mine that brilliance for comedy without making the characters to be jokes themselves.

Which episode was that? It sounds familiar but its been ages sicne I watched the whole series.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Which episode was that? It sounds familiar but its been ages sicne I watched the whole series.

There's a pair of episodes each involving a convoluted ring of bartering done by Nog.

[CrypticMirror]

I think my favorite though has to be Quark showing them who's taking advantage of the honor system through basic accounting. What a house of cards.

That was truly a magical scene.

When they let Quark be a real Ferengi and show just how sharp they should be depicted if they weren't usually relegated to being comic relief, it's a thing to behold. His conversation about the price of peace with the Maquis Vulcan was brilliant as well. Highlighting the strategical focus the Ferengi mind has in anything that can be put in terms of a game-theoretic calculation of outcomes and their assigned values... ah what could have been. Nog's expert navigation of the Great Material River is a favorite runner-up demonstration too.

And those scenes highlight how easily you can still mine that brilliance for comedy without making the characters to be jokes themselves.

Which episode was that? It sounds familiar but its been ages sicne I watched the whole series.

The Nog one is Treachery, Faith, and the Great River.

[clearspira]

here the thing with melee weapons in a starship. Particular if you are in one and you don't wear armor. First ballistic weapons and i think even weapons like phaser tend to put hole in thing. Starships don't fly well when they got holes leading outside, put too many holes and you may not have any star ship. Also there a lot of very important machinery that if damage (especially in the bridge or engineering ) could end a boarding very quickly. One way to avoid accidentally hitting a very important piece of equipment with an explosive effect would be melee weapons. in fact star ship crew should be carrying swords instead of phasers.

There are some science fiction where they do this. Swords, knives, and even pikes for some defenses. I could even see riot shields being useful. However, with stun settings being wide spread. Why would you limit yourself to a melee weapon?

Blades have a weird place in fiction - they often seem to be flat out superior to ray guns. Its one of Chuck's oldest jokes that phasers on stun seem more likely to give you cramps than they are to kill you.

Although I will say though that phasers in Kirk's time were beasts; often gunning down a whole street instantly with a wide beam. ''Bread and Circuses'' even implies that a hundred men with phasers could wipe out the combined armies of Rome - and hey, wide beam on kill is basically a machine gun nest so why not? Its only in the VOY/ENT era that phasers do shit. (Seriously, WTF happened to the wide beam setting by VOY? ''Cathexis'' where Tuvok was mind-controlled and took the whole bridge down proved that it exists, but no one ever seemed to want to use it outside of this episode).