DIS: Vaulting Amition

[Deledrius]

I've always liked Chuck's mocking of the fact that Voyager turns dark whenever there is a red alert, because in an emergency you want to see as little as possible.

Agreed. It's one of those things that looks good on screen for a tense moment, but makes little sense. I really can't imagine a way it would work on a Starfleet ship to anyone's benefit at the extremes they used in Voyager.

[FaxModem1]

Question: has any Mirror Universe episode ever explored what Mirror Khan would be like? I'm curious whether he'd be a peaceful and benevolent guy there, or someone considered too violent and barbaric even by the Terran Empire's standards.

In one of my favorite Trek novels, The Sorrows of Empire, Khan was part of an Imperial dynasty and died centuries ago. His long lost heir was considered a possible replacement for Emperor Spock by some mutinous admirals in Starfleet. That was quickly tossed out due to how his heir was supposed to be nothing like him.

[Sir Will]

It's a bit less forgivable that everyone had family coming out of the woodworks-Worf's unmentioned stepbrother, Deanna's unmentioned dead sister, Beverly's never mentioned before grandmother, Picard's (fake) son, and Data's never-seen-before mother. The only one that's forgivable is Geordi's mom, since his family had basically never been mentioned before and the episode was actually strongly focused on his character growth.

Worf's stepbrother had actually been mentioned in the Season 1 episode "Heart of Glory;" it just took until season 7 that the writers actually remembered him (not that anyone can blame them for forgetting Season 1 happened).

Her grandmother was also mentioned before. Beverly said in Arsenal of Freedom that she learned some remedies from her and that she had inspired her to become a doctor.

[Yukaphile]

I think it's the fact so many family members are being shoehorned into a single season that is what upsets people here. It's not like they come out of nowhere. Personally, I liked those stories. I liked Worf's brother and Data's mother (even if she was an android). As Chuck has noted, I think it was the writers pushing the easy storytelling button at a time when their creative energies were focused elsewhere, Michael Piller on making DS9 work, Jeri Taylor on preparing for Voyager, and Braga and Moore on working for Generations.

[Fianna]

I've always liked Chuck's mocking of the fact that Voyager turns dark whenever there is a red alert, because in an emergency you want to see as little as possible.

Agreed. It's one of those things that looks good on screen for a tense moment, but makes little sense. I really can't imagine a way it would work on a Starfleet ship to anyone's benefit at the extremes they used in Voyager.

It's still more practical than "purple alert".


youtu.be/p97166Yt4X4

[Yukaphile]

I always liked the way the early TOS films handled it. There's a reason you'd have a backup "emergency lighting" system on a ship or station bred for combat. Also, I have the quote from Chuck right here.

Whenever I bring up the "switch off the lights thing in a crisis," someone suggests maybe it's to make the controls easier to see. Hmm, not, not an unreasonable thing to say, but I still don't buy it, for the reason you see here: It doesn't matter how easy it is to see the controls if you get thrown out of your chair because you don't have any seatbelts. This is twice this story where we've seen this happen, and people have to struggle to reach their controls in the heat of battle, a struggle no doubt hindered by the fact that they're in the dark, and have no idea where their chair is, especially the helmsman, whose chair is on rails, so it's benefited by sliding back and forth whenever the ship is being hit or rocked or whatever. I just cannot buy that this is a legitimate design if Tom has to pilot the ship through battle kneeling on the floor in the dark while being beaten with a chair.

[TGLS]

Hey, I didn't know Chuck gets Canadian channels.

[Durandal_1707]

I've always liked Chuck's mocking of the fact that Voyager turns dark whenever there is a red alert, because in an emergency you want to see as little as possible.

The Defiant did that too, didn't it? Or was that only when the cloaking device went active?

[Robovski]

I've always liked Chuck's mocking of the fact that Voyager turns dark whenever there is a red alert, because in an emergency you want to see as little as possible.

The Defiant did that too, didn't it? Or was that only when the cloaking device went active?

The cloaking device, I think there was a handwave about needing to minimize power use, which if you are at antimatter and needing to dim the lights you are running a thin power budget.

[SuccubusYuri]

Power use would be silly, though the surface area of lights discharging energy might be -something- to avoid detection. Trek's always been pretty loose about how sensors work, though.