Some basic design flaws in Star Trek

Television, Movies Games and Books Star Trek
#1

I thought that these were funny and the more you think about them the more you wonder WTF? John Scalzi (author of Old Mans War) brings up some excellent points-

“V’Ger
In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a Voyager space probe gets sucked into a black hole and survives (GAAAAH), and is discovered by denizens of a machine planet who think the logical thing to do is to take a bus-size machine with the processing power of a couple of Speak and Spells and upgrade it to a spaceship the size of small moon, wrap that in an energy field the size of a solar system, and then send it merrily on its way. This is like you assisting a brain-damaged raccoon trapped on a suburban traffic island by giving him Ecuador.”- John Scalzi

http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/08/bad-designs-in-star-trek.php

I the interest of being fair here is the Star Wars design flaw page also;
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/08/bad-designs-in-star-wars.php
There is definitely funny stuff here too.:slight_smile:

#2

You don’t know whether to fear the Borg or to ask them if they think that upcoming AFI album will be, like, awesome.

This made me lol. Also, phasers should always be set to smudge, it gives your enemies something to fear.

The Star Wars bit just made me sad. George Lucas…arg, I cant even finish the thought.

#3

I always had a problem with the ships seemingly being designed to be as weak as possible structurally. I mean look at the Enterprise. Body. Weak connection to the saucer, weak connection to both Nacelles. Warbird, big head hanging out there on a spindly little neck.

Don’t make sense.

#4

The only ship that made sense to me was the USS Defiant from DS9. It doesn’t look like it would bust apart if it pulled any Gs.

#5

To be fair, the saucer connection was designed to be weak (for separation.)

#6

Definitely agree

#7

You’d think they could make it separable without being structurally weak.

When I watched TOS, I always figured the nacelles were on stalks because they were putting out all sorts of deadly radiation. Those white safety suits in STII:TWOK reinforced that idea to me. But TNG etc. pretty much put the kaibosh on that theory.

#8

So I was caught a little bit of TNG the other day and started thinking, why are their uniforms almost always inapropriate for away missions? The closest thing that they have to a pocket is a pouch on their phaser belt for a tricorder. I also seem to remember an episode with Picard on an away mission on a desert planet and he is squinting and shading his eyes with his hand, but on Enterprise, Archer had a ball cap and sunglasses. Has mankind grown past the need to “wear silly costumes” (Encounter at Farpoint) that are actually functional? Hell, even kirk had a jacket with pockets on in STII.

#9

I think the rationale for the configuration of the Enterprise has been explained by the imaginary physics of creating a “warp field” large enough to encompass a ship that size. And since the ships aren’t meant to fly inside atmospheres, aerodynamics aren’t that important, but then again it’s happened often enough that you think they’d give a few sleeker lines, which must have been what they were thinking designing the Defiant and Voyager classes.

#10

How about all the evidence that at some point between now and the future, all of the electricians appear to have been killed off in some sort of “profession-based genocide”. Why? Well, have you ever wondered why all of the panels on the bridge are wired without circuit breakers and proper grounding? A complete loss of all electrical wiring knowledge at some point along the line is the only reasonable explanation.

Every time someone sneezes near the Enterprise, a computer terminal on the bridge explodes violently, sometimes killing its user. This is the very definition of a user-unfriendly interface. If they’re not exploding, they’re shooting out balls of lightning.

Folks, things that I wire at home hardly ever explode with the power of a thousand angry suns! I’m just some dude, so if I can maintain a “high 90’s” percentile of success at not wiring violently unstable light switches, the folks at Starfleet should be able to do at least as well, right?

#11

You couldn’t pay me enough to push a button on the Enterprise.:smiley:

#12

I’ve always thot that as well.

You’ve listened to the MakeItSo Show from the gents across the pond?

#13

Don’t forget the fact that in most of them, the Bridge is a hood ornament. A lucky shot to the top of the ship and it loses almost its entire senior staff.

#14

how come whenever there are big battles, and explosions on the bridge, big rocks get scattered about. seriously, where do the rocks come from???

#15

How can they have a universial translator that can help them understand thousands of different races and species, yet no one can understand Chekov?

#16

That’s the corpse of a Horta officer, you insensitive clod!

#17

I have a TV station from Georgia which every morning at 7 am plays TNG, so naturally I watch it before I go to school.
While watching this morning, I realized a simple flaw that most people overlook: basic communication. For example: when Picard says “bridge to engineering” to open up a communications relay, why is he ALWAYS gets the chief engineer? I understand maybe its Starfleet protocol to have the chief engineer answer, but I have other questions.
While communicating with said room (being the bridge, engineering, the coridor, or w/e), you can never hear any other voices in the background? If there are other people there, and the comm channel is more or less the same thing we had in high school, then shouldn’t you be able to hear the voices in the background?
And why is it that the communications relay shuts itself off without a command from the user? Is it timed? If so, how does it know when to shut off?

#18

“Thank you for calling Engineering. Your call is very important to us, please listen to the following as the options have changed. T’ch tgh lg’ach Klingon, press one. To check on the status of a work order, please press two. To ask about an interdepartmental billing issue, press three. If you are calling with an engineering issue, please wait and a member of our team will be right with you. Press zero at any time to reach an engineering operator. Your call will be answered in the order it was received.”

#19

In all the years of Star Trek not once did they show a bathroom. Sinks, yes. Showers, yes. An actual bathroom with a space toilet, no. Maybee it’s a silly contrivance of the 21st century that their more evolved sensibilities have moved beyond. Hell, they showed them in BSG.

#20

Red Matter
I’m sorry, I can’t even begin to coherently explain everything that is wrong and bad with “red matter.” Every time I try I just end up sputtering and gibbering and making plans to beat J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman to death with the works of Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman. Suffice to say that when a deus ex machina looks exactly like Sasquatch’s ball gag, you might as well put up a sign that says “abandon all logic, ye who enter here.” Or, more compactly: GAAAAH.

OK. I think I’m gonna be giggling for about a week thinking about that. Frakkin hilarious!!

Favorite new phrase: Sasquatch’s ball gag