Top ten things to hate about Star Trek.

That was funny. I'm a fan and I'm still giggling. Shameful really.

I'll go ahead and say that I'm a fan. I have been one since that very first creature I ever saw, a cool salt sucking shape shifter, that Kirk and crew ran across in 1966. I've been to two Star Trek conventions, no I didn't dress up, but many others did. At the first one, Gene Roddenberry gave a speech, took questions and showed a blooper reel. This was 1974 or '75, we'd never seen anything like that then.

But I still laughed until cried as I read that list. Even Spock smirked once in a while. Usually at McCoys attitudes, but if a half Vulcan can smirk, then I can laugh.

There's one thing I hate about science fiction in general: Uppity colonies.

Maybe it's an American thing, having been a colony that declared independence, but there's an assumption in science fiction that the a lunar or Mars colony will declare independence at the first opportunity. Whether it's Robert Heinlein, Ben Bova, Kim Stanley Robinson, John Varley or anyone else, it's just so predictable: the ungrateful bastards on the new colony are going to shaft the investors.

It's the same in movies, and in TV shows like Babylon 5. It's a standard in any computer game or simulation involving a colony. Declaring independence ASAP is often even the main goal of a space colony simulator.

Sooner or later this'll make it hard to find investment - private or government - for future colonization.

Roger,
although I agree that all that you say is true, look at Africa. With scifi we're looking for an escape. A place we wish could exist. Scifi affords us a forward look where we can hope for a better world/universe. Even in post apocalyptic writings and flicks, the hero defeats the overlord and saves the pretty girl and her half crazy scientist father, uncle or displaced relative Emperor.

Hell it took Luke 3 episodes to save the Princess, defeat the Empire, save his father and re-establish order to the known universe. But he did it all, discounting the creepy brother / sister thing early on. Even with that, he becomes the ultimate wing man for his BFF Han Solo. Who undoubtedly is related to Napolean Solo.

We look forward because we know the past. For that matter Roger, how much fiction written by RAH, Djadja Isaac et. al. has overrun their original time lines and themes? We can't wait for the Discovery with a HAL 9000 at the helm to head out in 2001, because it's six years gone. Too much "scifi time" has bypassed us, that's how much.

It's all a future fictional science based account of how we hope we do things better, given another chance, next time.

Roger, it's just common sense. You can't manage a group or a society remotely. You would have people who don't understand local conditions making important decisions. That can put the lives of the colonists and even the entire colony at risk.

For example, will we expect a US-origin Martian colony to comply fully with US law on environmental and worker safety regulations? For example, they might not be able to afford to respect child safety laws or Terran exposure limits on chemicals (like say chromium or airborn contaminants).

And how would a Martian colony be represented in Congress? Even with fast nuclear powered transportation, a one way trip would take several weeks (the slow way we can do it now takes a good portion of a year for a one way trip). That's a big chunk of a new representative's job time and unlike other congresspeople they can't fly back to visit their constituents whenever they have a few days off. Nor can the member participate in any real time debates from Mars since there's a several minute lag in communication.

I suppose it might work seeing as in the early 19th Century, the state of California was about as isolated from the rest of the US as our hypothetical future colony might be (even more so since communication took just as long as travel did).

Historically, some other forms of governance have been more stable, but in the end, colonies are uppity. There's a long tradition of it.

It's not star-trek but Stargate has a real issue with their power relays, and they are always located in the most dangerous location on the ship or base.

In which SF stories the (former) colonies are bad guys? Right away I can think of only three.

1. Spacer worlds in Asimov's "Caves of Steel" and its sequels. Obvious.

2. Short story, name forgotten. Earth is under brutal occupation, Solar System is dominated by an asteroid warlord whose title is Astrarch.

3. In "Ring of Charon" and its sequel, the Autocrat of Ceres is not exactly evil, but you want to walk very carefully around him. At one point Autocrat complaints that he can not get a decent game of chess because nobody dares to win against him out of fear of execution.

One real thing to hate about Star Trek is how everyone takes for granted that real exploration can only be done by government employees ( in spandex uniforms to boot )

by the way, the list has been circulating on the net for ages.

Karl,
I disagree. You *can* manage a group or a society remotely; it's being done right now.

Alaska and Hawaii are in little danger of declaring independence. The vast majority of citizens have never met thier congressman or sentator, let alone the President or VP.

Long distence communications make it possible. The folks in Alaska aren't left out of federal politics any more than folks in New Jersey.

Yes, live debates are a problem, but the colony would have representitives in Washington with policy updates coming from back home faster than from state capitals a century ago.

And yes, laws would have to allow for the unique conditions on Mars, but I don't see how that's a problem. Citizens on ships or aircraft already must agree to less rights and more dangers. A Mars colony would likely be less extreme than JetBlue in that regard.

The common theme in SF is that the colony grows into something the size of a US state, Earth doesn't give them the self-government power of a US state. This seems easily avoidable.

Ilya,
Tyrant colonies are even worse than ungrateful ones.

A common reason put forth for colonizing other worlds is that humans no longer have all their eggs in one basket. Yet there are relatively few stories along those lines - colonies coming to the rescue after a global disaster on Earth, for example. We always seem to regret the colony.

kert,
>> One real thing to hate about Star Trek is how
>> everyone takes for granted that real
>> exploration can only be done by government
>> employees

That's the environmentalists speaking. Capitalists were always messing up the ecosystem (Tribbles, anyone?) and the government had to set it right.

Star Wars did it too. Look at Endor: The Empire put a major military installation right next to an Ewok village without disturbing them.

Along come the rebels who a) Play the god gambit, b) Use it to incite the Ewoks to attack the well-armed stormtrooper army using only spears and clubs, c) Blow up the military installation next to the Ewok village with a thermonuke-class explosion, and d) Wipe out the remaining ecosystem as miles-long metal bits from the moon-size space station they blew up bombard the planet over the following weeks.

Clearly, big government is a better protector of new life, new worlds, and new civilizations.

"One real thing to hate about Star Trek is how everyone takes for granted that real exploration can only be done by government employees ( in spandex uniforms to boot )"

Actually, the young Annika Hansen got assimilated (and became Seven of Nine) along with her parents when they were doing private exploration and examination of the Borg.

Though admittedly, the story did leave one with the unfortunate impression that they shouldn't have done this alone. One might read the same message into the fate of Christine Chapel's husband Roger Corby ('What are Little Girls Made of?')

But given a situation with a big galaxy and what seem to be not extremely expensive FTL ships, people *will* strike out on their own. Harry Mudd and some others even found strange things quite by accident.

Likewise, expect a government agency (possibly a military service, or with the close support thereof, not unlike what's done now in Antarctica) to do the same. Is it not sometimes said, in NewSpace/alt.space circles that we don't simply want it to be possible for NASA to send humans to Mars, we want it to be possible for the National Geographic Society to send humans to Mars...?

Good point about seat belts. I always wondered about that.

The link to Spock's nude photographs is also pretty cool.

Roger, you're Canadian. Of course you don't approve of uppity colonies. You've been many things, but never that. "Peace, Order, and Good Government," eh? (By the way, I've always thought that the Federation of the Next Generation Star Trek must have been run by Canadians. No money, life-saving drugs always having to be delivered to suffering planets by a government warship...

Oh come on. I can't believe no one else wanted to do this.

Four words: faith of the heart.

They forgot a few...

* The transporter as deus ex machina whenever the episode's writer has painted himself into some unusually impossible corner. Somebody has become incurably insane, twinned, trapped in the 8th dimension, or had his polarity reversed -- what do we do? Why, use the transporter, of course. Basically a reality-rewrite device.

* The uselessness of the ship's computer. They always ask the computer stuff and it never knows the answer. What's it for, then?

* Similarly, the science officer never knows the answer. What's that black cloud on the viewscreen? There's always insufficient data. How do we kill this evil ravening creature? He doesn't know. Why have a science officer if the captain, who got a BA in English and art history, always has to improvise a solution from sheer intuition anyway? Just once I'd like to see Mr. Spock answer the question: Why, yes, Captain, there is sufficient data. That's a Rigellian bugblatter beast, tasty served with potatos, and can be killed by a reversed-polarity phaser set to "Szechuan style."

* Unreliable engines. Why are the engines always failing under the strain, running out of power in awkward situations, or needing to be hot-wired by Scotty in a crawlspace? The medical woobly-woo device never breaks down, the captain never has to take the stairs because the elevator is on the fritz, and the viewscreen never goes blue all over -- why is the most important technology the least reliable?

Reversing the polarity does sometimes work.

My dad's farm well pump wouldn't start. The suggestion was made that I would have to lift the pump out of the borehole along with the hundred feet of pipe and wire leading to it and install a new one. I read on a Web site about reversing the sense of the run and start windings to get the pump to run backwards to clear a jam, and after "reversing the polarity" and then setting it back, I got the pump running.

I've always thought that starship security shoudl be automated:

CHEKHOV: "Sir, we have an intruder alert on Deck 12."

SULU: "Spotted them on security camera - Corridor 3. Six humanoids, unknown species."

KIRK: "Activate the intruder defense system."

(A dozen revolving phaser turrets pop out of the ceiling along the corridor, fire at intruders. Intruders shoot back, taking out three of the turrets, but all are stunned unconscious.)

SULU: "Intruders are unconscious, sir."

KIRK: "Kirk to security, intruders on Deck 12, Corridor 3. Code green [meaning intruders are all stunned]."