khaosworks @ khaosworks @startrek.website

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To add to this, we have to remember that Multitronics isn't the magic formula on its own. In TOS: "The Ultimate Computer" Daystrom couldn't get it to work - Units M-1 to M-4 were in his words "not entirely successful". The breakthrough of multitronics as embodied in M-5 was the ability for the system to be overlaid with the engrams, personality and, fortunately, morality of persons.

Daystrom used his own engrams to bring M-5 to its full potential, and his anxiety and fears about wanting to prove himself and survive academically translated into an obsessive drive in M-5 to also prove itself and ensure its own survival. Luckily, Daystrom's morals also translated over, and so M-5 was forced to confront the moral implications of what it had done, eventually electing to terminate itself in atonement.

When Zimmerman created the EMH, he incorporated part of his personality into the program, so it made sense to use multitronics because the technology had the ability to do just that. DS9's "multitronic engrammatic interpreter" is an offshot of that tech, and one imagines from the name it would copy a person's engrams in order to process and manipulate it.

So while it may have been obvious to us that sapience would arise from using multitronic tech in the EMH process, multitronics by itself won't do that. It's when you use it to incorporate real people and memories into its matrix and let it percolate that the potential arises.

The Tech Manual notwithstanding, on screen we’ve definitely seen longer than seven minutes, notably VOY: “Counterpoint” and DIS: “Stormy Weather”. I take it like I do the original Tech Manual’s statement that you can’t fire phasers at warp.

Thanks!

Annotations are up at https://startrek.website/post/508416

There is a kind of middle ground I can see them considering - remake specific episodes while forging on with new ones, much like the IDW Kelvinverse comic did when they retooled “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. It’d only make sense if they used the opportunity to retcon certain details, though, or else it’d seem completely gratuitous (like the Gus Van Sant version of Psycho), even more so than your standard fan service episode. “Space Seed” with La’An might be interesting.

Or they could set some episodes between the episodes we already know - like: “Captain’s Log: having left Sherman’s Planet and removed the last of our tribble infestation, we find ourselves with a new assignment…”

Wait a second.

https://heroprop.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Thom_Christopher_Hawk-Costume-Buck-Rogers-in-the-25th-Century-Movie-Prop.jpg

Did a bit of research.

The back injury is real, and did result in the “Riker lean” where he is often seen leaning on consoles or chairs.

Even Wil Wheaton believed (and stated on a Reddit thread) that the chair thing was because of the back injury. However, apparently Frakes said in an interview with IGN that that isn’t why he did the Riker Maneuver with chairs. The chairs in 10 Forward were very low so he decided he could (and did) swing his leg over them to sit as was an extremely cocky way to do it, and nobody stopped him so he kept doing it.

You’re welcome. I have fun doing them - especially this episode!

Annotations up at: https://startrek.website/post/462450

I mean it’s not grammatically wrong to have the 要 - it just depends on what message or emphasis you want to get across. In this case the 要 implies the lack of respect was deliberate.

(As a side note, I read “moi” or “don’t want” as two words mushed together - “mm-oi” as in 不要. Same as “mm dtuck” is 不可.)

If it was just a behavioral correction it could also be phrased as 刚才你应该给我面子 or 下次在人员面前你必要给我面子… but I digress.

(I can speak colloquial Cantonese but I don’t know the Cantonese-specific 汉子. I was taught Mandarin as a second language in school.)

From the TNG Technical Manual (for the Galaxy class, but one can safely assume operations haven’t changed that much):

In the event a deuterium tanker cannot reach a Galaxy class starship, the capability exists to pull low-grade matter from the interstellar medium through a series of specialized high-energy magnetic coils known collectively as a Bussard ramscoop. Named for the twentieth-century physicist and mathematician Robert W. Bussard, the ramscoop emanates directional ionizing radiation and a shaped magnetic field to attract and compress the tenuous gas found within the Milky Way galaxy. From this gas, which possesses an average density of one atom per cubic centimeter, may be distilled small amounts of deuterium for contingency replenishment of the matter supply. At high relativistic speeds, this gas accumulation can be appreciable, though the technique is not recommended for long periods for time-dilation reasons (See: 6.2). At warp velocities, however, extended emergency supplies can be gathered.

[my emphasis]

In those three places there are the qualifiers “in the event…”, “contingency” and “emergency”, which indicate that the Bussard collectors are only activated when needed and are not always on.

The reason is simple: the amount of deuterium that can be gathered is usually in negligible amounts unless you’re in proximity to a dense source of the element, like in a nebula. So it’s just not energy efficient to keep the collectors on all the time.

That’s ridiculous amounts of exposure and ingestion though. There certainly wasn’t that much time for Uhura to be exposed to it when she was going the communications array maintenance in the nacelle - which was the assumed source of the poisoning until she pointed out she was experiencing symptoms prior to going to the nacelle.

Deuterium toxicity does exist, but you’d have to ingest a hell of a lot of it, not trace amounts via breathing. The symptoms mimic radiation poisoning, although since deuterium isn’t radioactive, it isn’t actually that.

Yes, I mean 给面子 (gěi miàn zi) - that’d be the Mandarin version of it, which is 俾面 (bei meen) in Cantonese. There is an element of reluctance in the definition, but it doesn’t have to be.

The emphasis is more on the respect - it’s like if you as an XO undermine your Captain by contradicting him in front of the crew, and he takes you said and scolds you, saying, “lei deem gai moi bei wo meen” - 你为什么不要給我面子？(not sure how to write it in Cantonese, but that’s the Mandarin equivalent phrasing) “Why didn’t you want to give me face?” Where giving face can be an obligation but not necessarily reluctant in nature.

So giving face is just about giving respect or helping maintain someone else’s face. It’s only reluctant in certain contexts.

As an addendum, T’Khut, Vulcan’s sister planet, is now canon.

https://twitter.com/timothypeel1/status/1680632707116675074?s=20

“[Vulcan's sister] planet, shortchanged on the denser elements, was able to settle into an orbit with its partner that would seem, to those unfamiliar with the physics and densities involved, to bring it dangerously close to Vulcan. It rarely fails to look dangerous, especially when a Terran used to a small, cool, distant, silvery Moon, looks up at dusk to see a ruddy, bloated, burning bulk a third of the Vulcan horizon wide come lounging up over the edge of the world, practically leaning over it, the active volcanoes on its surface clearly visible, especially in dark phase. "Vulcan has no moon," various Vulcans have been heard to remark: accurate as always, when speaking scientifically. "Damn right it doesn't," at least one Terran has responded: "It has a nightmare."”

• Diane Duane, Spock’s World

DIsclosure: Ethnic Chinese, 3rd generation born and raised in Singapore.

First off, I do agree that “face” is a very interesting way to look at Klingon honor, and certainly from that analysis makes it more understandable. That being said, “face” is a very hard concept to explain to people who haven’t grown up in Chinese culture or experienced all the ways it can be expressed or applied.

To try and explain it another way for those not familiar with the idea, “face” is literally the facade that one presents to the world. It’s the Insta account, the Facebook photos, the public persona that one has set up and one has earned, the persona that commands respect.

To “give someone face” is to conduct oneself in a way that will maintain or bolster that respectable front. To “lose face” is to do or experience conduct that will erode that persona personally. To “not give someone face” is to treat that person with disrespect, or not befitting the stature of that persona.

But it also goes beyond just a choice of giving someone face or not giving them face - sometimes because of that person’s stature it is an obligation to give them face, like if the person is your superior, socially or employment-wise. I like the example of Martok’s reticence to move against Gowron that you raise, because it helps illustrate the multi-layered and competing push and pull of face and the obligation to maintain it.

To Worf and Martok, Gowron’s mismanagement of the Empire and the war caused the latter to lose face in their eyes, and moving against Gowron was not so much compelled by concepts of reputation but more to prevent the Empire as a whole from decaying further, and thus losing face before the galactic community.

But if Martok moved against Gowron and did not have the proper support - because Gowron’s conduct could not overcome the sense of obligation to give the ruler of the Empire face - or worse still failed in the attempt, then he would be the one to lose face, probably fatally so given his stature in Klingon society. Martok simply didn’t want to take the risk.

Worf also decided that Gowron’s conduct was egregious enough and could not go unanswered, but unlike Martok, having less face to lose, decided the risk was worth it for the greater good.

I’ve never had issues with cloaking as an “honorable” tactic. As Worf said, there’s no greater honor than victory, and even Sun Tzu’s Art of War bluntly states that all warfare is based on deception. Ultimately, it’s the result that counts - if it ends in victory, how you get there matters less.

Which is not to say that cloaking cannot be seen as a tactic that will cause you to lose face. I’m sure that when it was first used by Klingons there were Klingons who argued that it was cowardly. But once the first victories using cloaks started rolling in, it became increasingly untenable to stick to the old ways and risk annihilation. So cloaking became (grudgingly) accepted as the new way to go, and incorporated into the standard books of tactics. So over time, using cloaks per se was no longer face-losing conduct.

Annotations up at: https://startrek.website/post/433024

Looks like it’s really no actor appearances, then.

In the licensed fiction, there are a few versions of Saavik’s origin, but the most commonly cited one is that Spock found her as a hybrid Romulan/Vulcan child in an abandoned Romulan colony (sometimes named Hellguard). He then took her to be raised by Sarek and Amanda, visiting her regularly and eventually sponsoring her into Starfleet.

Also, in the novels, Saavik and Spock eventually marry, and that’s the wedding that’s spoken of. But how much you want to accept that depends on your squick factor. Given the longevity of Vulcans, the 34 year age gap may not matter that much (she was 65 and he was 99 when they were betrothed; 80 and 114 respectively when actually married).

(See https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Saavik)