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ASK THE CHIEF
8/1/97

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First, some comments from previous columns . . .


Earth-Bound Extraterrestrial Terminology
Beginning with Shane Tourtellotte's comments in the 6/13/97 column

Phil: I pulled my tape on "Brothers" and tried to find out the spelling on "Nuvian" or "Nufian" or "Nuphian". The tape doesn't have closed captioning! Arrgh! (It's an old copy.) It does sound like Soong uses an "f" sound though so it's probably "Nufian" or "Nuphian."


The Size of Voyager
Beginning with Corey Hines's comments in the 7/11/97 column

Alf Silke: There is a scale drawing of all major starships at the Utopia Plantia Fleet Yards web site. The Voyager is the same size as a Constitution class ship.


Data: NFN NMI, Spock: First Or Last Name?
Beginning with Jen MacDonald's comments in the 7/11/97 column

David J Ellis: [Concern Nathan Kibelbek's belief that Perrin could pronounce Sarek's family name,] Wrong wife. The line wasn't Perrin's. It was Amanda's, from "Journey to Babel". And she said she could pronounce the family name only "after a fashion".

Phil: I looked this up! The actual dialogue doesn't actually use the phrase "family name" but I think it's fairly conclusive. Kirk refers to Sarek's wife as "Mrs. Sarek." She corrects him by saying, "Amanda. I'm afraid you couldn't pronounce the Vulcan name." Kirk counters, "Can you?" She replies, "Well . . . after a fashion and after many years of practice."


The Inner Light By The Beatles
Beginning with Brian Lombard's comments in the 7/18/97 column

Murray Leeder: The George Harrison song "The Inner Light" (B-side of the single "Lady Madonna") was appropriated in title of the NextGen episode. In fact, the author of that episode wanted each of his episodes to be named after a Beatles B-side. His "Starship Mine" was written as "Revolution"! (BTW, that should be "Arrive without travelling", not "Ride on")

Phil: I believe "the author" in this case refers to Morgan Gendel. (At least that's the name common to both episodes!)


LeVar Burton in "Word Up"? (Early Roles For Main Characters On Trek)
Beginning with Matthias Roth's comments in the 7/18/97 column

Brian Lombard: In regards to some of the Trek stars early roles, here's who I've spotted:

Jonathan Frakes: "Dukes Of Hazzard". Played Jamie Lee Hogg, one of Boss' nephews and fell in love with the lovely Daisy Duke. They cancelled their wedding when she realized he was just as corrupt as his uncle.

Brent Spiner: "Night Court". Had a recurring role as a dirt poor hillbilly. "Cheers". Played a man up on charges of attacking his wife with a chainsaw.

Michael Dorn: "Chips". Was a regular. Had a cool mustache.

Marina Sirtis: "Death Wish III". Killed by gang members.

Robert Beltran: "Models, Inc". Failed FOX show. Played a cop.

Terry Farrell: "Back To School". Rodney Dangerfield movie. Dated Rodney's son.

Jennifer Lien: "The Critic". Played a rising star who was dating the critic for a favorable review of her first movie.

Rene Auberjonois: "Batman Forever". On screen for maybe 5 seconds, played the administrator of Arkham Asylum.

Nana Visitor: Starred with Sandra Bullock in the FOX tv version of the movie "Working Girl". Nick-At-Nite's TV Land occasionally airs it.

Armin Shimerman: "Married With Children". Played a dog breeder who wanted the Bundy dog Buck to mate with his champion. "Seinfeld". Played Kramer's caddy friend.


Alexander, the Fatherless Klingon
Beginning with Christina Crawford's comments in the 7/18/97 column

Murray Leeder: The only reference to Alexander on DS9 was in "Business As Usual", where Worf laments that he never saw his son as a baby. Well, at least they remembered that he exists!


The Barion Sweep and Voyager (including Voyager's "Space-Happy" Engines)
Beginning with Robert J Woolley's comments in the 7/18/97 column

Bob Canada: In response to Corey Hines question as to why Voyager gets to break the Warp 5 speed limit every week; Its been a while since I saw the episode "Force of Nature," but the way I understood it, it was the *repeated* travelling at speeds higher than Warp 5 in the *same area* that caused the damage. They even had a computer graphic illustrating how warp travel in the same "space lanes" would corrupt space over a period of decades. So since Voyager is supposedly making a beeline for the Alpha Quadrant, and probably isn't back tracking and is only going true each area once, it ought to be safe for them to go Warp 9.

Phil: It is true that "Force of Nature" dealt with one narrow corridor of space. But Starfleet's pronouncement at the end of the episode was that all Starfleet vessel would be restricted to warp 5 except in case of emergency or special circumstance. This leads me to believe that any travel past warp 5 with the "space-grumpy" engines damaged space a little bit at a time. Of course, Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant and even have met the Borg by now so . . . who cares if they damage Borg space! (Just joking!)

And just to reinterate, from my recollection, there is no piece of dialogue that states that Voyager's engine are friendly to the fabric of space even though that seems to be the general idea with the folding nacelles!

Jason Liu: Concerning the comments on Voyager's warp engines and the "speed limit" - I definitely remember watching a program where someone stated that Voyager has a new warp engine design that is ecologically safe. I think it was "The Making of Star Trek: Voyager" (or some title like that) which aired on UPN a few weeks before Voyager premiered. It was hosted by Robert Picardo. It might have been Picardo, Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, or Michael Okuda - I'm not sure who. All I remember is one of the cast or crew stating this fact. Thus, the Voyager doesn't have to care about the speed limit. And I guess we can assume that all ships now are produced, or retrofitted, with these "green" warp drives. This is for the better, since I thought the whole idea of a speed limit was stupid anyway (especially since the writers worked in the little escape clause about "emergency situations", which always seemed to apply to our favorite Starfleet officers, then they just ignored it altogether). Anyway, I have a tape of this at home, so I will try to check it when I have the chance.

Phil: But, but, but . . . I'm not sure a documentary is canonical! (Now if there was a published Voyager technical manual and it said the warp drive was "space-happy" . . .


The Klingon Word for "Teacher"
Beginning with Jim Coyle's comments in the 7/25/97 column

Phil: No one wanted to take a stab at this this week! I did receive a package several months ago from the Center for Klingon Studies. In it was included a conversational Klingon study guide. (It doesn't appear to be authorized! ;-) I looked through the notebook but couldn't find the word teacher. I did have a extra little thought on this, however. Somewhere, someone told me that Klingon was a bastardized form of German--that with the appropriate letter transliterations you could change any German word into a Klingon word.


The Klingon Presence on DS9
Beginning with Harvey H. Kitzman, Jr.'s comments in the 7/25/97 column

Phil: Last week, Harvey had expressed his confusion over the end of "By Inferno's Light" given that we hadn't heard the Khitomer Accords had been renewed. I rewatched the ending of the episode and it's possible that the "deal" to have a permanent Klingon presence on the station was just struck between Sisko and Gowron. Is there any historical precedence for this on Earth. Have there ever been temporary agreements reach between the distant outposts of hostile groups?


The Various and Wide Variety of Borg Assimilation Techniques
Beginning with Angela Wilson-McGrath's comments in the 7/25/97 column

Marian Perera: Also, how easy is it for someone to become unBorg? I mean, Locutus got the prosthetic eye and all that, but he lost his Borginess quickly enough. The guys in Unity were different - they had the collective mindset and the Borg pattern baldness. It's anyone's guess as to 7-of-9, but she'll probably have a long-drawn-out return to unBorginess, just so we'll switch our Tvs on every Wednesday. I just hope she doesn't fall in love with anyone, because the good ship Voyager was turning into the Love Boat.

Phil: In fact, and article I read at the TV Guide website predicted Seven of Nine would have a relationship with Harry Kim this season. (Watch for the Torres/Parris relationship as well.)

John Myers: I think the difference would be the amount of time the person has spent as a Borg.

Somebody born in a Borg hatchery(nursery/womb-room whatever) would be assimilated into the collective when their mind was hardly formed and so would have no free will.

Someone who had been a Borg for many years would take a very long time to recover their personality, which would have been changed by the trauma greatly. I'm thinking mainly in "Vendetta" but also the implier length of time it took for the ex-Borg (HEY! Another idea for a Marvel comic - the X-Borg!) to remember how much they hated each other. Someone who has been a Borg for a few days, at most, would still have a very much alive personality which once the constraints of the Collective are removed can get free.

Of course the type of Borg the collective wants would also play a big role. If the person being Borged is of no real value, other than as a mindless drone, then the collective would be ruthless in seeking out and eradicating any vestige of that personality. If on the other hand the person has knowledge, experience, and skills sorely needed by the collective then the collective would not want to risk damaging these by sloppy assimilating. The existence of two (or more) type of Borg is implied by First Contact, especially where Picard is offering himself to be re-Borged into Locutus and Data suggests turning him into a drone instead.

Chris Forman: One explanation could be that Picard had only been assimilated for a few hours (or a couple of days at most) and therefore the collateral damage to nerves etc. was not beyond the skill of one Dr. B, Crusher to repair. In the cases of Hugh and Seven of Nine as they have been assimilated for all their adult lives, removing the Borg implants would be will nigh impossible - scar tissue, tissue growths around the implants etc.

N.B. In First Contact we saw Enterprise-E crew being assimilated, and the process included having parts of their anatomy removed - which a) contradicts what happened to Picard and b) would make repairing the damage that much more difficult.


On to the questions . . .

Corey Hines of Hamilton, ON: I realize the real reason for this but I'm trying to think of Star Trek universe reason. When did the attitudes towards women change back again. The last time we join the ST universe before the series was 2063. It seems a lot like our present day. Women in this year don't seem to be treated like [second class citizens]. Lilly is suppose to accompany Cochrane on the first warp flight.

Then we jump to "The Cage". Pike says he feels uncomfortable with a woman as his first officer. Also it seems that women on starships are new. And then the rest of Star Trek has women as unequals. Then we jump to the movies and the attitudes changed a bit. Then TNG comes out and it seems a lot like our present day.

Now I realize that the attitudes toward women were different in the 1960s and thus the show was the same. Even in "Trials and Tribble-ations" we see that "women wore less" so at least the writers didn't try to forget that happened. But I'm trying to think of a reasonable explaination why women in the ST universe went from equals, to unequals back to equals again, but I can't think of one.

Phil: I was going to make up an explanation for this but this it occurred to me that another bit of future history might apply. In the December 1994, Volume 1, Issue 4of the Nitpickers Guild Newsletter. I quote a passage from The Interplanetary Encyclopedia of Who's Not but Used to Be. This section detailed the rise of the "Think Right To Be Right" movement in the twenty-first century and the resulting nuclear holocaust. Given that the TRTBR movement was--in some part--driven forward by women, it is possible that there was a growing backlash which eventually culminated in the recreation of the chauvanistic male attitude, "Just sit over there and look pretty. Remember what happened the last time you tried to run the world?" (Why do I get the impression that some people who are reading this won't think it's very funny! ;-)

Shane Tourtellotte: While skimming a local library's science fiction shelves, I noticed a couple stories that Star Trek adapted for episodes. Classic Trek's "Arena", for one, is based on a 1944 short story by Fredric Brown, of the same name. More surprising to me was discovering a precursor to NextGen's episode "Tin Man".

It's a novel by David F. Bischoff & Dennis R. Bailey, entitled "Tin Woodman". Like the episode, it involves discovery of, and communication with, a living spaceship. The person making contact is a brilliant but unstable young man with telepathic abilities, as was Tam Elbrun. Helping keep him balanced while he performs his mission is another telepath, this one female, who is the rough equivalent of a counselor on their ship. Interestingly, this character's surname is Elburn, one letter-switch away from Elbrun. Very interesting, I thought, that someone would adapt a whole novel for a one-hour series episode. (And were the authors given a 'story by' credit?)

Does anyone else know of similar Trek adaptations?

Phil: Fascinating stuff! There are only so many story ideas in the world but "Elbrun" and "Elburn"?! Hmmm. Though I have not confirmed it personally, many nitpickers wrote to say that TNG's "Sub Rosa" was very similar to Anne Rice's The Witching Hour. Any other takers on this one?

Scott Vogt: Doesn't the cloaked mine field violate the Federation's treaty with the Romulans? Also, if we can build a cloaked mine field, why not just start outfitting every SF vessel with a phased cloaking device? (As seen in "The Pegasus"-TNG.)

Phil: Without knowing the exact language of the treaty it's tough to tell! But since the weasely Romulans have decided to pass on this conflict, I would agree that we should outfit all Starfleet vessels with cloaking devices . . . NOW! ;-)

Marian Perera: About Seven-of-Nine - the Borg have a very ineffective naming scheme. It seems to work on those little scouting parties, but how in the world would a lotta Borg manage on one of those giant cubes? They'd have names like One-Hundred-and-Thirty-Seventh-of-Two-Hundred-and Eighty-Nine. (The Borg seem to favour odd numbers.)

Phil: The Borg naming scheme does seem inefficient but there is precedent for this in Trek. Remember the Binars from "11001001"? They had names line "zero, one" and "one, zero". If you are limited to only two digits for a name using a binary counting scheme that only gives you four possible names! (Unless you do something like "10 from 01 from 11 from 01.")

Murray Leeder: So what do you think of Risa? I'd never go there myself... look at its track record! First, criminals from the future hide a super-weapon there (just why they hid it on Club Fed rather than on some world where no one would ever look, I'll never know). Then, Geordi is kidnapped by Romulans while heading towards it. Then Riker meets a Ktarian who uses it to distribute her game in a plan to conquer the Federation. Then Ambassador Krajensky is kidnapped by Changelings while heading towards it. Then a few Essentialists protest there (which is a little like going to Club Med and protesting military cutbacks) which compells Worf to act like a complete idiot. See what I'm saying?

Phil: I agree, but there's another reason I'd never go to Risa. It's pretty obvious--to me at least--that they have a "special holding area" for the less-than-spectacular-and-mind-numbingly-attractive visitors! (For some reason they do, however, seem to make allowances for Ferengi.) I mean . . . have any of you ever been to Hawaii? The beaches there are filled with ordinary people: tall ones, short ones, skinny ones, fat ones . . . Yet, on Risa, there's no Pakleds, no Zakdorn, etc. Everyone is fit and trim and beautiful. Since I find it inconceivable that there aren't any "less-attractives" (which includes the majority of us) who would want to visit, I must conclude that they are being "held" somewhere so as not to disturb the scenery! (Wink, wink.)

R.F. van Hulst: I was watching an episode of TNG lately, i don't remember which one it was, but Riker played the trombone in it. And suddenly i thought: Why do we only hear "old" music in Star Trek. The only types of music i can remember are classical and jazz. We have never heard contemporary 24th century music in TNG or any other incarnation of Trek (with the possible exception of DS9, i do remember some Bajoran music). Don't you think this is strange?

Phil: We have heard Klingon Opera and there was the Alba Ra, described by the Encyclopedia as a contemporary (24th century) Talarian music form. (Jono listened to it in "Suddenly Human.") But it is true that "contemporary" human music is absent. It's very, very difficult to write music that doesn't become dated in a few years. Art music is an easy way around this because some of it has stood the test of time for hundreds of years. It will, no doubt, remain for hundreds more. I once heard Marina Sirtis complaining about this at a convention. She was incredulous that the Rolling Stone's music hadn't survived to the 24th century. This is when I smiled. Just because music has survived for a few decades means nothing. True art lives a very long life.

Have a great weekend, everybody!


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Copyright 1997 by Phil Farrand. All rights reserved.