Messing Around With The Prime Directive

One of the humour sites that I enjoy, SatireWire is back with a look at the daily struggles of the Enterprise orbiting the current Earth. Considering the last reaction to Star Trek, I figured people would like this.

Comments

The Onion

[rsidd]

If anyone was wondering how a humour site can continue in the face of the recent tragedy, take a look at the current issue of The Onion.

They used to be an amusing diversion to me. Now I respect them more than most of the mainstream press.

Official explanations

[Markonen]

Here we go:

1. Spock's logic. The Star Trek Encyclopedia states that "Spock was raised with an older half-brother, Sybok, until Sybok was ostracized from Vulcan society because he rejected the Vulcan dogma of pure logic." This means that the "pure logic" isn't a feature of the Vulcan brain per se, but a norm of behavior in the Vulcan society. In other words, they just *try* to be as logical as possible.

2. Dilithium crystals are not used a power sources in the Star Trek universe. It is used to *regulate* the matter/antimatter reactions that provide the energy necessary to warp time-space.

3. Warp speed. Here's a quick roundup of warp factors' correlation to the speed of light:

• Warp factor 1, 1 c
  
• Warp factor 2, 10 c
  
• Warp factor 3, 39 c
  
• Warp factor 4, 102 c
  
• Warp factor 5, 214 c
  
• Warp factor 6, 392 c
  
• Warp factor 7, 656 c
  
• Warp factor 8, 1024 c
  
• Warp factor 9, 1516 c
  
• Warp factor 9.2, 1649 c
  
• Warp factor 9.6, 1909 c
  
• Warp factor 9.9, 3053 c
  
• Warp factor 9.99, 7912 c
  
• Warp factor 9.9999, 199516 c
  
• Warp factor 10, infinite c
  

Of these speeds, factor 5 is the cruising speed of Enterprise-D. Its maximum rated speed is factor 9.6, although 9.9 can be maintained for 10 minutes. Warp factor 9.9999 is the propagation speed of subspace radio, and factor 10, obviously, can never be reached.

4. Plants on Enterprise. Someone already answered this one correctly. The ships life-support systems are fitted to provide breathable air without any biological components.

5. Artificial gravity. Starfleet vessels are fitted with gravitational units that generate the synthetic gravity field aboard the vessel. A key component of the unit is the graviton field generator, which, obviously, generates a field of gravitons; the elementary particles that transmit gravitational force in the Star Trek universe.

6. Beaming down. It is true that the physics of the transporter are pretty much out of this world. Without going into details, all the different physical problems of the concept seem to be taken care of by a separate component to the transporter system: some of the funniest components are the Heisenberg compensator (go figure) or the transporter's "pattern enhancer". The true story is that The Original Series' effects budget couldn't possibly cope with landing the Enterprise or even a shuttle in every episode. The transporter's instantaneus speed also helps to keep out mundane tasks like shuttle travel out of the show.