>> It seems based on an idealistic view of creating well rounded "renaissance" minds, which is neat and all, but seems like a rich kid luxury to me.
Yes, that's right... that's EXACTLY where the "University" concept came from.
Back in the 'good old days', if you were learning a trade, you'd go to a trade school. Back in the REALLY old days, this was an apprenticeship, and you'd start as a child. This assums you were not tied to the farm or village that your father was, and his father before him, etc. etc. etc.
The university was meant to do exactly what you described -- teach the student a rounded course of a bit of everything -- to teach about "The Universe" (which I believe is where the term "University" came from).
The only ones who could afford to burn that much time and money *were* the rich.
I don't know about you, but if I want to travel in a prison transport of ANY kind (airplane, bus, etc.) I'll commit a crime first, to make sure I have the *whole* experience.
I agree we need to change our focus... stop someone from *taking* command of the aircraft
... but while we're busy trying to lock the trouble out -- let's make sure we don't lock ourselves in.
"On the inside... looking outside... remember how we swallowed the key?"
-- 'Cage of Freedom'
Metropolis (Georgio Moroder soundtrack)
Helium doesn't lift as well... but it doesn't need to, because the construction materials have all improved & gotten lighter since the 1930's.
- Light graphite/composite materials for the framework (assuming that you're building a zeppelin and not a blimp)
- different materials (NON BURING SKIN!!!!) for the surface coating.
- Lighter engines / turbine engines / turboprop / duct-fan engines... made out of modern alloys or ceramics (maybesomeday).
Crusade is the series that ran 13 episodes on TNT before J. Michael Strazcynski pulled the plug on it -- on account of TNT wanted a T & A & guns & explosives show -- and while JMS sees the value in this (after all--he fragged multiple planets in the original B5 run)... he wanted to do things HIS way.
"Legend of the Rangers" is the show that'll be pilot-movie'ing on Scifi some time soon.
... as I've stated in another post buried SOMEWHERE in/. land... I just wanna see the dog go berzerk in Archer's quarters when the grav cuts out and puppy suddenly finds himself in zero-g. for two minutes at a stretch.
That, or trying to stuff a berzerk puppy into an escape crate during an abandon ship drill. Do they make pressure suits for dogs?
And yes... mind meld with a dog. Transporter accidents with the dog. Don't make me hurt you.
Last I heard (back in TNG days) the special effects office uses Apple gear for some of the set design/graphic design/etc... and all the Okudagrams (display screens) going back years were generated on Apple stuff
so... the answer... Enterprise NX-01 uses Darwin/OS22.1!
(Hope the Captain & Commander Tucker keeps the root password hidden.)
There HAD been rumors (or contempations from the writing staff) of actually making the Vulcan in question T'Pau... but those were negated after the rumor mill turned over two or three times.
I dunno if that would be a good thing, or a bad thing. It'd be great if we could see T'Pau's backstory & the backstory of Surak's family line... but it'd have to be done *right* - and I don't know if I trust the new series enough yet to do it that way...
either that, or I've just read too many Dianne Duane Trek books.
I'm going to add all the rest of the Duane books in with your stack of "Why can't the series be like THIS!!!", plus Janet Kagan's... plus a couple of others...
__________________
The Trek office has had a policy since they started with TNG that only certain things would be allowed into 'Series Canon':
- Most of the TOS episodes
- Any previous episode of the new stuff (TNG as canon for DS9, etc.)
- All of the movies **EXCEPT** #5 (Okuda's 'history of the federation' mentions that certain legends and tall tales have grown up around the James Kirk stories -- any possibility of him going to the center of the galaxy and meeting a deity are probably apocryphal.)
NONE of the books are allowed in Trek universe canon. I assume this includes Vonda McIntyre's novelizations of movies 2-4..which is a bitch 'cause they do some nice expansions, and they're the only place where Saavik's half-romulan (RIHANNSU!!!) heritage is mentioned... and also the only place where it's confirmed that Sulu was supposed to be Captain of Excelsior back in Trek II (it was planned-but the scenes were never shot). And McIntyre's version of Trek III had a *great* explanation of what Uhura was doing while the rest of 'the guys' stole the Enterprise. (very creatively screwing up the entire Earth communications grid, so Starfleet couldn't dispatch pursuit ships after the Enterprise... then running for the Vulcan embassy.)
Diane Duane (she who made the Vulcans and Romulans into mature, respectable cultures) *HAD* been on the writing staff of TNG... but she had a bit of a falling out with one of the higher-ups, and got booted. (Check the acknowledgement in the front of "Dark Mirror" to find out who).
But in the later TNG episodes, the other writers started leaking her ideas for the Romulans into episodes -- specifically the one where Troi wakes up aboard a Rom cruiser and has to bluff her way through a role as a Tal'Shiar officer. Specifically -- in the story they referred to the ship's driver as a "pilot" instead of "helmsman" (traditions in the Rihanna starfleet came from their air force, not their navy)... and the ship captain was a Veeeerrry Duane-like character -- and many Duane Rom characters have a *vast* dislike for the dishonorable tone that their government has taken over the past 2-4 generations.
but DAMNIT the trek office won't let them in!!
(taking a long look at the other posters)
... I'm probably preaching to the choir here. I'll just take my books and my "BIG OLE GEEK" button, and go sit down and read...
"We" see Rigel as it was a couple hundred years ago... but we do know its velocity vectors, and where it *should* be in 'present day (--ok, 'present' meaning 22nd century plus a few days travel time.)
However, they probably WOULD need Vulcan starmaps for more accurate accounting of the system's motion -- accurate vectors for the planets in the system (more accurate than Earth's telescopes could pick up)... detailed data on the planet's surface conditions, cultural data, etc... And then there's that brown dwarf that the Earth astronomers missed that just happened to be sitting right on their course plot.
1) Star"fleet" is probably quite busy doing Coast Guard duties... customs inspections on inter-colony trade between the various colonies in the Sol system (luna, mars, europa, ganymede, Titan)... rescue work... patrolling for another Dinosaur-Killing rock about to cross Earth's orbit and thwak the planet across the teeth... stuff like that. And they're probably thinking very optimistically.
2) Yeah... I thought so too...
3)Had they stated that the helmguy's dad OWNED the ship? Cause he could have worked his way up the ranks to crew/command an alien-owned freighter that was based in the Sol system... or - the vulcans were being stingy about the Warp 4 engine technology, but I assume that Cochrane's equipment could at least make W1 - W2. The warp scale is suposed to be a geometric/logarithmic scale... so that jump from 2 to 4 would open up a significant amount of space. But the range btw. 1-9 times lightspeed still lets you get to several local systems (including the Centauris) in a decent amount of time. (Decent when compared to sublight travel)
I'm just curious how Archer's going to deal with having his ship come down around his ears, order his crew into P-suits to abandon ship... then realize... 'I left the dog!' (remembered as he's flying away, just before the warp core breaches)
Ok, ok, I know... easy answer. He can either be a heartless s.o.b., and write the dog off in favor of saving the rest of his crew. Or maybe... how hard would it be to train a puppy to climb into a rescue ball? 'If you hear this noise... climb into this ball (or hardshell case), pull the lid closed... and wait.'
This of course raises the next question. How do you train a dog to do this? Which ensign to you detail for this job, when shipboard duties are weighing on the captain too heavily? Which Ensign Expendable gets the joy of dealing with a panicked dog whizzing in his escape case during a zero-G drill? "Um... Captain... sir... Porthos sprayed in his escape bag again... Yes sir, the inner bag is pretty saturated. So is the hallway to escape hatch 7 -- I'm sorry sir, but he got loose from the bag and floated down the corridor... no sir, I don't think we can find any more volunteers."
... and since the trek effects office (last time I heard) DOES use Apple gear -- they very well COULD arrange some display advertising & pick up a little extra production funding. And that would mean that Enterprise NX-01 would run Darwin/MacOS 22.11.
Which means that (assuming there are more scenes scripted like the 'decontamination room' scene...) there will be shipwide contests among the junior crewmembers, seeing who can successfully 00wn T'pol's box...
...and when audio controls go down, Commander Tucker'll just ssh into HELM.BRIDGE.ENTERPRISE.STARFLEET.MIL, enter the root password, cd to/etc, and change a couple of settings in MAJEL.CONF
(... looking at a dead-silent room...) Ok... I'll go away now...
I think that's a piece of OkudaTechnoBabble(tm) from a looooong ways back
/Technobabble=ON
... something about 2 nacelles are 'necessary for balance of the warpfield' or some such. Scientists in the trek'verse had tried 3 nacelle and 4 nacelle designs - and there was no increase in efficiency -- and often a decrease...
At least that's what I remember from my old TrekTNG tech manual (that's probably shredded in some box deep in my closets by now.)
Sorry to jump on the 'No it won't work!!" bandwagon, but:
- New airplanes where the cockpit is not accessable from the inside = airplanes where the flight crew can not make it to the back of the plane to investigate or aid in a technical (i.e. non-terrorist) emergency Also, a flight cabin that you can't get *in* to from the passenger zone is a flight cabin you can't get *OUT* of in case of an emergency that blocks your pilots-only escape exit. And then, as another poster suggested -- there is the 'passenger lands the plane' scenario...
... for that matter, unless you were planning on re-designing the whole nose area & giving the pilots their own lavatory, the pilots would be in for a *sliiight* problem on long-duration flights. I sureasfrell don't want to have to cross my legs, put an alligator clamp on my pitot tube, and hold it all the way through a 12ish hour trans-pacific flight. I wouldn't ask a pilot to do the same.
Stun gas in the passenger area *might* work... of course, if the hostile in question managed to sneak an explosive with a deadman switch on board, as soon as chuckie goes unconscious, there'll be a tinfoil-shavings-filled hole in the sky where the airliner used to be. (Extreme situation, I know). In a situation similar to two days ago (attackers with knives) attackers would simply have to train themselves to hold their breath long enough for the rest of the passengers (the resistance in the operation that made the pennsylvania crash 'just' an airline crash, instead of another building full of people blown to the four winds) to go to sleep from the stun gas... while getting hold of the walk-around oxygen bottles that the flight attendants would use in case of cabin de-pressurization.
In any case, both of these options would involve a significant re-design of the aircraft, which would take a few years to do, test, and then implement on (at the least) the entire U.S. air fleet. By the time they're implemented, our next crop of kamikazes has plotted a way around the security procedures.
... magically re-setting current American society and making a.45 revolver a requirement of standard Business Wear might be interesting... I'd certainly like to be around to see it, just because I've wished for it SO often on California freeways... but it's not likely. Besides making it easy for any gun to get on a plane... besides a whole number of issues best left to gun rights/restrictions/safety debates & flame wars that are elsewhere... knowing how rarely the average American will maintain their weapons skills (if it's anything like how the average american maintains their driving skills) can you imagine a shootout in a plane? Everyone pulls out hardware and one or five bullets take out a terrorist group... the other fifty bazzilion or more bullets sail right on by and punch through the skin of the plane. Hull punctures and pressurized aircraft do not mix very well.
On a less lethal side-topic... I'm surprised that the airlines haven't sent more of their crews through self-defense / unarmed combat courses...
... However...
... As Douglas Adams said, "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. "
There'll never be one 'fully safe' aircraft, for the same reason that R.M.S. Titanic proved that there's no such thing as an unsinkable ship. There's always one thing that's overlooked, can be worked around, or just *won't* work. Terrorists got into the cockpits of the planes not because the door was flimsy and breakable, but because they held a terrified flight attendant up to the fisheye peephole in the door, held a knife to his/her throat, and ordered the pilot to open the door. The people planning against attacks were worried about guns... and larger blades... and the hijacker actually wanting to survive the experience.
We can only make things "completely safe" up to a point... and after that, we have to rely on intelligence. And luck. And fixing the situation as it happens.
/rant mode OFF
Some of the novels, and Roddenberry's novelization of the movie tell about who/what the Deltans were
The Deltans were supposed to be kind of the anti-Vulcans. Where the Vulcans banished emotion and championed logic (unless you happen to be a fan of Dianne Duane's books)... the Deltans cherished empathy + emotion. They were major sensualists -- or by some definitions uncontrollable nympho hedonists.
Deltans have a very strong Empathic sense. (part of their society-sharing emotions constantly)... One of the scenes added in to earlier 'director's cut' versions had Ilia removing Checkov's pain when a Vger attack acrced across his controls and fried his hand.
Lastly, they generated *incredibly* strong pheromones...which is why most of the males (and several of the females) all paid "very" close attention to whatever Ilia did on the bridge. But -- as she said to Sulu in another directors cut scene -- she would never take advantage of a sexually immature race.
a) "(Unmanned) Exploration missions have no tangible benefit" #1 -- certain theorists on earth are...um... SUGGESTING... that an increase in this thing called "greenhouse gasses" could cause elevated temperatures on earth, from when heat coming up from the planet is reflected back down. This sounds kind of like that planet...um, what's it's name?...umm... VENUS???? A world where the surface temperature (due to a runaway greenhouse effect) can melt lead.
a) "(Unmanned) Exploration missions have no tangible benefit" #2 -- certain theorists on earth are...um... SUGGESTING... that holes in the the ozone layer will let through more ultraviolet light than is safe, barbecuing life on earth... yadda, yadda, yadda... ok, you get the idea. The planet I'm referring to is MARS. The closest thing this system's got to an earth-like world other than Earth itself... a world where we're getting more and more indications that there used to be life... indications that there used to be liquid H2O on the surface - and there still may be some trapped in the rocks and ices... All of it being quite well barbecued due to the lack of an ozone layer.
Two worlds, currently unable to sustain life (we think). Two problems that Earth is facing right now. Two test cases where we can see the problems Earth is facing, actually happening.
Any questions?
If not, I do have one question. How many Buddhists are working at NASA? How many Shinto? Hindu? Taoist? Islamics?
How about 'how many people on this planet don't march in step with your beliefs?
Didn't think you'd know. Scary, ain't it... living in a country (assuming you're an American) where not only are you surrounded by heathens and heretics, but the national laws permit them to stay.
When those laws were written
a) Women were the 'fairer' sex... weaker... purer... and *wouldn't THINK* of using such blasphemous and un-ladylike language... and besides...
b) The adult responsible for said girl (esp. if male) had the legal right to beat said girl with any number of implements -- from a willow switch to more stronger tools -- to cure her of the urge to use such blasphemous language. The first test cases in America for spousal-abuse and child abuse were brought under *property* law, not tort/criminal law.
- so goeth my vaguely-informed $0.02, supplied in Ningies. Currency conversions are your own problem.
Slashdot Mirror
>> It seems based on an idealistic view of creating well rounded "renaissance" minds, which is neat and all, but seems like a rich kid luxury to me.
... that's EXACTLY where the "University" concept came from.
Yes, that's right
Back in the 'good old days', if you were learning a trade, you'd go to a trade school. Back in the REALLY old days, this was an apprenticeship, and you'd start as a child. This assums you were not tied to the farm or village that your father was, and his father before him, etc. etc. etc.
The university was meant to do exactly what you described -- teach the student a rounded course of a bit of everything -- to teach about "The Universe" (which I believe is where the term "University" came from).
The only ones who could afford to burn that much time and money *were* the rich.
Jiffy (adjective) - Like, or similar to, smashed peanuts.
See also: Jif
Check the cover art for one of Steven's earlier albums ... his problem's not age ... those features have always been scary on him.
... same features ... they just work right this time. As for age -- we'll just have to see.
On Liv
... that wasn't a chameleon-suit overcoat. That was *HER* that could blend with the background. Hence, the nudity.
Hence, the fanboys sitting very close to the large-screen TV's with drool-sponges in front of them.
... locking the passengers to their seats ...
... stop someone from *taking* command of the aircraft
... looking outside ... remember how we swallowed the key?"
I don't know about you, but if I want to travel in a prison transport of ANY kind (airplane, bus, etc.) I'll commit a crime first, to make sure I have the *whole* experience.
I agree we need to change our focus
... but while we're busy trying to lock the trouble out -- let's make sure we don't lock ourselves in.
"On the inside
-- 'Cage of Freedom'
Metropolis (Georgio Moroder soundtrack)
Helium doesn't lift as well ... but it doesn't need to, because the construction materials have all improved & gotten lighter since the 1930's.
... made out of modern alloys or ceramics (maybesomeday).
- Light graphite/composite materials for the framework (assuming that you're building a zeppelin and not a blimp)
- different materials (NON BURING SKIN!!!!) for the surface coating.
- Lighter engines / turbine engines / turboprop / duct-fan engines
Crusade is the series that ran 13 episodes on TNT before J. Michael Strazcynski pulled the plug on it -- on account of TNT wanted a T & A & guns & explosives show -- and while JMS sees the value in this (after all--he fragged multiple planets in the original B5 run) ... he wanted to do things HIS way.
"Legend of the Rangers" is the show that'll be pilot-movie'ing on Scifi some time soon.
That, or trying to stuff a berzerk puppy into an escape crate during an abandon ship drill. Do they make pressure suits for dogs?
And yes
so ... the answer ... Enterprise NX-01 uses Darwin/OS22.1!
(Hope the Captain & Commander Tucker keeps the root password hidden.)
There HAD been rumors (or contempations from the writing staff) of actually making the Vulcan in question T'Pau ... but those were negated after the rumor mill turned over two or three times.
... but it'd have to be done *right* - and I don't know if I trust the new series enough yet to do it that way ...
I dunno if that would be a good thing, or a bad thing. It'd be great if we could see T'Pau's backstory & the backstory of Surak's family line
either that, or I've just read too many Dianne Duane Trek books.
__________________
The Trek office has had a policy since they started with TNG that only certain things would be allowed into 'Series Canon':
- Most of the TOS episodes
- Any previous episode of the new stuff (TNG as canon for DS9, etc.)
- All of the movies **EXCEPT** #5 (Okuda's 'history of the federation' mentions that certain legends and tall tales have grown up around the James Kirk stories -- any possibility of him going to the center of the galaxy and meeting a deity are probably apocryphal.)
NONE of the books are allowed in Trek universe canon. I assume this includes Vonda McIntyre's novelizations of movies 2-4 ..which is a bitch 'cause they do some nice expansions, and they're the only place where Saavik's half-romulan (RIHANNSU!!!) heritage is mentioned ... and also the only place where it's confirmed that Sulu was supposed to be Captain of Excelsior back in Trek II (it was planned-but the scenes were never shot). And McIntyre's version of Trek III had a *great* explanation of what Uhura was doing while the rest of 'the guys' stole the Enterprise. (very creatively screwing up the entire Earth communications grid, so Starfleet couldn't dispatch pursuit ships after the Enterprise... then running for the Vulcan embassy.)
Diane Duane (she who made the Vulcans and Romulans into mature, respectable cultures) *HAD* been on the writing staff of TNG ... but she had a bit of a falling out with one of the higher-ups, and got booted. (Check the acknowledgement in the front of "Dark Mirror" to find out who).
But in the later TNG episodes, the other writers started leaking her ideas for the Romulans into episodes -- specifically the one where Troi wakes up aboard a Rom cruiser and has to bluff her way through a role as a Tal'Shiar officer. Specifically -- in the story they referred to the ship's driver as a "pilot" instead of "helmsman" (traditions in the Rihanna starfleet came from their air force, not their navy)... and the ship captain was a Veeeerrry Duane-like character -- and many Duane Rom characters have a *vast* dislike for the dishonorable tone that their government has taken over the past 2-4 generations.
but DAMNIT the trek office won't let them in!!
(taking a long look at the other posters)
... I'm probably preaching to the choir here. I'll just take my books and my "BIG OLE GEEK" button, and go sit down and read ...
"We" see Rigel as it was a couple hundred years ago ... but we do know its velocity vectors, and where it *should* be in 'present day (--ok, 'present' meaning 22nd century plus a few days travel time.)
... detailed data on the planet's surface conditions, cultural data, etc ... And then there's that brown dwarf that the Earth astronomers missed that just happened to be sitting right on their course plot.
However, they probably WOULD need Vulcan starmaps for more accurate accounting of the system's motion -- accurate vectors for the planets in the system (more accurate than Earth's telescopes could pick up)
2) Yeah... I thought so too ...
3)Had they stated that the helmguy's dad OWNED the ship? Cause he could have worked his way up the ranks to crew/command an alien-owned freighter that was based in the Sol system ... or - the vulcans were being stingy about the Warp 4 engine technology, but I assume that Cochrane's equipment could at least make W1 - W2. The warp scale is suposed to be a geometric/logarithmic scale ... so that jump from 2 to 4 would open up a significant amount of space. But the range btw. 1-9 times lightspeed still lets you get to several local systems (including the Centauris) in a decent amount of time. (Decent when compared to sublight travel)
Ok, ok, I know ... easy answer. He can either be a heartless s.o.b., and write the dog off in favor of saving the rest of his crew. Or maybe ... how hard would it be to train a puppy to climb into a rescue ball? 'If you hear this noise ... climb into this ball (or hardshell case), pull the lid closed ... and wait.'
This of course raises the next question. How do you train a dog to do this? Which ensign to you detail for this job, when shipboard duties are weighing on the captain too heavily? Which Ensign Expendable gets the joy of dealing with a panicked dog whizzing in his escape case during a zero-G drill? "Um ... Captain ... sir ... Porthos sprayed in his escape bag again ... Yes sir, the inner bag is pretty saturated. So is the hallway to escape hatch 7 -- I'm sorry sir, but he got loose from the bag and floated down the corridor ... no sir, I don't think we can find any more volunteers."
Which means that (assuming there are more scenes scripted like the 'decontamination room' scene...) there will be shipwide contests among the junior crewmembers, seeing who can successfully 00wn T'pol's box ...
...and when audio controls go down, Commander Tucker'll just ssh into HELM.BRIDGE.ENTERPRISE.STARFLEET.MIL, enter the root password, cd to /etc, and change a couple of settings in MAJEL.CONF
(... looking at a dead-silent room ...) Ok ... I'll go away now ...
/Technobabble=ON
... something about 2 nacelles are 'necessary for balance of the warpfield' or some such. Scientists in the trek'verse had tried 3 nacelle and 4 nacelle designs - and there was no increase in efficiency -- and often a decrease ...
At least that's what I remember from my old TrekTNG tech manual (that's probably shredded in some box deep in my closets by now.)
/technobabble = OFF
- New airplanes where the cockpit is not accessable from the inside = airplanes where the flight crew can not make it to the back of the plane to investigate or aid in a technical (i.e. non-terrorist) emergency Also, a flight cabin that you can't get *in* to from the passenger zone is a flight cabin you can't get *OUT* of in case of an emergency that blocks your pilots-only escape exit. And then, as another poster suggested -- there is the 'passenger lands the plane' scenario...
... for that matter, unless you were planning on re-designing the whole nose area & giving the pilots their own lavatory, the pilots would be in for a *sliiight* problem on long-duration flights. I sureasfrell don't want to have to cross my legs, put an alligator clamp on my pitot tube, and hold it all the way through a 12ish hour trans-pacific flight. I wouldn't ask a pilot to do the same.
Stun gas in the passenger area *might* work ... of course, if the hostile in question managed to sneak an explosive with a deadman switch on board, as soon as chuckie goes unconscious, there'll be a tinfoil-shavings-filled hole in the sky where the airliner used to be. (Extreme situation, I know). In a situation similar to two days ago (attackers with knives) attackers would simply have to train themselves to hold their breath long enough for the rest of the passengers (the resistance in the operation that made the pennsylvania crash 'just' an airline crash, instead of another building full of people blown to the four winds) to go to sleep from the stun gas ... while getting hold of the walk-around oxygen bottles that the flight attendants would use in case of cabin de-pressurization.
In any case, both of these options would involve a significant re-design of the aircraft, which would take a few years to do, test, and then implement on (at the least) the entire U.S. air fleet. By the time they're implemented, our next crop of kamikazes has plotted a way around the security procedures.
On a less lethal side-topic ... I'm surprised that the airlines haven't sent more of their crews through self-defense / unarmed combat courses ...
... However ...
There'll never be one 'fully safe' aircraft, for the same reason that R.M.S. Titanic proved that there's no such thing as an unsinkable ship. There's always one thing that's overlooked, can be worked around, or just *won't* work. Terrorists got into the cockpits of the planes not because the door was flimsy and breakable, but because they held a terrified flight attendant up to the fisheye peephole in the door, held a knife to his/her throat, and ordered the pilot to open the door. The people planning against attacks were worried about guns ... and larger blades ... and the hijacker actually wanting to survive the experience.
We can only make things "completely safe" up to a point ... and after that, we have to rely on intelligence. And luck. And fixing the situation as it happens.
/rant mode OFF
The Deltans were supposed to be kind of the anti-Vulcans. Where the Vulcans banished emotion and championed logic (unless you happen to be a fan of Dianne Duane's books) ... the Deltans cherished empathy + emotion. They were major sensualists -- or by some definitions uncontrollable nympho hedonists.
Deltans have a very strong Empathic sense. (part of their society-sharing emotions constantly) ... One of the scenes added in to earlier 'director's cut' versions had Ilia removing Checkov's pain when a Vger attack acrced across his controls and fried his hand.
Lastly, they generated *incredibly* strong pheromones...which is why most of the males (and several of the females) all paid "very" close attention to whatever Ilia did on the bridge. But -- as she said to Sulu in another directors cut scene -- she would never take advantage of a sexually immature race.
a) "(Unmanned) Exploration missions have no tangible benefit" #1 -- certain theorists on earth are ...um... SUGGESTING... that an increase in this thing called "greenhouse gasses" could cause elevated temperatures on earth, from when heat coming up from the planet is reflected back down. This sounds kind of like that planet ...um, what's it's name? ...umm... VENUS???? A world where the surface temperature (due to a runaway greenhouse effect) can melt lead.
a) "(Unmanned) Exploration missions have no tangible benefit" #2 -- certain theorists on earth are ...um... SUGGESTING... that holes in the the ozone layer will let through more ultraviolet light than is safe, barbecuing life on earth ... yadda, yadda, yadda ... ok, you get the idea. The planet I'm referring to is MARS. The closest thing this system's got to an earth-like world other than Earth itself ... a world where we're getting more and more indications that there used to be life ... indications that there used to be liquid H2O on the surface - and there still may be some trapped in the rocks and ices ... All of it being quite well barbecued due to the lack of an ozone layer.
Two worlds, currently unable to sustain life (we think). Two problems that Earth is facing right now. Two test cases where we can see the problems Earth is facing, actually happening.
Any questions?
If not, I do have one question. How many Buddhists are working at NASA? How many Shinto? Hindu? Taoist? Islamics?
How about 'how many people on this planet don't march in step with your beliefs?
Didn't think you'd know. Scary, ain't it ... living in a country (assuming you're an American) where not only are you surrounded by heathens and heretics, but the national laws permit them to stay.
When those laws were written a) Women were the 'fairer' sex ... weaker ... purer ... and *wouldn't THINK* of using such blasphemous and un-ladylike language ... and besides ...
b) The adult responsible for said girl (esp. if male) had the legal right to beat said girl with any number of implements -- from a willow switch to more stronger tools -- to cure her of the urge to use such blasphemous language. The first test cases in America for spousal-abuse and child abuse were brought under *property* law, not tort/criminal law.
- so goeth my vaguely-informed $0.02, supplied in Ningies. Currency conversions are your own problem.