Some inquiries

[Marcus]

Startrek at least has some redeeming qualities. It gave us Starfleet Battles. It gave us a chance to see Patrick Stewart act alot.

Creationism? Who the heck do you DEBATE Science vs Faith with?

Wait, this is already a board devoted to argueing apples and oranges.. heh

[Darth Wong]

Startrek at least has some redeeming qualities. It gave us Starfleet Battles. It gave us a chance to see Patrick Stewart act alot.

I liked him at first. But his character has grown more one-dimensional over time, rather than becoming more human. This is true of all the characters on the show.

Picard: PRINCIPLES
Troi: EMPATHY
Worf: AGGRESSION
Riker: WALL UNIT
Crusher: CAREGIVER
Geordi: TOKEN SYMBOL FOR ALL SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUPS

There is a difference between strong archetypal characters and strong archetypes with character names. I liked TOS, but TNG lacked any real emotional connection with the characters, and the situation went from bad to worse with the subsequent spin-offs.

Creationism? Who the heck do you DEBATE Science vs Faith with?

You'd be surprised. Most of the "faith" people claim that their faith IS a science. They even want it to be taught in science class! That's the whole point of the argument; to show that it is NOT a science in any way, shape, or form.

Wait, this is already a board devoted to argueing apples and oranges.. heh

It's actually quite analogous; we run into Star Trek fans who think that Star Trek can defeat Star Wars in terms of what Star Wars is obviously good at: war. It's an apple pretending to be an orange, just like "creation science".

[Marcus]

That certainly makes sense... in all fairness to SW, if ive got the choice between NCC 1701 or ISD Executor as a research and exploration vessel, for information gathering and making new friends, im afriad Executor would not be the vessel of choice.

RE: Patrick Stewart... I was speaking of the actor, rather than the writing. Ive had the opportunity to do some improvisational acting with Mr. Stewart, when the troupe he belongs to was touring the country, and hit my college. Hes an amazing craftsman.

In all fairness, MOST of my favorite actors come out of the british shakesperean schools... so I may be biased.

Still... Faith does not ~debate~ Faith is. Have it, dont have it, its yours. Faith is not proof. Proof does not make Faith.

I personally belive in a supreme being, that also happens to have created the universe. Id rather belive that he started out with a big bang, and let ferment for about 10 Billion Years, than that he did it 8000 years ago and was deliberately misleading. The second solution is inelegant, and demeaning to a hypothetical omnipotent being.

[Darth Wong]

That certainly makes sense... in all fairness to SW, if ive got the choice between NCC 1701 or ISD Executor as a research and exploration vessel, for information gathering and making new friends, im afriad Executor would not be the vessel of choice.

Oh, I dunno about that. Not only would you not have to worry about your own ship exploding around you from a computer virus, but I have a feeling that diplomatic negotiations would be exceedingly easy from the bridge of an SSD.

For example:

SSD: "You will pledge fealty and pay tribute to the Galactic Empire"
PLANET: "Never!" *launches hail of missiles and dozens of ships*
SSD: *destroys all of the ships and most of the missiles, shakes off the remaining missile impacts without damage* "Which continent would you like us to sterilize first?"
PLANET: "We will pledge fealty and pay tribute to the Galactic Empire."

Compare this to the long-winded negotiations that would undoubtedly take place under Federation "First Contact" protocols. Much simpler, no?

RE: Patrick Stewart... I was speaking of the actor, rather than the writing. Ive had the opportunity to do some improvisational acting with Mr. Stewart, when the troupe he belongs to was touring the country, and hit my college. Hes an amazing craftsman.

Of that I have no doubt; his vocal delivery alone is highly impressive. But I have a longstanding gripe about the way people make fun of Will Shatner and compare him to Stewart in such an unflattering manner. I thought he did a very good job as Kirk, and all of the caricatured imitations of him over the years have "poisoned the well" for viewers.

I personally belive in a supreme being, that also happens to have created the universe. Id rather belive that he started out with a big bang, and let ferment for about 10 Billion Years, than that he did it 8000 years ago and was deliberately misleading. The second solution is inelegant, and demeaning to a hypothetical omnipotent being.

Not to mention stupid. But the second solution is what MILLIONS of Americans want taught in school as a "viable alternative theory".

[Marcus]

Well, it depends on what your meeting. In a realistic universe, your odds of being grossly outteched in the Executor are only sligtly lower than your odds of being grossly outteched in the Enterprise. The spread of possiblity is to wide, and the instance of Out of Context Events is just too likely (assuming a heavily populated universe)

As for William Shatner as an actor? I dont think hes on Stewarts level, but certianly not going to denegrate his talents. He did a good job with Kirk, Kirk is a firm image in my mind, and I think in both cases the actors rose above what the writes gave them.

Consider poor DeForest Kelly, may he rest in peace, and the extended series of 'Hes Dead, Jim'

As for Creation Science... ill avoid those boards. Id go off on people. In big, flaming ways. Faith and the Scientific Method are about as mutually exclusive a set of propositions as I can imagine. Im not saying one is bad, and the other is good... but trying to call Faith Science denegrates both Faith and Science.

[Coalition]

Oh, I dunno about that. Not only would you not have to worry about your own ship exploding around you from a computer virus, but I have a feeling that diplomatic negotiations would be exceedingly easy from the bridge of an SSD.

For example:

SSD: "You will pledge fealty and pay tribute to the Galactic Empire"
PLANET: "Never!" *launches hail of missiles and dozens of ships*
SSD: *destroys all of the ships and most of the missiles, shakes off the remaining missile impacts without damage* "Which continent would you like us to sterilize first?"
PLANET: "We will pledge fealty and pay tribute to the Galactic Empire."

Compare this to the long-winded negotiations that would undoubtedly take place under Federation "First Contact" protocols. Much simpler, no?

Too true. In Enterprise episode, "A Night in Sickbay", Captain Archer had to trade with some locals for a plasma injector. They had 5 injectors total, needed 4 to operate, and 1 was broken. (I'll ignore the idea of a long-range vessel having only 1 spare).

Star Trek negotiation revolved around deciding how much of the apology to perform (not to mention the locals' insistence on adapting shipboard time to their time).

Imperial response would be long the following lines:

"So you want our time to match your planetary capital's time? Fine. Which city will become the capital city if the current one is sterilized? Ooh, that's not good enough. After that one? Hmm, not yet. How about if you just get your whole governemnt together and move to a city in this time zone? Much easier."

In other words, the Star Destroyer would destroy 1 city at a time until the capital city was in the proper time zone, or until they got the replacement part.

[Patrick Degan]

Startrek at least has some redeeming qualities. It gave us Starfleet Battles. It gave us a chance to see Patrick Stewart act alot.

I liked him at first. But his character has grown more one-dimensional over time, rather than becoming more human. This is true of all the characters on the show.

Picard: PRINCIPLES
Troi: EMPATHY
Worf: AGGRESSION
Riker: WALL UNIT
Crusher: CAREGIVER
Geordi: TOKEN SYMBOL FOR ALL SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUPS

There is a difference between strong archetypal characters and strong archetypes with character names. I liked TOS, but TNG lacked any real emotional connection with the characters, and the situation went from bad to worse with the subsequent spin-offs.

RE: Patrick Stewart... I was speaking of the actor, rather than the writing. I've had the opportunity to do some improvisational acting with Mr. Stewart, when the troupe he belongs to was touring the country, and hit my college. He's an amazing craftsman.

Of that I have no doubt; his vocal delivery alone is highly impressive. But I have a longstanding gripe about the way people make fun of Will Shatner and compare him to Stewart in such an unflattering manner. I thought he did a very good job as Kirk, and all of the caricatured imitations of him over the years have "poisoned the well" for viewers.

Agreed. Although there was a time when William Shatner seemed to cease to care about his craft, at the time he was doing TOS (and even before, to look at his appearances in The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits) he was a very disciplined actor. And hints of the actor he was are still seen in his performances in the first six Trek films.

If you look at the earliest episodes of TOS, Shatner played Kirk more low-key than in later episodes. The staccato-delivery for which he's been caricatured unmercifully is seen in some third season episodes but nowhere near to the degree which dominated the parodies of the man. Indeed, one of his best scenes was his cool-as-ice contest of nerves with Frank Gorshin in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" in which Capt. Kirk has the balls to order the Enterprise's self-destruction to force Commissioner Beale to release control of the ship.

The only episode in which Patrick Stewart was really allowed to stretch himself as Capt. Picard was in "Yesterday's Enteprise". The Picard of the alternate Klingon War timeline is a tough, forceful, no-nonsense war leader, with depths of compassion which he's had to keep shut away for years. He was also a man wearing a mask —the scene in which he is speaking sotto vocce to Capt. Garrett reveals a very desperate man who was one of the few officers trusted with the terrible secret that the Federation was going to lose the war, and was willing to try anything at all to stave off defeat. Even altering history. It is the one and only episode in which Capt. Picard isn't a dull, tedious pile of tweed.

Patrick Stewart is a consummate actor. Nobody doubts this. But the sterile, stilted writing of Star Trek: The Next Generation locked him into a very cardboard caricature and is one of the reasons why TNG is not ageing anywhere near as gracefully as TOS. For all the fun that's been made of William Shatner, he got to do a lot more acting and be much more of a human being as Capt. Kirk than Patrick Stewart was ever allowed to be as Capt. Picard.