Star Trek/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

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== Boldly Going Where No Waiter's Gone Before ==

* Why do restaurants and bars still need wait staffs? Why don't they just put food replicators at everybody's tables? It's not like Quark, Whoopie Goldberg, Neelix and Sisko's father need jobs, right? Nobody does. Because they don't use money, right?

** Neelix they needed him because they had to cut down on replicator usage. As for Sisko's father there's a theory [http://canonfodder.ex-astris-scientia.org/index.php?Society_%26_Culture:Federation_Economy here] that doing stuff like having a restaurant earns you prestige or something. For Quark, I think people go there for entertainment as well. For Whoopie, I got nothing.

** Neelix they needed him because they had to cut down on replicator usage. As for Sisko's father there's a theory [https://web.archive.org/web/20130401091059/http://canonfodder.ex-astris-scientia.org/index.php?Society_%26_Culture:Federation_Economy here] that doing stuff like having a restaurant earns you prestige or something. For Quark, I think people go there for entertainment as well. For Whoopie, I got nothing.

*** You don't see why someone would want to develop a relationship with a bartender? I love my favorite bartenders, I'd miss them so much if I stopped drinking there or they quit or whatever, and they don't have a tenth of Guinan's insightfulness.

** I always thought Sisko's father had a resturant just because he enjoyed cooking and serving people. As for the waiters i've got nuffin. Acutally what do humans do in a world where we don't need money and everthing is handed to you on a replicated plate?

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** Most ground engagements in the show are fought either around or near towns, or small areas of ground such as rocky areas riddled with caves or canyon passes.

** By the look of it, they are severely crippled from political and social sides.

** The end result, though, is that Starfleet marines are underequipped light infantry using support of starships for almost anything a hand phaser can't do, i.e. ''completely relying on air/orbit superiority''. Apparently there's no standing army in Federation other than them. The level of "respect" enemies tend to have for them is, well... didn't Romulans ''expect'' to take the whole Vulcan with 2000 troops? Of course, without ships and their transporters overhead, even their [http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Photon_burst|antimatter rocket launchers] couldn't compensate for the shortcomings, and a modern army would massacre an equal amount of Starfleet troops during the next day after learning capabilities and limitations of their weapons (or how to mess with their sensors, if in urban or forest combat), but that's just not the sort of opponents and conditions they ''usually'' face.

** The end result, though, is that Starfleet marines are underequipped light infantry using support of starships for almost anything a hand phaser can't do, i.e. ''completely relying on air/orbit superiority''. Apparently there's no standing army in Federation other than them. The level of "respect" enemies tend to have for them is, well... didn't Romulans ''expect'' to take the whole Vulcan with 2000 troops? Of course, without ships and their transporters overhead, even their [http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Photon_burst|antimatter rocket launchers]{{Dead link}} couldn't compensate for the shortcomings, and a modern army would massacre an equal amount of Starfleet troops during the next day after learning capabilities and limitations of their weapons (or how to mess with their sensors, if in urban or forest combat), but that's just not the sort of opponents and conditions they ''usually'' face.

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*** Given that the ship archives seem to hold ridiculous amounts of information about a wide range of things, it's not at all unreasonable that relatively detailed information about the bar (on Earth, regularly visited by Starfleet cadets and therefore a part of Starfleet culture) would be included simply [[For Science!|For One Hundred Percent Completionism]] (it wouldn't be the most obscure thing by a long shot).

*** Even in the case of the Talaxian resort Neelix programs, just because Voyager never visited it, who's to say Neelix couldn't feed the computer information about it in other ways? Could be pictures, video footage, something of the sort, from which the computer then extrapolates textures, dimensions and other program elements, which Neelix can then tweak to get details right.

*** With the wonders of ''twenty-first'' century technology we can [http://www.123dapp.com/catch reconstruct 3D scenes from still camera frames]. Considering that the Voyager crew are armed with holo-cameras (whatever those are) and tricorders, it's highly likely that holonovel authoring software can so something similar, but at much better accuracy and capturing more detail (including things like sounds and materials).

*** With the wonders of ''twenty-first'' century technology we can [https://web.archive.org/web/20131030112834/http://www.123dapp.com/catch reconstruct 3D scenes from still camera frames]. Considering that the Voyager crew are armed with holo-cameras (whatever those are) and tricorders, it's highly likely that holonovel authoring software can so something similar, but at much better accuracy and capturing more detail (including things like sounds and materials).

** Maybe the most egregious case of this is in "Unification Part II" where Data, using an unfamiliar Romulan system, is able to whip up a fully realistic hologram of Commander Riker and two other Starfleet officers, seemingly in no time flat. The only flaw is that he doesn't get Riker's hair right! Okay, it is Data, but it stretches belief in any case.

*** Basically, "It's Data" is the explanation. Data knows Romulan, quickly figures out the system, and does it all at speed. Someone else probably could have done it if they had an hour to study the system and get everything just right, but Data can cut that down to a few minutes.