data1701d

joined 1 year ago
[–] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ubuntu doesn’t deserve Uhura. 🤣

But in all seriousness, guess I’m a Denobluan now, minus the polyamory.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I view satirical voice impression and speech synthesis of a real person as two different ethical issues entirely.

I find impressions intended for satire fall within the real of the first amendment, while the latter can be an unwelcome appropriation of identity when done wrong.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 7 points 1 month ago

I mean, the creator of Dilbert is basically option 2 incarnate in the most terrifying way possible, so it makes sense.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1159580425/newspapers-have-dropped-the-dilbert-comic-strip-after-a-racist-rant-by-its-creat

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It was actually an attempt to use indirect characterization - by using "lasers" instead of "phasers", it shows that the demographic I am describing only pays attention to the superficial aesthetic of Star Trek rather than its meaning or even common technical terms in the show.

But still, I derive quite a bit of humor from your comment.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 24 points 1 month ago (13 children)

There’s 2 kinds of people in Trek fandom:

  1. The sane people who know Berman sucks and her outfit is a known unfortunate symptom - we just pretend Seven had real clothes.
  2. “I liiiike Seven of Nine” - creepy gen X white guys who just watch Trek for boobs and lasers.
[–] data1701d@startrek.website 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I haven’t gotten all the way through it yet, but I have very occasionally come back to it as a hobby project over the past year because I have been trying to collect a dataset of Majel’s lines in order to train a text to speech voice.

Usually, I’d find that a bit unethical, but in this case, they literally tried to collect a dataset before she died, which I think is as close to consent to such a reproduction as most passed actors could give. Also, it’s mostly for fun for something like HomeAssistant on Raspberry Pi.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 1 month ago

While DS9 quality is an issue, I think Keevan is just a PS1 character- a beautiful one.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 19 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I find Pegasus a decent episode. I think that while utopian aspiration is a fundamental tenet of Star Trek, I think it’s a bit reducto e to call it completely a show about perfect humans.

Heck, from the get go we had Garry Mitchell doing pyscho god stuff and Charlie X groping people, and a captain who sacrificed his crew to the weird space Romans so he would survive.

I think in truth, Star Trek is both about the best humanity can be and how the best in humanity can overcome the worst in humanity - you can’t exactly do that without episodes where the protagonists or the Federation makes mistakes, sometimes small and sometimes on the magnitude of Pegasus.

In many ways, DS9, darker as it is, feels the most Trek - a team of very different people with different beliefs overcoming/respecting their differences and forming a beautiful community despite the folly and evil around and within them.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 2 points 1 month ago

To be fair, not everything is played for laughs - I’d say pretty much every season finale gets moderately serious. I also think the Orion world building was top notch.

I enjoyed the crossover before I watched Lower Decks and still enjoy it, but I also feel like the way the characters were written at times reduced them to their basic archetype without the character development they would have had at that point in Lower Decks. I mean, it somewhat makes sense - probably a good idea to assume not everyone had watched Lower Decks and give an idea of who these people are - but I wonder if it could have been executed a bit better on that front.

Suffice it to say, I think late Lower Decks itself actually contains better examples of their “toned-down” real selves.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 3 points 1 month ago

The whole Gumato!

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Mostly - I find a lot of these quite funny, but I think LD is the least accurate one. TOS also is one of the less spot-on ones, but I think late TOS and especially the TOS films, it becomes very applicable.

I think the LD one really only applies to the early show, and mostly just Mariner and Boimler. Later on, it's often less they lack brain cells but often use them at the wrong time, but then their brain cells are good enough they actually make it out of the situation. I'd say none of the main characters are actually particularly mediocre except Boimler (not to hate on Bradward), as we slowly find out. Maybe some of the bridge crew stay within the box of mediocrity, but we still learn to love them as characters. I might put something for Lower Decks like "Pick one from each, and make it more dysfunctional".

Considering both the description of LD and there being no SNW, this was clearly written some time 2020 or 2021.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/18851336

I usually don't post non-OCs, but this one seems relatively rare. The GIF quality was terrible, so I took the MP4 and encoded it into a high-quality animated WEBP. APNG was tempting, but when I tried that for my Prodigy meme, I ran into all sorts of issues. WEBP seems better supported.

Source: https://tenor.com/view/klingon-jump-rope-gif-7629146

43
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by data1701d@startrek.website to c/risa@startrek.website
 

I usually don't post non-OCs, but this one seems relatively rare. The GIF quality was terrible, so I took the MP4 and encoded it into a high-quality animated WEBP. APNG was tempting, but when I tried that for my Prodigy meme, I ran into all sorts of issues. WEBP seems better supported.

Source: https://tenor.com/view/klingon-jump-rope-gif-7629146

 

I've once again noticed a delay of 10-12 hours with Lemmy.world. I just wanted to make sure someone's aware.

Glory to your houses, admins, and thanks for maintaining this instance.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/18753661

We'll see how big the intersection between Trek and TMBG fans is here.

Shut up and get with Garak, dude. (Also, a nod to the amusing show banter in the Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg recording.)

I also posted this on the tmbw Discord.

 

In an attached clip from the video "game" Star Trek: Klingon (in-universe an educational holodeck program), a holographic Gowron violently shakes the player and yells player, "When I say jump out of an airlock, you will JUMP OUT OF AN AIRLOCK!"

My question is, outside of edge cases where it's actually necessary to win a battle, would this level of order-following actually align with proper Klingon theology?

I feel like this would be an honorless death (kind of like if your commander told you to stab yourself with a d'k tahg), and thus if you were actually given an order like this, the proper Klingon thing to do would be to challenge your commanding officer to honorable combat. I could see a more Martokian view that honor demands you follow your commander, though, but I feel like even he would have limits.

I can think of three explanations for what Gowron said: 1) It's simply a hyperbole. 2) Gowron isn't exactly a beacon of Klingon honor (as seen in the last episodes of DS9), so maybe it's a misinterpretation. 3) It's a mistake in the program. Either it's a glitch if it was made in cooperation with the Klingons or it was done entirely by Federation researchers who messed up a bit.

Obviously, this game falls more in Memory Beta territory, but I'd argue it's reasonably canon, as it's basically screen (live action or animated) Star Trek and a song in this game was later canonized in DS9.

 

That scene where they pull away from the station feels like an invisible hand is pulling on my brain.

Also, sometimes I think, "What if this could all be as beautiful as the remasters in What We Left Behind?"

Finally, why does my mind read this in the voice of Vic Fontaine?

 

I’ve made a bizarre observation: commemorative plates tend to be associated more with Star Trek or Star Wars more than other franchise (Stargate seems to have some, too.), and I kind of wonder why.

Obviously, they’re not actually that popular anymore and have faded into kitsch, as the only plate that seems to have come out since DS9/VOY era is the Lower Decks Tom Paris plate - there are no DSC, PIC, Kelvin, or even ENT plates, while newer Star Wars plates don’t seem all that common as well unless you want paper plates.

I’m wondering if it has to do with 2 factors, still somewhat true today but especially in the 1990s:

  • Both Star Wars and Star Trek are decently large fan bases with large proportions of very passionate fans that are more likely to make purchases based on their fandom.
  • Both tended to attract (and still do) an upper middle class to upper class demographic (Somehow, Bezos can call himself Trekkie 🤦‍♂️) with more disposable income to spend on collecting.

These would have made the plates commercially viable, meaning to both inside and outside observers, plates became a stereotype of the fandoms.

Anyhow, what are your thoughts?

P.S. Wow, this is starting to feel like a meta version of Daystrom.

 

Let's say we have a certain Trill symbiont with a host. What would happen if the symbiont was duplicated under the condition that:

  • The host and symbiont were transporter cloned. (2 Jadzia Daxs)
  • A person from an alternate timeline with the same symbiont ends up permanently marooned in the prime timeline. (Larry Dax from a timeline where Curzon didn't reinstate Jadzia coexisting with prime Jadzia)
  • A past host comes back from the dead with a version of the symbiont a la Spock or Shaxs, or even something similar to Doctor Who's concept of an extraction chamber (Jadzia got bored in Sto'Vo'Kor and decided to climb the Black Mountain, meaning her and Ezri exist simultaneously)

I imagine in all of them, the commission would at least let the duplicate live for the rest of the lifespan of the original host, much like the Federation at large treats transporter clones.

However, what happens when it comes time for the symbiont to be transferred? I can't imagine the commission's ideology would smile upon duplicate experiences under much of the same rationale against re-association: there would be a duplication of experiences rather than the acquiring of new ones.

I think in the first case at least, it is reasonable to assume that they'd begrudgingly transfer both symbionts, as both have the equally valid claim to being the original and randomly killing one is straight-up murder, which I imagine the rest of the Federation would dislike.

They might also do so in the second case, as at least our Larry boy has some different experiences even if some are duplicate with prime Dax.

The third one is where it gets very muddy. The nature of souls in general is a muddy subject - twofold when there are two beings involved. For the sake of argument, we'll say the Jadzia in Ezri's symbiont accessible by Zhian'tara is a "backup" of Jadzia up to her death and that a separate Jadzia Dax went to Sto'Vo'Kor^1^. What then?

1: I make this assumption because a) Ezri doesn't have Jadzia's memories of Sto'Vo'Kor and b) it was the combination of Dax and Jadzia that engaged in Klingon ritual and "just" Jadzia would not be the person that participated. Of course, this starts getting into the more mystical parts of the franchise, and it's probably good they keep it vague even through it makes canon discussion like this a nightmare... a FUN nightmare.

 

Okay, the title may be a bit of comedic overstatement. What I really mean is I love the Lower Decks soundtrack and think Westlake may have been meant for Star Trek. I don't know what it is, but it truly evokes TNG era background music but on steroids.

I can't wait for the second volume. RIP Lower Decks - may the next few years prove to be the "Search for Lower Decks" (minus the butchering of a good Vulcan character, the pointless death... okay, maybe that wasn't the most apt comparison).

 
 

In other words, is that dog technically an augment dog? How is Tendi not dismissed from Starfleet and sent to a penal colony?

16
Merp Naming (startrek.website)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by data1701d@startrek.website to c/daystrominstitute@startrek.website
 

I have an odd question that will probably never be answered now unless they decide to bring this species to other Trek shows: why are members of Merp’s species called “Big Merp”, “Sleepy Merp”, or just “Merp”?

Obviously out of universe, they’re likely just a parody of the Smurfs.

My personal favorite theory that would be that Merpkind (or whatever they are called) doesn’t actually have a native concept of individual names. However, they’ve got to put something on the Federation paperwork, so they typically just do whatever and stick with it.

Alternatively, fitting more with the Smurf thing, Merp communities identify each other via adjectives or roles much like the Smurfs.

What’s your ten cents?

EDIT: Thinking on it, it could be a combination. No one has a set name - some might call their spouse “Mate Merp”, while that spouse might be referred to by a boss as “Strong Employee Merp.” When doing Federation paperwork, Merps typically choose which descriptor they’re more fond of. For instance, Sleepy Merp may have been referred to as that by a parent.

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