So I'm watching Star Trek this afternoon on SciFi, The Arena, which pits James Kirk against the hideous Gorn commander on an asteroid selected be the Metrons as a mano-a-mano battlefield . I used to think the Gorn pretty cool, but now he just looks cheesy and slower than molasses, I mean Kirk could have just outdistanced this sluggabug on fot and let the lizard starve to death or something. Anyway, at one point Kirk is dictating into his recorder about the wealth of minerals on the asteroid. "Diamonds, the hardest substance in the universe," he points out. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Seems to me that in the second season, the Enterprise runs into The Doomsday Machine, the eater of worlds and nasty smasher of StarFleet ships like the Constellation, helmed by Matthew Decker (Willian Windom). When it is apparent that phaser fire doesn't even scratch the Big Log in the Sky, Spock points out that the thing is made of pure neutronium, the hardest substance know to man.
SO WHICH IS IT??????
Is it Diamonds or is it neutronium? I mean you'd think being from the 23rd Century minerology could at least figure out which was which??
Congratulations, you've just discovered a YATI, Yet Another Technical Inconsistency.
Here's another one; Why is it that when beaming onto an abandoned ship, they only need the transporter on the Enterprise, but when beaming to a station or other Federation ship, they seem to need a transporter on both ends? Remember when the two crew members in The Motion Picture died in the transporter accident? Why didn't the station just beam them onto the bridge?
BTW, the Arena episode was based on a non-Star Trek short story by Fredric Brown. Two fleets are about to destroy each other and some omnipotent force puts one human and one alien on a world separated by an force field which neither seems able to cross. The alien is described as a large round ball with tentacles that extend out of slits in its body.
Post Edited (06-24-03 05:25)
GEEKS!!!!!!!!!
GEEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just kidding. I think this is just an example of typical Sci-fi. Just plain old no-need-to-think fun.
Neutronium would be the hardest, but it would have to be artificially created and maintained in most situations (i.e., outside the center of a star). Diamonds would be the hardest substance which one could expect to find naturally extant on an M-class planet.
(Yup, geek supreme.)
LOL @ Nathan
I was sorta thinking along the same lines. Kirk was referring to a natural substance whereas Neutronium could be artificially produced. I almost posted a reply but thought "nah...Star Trek apologetics is too geeky"
Hey, ya forgot artifical compounds, created by Federation science..
And, what was the substance , in "Balance of Terror". Spock was holding a sample of leftover hull plate from that destroyed border station, said it was a reeeeealy hard subatance...and to show how bad azz the plasma torpedo was, he crushed it in his hand.
Man....i'm a Great Luke Ski kind of guy all right.... DAS UBER GEEK!
George wrote:
GEEKS!!!!!!!!!
GEEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, and DAMNED PROUD OF IT, TOO!! NYAH NYAH NE NYAH NYAH!!
Ive never liked star trek.I always thought it was pretty lame.The aliens are the least original aliens ive ever seen.You think they could do something original, instead of putting some paint on or cutting there hair weird.
Ive always liked Babylon 5 better.The storys were ten times better,because they actually fit into one anouther and formed a large branching story with interesting charectors and storys.There aliens also looked alot better.Most of them looked like aliens,and not humans with makeup on.
Well, yeah. And the scripts made things happens to the characters that the Roddenberry camp could not bring them selves to do.
And the shipe were way cool too.
its both, that'll be $100000 please :D
If it comes to getting some I'm taking Kirk's word for it, after all Spock only gets it once every seven year . . . Oh I forgot, he's married . . . now that episode finally makes sense! LOL
For Science I'll take Spock's word! So neutronium it is!
Rob
How about a remake of Amrican Beauty starring Spock?
Who else should we cast? Must be on screen personas!
I vote Sponge Bob as the creepy dope smoking boyfriend, and Robin (from the TV series) as the homophobic creepy Ex Marine (with appologies to Andrew and the Corps, I didn't write the script) Father who wastes Kevin Spacy at the end of the movie.
Thoughts?
Rob