Hey Gang,
Did I miss where we explained or reminded everybody what the "Darmok" episode
of Star trek, the Next Generation, was?
What I like about The Next Generation is that we finally meet a superior
species who pays attention to us, the Q. Unfortunately, most Q plot lines
come close to screwing up the whole concept (like when Riker gets Q power and
he "misuses" it), but finally, literally in the final episode, they get it
right. The final, "You'll find out," is a very good ending to the series.
Of course the most annoying aspect of the series is the opposite, the
superior stuff they ignore or fail to exploit. Fabulous alien technologies
are always being discovered, but everybody is still using dilithium, warp
drives, transporters, phasers and other technologies as ancient as Kirk.
They discover aliens like Apollo or the Squire of Gothos who can channel
gnarly powers through various devices, but do they investigate these devices?
They discover aliens who can boost a mans brain power many times (also
gnarly). But do they keep any of the solutions to the problems of the
universe that the guy has figured out along the way? No. (On "The Invisible
Man," they just did the same thing. A guy turns super smart, figures
everything out, and then they put him back the way he was. Did anybody make
a few notes? Save his computer files?)
On "Voyager" they can extract and replicate and reprogram 7-of-9's
nanoprobes. If I was on that ship, I'd be having them injected into me so
I'd never be sick or age or sag, but do they use the technology? Only as a
gobbledygook plot device.
(By the way, there's a little-known and quite inconvenient side-effect of
nanoprobes for 7-of-9: her perpetual virginity. Shortly after copulation,
the nanoprobes have everything repaired, tightened, restored and probably
polished. Very discouraging.)
Did anybody go through Dr. Sung's (Sun? Soon?) files after he died (if he
really did die) so maybe they could make another android someday? Shouldn't
that have been Data's first question when he found out he was still alive in
the first place?
Didn't the Voyager crew have a vague idea how a cloaking device worked so
they might be able to make one and sneak out of the Delta quadrant? They
probably have the schematics in the database!
I could go on.
Spock is the star of the original series. Data is the star of "The Next
Generation." The Doctor and Seven are the stars of Voyager. We seem
fascinated by this inability to express or understand emotion. I wonder why.
The last digest I received, 1801, had a line after line of apparently random
text. Is it a problem of my AOL software? supposed to be a picture of the
baby? Wondering.
Got a poster of the decoded human genome. Fascinating reading. A little
repetitive.
Beautiful weather in Philadelphia area. Glorious! Hope it is wherever you
are too.
Dan
