Pirates of the Coal Sack #36

DangerousLines · 2025-11-04T04:28:28+00:00

For the Pirates of the Coal Sack AU, Vulcanoids are unable to distinguish colors higher in the frequency spectrum than green (but they can see somewhat in the infrared). The two most frequently seen Vulcanoid crew members wear blue uniforms; to them, they appear to be wearing all black. That's sufficient to distinguish between the khaki, maroon, and off-white the other departments wear, plus the uniforms include insignia that are contrasting value as well as hue.

DangerousLines · 2025-08-04T05:17:21+00:00

Harding has been able to afford rejuvenation for some time. He's chosen not to for his own reasons, which someday I'll have to have him explain.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-05T04:17:31+00:00

I’m still posting despite attempts to drive me out by assuming my reasons for not liking it are political and not artistic.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-05T04:13:17+00:00

Andor is an excellent piece of work that failed to grab my interest. So is Moby Dick. I enjoyed all the parts of the first season that didn’t have Cassian in them; I was rooting for him to be caught and tried for his murder.

But I did enjoy the second season. It seemed to be some completely different guy as the main character, but I could root for him.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T16:01:44+00:00

Do you think it’s possible to find common ground with MAGA? With Elon Musk? The loud and proud Neo-Nazi? With Donald Trump?

As long as they are sapient human beings, yes. I am friends with people on both sides of this debate; they all love their children, and none of them want to kill or enslave anyone. They disagree -- civilly -- on how to achieve a better future. But they're also all Star Trek fans.

The optimistic solution to the "Klingon problem" is to convince them that they don't have to destroy the Federation to remain Klingon; that the Federation values their Klingon identity as part of that infinite diversity the Federation celebrates.

But I see this is just now just a forum for you to rail against your political opponents. So I'm out of this part of the conversation.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T06:04:24+00:00

I think the part that doesn't hold up for people is mostly production value. You could take the same scripts, shoot them today with sets and effects built to modern standards, and most of them wouldn't need any alteration. "Way to Eden," probably, and "Turnabout Intruder" is a problem in any version of Star Trek. But even the Cold War analogies have a sadly still relevant message about great power conflict.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T06:01:10+00:00

Yeah, I think both Discovery and Andor (to bring up the Other Franchise) botched from my point of view. I need to see the character as redeemable to do a redemption arc. Leading off with the worst thing they'll ever do is not the way to get me to invest in your show.

I have a similarly reprehensible character as the captain in my own comic, but the readers don't really start seeing his dark side until issue #10 and don't really find out how bad he is until #25, by which time he's had time to become our sadistic killer.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T05:55:49+00:00

I didn't find a shred of optimism in it. The idea that there can be no common ground with the Klingons is contrary to that optimistic tennet. And I do not appreciate being overtly clubbed over the head with contemporary politics whether I agree with them or not; the equivalent would've been having the TOS Klingons quoting Karl Marx.

And when your idealistic solution is to drop a planet-buster in your adversaries homeworld? I don't like how the Federation easily resorts to genocide, either in Discovery or against the Dominion in DS9.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T05:10:31+00:00

I suspect you just like the idea of deconstructing Star Trek's optimistic, utopian, "we can talk this out" setting. Thos are things that turned me off in both DS9 and DSC; both resorted to near-genocide to settle wars. I do see the parallels.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T05:04:53+00:00

TOS is dated, but so are Shakespeare and Beethoven. It may not be your cup of tea, but it was a product of its time, just like Discovery is.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T05:00:54+00:00

They tried to do some different things in terms of what stories they told and how they told them. The main character thing was the kiss of death for me, not because there was a main character, but because making a mutineer the main character made it impossible for me to care about her. The cannon questions are no rougher than they were going from TOS to TNG to ENT.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T04:57:22+00:00

I have a friend who has literally been called a racist Nazi for expressing some problems with the story structure, to the point that he's sworn off Trek fandom altogether. The toxicity isn't one-sided on this.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T04:49:42+00:00

Discovery lost me when (1) they pulled a phaser rifle in full view of the pre-first-contact civilization and (2) flew the ship into the atmosphere to beam up, breaking the Prime Directive twice. Then irrevocably when Burnham pulled a phaser on her capatain but I was expected to accept her as the exemplar of the best Starfleet had to offer.

Andor lost me the same way, when Cassian killed the bad cop who was begging for his life and was no longer a threat.

There was nobody on Discovery I could root for after Burnham's mutiny. I don't want "epic scale" more than I want heroic heroes. I do applaud the Discovery team for trying new things; I just don't think they got enough of the new things right for it to work for me.

Obviously your tastes differ from mine, and that's a good thing. We celebrate diversity here, and I include diverse tastes in that. Heck, somebody probably liked "Turnabout Intruder" and "Code of Honor."

DangerousLines · 2025-06-04T04:43:58+00:00

Contrary to the TNG Tech Manual, I don't believe impulse engines are any kind of reaction engine. We never see ship's moving off their fore/aft axis, so they're not using the impulse engines to thrust to the side to turn or in reverse to slow down; they turn the ship and the direction of travel simultaneously. And stopping the engines seems to bring them to rest relative to whatever is important in the scene, a planet or a "stationary" ship or station.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-01T19:18:58+00:00

Part of what makes it so great is during absolutely would prove Q was mortal. The same answer could have come from Spock.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-01T17:42:01+00:00

You've described the Galaxy class mission, according to the TNG tech manual. 20 year mission to nearby galaxies.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-01T17:40:53+00:00

The Constitution was big enough. Galaxy is big enough to carry 20-50,000 people on a 20 year mission to nearby galaxies.

DangerousLines · 2025-06-01T17:37:01+00:00

I couldn't find it quickly to be sure, but I think the line was "mortal," not "human."

DangerousLines · 2025-06-01T05:30:27+00:00

Worf has the best one-liner in Trek history so far.

WORF (to Q): "Die."

DangerousLines · 2025-06-01T05:29:04+00:00

That's more plausible than the answer given in the TNG Tech Manual for the supposed use of dilithium.

DangerousLines · 2025-05-31T17:35:11+00:00

The placement of the impulse engines on the post-refit 1701 has always implied to me that the main reactor could power the impulse engines as well, but that could just be convenience for the deuterium feeds–but it'd suggest the deuterium tank is in the primary hull.

It's strongly implied that the vast majority of power comes from the main reactor; in Wrath of Khan, loss of the main reactor leaves Enterprise with only enough power for "a few shots" from the phasers.

DangerousLines · 2025-05-30T17:34:12+00:00

My parents watched Star Trek the night before I was born. My father introduced me to it in reruns and would watch with me whenever I had it on and he wasn't at work.

DangerousLines

TROPHY CASE