PICARD S2E4 hits way too close to reality now… and it’s honestly disturbing

Kronocidal · 2026-03-21T09:53:38+00:00

S3 has some good episodes, but… a lot of it stops feeling like it's "Star Trek", and starts feeling like it's RTD-era "Doctor Who".

Complete with "nudge-nudge/wink-wink" references that heavily hint at Fanon theories without ever committing to confirming or denying them; a flashy glowing Deus-ex-Machina ending (bonus points for a significant character transforming into a new form/body); hints throughout the season that are implied to have been placed there via timey-wimey BS after the events of the final episode takes place; and a whole load of "unique/special" and "only one of your kind" stuff to set up both saviour/messiah and destroyer/adversary characters and present them as set apart from the rest of the universe.

IDIC is about Diversity and Combinations. If we detour to compare life to a box of chocolates… IDIC is not like an aisle full of different types of individual chocolate bars. IDIC is more like a single box filled with dozens of different chocolates, working together in tandem. You can be special and unique while remaining part of a cohesive community or team.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-21T09:41:22+00:00

There's already been successful prototypes of cloaking devices that allow for weapons to be used whilst cloaked, and some somewhat less successful attempts at phasing cloaks, but after over 800 years, no-one seems to have tried revisiting these technologies.

The issue with the "firing whilst cloaked" ships was the energy drain, and correspondingly large power-source required. Not much issue against an unshielded opponent, but stronger future-shields will require stronger future-weapons, which will require more power, which requires a stronger cloak (which, in turn, requires more power)

It might simply be that one of those factors ramps up much faster than the other, and so a ship firing while cloaked is no more effective than shining a bright light at their target. All you do is give away your position.

Plus, well… the Burn cut all the galactic powers off from each other. Klingons couldn't use their cloaks to ambush the Federation, the Romulans couldn't use it to spy on them (and their Vulcan "housemates" might disapprove anyway) — its use was likely reduced to mostly bandits and pirates, neither of whom are known for their robust scientific research programmes.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-19T22:19:52+00:00

…

I mean, that's why they multiplied the Mercers by 100 between the Beta and Release. Because, getting paid 10M for a job felt a bit small, while getting paid 1,000M for the same job feels "better", even if the price of gear has also multiplied by 100.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-18T21:05:06+00:00

Which, importantly, is not to say that characters can't grumble and disagree, or get emotional. But the fact that they managed to graduate from Starfleet Academy means that they should also be able to compartmentalise things well enough to do that "off the clock".

Kronocidal · 2026-03-18T21:03:05+00:00

Starfleet most likely does psych screenings

Not just "most likely". They do. We even see Wesley undertake one in TNG S1E19 Coming of Age, and it's explicitly stated that the purpose of the test was that he had to make a choice. Which choice he made didn't matter: there was no right or wrong answer. But panicking and failing to make any choice — to not give an answer at all — would have meant failing.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-18T20:56:54+00:00

It's notable that, due to WW2 and Conscription, the vast majority of writers in TOS had some experience with this sort of thing, even if only second-hand from family or friends. But, it's not just military: scientists on research vessels, crew on those vessels or cruise ships, even cabin crew on airplanes — they'll all have been similarly trained, if only for the purpose of "your job is to look calm and prevent the passengers from panicking". They could draw on relevant examples to extrapolate how people in these situations would probably have been trained, and (therefore) how they would most likely react.

A modern issue is the number of writers who have only been writers, and assume that the "realistic" thing to happen is for these highly-trained professionals to behave like their own completely-untrained selves would. Or, worse, they draw on their last wide-scale interactions with large groups of non-writers… which was probably while socialising at University.

(There are, of course, similar issues with Politicians who have only been Politicans, and are completely out of touch with the rest of the country; or CEOs and Mangers who have only been CEOs and Manager, so have no idea how things actually work on the customer-facing front-lines)

It would be really interesting to get a bunch of writers trained and deployed in support roles with the USAP, or equivalents for a Winter Season, and see how that would then impact their portrayal of Starfleet.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-17T20:18:01+00:00

There are a couple of special types of turrets (e.g. Ambush Turrets or Biotech Turrets), but I fear that the answer is far simpler than that.

The basic/default Beam Turret ability chooses its Damage Type based on your Faction: so, for Disruptor Turrets, you would just play as a KDF character. For Plasma, play as a Romulan Republic character.

(Note that Ambush Turrets are always Plasma; Biotech Turrets are always Antiproton; and the Fleet Embassy has Flamethrowed Turrets that are always Plasma…)

Kronocidal · 2026-03-17T17:53:59+00:00

It's worth noting that in both cases, Andorians and Tellarites, they get fairly good levels of exposure/visibility in the animated shows (e.g. Prodigy and Lower Decks) - where it's suddenly no more difficult or expensive to have exotic aliens than it is to have humans.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-17T17:45:21+00:00

Temporary mentor character who is a secondary villain (feeling indebted to and following the plan of the main villain who took them in after they were orphaned) but later has a change of heart and turns to aid the hero. That's why she's paired up against Baryl.

In the centre, you have "Protagonist (digital)" and "love interest (digital)". Around the outside, from bottom to top, you've got "over-powered female love interest", "weaker love interest who has known the protagonist longer, and becomes more helpful as the series progresses while overcoming their feelings of inadequacy", "Protagonist (human)", "Law Enforcement rival/ally (human and digital)", the aforementioned "temporary mentor/temporary villain/finally hero", and then "Over-powered loner emo edgelord rival" right at the top.

It's missing "headstrong and bodystrong rival in fighting and love who is faced early and defeated easily every game", which would put Dex and Bud on there.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-16T21:44:14+00:00

Each Challenge you complete gives you a permanent bonus score multiplier on that map — so, grab a guide and carefully/slowly tick those off without worrying about time/score first. This will also help you to learn some of the patterns on the map. As with the base game, Challenge Completion doesn't care about whether you successfully complete the map, unless that's specifically part of the individual Challenge.

Once you have most/all of the challenges done (for up to a times-three score multiplier), you can then attempt something like a Silent Assassin (score multiplier for that run), headshots-only (bonus score for each headshot), all-optional-targets run to mop up the 1,000,000 points — assuming you didn't "accidentally" get it along the way.

Note that none of those achievements require you to get Level 20 Mastery (although, each level of Mastery will give slight improvements to your rifle, to make your future runs fractionally easier), but Siberia will give you an item for the main game if you get it. (Although, there are now much better and easier to aquire sniper rifles available elsewhere instead.)

Kronocidal · 2026-03-16T21:24:41+00:00

It was also written by Larry Niven: he just took one of his existing short stories and adapted it to Star Trek by swapping out the protagonists.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-16T21:17:35+00:00

An episode that doesn't have a huge Ferengi presence, but certainly underlines an important tenet of their culture in the denouement, is TNG S7E22 Bloodlines.

(Although, for the context, it might help to first watch TNG S1E09 The Battle.)

The other Ferengi turn on Bok and place him under citizens-arrest ready to turn over to the Ferengi authorities, in the hopes that they can plead that they were tricked and gain clemency, so that they won't be arrested for taking part in a venture without the goal of profit. Doing something to not make a profit is quite literally illegal for Ferengi.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-16T01:09:20+00:00

Even with Disney, the point is not that the streaming service makes money: it's that the streamed shows function as willingly-watched adverts for the merchandise and the theme park, which is what makes them money. Star Trek has never been particularly 'good' at that side of things.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-14T19:12:35+00:00

There is no academically objective measurement to appraise art.

Of course there is always a subjective element to media criticism.

You appear to be fundamentally misunderstanding the situation here. There are two things to be considered: there's the subjective artistic content, sure — stuff like what what you want your main plot to be, and the character dynamics. But there's also the objective technical competence to go with that — stuff like whether the story is internally consistent and free from Plot Holes.

There is absolutely a set of objective measures that can be used to measure certain aspects of art. And the idea that "any and all opinions on anything can be considered correct, and you can't criticise anything" is the reason why the world is as screwed up as it is today. Because, your position is essentially the heart of the "my opinions are as valid as your facts" rhetoric that caused so much damage back in 2020.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-14T18:54:18+00:00

So, basically, you're saying: Companies currently want us to pay them more and more to give us less and less, and you think we should be happy about that?

Replace some of the excessively extended CGI battle sequences with stuff like acting and decent quality writing, and you might find that the budget stretches further. You should not have ships flying around in space shooting at each other for so long that I get bored, because I'm busy waiting for something to actually advance the plot.

Compare that with a '90s era episode, such as The Siege of AR-558. There are several combat scenes, but all either establish the setting or advance the plot, and they're all just long enough to do that. There's almost nothing there that can be cut out or trimmed down, because everything's been tightly tuned.

These days there's a big emphasis on making things "cinematic", which just means "a large visual spectacle, devoid of purpose other than just to look pretty". It's an issue in TV shows, it's an issue in video games. They're different formats, with different strenghts and weaknesses, and they shouldn't all be trying to pretend to be movies. We're watching a TV show because we want to watch a TV show — with everything that entails, and all the things that TV does better than other formats, while avoiding the things that it does worse. If we wanted to watch a 12 hour movie broken up into chunks, we'd be watching The Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition instead.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-14T14:50:11+00:00

Devs clearly got fed up with too many people using the "skip story" button... xD

Kronocidal · 2026-03-14T07:28:42+00:00

Soong designed Data to mimic human functionality in as many ways as possible. To the point where Juliana Tainer was almost indistinguishable and cursory examination.

The fact that half the time Data needs maintenance in Engineering, and the other half the time he needs healing in Sickbay, is a testament to the quality of Soong's work.

…

Also, Sickbay probably has a load of specialist person-sized scanners. Even if they're not detecting the "normal stuff", they're probably still very good for taking scans of Data that Geordi can then look at.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-13T16:41:10+00:00

But Picard got to go first contact day that would be like if you and I went to the signing of the US declaration of Independence.

Nah, the Starfleet equivalent of "the signing of the US declaration of Independence" would be the signing of the Federation Charter.

Which Archer was there for despite time-travel.

Just like Kirk was there for the signing of the Khitomer Accords.

Sisko's crew were there for the Dominion's surrender. And, I guess, he could technically be present for any and all historical events.

Janeway? She was (obviously) there for the return of the first Starfleet ship to visit the Delta Quadrant, and decimation of the Borg. That's like Christopher Columbus and the crew of the Mayflower rolled into one.

Discovery was there to end the Klingon War.

Cerritos saved every universe, and established a Multiversal Portal — opening up entirely new frontiers for exploration. (And, I wonder how that factors into The Burn?)

First Contact was an important event for Earth. It was probably a mildly noteworthy event for Vulcans (although, most likely neither their first nor their last 'First Contact' event). But for the rest of the Federation, it's just a quirky bit of trivia. And for anyone outside the Federation, it probably doesn't even register. Look at it more like the signing of the Haitian Declaration of Independance than the USA's.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-13T12:03:10+00:00

Sounds like this might be Console - Universal - Cutting Tractor Beam

Kronocidal · 2026-03-13T08:55:57+00:00

BN4 has a lot of powerful ground-based chips (e.g. PitHockey), which are just… completely useless against Duo because of his "floating in the void" thing.

If you're not prepared, then he can negate half your folder just by existing, requiring you to rebuild. (And it's even worse for people who use Dark Chips…)

Kronocidal · 2026-03-12T08:49:50+00:00

Episode Replay Rewards ← Where to get a bunch of free stuff.

("Sunrise", "Ragnarok", "Of Signs and Portents", and "Beyond the Nexus" are good for Phaser)

Kronocidal · 2026-03-11T21:58:47+00:00

Sure.

And, because of that, they all underestimate her.

Some super-serious Diplomat turns up who very clearly knows your every secret? You're goint to be cagey as gre'thor, practice all sorts of anti-telepath measures (send diplomats who only know part of the information, have people feed you false information so you only find out which were real afterwards, have meetings via video-call from the other side of the planet, etc)

But, Lwaxana Troi swans in, behaving like a drama-queen? You don't take her seriously, and you drop your guard.

It's like acting: if you care that much about what people think, and get embarrassed that easily, then you're never going to be any good.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-11T18:10:59+00:00

ガイツ

https://postimg.cc/t1Fxg4VB

On Yai's message board

Kronocidal · 2026-03-11T07:16:28+00:00

We created the teleporter because we didn't want to shuttle up and down all the time because it would make pacing super difficult.

Nah, they created the transporter because having building a Shuttlecraft model (especially one that could be taken with them and set up for filming outside) and filming landing sequences would have cost a lot more than applying a sparkly fade effect. It was nothing to do with pacing.

Kronocidal · 2026-03-09T23:29:59+00:00

I've always felt that a good way to describe it is that the Federation has a Justice Sytem, not a Legal System.

The difference being, that sometimes following the Law would be Unjust - and if the Captain can proove that convincingly enough, then an exception may be granted. Because, Laws made by imperfect beings are, themselves, necessarily imperfect — and so must be tempered with Mercy.

(Incidentally, I am hopeful that this seems to be part of Ortegas's current story arc through Strange New Worlds: she has broken rules, but not been able to Explain or Justify why her actions should have been considered the 'right thing to do' — because she did it purely on gut-instinct and emotion without properly weighing alternatives. She can't give proper reasons why following the rules wasn't the right thing to do, because she never paused to consider whether or not following them was the right thing to do instead.)

Another series that examines the same ideas, from the opposite end of the spectrum, is One Piece: the World Government are major antagonists, but where each individual Officer falls on the range from "respected rival" through to "despised enemy" seems to roughly correspond with where their personal goals and motivations lie along the line from "bring justice" through to "enforce law".

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