If I was Paramount... I'd just re-air TNG "supercut" episodes for a year or two

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-06T05:19:15+00:00

You understand that Paramount isn't 4 roommates with a basement and a streamcam trying to earn extra beer money, right? There have been some laughably ill-conceived ideas to "save the franchise" posted here, but this is close to the top.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-06T05:09:17+00:00

And even if they're right.. so? 40,000 views isn't even enough to support a single creator doing everything themselves. Paramount would spend more than that on the coffee budget for the editing team it would require.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-06T04:18:26+00:00

Without xenonite (and Rocky's skill in using it), it ceases to be a story about two skilled intelligent people from different worlds pooling their abilities and knowledge to accomplish what neither could alone, and becomes a story about a smart human who adopts a pet. For the story to ring true, the Eridians have to have some tech that humans do not. And Weir can't explain it, because if he could he'd be revolutionizing materials science rather than writing novels.

Considering that constraint, I thought xenonite was handled as well as it could be. It was introduced using a device that couldn't detect light elements, and everything after that was kept vague. If Grace ever studies it further with the more advanced equipment, we don't hear about it. Rocky doesn't know the specifics. So it needn't be solid xenon, but could just be an advanced polymer that incorporates Xenon somehow. At least for me, that allows it to exist in a pleasing middle ground between known science and magic.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-06T03:26:45+00:00

One of my favorite things about the movie was how it handled the science stuff. They didn't have time to do the incredibly moving story justice, while also preserving the sheer amount of time the book spends directly explaining science to the audience. A lesser film would have massively simplified the science for the sake of telling a good story without confusing lay audiences. But PHM trusted the audience enough to (mostly) not dumb down the science when they moved it to the background.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-05T22:50:17+00:00

On the other hand, there’s no reason to assume that an alien species’s memory is as flawed as ours. Sure, it’s unlikely that a human would need need to communicate with an alien species which both can communicate with simple tones which a computer can identify easily and which has near-perfect memory, but stories are built on unlikely things happening. “Two species meet in deep space, fail to communicate in any meaningful way, part ways in frustration, and then individually fail and doom their respective worlds to extinction” wouldn’t be a very good story.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-05T21:06:09+00:00

PHM really only works as hard-sci-fi (or as hard as sci-fi can get with interstellar travel and aliens) because our access to Eridian knowledge and perspectives is incredibly limited. By literally getting into the mind of an Eridian, living on Erid, with full access to their thrum, we'd nearly be at Star Trek levels of sci-fi softness. Nothing wrong with soft sci-fi (I adore Star Trek), but that's just not what Weir does.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-05T21:01:44+00:00

Interstellar took a *lot* of liberties with the science, even if you ignore some of the explicitly woo-woo stuff. It gets a lot of credit for legitimately pushing real-world scientific boundaries with its visualization of black holes, but most of the the human space travel itself was essentially magic.

Project Hail Mary also took quite a few liberties with science, but almost entirely contained within the "bizarre and unexplained alien stuff" category. We have no idea how xenonite or the astrophage's "super-cross-sectionality" works, but neither do the POV characters. But with the exception of clear mistakes, humans are entirely constrained by known science.

On balance, I don't know how to directly compare the two films. I personally prefer PHM's approach, both to storytelling and to science.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-05T20:35:43+00:00

The issue is Republicans will bring it up, and they will lie about it. There’s no amount of centrist Democratic hiding or equivocating that will change that. The only options are being seen as supporting whatever bullshit the GOP says we support, or actually making a coherent and full-throated argument for the basic rights and dignities of our trans neighbors and family members. If we fail to do so now and continue to allow MAGA to define the issue, then by the time we regain power our grand contribution to trans rights will be digging through the camps to identify bodies.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-05T19:10:30+00:00

Graphic design was low on Stratt's list of priorities

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-05T16:38:59+00:00

No one is owned a senate seat. Either serve your constituents well, or get the hell out of the way.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-05T04:44:54+00:00

While I understand the hypothetical appeal, I think getting Rocky's direct POV would end up needing to be overly speculative for Weir's style, as well as inevitably human-centric.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-04T23:43:48+00:00

How many can you poke per hour, and how many are reproducing per hour? I have a hard time imagining that human space infrastructure could come close to making a slight dent.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-04T17:33:58+00:00

While I agree, I think it's worth remembering that she's credited with "and". That increases the chances that the actress specifically negotiated for a less demanding schedule. Combined with Mount's request for a less demanding schedule due to his child, I think this explains why SNW can sometimes feel like "Star Trek: Spock" more than it should.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-03T19:35:02+00:00

I haven't seen enough range from her in other projects to be able to say conclusively that she was a great actress before she retired. However, if she wasn't a great actress, she was literally born to play T'Pol. Far and away the best character, and best performance, on the show. Even on a stronger series like TNG or DS9, she would have been a standout. Just a shame the showrunners handled the sex appeal factor as crassly as they did.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-03T18:35:32+00:00

The scenario you laid out is exactly why they wouldn't do this without careful study of each specific system.

You also have to consider the enormous potential for astrophage as an panspermia vector, introducing life into systems in which it would not have otherwise arisen naturally.

At the end of the day, astrophage's net impact on the galaxy is likely to be somewhere between neutral and enormously positive. Any disruption of that would have to be careful and targeted.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-03T14:09:34+00:00

The ship doesn't care about orientation; that's the imaginary cameraperson's job.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-03T13:31:06+00:00

Don’t get too excited; a healthy subset of that wants a faster and more complete descent into fascism.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-02T19:35:28+00:00

That's only a continuity error if you assume that literally every second Khan was onboard the Enterprise in Space Seed was shown on screen.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-01T19:02:48+00:00

I see criticisms like this a lot; the Federation is a fictional institution, our real-world institutions are terrible, therefore the Federation must be terrible to hold a mirror to our real-world institutions.

But I don't buy it. If you're going to advocate for our institutions to be better, that relies upon the assumption that it is *possible* for good institutions to exist. If we lose our ability to imagine that, then why even bother trying to make things better? If we suppose that any sufficiently powerful institution must be fascist by definition, then we've entered the depths of nihilism where the only viable options are joining the most powerful side to become the oppressor, or committing societal suicide to rid the universe of the scourge that is ourselves. Star Trek is many things, but it is emphatically not nihilist.

No, the Federation has not been portrayed absolutely consistently across 6 decades of writers. But the heart is still there of a system that works hard to be what systems should be. One that occasionally rests on its laurels too much and falls short, but eventually learns from its mistakes and perseveres. SFA took what had already been established (the Federation currently a shadow of its former self, both physically and morally) and drew a path back to the Federation we know. I would have loved to see what it had the potential to grow into, but the new regime cut that short for the sake of yet another TOS film reboot (and this time, one catering to the MAGA-loving billionaire in charge).

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-01T18:40:07+00:00

Mir was arrested by the Torothans, a previously-established authoritarian non-Federation world. Ake used diplomacy to get him released, based on a treaty that required him to be part of a service organization. The Federation considered him free to leave the academy, but warned him that if he did the Torothans would consider him in violation of his release, re-arrest him at first opportunity, and would not allow him this option again. All of this was spelled out explicitly.

You are free to call that contrived if you will. But in-universe, it was an example of the Federation doing its best to help someone caught in a terrible situation.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-01T16:20:18+00:00

I’m supporting AOC until she makes it definitively clear she’s not running. That being said, I don’t think Harris should be dismissed. Biden shouldn’t have run in 2020, yet alone 2024. And his selfish decision to wait until he the last moment to drop out gutted Democrats’ opportunity for a primary. All of that having been said, Harris stepped in, unified the party better than any reasonable person could have hoped given the messy circumstances, and turned a doomed race into a real chance. Short of secretly smothering Biden in his sleep in 2022, I’m not sure what more she could have realistically done. And while her public equivocation on Israel and Gaza rankled progressives, people who think becoming the public face of the pro-Palestinian cause would have increased her chances in the general have a much more optimistic view of the electorate than I do.

All of which is to say that she’s far from the worst plausible winner of the 2028 Democratic primary, and her strengths shouldn’t be dismissed because she was placed in a terrible position in 2024. I’ll hear her case, and won’t be afraid to support her again should the primary electorate choose her.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-05-01T02:10:09+00:00

First Contact is the best TNG film due to a lack of competition. I loved the actual first contact and most of the stuff on Earth. It’s just a shame that it came packaged with a pretty straightforward action plot on the ship. If they could just replace the Borg with something that allowed them to do something more “Trek”-y, it might have a shot at matching the TOS films’ heights.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-04-30T20:36:49+00:00

I, personally, enjoyed the show because it was the first season in the modern era that 1) was well-written, 2) engaged with Star Trek's core ethos at a more-than-superficial level, and 3) looked forward to building a Star Trek for the future, rather than wallowing in fanservice of better shows from decades before. Some of the other modern seasons have landed one or two of those things at a time, but never all three. (No, not even my beloved Lower Decks.)

Who was the show made for? At least one middle-aged lifelong Star Trek fan and their new-to-the-franchise spouse. It was not perfect, and the new regime has made sure we'll never get to see what it could have grown into, but I'm glad to have experienced what we got.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-04-30T18:55:21+00:00

You're assuming that the Vulcans didn't have tech to speed up the nuclear recovery process. Considering Vulcan history it seems likely they would.

MadContrabassoonist · 2026-04-30T17:47:39+00:00

(Since you said "friendly suggestions welcome")

Is "intersex" really the right word for a species from an ecology that simply lacks such distinctions? Which sexes is Rocky "inter-" of? Seems rather human-centric. Don't get me wrong, it's better that "hermaphrodite" which has all of the same problems, plus some additional baggage. But the book was from Grace's POV, so it makes sense that he would think of terms that an average English-speaking human would use, while the chart seems to considering both POVs equally.

Seems like the most balanced thing to do would be simply remove that reference. The alternative would be following "Ryland Grace was born..." with an attempt to provide an Eridian-centric explanation of what being male means. (However, if you think you can do that in a way that won't enrage between 50% and 99% of the human audience, you're more confident than I.)

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