# Star Trek...  military nuttiness...



## jks9199

Spurred by the comments about the serious military disconnects in the Star Trek franchise...  I was thinking...

The starship Enterprise (in just about every version!) must have some of the best deputy department heads in the universe!  I mean, look at it... The captain's popping off the ship every time you turn around, often taking department heads and other bridge crew with him.  Leaving the ship in the hands of the various deputy heads...  I mean, didn't Kirk, Picard, et al. have captainy duties, like making sure paychecks got cut, supplies ordered, handling discipline and captain's mast...

So -- anybody else got any mysteries about the Enterprise to discuss?


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## Big Don

One word:
Toilets


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## Bob Hubbard

Big Don said:


> One word:
> Toilets



The one on the bridge is behind the main view screen.


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## Carol

Those poor red shirts 


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## Cyriacus

Ive noticed something once or twice. Why do the staff keep changing, even when theyre a long way away from Federation planets? The transporter chief gets changed, the engineers get changed, the security teams get changed... Its like they have spare staff members curled up in the jeffries tubes, just waiting.


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## DennisBreene

Cyriacus said:


> Ive noticed something once or twice. Why do the staff keep changing, even when theyre a long way away from Federation planets? The transporter chief gets changed, the engineers get changed, the security teams get changed... Its like they have spare staff members curled up in the jeffries tubes, just waiting.



Scotty is just that good at long range transportation. And if you were a crew member on a ship with all that craziness, wouldn't you want to be reassigned? Sci Fi is wonderful. Where else can you drop all pretext of rationality and create a non-military swash buckling explorer/adventurer crew that manages to win every battle they're not supposed to have, and eat popcorn and watch it in 3D.  Star Trek has never been about the real world. It is pure, unadulterated escapism, without apologies.


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## Mauthos

The captain cutting paychecks? Ordering stock etc.  One word - Delegation


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## grumpywolfman

No fuses. Every time there's a power surge on the Enterprise the various stations and consoles explode in a shower of sparks and throw their seatbelt-less operators over the Captain's head.


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## Cyriacus

DennisBreene said:


> Scotty is just that good at long range transportation. And if you were a crew member on a ship with all that craziness, wouldn't you want to be reassigned? Sci Fi is wonderful. Where else can you drop all pretext of rationality and create a non-military swash buckling explorer/adventurer crew that manages to win every battle they're not supposed to have, and eat popcorn and watch it in 3D.  Star Trek has never been about the real world. It is pure, unadulterated escapism, without apologies.



See now, i never thought about it that way! Well, the being reassigned part. The rest is pretty much what went through my head the first time i watched it. %-}


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## Bob Hubbard

The redo added in self deploying seat belts.  Those are cool.


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## Tgace

Their ships are WAY too roomy. In the real world warships are about jamming as much as you can into as little space as possible. Wasted space requires energy to move around.


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## Bob Hubbard

Tgace said:


> Their ships are WAY too roomy. In the real world warships are about jamming as much as you can into as little space as possible. Wasted space requires energy to move around.



I think that's true of most sci fi series. I mean look at both Galactica series. You could play football in their launch bays. 

My issue with the new Trek is their engine rooms look like a plumbing nightmare. That and the lens flare, lol.


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## Tgace

And you rarely see "rates" swabbing decks...doing routine maint....etc. most people are either just standing around or walking down a corridor.

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## jks9199

Tgace said:


> And you rarely see "rates" swabbing decks...doing routine maint....etc. most people are either just standing around or walking down a corridor.
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk 2



In TOS, especially, you saw almost nobody who wasn't an officer, for that matter.  Maybe some odd folks in engineering jumpsuits or something like that, but pretty much everyone had at least ensign's stripes...


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## Bob Hubbard

jks9199 said:


> In TOS, especially, you saw almost nobody who wasn't an officer, for that matter.  Maybe some odd folks in engineering jumpsuits or something like that, but pretty much everyone had at least ensign's stripes...



Well, lowest rank on a Klingon ship is ensign.  Well, other than 'cadet'. 
And in TWOK we saw lots of Star Fleet cadets...Scotty's nephew for example.


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## Steve

This was something I never noticed until it was pointed out in this video:






Is it something unique to the Federation Star Ship that no chair will have a back too high for Commander Riker to swing his leg over?


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## jks9199

Bob Hubbard said:


> Well, lowest rank on a Klingon ship is ensign.  Well, other than 'cadet'.
> And in TWOK we saw lots of Star Fleet cadets...Scotty's nephew for example.



At that point, _Enterprise_ was a cadet training vessel which then-Admiral Kirk pressed into active service.  The nearest modern comparison I'm familiar with is the USCGC Eagle.


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## Tgace

Besides filling in the Captain's Log...does a Federation Captain have ANY administrative paperwork to do? 

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## Makalakumu

Tgace said:


> Besides filling in the Captain's Log...does a Federation Captain have ANY administrative paperwork to do?
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2



It's so far in the future that government doesn't have bureaucracy....


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## jks9199

Tgace said:


> Besides filling in the Captain's Log...does a Federation Captain have ANY administrative paperwork to do?
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2


Well... Kirk was always signing those "clipboards" that various yeomen brought him.  (Anybody remember a guy delivering one?  I think Avery Brooks did when then messed with Trouble with Tribbles in DS9... but that doesn't really count.)


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## Bob Hubbard

Kirk signed a lot of reports in TOS, I recall a 'fuel consumption report' at least once.  The main cast were the department heads with Spock as both 1st and Science officer, McCoy as CMO, Scotty as CE. Uhura was head of Communications and I believe Sulu was head of Weapons. There were a rotation of different security chiefs, Thompson was one named.  All of them had #2's as well, more often seen in the novels than episodes.

Memory Alpha lists these:


Commanding officer
Executive officer
Second officer
Third officer
Chief communications officer
Chief science officer
Chief medical officer
Chief helmsman
Chief navigator
Flight controller
Chief engineer
Head counselor
Chief tactical officer
Security chief
Chief operations officer
Strategic operations officer
Intelligence officer
Chief of operations
Head stellar cartographer


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## jks9199

As a bit of an aside, in naval command structures, especially with earlier, sailing era ships with far fewer officers than most naval ships today, for a midshipman to find himself in command after a catastrophic incident (usually an attack) takes out the command staff.  See William Sitgreaves Cox for one example of a massive collapse in the chain of command.  The Seafort Saga by David Feintuch begins with *Midshipman's Hope* which shows another way that a naval command can break down.  It's important to recognize that, in an era with much weaker and slower communication, a ship's commander had to have very wide authority and independence of action, and that was part of Roddenberry's vision for *Star Trek*.


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## Bob Hubbard

Peeve of mine:
STTOS Enterprise has 430 crew.  The STAR Enterprise is 3x as big and has a crew of 1,100.


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## Steve

Bob Hubbard said:


> Peeve of mine:
> STTOS Enterprise has 430 crew.  The STAR Enterprise is 3x as big and has a crew of 1,100.


Could you give me a clue what you are talking about? STOS, STTOS, STAR...  I'm lost, buddy!  Maybe a quick rundown of acronym/initialisms being used for those of us who are not members of the Federation of Planets.


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## Sukerkin

Well STTOS = Star Trek The Original Series.  

STAR ... that one is new on me.  Star Trek After Roddenberry perhaps?


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## Bob Hubbard

Steve said:


> Could you give me a clue what you are talking about? STOS, STTOS, STAR...  I'm lost, buddy!  Maybe a quick rundown of acronym/initialisms being used for those of us who are not members of the Federation of Planets.



TOS - The Original Series
TAS - The Animated Series
TNG - The Next Generation
DS9 - Deep Space 9
VOY - Voyager
ENT - Enterprise
AU or AR - Alternate Universe / Reality referencing the 2009 Abrams reboot of the franchise.

Often listed with ST (Star Trek) in front of them as in STTOS

More here http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/database/glossary.htm#s


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## Steve

Bob Hubbard said:


> TOS - The Original Series
> TAS - The Animated Series
> TNG - The Next Generation
> DS9 - Deep Space 9
> VOY - Voyager
> ENT - Enterprise
> AU or AR - Alternate Universe / Reality referencing the 2009 Abrams reboot of the franchise.
> 
> Often listed with ST (Star Trek) in front of them as in STTOS
> 
> More here http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/database/glossary.htm#s


Now translate all that into Klingon and show us what geekiness REALLY looks like!


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## Drose427

Someone brought up toilets....in Star Trek: Enterprise that question was answered....All waste is re-purposed aboard the enterprise.....making it a very unsanitary ship


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## Bob Hubbard

Drose427 said:


> Someone brought up toilets....in Star Trek: Enterprise that question was answered....All waste is re-purposed aboard the enterprise.....making it a very unsanitary ship



I don't consider Enterprise real Trek as it contradicted a lot of accepted canon.   
I do however like it for 2 things - Jolene Balock and an excellent Mirror Universe episode.
Sadly more the later.... LOL


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## Tgace

Ive always raised a brow at the engagement ranges between ships...all of interstellar space and ships are crashing into each other?

And there never seems to be an understandable classification of warships...crusier, corvette, battleship, destroyer etc. in most sci fi movies/television. They may CALL them by different names but you seldom notice any real difference in tactics or employment.

I recently read a military sci-fi novel that compared space warfare more to submarine tactics than surface fleet tactics. Ships were designed to be dark/light absorbing with no exterior running lights...tactics included keeping heat and radiation signatures hidden from enemy sensors. Engagements were about sensor contacts from long range and engaging the enemy at range from ambush and with surprise.



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## Bob Hubbard

Star Trek did most encounters at range, but the tactics were more akin to surface ships.  Star Wars, BattleStar Galactica (original and remake), and Babylon 5 were more based around carrier warfare concepts.  B5 and the Galactica remake put effort into 'space physics' and 3 dimensional tactics.

Star Wars seems the most developed when it comes to differentiation of the ship classes. However, you're not going to find much in depth in the actual video.  You need to refer to the support material both official and fan based to get 'in depth'.

Start here: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/index-starships.htm


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## jks9199

Gordon Dickson actually did a reasonable job about describing space combat.  I think it was in *Dorsai!*, or maybe *Tactics of Mistake*.  Bottom line... ships maneuvering around, waiting to see if the missiles fired are going to hit or if various countermeasures worked, with survival pretty much either all the way, or not at all.  Not many wounded, 'cause if something hit the ship hard enough to would the crew, odds were that they'd be dead.  Even air-to-air combat today is much less like a dogfight... much of it takes place over the horizon and before the planes even really see each other.  I mean, really, two jets closing on each other at several hundred miles per hour each... they ain't swooping around each other.

I watched Abrams's *Star Trek* reboot today for fun...  And, yeah, I gotta side with the "no way!" votes on making Kirk a captain straight out of the academy like that.  A pat on the back, a medal... and maybe a position as a lieutenant jg not ensign.   Also...  How freakin' huge is that newly designed Enterprise, anyway?  Those Star Fleet ships seem to have bays bigger than some sizable warehouses!


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## Bob Hubbard

jks9199 said:


> Gordon Dickson actually did a reasonable job about describing space combat.  I think it was in *Dorsai!*, or maybe *Tactics of Mistake*.  Bottom line... ships maneuvering around, waiting to see if the missiles fired are going to hit or if various countermeasures worked, with survival pretty much either all the way, or not at all.  Not many wounded, 'cause if something hit the ship hard enough to would the crew, odds were that they'd be dead.  Even air-to-air combat today is much less like a dogfight... much of it takes place over the horizon and before the planes even really see each other.  I mean, really, two jets closing on each other at several hundred miles per hour each... they ain't swooping around each other.
> 
> I watched Abrams's *Star Trek* reboot today for fun...  And, yeah, I gotta side with the "no way!" votes on making Kirk a captain straight out of the academy like that.  A pat on the back, a medal... and maybe a position as a lieutenant jg not ensign.   Also...  How freakin' huge is that newly designed Enterprise, anyway?  Those Star Fleet ships seem to have bays bigger than some sizable warehouses!



Kirk in the original was the youngest captain, after over a decade working his way up the ranks.  In the reboot, he gets the center seat then loses it again, and has to earn it again.  But, it's as plausible as a cadet on his first cruise saving the USS Gerald Ford and being made captain after debriefing.

As to the size of the reboot ship.....it's huge.

http://gizmodo.com/5253324/how-big-is-the-new-enterprise-compared-to-the-old-one


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## Tgace

Exactly...when I say "at range"...I'm talking interstellar range. I read a military sci fi story many years ago that described the use of missiles that were designed to take years to reach their targets...it was all about a missiles stealth, detection avoidance and countermeasures. 

I also notice how ships are always oriented to each other like ships on the surface..in actuallity ships would present all sorts of varied orientations to each other.


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## Tgace

And what....no Marines?

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## jks9199

Couple other things springing to mind...

Space battles & lasers.  We've got ships traveling at multiples of the speed of light, shooting light beams at each other?  (I know, that's part of the justification in the Trek universe for the photon torpedoes, though they never really seemed to hold fast to that rule...)

In Abrams's movie...  Kirk & Sulu are falling over Vulcan.  Chekhov sprints from the bridge to a transporter room, managing to take over & lock onto them before they hit the ground?  How high up were they?  How fast is Chekhov, anyway?


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## Big Don

Tgace said:


> I recently read a military sci-fi novel that compared space warfare more to submarine tactics than surface fleet tactics. Ships were designed to be dark/light absorbing with no exterior running lights...tactics included keeping heat and radiation signatures hidden from enemy sensors. Engagements were about sensor contacts from long range and engaging the enemy at range from ambush and with surprise.
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2



Oh HELL no! You did not just plug a novel and not give the title and author... 
What were you thinking?


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## Tgace

Big Don said:


> Oh HELL no! You did not just plug a novel and not give the title and author...
> What were you thinking?



Lol...

 To Honor You Call Us A Novel of Interstellar War Book One of the Man of War Trilogy by H. Paul Honsinger and Harvey G. Phillips

Really good for an independent offering on Amazon. Read the first two and awaiting the third.

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## arnisador

jks9199 said:


> In Abrams's movie...  Kirk & Sulu are falling over Vulcan.  Chekhov sprints from the bridge to a transporter room, managing to take over & lock onto them before they hit the ground?  How high up were they?  How fast is Chekhov, anyway?



And where did he teleport their momentum to?


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## DennisBreene

Drose427 said:


> Someone brought up toilets....in Star Trek: Enterprise that question was answered....All waste is re-purposed aboard the enterprise.....making it a very unsanitary ship


I believe plumbing was also mentioned in the tribble episode TOS.


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## DennisBreene

jks9199 said:


> Couple other things springing to mind...
> 
> Space battles & lasers.  We've got ships traveling at multiples of the speed of light, shooting light beams at each other?  (I know, that's part of the justification in the Trek universe for the photon torpedoes, though they never really seemed to hold fast to that rule...)


Didn't they have to drop out of warp drive to fire?


> In Abrams's movie...  Kirk & Sulu are falling over Vulcan.  Chekhov sprints from the bridge to a transporter room, managing to take over & lock onto them before they hit the ground?  How high up were they?  How fast is Chekhov, anyway?


 The easy answer is you make up some sort of inertial dampener; evolved from the tractor beam.


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## Dirty Dog

arnisador said:


> And where did he teleport their momentum to?



The same place they always teleport it to, since there is *always* going to be a huge differential between the surface and the orbiting ship. Compared to that, the difference between standing on the surface or freefalling is negligible.


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## Bob Hubbard

jks9199 said:


> Couple other things springing to mind...
> 
> Space battles & lasers.  We've got ships traveling at multiples of the speed of light, shooting light beams at each other?  (I know, that's part of the justification in the Trek universe for the photon torpedoes, though they never really seemed to hold fast to that rule...)
> 
> In Abrams's movie...  Kirk & Sulu are falling over Vulcan.  Chekhov sprints from the bridge to a transporter room, managing to take over & lock onto them before they hit the ground?  How high up were they?  How fast is Chekhov, anyway?



http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Pavel_Chekov_(alternate_reality)



> _According to his dossier at the official Star Trek movie website, Chekov was top of his class in stellar cartography and transporter theory, an expert in advanced theoretical physics, and the youngest cadet in history to win the Starfleet Academy marathon. _


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## Bob Hubbard

Tgace said:


> And what....no Marines?
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2



Klingon Marines names usually start with M.  M'altz from ST3 was probably the ships marine officer.
Klingon ships tend to have compliments of Marines for boarding actions.  Babylon 5 had an episode or 2 that also involved them.  I believe the redo Galactica series had them as well.

We can also talk mercs, and Hammer's Slammers had the best big toys.


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## Tgace

I'm a fan of Drakes Lt. Leary series.....

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## Bob Hubbard

arnisador said:


> And where did he teleport their momentum to?




[h=1]4 Science Lessons from the New Star Trek Movie[/h]http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/fact-vs-fiction/4316608



Transporters compensate for motion, inertia, and the differences in little things like planet rotations. If they didn't, people would go splat as soon as they were done sparkling.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceF...trek_does_a_transporter_arrest_all_motion_or/


A more important question is, are you still alive after transporting?  
​


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## Tgace

Bob Hubbard said:


> Klingon Marines names usually start with M.  M'altz from ST3 was probably the ships marine officer.
> Klingon ships tend to have compliments of Marines for boarding actions.  Babylon 5 had an episode or 2 that also involved them.  I believe the redo Galactica series had them as well.
> 
> We can also talk mercs, and Hammer's Slammers had the best big toys.



I know why they do it, but as was mentioned upthread, the Captain and all the senior command (and the random red shirts of course) always beaming down is a bit of a military stretch. 

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## Big Don

No restrooms, no heads, no latrines, not even crappers...


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## DennisBreene

Tgace said:


> I know why they do it, but as was mentioned upthread, the Captain and all the senior command (and the random red shirts of course) always beaming down is a bit of a military stretch.
> 
> Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2


Transporters were a big problem for the writers of TOS.  In theory, transporters would get the characters out of a jam every time. They had to contrive reasons why the transporters would fail so that they could leave the command element on planet long enough to have a story.  They were also thorough enough in their development that they assigned a purpose for  every button on the console so that the characters motions would not be random.  They actually developed the Klingon language so that dialogue would have a natural flow and be consistent. So for all the quasi-science; they had a few good concepts with regards to producing a show with a consistent internal reality.  There was one anecdote about a new director telling George Takai to push a certain button on the console during a scene. Takai kept refusing to do it and the exasperated director finally asked him why and Takai's response was "If I push that button, I'll blow up the Enterprise!".  For a show with very limited production values, they made amazing strides in special effects and TV Sci Fi production. Source; "The Making of Star Trek"


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## jks9199

Gee... but that still doesn't list world class sprinter in Chekov's dossier!


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## Bob Hubbard

The TOS Enterprise had several transporter rooms and at least 1 was located close to the bridge to facilitate emergency beam offs of the crew.. I can't imagine the new one not having multiples either.  He wouldn't have had to run far.


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## jks9199

DennisBreene said:


> Transporters were a big problem for the writers of TOS.  In theory, transporters would get the characters out of a jam every time. They had to contrive reasons why the transporters would fail so that they could leave the command element on planet long enough to have a story.  They were also thorough enough in their development that they assigned a purpose for  every button on the console so that the characters motions would not be random.  They actually developed the Klingon language so that dialogue would have a natural flow and be consistent. So for all the quasi-science; they had a few good concepts with regards to producing a show with a consistent internal reality.  There was one anecdote about a new director telling George Takai to push a certain button on the console during a scene. Takai kept refusing to do it and the exasperated director finally asked him why and Takai's response was "If I push that button, I'll blow up the Enterprise!".  For a show with very limited production values, they made amazing strides in special effects and TV Sci Fi production. Source; "The Making of Star Trek"



I've heard a story that they actually got contacted about some gadget or other (maybe the diagnostic bed) demanding that they identify the person who leaked the experimental design!  And a building engineer wanted to know the secret to the sliding doors that opened just right.  Unfortunately, for that one...  They had to fess up that their "secret" was a guy with a string out of camera!


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## DennisBreene

jks9199 said:


> I've heard a story that they actually got contacted about some gadget or other (maybe the diagnostic bed) demanding that they identify the person who leaked the experimental design!  And a building engineer wanted to know the secret to the sliding doors that opened just right.  Unfortunately, for that one...  They had to fess up that their "secret" was a guy with a string out of camera!



For a series that lasted two seasons, the original Star Trek had remarkable impact.  It sparked the interest of the scientific community and they apparently had frequent technical assistance from some of the best minds of their day. When you look at some of the routine technology of today (motion detector operated doors, sinks, toilets, personal communicators that are actually small computers, mine can even do EKGs, high definition video conferencing, satellite assisted navigation, memory sticks that can be placed in a computer) I find it hard to believe that at least some of the technology didn't have it's seminal influence from the creative concepts in the show.


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## Bob Hubbard

It was 3 seasons.  You have insulted the honor of the original series! We must meet on the field of honor and duel in the traditional Trekker way!

Trivia contest while hoping the few girls at the con notice and are attracted to our nerdiness.  



(Yeah, I'm old school but can laugh at my nerdiness)


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## Sukerkin

Star Trek was an inspirational series, true enough.  Quirks and idiosyncrasies aside, it caused there to be more scientists and engineers, which is a good thing if you want a technological society .

We used to play Star Trek a lot when we were at Primary School (under eleven) and it has struck me before how the roles we took on in our games had at least some formative effects on our careers.  I used to play Kirk most of the time and it was my aim to be an officer in the Royal Navy (I got diverted from that by parental fiat but it's still what I wanted).  The chap who used to play Bones didn't go on to be a doctor but he did become a biologist.  The lad who played Spock became a physicist and the one who played Scotty did go on to be a mechanical engineer .


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## billc

What about the guy who played Red Shirt #2...what happened to him?


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## arnisador

billc said:


> What about the guy who played Red Shirt #2...what happened to him?



He went on to play Red Shirt #7, 18, and 33.


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## DennisBreene

Bob Hubbard said:


> It was 3 seasons.  You have insulted the honor of the original series! We must meet on the field of honor and duel in the traditional Trekker way!
> 
> Trivia contest while hoping the few girls at the con notice and are attracted to our nerdiness.
> 
> 
> 
> (Yeah, I'm old school but can laugh at my nerdiness)



You are correct sir. I forgot the write in campaign got them an additional season. I would concede but then I might miss the chance to impress a girl with my nerdiness :barf:


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## DennisBreene

Sukerkin said:


> Star Trek was an inspirational series, true enough.  Quirks and idiosyncrasies aside, it caused there to be more scientists and engineers, which is a good thing if you want a technological society .
> 
> We used to play Star Trek a lot when we were at Primary School (under eleven) and it has struck me before how the roles we took on in our games had at least some formative effects on our careers.  I used to play Kirk most of the time and it was my aim to be an officer in the Royal Navy (I got diverted from that by parental fiat but it's still what I wanted).  The chap who used to play Bones didn't go on to be a doctor but he did become a biologist.  The lad who played Spock became a physicist and the one who played Scotty did go on to be a mechanical engineer .



As they would say on The Next Generation- "Make it so!"


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