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They’d finally managed to convince the supply chief to provision enough supplies to ensure they’d have a reasonable chance of making it across the wastelands. As long as the anti-grav units held out, at least, since replacement parts were more and more scarce every year.

Star Trek Technobabble vs. Magic

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So in last week’s Star Trek: Discovery, the ship got a major upgrade (in just three weeks). What we’ve seen so far includes programmable matter bridge and spore drive interfaces, detached nacelles, and even (though not yet seen on screen) holodecks.

Discovery 1031-A

Today I noticed one thing in the new promo pic (embedded above) that I hadn’t noticed while watching the episode: apparently the four corridors connecting the saucer’s inner section to its outer ring have been removed. Here’s a top view of the original design for comparison.

Discovery 1031

This seems like a really odd design decision to me. Before, while getting from the inner to outer sections may not have been super convenient if on foot and not using a turbolift (especially given the size difference between the Disco and any non-Abramsverse version of the Enterprise…and geez, I hadn’t realized just how huge all the Disco ships were), at least if it needed to be done they wouldn’t have had to go more than a quarter of the way around the gap. And there must be times when a turbolift isn’t practical — for instance, moving material, supplies, machinery, or other such things too large to fit in a turbolift around the ship.

I guess it all relies on everyone using those fancy new site-to-site personal transporters embedded in the new badges. But what if they’re not wearing a badge (taken off, fallen off, forcibly removed, etc.)? What if something goes wrong and the transporter system isn’t working properly (which, I know, never happens in Star Trek, but allow it for the sake of argument)? Now the only way to get from the inner ring to the outer ring is to take the primary corridor at the back of the inner ring towards the body of the ship, and then go around the outer ring to your destination. I just hope they don’t have to go from a point on the front of the inner ring to the front of the outer ring! Heck, now I wonder how hard it would be to estimate just how far that distance actually is….

Anyway. It looks cool, sure. But there are practicality considerations.

In a similar vein, how is maintenance done on those fancy new detached nacelles? In our first glimpse, it looked like they can be attached to the body of the ship, and were in the process of detaching in the shot, but what if something goes wrong while they’re detached?

One of the things I absolutely loved about Star Trek when I was a kid, and part of what has always fascinated me about it, was how real everything felt. Even fantastical elements, like the warp drive or transporters, always felt like there could be real, logical science behind them. And obviously, I’m not the only one who was drawn to this part of Trek, as I wouldn’t have all these Star Trek technical manuals and blueprints on my shelves if there weren’t enough of a market for them to get them published in the first place.

Trek Manuals and Blueprints

But so much of modern Trek (both Abramsverse and Discovery) seems to fall into the hand-wavey, might as well be magic, “because it looks cool” school of thought that breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Programmable matter I’m fine with — I want to know more about it, sure, but so far, I’m cool with how they’ve presented it. Detached nacelles (and other ship parts) could really use some serious work on defining what makes them desirable, possible, and accounting for practical considerations. We’ve seen lots of equipment, from space suits to prisoner anonymity hoods to asteroid-catching gravity platforms that just seem to fold open and create matter out of nothing — how is that explained? Where are all these fold-away pieces being stored when they’re not in use? Specifically regarding the asteroid-catching gravity platform, how do you get that much matter and mass into a suitcase that a human can carry around when it’s not in use?

And sure, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic“, and sure, we’ve jumped another 900-some years into the future, and yes, we’ve just been introduced to these things, so there’s still plenty of time to develop the technobabble to justify them (or write scenes and scripts that deal with the situations outlined above). And, of course, these are modern shows, and I in no way expect them to be slavishly beholden to the set designs and special effects of the 1960s or 1980s.

But for me, at least, they’re really dancing on the line of believable technology vs. magic. And going too far towards magic is very likely to break a fundamental part of what has defined Trek for me for my entire life.

On This Day: Nov 24

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging tomorrow, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on November 24th

  • 2024
    • Gruber: If I never see it, I don’t care. Despite many people whose opinions he says he respects refusing to support Substack because of their refusal to deplatform Nazis, _he_ hasn't personally seen stuff like this, so he doesn't care. ➡
  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 206 Wrapped a bunch of presents for a family for the annual giving tree program at work. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • Happy Anniversary, D.B. Cooper! From The Stranger: The 10 Weirdest Revelations from the FBI Files on D.B. Cooper for the 50th Anniversary of His Escape. Personally, I still subscribe to the Don Draper is D.B. Cooper theory, even if it was debunked by the Mad Men series creator. ➡
  • 2020
    • They’d finally managed to convince the supply chief to provision enough supplies to ensure they’d have a reasonable chance of making it across the wastelands. As long as the anti-grav units held out, at least, since replacement parts were more and more scarce every year. ➡
    • Star Trek Technobabble vs. Magic Too much of modern Trek seems to be resorting to prioritizing 'cool' over 'believable extrapolations' in the design aesthetic. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 24 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 24 ➡
  • 2019
    • “I’m sorry,” she said, blinking to hold back tears. “I’ll miss you, but…well, people judge us by the company we keep, and I can’t be seen with you anymore.” She backed slowly away, watching carefully for any tentacles trying to keep her from leaving. Microblogvember: company ➡
  • 2017
    • Cleaned up a bit for the big Thanksgiving dinner get together. ➡
  • 2016
    • Mmmm…Thanksgiving dinner! Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, rolls, cranberry sauce, and jello salad. Plus pumpkin pie for desert (in a bit, when we have room for it). Perfect! ➡
    • Book forty-nine of 2016: Uhura’s Song, by Janet Kagan. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (329/366) #startrek #tos ➡
    • A Thanksgiving Prayer Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams. ➡
  • 2015
    • Our first good snow of the season. Started overnight, still coming down quite nicely! ➡
  • 2014
    • Came home to find feminist inclusive smut in my mailbox! #smutpeddler @iron_spike ➡
    • In the low light at night, the seed pods from the trees look like giant alien slugs. Or maybe it’s the other way ’round? ;) ➡
  • 2013
    • Sounds From the Lost Abbey 01 Back in February, I took up a challenge from one of my friends to create a mix based around songs that I'd have played at the Lost Abbey, during the mid- to late-1990s. Here's the first of quite a few to come! ➡
  • 2007
    • Meme: The ’80’s Movie Scientist Test I'm Jordan Cochran, the adorable fast-talking GIRL scientist of all things. While she may not be up there with the other super-geniuses of the '80s, her awesome mechanical aptitude and geek-girl cuteness have made her the sweetheart of nerds for over 20 years. ➡
  • 2006
    • I sense a trend… Not at all a normal Seattle forecast, but this hasn't exactly been a normal Seattle November, either. Kinda fun to see what might happen as the week goes by! ➡
    • Black Friday Morn So now, here I am at five in the morning, trying to shake off a turkey coma so I can go deal with the craziest of the Black Friday shoppers. ➡
  • 2005
  • 2004
    • Four Years While I'd been keeping hand-updated websites since '95 or so, November 25th, 2000 marked my first foray into using a software engine to keep track of the random rambling I occasional put up on my website, starting me stumbling into the world of weblogging. ➡
    • Nomanisan Island I hadn't picked up on this before, but the name of island where Syndrome has his evil lair in The Incredibles is 'Nomanisan.' ➡
  • 2003
    • Three Years Today marks my three-year anniversary of weblogging. I've highlighted a few posts that I find notable or especially worth visiting for one reason or another. ➡
    • Fasten your seatbelts! If you live in the Seattle/Portland/Pacific Northwest -- or Japan -- you might want to think about moving. At least, think about it if you have plans to be in the area in about 200 years. ;) ➡
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The best part of being a bounty hunter was the chase, pursuing prey across planets and star systems, using every trick she could until she ran them to ground. The worst part was the time after the capture, when there was nothing to fill the days as she waited for a new contract.

Of Goth Diversity

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From Gothic Charm School:

Let’s bring back the “creature” in Creature of Darkness. Fuck flattering. Let’s all swamp our respective social media accounts with true photos of the goth subculture: we aren’t all thin, young, pretty (which mainstream culture genders as feminine presenting), white. We don’t all have perfect makeup, perfectly styled hair or wigs, and immaculate clothes from goth brands. We don’t have to be hot, we don’t have to be conventionally attractive. We have to be ourselves. Because being true to ourselves is an act of rebellion.

The Lady of the Manners would REALLY like to see photos of goths who don’t fit the stereotypical gloom cookie mold: BIPOC, plus-size, older folks, trans*, non-binary, everyone. Let’s show the diversity in the subculture. That way the next time someone says they’re not pretty enough to join us in the gloom, we can point them to a tag and say “here we are, and you are welcome to lurk with us”.

Co-signed (with the recognition that I am thin, white, and generally within conventional masculine beauty standards). I’m certainly not as young as I once was, never was much with makeup (simply never explored it) or styled hair (mine was far too curly and unruly), and aside from my more recently curated collection of kilts, never really pursued goth fashion beyond black t-shirts, black jeans or cargo shorts, and black Doc Martens or similar stompyboots.

There’s a lot more to the goth culture than what floats to the top of the algorithmically curated feeds. And you’re all “pretty enough” to be goth.

On This Day: Nov 23

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 29 posts previously published on November 23rd

  • 2025
  • 2023
  • 2021
    • I’ve been neglecting my blog for a while, and have just added a number of (backdated) posts, but there’s one particularly important item of note: I’m about to start a new job as Program Manager for Accessible Technology at Highline College. Looking forward to this new adventure! ➡
    • 📚 47/2021: Spartacus by Terry Mancour ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🖖🏻 ➡
  • 2020
    • The best part of being a bounty hunter was the chase, pursuing prey across planets and star systems, using every trick she could until she ran them to ground. The worst part was the time after the capture, when there was nothing to fill the days as she waited for a new contract. ➡
    • Of Goth Diversity Let’s bring back the 'creature' in Creature of Darkness. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 23 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 23 ➡
  • 2019
    • The aliens had studied us long enough to be able to use what we perceived as a woebegone appearance to their advantage, preying on our sympathies and our desire to help. It was far too late when we discovered how our better natures had doomed us all. Microblogvember: woebegone ➡
    • 📚 fifty-four of 2019: The Sundered, by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Captain Sulu and the crew of the Excelsior mix it up with Tholians and a mysterious new race with ties to Earth. A good, easy bit of fluff to spend a quiet day reading. 🖖 ➡
    • 📚 fifty-three of 2019: Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Not bad, and I enjoyed the sexual politics, but not my thing. This is definitely (mostly) in the “life in medieval Europe” style of fantasy, which I’m less enamored of than more fantastical fantasy. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-one of 2018: Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread, by Chuck Palahniuk. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
    • Book fifty of 2018: The Mask of Cthulhu, by August Derleth. ⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • I don’t have to go to work tomorrow! Or the day after! Or the day after that! Or the day after that! (328/366) ➡
    • We got a two-pack of “grow zombies” (the little toys you put in water so they get bigger) for Halloween, so one went in the water while one stayed dry. After about a month, here’s the end result! ➡
    • And…another Snapchat filter as penance. Good thing we’re approaching the end of the year, and the end of this project! (327/366) ➡
    • Being feminist is not a shield against criticism I’m far from perfect; I can, do, and will make mistakes; and when I do, I need to own up to them and try to avoid doing so in the future. ➡
  • 2007
    • EstroBlaster! Apparently, I'm a 50-something gun-toting impotent Republican. ➡
  • 2005
    • Lost s02e08: Collision Scribbled notes while watching tonight's episode of Lost. Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to... ➡
    • Buying a camera? Oh, by the way...on the off chance that any of my Seattle-area readers are considering or planning on buying a camera this holiday season, I'd love you forever if you came by the Kit's Cameras store in the Northgate Mall while I'm working. ➡
    • Top 20 Geek Novels The Guardian UK ran a survey voting for the top 20 geek novels written since 1932, and in 'net meme tradition, here's the list with those I've read in bold. 13 out of 20...65%. Not bad, but I could do better. Time to add to the ever-growing reading list! ➡
    • Bush targets Al-Jazeera for bombing President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a 'Top Secret' No 10 memo reveals. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • FBI monitoring antiwar protests The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum. ➡
    • CSS Hints and Tips Dave Shea at Mezzoblue is working on a CSS Crib Sheet/Best Practices/hints and tips post. Lots of good information and suggestions in those posts for writing good, clean CSS. ➡
    • Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Special Extended Edition) First off, and most simply, if you're a fan of the series, there's no question about it. This is a must-buy DVD (as is, incidentally, the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). Feel free to stop reading this and just go buy it. ➡
    • The biggest cause of failure is success What if Google set up an agreement with hosting sites in which, in order to offset the cost of bandwidth spikes, Google AdSense ads could be (semi-)automatically added to a site when they reached a certain bandwidth point? ➡
  • 2001
    • (Day after) Thanksgiving, Part 2 There are probably many other things and people that I should add to this list, but this will do for now. This Thanksgiving season, those are the things I value the most. It's a day late -- but Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. ➡
    • (Day after) Thanksgiving, Part 1 (I'd mentioned earlier that I had two posts planned for Thanksgiving. I didn't get around to putting them up Thanksgiving day, so they go up today, instead.) A Thanksgiving Prayer, by William S. Burroughs... ➡
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📚 forty-six of 2020: The Eyes of the Beholders by A.C. Crispin ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖

Nice to see an encounter with something so alien so to be literally incomprehensible. A bit heavy on references to TNG episodes to prove that the author watched the show; otherwise good.

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.11.21

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Week thirty-four of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing regular Twitch broadcasts, now on Saturday afternoons. These are the results. Anything goes.

Read more

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After weeks of trudging through the monotony of desolate wilderness, it was startlingly obvious when their journey was nearing its end. Not just a line on a map, the border was actually a glimmering line in the air, beyond which flowering plants and tall trees grew once more.

On This Day: Nov 22

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 20 posts previously published on November 22nd

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2020
    • 📚 forty-six of 2020: The Eyes of the Beholders by A.C. Crispin ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖 Nice to see an encounter with something so alien so to be literally incomprehensible. A bit heavy on references to TNG episodes to prove that the author watched the show; otherwise good. ➡
    • Difficult Listening Hour 2020.11.21 Week thirty-four of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. ➡
    • After weeks of trudging through the monotony of desolate wilderness, it was startlingly obvious when their journey was nearing its end. Not just a line on a map, the border was actually a glimmering line in the air, beyond which flowering plants and tall trees grew once more. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 22 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 22 ➡
  • 2019
    • Her favorite place on the ship was at the end of a little-traveled corridor one deck above Engineering. There was a notch in the corridor wall she just fit into, where she could close her eyes and feel the hum of the ship’s engines vibrating through her. Microblogvember: hum ➡
  • 2018
    • Thanksgiving 2018 First off, and most importantly: Happy Thanksgiving to you if you celebrate; if you don't, I hope you have a pleasant day doing whatever you do. ➡
    • Book forty-nine of 2018: IKS Gorkon: Honor Bound, by Keith R. A. DeCandido. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
  • 2011
    • Essentially Commentary on reactions to the UC Davis pepper-spray incident, in four parts. ➡
  • 2007
  • 2005
    • Feeds are tagged too It's a good thing I subscribe to my own RSS feeds -- the 'full content' feed and the 'full content with comments' feed have both been updated to include the new tag support. Sorry about the mass-refresh in your RSS readers if you get hit with it. ➡
    • Cookies like Novocaine The _only_ Martha Stewart you'll ever need to watch is the one where her guest star...is Cookie Monster. ➡
  • 2004
    • 23rd Psalm (2004 version) Bush is my shepherd, I shall be in want. ➡
    • Versus It seems that we're living in a world where differences are all anybody sees anymore. Nobody's actually listening to what anyone else has to say -- we're all so sure that we're _right_ and everyone else is _wrong_, too busy banging our shoes on the table to really listen to anyone else. ➡
    • Genefilter Fun toy time: Genefilter. Choose a MeFi user and Genefilter will use that user's posts and comments to randomly generate a comment. Amusing results soon follow… ➡
  • 2003
  • 2002
    • NyQuil yay! NyQuil — the sneezing, sniffling, coughing, aching, 'How the hell did I wake up on the kitchen floor?' medicine! ➡