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From: rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Star Trek and Reality
Message-ID: <290@ihlts.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Dec-83 10:18:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ihlts.290
Posted: Fri Dec 16 10:18:48 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Dec-83 08:30:46 EST
References: <335@rdin.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il
Lines: 51


	The extent to which some people go to explain
	the goings on in Star Trek episodes is unreal.
	I can only hope that all of that imagination
	is also being put to some productive use!
	You know as well as I that Walter Koenig was
	on vacation or something when Space Seed was made.

What's unreal about it?  Do you think that these people (I suppose I am one)
cannot tell reality from fiction?  It's a pleasant pastime, it's challenging
and enjoyable.  It does have productive use; imagination, like most abilities,
atrophies if not exercised.  This can be critical to artists and theoretical
scientists.  It has also had the added benefit of making Star Trek the most
documented fictional universe ever conceived.  Thousand of Trek fans over close
to two decades now have contributed creative thought to make Star Trek more
believable than anyone would have thought possible.  The producers of the
Star Trek movies have benefited from this effort in that some of these details
have helped in story development.  This in turn makes Star Trek ever more so
believable and makes being a Trek fan that much more enjoyable.  And Walter
Koenig wasn't on vacation--"Space Seed" aired about two-thirds of the way
through the first season, that is about February, 1967.  Chekov appeared in
the second season, the first episode of which aired in September, 1967.

				. . . . But because
	it's ST, it has to be perfect, right?  Even real
	life isn't as clean cut and technical as you
	guys make out the Star Trek universe to be.

You're right, Star Trek is more "technical" than real life.  I do not think
there is a single successful fiction writer who would say that it could be
any other way.  Fiction HAS to be "better" than real life if it is to work.

					. . . . but you
	have to realize that at some point you can make
	a show or movie just so technically perfect that
	nobody but nuclear engineers would enjoy it.

	Robert Perlberg
	philabs!rdin!rdin2!perl

I disagree.  As long as you do not sacrifice the character development, story,
or any of the other central trappings of fiction, I do not think that making
the story consistent detracts from the experience at all.  I believe it adds
to it.  And as far as your slur on nuclear engineers, you are fortunate you
didn't make that comment on net.physics--if you had, you wouldn't have gotten
flamed at, you would've been irradiated.

Another direct order from the bridge of the U.S.S. Garp,
-- 
        Roger Noe            UUCP:  ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
                             ARPA:  ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe@berkeley