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From: daver@sci.UUCP (Dave Rickel)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: The World of Startrek--David Gerrold
Message-ID: <152@sci.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Mar-86 21:41:12 EST
Article-I.D.: sci.152
Posted: Sat Mar  8 21:41:12 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Mar-86 21:54:53 EST
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Organization: Silicon Compilers, Inc., San Jose, CA
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More akin to the transporter breakdowns.

Recently, one of our PBS stations has been airing a british "sf" (term is
a bit dubious--there is less science in the series than in Star Trek (or
even Dr. Who).  For instance, they seem to have no idea of what a galaxy is)
series called Blakes 7.  They also have a transporter (called, in this case,
a teleporter).  People who are supposed to be beamed up or down must wear
teleporter bracelets.  It is a bit disappointing to find out that the british
can't write any better than the americans--in every other episode (rough
statistics) the crew beams down, gets conked over the head, and has their
teleport bracelets removed.  I remember wondering when I saw the third or
fourth show (when they introduced the teleporter) how they were going to
avoid the Star Trek transporter problem.  The answer, of course, is that they
weren't--they were going to discover the problem (and the same cheap solutions)
for themselves.

What makes the thing even more annoying is that neither the intelligent nor
the paranoid crewperson has taken the obvious step of bringing along a
backup (say worn around the ankle inside their flashy boots) (and noone ever
thinks of bringing along a backup weapon, but i guess that would be cheating).

In a similar vein, the only time i remember the Enterprise personnel being
intelligent and bringing along a backup locator facility was in the Nazi
episode (Patterns of Force?), and, of course, they weren't used for that,
but to make a silly laser to blast the lock out of the cell.  By the was,
has anyone bothered calculating how much energy was produced by the laser?
I think its power source was a 40 watt or thereabouts bulb.  It was
intercepting maybe 1% of that--a .4 watt laser?  call it 400 mW.  Sounds
a bit more impressive.  How long would it take a 400 mW laser to cut through
a link on a pair of handcuffs, or to cut through a lock?  It would seem that
the beam would have to be much more concentrated than it was shown--less than
.01 mm in diameter, at a guess.  Probably much less.

Hmm.  I seem to remember something about a laser beacon in a different show.
Sound familiar?  Of course, it didn't work.


david rickel