Was Captain Kirk A Republican?

[Delvo]

Antimatter powers ships. There's nothing to say it powers planets...

In the backstage materials, antimatter is creatted in a "charge reversal device". Put matter in, add lots of energy, matter turns into antimatter. If so, then antimatter is not a fuel source so much as it is the ultimate battery. Powering anything with it results in a net loss, because you have to use something other than antimatter to power the CRD and the energy used to make it is, surely, greater than the energy you can get from your antimatter.

Yes, it's sort of like burning fossil fuels because they release what was originally solar power at a much faster rate than it was produced, and in a smaller amount of space than the plant that originally produced it. It does mean you don't get to use most of the energy that was originally absorbed by the plant and didn't make it into the form of fuel, but that's accepted. That's why everything else except warp coils used fusion instead.

The same sources that say this stuff also say that the Enterprise (D) carried an antimatter converter for emergency use, so I think it makes sense to presume the Voyager would have one as well. (It's a smaller, less powerful ship, but later and more advanced.)

 

[Seismosaurus]

Yeah.

In theory, given the tech they have, all a ship should ever really need is a huge supply of deuterium and a big stock of matter for the replicators.

If you have Deuterium you can run your CRD and produce antimatter. Antimatter and more deuterium powers your warp drive. More deuterium for your impulse engines. Power from the engines and a lot of replicator matter allows you to run the replicators, which means you can manufacture pretty much anything else.

And since the ships can scoop deuterium out of space / out of a gas giant, there should be no problem getting hold of that.

The wildcard is replicator matter. Canonically we have no idea what it is. The behind the scenes stuff says it isn't as easy s being able to turn anything into anything - for the sake of efficiency there are a bunch of different chemicals and elements in tanks, which are much easier to combine together.

So really, the only supply problem that Voyager should ever have had would be finding bulk material that would work with the replicators. And even that should really have been pretty easy stuff to obtain.

 

[Ziggurat]

So really, the only supply problem that Voyager should ever have had would be finding bulk material that would work with the replicators. And even that should really have been pretty easy stuff to obtain.

That should be mostly trivial, if they had a good starting supply. Any food stuff you should be able to reconstitute from sewage. Likewise with technology: when something breaks, you don't chuck it, you recycle it. Unless you find yourself needing a lot more of some element than you started out with (but why would you?), then energy is the only real constraint.

 

[Delvo]

Well, how many episodes did Voyager ever have in which they were running out of something they couldn't replicate?

 

[Mudcat]

Well, how many episodes did Voyager ever have in which they were running out of something they couldn't replicate?

Never watched it but probably the same amount of times Rick's people complained about running out of ammo yet never actually doing it in The Walking Dead .

 

[catsmate]

Yeah.

In theory, given the tech they have, all a ship should ever really need is a huge supply of deuterium and a big stock of matter for the replicators.

If you have Deuterium you can run your CRD and produce antimatter. Antimatter and more deuterium powers your warp drive. More deuterium for your impulse engines. Power from the engines and a lot of replicator matter allows you to run the replicators, which means you can manufacture pretty much anything else.

And since the ships can scoop deuterium out of space / out of a gas giant, there should be no problem getting hold of that.

The wildcard is replicator matter. Canonically we have no idea what it is. The behind the scenes stuff says it isn't as easy s being able to turn anything into anything - for the sake of efficiency there are a bunch of different chemicals and elements in tanks, which are much easier to combine together.

So really, the only supply problem that Voyager should ever have had would be finding bulk material that would work with the replicators. And even that should really have been pretty easy stuff to obtain.

Except fusion is maybe 0.5% efficient in mass conversion and a wildly optimistic anti-matter production system is 0.1% so you'd need a hell of a lot of deuterium. Which (sorry Bussard fans) isn't that common in space.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Danny Gallagher is the dumbass I'm referring to. Shatner is just... Shatner. I don't think conventional adjectives can adequately capture his essence.

Rainwater mixed with pure grain alcohol can't, and I've tried. *drops two more aspirin*

Well, not the entire internet.

Amen, Deacon.

Why the hell would anyone become a redshirt if they weren't getting paid?

Because chicks dig it.

 

[Mudcat]

I just remembered a Kirk quote which should have been used the moment this guy opened his pie hole.

"Here's one thing you can be sure of, mister. You can leave whatever bigotry you have in your quarters, there's no room for it on the bridge!" Doesn't sound very republicanesqe. Does it?

 

[Beerina]

Ahem, gold-pressed latinum.

But kudos to Beerina for asserting that "bushels" will still be used hundreds of years in the future. America does hate that metric *****.

Hehe I hadn't thought of that but you are probably right. "I want us to switch to Metric" won't convince one person to switch their vote (indeed they may switch the other way because of the preachy nature) but "screw you, farmers of my own state AKA 0.01% reduced subsidy" sure will!

Speaking of Kirk, in the Undiscovered Country, the Klingons AKA the Soviets, were imploding. Scotty, apparently a bleeding heart, lamented, "They're dying, sir."

Kirk: "Then let them die!"

Is that conservative? It's very strategic. Let your enemy continue to collapse, and have their former client states be quickly merged into the Free-deration. It is a "classical liberal" stance. Overturn the status quo to increase freedom.

 

[catsmate]

Did Joe Jr. still get blown up?

And as promised the info.
In the story ("The Kennedy Enterprise"):
Joseph Kennedy. Major real estate speculator from 1929 onwards but never appointed US ambassador to the UK (possibly due to divorcing Rosemary?). Moved to California, married Gloria Swanson and bought property, studios and contracts.

Joseph Kennedy Jr. By 1955 was a well known director (he survived WW2, no details) known to be competent and meticulous

John Kennedy. Actor. Lost numerous parts because of his "goddamn Massachusetts accent" (including the lead in The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe). Acted in War Of The Worlds despite hating sci-fi and North By Northwest (his only film with Hitchcock), Forbidden Planet, The Untouchables (the TV series), Camelot and The Caine Mutiny.

Robert Kennedy. Ends up running MGM. Known as a capable director and as a "ruthless S.O.B.". He saved Judy Garland. Fed the media the details of Rock Hudson's homosexuality to stop stories about John's "little peccadillos".
Directed the Star Track TV series where he fired Roddenberry, Shatner and Nimoy. Employed Dorothy Fontana as director and Donald Pleasance as Spock's replacement, an android named REM. Fontana quite three months into the "John Kennedy as Captain Jack Logan" era, as did lead writer Harlan Edison. Shatner eventually became a director.

Charlton Heston. The led in Giant after Hudson was dumped. Won an Oscar for it.

Edward Kennedy. Went "back East" and lived with Rosmary. Entered politics but never became a major figure.

Ronald Reagan "He was sort of like a right-wing Henry Fonda, only he never got the kind of parts where he could inspire an audience" didn't enter politics and is long forgotten by almost everyone. Except for those who remember him selling out his friends to HUAC while president of the SAG and fans of the Bonzo series (Bonzo Goes To College, Bonzo Goes To Hollywood, Bonzo Goes To Washington...). Starred in Ed Wood's Plan Nine From Outer Space.

The Superman and Batman films were never made.

 

[Toontown]

Captain James Kirk and his ship and crew could only have survived in a many-worlds universe. A one-off would have snuffed their singular iteration early on.

Kirk's reckless gambles would have killed them off in most branches of Everett's multiverse as well, but there would always be an infinitesimal proportion of branches in which they miraculously survive Kirk's incompetence. And an even smaller proportion in which Kirk would somehow get credit for the miraculous survival instead of being cashiered.

In fact, that is the only rational explanation for Enterprise's serial survival against the heavy odds which were routinely stacked against her every week.

So. Politikers wanting to claim Kirk as one of their own is an indication of political cunning, but not intelligence.

 

[tuco]

Kirk is the one who beat Kobayashi Maru designed by Spock who is Ted Cruz. I dont think so.

 

[Toontown]

Kirk is the one who beat Kobayashi Maru designed by Spock who is Ted Cruz. I dont think so.

Which was an example of Kirk's reckless incompetence.

According to Wikipedia, Kirk "beat" the simulation on his 3rd try, after twice losing a Starfleet ship in mindless gambles, risking interstellar war to save a small civilian vessel which could easily have been bait. In fact, Kirk knew after the first time he took the test that the Koybayashi Maru was in fact bait. But he went in again anyway, and lost his ship and crew again. Then cheated by hacking the sim on his 3rd try.

And miraculously escaped being washed out, then went on to lead very nearly every iteration of Enterprise in the multiverse to destruction.

If Kirk is the politikers' idea of a hero, then we had all better hope we really are in an Everett multiverse.

 

[tuco]

Which was an example of Kirk's reckless incompetence.

According to Wikipedia, Kirk "beat" the simulation on his 3rd try, after twice losing a Starfleet ship in mindless gambles, risking interstellar war to save a small civilian vessel which could easily have been bait. In fact, Kirk knew after the first time he took the test that the Koybayashi Maru was in fact bait. But he went in again anyway, and lost his ship and crew again. Then cheated by hacking the sim on his 3rd try.

And miraculously escaped being washed out, then went on to lead very nearly every iteration of Enterprise in the multiverse to destruction.

If Kirk is the politikers' idea of a hero, then we had all better hope we really are in an Everett multiverse.

If Kirk was Republican Federation was.

 

[Ziggurat]

According to Wikipedia, Kirk "beat" the simulation on his 3rd try, after twice losing a Starfleet ship in mindless gambles, risking interstellar war to save a small civilian vessel which could easily have been bait.

Not to defend Kirk on other matters, but on this one, you overstate things considerably. He most certainly did not risk interstellar war. It was a simulation, he knew it was a simulation, and nothing was at risk except his own evaluation.

In fact, Kirk knew after the first time he took the test that the Koybayashi Maru was in fact bait. But he went in again anyway, and lost his ship and crew again.

He lost a computer simulation of a ship and crew. No one mourns their passing.

 

[Toontown]

Not to defend Kirk on other matters, but on this one, you overstate things considerably. He most certainly did not risk interstellar war. It was a simulation, he knew it was a simulation, and nothing was at risk except his own evaluation.



He lost a computer simulation of a ship and crew. No one mourns their passing.

Twice.

True, Kirk knew it was a simulation, but that didn't mean he was supposed to act like it was a simulation, with no real consequences. If the purpose of the sim was to find out how Kirk would respond to a no-win situation, then Starfleet should have learned that Kirk would compulsively sacrifice his ship and crew in a longshot bid for a small victory.

The Star Trek universe was a hostile, dangerous place which would not have suffered fools and gamblers like Kirk for long. Maybe he gets lucky once or twice. Then his luck runs out.

Kirk's style was like quantum suicide. The Star Trek universe had to be an Everett multiverse for Kirk to survive more than a few reckless gambles.

Maybe that's what Kirk meant when he said "I don't believe in failure." Perhaps Kirk was a believer in the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics - what can happen, does, in some parts of the universal wave function, even if the odds are stacked heavily against it.

Or perhaps Enterprise was intended to be a sacrificial lamb, sent out to die, but hopefully not before gleaning some information and insight into the nature of the hellish labrinth of the Milky Way Galaxy. If that was the case, then James T. Kirk was the man for the job.

Then there was Spock, who knew full well rushing headlong into the void with Kirk was a suicide mission, but went along anyway. Spock repeatedly advised Kirk to play the odds, but Kirk would have none of it. So Spock would help Kirk extricate Enterprise from the jam Kirk had gotten into this time. And the next time. And the next.

After 20 or so near-death experiences, the entire crew must have been pretty sure it was in fact an Everettverse. But no one ever spoke of it.

 

[Delvo]

If the purpose of the sim was to find out how Kirk would respond to a no-win situation, then Starfleet should have learned that Kirk would compulsively sacrifice his ship and crew in a longshot bid for a small victory.

The fact that it was a no-win situation means that we don't know what he tried to do when he didn't win. He could have been playing it safe and still had the simulation pull a "gotcha" anyway, as its reputation says it would have if he had done so.

 

[jt512]

[duplicate post]

 

[jt512]

I know he wasn't Jewish. Way too much ham.

Except that he was. "[William Shatner's] paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, anglicized the family name to "Shatner". All of Shatner's grandparents were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Ukraine); and he was raised in Conservative Judaism."—Wikipedia

And Spock was a rabbi.

 

[Mudcat]

Which was an example of Kirk's reckless incompetence.

According to Wikipedia, Kirk "beat" the simulation on his 3rd try, after twice losing a Starfleet ship in mindless gambles, risking interstellar war to save a small civilian vessel which could easily have been bait. In fact, Kirk knew after the first time he took the test that the Koybayashi Maru was in fact bait. But he went in again anyway, and lost his ship and crew again. Then cheated by hacking the sim on his 3rd try.

I tend to agree but I'm fairly certain he knew, or at least suspected, going in that the Kobayashi Maru was bait as the simulation had a notorious legend by the time he joined the academy.

I think I much prefer Sulu's solution to the Kobayashi Maru (in the novel by the same name where he decided not to take the bait, sent a hail to the Klingon empire about the emergency broadcast, and reported the situation to Starfleet).

And miraculously escaped being washed out, then went on to lead very nearly every iteration of Enterprise in the multiverse to destruction.

I don't know about the eventual fate of the NX, but to the best of my knowledge only the original Constitution-class starship was lead to its destruction by Kirk. A was decommissioned, B is assumed to have been decommissioned, C was destroyed (twice) under the command of two different captains long after Kirk was assumed dead, D was lost under the command of Riker, E-J all have fates unknown.