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[Starver]

(Ninjaed, but given I wrote more different thangs than the ninjaers...)

Deep Space Nine is completely stationary for all practical purposes, and somehow is able to be relevant in any tactical military sense whatsoever.

I thought it was in orbit of Bajor, though I never saw Bajor through the windows. I suppose it could be in an orbit close to Bajors and still be tactically relevant.

When it was just Terok Nor, a Cardassian stronghold overlooking Bajor, it was only really important to Bajor as (enemy-controlled) milestone between the home planet and all the glories and miseries of Cardassian space that a Bajoran might find/endure by passing that way. But mostly it was used for mining/refining operations and for the Cardassians who had had their Bajoran slave-forces build it, it was just one orbital outpost above just one subordinate world, amongst many.  Then the hand-over to the Federation (and moving it into Bajoran-solar orbit, I think, as part of the deal) where it was refurbished (after gutting by the retreating Cardies) as a Babylon 5-like (dig, dig!) multicultural meeting post to suit the Federation, yet still one of many (well, certainly one of nine!).

Then, shortly after the Federation representative (and Prophet-spawned Emissary!) arrived...  Wormhole! (Always been there, but now made obvious and usable...) Now it is virtually uniquely positioned, having to deal not only with vestiges of Cardassian machinations, the simmering resentments of the Bajorans and the other Fererationally-unfettered lawlessnessess that might have transpired, but it now has an entire other Quadrant on its doorstep.  Later on to be augmented by the renewed interest by the previously tired-of-the-place Cardassians, the eventual revelation of the nature of the Dominion, the Klingon move to assert their strength against Dominion and anybody who would get in the way and some side-plot about Maquis in the Neutral Zone.

Until the Defiant was provided to Sisko, it was very much "sitting still where no-one had sat still before", and all the challenges it brought.

Anyhoo, lets veer away from this tangent to... somewhere.

I don't see the point. It seems like nothing exciting is happening in the US political scene, today (or yesterday, as it was, for me). Bannon refused to say stuff. Trump tweeted stuff. The GOP website seems stuffed.  I say keep riffing on Star Trek.  Or Babylon 5. Or Space: Above And Beyond.  Or (original) Battlestar Galactica.  Or The Last Stsrfighter, Battle Beyond The Stars, Only You Can Save Mankind, Forbidden Planet or Benji,  Zax And The Alien Prince, perhaps.

[Egan_BW]

Quick, someone change the title to "Ameripol and Star Trek Discussion"

[Starver]

I fully endorse that Enterprise!

[Egan_BW]

Or maybe Ameripol and scifi general?

[Max™]

I assume they have settings such as "warm slightly", "painful blisters", and "melt steel".

Yeah, I mean they've got lots of other capabilities, for some reason you can fiddle with one for about two seconds and turn it into a grenade.

I know you're supposed to ignore it but for some reason they are fully able to fire off the implied aimpoint which is probably just countering for the various cast not aiming at exactly the right spots always, but they can also be set for "wide spread dispersal" which says to me that there must be some control in the emitter over the angle of the beam. This makes sense because there isn't any sort of aiming mechanism--though I could swear I've seen a flip up reticle on a phaser at some point--and yeah a directed energy weapon doesn't suffer from effects like wind deflection and drop, but take a laser pointer and try to hit a target the first time you turn it on. Now pretend it's firing a beam that can straight up evaporate a motherfucker and ask yourself how eager you would be to just PEWPEWPEW with these things and their weird like 130+ degree grip > firing direction layout. Never mind the little pocket ones--which EVERYBODY seems to have in their uniforms--which seem just as terrifyingly lethal as the big ones yet have an even sketchier aimpoint issue since you could just get a finger over or whatnot by accident like a smartphone camera of doom and vaporization.

Shouldn't the uniform ones be set to stun by default? I mean, they're just wearing that shit in their waistband and it's got buttons, I don't want that shit blasting me in the leg and vaporizing me during a scuffle!

DS9's parked in front of a galaxy bridging wormhole that has a monodirectional-ish opening, near as I can recall. Its military importance comes mostly from that (and whatever being able to skimp on engines lets them load up _{also baldboss is like a demigod or somethin' I'unno things got weird}). It's difficult to find chokepoints in space, most of the time, but authorial fiat can manage it.

... anyway, two more days 'till shut down. Anyone heard anything new on that front? Last I noticed the GOP was doing its freedom caucus backstabby thing while multiple democrat representatives are openly considering going, "Hey, y'know what. You guys can't get your stuff together, maybe we return some favors and decline to help y'all unfuck your mess."

Cisco is literally the avatar of "fuck yo shit, let's get ill and see how it goes" and apparently the Bajorans did that I think, also the Defiant is the best ship ever, are machinegun phasers stupid? Fuck yeah they are, is it still badass watching it swoop around plunking rapid fire energy bolts into shit? Fuck yeah it is!

[wierd]

Nevermind that a phaser is, by definition, ALREADY a "Rapid firing" system.  (Because its a damned PHASED ARRAY, meaning individual emitter coils fire in rapid but controlled succession to give the appearance of a continuous beam)

But hey, why not add mechanical wear and tear to a perfectly sensible solid state weapon system, just so it can look all rotational and shit? It gives the redshirts something to do with that zero-G training they supposedly get! (Nevermind that for the same real-estate and capacitor bank, they could have just put redundant phaser arrays on the damn hull, and then it could have fired like, 20 bolts continuously all at once and shit. But no. Whatever. Rule of Cool prevails.)

[Dorsidwarf]

I always assumed "set phasers to stun" was a standard procedure thing, basically meaning "If your phasers were on kill for some reason they'd better not be any more", but idk I haven't watched that much Star Trek

[wierd]

More than likely (since we are talking a portable device with enough energy stored in it to literally blow a huge gaping hole in a spaceship hull) the device is set to "disable" by default (to prevent accidental discharge), and has to be explicitly set on a setting, and setting it before authorization is a punishable offense. This is likely to prevent the whole "He was coming right at me! I had to do something sir!" type situation where the horrible looking foreign dignitary from the dimension of doom gets horribly gunned down in the hallway by ensign dumb-ass as he tried to rush to the bathroom, and a political shitstorm ensues.  (See recent issue of Wichita policeman shooting first and killing innocent person in the swatting fiasco.)

If it weren't for CBS/Paramount being such assholes about the IP, it would be a hilarious non-cannon spoof to make for youtube actually.

[Culise]

Nevermind that a phaser is, by definition, ALREADY a "Rapid firing" system.  (Because its a damned PHASED ARRAY, meaning individual emitter coils fire in rapid but controlled succession to give the appearance of a continuous beam)

But hey, why not add mechanical wear and tear to a perfectly sensible solid state weapon system, just so it can look all rotational and shit? It gives the redshirts something to do with that zero-G training they supposedly get! (Nevermind that for the same real-estate and capacitor bank, they could have just put redundant phaser arrays on the damn hull, and then it could have fired like, 20 bolts continuously all at once and shit. But no. Whatever. Rule of Cool prevails.)

Eh. Apparently, the phaser cannons are so powerful because they run plasma conduits straight through them, from which plasma is bled directly into the emitters.  If I had to guess, it's nonsensoleum space magic technology similar to Klingon disruptor cannons applied to phaser technology by the eggheads at Utopia Planatia, since they wanted the extra punch to deal with the Borg.  Not sure what the rotation you mention refers to, though; the only place I found regarding that which pertains to the Defiant's phaser cannons was a note in a single early episode script (which calls them "gatling guns" with no further clarification on any actual rotation involved) that never was actually mentioned on-air and never received even implied corroborating evidence on the screen.  The only other "spinny-thing" weapon I can think of was the photon torpedo launchers on DS9 itself post-upgrade. Those were definitely gratuitous, but those aren't solid-state technology. 

That said, it's probably best not to take Star Trek science too seriously.  As I recall, they tended to write up scripts with madlib-style blanks for the technobabble to be filled in later.

[Teneb]

Since people want to talk about sci-fi while others want their ameripol thread focused on politics, I made a Sci-fi discussion thread.

[scriver]

Great idea, Tenib! I applaud you. Keep that offtopic stuff out of here.

Now, I've been rereading LotR lately. ANyone ever notice how inconsequent it is with it's magic?

[Magistrum]

Can't tell if satire or hipocrisy, 2017 has taken a toll on me...

[Max™]

Hippocrisy: self righteous tusking.

[PTTG??]

So Trump apparently managed to tweet something and disrupt a deal to prevent a government shutdown? What did he do this time?

Also, the republicans control every branch. If they shut down the government it's because they want to do it.

[smjjames]

So Trump apparently managed to tweet something and disrupt a deal to prevent a government shutdown? What did he do this time?

Also, the republicans control every branch. If they shut down the government it's because they want to do it.

He said that he wanted CHIP to have permanent funding, not a short term 30 day one (which is what's in the CR, unless he misunderstood it), then he later made another tweet saying that he supported the current CR otherwise.

The House probably has the Republican vote to pass, but Democrats in both the House and Senate are making a stand on DACA and a permanent CHIP funding and are making a stand and willing to shut down the government over DACA. Plus, some Republicans in the Senate are saying that they won't vote for it for other reasons.

While both sides are going to accuse each other, I'd blame both sides because actions by both sides have led to this situation which has repeated.