u/CelestialFury

So after watching SNW season 4, episode 1, the Mars aliens manhandled the Enterprise and stole their antimatter and that was somehow enough to blow up an entire planet.

Maybe these prewarp aliens could take a substance they cannot make themselves, and immediately weaponize it... somehow to blow up a planet. Apparently, they have a super amplifier for a substance they've had for a total of 5 minutes or something?

Anyway, I did the math and is takes 10^15 kilograms of antimatter or about 1.4 trillion metric tons annihilating with an equal mass of normal matter, delivered and detonated in a way that couples efficiently to the planet. This is for an Earth-size planet to be targeted. Note: 1.4 trillion metric tons of antimatter is the size of a moonlet (Phobos is 10 trillion tons).

I know this is real nerdy but I had to look it up. This may or may not seem nitpicky but as we see in Wrath of Khan, the Klingons were amazed that the Federation had a single device that could destroy a planet's surface instantly, the Genesis Device.

This is about SNW season 4, episode 1. I'm not going to address all the other issues with this episode, but the first loop still would've needed that fifth planet wiped out or moved, whether that was the Mars aliens or otherwise. Furthermore, unless the SNW popped into existence before they existed just to ensure the destruction of the fifth planet the first time around, there was absolutely no need for that genocide at all. Finally, how did that asteroid strike happen in the SNW was never there on the first loop?

I know they tried to handwave this away with "We were always there!" but, like, no you weren't. Liars. You couldn't have been there on the first one. It's not possible, even when accounting for time shenanigans.

I'm starting this rant due to some disturbing discussion I had with a couple of ST fans. I brought up how Romulus's star going supernova doesn't make sense due to the lifecycle of a main sequence star. Hell, it's even listed as a K-type dwarf star (slightly smaller than Earth's sun), which CANNOT go supernova - it doesn't have enough mass. Literally impossible without some sort of plot device (someone sabotaging their star or something), but that wasn't in the movie or talked about in the post-Voyager series. Paramount even did a prequel comic series to explain what happened to Romulus's star, that another star nearby went supernova, making a supernova chain reaction, which is even worse than having no explanation at all. When you start with bad science, it's a struggle to fix it.

Now, I'm NOT saying that Star Trek needs to be hard science-fiction or needs to be perfect science. I simply just want to continue having some science realism in Star Trek as it's always had that element, which makes most of the series soft science-fiction but that's fine. It makes for better stories by having that real science and the limitations that it comes with. This is what TOS through ENT did to various degrees of success. Voyager's "Threshold" is an example of what happens writers completely disregard science, it's a disaster.

The person I was arguing with said that since fantastic elements exist in Star Trek like warp and transporters, that science realism shouldn't really matter, at all and in any context. Instead of looking critically at the writers of the new movies and series and wanting them to be better, some fans are doing the opposite and looking for ways to abandon all science realism and their limitations, so the writers can write whatever schlock that comes to their head.

I couldn't believe it. I was arguing with a ST fan that the science in science-fiction should no longer be respected. That even the "Star" in Star Trek couldn't even be respected. We can't even get basic star lifecycle correct in Star Trek and if I point that out, I'm the bad guy now? What has happened with this fanbase? Abandoning all science makes the stories worse, but a significant amount of fans are okay with it, just giving up on science realism.

For example, look at The Expanse. They use science realism all the time and to great effect to enhance the stories, the limitations makes everything feel grounded in reality. Just because the protomolecule exists in the story, doesn't mean the writers abandoned all science. That's part of the fiction element of science-fiction. The whole point of science-fiction is to mix the two together to produce good stories.

For Star Trek, if we abandon all science realism, the show becomes ungrounded and then suddenly Star Trek is no longer humanity's future, it's just some fictional show about nonsense. If we take out everything that makes the show grounded and real to us, why are we invested in this anymore? For the Star Trek community to be splitting like this means we have a big problem. If we stop doing the fundamentals that made Star Trek good in the first place, than it's not longer Star Trek.

Anyway, if you've read this far, thank you. Live long and prosper.

That animal Blundetto's girlfriend, Gwen MacIntyre, I can't even say his name. In season 5, episode 6, Tony B and Gwen were walking around the neighborhood when some car comes flying around a corner and throws something in the bushes.

First she says, "Garbage pails are right there."

Then Tony B grabs the bag that was thrown and says, "Holy fuck." She replies, "What? Oh, my god, is it a fetus?" Note: It was a bag of money, a lot of money.

Why the FUCK would a fetus be the first thing that comes to her mind? A person zipping around in the neighborhood in an expensive car throwing things out their window, and she thinks it's a FETUS? That's hilarious.

Like Uncle Junior says, "Sharp as a fucking cue ball, this one."

Anyway, $4 $7.74 a pound (I hear ya, /r/thesopranos, but dat was before inflation).