What are your Star Trek nit-picks?
What immediately bugs you when watching an episode? Mine is when they transport someone sitting down and they reintegrate in a standing position (or vice versa). Sure, the tech is near magical but my suspension of disbelief pretty much snaps when they do this.
The lack of continuity and consequences really started to bother me in TNG (especially after I started watching DS9 with its actual story arcs). Like with "Genesis" -- the entire crew turns into animals and/or cavemen, it's heavily implied that Worf literally mauls another crewman to death, and the entire thing wraps up with "Huh, that was weird. Oh well, let's go get drinks at Ten Forward." Don't get me wrong, I'll take any episode that features my boy Reg Barclay, but the happy-go-lucky episodic model seemed particularly egregious in this case.
I always found that frustrating too. I feel like it gets even worse in Voyager. There are things in DS9 that I think should have gotten some sort of follow-up mention, ("Hard Time" being a major one) but they normally did a good job keeping interesting story arcs without it becoming too serialized. Now I feel we've swung too far the other direction!
Plots that would have been resolved if there was just a basic security camera installed.
My experience is mainly limited to TNG, but they have a terrible quarantine protocol when it comes to the danger of alien microbes/parasites/diseases/conditions.
I don't just mean like requiring that the ground party should be forced to isolate after every field mission, but there are so many episodes where someone comes back from a planet with some strange illness, they take forever to even report something wrong, and even after they go to the med bay and determine "We have no idea what this is," other members of the crew just visit and interact with no precautions, or sometimes even let the sick person just wander wherever on the ship if whatever they have isn't debilitating.
Medical should have a large, dedicated, airgapped space similar to the brig where they can keep people for observation when there is suspicion of infection. And everyone should be suited up when interacting with any patients there.
Just beaming down to a new planet and raw-dogging the atmosphere is bad science! Makes me crazy!
Hey, it was good enough for Prometheus, it's good enough for Star Trek!
‘Raw dogging the atmosphere’ cracked my shit up I can’t stop laughing.
I feel like the idea is their scans are so comprehensive as to make it unnecessary. You would think considering how often the scans fail they would do it but its been awhile so the question in my head is how soon the thing shows up. Im almost sure there have been some that are quick but others that such precautions would still not catch. All the same it would have been good for it to have taken either a real long time in every instance or required some interaction with something to activate it or something.
Like when they're all so proud that "we got rid of money, we work for the future of ourselves and our species" and 5 seconds later they pay someone, buy something, play poker with a currency, use replicator-rations and and and and....
But I understand it's hard to completely eradicate the concept of moneyz.
I always figured the poker games (at least in TNG) weren’t played with actual money.
In the rare instances where they actually specify, it's usually things like duty shifts and holodeck time.
Edit: unless it's DS9 and we're at Quark's, then it's gold-pressed latinum because Ferengis still use money.
It probably isn't, but still it's some kind of currency with some value.
It's why I head canon that the whole money thing to be Starfleet specific. Starfleet personnel get room and board as part of being part of starfleet. It doesn't make much sense to me otherwise.
Seems to be human and other advanced federation societies on planets that are fully developed like the home world, starfleet facilities, and such. They talk about not needing it on earth often enough but far flung colonies obviously use it. I think there is a limit to. I think of it like the replicator rations with voyager. Everyone gets enough to get everything they need and reasonably could want but some sort of system is in place for making spaceships and buildings and such and trade across planets and such. Im sure during extreme events there is likely rationing were you temporarily were on just enough to meet needs type of thing.
One thing on TNG that always bugs me is when they know something is wrong or they lose contact with Starfleet personnel, and the Enterprise goes to warp 7 instead of maximum warp! It's not until there's an extreme emergency that they go to maximum, and often they could have avoided that emergency by showing up a half hour earlier. I know they came up with the whole warp speed limit thing, but it's still something I notice.
Something that's not an in-universe thing but still bugs me is the writer's lack of acknowledgement of three dimensional space and orbital mechanics. It's an issue with much of science fiction though.
No personal forcefield integrated with communication badge (even if it only got the energy to withstand one phaser blast).
The lack of immortality. Sure, you could go the, "We have found that the distinct possibility of death makes life more meaningful" BS, but really - would it take that much power to have someone step into a transporter each night before bed (like taking a very short shower), get buffered, and then sleep? Next day: "Oh no! Lt. Promiscuous has been decapitated! Oh well, beam her back to life and update her on the last 5 hours and we're good to go again."
I get it that for plot purposes, that can't be a thing. But there should be a very good explanation as to why it's not being done.
So the episode with scotty in the next generation he invented a way for the pattern to not degrade. Its supposed to be relatively short term and have only so much capacity. Even during transport when their are issues it suggest they can lose the buffer. Im relatively accepting of it on that point.
In Strange New Worlds, which is set earlier than Scotty could have invented that, the doctor keeps patients in the pattern buffer when their condition is deteriorating and there's nothing he can do to stop it. It's presented as janky and his own invention, and not necessarily harmless.
My biggest thing from the start of tng is just that data is to good. stronger and more damage resistant than worf, smarter than anyone except maybe debatably weasely, all his limitations seem to fall away, virtually immortal. Also the same thing with holograms which became just to overall powerful when they had portable emmitters that they could carry themselves.
If Vulcan's had green blood their lips would be green. Everything pink on a human would be green/blue tinged on a Vulcan. They'd look dead and gross.
The entire mirror universe.
Also the lack of an all Ferengi spinoff show.
Not enough moopsies
Just once in a Star Trek episode, I’d like to see the antagonist try to seduce a crew member and be told “you’re not my type.” The ENT episode “Rajiin” was especially ridiculous in this area.
With all the weird logic gaps that transporters introduce every other episode, that's the one you chose to nitpick? 😂
Accelerating the ship never pins anyone to the rear wall. I don't care if the have gravity plates or whatever in the floor.
It's inertial dampeners. The gravity plating makes them stick to the floor. The inertial dampeners dampen the inertia.