January 7, 2017

"Captain! There's a Warp Core Meltdown!" @scifipolicy

Have you ever wondered why those Star Trek spaceships seem to have so many malfunctions? This subreddit thread explores that question and proposes some answers, including that aliens just refuse to work in Federation engineering because Federation technology is, well, bad, and that the way human Federation folks approach problems is well, weird. as in, not scientific. Sort of seat of the pants, in fact. (Of course that adds to the drama, but if your own species tends toward the logical, it can be frightening). Source here, more commentary here. Via @scifipolicy.

It does pose the question, however: Doesn't Starfleet have, oh, I don't know, regulations that require inspection of starships and contracts that require build of those ships to certain specifications, and research into technology, and things like that? I smell a law review article.

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