NP Wednesday August 17, 2016

[Tom Sewell 268]

51 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Ok, maybe I should have filed that part under "Wild Theories",

No, not wild. If saving puppies sways Pandora, playing cupid could too. Especially if Pandora knew about the relationship issues. GIven from how she's read the previous prospective markees, she would pick up on Ashley's bisexuality as well as her deep desire to be able to transform (and maybe not just herself!)

Ashley could conceivably have used her power without realizing it. After all, Rhoda's done exactly that. How about hearing a wasp but, looking for it, finding a butterfly? In fact, maybe Ashley's already done this twice, affecting Elliot's transformations into the pink-haired girl and then into the superhero-with-painted-on-costume.

59 minutes ago, Scotty said:

A lot of people also thought Ashley was Pandora.

And Pandora might be "Ashley" if motive and opportunity present. After all, she was an "Agent Wolf" good enough to fool the male nurse/orderly/guy in a stolen set of scrubs. 

[Xenophon Hendrix 47]

14 hours ago, WR...S said:

...oh, crap... we have no reason to think Ashley isn't marked, do we?  There was no hint she was until now, but unlike Larry and Rich, she's never been around Luke... surely someone like her would have accidentally used her powers by now...

 

12 hours ago, mlooney said:

Still doesn't change the questions.  Tedd used his spell within minutes of getting it, just as an example.

How's this for a rationalization? Ashley has been into transformation for a long time. As a child, she tried transforming herself over and over again until she gave up trying. Now that she is marked, she isn't going to change until she tries to change, or at least wishes to change, but she has long since given up trying and wishing.

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

A lot of us thought Ashley was going to get the gender-bender mark that went to Tedd...

There is still the one on the lower left that no one seems to have a good idea about what it's supposed to represent.

[hkmaly 490]

14 hours ago, exterminator said:

Thing is, you have to be a spectacularly bad manufacturer to get circuitry that explodes when it shorts out. Assuming standard terran voltages, of course.

10 hours ago, Drasvin said:

My thoughts on the scouters exploding is that it would be like the instrument panels in Star Trek exploding.

I think that either exploding shouldn't be possible unless spectacularly bad manufacturer did them ... but apparently, that manufacturer is very popular. Maybe it's some big company like ACME ...

9 hours ago, Scotty said:

Either Liz is the one that gets marked, or Dan's teasing us like he did with Larry and Rich and Ashley won't end up getting marked

Ashley certainly IS markable. Now, WHY she wasn't marked?

(Note: I was saying from start that Ashley not being marked won't last long. The possibility she was already marked for months didn't occurred to me ...)

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Maybe she saw Ashley as a perfect match for Elliot and decided to play cupid?

Why should that prevent her from marking Ashley?

56 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

A lot of people also thought Ashley was Pandora.

And Pandora might be "Ashley" if motive and opportunity present. After all, she was an "Agent Wolf" good enough to fool the male nurse/orderly/guy in a stolen set of scrubs. 

EVERYONE might be Pandora. Just like in Drowtales, everyone may be Khaless or Ariel. Usually isn't, though.

Pandora has the additional disadvantage that she would need lot of patience to play some other character convincingly for longer time. She only needed few minutes for "Agent Wolf".

34 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

How's this for a rationalization? Ashley has been into transformation for a long time. As a child, she tried transforming herself over and over again until she gave up trying. Now that she is marked, she isn't going to change until she tries to change, or at least wishes to change, but she has long since given up trying and wishing.

... not exactly convincing, although not completely impossible ...

34 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

A lot of us thought Ashley was going to get the gender-bender mark that went to Tedd...

There is still the one on the lower left that no one seems to have a good idea about what it's supposed to represent.

... what if Ashley WASN'T marked with transformation? We speculated about her somehow causing people to tell her various secrets. Sure, it might be mostly reverse psychology, but it MIGHT be mark spell.

Only it wouldn't make sense. Pandora is specifically searching for someone to mark with transformations. And not even Tedd pre-TF gun is as good target as Ashley.

[Scotty 1,061]

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

Maybe she saw Ashley as a perfect match for Elliot and decided to play cupid?

Why should that prevent her from marking Ashley?

If she saw Ashley's potential for being with Elliot, that might be enough to generate a desired effect (IE getting Elliot to transform more often) that she wouldn't need to mark her. I admit this falls into Pandora being nice to someone which is something she didn't really decide to do until after marking Tedd.

[Wixelt 18]

55 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

There is still the one on the lower left that no one seems to have a good idea about what it's supposed to represent.

To be fair that's still one of two marks of Pandora's that (I think) are unaccounted for, the other being that weird grey clump that I currently think looks like two people in some form of intimate embrace. If Pandora's attention has been drawn to Ashley, she could be revealed as either.

[Xenophon Hendrix 47]

8 minutes ago, Wixelt said:

To be fair that's still one of two marks of Pandora's that (I think) are unaccounted for, the other being that weird grey clump that I currently think looks like two people in some form of intimate embrace. If Pandora's attention has been drawn to Ashley, she could be revealed as either.

It's a summon poop spell, and it's eventually going to be given to Rich.

[Drasvin 123]

21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I think that either exploding shouldn't be possible unless spectacularly bad manufacturer did them ... but apparently, that manufacturer is very popular. Maybe it's some big company like ACME ...

Well the panels in Star Trek only explode in extraordinary situations (being under attack and taking a pounding) and are really good control panels, being extremely modular and easily customizable. I think it's possible to have a single panel control all the systems on the ship (most of my Star Trek experience comes from TNG and Voyager), assuming you have the permissions to load those models onto your panel and the mental wherewithal to keep track of what amounts to dozens of browser tabs.

The scouters in DBZ were largely crud though.

[Wixelt 18]

2 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

It's a summon poop spell, and it's eventually going to be given to Rich.

Heh. I can see that, actually.

That being said, the aforementioned bottom left mark (that looks like a light and dark contrast, really), though abstract, does kind of remind me of a book, and even though this comic is just Elliot misunderstanding what Ashley meant, it is food for thought...

[hkmaly 490]

6 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

34 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I think that either exploding shouldn't be possible unless spectacularly bad manufacturer did them ... but apparently, that manufacturer is very popular. Maybe it's some big company like ACME ...

Well the panels in Star Trek only explode in extraordinary situations (being under attack and taking a pounding) and are really good control panels, being extremely modular and easily customizable. I think it's possible to have a single panel control all the systems on the ship (most of my Star Trek experience comes from TNG and Voyager), assuming you have the permissions to load those models onto your panel and the mental wherewithal to keep track of what amounts to dozens of browser tabs.

We already have computers capable of doing that and operating at 12V or less internally. There is no reason why a control panel should be connected to plasma conduit.

[Drasvin 123]

26 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

36 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I think that either exploding shouldn't be possible unless spectacularly bad manufacturer did them ... but apparently, that manufacturer is very popular. Maybe it's some big company like ACME ...

Well the panels in Star Trek only explode in extraordinary situations (being under attack and taking a pounding) and are really good control panels, being extremely modular and easily customizable. I think it's possible to have a single panel control all the systems on the ship (most of my Star Trek experience comes from TNG and Voyager), assuming you have the permissions to load those models onto your panel and the mental wherewithal to keep track of what amounts to dozens of browser tabs.

We already have computers capable of doing that and operating at 12V or less internally. There is no reason why a control panel should be connected to plasma conduit.

The plasma conduits were the power grid of Federation ships. Everything on the ship was powered by the network of conduits, safely siphoning small amount of warp plasma to distribute it around the ship, where devices convert the plasma to electricity. Likely the control panels only operate at around 12V and have safety systems to prevent system overload. The panels only explode when damage to the ship causes enough of a power surge to overcome the safety systems. Also interestingly, there are apparently instances where the panel will blow, killing the Red Shirt manning it, only for a Main Character to take over at the same panel. So the control panels are a durable enough design that it remains functional after exploding with enough force to kill someone.

[Scotty 1,061]

46 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

We already have computers capable of doing that and operating at 12V or less internally. There is no reason why a control panel should be connected to plasma conduit.

I can understand that starship control panels would need to have fast response times and no loading screens to be able to operate a starship properly, so it would likely use more power than today's tablets, but plasma conduits do seem like overkill.

[hkmaly 490]

3 minutes ago, Scotty said:

54 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

We already have computers capable of doing that and operating at 12V or less internally. There is no reason why a control panel should be connected to plasma conduit.

I can understand that starship control panels would need to have fast response times and no loading screens to be able to operate a starship properly, so it would likely use more power than today's tablets, but plasma conduits do seem like overkill.

I'm not talking about tablets. I'm talking about servers. You may think that your desktop computer works on 230V (or 110V), but that's only the power supply: internally, the biggest voltage is 12V. Same is true for servers. And even that 12V is used just to transfer the energy around - the CPU itself works on like 1.4V - because it would BURN with more. It used to be 3.3V back in time of first Pentium, but that was 0.8 µm. We are now at ~20nm which means you can't put that much voltage to CPU.

13 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

Likely the control panels only operate at around 12V and have safety systems to prevent system overload. The panels only explode when damage to the ship causes enough of a power surge to overcome the safety systems.

If LIGHTNING hit cable which is supposed to transfer 12V, it would EVAPORATE - which means it will NO LONGER be conducting electricity. Basically, if the power difference is big enough, every cable behaves like fuse.

16 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

Also interestingly, there are apparently instances where the panel will blow, killing the Red Shirt manning it, only for a Main Character to take over at the same panel. So the control panels are a durable enough design that it remains functional after exploding with enough force to kill someone.

... wait. You may have point here. It's design decision. The panels are INTENTIONALLY build in way to rather kill people than damage itself.

[Darkxemjas 10]

I wonder if Ashley is another Dangerous Rarity?

Yeah, I'm probably being stupid again.

But I don't even know where to find a whale to ask this question to, even if it's standing right in front of me.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, hkmaly said:

I'm not talking about tablets. I'm talking about servers. You may think that your desktop computer works on 230V (or 110V), but that's only the power supply: internally, the biggest voltage is 12V. Same is true for servers. And even that 12V is used just to transfer the energy around - the CPU itself works on like 1.4V - because it would BURN with more. It used to be 3.3V back in time of first Pentium, but that was 0.8 µm. We are now at ~20nm which means you can't put that much voltage to CPU.

I'm thinking for total equipment, like the conn station on a starship would be the touchscreen panel which would require power, the circuitry inside would need to have power running through it, there's probably some in console processing that needs power, if the consoles were all dummy terminals then yeah all that would need to be powered is the screen and the network interface, but then the console itself would have a lot of empty space or a lot of redundant circuits.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

We already have computers capable of doing that and operating at 12V or less internally. There is no reason why a control panel should be connected to plasma conduit.

*blink* But... but... if you don't connect it to the plasma conduits, it won't dramatically explode!

[Tom Sewell 268]

You're all missing the obvious point: Kirk's original Enterprise wasn't really powered by antimatter. It was powered by sacrificing redshirts. Why do you think it needed a crew of 400 when it was clear nobody was really needed except Scotty, Bones, Nurse Chapel, and the bridge crew?

[Scotty 1,061]

11 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

You're all missing the obvious point: Kirk's original Enterprise wasn't really powered by antimatter. It was powered by sacrificing redshirts. Why do you think it needed a crew of 400 when it was clear nobody was really needed except Scotty, Bones, Nurse Chapel, and the bridge crew?

That was pretty much proven when they hijacked the enterprise to go back for Spock.

[hkmaly 490]

21 minutes ago, Scotty said:

40 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I'm not talking about tablets. I'm talking about servers. You may think that your desktop computer works on 230V (or 110V), but that's only the power supply: internally, the biggest voltage is 12V. Same is true for servers. And even that 12V is used just to transfer the energy around - the CPU itself works on like 1.4V - because it would BURN with more. It used to be 3.3V back in time of first Pentium, but that was 0.8 µm. We are now at ~20nm which means you can't put that much voltage to CPU.

I'm thinking for total equipment, like the conn station on a starship would be the touchscreen panel which would require power, the circuitry inside would need to have power running through it, there's probably some in console processing that needs power, if the consoles were all dummy terminals then yeah all that would need to be powered is the screen and the network interface, but then the console itself would have a lot of empty space or a lot of redundant circuits.

First, I just said that servers operate at so low power (well ... voltage. The power is obviously bigger.) as well. Second, the panels ARE just dumb terminals for main ship computer.

10 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

You're all missing the obvious point: Kirk's original Enterprise wasn't really powered by antimatter. It was powered by sacrificing redshirts. Why do you think it needed a crew of 400 when it was clear nobody was really needed except Scotty, Bones, Nurse Chapel, and the bridge crew?

For case replicators break and bridge crew will get hungry?

Or wait. Most of those 400 were girls for Kirk. He still runs through them so quickly he uses every possible opportunity to get girl from outside the ship.

(The men were for Uhura.)

Or, the simplest answer: the redshirts weren't needed for powering the ship. They were, however, needed as a meat shields on missions. Remember that the mission was originally supposed to last 5 years, you need lot of redshirts for shielding that long.

 

[Drasvin 123]

48 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

Likely the control panels only operate at around 12V and have safety systems to prevent system overload. The panels only explode when damage to the ship causes enough of a power surge to overcome the safety systems.

If LIGHTNING hit cable which is supposed to transfer 12V, it would EVAPORATE - which means it will NO LONGER be conducting electricity. Basically, if the power difference is big enough, every cable behaves like fuse.

The device that converts the small stream of warp plasma to electricity is inside the panel, so if it vaporizes, the panel and the person sitting at it are not going to have good day, as vaporizing solid matter doesn't make it go away, it just converts it into a very hot gas that is going to expand outwards, potentially violently so(i.e. it explodes). Also if the EPS tap vaporizes, it might allow the small stream of warp plasma to flow into the panel before emergency systems cut off the flow of plasma to the panel, making things worse for Ensign Red Shirt.

48 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

Also interestingly, there are apparently instances where the panel will blow, killing the Red Shirt manning it, only for a Main Character to take over at the same panel. So the control panels are a durable enough design that it remains functional after exploding with enough force to kill someone.

... wait. You may have point here. It's design decision. The panels are INTENTIONALLY build in way to rather kill people than damage itself.

That's implausible. The computer equipment is expendable, especially as the control panels are designed to be able to control any system by loading up the proper control template, and human life is (supposed to be) not expendable. There's also the fact that the Federation in general prefers peaceful methods that preserve life. WHile it was a military ship, the Enterprise's mission was one of peaceful exploration. It has weapon systems because Starfleet knows that not every species in the galaxy is going to play nice. Also I imagine the phaser banks might have some non-violent application, like blowing apart an asteroid for easier mining.

2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Or, the simplest answer: the redshirts weren't needed for powering the ship. They were, however, needed as a meat shields on missions. Remember that the mission was originally supposed to last 5 years, you need lot of redshirts for shielding that long.

Albeit a cynical way to present it, that's kinda true. Most of the redshirts that died on away missions were security personnel, I believe. Their job was to make sure the rest of the crew didn't get killed.

[Tom Sewell 268]

22 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Most of those 400 were girls for Kirk.

No, no, you weren't paying attention. Kirk's bimbos were all humanoid aliens while he was commanding NCC-1701-(no letter suffix). Okay, maybe he had something going on with Yeoman Rand, but he was more committed to going where no man had gone before.

Even Shatner got how ridiculous this was. Why do you think he created an anti-Kirk who'd never really hook up with an alien chick in Escape From Planet Earth?

[hkmaly 490]

49 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

The device that converts the small stream of warp plasma to electricity is inside the panel

Why?

49 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

The computer equipment is expendable, especially as the control panels are designed to be able to control any system by loading up the proper control template, and human life is (supposed to be) not expendable.

Yeah, that's the problem with it ... maybe noone told the designers?

49 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

WHile it was a military ship, the Enterprise's mission was one of peaceful exploration.

First federation military ship was Defiant. Before encounter with Borg, federation was so peaceful it didn't build any warships. Even Defiant was officially escort ship, and Prometheus "tactical cruiser".

56 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

It has weapon systems because Starfleet knows that not every species in the galaxy is going to play nice.

Well ... Starfleet DID win a war with Romulans. And it wasn't easy.

31 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

No, no, you weren't paying attention. Kirk's bimbos were all humanoid aliens while he was commanding NCC-1701-(no letter suffix). Okay, maybe he had something going on with Yeoman Rand, but he was more committed to going where no man had gone before.

While his bimbos were all aliens, they MIGHT be from federation. Or was Gaila not present in original continuity?

[Drasvin 123]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

2 hours ago, Drasvin said:

The device that converts the small stream of warp plasma to electricity is inside the panel

Why?

Because Federation ships treats the plasma conduits like a modern person would treat power outlets and the supporting wires in their home. It's a system to make the power ready to a wide variety of devices. The EPS tap in this situation is like a computer's power supply. A component meant to take in power from the power grid and convert it into something usable for the device. It just happens that the systems involved can handle much higher tolerances before catastrophic failure (I imagine the plasma is rather hot, even though there is a plasma coolant system to regulate things) so when things do catastrophically fail, it'll be much worse than when a modern computer's power supply fries from a massive power surge.

[ijuin 572]

Also, Federation (and apparently Klingon and other comparable-level-tech societies) use EPS distribution rather than electrical-current-conductive cables because of the sheer quantity of energy that many ship functions demand. How many gigawatts do you think that it takes to fire a phaser bank that is capable of blowing up an (unshielded) target larger than the starship itself in a single shot? And how many gigawatts to power the deflector shields to protect against multiple hits from such weapons? These ship functions demand energies on the same order of magnitude as the ship's main propulsion, and once you've already got the conduits in place to transfer all of that energy, then you may as well tap into it for other power needs rather than build a second, separate system for all of the lesser functions.

[Matoyak 51]

14 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

A lot of us thought Ashley was going to get the gender-bender mark that went to Tedd...

We still don't actually know the shape of Tedd's mark. It's probably the intersex/male-female combined symbol...but we haven't seen it or been told what it looks like yet, iirc. Just that it exists.

12 hours ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

How's this for a rationalization? Ashley has been into transformation for a long time. As a child, she tried transforming herself over and over again until she gave up trying. Now that she is marked, she isn't going to change until she tries to change, or at least wishes to change, but she has long since given up trying and wishing.

That would actually make a fair amount of sense, especially in comic logic.

[Drachefly 30]

It is possible to shoot a good space battle without having exploding panels, but you need to do it right.

Like, the Battlestar Galactica battle where Adama's directing the battle with a carefully selected set of observers (to identify spies), and then he lets loose the trap after it's too late. Galactica never took a hit, but it was a riveting sequence. You understood what was going on.

I guess that took too much thought, for episodes where the fight was supposed to be brief?

The alternative requires more external special effects, following the action outside the ship so you can see the damage directly. I can see why they didn't do that on a low-tech low-budget show.