Space Station by Long-Pham

Credit: Long-Pham.

Kate Mulgrew NOT, in fact, a believer in geocentrism

So a small controversy erupted over the fact that Kate Mulgrew did a voice-over narration for a movie called The Principle, which promotes the thoroughly disproven idea that everything in the solar system revolves around the Earth. Yes, there are people who still think that. Fortunately, Mulgrew is not one of them. She posted a message on her Facebook fanpage about it on April 8th:

"I understand there has been some controversy about my participation in a documentary called THE PRINCIPLE. Let me assure everyone that I completely agree with the eminent physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was himself misrepresented in the film, and who has written a succinct rebuttal in SLATE. I am not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism. More importantly, I do not subscribe to anything Robert Sungenis has written regarding science and history and, had I known of his involvement, would most certainly have avoided this documentary. I was a voice for hire, and a misinformed one, at that. I apologize for any confusion that my voice on this trailer may have caused. Kate Mulgrew"

I'm glad she spoke out because Robert Sungenis is a terrible excuse for a human being and I shudder to think that there are people who do associate with him. The guy is a Holocaust denier who actually claims that no one has proven that the Holocaust even happened, so just ignore the death camps, I guess. He also thinks Jews are plotting to "put Satan in control of the world" and that Israel assassinated John F. Kennedy, amongst other things. This guy is so extreme, the Catholic Church made him remove the world "Catholic" from a website he runs.

I still can't believe that people like that still exist.

Lasgun out of a Nerf Longstrike = awesome

Credit: Frost-Claw-Studios.

This beauty was made out of a Nerf Longstrike by Frost-Claw-Studios. Amazing. They apparently take commissions too, so imagine having one of these puppies hanging on a wall in your game room or man cave, or defending the Imperium against heretics and dirty, dirty Xenos!

h/t The Khan Rides to War.

How did Starfleet not know that warp drive was damaging space?

Or did they?

One of the Hekaran scientists presenting the damaging caused by warp drive.
(via Memory Alpha)

In the TNG episode "Forces of Nature", two alien scientists reveal that warp drive is damaging spacetime, with the area the episode takes place in being badly affected. This is demonstrated quite drastically after one of the scientists blows up her ship via warp core breach just to prove their point. After this, the Federation imposed a "speed limit" of warp five to mitigate damage.

Subspace rift caused by a warp core breach.
(via Memory Alpha)

What strikes me is that Starfleet or the Federation's scientists didn't know that warp drive could damage spacetime. Not once while they were developing newer, faster engines did anyone stumble upon evidence or even a notion that warp had such a negative effect?

(via Memory Alpha)

Or maybe they did and Starfleet buried it until a solution could be found. Maybe The Great Experiment (transwarp drive) was meant to be that solution and it's failure put them back at square one. The Intrepid-class's unusual warp nacelles may have been another attempt at fixing the problem. According to Memory Alpha, the unpublished tech manual for the first season of Star Trek: Voyager and the third edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia both suggest that the Intrepid's "variable geometry pylons" eliminated the problem. The problem with that is that the Intrepids are the only ships in Starfleet service with VGPs - all the ships built after them (the Akira, Steamrunner, etc) all have conventional setups.

It's worth noting that in the non-canon Treklit, Starfleet appears to be actively fixing the problem by moving away from warp drive and towards quantum slipstream, but that's for another post.

Epsilon IX station

(via Memory Alpha)

Epsilon IX was the station that fell victim (after the Klingons) to V'Ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Officially, Epsilon was a communications station and transceiver for subspace messages, but it's position near the Klingon border makes you wonder if maybe it wasn't something more. Why would Starfleet need a manned station near the border of a then-current enemy if all it was built for was to handle communication traffic? And why put one there? The fact that they were able to observe the destruction of the Klingon ships that attacked V'Ger would imply otherwise. Certainly makes you wonder which division was really operating Epsilon - Communications or Intelligence?

(via Memory Alpha)

According to Memory Alpha, three scale models of Epsilon IX were built for the movie: the station, an enlarged panel (seen in the second picture), and the largest being the conning tower.

(via Memory Alpha)

The models of the station and panel were later reused as a wall decorations in the Officer's Lounge in The Search for Spock. After that, the models disappeared without a trace because that's something that can somehow happen.

I always did like Kirk's uniform in Star Trek: The Motion Picture

(via Memory Alpha)

The TMP uniforms were pretty swanky and well, let's face it, fit the polyester era of science fiction perfectly. The uniforms were apparently one-piece, which I imagine was a pretty annoying thing when you needed to use the bathroom or just changing in and out of.

(via Memory Alpha)

The sleeveless version was pretty cool as sort of a "casual-wear" uniform. It looks like this one might not be a one-piece, but the hem of the tunic might just be hiding it.

Galactica 1980 was such a great show