Papa Squid's Dungeon

wizard

thats plectronoceras its the first 100% definite cephalopod in the fossil record, wizard friend :)

The pitfalls of collecting First Empire swords.

I’m no longer holding Star Trek or Star Wars “accountable” for their clunky-looking sixties-and-seventies future technology.

Why?

Because the Enterprise is off on a years-long voyage through space. There’s no Verizon store, no Radio Shack, no Geek Squad out there. If the Klingons fire photon torpedoes and the bridge shakes and Spock’s head bangs against the fancy iPad72 touchscreen and cracks the glass, the ship’s toast. If Han Solo’s fingerprints get all over the starchart and the touch-calibration is off by half a centimeter, the Falcon is going right into a star. But if Mister Worf accidentally twists the command knob too hard and pops it off, he can just screw that thing right back on and it will keep working. Dust gets in there? Take it apart and clean it out. All the plugs are big and universal, all the power cells are functional and have a decent battery life, and nothing is built to expire in the next six months so you have to buy a new one.

That tech isn’t anachronistic or suffering a bad case of Zeerust–it’s practical, effective, and it works. Apple tried launching its own space exploration craft, it had to come back for full repairs within three months, and then it had to be upgraded over the next two.

If you look at SpaceX’s crew-dragon capsule, they still have big chunky buttons as well as touch screen panels. Its nice to have a customizable interface, but sometimes you need something that will just work.

(On a tangent, certifying an equipment on a spacecraft is a lengthy and prolonged process. If you start from scratch like SpaceX that’s fine. As for NASA, they go with what they’ve used since it’ll have a reliable rating and an existing production line. If they had wanted to update equipment in the shuttle cab, say with a fancy new touch screen. That’d mean testing the balls of the touchscreen, then re-testing every system it talks to to ensure they work. Then testing the whole system again to see if that causes more problems. Which is super costly, and frankly - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Source: I did an internship @ BAE, they have a computer that’s pre-dos for evaluating some aircraft that still run. They can’t update it bc that’ll change the testing parameters.)

(pictured: a Boeing 747, still using floppies to update it’s firmware)

Rant aside, in my opinion Millenium Falcon & particularly the Nostromo for Alien best illustrate some amazing sci-fi spaceship design in my opinion. They have well padded corridors - if your ship has “inertia dampers” or artificial-gravity, people still get thrown around and padded walls stops them getting concussed. Also a spaceship is an enclosed environment - insulation will keep stop your crew freezing to death, but also stops pipes exhausting heat into your tiny living space.

Plus the Nostromo has CRT displays, which is obviously the height of technology !

(I’m determined to find a reason for CRT’s to be used in a science-fiction setting where modern display tech can’t be used…)

As for TOS’ colourful aesthetic - I think it could be argued that it’s designed to be highly visible for *all* the crew on board. Consiider how different alien species may see colours or light differently (you can argue that by TNG,that the LCARS displays have built in tech to be visible to all species by using fancy display tech)

Also another thing is that TOS and Alien, they use big chunky “computer chips”. Sure having a tiny flash-drive that holds like twenty movies is cool, but I’ve seen more than my fair share of broken USB headers. Encasing your removable chips in resin or a hard-casing makes sense - especially when you think how Starfleet willl likely have miitary-style design requirements for hardiness (also this makes them easy to hold for species with big hands / people in space suits, iirc the Falcon has modified controls to make them easier for Chewie to use)

Arrives 15 minutes late with a dextro-drink in my hand

A beautifully pierced Cup-hilt Rapier,

OaL: 48.4 in/123 cm

“For at the hue men gaped aghast  in his face and form that showed; as a fay-man fell he passed, and green all over glowed”