Comments on: Cosmic Sans

By: Mike Schwab

Mike Schwab — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 18:29:53 +0000

When the First officer makes his comment at the end of the episode, it is almost like he is making a dictionary entry in a shared memory bank. Makes you wonder if they don’t have an implant to access such a computer, line the Binars..

By: N00less cluebie

N00less cluebie — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 21:40:39 +0000

I think the Venn diagram of TNG and Doge aficionados has more overlap than you anticipated Joel.

Much live
Very prosper!

By: gabepuratekuta

gabepuratekuta — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 18:04:48 +0000

In reply to GenYus234. Funnily enough, when I was checking Memory Alpha to confirm, there wasn't an entry for the Tamarian people or culture

By: A

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 06:59:30 +0000

YES. ALL THE TNG. IT SUSTAINS ME.

By: FarrisGoldstein (@FarrisGoldstein)

FarrisGoldstein (@FarrisGoldstein) — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 05:41:01 +0000

For Vectron!

By: GenYus234

GenYus234 — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 17:15:36 +0000

In reply to Joel Watson. I nitpick because that gives me joy. But I do have to salute your excellent drawing skills. The ability to make a rubber-faced alien cartoon figure express smug hipsterdom is a rare and glorious ability.

By: Joel Watson

Joel Watson — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:44:37 +0000

In reply to gabepuratekuta. I just like drawing Wesley.

By: gabepuratekuta

gabepuratekuta — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:00:17 +0000

In reply to GenYus234. It was in season 5, so he was still at the academy, I think

By: GenYus234

GenYus234 — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 15:19:52 +0000

Wasn’t Wesley Crusher a full ensign at Starfleet Academy during these events? Or is that another annoying brat at the helm?

By: mahnarch

mahnarch — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 14:32:13 +0000

In reply to Lurlock. The HBB marathon is what brought their civilization down to the last 6 of them.

By: greenbanditpress

greenbanditpress — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 14:25:56 +0000

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this episode, and I used to agree that it would be impossible for a culture to evolve to speak this way, they’d still have to have some way of explaining the stories.

However.

Over the last couple decades since this episode came out, I’ve spent a lot of time on TV Tropes. Those articles are half made up with links to other articles by now. It’s a site that is almost entirely references to other parts of itself.

And I realized something: Geekdom, over three centuries, could easily result in a very similar grammatical structure.

By: Joel Watson

Joel Watson — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:17:34 +0000

In reply to Pete. You're probably right. I suppose one is what it IS and the other is what it DOES.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:56:53 +0000

Poopshoot? And here I always thought it was poopchute.

By: Lurlock

Lurlock — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:47:23 +0000

Translation guide:
“I need that quantum field torsion wrench to adjust the warp core containment module or we’re all going to die!”
“Frank, when the core breeched and everybody died.”

“Honey, could you get the remote I dropped behind the couch?”
“Marvin, when the Honey Boo Boo marathon was stuck on the television.”

By: Mark Schaffner

Mark Schaffner — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 08:21:54 +0000

There is no real sense to those aliens, I’ve seen it debated a lot. Even if they know what they’re referencing by this point (assuming it’s been passed down through many generations), how did they learn it? Why couldn’t they explain it to Picard the same way. It ends up being akin to phrases we use today, like “Blood is thicker than water” that has lost its original meaning (the original phrase being “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” and essentially means the people you bond with are more important than your family) because your average person doesn’t know where it came from or what it meant. It gets mangled and confused because people just repeat part of it, and the context explains what they think it means, until that becomes the new meaning.

Basically, language doesn’t work that way and that episode was dumb. Funny, because I swear Picard was going to have a heart attack several times over, but if you stop and think about it it’s dumb.