Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Past Prologue"
Timothy W. Lynch
"Past Prologue", in the context of a review. Be warned.
Well, I'm not as intrigued here as I was by the pilot, but this was still
pretty good...
The show is still off to a promising start; "Past Prologue", although rather
... routine in terms of plot, provided the backdrop for a lot more background
into some of the characters and relationships, and for the most part, it
handled *that* part well.
The plot, as I said, seemed a little on the routine side to me. We've
seen the "officer's loyalty tested by renegades" idea before, and the
question was no more in doubt here than in "Heart of Glory" back in TNG's
first season. One of the big twists in the show, the fact that Tahna was
targeting the wormhole with his explosive rather than the station, wasn't a
bad idea at all -- but whoever's making up the preview bits has to be
stopped, since that was mentioned in the previous week and spoiled all the
fun. ;-)
One of the things about the plot that definitely interested me, though, was
the involvement (and return) of Lursa and B'Etor, "the sisters of
Durassss..." [thank you, Gowron, you may go]. While they weren't necessarily
fantastic to watch in and of themselves, their appearance and subsequent acts
suggested that we have at least one running plotline going. Gasp! You mean
we might have characters and situations evolving over time? Good; this may
well be a break with tradition (or at least, the last year-plus of TNG, which
while interesting, has seemed quite compartmentalized much of the time). My
compliments.
I saw two problems with the plot as laid out. The first is minor: given
that every species and its uncle has replicators, to have Lursa and B'Etor
seeking *gold* for capital seems silly to me. That would be easy enough to
fix, however; just change it to dilithium or something else non-replicable.
The second, however, is a big deal, and is as follows:
Tahna was being chased by the Cardassians because he stole an antimatter
converter, and nobody on DS9 knew about it except Garak, right? Well, not
really; in fact, that doesn't work at all. Tahna strongly implies that he
stole it and then was immediately chased by the Cardassians, landing him in
his present predicament. If so, then the converter should either have been
blown to bits along with his ship, or would have been on him when he came
aboard -- and there's no way in hell that Sisko, Bashir and the rest wouldn't
have noticed it almost immediately. That's a big, *big* problem, and one
that should have been caught.
On to more pleasant things, however. What this plot did provide was ample
opportunity to further define this new set of characters we're all meeting,
and that usually went smoothly. A few examples:
We saw lots of Bashir in his whole situation with Garak. While I think it
ran a bit long in places, and that Bashir was perhaps *too* silly about it
early on, it did make for some wonderful eye-rolling "aw, no, what's he
getting himself into *now*?" reactions on my part. ["In the meantime,
Doctor, I think you could definitely use a new suit." Love it. :-) ] As in
the pilot, I think Bashir needs a bit of toning down, but not too much.
The main light we saw with regards to Sisko concerned a bit more of his
command style and a lot of dealings with Kira. His rift with her over her
call to the admiral rang *very* true, and reminded me of the Riker/Shelby
bits of BOBW1. I'm still waiting to find out more about his goals and many
of his beliefs, since "Emissary" dealt mostly with overcoming past problems
and this didn't deal with it at all, but it's extremely early yet; after all,
how well did we know Picard after two shows? This went well.
O'Brien still needs something to do, but had one good moment here. His
suggestion to Sisko that he not hand over Tahna to the Cardassians was a good
use of the character; he had no ties to Tahna, but lots of first-hand
experience with the Cardassians, including both his experiences at Setlec 3
and his knowledge of what they did to Picard just recently. Give him some
more of that to work with, and let's see what happens with Keiko, and we'll
see.
We saw Odo primarily as an information-gathering device here, which was okay.
(However, a point: I don't think we actually needed to see the rat shift
back into Odo. It might have been much more interesting to simply end the
scene with the rat, and then cut to Odo discussing his findings later. A
couple of good lines of dialogue would make it easy for those people who
hadn't already guessed.) However, the one major exception was his scene with
Kira, which was probably the showpiece of the entire episode for me. I'm
rapidly starting to like Odo a lot; he's got a lot of Data's knowledge
without any of Data's innocence, and that's an interesting combination. His
manner of speaking is, as Kira points out, utterly free of pretense, and he
seems a good judge of people. His final act there, effectively turning Kira
in to Sisko, was smartly done. Very nice.
That leaves Kira and Tahna, clearly the focuses of the whole thing. I'm
starting to warm to Kira, too; although at times she can still get too
strident, many more of her strong-willed scenes worked for me here than in
"Emissary". In fact, her point early on to Tahna that "I'm still fighting
for Bajor in my own way" reminded me of nothing so much as another
strong-willed female character from Trek, namely one Ambassador K'Ehleyr.
Those long-standing readers of my reviews know that this is hardly a bad
thing to be reminded of in my eyes. I agree with Tahna, however; here, she
*was* far too much of an advocate for the provisional government and the
Federation. If her intense dislike of both hadn't been laid out quite so
clearly in "Emissary", I might be able to buy it; but this sounded like the
real pose was pro-both and she was trying to weasel out of it.
Tahna was okay, but primarily was around to get to Kira, whom I've already
discussed. Two of his final actions are worthy of comment, though. The
first, actually surrendering, seemed a surprise to me; I'd have expected him
to at least threaten to kill himself rather than turn himself over to either
side. (I know; the point was that he really *wasn't* as brave as he'd been
claiming to be. This didn't seem the way to show it.) The second, his final
word to Kira -- simply "Traitor." -- worked extremely well; not so much for
what it did with him as what it will hopefully do with her. Again, we'll
see; but that was a striking, and somewhat dark, way to end the show.
I think that's mostly it, so a few short takes before I take my leave:
-- Isn't it a little early for Bashir to be appropriating the old "I'm a
doctor, not a --" line? :-)
-- Lursa and B'Etor beamed onto the runabout facing in opposite directions.
*Very* Klingon; great touch.
-- Since I didn't mention it last time around, I'll do it now; I just love
that "gear" airlock door. :-)
-- Odo's point about "*used* to be..." in his conversation with Kira almost
got me thinking we were going to get back onto the "linear time" bit. Ah,
well.
-- I was speaking about "Heart of Glory" earlier. Well, this not only used a
basic plot idea from it, it also swiped an actor. Vaughn Armstrong, who
played Gul Dunar here, also played the renegade Klingon Korris back in HoG; I
knew I recognized him from somewhere...
That's about all. On the whole, this is a promising start; if we can keep
developing these characters once they're established enough for people to be
comfortable with them, *then* we'll have a real achievement on our hands.
So, the numbers:
Plot: 7. The antimatter bit is a big problem, but not enough to hurt it
more than this.
Plot Handling: 9. Generally sharp, though things like Odo's transformation
could've been a lot more subtle.
Characterization: 9.5. Let's keep up the good work here!
TOTAL: 8.5, rounding up to 9 because I'm in a generous mood. :-)
NEXT WEEK:
Odo is accused of murder. Didn't I see this on "Battlestar Galactica" once?
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET: tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET: tly...@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.ca...@hamlet.caltech.edu
"There's someone down here in Security who wants to talk to you, Commander."
-- Odo
--
Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
Nobody of Importance
]WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for this week's DS9 episode,
You forgot:
<***********SPOILER ALERT!!******************>
]Well, I'm not as intrigued here as I was by the pilot, but this was still
]pretty good...
]
]
]
]The show is still off to a promising start; "Past Prologue", although rather
]... routine in terms of plot, provided the backdrop for a lot more background
]into some of the characters and relationships, and for the most part, it
]handled *that* part well.
]
]The plot, as I said, seemed a little on the routine side to me. We've
]seen the "officer's loyalty tested by renegades" idea before, and the
]question was no more in doubt here than in "Heart of Glory" back in TNG's
Gee, I saw that when the preview came up.
]first season. One of the big twists in the show, the fact that Tahna was
]targeting the wormhole with his explosive rather than the station, wasn't a
]bad idea at all -- but whoever's making up the preview bits has to be
]stopped, since that was mentioned in the previous week and spoiled all the
]fun. ;-)
Whomever made the preview should be forced to arm wrestle Lursa and
B'Etor SIMULTANEOUSLY!! :)
]One of the things about the plot that definitely interested me, though, was
]the involvement (and return) of Lursa and B'Etor, "the sisters of
]Durassss..." [thank you, Gowron, you may go]. While they weren't necessarily
]fantastic to watch in and of themselves, their appearance and subsequent acts
]suggested that we have at least one running plotline going. Gasp! You mean
I particularly enjoyed how they appeared on the show: Report of a disturbance
at a dock. Odo et al appear at the location to see everyone's two favorite
Klingon females standing angrily with one security guard on the floor and
his partner holding them at bay with his phaser. Reason? "They did not wish
to relinquish their weapons.." God I thought that was funny.
]we might have characters and situations evolving over time? Good; this may
]well be a break with tradition (or at least, the last year-plus of TNG, which
]while interesting, has seemed quite compartmentalized much of the time). My
]compliments.
Continuity? Intriguing.
]Tahna was being chased by the Cardassians because he stole an antimatter
]converter, and nobody on DS9 knew about it except Garak, right? Well, not
]really; in fact, that doesn't work at all. Tahna strongly implies that he
]stole it and then was immediately chased by the Cardassians, landing him in
]his present predicament. If so, then the converter should either have been
]blown to bits along with his ship, or would have been on him when he came
]aboard -- and there's no way in hell that Sisko, Bashir and the rest wouldn't
]have noticed it almost immediately. That's a big, *big* problem, and one
]that should have been caught.
Well, he could have stolen *another* one. Or maybe his two friends got
ahold of a spare.
Maybe they hijacked a certain "loaned" shuttle and forced the very creative
engineer on board to build one for them. ;)
]On to more pleasant things, however. What this plot did provide was ample
]opportunity to further define this new set of characters we're all meeting,
]and that usually went smoothly. A few examples:
]
]We saw lots of Bashir in his whole situation with Garak. While I think it
]ran a bit long in places, and that Bashir was perhaps *too* silly about it
]early on, it did make for some wonderful eye-rolling "aw, no, what's he
]getting himself into *now*?" reactions on my part. ["In the meantime,
]Doctor, I think you could definitely use a new suit." Love it. :-) ] As in
]the pilot, I think Bashir needs a bit of toning down, but not too much.
All Bashir needs is to have O'Brien take up the time-honored NCO tradition
of "training" wet-behind-the-ears junior officers. A few good doses of
reality (or, as with some officers, a smack across the head with a 2x4)
outta do the job.
]The main light we saw with regards to Sisko concerned a bit more of his
]command style and a lot of dealings with Kira. His rift with her over her
]call to the admiral rang *very* true, and reminded me of the Riker/Shelby
Lesson for today, kids. *NEVER* go over your CO's head.
]bits of BOBW1. I'm still waiting to find out more about his goals and many
]of his beliefs, since "Emissary" dealt mostly with overcoming past problems
]and this didn't deal with it at all, but it's extremely early yet; after all,
]how well did we know Picard after two shows? This went well.
]
]O'Brien still needs something to do, but had one good moment here. His
]suggestion to Sisko that he not hand over Tahna to the Cardassians was a good
]use of the character; he had no ties to Tahna, but lots of first-hand
]experience with the Cardassians, including both his experiences at Setlec 3
]and his knowledge of what they did to Picard just recently. Give him some
]more of that to work with, and let's see what happens with Keiko, and we'll
]see.
See above for a role for O'Brien.
]We saw Odo primarily as an information-gathering device here, which was okay.
](However, a point: I don't think we actually needed to see the rat shift
]back into Odo. It might have been much more interesting to simply end the
]scene with the rat, and then cut to Odo discussing his findings later. A
]couple of good lines of dialogue would make it easy for those people who
]hadn't already guessed.) However, the one major exception was his scene with
]Kira, which was probably the showpiece of the entire episode for me. I'm
]rapidly starting to like Odo a lot; he's got a lot of Data's knowledge
]without any of Data's innocence, and that's an interesting combination. His
]manner of speaking is, as Kira points out, utterly free of pretense, and he
]seems a good judge of people. His final act there, effectively turning Kira
]in to Sisko, was smartly done. Very nice.
I thought "Nice way of burning someone elses bridges and forcing them to
act."
]strong-willed female character from Trek, namely one Ambassador K'Ehleyr.
]Those long-standing readers of my reviews know that this is hardly a bad
]thing to be reminded of in my eyes. I agree with Tahna, however; here, she
]*was* far too much of an advocate for the provisional government and the
]Federation. If her intense dislike of both hadn't been laid out quite so
But they have her paychecks! ;)
]clearly in "Emissary", I might be able to buy it; but this sounded like the
]real pose was pro-both and she was trying to weasel out of it.
]Tahna was okay, but primarily was around to get to Kira, whom I've already
]discussed. Two of his final actions are worthy of comment, though. The
]first, actually surrendering, seemed a surprise to me; I'd have expected him
]to at least threaten to kill himself rather than turn himself over to either
]side. (I know; the point was that he really *wasn't* as brave as he'd been
]claiming to be. This didn't seem the way to show it.) The second, his final
Or, maybe he really was tired of the killing and decided it was all over.
Naah.
]word to Kira -- simply "Traitor." -- worked extremely well; not so much for
]what it did with him as what it will hopefully do with her. Again, we'll
]see; but that was a striking, and somewhat dark, way to end the show.
A dagger in the gut would have been more merciful.
]I think that's mostly it, so a few short takes before I take my leave:
Short?!
]-- Isn't it a little early for Bashir to be appropriating the old "I'm a
]doctor, not a --" line? :-)
It's NEVER too early for that ;)
]-- Lursa and B'Etor beamed onto the runabout facing in opposite directions.
]*Very* Klingon; great touch.
Wish I had a VCR so I could go over that again.
]-- Since I didn't mention it last time around, I'll do it now; I just love
]that "gear" airlock door. :-)
Ditto
]-- Odo's point about "*used* to be..." in his conversation with Kira almost
]got me thinking we were going to get back onto the "linear time" bit. Ah,
]well.
Damn. I wish I could remember the entire conversation. There was a reason
for him using it and I can't remember the whole conversation.
]TOTAL: 8.5, rounding up to 9 because I'm in a generous mood. :-)
We are blessed by your generosity ;)
]NEXT WEEK:
]Odo is accused of murder. Didn't I see this on "Battlestar Galactica" once?
Sure. Starbuck was the accused.
]"There's someone down here in Security who wants to talk to you, Commander."
] -- Odo
Hit 'n' now to avoid an obnoxious sig thingie.
Subject: Patrick Chester | This is your Ship:
Age: NOYB | ,,,__________.
Address: A place | |--/****************\_
Email:wol...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | |-<###################>
Political Views: Somewhere in orbit | /// ~~~~{}~~~~~'''
Blackmarks: Politically Incorrect | /// [---
(hobbies) Anime Otaku/Trekker | <@@@@@@@@@@@@@>
Technophile | (not much w/ this sort of text)
Netrekker (claypigeon) |
Whole bunch of -isms | This is your Ship after fighting the Borg:
(not worth shoot-on-sight orders)| <*****BOOOOOM*****> Any questions?
--
<***** INSERT LAWSUIT DEFLECTION TEXT*****>
I speak (type actually) for myself only. Even if I did decide to
speak for UT, no one would listen.
Flame away, I don't bleedin' care...
Brian Kendig
during Sisko's exchange with the Cardassian during the teaser.
Sisko: (paraphrased) "You have entered neutral space and threatened a
Federation outpost!"
Cardassian: "I have not threatened any Federation outpost!"
Sisko: "My mistake. I stand corrected."
... a very clever way to get the Cardassian to say he wasn't
threatening the station. Brilliant!
--
_/_/_/ Brian Kendig Je ne suis fait comme aucun
/_/_/ bske...@netcom.com de ceux que j'ai vus; j'ose croire
_/_/ n'etre fait comme aucun de ceux qui existent.
/ Nolite te bastardes Si je ne vaux pas mieux, au moins je suis autre.
/ carborundorum. -- Rousseau
David Toland
Did anyone else notice that Garak (sp?), the Cardassian clothier, was played
by Andrew Robinson, the psychotic serial killer in Dirty Harry?
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All opinions are MINE MINE MINE, and not necessarily anyone else's.
d...@phlan.sw.stratus.com | "Laddie, you'll be needin' something to wash
| that doon with."
Perry Mixter
(David Toland) wrote:
>
>
> Did anyone else notice that Garak (sp?), the Cardassian clothier, was played
> by Andrew Robinson, the psychotic serial killer in Dirty Harry?
>
Perry Mixter Director, Office of Cultural Affairs
Appalachian State University Boone, North Carolina 28608
==========================================================================
Internet: MIXT...@APPSTATE.EDU Bitnet: MIXT...@APPSTATE.BITNET
gra...@vax1.mankato.msus.edu
> WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for this week's DS9 episode,
> "Past Prologue", in the context of a review. Be warned.
>
> that every species and its uncle has replicators, to have Lursa and B'Etor
> seeking *gold* for capital seems silly to me. That would be easy enough to
> fix, however; just change it to dilithium or something else non-replicable.
It was "gold-pressed.." something-or-other. I got the impression it was either
a highly presice manufactured material or just plain old illegal drugs.
> (However, a point: I don't think we actually needed to see the rat shift
> back into Odo. It might have been much more interesting to simply end the
> scene with the rat, and then cut to Odo discussing his findings later. A
> couple of good lines of dialogue would make it easy for those people who
> hadn't already guessed.)
I admit it. I was gullible enough not to spot it. I was thinking: "dripping
water and a single rat? Not much effort to show that the space station isn't
the stream-lined piece of machinery that the Enterprise is. Given the
shapeshifter's ability to ignore physics at whim, I get the feeling that "Odo
spoting" is going to become a new sport. "There he is! That virus floating
through the air has a funny-looking nose!" :)
> However, the one major exception was his scene with
> Kira, which was probably the showpiece of the entire episode for me. I'm
> rapidly starting to like Odo a lot; he's got a lot of Data's knowledge
> without any of Data's innocence, and that's an interesting combination.
I was all ready to dislike Odo as the new gimick character, but that scene with
Kira changed my mind. It's still the same old "alien trying to understand
humans" schitck, but with a twist that may prove interesting. It's definitely
the personality that will bring the character off, not the SFX.
> Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask.
..
Gunthar
Disclaimer:This is a friend's account, so mind your manners if you email.
Ken R Pergrem
That's what I thought when I first saw this guy -- "Hey Look! It's the
Cardassian version of Liberace!" -- anyway, I think he could be an
interesting character...
---
Ken Pergrem
Loral Western Development Labs
San Jose, CA
k...@wdl1.wdl.loral.com
David Scott Martin
A variant on platinum?
But why would gold be valued everywhere, anyway? Couldn't there be a planet
where gold is as common as dirt is here? Just a difference in the available
elements...different chemistry in the planet's formation.
Howard Moran
Well, I'm not as intrigued here as I was by the pilot, but this was still
pretty good...
[blank lines follow - ^L is problematical]
[hang on a little longer]
... One of the big twists in the show, the fact that Tahna was
targeting the wormhole with his explosive rather than the station, wasn't a
bad idea at all ...
But this was the one point I gagged on! Wormholes, "natural" or "artificial"
are tied to titanic/subtle forces/events capable of warping spacetime. IMHO
Tahna and the Khon-Ma had about as much chance of shutting down the wormhole
"entrance" with that device as I would in trying to disrupt hurricane Andrew
with a box of TNT - we are talking MAJOR forces here.
I suppose that this may have been meant to be seen as a desperate act on the
part of the Khon-Ma to yell to the universe-at-large "Hey, we're still here
and a force to be reckoned with!" What with the Cardassian evac and the
establishment of a Bajoran provo government the Khon-Ma and their ilk may
have been wondering what to do to validate their continued existence.
Beware the freedom fighter with spare time!!
One of the things about the plot that definitely interested me, though, was
the involvement (and return) of Lursa and B'Etor, "the sisters of
Durassss..." ...
I wonder just how many persons we'll be meeting with personal starships-cum-
warships-cum-personal-yachts 8>
Tahna was being chased by the Cardassians because he stole an antimatter
converter, and nobody on DS9 knew about it except Garak, right? Well, not
really; in fact, that doesn't work at all. Tahna strongly implies that he
stole it and then was immediately chased by the Cardassians, landing him in
his present predicament. If so, then the converter should either have been
blown to bits along with his ship, or would have been on him when he came
aboard -- and there's no way in hell that Sisko, Bashir and the rest
wouldn't
have noticed it almost immediately. That's a big, *big* problem, and one
that should have been caught.
Might Tahna have previously handed on the converter to co-conspirators while
he led the Cardassian posse away? In which case the two other Khon-Ma he
met with on DS9 may have brought the converter as well as the "gold pressed
<<whatever - duck?>>".
We saw lots of Bashir in his whole situation with Garak. While I think it
ran a bit long in places, and that Bashir was perhaps *too* silly about it
early on, it did make for some wonderful eye-rolling "aw, no, what's he
getting himself into *now*?" reactions on my part. ["In the meantime,
Doctor, I think you could definitely use a new suit." Love it. :-) ]
As in
the pilot, I think Bashir needs a bit of toning down, but not too much.
I like what Al Faddid is doing so far. Bashir is SUPPOSED to be a bit of a
pampered naif, maybe an only child coddled and cuddled who is only now out
in a "real" world situation. I don't necessarily see a need for "toning down"
just a bit of growth a la Hot Lips from M*A*S*H.
O'Brien ...
I was bothered a bit by O'Brien's rather matter-of-fact follow-through to
Sisko's order to ready the torpedos and be ready to fire on the runabout
carrying Tahna AND Kira - a glance at Sisko, a bit of "uh, we'll destroy
Kira as well if we fire, sir". Something more than "okay, now let me think
what buttons to push here...hmmm."
That leaves Kira and Tahna, clearly the focuses of the whole thing. I'm
starting to warm to Kira, too; although at times she can still get too
strident, many more of her strong-willed scenes worked for me here than in
"Emissary".
[...]
I agree with Tahna, however; here, she
*was* far too much of an advocate for the provisional government and the
Federation. If her intense dislike of both hadn't been laid out quite so
clearly in "Emissary", I might be able to buy it; but this sounded like the
real pose was pro-both and she was trying to weasel out of it.
I just figured that this was meant to throw into bolder relief that Kira has
turned to constructive while Tahna is still bound to destructive methods (the
"old ways").
Tahna was okay, but primarily was around to get to Kira, whom I've already
discussed. Two of his final actions are worthy of comment, though. The
first, actually surrendering, seemed a surprise to me; I'd have expected him
to at least threaten to kill himself rather than turn himself over to either
side. (I know; the point was that he really *wasn't* as brave as he'd been
claiming to be. This didn't seem the way to show it.)
I thought he had simply run out of steam, not courage. Assuming that this was
a sort of last-ditch bid for attention by the Khon-Ma, when it failed he simply
collapsed with no alternatives availabe/planned. As for his bravery, remember
he had already been in Cardassian hands before (however did he get away??) and
KNEW firsthand what O'Brien could only allude to and Sisko only imagine - he
was most likely brave but not stupidly so.
The second, his final
word to Kira -- simply "Traitor." -- worked extremely well; not so much for
what it did with him as what it will hopefully do with her. Again, we'll
see; but that was a striking, and somewhat dark, way to end the show.
This was a high point to me - Kira expressing growing faith in the future,
Tahna having only his past despair and anger. The follow on was good -
Sisko stepping forward and then realizing he had nothing he could offer but
his presence, Kira looking up stricken by this angry rejection by a onetime
friend and teammate (at least) and then the two simply striding away to the
the future - together.
"There's someone down here in Security who wants to talk to you, Commander."
-- Odo
Loved this line and the delivery.
Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask
Kenny Young
the guy who played garak played guy with
multiple personalities, one of which was
the aunt of the other personalities who
killed her "nephews" to save them.
Dave Litchman
>I think the "gold-pressed..." was "gold preslatinum" or something like that.
>A variant on platinum?
No, I distinctly heard "gold-pressed latinum".
>
>But why would gold be valued everywhere, anyway? Couldn't there be a planet
>where gold is as common as dirt is here? Just a difference in the available
>elements...different chemistry in the planet's formation.
It's possible. That'd be one rich planet!
--
"Dr. McCoy, would you do me the very great honor of eating my shorts?" -Spock
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ray, when somebody asks you if you're a god, you say YES!" -- Winston Zeddmore
Gregory Allen Ruderman
>In article <1jnd6h...@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> mart...@cps.msu.edu (David Scott Martin) writes:
>>I think the "gold-pressed..." was "gold preslatinum" or something like that.
>>A variant on platinum?
>
>No, I distinctly heard "gold-pressed latinum".
>
>>
>>But why would gold be valued everywhere, anyway? Couldn't there be a planet
>>where gold is as common as dirt is here? Just a difference in the available
>>elements...different chemistry in the planet's formation.
>
>It's possible. That'd be one rich planet!
>
formed by chemistry in planetary formation, but physics in supernovae. When
a star explodes, the elements in the core fuse, making heavier elements which
are then scattered by the ensuing explosion. Although it is theoretically
likely that some planets would have more gold than others, it is far enough
down on the periodic table that it would be pretty rare, on average, throughout
the galaxy.
Now if a planet was formed from the ashes of a nice, heavy element rich
star like our sun (which can't go supernova anyway), it would be very rich
in the heavier elements...
****************************************************************************
Just some rampaging physics from rud...@rpi.edu...Gregory Ruderman
AKA Dooley.the.Mauve
"Ahead Warp Zillion!"
*****************************************************************************
Gregory Allen Ruderman
new Pocket books guidelines to whomever asked, but I have lost the poster's
e-mail address. If anyone has it, please send it to me, or if you revieved
the guidelines, please e-mail me a copy. Thanks.
**************************************************************************
Just a small grovel from rud...@rpi.edu
Gregory A. Ruderman
AKA Dooley.the.Mauve
"Why is anything we don't understand always called a 'thing'?"
*************************************************************************
Douglas Parvin
>[blank lines follow - ^L is problematical]
>[hang on a little longer]
>But this was the one point I gagged on! Wormholes, "natural" or "artificial"
>are tied to titanic/subtle forces/events capable of warping spacetime. IMHO
>Tahna and the Khon-Ma had about as much chance of shutting down the wormhole
>"entrance" with that device as I would in trying to disrupt hurricane Andrew
>with a box of TNT - we are talking MAJOR forces here.
I took it to be an attempt to infuriate the aliens that "operate" the
worm-hole. After all, they did seem pretty hesitant to let Sisko get out
alive in "Emissary". So I think humanoid races are still on a kind of
"probation". However, I'm not sure if the aliens are common knowledge...
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas Parvin
par...@husc.harvard.edu
Ken Papai
>well, we have our first ds9/la law crossover.
>the guy who played garak played guy with
>multiple personalities, one of which was
>the aunt of the other personalities who
>killed her "nephews" to save them.
Also, there's a Dirty Harry/Deep Space Nine crossover,
the Cardassian who sells clothes (new suits!) is the same
guy (Andy Robinson) who played the killer psycho gunned down
by Dirty Harry in the first D.H. movie. The psycho was let
loose on a technicality so that later Clint could shoot him, blow
him away. It's interesting hearing the same voice of the psycho
coming out of Cardassian makeup. Does this gut always play psychos?
--
Ken Papai <kpa...@rahul.net>