The last one is particularly great
Captain: Transfer power to the engines
Engineer: Sorry sir, but you have to submit a ticket. The SLA is 2 days.
There was an episode of Stargate SG-1 where the Stargate is broken and General Hammond shares this (paraphrased) exchange with Sergeant Siler:
Hammond: How long until you fix it? Siler: About two hours sir. Hammond: Not fast enough, you have 30 minutes. Siler: No sir, it doesn’t work like that. 2 hours is the best I can do. Hammond: Then get back to it.
I figure the engineers just inflate their estimates in anticipation of the captain telling them to cut it down, and then the captain expects the engineers to do that and it’s a vicious cycle.
I think Scotty told LaForge to do that in a TNG episode
Scotty also does this in Star Trek III…
Scotty: “If you don’t have eight weeks, I can do it for you in two.”
Kirk: “Mr. Scott, have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?”
Scotty: “Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?”
It was Kirk’s reply of : “understood” that always makes me laugh.
…. just the image of Kirk realizing Mr. Scott has been lying to him for decades.
“We need more power! What can you give me?”
“Uhhh… if we get all of the shuttles and EVA suits out pushing I guess that’ll technically be more power?”
“How much faster will we go?”
“Literally not at all, due to warp mechanics you told me not to mention again. Might make you feel better, though.”Great post, thanks 😅
It works in Kerbal Space Program, it should work for real!
Reminds me of the Scott Manley video where in Kerbal space program he explored the idea of a stranded spacecraft where the astronaut joking asks if it’d help if he got out and pushed.
I always appreciate how the game FTL made “diverting power from life support” make sense. You don’t do it when your shield generators are damaged, you do it when your reactor is too damaged to output enough power for both shields and life support.
I mean, if diverting life support power would make the FTL engines work, so you could effectively teleport from A to B in seconds or minutes, it could be worth it? Especially if the destination is a safe harbor for repairs. Then resume life support. Not likely to cause instant death?
Yup that’s actually a tradeoff you have to consider in the game, putting more power into the engines speeds up how long it takes to make an FTL jump. So if you don’t think you can beat the ship you’re fighting, it can make sense to put all power into the engines to try and jump away before they destroy your ship. Turning off life support still leaves you with the air currently in the ship which lasts for some amount of time depending on how big your ship is/how many crew members you have/how many hull breaches, open airlocks, or fires there are.
There’s a very old Newgrounds Series called Bad Guys where a space episode had an engineer get a Trek treatment from the captain:
Captain: “Engineering, boost the engines to 200%!”
Engineer: deeply exasperated voice “Fuck you! That’s impossible.”
Risa randomly started showing up a lot in my feed this week and I’m better for it. That last one made me laugh out loud, which made my injured sides hurt
There’s not enough restarting faulty equipment in Star Trek.
If the holodeck just automatically turned itself off and on again every hour it would solve a lot of problems.
The first couple have happened in at least a couple episodes.
It’s a plot point in the Scotty TNG episode that Scotty outright doubles and triples time estimates as well as lowballs system specifications in documentation. And teaches Geordi to do the same.
“Do you mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.”
“Yeah, well, I told the Captain I’d have this analysis done in an hour.”
“How long will it really take?”
“An hour!”
“Oh, you didn’t tell him how long it would really take, did ya?”
“Well, of course I did.”
“Oh, laddie. You’ve got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.”
