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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!karn
From: karn@eagle.UUCP (Phil Karn)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: startrek error ??
Message-ID: <1058@eagle.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Aug-83 16:55:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: eagle.1058
Posted: Wed Aug  3 16:55:29 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Aug-83 21:10:32 EDT
References: emory.1103
Lines: 42

"Assignment Earth" is one of my favorite episodes. (Perhaps the
prominent featuring of REAL space hardware has something to do with it.)

Yes, this episode has lots of little things wrong with it, but then so
do ALL Star Trek episodes.  To wit:

1. They are launching a "suborbital weapons platform".  Seems to me that
it wouldn't stay up there very long to be a deterrent to the Russians.

2. They are using a Saturn V (cringe) to launch this thing, despite the
fact that it (complete with launch escape tower for the Apollo-shaped bomb,
I suspect) was never designed as a military weapon.  That weapons platform must
have been awfully big if a Saturn V could only put it into a suborbital
trajectory!

3. The view on Seven's computer during the "third stage malfunction" is
actually a famous movie sequence shot from the bottom of the SECOND stage
just after first stage and interstage ring separation.

4. Given that the bomb must have been enormous, and assuming that it
was actually detonated at the end, the resulting EMP (electromagnetic pulse)
should have destroyed every piece of communications equipment in the Soviet
Union.

5. Mr. Seven's "servo" looked enough like a pen to probably have been
missed by the security guards.  Everybody knows that they aren't too
bright anyway; if they were marginally smarter they'd realize how
short their life expectancies were and they'd have become Federation
bureaucrats instead.

6. Scotty's use of "weather satellites" to get a stationary closeup view
of Seven on the gantry is ludicrous.

7. The dialogue with the computer at the climax of the episode makes
repeated references to something pronounced "Eks-seever".  My guess is that
some writer saw the abbreviation "XCVR" on a piece of equipment somewhere
and didn't know that it stands for "transceiver".

I still like this episode.  After seeing each one 10 times, you start
making a hobby out of finding nits like these.

Phil