Star Trekking for June 30, 2020

Shoes and stocks.

Jun 30, 2020

Welcome to Star Trekking, my weekly attempt to share points of interest and random intersections in the final frontier.

This weekend my son and I watched “Arena” and thanks to the miracle of remastering and, I guess, a big TV, I noticed a BRAND NEW THING I had never seen before.

Kirk changes shoes when he fights the Gorn.

Yes, instead of regulation black boots, Kirk is now wearing lace-up athletic boots, maybe rock-climbing or wrestling shoes (I don’t know, I’m a Doctor not a shoe salesman).

Behold.

Enhance.

All these decades later and Star Trek is still giving up secrets.

This is maybe the millionth time I’ve watched “Arena” since I discovered the show in second grade. But this was the first time I spotted Kirk’s shoes. Who knows what I might discover on the million and first viewing…

Rashid Uzzaman @rashiduzzaman82

Some Sunday wisdom from T’Pol for you all. 🖖🏽 #StarTrek

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM TREK REFERENCE

The basic premise of this newsletter is that I stumble across Star Trek references everywhere without even trying.

This week it was this headline in a financial blog I look at every morning: Stock Market’s Wild Mood Swings Can Be Explained by Mr. Spock.

In a word, fascinating.

Once you think of Mr. Market as Mr. Spock, the raging disconnect between the economy and equity prices becomes easier to grasp.

Author Barry Ritholtz opens with points about the two sides of investors: the one that responds to rational, quantitative calculations of value, and the irrational fear-based “human half” that can lead to bad decisions and, for the right investor, opportunities.

Then he gets to this.

Most explanations of recent market behavior reflect hindsight bias detailing what everyone now knows. It is rare to hear someone asked a question about a market move and not give a detailed after-the-fact explanation. Few are willing to admit that they really don't know or that many market moves are simply random.
Here, Mr. Spock is quite different. He often notes his lack of understanding with a simple response of “fascinating.” His logic and ego control allow the admission of not knowing. He is subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect much less than most. Investors often get into trouble when they imagine they have an understanding about things they don't.
Spock's mixed human-Vulcan heritage was a great plot device that allowed "Star Trek" to subtly comment on the human condition, exploring the tension between logic and emotion, between our intellectual capacities and our baser drives.
Investors who recognize and take account of the Spock market will better understand what is going on, and -- one can hope -- use it to guide their actions for better results.

Read the full article and maybe you, too, can live long AND prosper.

Non-Binary Saru; OC Collector @NonbinarySaru

Reminder that your Star Trek fav would wear a mask. 🥰

ART TREK TUESDAY

By Lee Sargent

Each week, one of my favorite artists, Lee Sargent, draws a random Trek-related scene.

This week’s random episode is from VOY - “Night.”

This week’s random Trek episode is finally a Voyager one, the Season 5 opener.

And for a ship in a bottle episode it’s a surprising cracker of an episode. Chakotay has a lot of solid work to do in this episode which makes for a pleasant change. In fact everyone gets to shine a bit.

We also get introduced to two new species as well as a classic Star Trek moral dilemma. Also the crew all mutiny and I hope that Janeway court martials the lot of them when they get back to the alpha quadrant.

Hard to pick a specific visually appealing scene to draw (I’ve drawn the opening scenes in black and white a lot so I wrote that off).

I just really enjoyed Chakotay in this episode and his order to Seven of Nine for some good news is a great example of what kind of Starfleet Captain he would make.

CHAKOTAY: Seven, I want good news. That’s an order.
SEVEN: Then I must disobey. I have no good news to report.

Check out more of Lee’s art at LeeDrawsStuff.com. Support his work at Patreon.com

Anna @Anna22702209

Got my first Tattoo to remind me, even in these dark times, to believe in us as humans, and that a better future, together, is possible. #StarTrek

MIND MELD

With Christian Burris.

In which we get to know a Trek fan just a little bit better.

Please tell us a little about yourself.

I’m Christian Burris, and I’m from Winston-Salem, NC. I’m the Serials Acquisitions Coordinator for the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University, and I’ve been there for 36 years. I enjoy hiking, reading, walking, traveling, working out, and going to movies.

I also have a cat named Theta (or does she have me?) that was adopted as a stray by my sister.

What’s your first Star Trek memory?

When I was around five years old, I remember sitting with my father in his chair and an episode of a television show was starting. I saw this object streak across the screen, and I was amazed because I had never seen anything like it before. My father told me that this was a show called Star Trek, and I would later find out that it was the title sequence for the second season. I don’t remember which episode had aired, but I was hooked on Star Trek ever since.

Which series (or movie) do you most enjoy watching and why?

I’ve enjoyed every incarnation of Star Trek that has been produced so far, and I can go back to them again and again. They’ve become like friends of the family in a sense, like welcome guests who you’re glad to see from time to time. I do enjoy watching The Original Series the most, because I grew up with them. I’ve seen them so often that I can identify the episode that’s on by seeing its first frame.

For the movie series, I go back to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: First Contact the most, because they translate Star Trek to the big screen and do it in a way that is more than a television episode could do in terms of the story and the stakes.

Which series (or movie) are you least familiar with?

I’ve seen the latest series Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, but I’m not as “fluent” in their stories because they are so new. The other tricky thing has been that it’s not as easy to watch them like their predecessors because they aren’t on traditional broadcast or cable television and you must find them on the CBS All Access platform instead. However, I have the first two seasons of Discovery on Blu-ray and I plan to pick up Picard’s first season as well. I should be more versed in both series by the end of the year.

Favorite Captain?

James T. Kirk will always be my favorite because he was my first. I had read several adventure stories when I was a kid like Treasure Island, and Kirk fit into that mold perfectly. A swashbuckler and an explorer.

What's a Star Trek book you love?

This is a tough one, so I’ll have to narrow it to three. The first (even though they can be considered a three-volume set) would be the James Blish adaptations of the episodes from The Original Series. They were based on the scripts, so it was interesting to read what made it into the final cut. One of the more interesting changes was the ending of “Who Mourns for Adonais?” which would have led to some interesting questions in 1967.

The second would be Spock’s World by Diane Duane. At that time, there was so little that had been revealed about the planet Vulcan and its inhabitants in the canon of the franchise, and Ms. Duane’s story filled in a lot of the gaps for eager fans. In addition to filling in elements from Vulcan’s history, the story of a potential withdrawal from the Federation by Vulcan was very engaging, especially for the characters who had been brought back into the narrative.

The third is Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Enterprise by Lora Johnson. I had fallen in love with the Enterprise refit that had been seen in the first six films and I was eager to find out more about the ship. It may have a “semi-canon” status today, but for the a teenaged fan like me it was essential reading to learn about the stations on the Bridge, what was on every deck, what were the components of standard landing party equipment, and so forth.

First merchandise you remember having?

I had a die cast toy of a Klingon D-7 that was made by Dinky Toys. It fired small disks (photon torpedoes) at the flick of a switch. The discs have vanished over time, but the toy is in a box somewhere.

Most treasured Trek item that you own?

Galoob had the first license to make toys from Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1988, and I was anxious to pick up the action figures. Picard and Riker figures were easy to find, but I noticed that it was harder to find the figures of Yar and Data. It took some searching, but I tracked down those two figures at a local drugstore and bought them immediately. They’re also in a box somewhere, but I’ve thought about getting some plastic protectors for them when I run across them again.

How has Star Trek made a difference in your life?

Star Trek has had two significant impacts in my life. I’ve met some of the most amazing people down through the years, and not just the actors and folks who made the shows. The fans have been the ones who kept the fires burning since The Original Series was canceled in 1969 and they are one of the reasons we are still talking about the franchise in 2020. Plus, fans can be some of the most passionate people in a positive way, which is a welcome antidote to some of the toxicity that exists out there.

The other aspect of Star Trek’s impact has been my life itself. Growing up wasn’t always easy, especially since I had some rocky and tense moments in my family life. But Star Trek portrayed a positive future that was always on the horizon, and that there was a place for a geeky Black kid in it. It has been my first home in fandom, introduced me to so many more, and introduced me to how it’s good to know a little bit more about the planet you’re standing on.

Tell us about a Star Trek-related rabbit hole you fell deep into.

Sometimes I refer to the Memory Alpha website for various episodes and that has led to quite a few rabbit holes. A notable one started with confirming the number of tri-cobalt devices on board the USS Voyager at the start of the series that led to searching about the Voyager’s variable-geometry nacelles, that led back to the TNG episode “Force of Nature,” leading to the actress who played the character Dr. Serova (Margaret Reed) and then backtracking to Tom Paris’s breaking the Warp 10 barrier in the Voyager episode “Threshold,” confirming his rank was the same at the end of the series as it was at the beginning, and then jumping over to the Memory Beta website to read about Paris’s adventures through the novels which led to me realizing that I never picked up Homecoming, the novel by Christie Golden that took place after Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant.

And that’s just one trip.

Thanks, Chris!