Naw. Tucker volunteers.

(he later transports the remnants onto Ambassador Sovol’s ship. every chance he can.)

Porthos had puppy pads!

Porthos was very well behaved. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Dr. Phlox’s menagerie, though?

I wonder what he would say about me never having used Facebook. or any of his other “services”?

that’s so they can say they tried for the H1B visas

I have a kitchen full of nonstick pans. They’ve been in use since my grandma’s mom.

Got them from grandma.

Don’t freak out but cast iron was the OG nonstick, right?

that scene is in the first episode, when T’Pol was still a condescending… uh… vulcan.

here’s the full scene.

later on in the show, Trip and T’Pol… uh… get…how shall we say… frisky?

True. And Picard sort of brought up his record, but didn’t put the nail flush with it. He should have called Asshole Of The Day to the stand and asked “why now?”

Another perfectly legitimate argument would have been “Data is a critical member of my crew, the third in command after me and The Recurring Asshole <gestures vaguely to Riker,> his sudden absence would constitute a severe degradation in ships performance while we’re on a critical mission to patrol the neutral zone. A mission of such importance they’ve just established this star base.”

But naw. Let’s focus on if he can be turned on and off again. I vote we demonstrate the feature in Ryker.

Prolly why the need a wet/dry shop vac.

also in the episode with data’s daughter, Lal, and with the exocomps, and with Vger (er, that was the voyager probe,) and with the M-5 unit and then if we go into non-AI/synthetic… we got the Horta and the microbes in Home Soil and such.

fixed the typo, I should have known better.

In any case, like, the Prime Directive absolutely would require a robust, well crafted definition. Like. without one… are Serpent Worms sentient? I mean, they probably have some form of sensory apparatus, right? they feel. yet how often do we see starfleet officers slurping down gagh? or beaming down to some random world and fucking up the environment for science? at least some of those plants and all the animals “feel”.

In order for the Prime Directive to be enforced… it would have to be something that’s not totally left to arbitrary standards. Even if the courts were ran by some of the galaxy’s most notorious stoners… it’d still have to have some level of precedent.

And it’s not like this isn’t the first time they came up with artificial intelligence that’s possibly sentient. You got Vger, the M-5 multitronic thingamadoo. Then y you got things that weren’t immediately recognized as sentient- Horta, the microbe thingies discovered earlier in Home Soil. the Crystalline Entity in Datalore.

this question would come up every single time a ships captain makes first contact with a new species. it’s part of why they have the prime directive.

Like, IRL, JAG-lady would have just interviewed Picard, maybe Riker or some of the other senior crew, Maybe consulted Troi. Sat down with Data and worked through whatever test would almost certainly exist for guidelines and then render a decision. (this technically would have been a deposition.) And that decision would have been “Maddox you’re an ass for wasting our time with this shit.” (maybe worded a bit more politely.)

The underlying purpose of the article is to show that while some in starfleet are… not as enlightened, most of starfleet is and it makes the right decisions. But like. nope nope. That this went that far shows they’re not nearly as enlightened as they think they are.

Which could have been a very sinsister and subversive backplot that could have been amazing, I guess. but then they stuffed it down like it wasn’t. (I mean, a lot of people in the US think our legal system is amazing and fair and enlightened. it’s not.)

well, I’d settle for that bit where Riker takes his arm off, “I’d like to call Riker to the stand, please”, and then a curt gesture to Worf, armed with a batleth.

(if you’re getting the sense that I don’t like Riker… there’s a reason for that. )

I dunno. I think Picard taking a phaser to Riker because he’s being a dick would be even more memorable. Glorious. Possibly even grandiose if Picard put a little brandish in the draw.

Lets just be realistic here, the Prime Directive wouldn’t work if they hadn’t already sorted them. first off, the PD is restricted to sentient life or cultures. If it weren’t, eating a non-replicated salad would break the PD. or keeping a houseplant. Which, then would obviously require some highly codified definition of what ‘sentient’ was- and almost certainly would have already had massive amounts of precedent, including standardized tests to be applied whenever someone who might be sentient is found.

Presumably, the only reason the PD would not apply to Data is because he was “made”. but the PD applies to clones, which are also made.

“Did you run the sentience tests?” “yes…?” “Did he pass?” “but he was manufactured!! they don’t apply?” “Did he pass?”

Maddox new this, is which is probably why he waited until Data was off Earth, or so far on the fringe that the only appropriate place to hear this was on a fringe space station so new that the JAG officer didn’t have enough jurors and had to do a drumhead trial.

That episode annoyed the shit out of me.

First off the entire premise of a court martial or hearing is freaking stupid.

The admiral forcing Riker to “prosecute” Data is stupid.

The idea that Starfleet (or the federation) doesn’t already have some list of qualifications for sentience or sapience or whatever term you want to use to say ‘they’re like us’; is patently stupid. And we’ll add to it that an Admiral whose job it is to weigh in on these matters, wouldn’t have checked if such a test existed, is even more so.

The only realistic thing in this episode is some exploitive asshole shopping around for an incompetent (or bribable?) judge.

but what bugs me most of all? when Riker makes the “So he can be turned off,” argument, Picard didn’t immediately whip out a phaser and say, “yeah. So can you. <ptssssrrrshhhh>” and then have Crusher bring him back just to make a point.

like I said. the squeaky wheel gets the grease because it’s annoying as fuck. Keep doing it. Keep documenting it. Keep filing civilian complaints naming the officer explaining how difficult it was just to get them to do the report and they won’t do anything else.

it sucks. It’s awful. it certainly shouldn’t be this way.

its apple to apple or android to android, I think.

I know IOS does it, though.

You know, that’s a good point.

I just checked. Victims are also entitled to speak to a public defender- or anyone interacting with the court or the justice system- including cops. (a private lawyer will be way more effective, PD’s are… stretched thin and overworked. yet another thing that needs to be changed.)

… I’m stealing this.

(“no. like give us an example.”… “I just did.” )

I wonder why somebody thought it was a good idea to make cell phones nark by default. read receipts was a dumb idea crafted by some middle manager from hell.

another option is to block unknown contacts from sending messages. IOS, the android/google messages and most messaging apps have a way to filter messages and just block anyone not in your contact list.

Just a word of warning… don’t lie to cops…

That’s actually a crime and they love dinging people for whatever they can.

in any case, it’s not untraceable. it’s probably pretty easily traced. but it’s a matter of filling out some paperwork to get started and cops hate paperwork. (I hate this I hope OP stays safe.)