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CLL 42 - Technology Throwdown
17 Plays22 hours ago
In episode 42 of Captains’ Logs and Lightsabers, Chris and Jonathan reunite to compare and contrast the different types of technology in Star Trek and Star Wars. They wonder if phasers and blasters have similar technologies behind them. Is the Holo-Net like the Holodeck? Is a tricorder more useful than a droid? And finally, they tackle the age-old question of who would win in a fight between a Starfleet Vessel and the Death Star, just for fun! Before they get into that discussion, Chris and Jonathan talk about an upcoming trip to the Shore Leave convention in Lancaster, PA, trivia competitions, and the ap-peel of seeing the Savannah Bananas.
0:00 Introduction
2:30 Fandom Frontier
11:30 SNW & Reboot Rumors
23:30 Feature Discussion
54:20 Wrap-Up & Outro
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Consistency
00:00:01
Speaker
Free audio post-production. By alphonic.com. Captain's log. I'm solo. I'm Captain Millennium Falcon. This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise.
00:00:25
Speaker
Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on secure channel. You're
00:00:37
Speaker
listening to Captain's Logs and Lightsabers.
00:00:42
Speaker
Hey, Feast of Fandoms fam, this is Jonathan. i am the host of Captain's Logs and Lightsabers podcast, which you are listening to right now. I want you to, or this is episode 42. And as always, I wouldn't be able to host the show without my co-host and that's Chris. So, hey, how you doing, Chris?
00:01:00
Speaker
I'm doing well, Jonathan. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. It's great. it's ah It's time for our monthly episode. And, you know, we've we we've been that we've we've actually been pretty consistent here. This is the second month in a row where we recorded an episode, which has not happened in a very long time. oh I'm hoping summer's helping with that a little bit, you know? It is. It is. Yeah.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah. I definitely have more a little more availability, and I don't go to bed as early because I get to work from home a lot of days. Absolutely. Over the summer. Yeah. Absolutely.
00:01:34
Speaker
Just so you know, you're going to see me scratching. John, I'm talking to you specifically. You're going to be seeing me scratching my arms throughout the session. I have an allergy to the grass. Now, I was just out cutting grass, so my arms are kind of on fire right now. I'm being itchy. So I'm not being weird or anything. I just want you to know that. Yeah, yeah. No, you're good. You're good.
00:01:53
Speaker
for For our listening audience, we don't record video along with the audio. But sometimes Chris and I will just be able to see each other while we're recording. So ah just to get each other's reactions and stuff.
00:02:07
Speaker
We've tried recording video in the past, but it's always been very things you know like technical issues always pop up. and And either the video stutters or the audio skips or something. it's It's just it's never worked out. But that's why we're still an audio only podcast. But hey.
00:02:24
Speaker
hey really always We can expand in the future, possibly. Possibly. Yep,
Chris's Star Trek Club & Charity Event
00:02:29
Speaker
for sure. So I know there's not a whole lot going on news-wise, but before we get into the the limited bit of information you got for us, Chris, let's talk about our our episode feature, Fandom Frontier. That's where we get to talk about something we do outside of our love for Star Trek and Star Wars. Sometimes that involves doing going to conventions, going to... going thrift store shopping or going to, you know, or, you stuff like that. Chris, what is your fandom frontier for us this time?
00:03:02
Speaker
Oh, so couple of little things here. So on June 7th and 8th, I went with my Star Trek club, the USS Stella Parada. We had a recruitment table with three rivers, comic-con in Pittsburgh.
00:03:13
Speaker
And we, obviously we had a game. So we were raising money for the, but's it's not the, it's not the ship's charity. It's the conventions charity called extra life. And, And last year we earned $371. This year we actually did 522, I think, or 542.
00:03:30
Speaker
542 is what it was. So we really lucked out. A little shout out to the USS Ranger out in ohio in Region 1. They actually came and brought star Star Trek figures and Doctor Who figures to help sell as well. And that money was donated to the charity as well.
00:03:46
Speaker
Well, that's incredible. So hopefully it'll be a little bit of help there for pediatric research and getting the kids some ah video games to use while they're in the hospital. That's fantastic. that' that's a That's a great charity to support, man.
00:03:58
Speaker
Absolutely. they're That's wonderful. And I've been buying some doodads. I showed you off screen, but ah ah this new phaser. I can't remember what this is from. It says Ruby's Costume Company. So I don't know if it's like a good quality product or what, but it's copyrighted 2018.
00:04:16
Speaker
So it doesn't light up, but it makes good noises. And I'm always a big fan of old Star Trek books. And i went to Half Price Books in Monroeville. Was it three days ago?
00:04:27
Speaker
ah found this old Star Trek The Motion Picture Book I've only seen in pictures. It's called make your own costume book came out in 1979 with the movie. So it's pretty neat.
00:04:38
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. Found something like that. And then trying to think, well, next week, ah which would be ah friday july eleven through the thirteenth will be will be surely 45. So,
00:04:50
Speaker
the ah Star Trek events. It's in ah Lancaster. So my wife and I are heading out there next week. Actually, she was getting our hotel room booked right before you and I hooked up here to do this today. You know, nice so, but yeah, that's pretty much how I I've been nerding
Jonathan's Fandom Frenzy Appearance & Trivia Love
00:05:06
Speaker
out. about yourself? yeah Oh,
00:05:08
Speaker
I know we had, I can't remember but we talked on the show or if we talked offline about your trip out there to shore leave in Lancaster. Where are you guys staying? Where did you, did you end up sticking with the hotel or did you find a bed and breakfast?
00:05:20
Speaker
We're not staying there and we're not doing a bed and breakfast. ah To be honest with you, I don't know where we're staying yet. I don't know she found a hotel or if we're going to sleep in our car or on ah in a under a bush. She'll just have to let me know. She's very selective about that stuff. She's been looking for weeks.
00:05:35
Speaker
I'm like, just just do the Red Roof Inn because I get a discount with my Starfleet International membership. So i've been she was looking for the cheapest she could find all the way around. so now I'm like, crunch time.
00:05:47
Speaker
yeah We got to get this booked. Yeah. You know, but ah we yeah so I don't know where we're staying, but we've been looking around. She really wants to see some of the Amish stuff that's going on. And there's a smorgasbord that we found out is out there.
00:06:00
Speaker
can't remember the name of it. Something with maple in it. but shady Shady maple. Shady maple. That's it. That's it. The world's largest buffet, I believe. I think so. And so I'm ready to break my diet for this. I've been on a diet for seven weeks and I've lost 18 pounds.
00:06:16
Speaker
Congratulations, man. Thank you. But with after what I saw in the pictures of the food, I might actually break my diet that weekend. Why not? You know, you can always get back on. Yeah, i've I've never been to Shady Maple. but when When Kylie and I go to Lancaster, because we'll we'll go to a lot of the little Amish shops and we'll go to a local restaurant that has a, it's not ah it's not a massive buffet. It's it's but very small.
00:06:45
Speaker
They have like two hot tables, a pie case and a dessert table and a salad bar table. It's called Dieners. It's a local place. It's on Route 30 on US 30, like right outside of Lancaster. It's it's not far at all.
00:06:59
Speaker
And it's next to this really cool store called the Dutch Wonderland. They have like Amish made furnitures and like, you know, ah like chairs and front and like curio cabinets and everything you can think of. They have food and and all kinds of cool stuff. And it's in like ah it's like a windmill shaped building. It's pretty neat.
00:07:16
Speaker
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Just stick on 30 and the place is called Deaners. If you're going from Lancaster to, you know from Lancaster on 30, Deaners will be on your left. And so that's where the, uh, the, the Dutch wonderland is too.
00:07:30
Speaker
Oh, nice. Thank you for letting me know that we'll check it out. Yeah. And then if you get into, if you get time to drive around and go to some of the little Amish towns, there's a fantastic bakery in bird in hand. Mm-hmm.
00:07:44
Speaker
It's called the bird in hand bake shop. Okay. Sounds good. There's a cute little roadside stand. I think it's called like roadside stand in, in, in the Google maps.
00:07:55
Speaker
Easy to remember. Yeah. Yeah. They have like Amish recipe, soft pretzels that are like a third of the price of Annie Ann's and just as good. Nice. They have like hat handmade Afghans and stuff like that. They have all kinds of stuff there, but it's called roadside stand.
00:08:11
Speaker
I think. Mm-hmm. Cool. I think that's great. I'll check it out. Anything we can do, because we're not going to stay at the whole lot or stay at the convention the whole time, because Brandy's not a Trekkie like I am, so going to try to make mix it up a little bit. So thank you for all the help with what's going on out there. We can't wait.
00:08:28
Speaker
Good, good. i'm I'm excited, because you've never been out there, huh? Not once. Yeah. so Yeah. ah We, Kylie and I went on both our first anniversary and our second anniversary, stayed at the same bed and breakfast both times.
00:08:41
Speaker
Nice. mike sir And then we will just, now we don't even go out there to stay. We'll just go, I'll drive three hours, shop and eat for three hours and then head home for three hours.
00:08:52
Speaker
There you go. Perfect. It's a long day trip. It's a long day trip, but hey, if you got the time, do it, yeah you know? So good. So what about you? What have you been up to?
Excitement for Savannah Bananas Tickets
00:09:03
Speaker
Well, let's see. i was able to represent our little podcast on one of the other Feast of Fandoms projects that we have. And that's a little game show that Garrett, the host of War of the Stars, conceptualized called Fandom Frenzy. And it kind of follows Jeopardy rules. And i got to represent our show. And that video is on our YouTube channel now. So make sure you go check it out and you can see if you know see who won. And You know, and and see, you know play along too and see if you know the answers to the questions.
00:09:35
Speaker
It's good. Yeah, man. it was It was a fun opportunity. it as um You know, I don't know if I've ever really talked about how much of a trivia junkie I am. So this is always right up my alley. Well, that's great. I'm glad you're representing us then because if they're on Star Trek, I don't think I could do. We would fail if I was if i was representing.
00:09:54
Speaker
And then ah it's not something I've done yet. However, it is something that I was something I recently bought tickets for. I was, I was lucky enough to get picked in the lottery to buy tickets to see the Savannah bananas when they come to Pittsburgh.
00:10:09
Speaker
Nice. who they're That's really cool. and Like a stadium tour. So they're going to be playing two games at PNC park. and And if you've never seen them, go check out like YouTube or Instagram and look up the Savannah bananas. It's, it's baseball with a twist.
00:10:24
Speaker
Okay. Sounds good. Well, that's great. So that's in late August. So I'm really excited to go see that because there's some wild stuff that happens at bananas games. Well, that's awesome.
00:10:36
Speaker
Definitely. I'll check out, you said there are videos are on YouTube, YouTube, ah any other social media. You can find them on, on Facebook, Instagram, anywhere. okay, cool. Awesome. yeah So yeah, that that was my fan. That's basically what I've done recently for my fandom frontier.
00:10:52
Speaker
On that note, do you want to move on and talk about a little bit of news? Absolutely. All right, let's go. All right.
Discussion on Star Trek: TOS Reboot Possibility
00:10:59
Speaker
So like Jonathan was saying earlier, there hasn't been a lot of Star Trek or Star Wars news lately, but we know that Strange New Worlds will be on Paramount Plus season three starting on July seventeenth Typical 10 episodes. We know that season four is getting ready to to start production.
00:11:18
Speaker
And it was just announced that season five would actually be the final season of Strange New Worlds. But it's only going to be six episodes this time. I'm not quite sure why. i don't know if that has anything to do with that Paramount Skydance kind of thing going on or what.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah. But anyway, yeah, so it's good, but it's going to be six episodes. And lot of fans are are kind of wondering, you know, what's going to happen here? it how's it how strange new world's going to end?
00:11:44
Speaker
And most people are thinking that it's going to kind of lead right into the original series, which would make sense about maybe Pike turning the keys of the Enterprise over to Kirk. And they have so many of the original series characters recast. Now, I think the only ones they haven't really showed yet are McCoy, Sulu and Chekhov.
00:12:02
Speaker
as of yet, but there was an interview, i and I read it on trekmovie.com. with It was with Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonzo Myers.
00:12:14
Speaker
They're executive producers of Strange New Worlds. And basically, they were kind of asked about the ending, and they said one of them said something that got a lot of fans talking online.
00:12:26
Speaker
So basically, what they're saying is is that Well, Akiva Goldsmith says here, quote, and then we run into TOS. And then in parentheses, it says switching to conspiratorial tone, but they're not dying.
00:12:38
Speaker
And we have those sets. So a lot of fans are out there now thinking that there's a chance they might reboot the original series. And me being a Star Trek mostly purist, I have two feelings about this. First of all, I don't want them to do it because basically what they're saying is TOS doesn't matter anymore.
00:13:00
Speaker
And for a show that's that it started all of Star Trek for people 60 years later to say, oh, the original series, we could do it a whole lot better. We got all these great sets. We got young actors ready to go. We can retell these stories, tell other new stories.
00:13:13
Speaker
To me, that's BS because in my opinion, what that shows is disrespect for what came what came before. They don't ever say this about Next Generation or D-Space 9, Vorge or any of them. None of them are ever saying that it's outdated.
00:13:26
Speaker
The original series is constantly getting bashed by a lot of the newer people from what I'm hearing. And so to do that, can you to say, you know what, Shatner, Nimoy,
00:13:39
Speaker
DeForest Kelly, all of them, everybody who acted on the show, wrote for the show, did sets for the show, everything. Models, your stuff's not good enough anymore. We're going to do better and that's going to replace your show, but we'll keep everything else in the Star Trek universe.
00:13:53
Speaker
To me, it is arrogant. I think it's disrespectful to the people who have come and worked so hard. If it weren't for all those people 60 years ago, we wouldn't have what we have now. So that's just my opinion on that.
00:14:05
Speaker
Now there's another part of me that says, you know what, go ahead, let them reboot the original series. Because in my opinion, that would show, okay, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and the re the reboot would all be in an alternate timeline.
00:14:18
Speaker
Because you can't have all the other Star Treks without the original series. All the other shows reference the old look, the old stories, everything from the original series. So it would have to be its own separate thing.
00:14:29
Speaker
But... I know a lot of other people have different opinions. You, I think, have a different opinion. well three I think the important thing to to remember is this is just rumor, speculation. right and you know This is just what the internet is interpreting somebody's words in an interview to be. and you know We know that that is not always the best way that is definitely not the best way to you know to report journalism. you know any Anybody that uses something like that is is trying to get you know, it's a clickbait article, right? Absolutely. You're right. So, you know, so you have to take what the internet says with a grain of salt and, you know, people tend to extrapolate way too much out of what, and what they hear.
00:15:09
Speaker
So take this with a healthy grain of salt, anything that Chris and I say about this. But my thinking was that you can't, you know, is there a way to respectfully carry on the mission that was started with the original series? ah For example,
00:15:27
Speaker
while technically the the Star Trek The Animated Series from the 1970s is supposed to be the the remaining two years of the original series mission five-year mission, you know they they had the realm of animation to really explore a lot of different ideas and different yeah know different ways of telling stories than what you could in traditional live-action television.
00:15:51
Speaker
But... who had wouldn't I mean, couldn't you essentially thread whatever, you know, if you if you were to take the the new cast, right, Paul Wesley, Ethan Peck, Celia Rose Gooding, and I do not know the actors that they cast in Scotty's role.
00:16:07
Speaker
You know, if you put took them out of Strange New Worlds and basically put them in, you know, the next two years or the last two years of the original Enterprise's mission, you could thread those new stories in with what already occurred in the um animated series. Mm-hmm.
00:16:22
Speaker
Right? So you can still respect what came before it while telling new stories and finishing up that five-year mission. Yeah. I mean, I definitely think you could do that without a doubt. I guess at my point at this point now is, can we please stop with the prequels?
00:16:38
Speaker
we please stop with yeah mining the original series? Can we move forward, please? yeah Even if it's not Star Trek legacy, we have something in the 26th century maybe that's an area that hasn't been touched at all?
00:16:50
Speaker
Right. have a new ship, whether it's the Enterprise or star Trek Pioneer or whatever whatever, you know, and go out and be what Star Trek is going out and exploring space. It doesn't, it won't, it can give little nods back to what's come before or even future wise, you know, but it it would basically be untouched and they wouldn't have to worry so much about canon.
00:17:12
Speaker
you know yeah just i'm sorry good yeah that your no I just wanted to clarify something that you had said, you know with if they were to
Concerns Over Franchise Reboots
00:17:22
Speaker
reboot reboot the whole original series and use that to overwrite what came before it, that would be equivalent to re to rebooting the original trilogy, the original Star Wars trilogy. yeah and i you know i I don't think I'd want that to happen and either in either franchise. you know Stories can exist that build upon the what we saw, but they don't have to replace.
00:17:47
Speaker
i that I agree with you 100%. 100%. I mean, if there was a way they could respectfully, like you said, maybe weave something, that's fine. you know But again, like you said, this is all – I mean, I just reread the title of the article I found, and it's a clickbait.
00:18:02
Speaker
at The end of the article says, so suggest continuing with new TOS show. And just from that one little Akiva Coldzman quote. Yeah, right. Exactly. like You know, so, but I guess it's fandom and no matter what fandom you are, you're going to see something and you want to run with it because it's human nature to like drama and have something to focus on, you know?
00:18:25
Speaker
So, yeah you know, what would be kind of cool if, if the If some of the writers from Lower Decks, because of how reverent they are to things in the series, because of all the little Easter eggs and the references they make to things that have happened in Trek, I think that would be you know having those writers come on board for whatever TOS...
00:18:48
Speaker
reboot or continuation they could do because those you know you those writers you know are good at but weaving in little things. They could put in all kinds of slick references to like animated series episodes. you know yeah I would agree with that. They could refer back to you know something that happened in an episode of TOS.
00:19:06
Speaker
who Or TAS. Or TAS. right Or they could even try to get Terry Metallus back to try to do something like that. I don't know if there were any bridges burnt out area or not, but You know, they can always entice somebody back. You never know. Yeah.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there there are ways where you can. I think there are ways where you can do something that respects TOS while continuing the stories. I mean, and and what's to say? And you don't have to have each season be one year in the five year mission. Right. Right.
00:19:35
Speaker
Mm hmm. I mean, using things like cliffhangers, right? You know, that that's, you know, you can use a cliffhanger in between seasons where that way you know that it's just a direct continuation of you know, what came before.
00:19:48
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. You play with the timeline in that way. And, you know you could you could have a five season show that only takes place over two years, two Starfleet years. Absolutely.
00:19:59
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. A lot of the new newer shows, I don't think they do it in like a year, every once a year. Each season was a a whole year. Exactly. Different now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have, you don't really have a lot of annualized television shows anymore, like especially in streaming, you know, streaming.
00:20:16
Speaker
I mean, traditional television, you know, you still have yearly seasons of like law and order SVU and, the original Law & Order they they brought back. I'm trying to think what other... yeah you've got You've got shows on all those... you know The big four networks, right? That come back every single year.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yep. yeah know So it still exists. It's just not not really ah not really common in the streaming world. Exactly. Exactly. It's just a whole new genre. I always keep wondering if eventually... a Data said in the the episode The Neutral Zone that television didn't last beyond the year 2040.
00:20:50
Speaker
So and now we got streaming that's really taking over over cable and even network. So who knows in the next 15 years is some sort of odd prophecy kind of comes true. You know, I mean, I think that, you know, Star Trek is a little a little bit behind on The Simpsons and predicting real. Agreed. Agreed. But they predicted tech.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, very true. I mean, who'd have thought, you know, tablets, you know, when seeing seeing data pads for the first time and then, you know, now we have tablets. Absolutely.
00:21:23
Speaker
Earpieces. Yep. and like AirPods. Well, just the original cell phone, the flip phone design was based on the communicator. So absolutely. Absolutely. I don't think we have any handheld scanners yet. I'm not sure about that, but like tricorders.
00:21:37
Speaker
I want to say that they have, a very early concept of like, you know, something that you, that's similar to tricorder, but it's very limited use, right. It can't scan everything. But I think, I think they have like some sort of basic, like medical tricorder.
00:21:54
Speaker
who Okay. Well, they do have that. Yeah. Remember in the original series, the, the bio beds, the, the screen behind those are commonplace now. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, very true. So that was a fun little discussion about what what could potentially occur after Strange New Worlds wraps up. Absolutely. We just can't get our panties in a wad. We just gotta wait and see what happens.
00:22:18
Speaker
Exactly. not you know Nothing is official until it's official. Exactly. Don't get technical with me. Magic is the A Jedi uses their force for knowledge and defense.
00:22:35
Speaker
All right. So I think on that note, we are going to go transition to our feature discussion for this episode.
Star Trek vs Star Wars: Tech Comparison
00:22:43
Speaker
And I don't think I gave a teaser at the top of the episode what we're talking about. So we are carrying on with the comparison format that we've been doing for our last couple episodes.
00:22:53
Speaker
So this time we thought we would compare ah different technologies in Star Trek and Star Wars and try to find the things that are similar and the things that are different between The technology used in in both the galaxy far, far away and the alpha and beta quadrants and sometimes gamma quadrant.
00:23:11
Speaker
Don't forget delta. Oh, yeah. The delta quadrants. Yeah, we got to have the delta quadrants, too. So, yeah. So we got the first four letters of the Greek alphabet. You got it. All right. So let's talk about our first pairing.
00:23:25
Speaker
Do you want to talk about blasters and phasers? Yeah. Why don't we start there? Something easy. All right, so in in the I'll start with the Star Wars aspect of things. So yeah as far as blasters in Star Wars, it uses the same principles as laser weaponry.
00:23:42
Speaker
Basically, these blasters convert gas into a plasma bolt of some type. Upon being fired, the blaster bolt kind of, you know, when it hits a target, it causes damage to the area hit You know, you can have burns or you can have some gnarly flesh wounds, you know, cut from a blaster attack.
00:24:01
Speaker
And there were different types of blasters in Star Wars. You know, you have stun blasters, you had blaster pistols, you have rifles, you have blasters that can be reconfigured into different types of arrangements.
00:24:13
Speaker
You had ion blasters, percussive cannons, heavy repeating cannons, repeating blasters, blaster cannons. You even had some interesting, like you had Chewbacca's bowcaster. For example, a very powerful crossbow like blaster weapon that that really did some damage above and beyond what a standard blaster pistol could do.
00:24:33
Speaker
Didn't Han really love that? Yeah. and Was that in The Force Awakens? Yep. Yeah. I was just going to reference Force Awakens video. we We get to see how powerful it truly is. i mean, you saw Kylo Ren take a crossbow bolt to the shoulder.
00:24:48
Speaker
And you could tell he was visibly in pain and and suffering yet, you know, and I, and I think that was a big contributing factor to why Ray ah was able to, you know, be as successful against him as he could because he was in pain and he wasn't being, he, you know, Kylo Ren wasn't able to function at a hundred percent.
00:25:05
Speaker
oh Absolutely. Because of that blaster bitt bolt injury. So yeah. Okay. So I kind of, didn't really put together a ton of notes on this, but we're going to use our our source of Wikipedia. okay I'm not going to read directly from Wikipedia, but but we're going to use it as talking points. So, yeah. So like, yeah like you're talking, yeah like I was talking with the, ah you know, yeah the blaster bolt leaves a mark it's kind referred to as a blaster burn.
00:25:32
Speaker
You kind of, you know you could do all kinds of modifications to a blaster weapon. You could put a scope on it. ah You can put a long barrel to make it like, like a sniper, you could put a double barrel to be more like a shotgun. You know, you could, you could put together a blaster in any, you know, any kind of common configuration that we have in our world today for weapons.
00:25:52
Speaker
Absolutely. so yeah, that's, that's kind of blaster technology from star Wars in a nutshell. What, what do we have? How do phasers work and how do they compare to blasters? Well, I can't, I'm not sure. I can't remember. i I know in the original series, they said in the episode Omega glory, that phasers had power packs.
00:26:10
Speaker
They didn't really say that a whole lot more in any of the other episodes. So I don't know necessarily what this is, what the power source is. i don't know if they have like some sort of crystal or something in there that, you know, that kind of gets the beams going.
00:26:23
Speaker
But basically phasers are are Starfleet phasers anyway are supposed to be used to try to just stun people. But yeah obviously Star Trek, the Federation is very pacifistic and nobody wants to kill unless they absolutely have to.
00:26:36
Speaker
But phasers can be moved up to different levels. So there's the light stun and then there's just regular stun and then there's heavy stun. But then it also has the ability to be put on the kill setting to actually disintegrate somebody. Now,
00:26:49
Speaker
The stun and kill seem to be a little bit different in Star Wars. Star Wars, they have those like blue rings that come out that stun somebody where the phasers, no matter what setting is, you still just see a particle stream of energy that comes out.
00:27:07
Speaker
That they can leave phaser burns, especially at close range. And they it's deadly with stun as well, up in close range. We saw that in Star Trek VI when Burke and Samna were killed by Valeris.
00:27:20
Speaker
Do you remember that? I've seen it. No, I don't remember. So Burke and Semno were the ones who beamed aboard Chancellor Gorkon's ship and assassinated them. And so Valeris knew that she had to keep them quiet. So at one point after Kirk and McCoy are rescued from Rorapente, they're walking in the corridors.
00:27:39
Speaker
The door opens up and they're dead. And you can see phaser burns on their heads. And so Valeris, what they did was they used that as a way to set up the the killer to to find out who the identity was, and it was Valeris.
00:27:51
Speaker
So we know it those at close range, they are just as deadly as ah regular phaser. Now, blasters, can they disintegrate somebody? I don't think I've ever seen that, whereas Starfleet phasers can't.
00:28:03
Speaker
Hmm. I mean, i don't know if we've seen it. We definitely haven't seen it on screen that I can recall, but I'm not entirely sure. i don't know enough about the books and comics to know if that has ever been, know, I imagine that while it may not be a traditional blaster, there's probably been something and in years and years of expanded universe stuff, whether it's books, comics, animated shows where somebody was disintegrated by a blaster bolt.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i don't recall so I don't recall specific examples, no. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen anything... Heck, even lightsabers don't... Well, I mean, Obi-Wan kind of disintegrated after he got hit, but that was more of him joining the Force, right?
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah. So it wasn't lightsaber. Yeah, and that was a lightsaber that would have taken a lot of blasters. Right, right. So, yeah. So blasters, they're basically... So they have the stun and kill settings.
00:28:58
Speaker
It's just... But the blasters don't seem to have that disintegration disruptor effect. that Starfleet chasers and a lot of Star Trek alien weaponry has as well. Like Klingons and Romulans have disruptors.
00:29:10
Speaker
I don't know if theirs are even, if theirs are even considered, they have a safety, especially the Klingons. if they don't have a safety, they're like, they're going to shoot you They're going to shoot you, you know, but but yeah, a lot of the more enemies have that.
00:29:23
Speaker
Also the Jedadar, I don't know if you remember about them or not. Their, their rifles actually shot Energia and when it hit you, actually left an anticoagulant. in you. So you could you would actually bleed out no matter what you did to stop the bleeding.
00:29:38
Speaker
That's pretty deadly, man. yeah That's a freaky thought, just being you know being shot with a phaser is one thing, but one that's going to blow a hole in you and then you can't it won't clot or stop.
00:29:51
Speaker
A lot of the Star Trek weaponry ah is pretty different. It sounds like the Star Wars weaponry, basically, whether it's and Imperial or Rebel Pirate or whatever, it's all, they're blasters.
00:30:02
Speaker
essentially. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have different manufacturers, right. And, you know, so like the, you know, the empire uses one manufacturer for their weapons, but then, you know, like smugglers, you like a Han Solo prefers a blast tech, right. You know, kind of like your, you know your Colt or your Glock, you know, they're, those are the but manufacturers, you but they all build their weapons based on the same technology, but they each have different, you know, different brands have different looks and style things.
00:30:29
Speaker
Right. Right. But anyway, yeah how you know how you've got blaster rifles and blaster and and hand weapons, like you know handgun style weapons. You also have phasers that aren't come in different sizes and configurations, right? yeah know There's phased rifles. We've seen them in Star Trek.
00:30:46
Speaker
Absolutely. And phaser technology you know from you know for ship-to-ship combat is also based on the same exact technology, yes? Absolutely, yes. And you can actually set the ship's phasers on stun and actually fire on ah on a city block and actually stun everybody.
00:31:03
Speaker
I don't know if you remember watch if you ever watched a piece of the action from Season 2 the original series. I... I don't think I've seen it yet. Yeah. It's the one with, it's a society that actually created their whole world based around 1930 Chicago.
00:31:19
Speaker
Cause a century earlier, there was a book left Chicago mobs, Chicago mobsters of the nineteen twenty s I think it was called something like that. And what these people on Sigma Iosha too, were very, they copied a lot of things.
00:31:32
Speaker
So they, they based their whole life on that. They called it the book. Yeah. But yeah, at one point, just to show how powerful the Enterprise was, Kirk stunned an entire city block from orbit.
00:31:43
Speaker
That's impressive. That's really cool. So weapons can, and in the ships can be modified. I don't know. I doubt that in Star Wars. so i think I mean, you think again, I've never seen anything like that. You generally don't have, in Star Wars, you you generally don't have much combat from ships in orbit attacking planet surfaces, right? unless Unless it's the Empire, you know, and the Death Star.
00:32:06
Speaker
Right, exactly. Or like when Kamino was destroyed in the Bad Batch. Right. By that Venator. Yep, yep. And then you have you have Star Destroyers in the Battle of Jakku. You had star Star Destroyers in orbit over the Battle of Jakku.
00:32:20
Speaker
no So yeah, you do have planetary, you know or ship to planetary conflict, but it generally seems to be the Empire that starts all of it. Pretty much. Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:32
Speaker
Absolutely. But I do. You're absolutely right. So Starfleet has those handheld phasers, but you're right. They can graduate into the bigger rifles, kind of like what you would see with Star Wars. So pretty cool. to but So while the technology may be different for both, that they do operate on some pretty consistent principles within each universe.
00:32:51
Speaker
who Yes, so I agree with you. All right. Why don't we move on to our next pairing?
Droids vs Tricorders: Roles & Functions
00:32:57
Speaker
who This one's going to be interesting. this is We're going to look at the the the different types of droids, and I think we're going to try to compare them to the Starfleet Tricorder.
00:33:09
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Just because think, you while you have multiple, you know you have different droids that serve different purposes. A tricorder is a single device that serves multiple purposes.
00:33:21
Speaker
So I thought that was the most apt comparison for us to take a look at. Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, you know what? Can I pause for one second? Yeah. Yeah. ah Going back to what we just talked about, I i meant to say this and i forgot it.
00:33:33
Speaker
Starfleet phasers can also be put on overload to be used as another form of weapon. It's like a bomb. Oh, Right. Yeah, that's true. We have seen that on at least one occasion, if not Yeah.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah. I don't, that definitely has never been in Star Wars as far as I can, I can tell. I don't, I don't know if I've ever seen an overheated blaster use as a weapon. I mean, you have thermal detonators that kind of yes serve that purpose for Star Wars. That's yeah that's a good point. Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
I just, sorry. That just hit me while we were talking. I'm sorry. No, no, that's good. That's, that's actually, yeah, that's, that is a very significant difference between the two. All right. So droids and tricorders. So why don't you go first? tell Tell us a little bit about what the tricorder can do and and the evolution of the tricorder as we've seen it on screen. Okay. So tricorders for people, they're they're used by Starfleet officers to scan but different environments, different items, different...
00:34:29
Speaker
you know, molecular stuff, just see if people are still how they're doing health wise. um You have the regular tricorder and then you have a medical tricorder that they pretty much do the same stuff.
00:34:40
Speaker
Essentially, they some of them come with little handheld scanners so you can scan individual like what environments, you know, ah whether or not plants are edible or those kind of things. They started out in the 22nd century during Archer's time. They were called scanners.
00:34:54
Speaker
at the time. And basically what you did is you just kind of, it was like in one in its own little case and you just slid the screen up basically. And then you had that. Then you had the flip tricorders in the 23rd century in the original series era.
00:35:07
Speaker
And by the 24th century, you had this little, it kind of looks like the size of an old cell phone. If you kind of want to think of it that way and you open it up and it lights up beeps and and does its thing. So Knowing Star Trek, they they have modified tricorders for the need of the story to do multiple things.
00:35:24
Speaker
You know, send out warning beacons and SOSs and all that fun stuff. So I guess they can be modified to do that kind of stuff. You know, but basically their primary function is to scan and give and transmit data to are heroes so we can see what's going on. Is the planet safe or not?
00:35:42
Speaker
So... Can a tricorder be used for hacking? Like to to gain entry or to you know to to override a security system? or I'm sure they can. like just there so they've it i do believe they have. i just There's so many uses of it that I can't remember off the top of my head.
00:36:02
Speaker
But yeah, I think they have been able to do that. They've also been used as power energy sources as well. Okay, okay. so So while... you know Basically, you tricorders are an all-in-one device that, you know, depending on the what the needs of the plot of the episode.
00:36:20
Speaker
Exactly. or Or movie, you know, they can be used for different purposes. But essentially, it's ah it's a very all-encompassing device that has multiple functions in a single handheld device. Mm-hmm.
00:36:31
Speaker
which is completely different from droids in Star Wars because you essentially have droids for every little, every individual purpose, right? So you've got R2 units that are kind of, you know, they're their're mechanics, they're hackers, they're they have some like protective weaponry, you know, to protect themselves.
00:36:51
Speaker
that Then you've got things like, you've got the gonk droids, you know, the little gonk, gonk, you know, the ones that just waddle along. Those are basically giant batteries, right? oh So they're used as power droids for different applications. You've got droids that are designed to load stuff on, you load cargo onto ships. You've got, you know, you've got some really, you know, droids like BB-8, which is kind of a type of astromech droid, but a not the same style as R2.
00:37:18
Speaker
But essentially, yeah, you've got you've got you've got a different type of droid for just about every purpose. Yeah. For example, I know we're not really comparing the two, but you've got the protocol droid, which essentially is the function of a universal translator in Star Trek.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yep, absolutely. Right. It's just the droid speaks the languages and does the translations rather than you just being able to hear what they're saying in your native tongue. track u t So what do you think with a closest like any kind of droid device? What do you think would equal the tricorder in itself? It's just a matter of every single thing is separate, whereas the tricorder has it all.
00:37:56
Speaker
Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, i would say that probably if we're going to compare any type, any single type of droid to a tricorder, you'd probably say an astromech, right? That's it sounds like, you checking to see you like the ah the the atmosphere is livable, breathable, you know, something, you know, probably edible, something to that effect. Yeah, it probably does medical, could try to do some medical stuff.
00:38:18
Speaker
Right. On Dagobah and the Empire Strikes Back, R2 went out to check the swamp environment first before Luke got out. And also, didn't that happen in Mandalorian Season 3? Didn't didn't what what droid did they have? Was it R5D4 that checked the surface of Mandalore to see if it was still habitable?
00:38:39
Speaker
OK, yeah. Mm hmm. Makes sense. so Yeah. So there you go. An astromech and a ah medical astromechs and tricorders are probably the most apt comparison.
00:38:49
Speaker
Absolutely. And then for the medical tricorder, what would be to one B, right? Yeah. You'd have that droid. Yeah. yeah yeah but that Yeah. Yeah. The two one series or two whatever. I can't think of what that droid series is actually called.
00:39:02
Speaker
hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. You're looking at it up. ah Yes, I am. Actually, i know you get inquisitive. All right. So you've got,
00:39:16
Speaker
ah there we go first. So the two one B or like the, yeah the medical and surgical droid, those are considered first class droids. They're skilled in mathematical, physical, and medical sciences.
00:39:28
Speaker
So you've got the, you had the JN66 analysis droid, the 21B surgical droid. You had the midwife droid from episode three that helped deliver Padme's babies.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah. And you've got a couple other medical type droids available. Oh, cool. Okay. All right. So we found a nice little comparison. So again, Star Wars has all the droids seem to have certain functions.
00:39:51
Speaker
The tricorder just melds everybody into one essentially in its handheld. Can't carry a droid around per se. You know, so, okay. All right. So that was a fun little comparison, I guess. Yeah, it was.
00:40:05
Speaker
What do you think about moving on to our next one, which holo technology in Star Wars and compared to holodecks and holosuites in Star
Holo Technology: Communication vs Entertainment
00:40:15
Speaker
Trek? I gotcha. All right.
00:40:17
Speaker
Well, we know that ah yeah actually going all the way back to the animated series, there was some form of holodeck. ah They called it a recreation room, I think, in the animated series. And it was there was an episode called The Practical Joker.
00:40:29
Speaker
And there was a station that's there in the middle of the room. That's what they used to create the holographic device. We all know what the holodecks are. They have a hologrid. around them and that creates that basically holographic technology and Star Trek teams seems to be used more for entertainment.
00:40:46
Speaker
You know, we know them about Dixon Hill and, you know, a lot of warf's calisthenic programs and, was it Data doing what ah Henry V or Shakespeare, that kind of stuff. yeah And we all know what happens in Quark's holosuites.
00:40:59
Speaker
so So we know what holodecks, what they're basically used for. and they're using them for training simulations as well. Like when Nog was learning, before he was admitted into the academy, he had to learn how to fly a runabout. You'll see it in a season three episode. I forget which one at the end, but he used that for training.
00:41:17
Speaker
ah So that's basically it. I don't think... holographic technology wasn't necessarily used for communication in the Star Trek universe. At one point they were experimenting with it in season five of deep space nine. There's, there's the episode where Eddington, he had been captured by the, or no, no, he was still in the Maquis and it was a, he and Cisco were battling back and forth, but they had just installed a hollow projector on board, on the bridge of the defiant.
00:41:44
Speaker
And so That's when they started beaming like a hologram under the bridge to talk to. That lasted a whole two episodes and then it dropped without a trace after that. Never saw it again.
00:41:56
Speaker
So that is pretty much compared to what I think you and I talked about before the show about holo technology and Star Wars. A lot of times it's used for communication. But it's like that. Yeah.
00:42:07
Speaker
You know, it's like those white like holograms, either their face or their whole body and it flickers. You know, the yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:42:16
Speaker
So, yeah, so Star Trek holodeck technology is very much entertainment forward, right? Or training, i mean yeah. Or training, right? Ultimately, whatever if you can imagine it, you can have it exist in a holodeck program, right?
00:42:31
Speaker
you know like Like you said, Picard and um you know his Dixon Hill mysteries, right? yeah A good way a form of escapism, right? Cosplay to very... to a very you know significant degree. It's it's it's really you know advanced cosplay.
00:42:48
Speaker
Absolutely. The thing of Captain Proton on Voyager. Yeah. you know Or the Fairhaven crowd they had during season six of Voyager. you Right. you know Yeah, but you're right you're yeah you're right about Star Wars. is Primarily holograms and holotechnology is used for communication purposes, right? you know everyone you know when When you think of a hologram, a lot of people who watch Star Wars probably immediately think of the hologram message that Princess Leia records and puts in R2-D2, which sets off the you know the events of 1.
00:43:21
Speaker
of star wars of the first star wars you know trilogy movie from 1977 you see holograms you know being projected out of droids and other episodes and other things and in the series you see in empire strikes back you have the scene where darth vader goes to his meditation and and rehab chamber and and communicates with the emperor via floating head hologram ah You've got Jedi Council. In the prequels, we see a lot of the Jedi Masters on the Council joining in via hologram.
00:43:53
Speaker
one and them one and and in One in particular is one of those lines that gets kind of parried and parodied a lot, but Ki-Adi-Mundi, when he's talking about the droid attack on the Wookiees, right?
00:44:05
Speaker
that was he was He was in there via via hologram. Uh-huh. So, yeah. So primarily, yes, holograms are used in Star Wars for communication, but there's a lot of entertainment aspects as well to, you know, to holotechnology in Star Wars, right? Absolutely.
00:44:22
Speaker
Going back to to the original Star Wars, A New Hope, Episode IV, whatever you want to call it, you have on the Millennium Falcon, you have the holochess match between C-3PO and Chewbacca, where we get the line that, you know, Wookiees, or I mean, droids don't pull people's arms off when they lose or pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose.
00:44:42
Speaker
Absolutely. You've got holochess in that regard. You've got holotechnology used in games like, card games like Sabacc. The cards, you know, some in Subox, the cards have holograms and, know, like the they can be changed. You know, there are different things that can you can change the value of your card so that that uses Holo technology as well.
00:45:04
Speaker
I'm not sure what other types. Oh, you you had the HoloNet. which is kind of like your broadcast television. You know you had the holonet where, you know, you had news programs, you had soap operas, you had other entertainment, you know like you, I mean, I'm sure there was like a reality show type concept, ah you know, in, in, on the holonet, you so, so people could view holograms as entertainment in star Wars. You could, let's see. Yeah.
00:45:31
Speaker
What other types of, I can't think of any other types of applications of holotechnology offhand. I was thinking here, what about for tactical scenarios, tactical situations? Right, right. Yes. We we see the briefing room scenes in, and not only in, you know we see it in the original star Wars. We see it in, we see some, a little bit in, in empire strikes back and we see, we definitely see it in the, you know, as they're planning the attack run on Endor and that they are the attack on the death star too.
00:46:00
Speaker
We've seen, I thought, I swear we've seen it used in rebels as well. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. It could be used for military purposes as, as planning for, you know, a major full scale operation. Absolutely. Yeah. mean, if you watch the episodes of the clone wars, they're littered with that, which makes logical sense for sure. Yeah.
00:46:17
Speaker
So yeah. But yeah, beyond that, I'm not sure if there's any other real use Yeah, I can't think of anything offhand. I mean, there might be something that I'm not thinking of that's only occurred once or twice in in write an obscure book or comic that I haven't read.
00:46:33
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. Now, I think the last thing we kind of just threw in there, we were just having a personal discussion. Yeah. Could a Federation starship destroy the Death
Could a Federation Starship Destroy the Death Star?
00:46:44
Speaker
Star? Who would be the more destructive...
00:46:46
Speaker
you know, force. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know you had proposed that before we started recording and we kind of talked through it a little bit and found that, you know, maybe it's not as one-sided as you might think.
00:47:00
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. So, So we kind of, you know, offline we were discussing the differences in how phasers and torpedoes in Star Trek work versus blasters, lasers, or or torpedoes in and Star Wars.
00:47:16
Speaker
You find that, you know, a lot of but lot of ships in Star Wars did have shield generators, right? Much like a Starfleet vessel or or other you know other alien vessel, there's a shield generator that can...
00:47:28
Speaker
you know, absorb some damage from lasers and phase weapons, respectively, depending on the franchise. But then you've got like, you've got photon torpedoes in Star Trek, that can do more concussive damage and, and they have the potential to blast a hole in a shield much, which, you know, in, in, in star Wars as well, you know, a torpedo or a missile, you know, launched from like, you know, from ships that have that capacity, they're able to ah go through and penetrate shields and often, and sometimes even destroy the, the the aggressor, you know, the other vessel.
00:48:02
Speaker
Absolutely. You know, you know, penetrating the shield. So, right. Yeah. And that, That kind of leads into a discussion like our Starfleet phasers equivalent to Star Wars lasers.
00:48:13
Speaker
You know what I mean? They fire on the ship because I know in in in Next Generation, it was one episode where somebody was attacking the Enterprise and they were just using lasers and Picard's kind of smirking like, come on, really?
00:48:25
Speaker
You know, so but then we that would be a discussion like what if you'd have to see if they're equivalent to each other or, you know, separate. I always felt that Federation ships could destroy the Death Star.
00:48:37
Speaker
with quantum torpedoes and stuff like that might take a little bit, but I think they could definitely do it, but the death star can destroy planets. So all the death star would have to do is aim its laser at ah ship and they'd be gone with the wind, you know? So it's it's kind of, it's kind of fascinating to see like what, what would, who would stand up in that situation? Plus the death star is the size of a moon, you know? So it's, you know, that could be taken into account as well, you know, but i always had that in the back of my mind, who would beat who in that scenario?
00:49:08
Speaker
And we, you know, ah so, you know, so our Star Wars lasers built, are they the same technology in the lasers that Picard was referring to in TNG, right? So Star Trek has always been, ground you know, based on real world science, but, you know, extrapolated to what it could potentially be in the future.
00:49:29
Speaker
Star Wars is just you know more... you know Star Wars is all kind of... especially you know like The space battles in Star Wars are much more like dogfights that you'd see in atmosphere. you know like you know Obviously, George Lucas was inspired by dogfights in the like war war twoi World War II, World War I, with fighter planes.
00:49:46
Speaker
You that's what he built. Like he structured the the battles in Star Wars around that kind of model, where, again, this is something we also talked about offline, where Starfleet and and you know battles in the Star Trek universe are much more like a long, drawn out naval battle, right? It's not going to be quick, pew, pe pew, pew, right? It's, you know, it's it's a it's a systematic battle.
00:50:08
Speaker
battle You know, there's a lot of strategy. There's a, you know, there's a lot more strategy involved because, yeah. And sometimes like we were talking also, you know, Star Trek phasers have the ability to be modulated or remodulated, you know, to, to respond, you know, to penetrate different frequencies. Right.
00:50:25
Speaker
but We see that a lot with the Borg, right. You know, the Star Trek constantly has to remodulate their phasers to be able to do damage because of the way the Borg learn. That's right.
00:50:36
Speaker
Borg learn and adapt. Absolutely. So it, yeah, it's, it's, I don't know if we can pick a winner. um i don't, I don't think so either. Cause there are strengths and weaknesses on both ends.
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah. You know? So it's always just that it's fun though. Just the, the, the battle between the two franchises just to see, you know? Yeah. So I have fun with these kinds of compare and contrast episodes and this, you know, the last one that we did was just way out there, but it was fun. It was definitely fun.
00:51:06
Speaker
That's what makes it entertaining. do it Yeah, for sure. Exactly. So cool. Thank you for letting us throw that in this in the show. Yeah, of course.
Conclusion & Future Teasers
00:51:14
Speaker
So I think on that note, we are going to wrap things up for this episode, right?
00:51:19
Speaker
I think so. Okay. Well, we hope you enjoyed our discussion of technology and Star Wars and Star Trek, as well as that little bonus discussion at the end there. We're going to be back with an episode in early August. So stay, know, stay subscribed to our podcast feed to Feast the Fandom's feeds and social medias, and you'll get the episodes notifications as they arrive.
00:51:43
Speaker
We will see you next month in August for more Captain's Logs and Lightsabers. podcast discussions. On that note, may the Force be with you.
00:51:54
Speaker
And live long and prosper. Good night, everybody.
00:52:25
Speaker
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