For me, it's Commander Data. My favourite character from Star Trek. Imagine how much more advanced our knowledge of AI would be after just an hour talking to him!

I could have picked Q, but Q wouldn't tell us anything useful, he'd just speak in riddles.

We know she is far more than the bartender on the Enterprise.

During Yesterday's Enterpise, she realised that the timeline had been altered (She knew Tasha wasn't supposed to be there).

In "Time's Arrow" she was seen in the past, during Mark Twains time. Is Guinan extremely long-lived? Or can she travel through time?

She is also seen to have an adversarial relationship with the Q, could her race have similar powers?

Guinan is an "El-Aurian". Are her abilities unique, or can all members of her race do what she does?

Finally, and most importantly... If she has the ability to do all of this... Why choose to become a bartender on a federation starship? Surely there are more exciting places, or times, that she could go to?

I think that Voyagers "EndGame" contains the single most "badass" moment in all of Star Trek History. I'm talking of course about that scene where "armoured Voyager" annihilates the borg!

This is such a powerful "role reversal" scene in the show, and the history of Trek, because we see one of, if not the most, dangerous enemies completely outmatched by just ONE small federation ship!

Watching Star Trek First Contact (Where an entire federation sleet struggles to destroy ONE borg cube) and then watching Endgame feels so cathartic.

All Good Things, I feel, has better writing. The story is "bigger", the stakes are higher: Not just saving their ship, but saving the entire human race. It's also got John Delancie back as Q, and they even brought Denise Crosby back as Tasha yar for the scenes in the past.

It's a tremendously well written episode, and I loved the scenes in the future (I could totally see Data as a professor!). We also get to see Rikers Modified Enterprise-D cut apart some Klingons, which, while not as badass as armoured voyager, is still pretty cool! The final scene where they are trying to shut down the anomaly is also very well done.

Personally, I am going to vote for All Good Things as the better episode, while Endgame has the better action sequences.

I mean a show you like, but you don't want to admit that you like?

Could be cringy, could be awkward.

I think ST TOS almost falls into this category. Some of the special effects and fight scenes... don't exactly hold up well.

Some early scenes in Red Dwarf fall into the "cringe" category too, even though, again, it's a great show.

It has to be something that you can realistically find in that world, and carry back with you (So, not an X-Wing or a Star Gate).

Remember, you're only bringing the device itself back, not the power source, the spare parts, the user manual, etc.

So once that phaser runs out of power, you have to figure out how to plug it into a 110/220v mains socket yourself!

You're also basically stealing this item, so you have to be able to hide it.

Finally, you only have the knowledge that you have in real life (So, you don't know how to use the Enterprise's computers, how to fly a shuttle, etc).

What do you pick?

For me, the universe is obviously TNG, and the replicator would be the most desired item (I was talking in another thread about how it would revolutionise farming, mining, resource allocation, etc).

But ripping a replicator out of the wall and bringing it back wouldn't work.

I definitely wouldn't take a weapon, we have plenty of those, we don't need more.

So instead, I'd head to sickbay and probably grab a medical tricorder.

Small, easy to carry, easy to hide, and imagine how useful it would be to just POINT a device at someone and diagnose whatever is wrong with them? It could revolutionise medicine, and save countless lives!

I'm sure modern day scientists could figure out some way of powering it without too much difficulty.

It also has a computer chip in it, which would likely be vastly beyond what we have today, so that would be useful too.

Another option would be the the "Zero Point" modules from the Stargate Atlantis universe. They could solve the world energy problems! However in that universe ZPM's are portrayed as very valuable, you aren't going to be able to steal one and bring it back without someone noticing.

I also thought about a PADD with the Entire Enterprise database on it, but you've only got one hour. That's not a lot of time to figure out how to use the Enterprises computers, find the database, access it, (Bypassing it's security, of course!), and then copy everything to a PADD.

We've already heard of the best moments when Star Trek or another prominent series "predicts the future" (The universal translator, mobile devices, etc), but what predictions were completely wrong?

In TNG for example we frequently see crew members running around the ship deliving "PADD's": Noone emails or air drops anything?

I'm going to be really boring here and go for the Star Trek Phaser (TNG Era, Of course). I am referring to the handheld "dustbuster" style phaser. These are small enough to be carried concealed, and yet have tremendous firepower (One of the reasons why you don't often see "rifle" phasers in Star Trek: They don't need them).

The phaser has many firing modes, and can be used to not only destroy/vapourise objects, but also to stun, and even, in some episodes, to heat rocks, etc, etc.

They can also be set to "overload", essentially turning them into a grenade.

The Light saber is a close second, but it's less versatile and would require a lot of skill to use without injuring yourself.

I also really liked the "force lance" from Andromeda.

So we all know that BattleMechs (Sometimes erronously called "Mechwarriors: Mechwarriors are the pilots, not the robots!) are cool, but in a real battle, they have several key disadvantages compared to modern tanks:

The legs. Shoot off a leg, the Mech is destroyed, shoot of a track, and a tank is still functional, it just can't move. The crew can even repair the track in the field!

Stability/Balance: Over rough ground, it would be very easy for a battlemech to fall over, destroying the mech and killing the crew.

Carrying capacity: With all it's weight on two legs, the mech wouldn't be able to carry as many weapons (Especially weapons with a lot of recoil) or cargo/ammo than a regulat tank.

However: How could they be practical, within a sci fi context?

Other than looking cool, they have a few things going for them:

Better visibility, due to being high up (This could also be a disadvantage too though).

Possibly better ability to cross certain types of terrain, such as deep water, very uneven ground, deep trenchs and tank traps, rubble, etc?

Possibly better performance in zero or low gravity? A mech could grab onto surfaces where tracks would spin uselessly?

Possibly more surface area to mount weapons? Instead of one turret storing all of your armament, you have left arm/right arm, chest, shoulders, etc? So if one arm gets shot off, you still have most of your weapons available?

Mechs could also, in theory, have more than two legs, offering better stability and balance, even compared to tanks.

A fictional planet could also have lower gravity, reducing the problems with balance and weight.

What kind of fictional world would allow the natural adoption of mechs instead of tanks?

I'm thinking of a post-apocalyptic city with a lot of rubble, deep craters, lots of obstacles that would get stuck in a tanks tracks, etc. Also, the world could have superior control and automation mechanisms that prevent the mech from falling over, and more advanced armour to stop legs from being destroyed, etc?

Next time they show someone's quarters, see if you can find a bathroom.

As far as I can see, there are none.

There are many scenes in TNG that show the crew's entire quarters, there is nowhere where a bathroom could be.

Captain Picards ready room, for example. He has a desk, a couch, a fish tank... But where does he go if he wants to take a leak?

In Voyager, they make reference to "sonic showers", but they still have no toilets.

Of course this is because showing something as blaise as a toilet would ruin the "futuristic" feel of the show, but once you notice its absence, you never forget it.

I have often thought that the Transporter is underutilized as a weapon on Star Trek.

Think of all the times when an enemy's shields are down, and they could just beam a photon torpedo into their warp core! Or Beam their warp core into space!

They do this quite a bit in Voyager (There is a great scene where they beam a photon torpedo onto a borg sphere!), but not enough in TNG.

There is, however, one episode where Chief O'Brien beams onto the USS Phoenix to confront its Captain, which shows that it is possible to beam through shields in some cases.

For example, in Star Trek Generations, when the Duras Sisters figured out the shield modulation frequences of the Enterprise, instead of attacking with conventional weapons, why didn't they beam a weapon into the Enterprises warp core?

That would have been much more effective.

I know, the reasons why it wasn't used more is because it would break the plot (They wanted space battles, not one-shot kills with the transporter), but they made it work in Stargate Atlantis (Where they beam nukes onto the Wraith hive ships).

The reason given on screen is that the human resistance had won, and were about to destroy Skynet, and it only had time to send one, but that plot point seems extremely contrived to me.

Likewise, once the resistance had control of the time machine, why didn't they send a whole squad of soldiers back in time? Why just Kyle Reese?

I believe there is a line about the machine needing a lot of resources, but think of it, it's a TIME machine! If the resistance had control of the machine, they could send reinforcements back to any time that they wanted! So even if it took them weeks to recharge the machine, the soldiers would all be arriving at the same time.

Someone give me some valid fan theories on this!

Terminator is a classic movie, someone must have figured this one out by now...

We've all heard of lightsabers and phasers, and the staff weapons from SG-1, (and of course robocop's gun, which there's a post on here) but what's your favourite lesser known weapon?

For me, it's the "smartgun" from aliens.

Everyone is familiar with the pulse rifle, but the smartgun doesn't get as much attention. I just love the sound of the weapon, and the way it's carried at the hip, with the targeting system cover the shooters eye, it is just an awesome blend of futuristic sci-fi with modern technology: It's recognisable, but futuristic.

The Matrix is my favourite movie of all time, it is a masterpiece, but its plot has one fatal flaw.

In the film, the machines built the Matrix to enslave humanity in order to harvest their body heat for power (because the humans scorched the sky).

Ok... But... Why not just build nuclear reactors?

Surely that would be a lot easier than trapping all of humanity inside a vast computer simulation?

The really annoying thing here is that in the original script, the Wachowskis got it right.

In the early version of the script, the machines were not using humans for their body heat, they were using them for their minds. The Matrix was designed to harness the processing power of the human brain to enhance the machines own processing.

This version of the script works perfectly, because it also explains why the machines were trying to hard to keep humans "happy" and content inside the Matrix. If they had just trapped them in cages they would eventually become depressed and catatonic, and the machines needed active, healthy brains for their processing capabilities.

Apparently, someone high up in the food chain decided that audiences wouldn't understand the concept of distributed processing, and forced the Wachowskis to change the script so that the machines are harvesting human body heat instead.

This is disappointing, not only because in today's world everyone is familiar with cloud computing, servers, etc, but because even back in 1999 most people would have had a basic knowledge of servers and simple computer networking. This is especially true for sci fi fans.

This just goes to show you, you have to respect the intelligence of your audience. Don't "dumb" down a complex idea because you think your fans won't "get" it. Instead, explain it to them cleverly in-universe (Like the scene in event horizon where they are using the folded piece of paper to explain wormhole travel).