Not a Trekkie

Seriously, I am not. I like the shows and have seen almost all of them from oldest to most recently canceled, but I don't have any "collectables" or go to conferences or anything that has to do with the life of a hard core fan...not that there is anything wrong with freakishly hardcore fans, but that is fodder for a different entry. That being said, there is a couple of Star Trek related items that are on my mind lately.

I watched a lot of episodes. LOTS. Never once have I seen a 110 outlet on the wall. Yet they all walk around with digital books and manuals, phasers and Tricorders that never get recharged. This distresses me on many levels.

My cell phone battery dies on a regular basis. My cell phone is a Nextel i-90. Compared to newer cell phones, it isn't sleek or small (although I make it sexy). From Next Gen on, they all wore those little things on their shirts they used to talk to each other. Besides that they are almost never out of range (even when talking to shipmates in orbit) and even though they smack it once and just start talking to whoever they want (I have to scroll through a lengthy phonebook to find who I wanna talk to, which incidentally, makes me want to hit my phone at times) the most vexing part is it never runs out of batteries. Never. Not once have I ever seen one charging. They also don't have battery lights to say when they are dying.

I have seen an episode where Spok accidentally left his Tricorder on and went through a time portal. He and Capt. Kirk later surmise that it was "like the Tricorder ran for weeks" and thank goodness because they used that info to get back to the time they belonged in. Unless that time portal had a Tricorder recharger in it, than I think that is maybe a load of crap. When was the last time anyone said "thank the sweet baby Jesus in the manger, I left my ________ on for weeks!"

Now, conversely, hand held phasers run out of juice from time to time. Usually in a pinch. I don't get how the manufacturers of the Tricorder batteries don't get with the Phaser battery people. Given Star Fleet Academy seems to be a Government deal, all this stuff is probably made by the lowest bidder, which actually explains the failing phaser batteries, but not the longevity of the Tricorder and badge communicator.

Every other episode where someone leaves on a runabout, it crashes into an M class planet with natural characteristics which render communication technology useless. (If I served aboard a Star Fleet ship, and someone said, "Hey, take a runabout and go..." Unless they finished that sentence with "...have fun on the hooker planet." that is the point I say, "Hell no. I quit, I will be in my quarters for the rest of the voyage watching Space TV." However, the Star Fleet crews I have come to know over the years never recognize the inherent dangers in leaving the ship on a runabout. They go, they crash. What is the first thing they start doing? "To boost the communications output of this device, I am hooking my phaser battery to the *technical space mumbo jumbo*..." Seriously, no one ever notices that Tricorders don't crap out, ever. I wish I could get a tricorder battery for my cell phone and Ipod.

I would talk about the holodeck here too, but since I am really focused on battery power at Star Trek devices, I will save the craziness of the Holodeck for another day.