Talk:Disaster (episode)

Quaratum vs quartum
Hey, on this page, I've noticed that the References section contains a note for quaratum. Unfortuately, according to the subtitles on the DVD for this episode, and in The Star Trek Encyclopedia, this chemical is actually spelt "quartum", although it is pronounced kor-ar-tum. I'm going to use the cannon spelling when I write the summary. zsingaya 21:00, 28 Jan 2005 (CET)


 * Neither of those sources are canon. Tyrant 21:04, 28 Jan 2005 (CET)Tyrant


 * Tyrant is correct -- The DVD is erroneous -- the official script for the episode is a relevant canonical reference and it says quaratum. Both DVD titling and the Star Trek Encyclopedia are created by licensed sources outside the studio, while the script is a product of the actual production team, and is more relevant. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 21:38, 28 Jan 2005 (CET)

How can you say that the Encyclopedia isn't true??? Its written by Mike Okuda, who is the scenic art supervisor for Voyager and DS9. Surely that counts a canon??? Are you saying to me that he's wrong? I agree that it says Quaratum on the scripts, at least on the scripts available online. Are they any more canon than the book? This site has a copy of the script, but anyone could've edited it! zsingaya 13:15, 30 Jan 2005 (CET)


 * Could we please continue this discussion on one page only? I suggest to keep the discussion at Talk:Quaratum. -- Cid Highwind 13:53, 2005 Jan 30 (CET)

Image
The image (screen shot) on this page shows as

Can someone fix it? Jacen Solo 06:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That is because no image has been assigned there. Until one is selected, that is how it will look. For the time being, that is what everyone will have to live with. --OuroborosCobra 07:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Nitpickery!
(in exaggerated British accent) The following paragraph has been charged with nitpickery – an offense of the lowest order, but an offense nonetheless! Chip-chip-cheerio and all that. --From Andoria with Love 00:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It would be questionable to not exhale in a decompression (what Crusher told Geordi to do). Boyle's Law would imply that oxygen in our lungs would expand immensely due to the decreased atmospheric pressure.

This may be nitpicking, or it may be a true error, but why would the turbolift fall? Assuming that turboshafts do not have gravity plating at the bottom of them, wouldn't a gravity-neutral shaft be wanted as it would reduce the amount of energy required to move the lift, not having to move up against gravity. Additionally, if one were to cite surrounding decks gravity fields, wouldn't the lift simply "bounce" to the nearest deck?– 68.60.154.143 21:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it would be neither a nitpick or an error. It would simply be evidence that, for whatever reason, gravity plating is used in the turbolift shaft. --OuroborosCobra talk 21:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Has anyone ever considered the fact that there is no gravity in the shaft, but gravity devices that activate based on where the turbolift is going. And maybe it was pulled down by the gravity that kept gravity for the people in the shaft. - Nmajmani 22:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)Nmajmani


 * I'd be inclined to put this more on the side of correction for safety, rather than nitpicking, because in the real world, there actually are occasions where one might undergo rapid decompression, and holding air in your lungs could actually be fatal as the air could make your lungs explode.Ctetc2007 08:17, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

In those instances, I'm sure people in danger of possibly undergoing rapid decompression are smart enough to take instructions from a better source than a television episode or an article in a Star Trek encyclopedia. --From Andoria with Love 17:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This whole discussion is incredibly stupid: In case you haven't noticed, the whole ship has artificial gravity. Earth-normal gravity, apparently. The fact that people can walk on the floors but not the walls or the ceiling should have been your first clue. As for the "don't exhale" advice: If you had a set of lungs full of oxygen and suddenly found yourself in an airless environment, where you need oxygen to stay conscious (and alive), how stupid would you have to be to exhale before you needed to? Deadly stupid, I think. As in, if you exhale, you die. Don't believe me? Put your head underwater, exhale, and then stay there for fiveteen seconds. See how long you survive. I'll wait here, breathing. DCSarge 08:14, December 27, 2011 (UTC)


 * About Inhaling vs Exhaling I quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29 : The sequence in which Bowman re-enters Discovery shows him holding his breath just before ejecting from the pod into the emergency airlock. Doing this before exposure to a vacuum—instead of exhaling—would, in reality, rupture the lungs. In an interview[207] on the 2007 DVD release of the film, Clarke states that had he been on the set the day they filmed this, he would have caught this error.[208] In the same scene, the blown pod hatch simply and inexplicably vanishes while concealed behind a puff of smoke.[209] You still have oxygen in your blood - where it is eventually needed. So one would not die immediately. hoax, March 16, 2012.

A few issues

 * It seems very strange to me that openning the hanger door to get rid of the room's oxygen would have had any effect on the "plasma fire". A material existing in the plasma state has nothing to do with combustion, just really high temperatures, which was most likely being caused by the tremendous flow of energy through the ship's systems. Since the power flow would persist even after the air had been removed, there is no reason to expect the plasma fire to go out
 * I don't think it is the lack of Oxygen that causes the fire to go out, it is the extreme cold from the vacuum of space.
 * I would like to know how Picard, with a broken ankle, managed to climb out of the turbolift and onto the ladder. I doubt the children were strong enough to lift him up through the top of the lift.
 * It's rather neat how the umbilical cord on Keiko's baby is used to hide its genetalia, thus preventing any problems with censors. Quite a creative approach, and one that fits with the scene quite well.
 * Though Forbes did not move on to DS9 the conflict the Ensign Ro character has with O'Brien is vaguely alluded to in the pilot for DS9, where the Chief mentions the difficulties involved in working with ill tempered Bajoran women.
 * Deanna has no idea what a containment breach is? Even a first year cadet would know that would be the death of everyone.
 * Picard has the children pull out optical cable to use as a makeshift rope. The cable shown is fairly small in diameter. As optical cable is basically woven glass with an outer shell, it is highly unlikely it would have held even the children if one had slipped. Picard would surely know this, so why did he use it?
 * Why is that the cargo bay can be depressurized by the console nearest the outer bay doors, yet only repressurized by the control panel by the entrance much further away?
 * Dr. Crusher says that the wall is hot. La Forge asks her where. His visor can detect infrared. Can't he SEE where it's hot?--Reginald Barclay 18:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I would assume Picard's ankle was merely fractured, not snaped in two, and thus he could, with extreme pain and further damage to surronding tissue, walk on it. Optical cabling used in the 21st century is made of glass, but a better material may have been found by the 24th century that would be stronger, cheaper, and capable of handling more bandwidth.

The optical cable was all they had in the turbolift. I think everyone would take their chances with climbing out with what is there, rather than taking chances on the turbolift. La Forge was too busy doing whatever he was doing to look up and see where the fire was.
 * Space has no temperature. You can only gain or loose warmth by radiation.


 * As with everything in the Star Trek universe, their techno-babble science works like it does because the writers say it does. In case you haven't noticed, this is science-FICTION: It doesn't have to be based on real science.
 * As for how Picard climbed with a broken ankle: He simply didn't put any weight in the injured foot. If you'd watched the episode, you might have noticed the part where they show him only putting one foot on the the ladder, not the other foot.
 * I also found it strange how Dianna, who holds the rank of Lt. Cmdr in Starfleet, and is a bridge officer, is so clueless about how the warp core works. It's one thing to not have advanced technical expertise, but to not know that a warp-core breech would make the ship go ka-blooie? I'm not buying it.
 * This is the 24-th century we're talking about here. Who knows what advances they might have made in materials sciences that could make their optical cable much stronger than the optical cable we know? For all we know, it could be stronger the steel.
 * Apparently, whoever designed the software for the cargo bay doors was an idiot.
 * Because he was focusing on something else at the time. He's only human, you know. DCSarge 08:31, December 27, 2011 (UTC)

Nitpick

 * Prior to "commissioning" the children in the turbolift, the children's collars have pinholes punched in them from Picard's rank pips from previous takes.
 * The back piece that Patterson fashions for Picard's plaque is different when Picard takes it into his ready room.
 * Even though O'Brien refers to her as "Lieutenant Monroe," she wears the rank pips of a Lieutenant junior grade, and the script identifies her as "Lieutenant Monroe," Jana Marie Hupp is listed as "Ensign Monroe" in the episode's credits.
 * At different times the script indicates that the character of Monroe is male and female.


 * Someone also needs to edit this page... – Saphsaph 02:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Missing quote
I'm a bit surprised that the exchange between Troi and O'Brien didn't make it onto the quotes section--though it is mentioned on the entry for Cosmic string:
 * ''"How big is a quantum filament?"
 * "Well, it can be hundreds of meters long. but it has almost no mass, which makes it very difficult to detect."
 * "So, it's like a cosmic string?"
 * "No. That's a completely different phenomenon."''


 * Please see MA:QUOTE, but we try to limit the quotes in the quotes section to one or two lines per quote. Could you explain why you think it should be included?--31dot 18:58, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Words that typically have religious connotations
In Act Three of the episode description, where it begins "In Ten Forward, Worf and Keiko are ministering to the wounded", I edited the word "ministering" and replaced it with "tending". I believe that replacing this word with an alternate one removes no meaning from the sentence, and satisfies a desire for accuracy.

SweetBearCub 12:58, December 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Erm... satisfies a desire for accuracy? I don't get it. -- sulfur 13:10, December 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, as far as I am aware, the word "ministering" (as in "to minister to") means, among other things, to speak to someone in a religious context. That's not an accurate description of what was occurring in Act Three. Although the word is commonly substituted for more appropriate words like "Tending" (at least in this context), I disagree with that. PS: Why did Wikia duplicate my last edit on the talk page, and yet not allow me to edit the duplicate out? SweetBearCub 13:24, December 22, 2010 (UTC)

bridge command
I know this question cuts out part of the heart of the plot, and is entirely moot but couldn't Ro, as a command divison officer, demand Troi yield command to her, since usually a lower-ranking line officer would take command over an inexperienced staff officer? Or wouldn't O'Brien, who was still a full lieutenant and had command experience from the Cardassian war, etc. take over instead of seeming to act as first officer? 74.69.127.200 22:13, January 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * In the future, specific plot questions should be asked at the Reference Desk, as article talk pages are intended to discuss changes to the article only.--31dot 02:19, January 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think it would matter if Ro or O'Brian more experience than Troi because they are both below Troi in rank so there for who ever the ranking officer  must take command experienced or not


 * Despite having the pips of a full Lieutenant, O'Brien is not a Lieutenant but a Chief Petty Officer, as mentioned specifically in dialogue in the season 4 episode 'Family'. As for command division (Ro's redshirt) officers taking preference over other divisions, that has never been the case in Starfleet. Otherwise, Data and Worf would not get the command chair as often as they do, not being command division. My problem with the scene is not the command structure but Troi's rank itself. I simply find it impossible to believe that she somehow climbed to the rank of Lt. Cmdr. with so little knowledge of ship's operations, nor do I buy that Starfleet would define 'Counselor' as equivalent in rank to 'Lt. Cmdr.' without any training in ship's operations. So it's true that the scene is totally implausible but not for the reasons you specified. 75.119.253.212 20:49, April 28, 2012 (UTC)