Friday, September 12, 2008

Pointless Question #32

Why is it that on Star Trek, declaring Red Alert only causes people to walk a tad more briskly to battle stations?

7 comments:

Rhoadan said...

Speaking as a former EMT, running for battle stations is likely to result in collisions and casualties. A brisk walk should get you there in one piece. This is akin to the instruction to expedite resulting in the ambulance driver being extra careful.

Clint Bourgeois said...

Duh, those who are not at their battle stations end up on away missions. And if you are a red shirt, that's bad news. Thus Red Alert.

Anonymous said...

No sense in getting there before anyone's had time to change the lightbulbs.

Tom Foss said...

They turn down the lights, too. See, forget all the garbage about dilithium and trilithium; the Star Trek ships run on sparks. Just watch any episode--as soon as they start getting hit, consoles explode and sparks come out. During red alerts--which they call when they anticipate things exploding--they turn down the lights and switch to the flashing red ones, which use less sparks. That way, when things start exploding, fewer sparks come out, conserving the power source and enhancing crew safety.

Der Geis said...

My first thought would be that it has to do the Federation's workplace safety regulations but, of course, they run fatally high voltages through their control panels so it's a mixed bag.

Anonymous said...

My question is what do the casual passengers they WILLINGLY stick on these federation ships go through when there's a red alert with no further info on what the heck's going on every single week.

Bronze Dog said...

Time for my answer:

[Picard Speech]

Humanity has long since evolved beyond the need for running.

[/Picard]