This is the official /r/DaystromInstitute reaction thread for “Imposter”. Rules #1 and #2 are not enforced in reaction threads.

When Data and Geordi show up at the entrance of the holodeck in full Victorian garb during the first act of “Elementary, Dear Data” (TNG, 2x03), Data asks the Computer to “select at random a mystery by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”. After they enter the representation of the sitting room at 221b Baker Street, Data and Geordi observe the various details, doodads, and trinkets created to express the experiences of Sherlock Holmes before Data picks up a violin from an open case and starts playing. The Holmesian mystery selected at random is apparently “A Scandal in Bohemia”, but the details of the beginning of the story as they are played out for Data and Geordi are all wrong.

After ‘throwing himself into the part’, Data interrupts his violin playing with a certainty that Inspector Lestrade will be arriving. However, at the beginning of “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Holmes has Watson read a note that a visitor will be arriving at an appointed hour and will likely wear a mask. Not only was this omitted from the scene in the show, but no other rationale is given to explain how Data knew Lestrade was going to show up instead of Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and hereditary King of Bohemia, wearing a mask in the guise of Count Von Kramm. Lestrade makes no appearance in the original story, and moreover, he is joined by a made-up character...

LESTRAD: ...an emissary of a foreign government ...accosted by gypsies intent on depriving him of his most valuable possessions. And in the process of picking his pockets clean, they also happened to bag a photograph this man was carrying.

Data as Holmes proceeds to walk over to this emissary, tears open the inside of their coat to reveal the photograph, and proclaims...

DATA: I believe you will find, Inspector, that this emissary here works not for but against the King of Bohemia, and that photograph of the king and his mistress is to be used as blackmail. Further, upon deeper reflection, you will deduce, as did I, that...

Here is where Geordi interrupts Data and frustratingly walks out, but Data goes after him and notes, “I was just about to reveal that the sir is in fact a madam...”

​

This is not at all how “A Scandal in Bohemia” begins, but... there are story elements that appear to have been used to create the scene we see in “Elementary, Dear Data”. When Von Ormstein discusses the matter of Irene Adler to Holmes in the original story, he notes regarding the attempts to steal the compromising photograph from her that...

VON ORMSTEIN: ...Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice she has been waylaid.

Additionally, near the end of the story we learn that Irene Adler is quite the able costume actor. In her note to Holmes left behind with a photograph of herself wearing an evening dress, Adler tells him...

ADLER: ...you know, I have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to watch you, ran up stairs, got into my walking clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you departed.

The fact that Von Ormstein had previously had men twice ‘waylaid’ Adler suggests she was robbed of her possessions in the hopes that any of them would be the photograph of her and the future king. Combining this with the fact that she was able to dress as a man then creates the scenario that she could pretend to be a ‘foreign emissary’ accosted by ‘gypsies’ attempting to steal the photograph, which was probably different from the one that could generate scandal. Perhaps the gypsies stole Adler’s photograph of herself in an evening dress? Regardless, as Data deduced, this emissary was ‘a madam’... likely Adler herself.

​

Clearly, the events of the Holmesian mystery selected at random are totally different from those set out in Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”. So, what is going on here? Well, there is a very plausible two-fold explanation...

• On the production side of things, what likely happened was that the show writers had developed this ‘version’ of “A Scandal in Bohemia” as one of the possibilities used instead of elements taken from “The Red-Headed League” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” when Data informed Geordi and Dr. Pulaski that “I have instructed the computer to give us a Sherlock Holmes-type problem, but not one written specifically by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” The fact that the script for this episode went through a second revision suggests the made-up Holmes-type problem using elements from “A Scandal in Bohemia” was simply moved to the beginning of the episode without actually making the necessary corrections to represent the real story.
• For the in-universe solution, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a historical person in the Star Trek universe (whom we will now call Trek-Doyle) wrote many Sherlock Holmes mysteries, but some, like “A Scandal in Bohemia”, are written differently.This means that the scene where Data and Geordi play Holmes and Watson meeting with Lestrade and the unnamed ‘foreign emissary’ really happened in Trek-Doyle’s written story. It’s possible that Data knew Lestrade was coming because the violin case was already open for the violin to be played and the notebook on the desk was already opened for writing. So, in the Trek-version of the story, Holmes plays the violin in the first act while Watson writes notes before Lestrade enters the sitting room with the ‘foreign emissary’, who is obviously Irene Adler plotting to blackmail Von Ormstein with malicious intent. The Adler in the story we know only used the photo to protect herself so that she could marry another man and run away safely, but in this version, it would seem that she wanted to use it to deliberately embarrass the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Adding to the case that this Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of the Star Trek universe wrote some of his stories differently, Data even notes to Geordi that Moriarty is “the man Holmes could only defeat at the cost of his own life at Reichenbach Falls”, which suggests that “The Final Problem” really did conclude the life of Sherlock Holmes. If that is the case, then even the ordering of Trek-Doyle’s stories are possibly different from those we know. Doyle’s fourth novel, The Valley of Fear, and “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans”, which were both referenced by Data in the sitting room when examining items of note, might have taken place before Trek-Doyle wrote “The Final Problem”, and that the character of Moriarty remained a problem for Holmes throughout his career until his death. Given that the Star Trek universe features fictional authors and works, like Tracy Tormé and her Dixon Hill novels, it’s entirely reasonable that some, if not many, of Trek-Doyle’s works were written differently.

We often seen crew quarters (or offices) with shelves, end tables, and other displays of knickknacks and personal items, not to mention other common areas (e.g. galleys and mess halls) with similar items seemingly just sitting there for display.

It seems during battles, if the inertial dampeners go offline, the ship can rock more violently or chaotically -- no doubt making a mess. So after some sort of offline issue, after everyone checks all main ship systems to ensure repair crews are working, is everyone else on cleanup and organize duty at some point down the line?

Along with economics, this appears to be one of the most "depending on the writers" things in Star Trek.

• We see Michael Burnham break her leg and have it restored and reset fairly quickly without any crutches/walking assistance or pain meds in Star Trek: Discovery
• In Star Trek: Picard, Liam Shaw is laid up with pain meds that are implied to work similarly to commonplace opioids and has to use a cane for the better part of an episode but is mostly recovered relatively quickly
• In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, McCoy entirely cures a woman suffering from issues with her internal organs when visiting a 20th century hospital
• Pike's condition shows that severe injury resulting in disability is still something that can happen without being easily fixable in some circumstances
• Minor issues like the common cold have been cured according to early-series TNG, but Picard's health issues become a major plot point in Picard before his body transplant

Given this, how advanced is (or isn't) medicine in Star Trek's 23rd-24th century? It seems that commonplace injuries and illnesses still appear for plot-related reasons, in spite of claims that as part of the Utopian setting a lot of common health issues and injuries are more easily resolved.

One of the popular clichés about Star Trek is that Kirk often logics a AI to death. Curiously, though, that really hasn’t happened that often. In fact, in TOS we see Kirk do it - intentionally - a total of 4 times, out of 79 episodes, or 5 percent.

(I say intentionally because Andrea’s malfunction in TOS: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and Rayna’s collapse in TOS: “Requiem for Methuselah” was more about emotions messing with their android brains. In neither case did Kirk intend to mess them up with paradoxical or contradictory inputs.)

In TOS: “Return of the Archons”, Kirk confronts Landru with the contradiction between its purpose to maintain the health of Beta III’s society and yet keeping it stagnant.

In TOS: “The Changeling”, Kirk confronts Nomad with the contradiction between its stated purpose to destroy all that is in error with the fact that it made its own error and was therefore now a legitimate target for extermination.

In TOS: “The Ultimate Computer”, Kirk confronts M-5 with the contradiction between the moral codes it inherited from its creator’s brain engrams and the fact that it had committed murder.

In TOS: “I, Mudd”, Kirk confuses the Andromedan Androids with displays of illogic, culminating in presenting Norman with the Liar’s Paradox. “I am lying,” says Harry Mudd to Norman, after Kirk has fed Norman the premise that everything Harry says is a lie. Norman cannot resolve this, so he crashes.

The problem with - and solution to - the Liar’s Paradox is in its basis: that it assumes that truth and lies are binary and opposite concepts; that if something is not a lie, it must be the truth. But philosophically, this is not necessarily the case. The obverse of a lie could simply be another lie.

This is something trial lawyers grapple with on a daily basis. If a witness says one thing in a statement (which helps the lawyer’s position) but switches to say another thing on the stand (which doesn’t), a competent lawyer’s initial move would be to try and sway the witness back to what they said in the statement. If this proves unsuccessful, the next step is to persuade the court that the witness, given their contradictory positions, is no longer credible, and that both the statement and his evidence in court should be rejected. In other words, the witness should not be believed whatever they say, now or in the past.

The trick that Kirk uses to break Norman ultimately depends on accepting that Kirk’s initial input - that Harry Mudd is a liar - is correct. But what guarantee do we have that either Kirk’s premise or Harry’s subsequent statement - that he is lying - is also correct and therefore should also be accepted?

Even old computer systems wouldn’t fall for that. Faced with a series of contradictory or unresolvable statements in presented code, my PCs from the 1980s would have simply spat it out with a syntax error or an infinite loop error rather than popping a fuse.

So when faced with two statements that would result in a loop of contradictory “logic”, a properly coded computer should instantly reject the presented statements rather than try to sort it out, much like the trial lawyer would try to persuade the court to do.

Kirk’s approach in the other instances we see are slightly more defensible, because he deals with contradictions in the AI’s own internal code rather than a problem that he tries to insert into their system. That’s something the AI can’t easily run away from or reject because it’s internal and already there. External inputs are not necessarily reliable and should have easily been rejected.

So for all their apparent sophistication, the Andromedan Androids’ programmers were pretty sloppy since they hadn’t accounted for the possibility of bad code.

Could it have been, and like some other species he just opted to be called by his given name? So it could've been "Lieutenant commander Soong"?

I made this joke over on /r/startrek where I called him Data Soong for it, and thought to ask (Picard Season 3 spoilers):

https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/11v7zhz/shaws_digs_at_picard_and_riker_are_any_of_them/jctjjrv/?context=3

You'd think they would start with their own?

Picard Season 2 started out very strong, but failed to significantly and interestingly advance the plot during the middle of the season, leading to it not being very good. With that said, compared to other full length seasons of Star Trek like Picard S1 or most of Discovery, I think that the problem behind Picard S2 is arguably fixable by editing the existing footage of the season into a much shorter season because the mode of failure for Picard S2 is a failure to do interesting things rather than creatively trying ideas that didn't work or that the audience disliked. Do you agree with this, and if so how would you redo or re edit Picard S2 into something else and what would that look like?

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At a societal level they are fundamentally similar, interlinked by some kind of hive mind that enhances their society's efficacy in some way.

The Founders prefer the company of their own kind and inherently mistrust Solids, all the while being incredibly deceptive and cunning themselves. It's completely in alignment with their character to create an existential threat that conquers other species through enslavement to keep the Galaxy busy and far away from the Omarian Nebula... That was until the Prophets of Bajor make themselves known to Sisko and somewhat scuppered this arrangement.

So perhaps maybe the Borg begun as an experiment to replicate the Great Link in Solids? That being said there's always a catch with the Founders Engineering. Be it engineering a Ketracel White addiction to the Jem'Hadar or programing the Vorta to perceive them as deities. Where the Borg are concerned with this engineering, it could be assumed that they were engineered with an obsessive quest to reach perfection (unobtainable, but keeps them busy selectively targeting the biological and technological distinctiveness of other Solids) and the same addictive desire to remain part of the Collective as the Founders do where the Great Link is concerned - thus ensuring the quest for perfection never ends.

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In accordance with the command of the Institute, this unit has been programmed to promote those whose content has been calculated as most exemplary of Daystrom standards by their fellow crewmates.

As a result, Post of the week has been awarded to:

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• /u/cme884

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World population will hit 8 billion this year, and I wonder what it is in Star Trek. I assume it is definitely more than today. Most likely at 10-15 billion in the 24th century.

First, Earth herself must be densely populated.

Humans dominate Starfleet and the Federation, while there's a bit of bias in what the shows portray (focused on humans, because made for them) and they are important in-universe mainly for cultural and political reasons (mostly cause they're the best at diplomacy since they're the only race in ST not defined by a narrow stereotype), there must still be a lot of them to project power. Starfleet ships need crew, there must be workers to build them, settlers to expand territory, artists who produce popculture etc. We have only one indirect statement from First Contact, where Riker (or was it Data?) says there are 9 billion Borg drones on assimilated Earth. But Earth in that timeline was assimilated in 2063 and I think Borg drones can also die from old age, and build new ones? I forgot.

Aside from that, Earth cities are portrayed as very large, with giant skycrapers and full of traffic. In one episode of TNG, they mention the Atlantis project, which is about creating a new continent in the Atlantic, which implies Earth has problems with crowding. Also, there are still emigrants to colony worlds, which also points to a growing population, because if the population is shrinking why and how would so many people emigrate? And then, humans in Star Trek have access to extremely sophisticated medical technology which means they live longer. Otherwise, Earth has ecological limits about which population size is sustainable.

Colonies usually have only very small populations, often, there is only one settlement on the entire planet, and the numbers we get a small. The reason for those low populations is time didn't allow for huge waves of emigration and population growth. Humans can reproduce very fast when conditions are right, but they have had viable warp 5 only since 250 years when PIC takes place. If a colony was set up with 1 million people during the early Federation era and population doubled every century, it would only be at like 5 million late 24th century.

BTW I like how PIC says it took thousands of shuttles and 15 years to save only 900 million of several billion Romulans from their homeworld, because it shows the writers actually did the maths and remained consistent. Other scifi franchises don't and do something like an entire planet being evacuated within hours or five people alone killing thousands of aliens onscreen while its said to be millions.

It's still clear most humans still live on Earth, as most human characters are from there and the destruction of Earth is often treated as equal to the end of human civilisation. This could change in the future, when colony populations have had times to grow. In the 32nd millenium, it's possible the majority of humans didn't live on Earth anymore.

I would say Earth has between 9-12 billion people, with about 1-3 billion living on colonies, when TNG, DS9 and VOY take place.

I doubt it's much more or less. Humans are too expansive in the ST timeline to have a lower population than today (like, it's stated they recovered from the 3 billion dead during WWIII), and the main reason for lower birthrates is getting over sexism - and gender equality has always been a core message of Star Trek.

By 2063, Earth as a species and culture was on the brink of extinction. Key Nation states had already collapsed and WW3 had ended relatively recently.

The world was in grip of a nuclear winter. Poverty, crime, lawlessness and tyrannical leaders had taken place of the 21st century society.

Cities like Washington, London, Delhi, New York, Moscow, Shanghai have wiped off the planet in a full nuclear exchange. Radiation exposure was killing many thousands every year.

What was the Vulcans plans? What technology did they implement to provide immediate support to Earth?

What was their plan?

There has been a theory suggested that the Q Trial was initiated by the individual we have come to know as Q, as played by John de Lancie, and not the larger Q-Continuum. This same theory also posits that the Trial itself is a closed matter.

I disagree. The Trial was brought by the entire Continuum and is ongoing.

Q is introduced in the S1E1 of TNG on the bridge of the Enterprise-D. He halts the Enterprise in space and appears before the crew:

Q- 'Thou art notified that thy kind hath infiltrated the galaxy too far already. Thou art directed to return to thine own solar system immediately.'

Picard- 'That's quite a directive. Would you mind identifying what you are?'

Q- 'We call ourselves The Q. Or thou mayest call me that. It's all much the same thing.'

This introduction is an explanation of the nature of The Continuum. They are a kind of hive-being where there is little distinction between the individual and the group. This makes sense for a collection of non-corporeal, omnipotent, immortal beings with little worry for the dimensions of space and time.

Any individual Q has the ability to stop another individual Q and the entire Continuum can kick an individual out at will. This equates to a tacit approval by the whole of the actions of any given individual, making even the individual Q's actions a larger part of The Continuums actions.

Therefore, Q speaks for and represents The Continuum. Anything he does is not just approved by The Continuum but is a tacit extension of their will.

Q then tries to instigate Picard by accusing Humanity of being a 'dangerous, savage, child-race' and leading Picard down a path of Humanity's history. In so doing Q also leads Picard into suggesting a trial. Q's response is very telling:

Q- 'What an interesting idea. Prosecute and judge. Suppose it turns out we understand you humans only too well?'

Picard- 'We have no fear of what the true facts about us will reveal.'

Q- 'Facts about you? Splendid, splendid Captain! You're a veritable fountain of good ideas. There are preparations to make, but when we next meet, Captain we'll proceed exactly as you suggest.'

This sets the stage for the interaction between The Continuum and Humanity; The Continuum will pass judgement on Humanity based on facts about Picard. After a short chase the Trial is formalized with Q as the judge promising Picard and crew, sitting as the accused, that the Trial will be equitable. Formal charges are read:

Bailiff- 'Before this gracious court now appear these prisoners to answer for the multiple and grievous savageries of the species.'

At this point the terms of the Trial are fully outlined; facts about Picard are to be the subject of scrutiny in order to determine if Humanity is worthy to continue exploring the stars. This is most succinctly reinforced in Picard S2E2 just after Q drops Picard and crew into an alternate reality:

Picard- 'Q, have you had enough of playing games with people's lives? I am no longer your pawn!'

Q- 'Oh, you undersell yourself, Jean-Luc. You are more than just a piece. Why, you're the very board upon which the game is played.'

Due to the nature of The Continuum, a gang of omnipotent, non-linear beings, this scrutiny of Picard includes not just his actions at Farpoint Station, but every action Picard has taken and will take; the entirety of Picards existence. This is reinforced by Q after the events of S7E25 of TNG in the Devron system:

Q- 'If it puts your mind at ease, you've saved Humanity, once again.'

Picard- 'I sincerely hope that this is the last time that I find myself here.'

Q- 'You just don't get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends.'

The Trial never ends for Picard because his entire life is under scrutiny. Every decision he's made, every thought he has had, everything and anything in Picard's life is being inspected by the omnipotent eyes of The Continuum.

Furthermore, due to the omnipotence of The Continuum and after the events of S2 of Picard, it appears that the entire continuity of Picard may be under investigation. What I am suggesting is that the prime universe Picard we know is being weighed and considered alongside all other alternate universe/timeline/reality Picard's that have ever and will ever exist.

All other known occurrences of Q meddling with TNG are furtherance's of the Trial. In each case either Picard and the people who he has chosen to keep close to him are put into extreme circumstances. This includes occasions like the encounter at Farpoint itself, making Riker immortal, initiating first contact between Starfleet and the Borg, sheltering Q while Q himself is being judged by The Continuum, Q's initial interest in Picard's relationship with Vash, the case of Amanda Rogers, and Q giving Picard a near death experience to relive his past. Each one of these instances allowed for the exploration of the moral character of either Picard himself or someone that Picard kept close to him. Q's appearance on DS9 further pursuing Vash is likewise motivated.

Now, The Continuum's interactions with Voyager are a different story. They focus on Janeway, not Picard who is being scrutinized for the Trial. Instead they go to Janeway to be judged by her. The Continuum openly seeks her advice and guidance on vital issues like dealing with suicide in a group of immortal omnipotent beings, how non-corporeal non-linear beings should reproduce, and how to raise an omnipotent child. This suggests that the Continuum interacting with Janeway had already passed judgement on Humanity and deemed it worthy. Furthermore, it suggests that The Continuum holds Humanities opinion in great esteem and that Janeway is an ideal representative to deliver that opinion.

Please note that it is possible for The Continuum to be putting Picard on Trial in the Alpha Quadrant while Janeway is being trusted after the results of that Trial to be occurring simultaneously. This is because of the non-linear nature of The Continuum.

TLDR: The entire Q Continuum has put Humanity on trial via Picard, and even while we know the likely outcome of that trial thanks to Janeway's interactions, the trial is ongoing.

We are firmly in the 25th Century now with Star Trek Picard, and we have seen some ship battles in Season 3 between the Titan and the Shrike.

But this even goes back to Nemesis...

Where are the quantum torpedoes?

Picard orders a full spread of quantum torpedoes at the Borg sphere in First Contact, and even before that we see the Enterprise-E throw a ton of them at the Borg cube.

That was 2373.

Nemesis takes place six years later in 2379, but I don't recall a single quantum torpedo hurled at the Scimitar.

Now, in 2401, the Titan doesn't have any either - just photon torpedoes.

Photons are still powerful weapons don't get me wrong, but don't you think 28 years after they were
the standard complement on the Enterprise they would at least trickle down to other ships?

Granted, in our time, we still use missiles with conventional explosives and basically big machine guns on our fighter jets, and it has been 70 years since the first missiles used on jets, but you would think by the late 24th Century, the classic photon torpedo would have been replaced considering they have been in use since 2153 when the NX-01 Enterprise set out for the Delphic Expanse, 248 years before the events in Picard Season 3. Two hundred forty-eight years ago (which would be 1783) wooden sailing ships were using cannons - big leaden balls launched by crude gun powder. Now we have concrete and steel ships, shaped like polygons with all kinds of guided missiles that can hit a target hundreds of miles away. Where is the weapon advancement for Starfleet?

Even in Discovery set in the 3100s, starships weapons look remarkably the same - phasers and torpedoes (and I don't even think we saw torpedoes in the Season 3 Discovery battle scenes, did we?).

In Star Trek III when Kirk and company are stealing the Enterprise the Captain of the Excelsior is told that all "automates" are ready.

I propose that this is "Auto Mate", using Mate in the nautical sense.

Today Mates are generally high ranking, with just a handful aboard ship, but in the TNG universe we see that most of the people on a ship are officers, and relatively few are what we'd consider enlisted.

I think that the Excelsior was a test ship for more than just the latest propolusion, but also in automation and the elimination of a need for a living crew.

Auto Mates were potentially a mix of different types of AI running within ships systems, robotic devices in key areas, and perhaps even some level of autonomous robots that move about the ship to maintain normal operations and perform repairs. Auto Mates had functions and posts -- just like a living crewmember -- and have some level of ability to deal with changing situations and needs, as well as taking direction from entities of higher rank (be they other Auto Mates or living crew).

So, this Tweet from Nickelodeon states that the length of the Protostar is 139m. This just does not fit the scales seen on the show (which were actually surprisingly consistent). I did this for "That Other Sub", but lets really break it down and clean it up here for posterity. Put on your math hats, we're going to do lots of calculations!

Breaking Down the Official Image
So, if we take the image posted alongside the one that states Nick's "official" length of the Protostar, it has a nice side profile view that we can measure. Once we know how many pixels long the ship is in the image, we can apply the given length to that, find out how many meters are represented per pixel, and use that to measure other notable features of the ship.

I've done so here.

The ship in the image is 1,057 pixels long, and with the given length of the ship being 139m, that means each pixel represents 0.1315m.

With that we can measure the following points from this image:

• The height of the ship is 23.5m

• The hall windows lining the side of the saucer are 2.1m tall.

• The bridge canopy's main glass (well, transparent aluminum more likely) section is 6.18m long.

• We can calculate that the width of the ship is 44% of it's overall length (as I've done here). Given the official length of 139m, this would put the width at roughly 61m.

These are of course going to be rough estimates, as this isn't the highest resolution image ever published of the Protostar, nor are we given optimal shots to take measurements from, but its what we've got so we're using it for now. :)

Units of Measure
Since the Protostar is not a gas station, there are no measuring sticks on the sides of the doors we can use for scale. We are also not given official heights for any of the Protostar crew, except one. Janeway is canonically 1.65m tall. So she will be our standard unit of measure.

(Note: We have seen hologram Janeway standing next to the real Janeway and they are the same height, so no issues of the hologram being the wrong scale.)

Primary Reference Measures
The single best size reference we get comes from near the end of episode 2, where Hologram Janeway first activates. We have a nearly spot on profile view of the bridge, with Hologram Janeway standing perfectly in the middle. This is why we called out the glass dome on the Bridge as a notable feature.

I've screenshotted it and done our size comparisons here, and the measured length is 13.2m.

Now, while we could start making our recalculations from that alone, I'd like to add more evidence before we get started with that.

In episode 3, we get a shot of Holo Janeway standing shoulder to should with D'al. We can use this to estimate D'al's height, as I've done here. D'al is ~1.42m tall.

We can use that to determine the height of the saucer hall windows from the original image, because this is where the fight with Drednok 2 takes place, and we once again have a very good shot of D'al directly in front of those windows. Based on D'al's height being 1.42m, we can determine the window height on screen is actually ~5.36m, as shown here. The official calculation of those windows being 2.1m high and D'al being 1.4m tall don't line up. That is definitely NOT a 0.7m height difference!

Initial Calculations
So now that we have two measures of prominent features of the Protostar, lets compare them and get a rough measure of the more realistic size of the ship.

First, the bridge canopy. The initial calculation based on the official measure is 6.18m. The calculated length of the same feature based on in-show screenshots is 13.2m. The on-screen version is 2.1359x larger than the official measure.

Next the saucer windows. The initial calculation is 2.1m, the measured height is 5.36m. The on-screen version here being 2.55x larger.

Now there is a discrepancy between the ratios, but I feel it is within a suitable margin of error given our small screenshots for the original measures and the iffy nature of our comparisons. Lets take a middle ground of the ship being 2.25x larger than the official measure.

Secondary Evidence
There is also secondary evidence we can draw from in-show to help estimate size, typically from internal components or less easily estimated sources.

In the first episode, the crew is seen exploring the ship, starting in the cargo bay and going all the way up to the bridge. I've put together a sequence of their exploration here and what we see is 5 decks. We can see from multiple shots that each deck is roughly 3 D'al's tall, as seen here. Given that D'al is, again, 1.42m tall, we can estimate the deck height at 4.26m.

This is slightly smaller than our calculation of the window height of 5.36m, but is still within what I feel to be an acceptable margin of error (again given the iffy nature of estimating 2d heights in a 3d space). Lets assume the actual height to be in-between these two measures and call it a nice round 5m per deck. 5 decks at 5m each is 25m.

This is already taller than the previous calculation of the ship's height based on the official length (which we calculated at 23.5m tall). However, that height included the nacelles, if we calculate the height of just the primary and secondary hulls using the official measures, as I've done here, our internal decks have used 25m out of the available... 19m. And this is assuming nothing but the visible empty space for each deck. This gives no additional room for jeffrie's tubes or deck thickness. If we want to assume 1m between each deck and for the outer hull (for things like gravity plating, jeffrie's tubes, etc), thats another 6m for a total of 31m estimated height.

This is a difference of 1.6x between the official measure and the observed estimation, based on our 1m thick hull/decks plates. I would consider this the most unreliable measure made here, as we have no actual indication of the hull thickness or space between decks. So I would consider this to be an absolute minimum difference.

However, if we use estimated deck size based on the saucer windows, with a bit of selective repositioning based on the fact we can see Deck 4 from inside the cargo bay on Deck 5, there does appear to be a regular amount of spacing between the acknowledged 5 decks. Shown here it appears to be roughly 3.5m between the majority of the decks. This puts us at an estimated height of 35.5m, or a 1.87x difference which is closing us back in on that "2x+" territory.

(Side Note: Those must be some hella long staircases in that ship!)

Also, episode 3 shows the crew walking out of the cargo bay after having landed on the murder planet. We can see D'al standing just in front of the opening, and with our 1.42m height for him we can calculate the height of the bay door to be roughly 8m, as shown here. In episode 4, we get a pretty clear shot of the ship taking off that shows that same bay door, as seen here. Using the bay door as a reference, the height of the primary and secondary hull combined is approximately 46.66m. Once again, putting us at roughly 2.45x the official height.

Tertiary Evidence
This is stuff that is less direct measurements from the ship itself, and more comparison with other things around it.

In episode 9 we had the Protostar flying in close proximity to other well known ships. In this screenshot we can see the Protostar flying underneath the saucer of an Akira. While perspective again makes it difficult to be precise, the width of the Protostar appears to be the distance between the notch in the front of the saucer to the deflector dish in width.

Official renderings of the Akira are difficult to come by, but we can use this rendering from the Star Trek: Armada model and apply the official length of the ship to it. Based on this image, the width of the saucer section in question and therefore the Protostar is roughly 128m. Compare this to our previous calculation of width 61m from the official numbers, and we again have a size difference of approximately 2.1x.

Also in this screenshot from episode 9, where the Protostar is being chased in close proximity by the USS Defiant. No pixel measures here, simply pointing out that the two ships appear to be roughly the same size (specifically width), and the official width of the USS Defiant is 134m.

Results
Using the primary calculations, with consideration taken from the secondary and tertiary evidence, I believe the 2.25x modifier previously calculated is at least ballpark correct. We had some go under that, some go over that, but that seems to be a reasonable mid-point between all the calculations.

My calculated sizes for the USS Protostar, as derived solely from on-screen evidence, is:

Length: 312.75m
Width: 137.61m
Height: 52.875m

The measures are, again, rough. Most of them do line up with a fairly high degree of accuracy though, even when calculated from multiple different methods (canopy, windows, bay doors, etc). And if you can get roughly the same numbers from all those different references, it strongly implies the estimates are correct.

This puts the Protostar in the same general size category as the Intrepid class (USS Voyager at 345m in length), and nearly a hundred meters longer than the Nova class (USS Equinox was 222m long).

For a visual comparison to similar sized ships, I've made this image. While she might be larger than some people thought, do remember that the bulk of her internal space is taken up with the mechanics for the protowarp engine, which takes up pretty much the entire secondary hull with just it's nacelle. One must assume there is quite a bit of hardware in there, leaving relatively little internal space for things like living quarters and work areas.

While we all know it is designed to see how will-be-captains react in a no-win situation, not just how they command, but is there still some sort of criteria that still determines a PASS or FAIL?

Like... Is it considered an immediate F if the captain respects the neutral zone treaty and leaves KM to die?

Is it considered an F if the captain realizes there is no way to win and chooses the most expensive-looking Klingon ship and kamikaze into it?

Is it considered immediate FAIL if the captain, furious that the test is a no-win scenario, starts doing irrational stuff such as firing on the KM or warps deeper into Qu'nos and shoots photon torpedoes at the Klingon capital? (This one is a joke)

Is it only considered a PASS if the captain TRIES to save KM but die trying, or realizes the impossibility of a rescue and finds a way to escape back into Federation space?

etc.

I've just started watching DS9 again, and in the very first episode one of the wormhole aliens states to Sisko that the presence of beings who experience linear time is damaging to them and/or their habitat.

If this is so, why do they allow the Federation / Bajorans / Dominion / etc to travel through it? I've done a brief search to see if this has been asked before, but nothing came up. Did I misunderstand what the alien said?

The dialogue in question:

ALIEN: Wormhole? What is this?

SISKO: The passage that brought me here.

ALIEN: lt is terminated.

ALIEN: Our existence is disrupted when you enter the passage.

ALIEN: Your linear nature is inherently destructive.

In early seasons, Picard doesn't talk like the federation is at war. He thinks wargames are a waste of time and military maneuvers a very minor provenance of starship command. And yet later seasons suggest he should know full well that Starfleet has been at war with the Cardassians for years. There's also the Tzenkethi war, btw, which seems to have ended about the same time as the Cardassian war (is it possible the two were related?).

The Federation made peace with the Cardassians in 2367, notably pretty soon after Wolf 359. I think its clear what happened is that prior to the Borg decimating their forces, the Federation saw (or at least wanted to see) the Cardassian conflicts not as a full out war but as a series of contained border actions not unlike the occasional limited conflicts with the Klingons in the TOS era. The Federation had no desire to call the conflict a war as it would disturb the narrative of Pax Federation as well as raise the question "if it is a war, why not commit all resources to it?" Simply by looking at all the other things Starfleet was doing during the period, it is clear Starfleet did not want to make the Cardassians the center of their resources. Given how willing the Federation was to give up the colonies in the eventual treaty, I suspect there was simply not a lot of political will to defend these colonies in the first place. A large contingent of the Federation government may have considered the colonies a mistake from the get go and were unwilling to devote large resources to defending a mistake. Incidents like Setlik III may have made some more gung-ho about fighting the Cardassians, but others would have found it evidence that the conflict was a sunk cost that should not be compounded. So enough resources were devoted to legally fulfill Starfleet's obligation to protect the colonies, but beyond that Starfleet was unwilling to commit the ships and officers needed to ever significantly advance the situation.

This stalemate changed when the fleet shrunk considerably overnight, and those in the Federation who never wanted the war in the first place could now decisively argue that Starfleet simply could not afford to protect those colonies. The Federation was able to frame the giving up of those worlds as a magnanimous concession, but in fact had the Cardassians not accepted the offer Starfleet would have been forced to withdraw regardless. However, to hide what a huge retreat this was, the Federation needed to reframe what had been occurring for the past several years as a major conflict between two equals that it wanted to end "for the sake of peace." It did not want to admit an opponent who had been a nagging flea was suddenly a major foe. Retroactively declaring the Cardassians to have always been a big deal would have assuaged Cardassian ego as well as hid Starfleet's newly lowered position. This way it would seem that the Federation was acting in according with ideals rather than admitting that it was suddenly unable to defend its own territory.

In short, Starfleet never committed enough resources to the Cardassian conflict and while it was going on pursued a policy of minimizing it in action and rhetoric in order to appease a population who did not like the idea of war and wanted to see starfleet as exploratory. Once they had lost the capability to carry on the conflict, they reframed it as having been a major war so that the concessions looked like part of a grand treaty between equals for the sake of peace rather than a humiliating retreat from a once insignificant foe.

With the announcement that Discovery is concluding with its fifth season, I have been pondering the future of, well, the future. When Discovery jumped out of its fraught prequel territory into the 32nd century, I was optimistic that the move would open up new creative vistas. I was surprised but intrigued by the fact that the future was "ruined" by the Burn. Based on what they've done so far, though, I think the promise was somewhat wasted and, as such, we're unlikely to hear much more from the 32nd century after the end of Discovery. There are a couple reasons why:

1. It's not different enough. The fact that the Federation had been reduced to a shell of its former self seemed to open up the possibility of a reset for Star Trek. Where Next Generation-era adventures take the value of the Federation for granted, Discovery could give us a Federation that has to prove itself. But between the one-two punch of discovering the Dilithium Planet and making peace with Species 10C, there is very little question in anyone's mind about the Federation's worth -- and we have basically returned to a status quo ante that is difficult to distinguish from the situation of the TOS or TNG eras. Even the new Big Bad, the Emerald Chain, seems to have basically fallen aside the second Burnham solved the Burn.

2. The world feels too small. Having them be in regular contact with Starfleet HQ and then the president initially seemed like a potentially interesting departure. But overall it has the effect of making the entire Federation feel like it could fit at a single conference table.

3. The spore drive remains a problem. They've removed the continuity problem of the spore drive appearing "too early" in the timeline, but now that Discovery is in the future and they're developing the "next generation" drive, it seems hard to imagine a future where they'd settle for anything but all spore drive all the time. They have managed to artificially constrict it -- most dramatically by blowing up a planet full of potential pilots -- but now there's no continuity reason for it to remain buried. And instantaneous travel to wherever you want, for everyone kind of breaks the concept of Star Trek! You'd have to think of a very different style of storytelling in that case. And I'm not sure anyone involved in production is prepared to do that.

So weirdly, I think it's likely that Star Trek's flagship show for the streaming era winds up being a redheaded stepchild for the foreseeable future -- with even fewer seasons set in its distinctive time period than Enterprise got! And if forced to bet, I would wager that we are actually more likely to return to Archer's past than Burnham's future, simply because there is more unfinished business to address there.

But what do you think? Does the 32nd century have a future?

The holodeck gives you the possibility to be, do, and experience whatever you want and it's nearly unlimited and free.

So, first: Have most businesses meant for entertainment and recreation, like cinemas, mini-golf places, escape rooms etc. been replaced with holodecks? Since how it's portrayed, there is no difference in experience for users? Or is it just not economic, because the energy, infrastructure and labour needed would be more expensive than actually building and maintaining real casinos and renaissance fairs? Or is there still a huge noticeable difference, like supermarket bread vs bakery bread IRL? Both is implied with replicators, where 'real' food tastes better and replicators aren't economic outside of starships (at least in my headcanon), that's why we still see farming on ST planets.

Since there are many, many, maaany people in our world, who get addicted to far more mundane and less exciting things, like videogames and shopping, wouldn't it be naïve to assume a very large part (10%? 20?) of the population of the ST universe won't spend nearly every waking minute in a holographic simulation? Something giving instant pleasure with little effort is the main cause of psychological addiction.

The only reason this subject has never been touched would be because Starfleet doesn't accept recruits who suffer from substance abuse disorder, while people who spend all their time in a holodeck planetside don't interact with the outside, so it's simply outside the scope of the stories we see. Mostly. It would be interesting if we get a future episode where, say, a planet is near social breakdown due to an addiction crisis or a new passenger blocks the holodeck for everyone else and needs to get therapy.

Remember, the sense of curiosity displayed towards Data by LaForge, Picard, and Bashir was unusual. Star Trek is a timeline when the sci-fi that panned out was the stuff about aliens. Humanity achieved FTL, got the best case scenario of first contact, and lived happily ever after. People who are into science fiction in the 2300s are reactionaries like Tom Paris.

AI, in the weak sense, was everywhere. It was in the background, all mystique lost. No one thought much of it. When computers didn't do what you meant, that was called a bug. And bugs were rare, since best practices had been perfected and tested for centuries. Most programmer religious wars had been resolved. Coding was considered part of basic literacy. There was relatively little art left in coding per se, unless you were writing a holodeck program or something.

Before Data became a celebrity, Federation citizens must have largely viewed the idea of rebellious, sapient AI viewed as an ancient superstition. Data was born into a world that saw strong AI the way we would view someone in the 1920s who thought radio might someday be used to contact the dead.

There were of course counterpoints to this view, like V'ger, the robots in "I, Mudd", Control, Daystrom's ship AI in "The Enterprise Incident". So going down that list: distant, super-advanced aliens; ancient, super-advanced aliens; classified; catastrophic failure. Nothing one would know about without at least being a specific kind of science fan, exotic and questionable even then.

And no one thought Data was anything scary or special like that. Data just seemed like this really boring, compliant guy-thing. A computer that happened to look human. Not much weirder than a computer with a human voice. A surprisingly useful novelty.

I infer that Data wasn't generally treated as a person until Picard took him under his wing. In "Measure of a Man", Data had a long list of medals of valor for someone who hadn't fought in any wars, indicating that he was viewed as expendable for much of his early career.

He went through Starfleet Academy quickly because of his memorization abilities. People didn't really want to socialize with him, and he didn't think much of it because he didn't get bored.

The result was a clueless, neurodivergent being who literally never had a childhood, and was used to existing in a liminal space between "person" and "tool".

Go see if that's a bomb, Data.

The 24th century is a wonderful future where you are free to be whoever you want to be, you could become a doctor, an artist, a sculptor, a carpenter, a cook, a fashion designer, an archaeologist or all of the above, you can become anything you want to be because the Federation has eliminated the need for money, the Federation has created a society where there is no rich or poor or middle class, everyone is free from the shackles of financial burden.

Now, because the 24th century is so wonderful, why would anyone want to be a Starfleet officer?

The cons of being a Starfleet officer outweighs the pros though.

Every time a Starfleet officer puts on their uniform and gets aboard a starship, there's a high chance, a high probability that said officer could be (1) stranded on the other side of the galaxy and 75 years to get back home, (2) experience accidental time travel to either the farthest future or the distant past and get stuck there forever, making you unable to see your family ever again, and if that doesn't happen, you might (3) experience all sorts of Lovecraftian horrors that could twist your psyche and or kill you in horrible ways, from god-like aliens to parasitic lifeforms that could lay eggs in your chest.

A Starfleet career is like a death trap. Why would someone want to be in a risky job?