Original Star Trek Quotes

so who's more adult- somebody who works like mad to avoid a problem or somebody who works like mad to solve it?

Venkat was silent for a moment. “Jack, I’m going to buy your whole team autographed Star Trek memorabilia.” “I prefer Star Wars,” he said, turning to leave. “The original trilogy only, of course.

The spear in the Other's heart is the spear in your own: you are he. There is no other wisdom, and no other hope for us but that we grow wise. -attributed to Surak

Doctors couldn't be everywhere, so the Lord invented Vulcans. I thought you knew.

Askade took the battertoast, looked at it blearily. "I can't rewire it into a death ray without some extra parts," he said, and took a bite. "Hm. Tastes okay. What's the problem?

Technology would have long ago made privacy impossible, except that this had only made it more precious and desirable--and in the close confines of starship life, respect for another's privacy had become a powerful tradition.

If death is truly a curse,' Spock said, as soberly as some power pronouncing a hundred years of sleep, but with a glint of private, serene humor in his eyes. 'There is little logic in condemning something one has not experienced...or does not remember experiencing.

Sometimes, parody or pastiche shows a deeper love for the original source material than a hundred official sequels ever could. In forty years, has there really ever been a better Star Trek movie than Galaxy Quest--or a better Fantastic Four movie than The Incredibles?

Kagan's law of first contact,'You'll surprise you more than they will.

Just like that?” “Just like that!” Venkat was silent for a moment. “Jack, I’m going to buy your whole team autographed Star Trek memorabilia.” “I prefer Star Wars,” he said, turning to leave. “The original trilogy only, of course.

A ship doesn't look quite the same from inside, does it? A wise sailor,' Robert said, fanning his arms, 'will one time stand upon the shore and watch his ship sail by, that he shall from then on appreciate not being left behind.' He grinned and added, 'Eh?' George gave him a little grimace. 'Who's that? Melville? Or C.S. Forrester?' It's me!' Robert complained. "Can't I be profound now and again?' Hell, no.' Why not?' Because you're still alive. Gotta be dead to be profound.' You're unchivalrous, George.

You have no tail!" said Brightspot. her own whipped suddenly forward; she stared, first at it, then at Wilson."How do you manage?

With four-to-one odds against us, our ability to leave the encounter without serious damage becomes seriously impaired." "Spock," McCoy said gently, "your bedside manner is flawless. You mean, we're all going to be blown to hell." Spock hesitated, then nodded.

There is nothing little,” she said with great dignity, “about my husband.” Sarek did not at first understand the amused ripple that went through the crowd of reporters standing around. Certainly he was tall by Earth standards. He had to have it explained to him,

Sarek looked up with something like hope in his eyes. “I must say,” he said, “I am impressed. You are quite a detective, Doctor.” “All doctors are detectives. All the ones worth their salt, anyway. . . .” “I will get you as much salt as you want, Doctor,” Sarek said,

Sarek frowned. "Insubordination?" "Eccentricity," Spock replied. "Captain Kirk allows a great deal of leeway as long as his crewmembers do their jobs well. Mr. Chevron simply takes advantage of it." "That good at his job, is he?" asked Sarek. "Indeed. Extremely good.

Go maire tu' I bhfad agus rath! 'Live long and prosper'.

[...] Can any one man be worth an entire universe?" The Vulcan's response was direct and without hesitation. "Yes. [...]

Blew it up his nose. That woman should have cards printed: 'Dr. Evan Wilson, Imaginative Medicine a Specialty.

Jack, I’m going to buy your whole team autographed Star Trek memorabilia.” “I prefer Star Wars,” he said, turning to leave. “The original trilogy only, of course.

Jack, I’m going to buy your whole team autographed Star Trek memorabilia.” “I prefer Star Wars,” he said, turning to leave. “The original trilogy only, of course.” “Of course,” Venkat said.

One of the creatures in the front circle shook itself all over and, still shaking, moved very, very slowly toward Spock. He didn't move a muscle. The creature put out a long slender pseudopod, gleaming in the sunshine like suddenly blown glass, and poked Spock's boot with it. Then it made the scratchy sound again, more laughter, and said a word: "Gotcha!" It jumped back into place. All the other creatures began to echo the scratch-laughter. Spock looked around him in mild bemusement. "Captain," he said, "I suspect we have found a kindergarten...

A couple of minutes later, the turbolift doors hissed open. Spock was standing in the turbolift. He had the air of a man who had been in an extreme hurry, but who had been stopped in midrush and given something he didn't understand. He was holding a small flat cushion.

we're looking for a planeet on the strength of a song. it's crazy I know, but its the only chance we have to do something useful." ...Evan Wilson said gravely "I think you're as crazy as Heinrich Schliemann - and you know what happened to him!" "What" ... "you don't know what happened to him?" she asked her blue eyes widening in astonishment."Ever read Homer's Iliad, Captain?" ... "I don't know what translation you read Doctor, but there was no Heinrich Schliemann in mine - or in the Odyssey." "That depends on how you look at it." smiling she settled back into her chair and went on,"Heinrich Schliemann was from Earth, pre-federation days, and he read Homer too. No, not just read him, believed him. So he set out at his own expense-mind you, I doubt he could have found anyone else to fund such a crazy endeavor - to find Troy, a city that most of the educated people of his time considered pure invention on Homer's part." "And?" "And he found it. Next time you're on earth, stop by the Troy Museum. the artifacts are magnificent, and every one of them was found on the strength of a song.

McCoy: Representing the High Tier...Leonard James Akaar. Spock: The child was named Leonard James Akaar? Kirk nods. McCoy: Has a kind of a ring to it don't you think, James? Kirk: Yes, I think it is a name that will go down in galactic history, Leonard. What do you think, Spock? Spock: I think you both will be insufferably pleased with yourselves for at least a month...sir.

He came back the next day, and the next, and the day after that, and they argued. The arguments always started about the binding itself, but then they began to stray out into more interesting topics--the relationships and interrelationships in their families, the politics that went on, and the doings of the kingdoms and lordships of the world; and finally, about themselves, or rather, each other. The arguments started early and ended late: it was almost improper. After about three days of this, T'Thelaih realized that she was going to have to be bound to this man, just to have the leisure to argue properly with him.

What about the dissolution transporter?” suggested Ms. Minnian. “Is it still checked out?” “Let’s see.” Doc went over to a card file and flipped through it. “No, it’s back downstairs in the Chresto. Excellent idea.” “What’s a dissolution transporter?” I asked. “Sort of like a fax machine for objects,” said Dr. Rust. “What’s a fax machine, then?” “Oh, you young people!” said Ms. Minnian. “Never mind about the fax,” said Doc. “A dissolution transporter deconstructs an object—in this case, you—taking note of its exact structure and composition. Then it transfers that information to another location, where the object is reassembled from material there.” “Kind of like the transporter on Star Trek except it only works one way,” said Jaya. That sounded alarming. “But if we’re deconstructed here and reassembled someplace else, won’t we turn into other people?” “Technically, yes. But you’ll be other people with the exact same memories. And exact duplicates of your bodies, down to the last quark,” said Ms. Minnian. “Yes, but I’ll be dead! Just because someone else has my memories, that doesn’t mean it’s me!” I objected. “It’s okay, Leo,” said Jaya. “I’ve used the diss tran a zillion times and I still feel like myself.” “Of course you do. You have all of the original Jaya’s memories, so of course you think you’re her. That doesn’t mean you are.” “What makes you so sure you’re the same Leo who went to bed last night?” said Ms. Minnian. “Dissolution transportation is no more discontinuous than falling asleep and waking up again. But you don’t have to go if you’re afraid.

All right, but you know Star Trek, and ‘Beam me up, Scotty’? How they can teleport people around?” “Yeah. The transporters.” “Do you know how they work?” “Just … special effects. CGI or whatever they used.” “No, I mean within the universe of the show. They work by breaking down your molecules, zapping you over a beam, and putting you back together on the other end.” “Sure.” “That is what scares me. I can’t watch it. I find it too disturbing.” I shrugged. “I don’t get it.” “Well, think about it. Your body is just made of a few different types of atoms. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on. So this transporter machine, there is no reason in the world to break down all of those atoms and then send those specific atoms thousands of miles away. One oxygen atom is the same as another, so what it does is send the blueprint for your body across the beam. Then it reassembles you at the destination, out of whatever atoms it has nearby. So if there is carbon and hydrogen at the planet you’re beaming down to, it’ll just put you together out of what it has on hand, because you get the exact same result.” “Sure. “So it’s more like sending a fax than mailing a letter. Only the transporter is a fax machine that shreds the original. Your original body, along with your brain, gets vaporized. Which means what comes out the other end isn’t you. It’s an exact copy that the machine made, of a man who is now dead, his atoms floating freely around the interior of the ship. Only within the universe of the show, nobody knows this. “Meanwhile, you are dead. Dead for eternity. All of your memories and emotions and personality end, right there, on that platform, forever. Your wife and children and friends will never see you again. What they will see is this unnatural photocopy of you that emerged from the other end. And in fact, since transporter technology is used routinely, all of the people you see on that ship are copies of copies of copies of long-dead, vaporized crew members. And no one ever figures it out. They all continue to blithely step into this machine that kills one hundred percent of the people who use it, but nobody realizes it because each time, it spits out a perfect replacement for the victim at the other end.

All right, but you know Star Trek, and ‘Beam me up, Scotty’? How they can teleport people around?” “Yeah. The transporters.” “Do you know how they work?” “Just … special effects. CGI or whatever they used.” “No, I mean within the universe of the show. They work by breaking down your molecules, zapping you over a beam, and putting you back together on the other end.” “Sure.” “That is what scares me. I can’t watch it. I find it too disturbing.” I shrugged. “I don’t get it.” “Well, think about it. Your body is just made of a few different types of atoms. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on. So this transporter machine, there is no reason in the world to break down all of those atoms and then send those specific atoms thousands of miles away. One oxygen atom is the same as another, so what it does is send the blueprint for your body across the beam. Then it reassembles you at the destination, out of whatever atoms it has nearby. So if there is carbon and hydrogen at the planet you’re beaming down to, it’ll just put you together out of what it has on hand, because you get the exact same result.” “Sure. “So it’s more like sending a fax than mailing a letter. Only the transporter is a fax machine that shreds the original. Your original body, along with your brain, gets vaporized. Which means what comes out the other end isn’t you. It’s an exact copy that the machine made, of a man who is now dead, his atoms floating freely around the interior of the ship. Only within the universe of the show, nobody knows this. “Meanwhile, you are dead. Dead for eternity. All of your memories and emotions and personality end, right there, on that platform, forever. Your wife and children and friends will never see you again. What they will see is this unnatural photocopy of you that emerged from the other end. And in fact, since transporter technology is used routinely, all of the people you see on that ship are copies of copies of copies of long-dead, vaporized crew members. And no one ever figures it out. They all continue to blithely step into this machine that kills one hundred percent of the people who use it, but nobody realizes it because each time, it spits out a perfect replacement for the victim at the other end.” I

The last refuge of the Self, perhaps, is “physical continuity.” Despite the body’s mercurial nature, it feels like a badge of identity we have carried since the time of our earliest childhood memories. A thought experiment dreamed up in the 1980s by British philosopher Derek Parfit illustrates how important—yet deceiving—this sense of physical continuity is to us.15 He invites us to imagine a future in which the limitations of conventional space travel—of transporting the frail human body to another planet at relatively slow speeds—have been solved by beaming radio waves encoding all the data needed to assemble the passenger to their chosen destination. You step into a machine resembling a photo booth, called a teletransporter, which logs every atom in your body then sends the information at the speed of light to a replicator on Mars, say. This rebuilds your body atom by atom using local stocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on. Unfortunately, the high energies needed to scan your body with the required precision vaporize it—but that’s okay because the replicator on Mars faithfully reproduces the structure of your brain nerve by nerve, synapse by synapse. You step into the teletransporter, press the green button, and an instant later materialize on Mars and can continue your existence where you left off. The person who steps out of the machine at the other end not only looks just like you, but etched into his or her brain are all your personality traits and memories, right down to the memory of eating breakfast that morning and your last thought before you pressed the green button. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you may be perfectly happy to use this new mode of space travel, since this is more or less what the USS Enterprise’s transporter does when it beams its crew down to alien planets and back up again. But now Parfit asks us to imagine that a few years after you first use the teletransporter comes the announcement that it has been upgraded in such a way that your original body can be scanned without destroying it. You decide to give it a go. You pay the fare, step into the booth, and press the button. Nothing seems to happen, apart from a slight tingling sensation, but you wait patiently and sure enough, forty-five minutes later, an image of your new self pops up on the video link and you spend the next few minutes having a surreal conversation with yourself on Mars. Then comes some bad news. A technician cheerfully informs you that there have been some teething problems with the upgraded teletransporter. The scanning process has irreparably damaged your internal organs, so whereas your replica on Mars is absolutely fine and will carry on your life where you left off, this body here on Earth will die within a few hours. Would you care to accompany her to the mortuary? Now how do you feel? There is no difference in outcome between this scenario and what happened in the old scanner—there will still be one surviving “you”—but now it somehow feels as though it’s the real you facing the horror of imminent annihilation. Parfit nevertheless uses this thought experiment to argue that the only criterion that can rationally be used to judge whether a person has survived is not the physical continuity of a body but “psychological continuity”—having the same memories and personality traits as the most recent version of yourself. Buddhists