The Particles of Star Trek

December 19, 2003 1:16 AM

The Particles of Star Trek. Confused about dilithium, trilithium, and neodilithium? Can't tell a tachyon from a temporal wake? Here's an obsessive and growing list of just about every particle used across the generations: "So tiny, you can't tell it's a deus ex machina!" (Also includes minerals, chemical compounds, energy waves, and other miscellanea.)
posted by brownpau (7 comments total)

This is good. Tachyons and tetryons are my favourites.

And Omega particles, of course. Cool!
posted by armoured-ant at 1:29 AM on December 19, 2003

Berman will pay for his crimes!
posted by MrLint at 4:48 AM on December 19, 2003

"So tiny, you can't tell it's a deus ex machina!"

Deuses make their machinas as small as they want. Infidel! Dog! Ye of little faith.......
posted by troutfishing at 7:43 AM on December 19, 2003

Berman Radiation: Any post-Trek "Star Trek" series or episodes thereof. Radiated by television stations, satellite uplinks and any television set receiving same. Has been flooding the universe for a couple of decades; harmful to cognitive function. See also Berman Particle: any frequently-repeated technobabble phrase or remarkably uninteresting recurring alien race.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:20 AM on December 19, 2003

(Suggested use: Instead of saying "I'm going to watch Enterprise", just say "I'm going to subject myself to a dose of Berrman Radiation".)
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:23 AM on December 19, 2003

Star Trek Particles? Pshaw! That's so last century. You wanna speculate with the pseudoscience of speculative fiction? Try the infamous question, Where did Firefly take place? Was it supposed to be this solar system five hundred years from now, or a completely different solar system? Or a whole bunch of solar systems? Was the good ship Serenity travelling faster than the speed of light? How'd they get between all those different moons and planets from one episode to another without everybody succumbing to Einstein's theory of Relativity, and little to none of Roddenberry's infamous technobabble?

And how come in five hundred years the best terraforming scientists could do would be to make everything look like the desert between southern California and Las Vegas?

Or the smart aleck's answer: "space. firefly takes place in space." ;)
posted by ZachsMind at 8:32 AM on December 19, 2003

The various "particles" in Trek are alternating states of balonium, absurdium, and unobtanium.

And ZachsMind: Firefly takes place on TV...like, Duh. =)
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:12 AM on December 19, 2003