USS Loma Prieta • NCC-26848 – Page 8 – The Bay's Most Independent Star Trek Fan Club

2012.07262014.0614

Yeoman’s Log: (2012.0724) Jean Luc’s Bookshelf

The Star Trek franchise has always lured the exceptionally literate with its use of language, complex story lines, intricate depth of characters and the philosophical arcs that run throughout each series as a whole. And The Next Generation is no exception to this rule, in fact, it’s a favorite of mine due mainly to Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, and more importantly, Sir Patrick Stewart’s interpretation of the Enterprises’ commanding officer.

Picard always has an air of scholastic piousness that heightens every piece of dialogue, which is unlike the bombastic Capt. Kirk or frigidly noble Janeway (note that this entry is not a discussion about the “best” Captain – we can table that unending argument for another day). Book-smarts are all but inherent to Jean-Luc’s personality. Recently, I came across a reading list of fictional characters, which touched briefly on the literature habits of Captain Picard and was led down the Trek-rabbit-hole of Jean-Luc’s telling library.

Throughout the TNG series, at least once in each of the 7 seasons, Picard is reading The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare, which he keeps in his ready room. Each appearance of this book is typically open to a different play and page with illustration. As I am sure all crew members know, Stewart was a highly respected Shakespearean actor prior to TNG so the connection here is nothing if not a nod to Stewart’s first love – the stage. Apropos to our USS Loma Prieta late-80s namesake, the specific year of Capt. Picard’s “The Globe” is from 1986 and has been notoriously difficult to find.

Fascinatingly, Picards’ volume of Shakespeare’s work appears prominently in the episodes that feature the licentious character of Q, which is in some way the most Shakespearean relationship throughout the entire series: vindictive deities, moral struggles, absurd humor, human toil, etc. It’s a fitting prop amongst the constant intellectual dueling between the Captain and his most compelling nemesis (again, this is merely the opinion of your humble Yeoman).

The other books mentioned in the series in Picard’s arsenal is the lengthy modernist novel “Ulysses” by James Joyce and Ving Kuda’s “Ethics, Sophistry and the Alternate Universe”. The latter being a fictitious piece used to emphasize Riker’s joke that Picard takes some “light reading” on his vacation to Risa in “Captain’s Holiday” (s3e19), but that I deeply wish was a real volume of text for you know… beach reading, or whatever.

~En. Tiffany Bukowski
Ship’s Yeoman
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4

2012.07142014.0614

Security Report: (2012.0714) SFSO? – An Intro to Starfleet Special Ops

What is SFSO? Starfleet Special Operations command is the group for those who have an interest in the Ground Operations/ Combat side of the fleet universe. Although never actually mentioned in cannon, it is a safe assumption that the military arm of the United Federation of Planets would have combat trained ground forces, should the need arise. Multiple times throughout the various series and movies, the need has arisen. The SFSO is the intelligence gathering arm of Starfleet, both Covert and Military Intelligence. We are sort a cross between the CIA and Military Intelligence. We have rangers, SEALS, Force Recon, Covert Intel, and MACO. We are essentially Starfleet Intelligence. Some of the more notable people in TOS and TNG were most probably SFSO. Colonel West in VI, Kirk, Sulu, Uhura, Picard, Worf, and Dr. Crusher were Specops Trained for the Cardassian infiltration. As were the MACO’s in Enterprise.

So what does SFSO do? That is the beauty of SFSO. Sure there is a manual. Sure there are academy courses (one of the bigger colleges at the Academy by the way).SFSO’s academy courses are written by former military members and also have real-world applications and information. They are more than just movie trivia. But there is not much dictating what you *have* to do. The main goal of Starfleet Special Operations is to have fun and give the member a slightly more militaristic way to play without all the hard nosed regulations fru-fru of the Starfleet Marine Corps. We provide an outlet for those who just want something a little different that the standard vanilla Starfleet experience.

So what are you waiting for? Check us out at www.sfso.sfi.org, or contact me directly at sfso@sfi.org if you have any questions.

~Capt. Erik Roberts
Chief Security Officer
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4

Deputy Director
SFSO – Operations

[Above: The special pin available only to SFSO members]

2012.06292014.0614

Captain’s Blog, Supplemental: (2012.0605) The Transit of Venus

[Above: Close-up of Venus by the Japanese Hinode spacecraft]

On June 5th, 2012, the USS Loma Prieta witnessed one of the rarest of known predictable celestial phenomena: the visible transit of the planet Venus across our Sun. These transits occur in pairs, eight years apart. The last transit occurred in 2004, but before that the transits hadn’t occurred since 1874 and 1882. Knowing that the next transit wouldn’t occur for at least another 105 years (in 2117 and 2125), this was a once (er, twice) in a lifetime event that could not be missed. The Loma Prieta’s stellar cartography team was immediately directed to prepare for observations of the event and take detailed sensor readings.

[Above: Capt. Perkins using the Solar Sensors]

However, due to the immense power of our star, the phenomenon could not be observed with the naked eye and would make our standard sensors and cameras useless. With the assistance of civilian Federation scientist Dr. J. Cox, we devised an ingeniously improvised device out of a pair of level 5 wielding googles, supplemented with an additional pane of level 9 glass. Together, these provided the level 14 protection necessary for safe solar viewing. Dr. Cox’s ‘solar sensors’ were further augmented with binoculars for magnification.

[Above: Dr. Cox’s improvised Solar Sensor device]

Much to my amazement, our ‘solar sensors’ worked magnificently! Through the device would could clearly see the tiny planet transverse in front our star like an ant crawling across a bright green apple (the solar sensors made the sun appear that color). Sadly, due to the extreme magnification and strange lighting of the ‘solar sensors’, it was impossible to get a clear visual record with our iPhone model Tricorders. Even though we were unable to take any high res holo-images, the exhilaration of seeing the planet Venus with our own eyes made the mission a resounding success.

[Above: Holo-image of the Sun through Solar Sensors, x4 magnification]

~Capt. Zach Perkins
Commanding Officer
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4

2012.06182014.0614

Away Team Report: (2012.0519) Maker Faire Bay Area

There is no better place to study what Earth civilians are making and creating in the 21st century than at Maker Faire—a two-day, family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. Ensign MacKinnon and myself, Ensign Sloan, beamed down to the San Mateo Events center where the 15th Annual Maker Faire was behind held.

First duty was seeking out the Tesla stage for a demonstration by ArcAttack! of using Tesla Coils to create music. It was a symphonic orchestration using electricity, the likes of which we often see in our space exploration and I was pleased with the representations these civilians concocted. We recorded some of the music created in the demonstration to bring back to the ship and share with our fellow officers. Additionally the center that contained the Tesla Stage was very dark and contained many glowing things, so it appealed to our inner teenage selves.

As a cyberneticist I was quite fascinated by the robot area, which was very primitive compared to the androids and robots of our time, but very fun to interact with. Some of the models we encountered: R2-D2 and other Astromech droids, Wall-E, a Class M-3 Model B9 Robot, and a Dalek. The Dalek was quite terrifying as it notified us of its wish to EXTERMINATE us. We blinded it with our camera flash and made our exit before it could accomplish this task. As we continued our study of the faire, we encountered a native android performing a tribal dance to music, which Ensign MacKinnon joined in on.

There was also a section of the festival dedicated to Steampunk, which contained a lot of metal, steam, fire and quaint devices. There were many different models of computers, and many areas where faire goers could create their own crafts and devices. We sat down for a lecture given by Mike Estee on The Laws of Paper Robotics. Mike has been creating cardboard robots, and cardboard-copters in the past year and shared what he has learned, and encouraged others to partake in this cheaper way to create robots. In another area we happened upon magnificent models of ships created out of LEGO pieces, one of which was a formidable weapon that the Federation would never approve of, called “The Deathstar.”

We saw many inventions involving electricity and many inventions involving fire. All in all the festival was so packed with inventions, demonstrations, and amusement that it was impossible to see it all in one day. We reported back to the ship before the Faire closed that day, and will definitely be returning again next year.

-Ensign Amy Sloan
Cybernetics Officer
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4