TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (The host of the Generations watch party) HOST: Okay, Trekkers. Just engage in conversation as I prepare the equipment for our next stop: Generations!
PANEL 2 HACKER-LAD: Hey Stich, you're the Trekspert. Can I ask you a question? BASTICH: Fire away, Helmsman! HACKER-LAD: What IS this CRAP..!?
PANEL 3 HACKER-LAD: Why doesn't Starfleet just use the replicators to build an army of top-notch crew members..? That way they could explore the galaxy twice as fast! BASTICH: You know replicators can't reproduce living tissue!
PANEL 4 HACKER-LAD: But what about that "Thomas Riker" story? HE was alive! Transporters are based on the same technology as replicators aren't they..!? BASTICH: ...but that was an accident that can't be repeated!
PANEL 5 HACKER-LAD: Ah, I see... They can whip up a particle-of-the-week to solve every problem but they can't reproduce an "accident" that's occurred, like twenty times already this season...? BASTICH: I don't know... HACKER-LAD: And how can that "holodeck" be bigger on the inside than on the outside? HUH?!?
PANEL 6 (Bastich loses his cool and screams out) BASTICH: FOR CRYING OUT LOUD IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!!
PANEL 7 (Zoom out to Bastich, frozen mid-freakout and surrounded by a room of angry Trek fans) BASTICH: Uh...
PANEL 8 (Extreme close-up on the host) HOST: Crew... You know or how we handle mutineers... Hand me my Type 2 and the blooper reel, ensign!
CREDITS Bastich (c) 1995 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
Part 3 of the Star Trek: Generations watch party epic!
Transporters, replicators and holodecks are all variations on a theme: magical tech that manipulates matter willy-nilly and conveniently fails in bizarre ways whenever a handy plot device is needed. Anyone expecting hard sci-fi or even consistency from Trek are going to struggle with this aspect of the franchise.