Question: When Riker and his father are doing anbo-jyutsu, what do the Japanese characters on the armor and around the ring say or mean? I read what the spoken Japanese lines meant (or at least why they attempted to say, I understand their pronunciation was bad), but couldn't find the writing.
Answer: According to the Star Trek wiki (memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Anbo-jyutsu), the characters around the ring are a reference to animated series Urusei Yatsura: The large character in the center is "Hoshi", the words next that are "ramu" and "ataru", names of the main characters of that series. The phrases "Urusai" and "Yatsura" are written in the back corner. The characters on the uniforms are references to The Book of Five Rings: "chi", "mizu", and "hi" (ground, water, and fire respectively) is on Will Riker's uniform while "sora" (sky) is on Kyle's uniform in addition to "mizu" and "hi." "Yuri" (lily) and "nintai" (perseverance) are written on banners around the ring.
Question: As Data says his line about hydrogen collectors, does his left contact seem to be out of place?
Chosen answer: Yes, Data's contacts did noticeably drift on occasion, which was a source of angst for Brent Spiner (who played Data and Lore). Spiner never had anything good to say about his yellow contact lenses, as they were his least favorite part of the lengthy makeup process. Rather than further discomfort Spiner by constantly adjusting the contacts, they would often just continue shooting in spite of this minor makeup malfunction, unless he looked positively cockeyed.
Question: Where exactly was the lone Borg cube heading and why was it so far away from the Delta Quadrant?
Chosen answer: Q brought the Borg ship to the Alpha Quadrant. He used his powers to alert the Borg of the human existance. Once alerted it is the nature of the borg to persue assimilating other cultures.
Q moved the ship to the delta quadrant, near a cube that was likely exploring for targets. The Borg ship never left the delta quadrant until Q gave the borg a reason to do so.
Question: Can anyone tell me why Dr. Crusher was written out for all of series two?
Answer: According to the "Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion," Gates McFadden was replaced as ship's Doctor by Dr. Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) because some of the show's producers were able to convince Gene Roddenberry that the character of Dr. Crusher was not developing well. Fans began a letter-writing campaign to bring McFadden back, and at the end of the second season, Roddenberry decided to replace Dr. Pulaski, saying the chemistry just wasn't good. Rather than finding a third doctor for the Enterprise, the decision was made to ask McFadden to return, and she accepted. Roddenberry later said, "It was always our intention to leave the door open for her to return to the show."
Answer: Several reasons. While it is possible to beam people to and from just about anywhere, for efficiency and safety there needs to be a centralized location. If an away team was being transported at the same time, then they are transported as a group from the platform and not from a random location within the ship. Transporting people to places other than to the transporter platform is risky and it is usually only done in extreme circumstances. Precise coordinates are needed to find and safely beam someone from one place to another. The bridge is an emergency transport site and the those coordinates are already known. It has also been seen that the transport can go awry. In that event, the transporter officer needs to be able to see what is happening in order to make adjustments to safely re-materialize the passengers. It has been mentioned in Star Trek canon that it is possible for someone being transported to re-materialize inside a bulkhead or some other object if the coordinates are incorrect or the surrounding environment had changed, thus injuring or killing them.
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