I think everyone is taking the print too literally. This same command could also mean “display this text on screen on all decks”
This reminds me of when I was in high school, we found out how to get access to the command prompt on the school computers, so naturally the very first thing my friend does: “net send * PENIS”
There was an announcement for him to go to the principals about 5 minutes after that and he lost computer privileges for a while.
He may have lost computer privileges, but he won the penis game rather spectacularly.
I am reminded of Sherlock sms’ing everyones phone at the same time.
If you think transporter room duty is boring, imagine being the poor ensign assigned to your deck’s 2280’s era dot-matrix printer in case the captain decides to switch it up. Actually, I think that would have potential to be a pretty good gag on Lower Decks… The boredom of sitting watching the printer, the suspense of the printer whirring to life… only for it to sloooooooooly print out some inconsequential message
If you think transporter room duty is boring,
Side note: why are they even using the transporter room at all? Site-to-site transport exists, and the transporter can be controlled from any terminal.
So why, when there’s an emergency, do people frantically run to the turbolift, traverse a dozen decks, run along corridors, enter the transporter room and jump unto those little platforms, when they could just beam to wherever they need to go right from where they’re standing?
Same question about medical emergencies - why is it not standard procedure to simply beam people to sickbay? Instead, doctors are running along corridors, taking turbolifts up and down and across decks, running some more along corridors, only to arrive at a patient and declare “bring him to sickbay immediately!!!”
My head-canon for this is that site-to-site transport is only safe in ideal conditions.
Don’t try to think about actual transporters, the more you think about it the more broken it gets.
I was thinking about it once and ended up at slavery.
Not at Tuvix?
Site to site transport is effectively twice the number of transports. People are doing jobs. It might not be the best for them to immediately be beamed to where they need to go, because they might be doing something important. They’re generally transporting a few stationary people one place. Their capacity could easily get overloaded trying to get a bunch of excited, moving people to their stations. If they’re having to do it in shifts, and waiting for confirmation from each person that they’re ready to go, I could imagine it simply being faster and more efficient to walk or use turbo lifts. Plus, that leaves transporters free for emergencies that may arise, or crew members who really can’t get to their post quickly.
As far as medical issues go, I can see a whole lot of reasons it might not be safe to move an injured person, and you also don’t want a doctor blindly transporting into an area that might have a danger that just injured someone.
Even just from a safety standpoint, you’ve just identified that some shit is going down. Why put people in a transporter buffer, where a power surge or failure would mean mass casualties. It’s a good standard procedure even if it’s only meant to not incentivize an immediate attack specifically designed to kill a massive amount of people transporting around the ship. Why distract the crew members doing important tasks with dozens of people materializing around them? With all the movement on the ship, i’d think it would take exponentially more capacity just to track the surroundings and make sure the area where someone is materializing is empty. I assume the transporter is sophisticated enough to handle all this, but it has to have an impact on capacity.
My best guess is that it’s because transporters use radio wave type stuff to move you around, so beeming through too much metal or other substances can be a problem
That was a plotline in Voyager.
There’s a bunch of people whose whole job is running around decks of the ship transporting messages which could have been emails.
RED ALERT: … WE’RE OUT OF CYAN!!!
It would kind of fit in with their sort of “futuristic yet not exactly” aesthetic.
Yes thank you ensign for writing that report up on your tablet computer, now because email apparently doesn’t exist anymore you’ll have to physically leave the tablet with me and go get a new one.
Killing email is a honestly a greater feat than achieving communism. I salute the federation
The monkey paw curls: Email has been lost to the sands of time, but somehow fax is still in regular use
I know that this is a lighthearted place, but why do you think so? E-Mail is one of the most democratic and equity promoting forms of communication there is through its decentralisation and open standardisation. It would be the very kind of thing the Federation would want to preserve or introduce itself.
Nobody likes email. I prefer the modern fediverse.
Email is incredibly insecure. There can be no expectation of veracity or privacy within an email. The core of Email protocols were made when the Internet was a much more secret club.
It’s so funny when they go on board a shuttle and have a bag full of datapads with them because somehow it’s one book per pad.
When I watched this, I assumed they meant printing on the screens rather than audio.
But I would love to have a bunch of dot matrix printers all around the super futuristic ship printing out immutable action logs
Only if printing technology has changed by then. Otherwise you’d just be getting 100 notifications that your subscription to HP Ink has expired and it can’t print until you renew…
Atten Crew:
…
Come to Quarks
…
Quarks is fun
…
…
Don’t walk, run!
…
Bring this printout for 10% off your first drink
Enter to win a talking beverage mug!
How does one prepare for maximum acceleration on the Enterprise? Put on their seatbelt, no wait LOL
Is this why the children are always doing stuff like sculpting with sharp tools?
“ah, buckle this…. Ludicrous speed, go!”
Print()
I’d assume the printouts to be produced by the replicators.
They replicate a dot matrix printer which prints the message.
It’s the future, though, so I bet they’re all 24-pin dot matrix that can use A4 or letter paper.
They’re definitely in the future.
They use a daisy wheel printer.
Look at that Letter Quality printing!
And no cogged tractor feed nonsense here!
It’s the fax machines from Back to the Future II.
YOU’RE
FIRED
Edit: I got sniped.
After that first time, everyone would jump to check printers.
Every time that dot matrix sound started everyone’s butt would clench.
