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77 points

Basic overcurrent protection? In my sci-fi?

Next you’re gonna tell me you can’t just “re-route power” by pressing buttons on a screen and not, you know, actually unhooking any wires!

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64 points

Building everything to be able to re-route to everything is WHY all the consoles are constantly exploding.

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28 points

What do you mean you dont want to reroute all the power for the warp engines into the navigation console?

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With that much power you can navigate anywhere, at least until the console melts through the floor

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14 points
*

O’Brien constantly breaking good cardassian engineering with infernal federation secondary backups.

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3 points

Exactly, sure you could have relays or Automatic Transfer Switches like we use from generators. But if you’re just slamming more power at stuff than it’s meant to use, where’s your overcurrent protection?

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41 points

one of my favorite jokes about this is on TNG. i think it’s the episode where the bridge gets cut off from the rest of the ship, and Troi is in charge of running the ship. O’Brian makes a comment to Ro about how you can’t ‘just reroute power from things’.

it’s a funny little nod from the writers.

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28 points
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16 points

Yes the buttons can control relay switches.

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10 points

Yeah you can shut the power from anywhere if you’re running low. You just need a sufficient switching system and for the issue to be related to supply or drain elsewhere

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35 points

I don’t know about you people, but personally, I always write programs at work by removing boards from my computer and plugging them in a different order.

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16 points

That’s why they are so fit and resourceful. Imagine carrying every IF statement by hand.

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5 points

That not too far off how they used to program computers with punch cards

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6 points

Well, it really wasn’t. You’d program by punching the cards, and then insert them into the computer. If they brought the boards from a terminal (or replicator), and switched the old ones to the new ones, the entire thing would make sense.

It’s a bit similar to how people programed analogical computers at the 50s. But it’s actually a lot like programing old sewing machines. The thing those have in common is that their programs were always an order of magnitude smaller than this comment.

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32 points

How do you know the buttons don’t trigger relais or the like which then actually unhook the wires?

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Judging from what things look like when they open up the walls, they could just be telling the system to use a specific circuit path. It looks like everything is just a bunch of blocks or cards with super dense computer chips on them and half the repairs we ever see are just these being unslotted and replaced. The other half being waving fake tools around.

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15 points
*

Some real dense, high-tech circuitry going on in there…

…is that an isolinear rod next to Uhura’s head?

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8 points

That’s an interesting way to spell relays

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5 points

OP is probably German.

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7 points

you can’t just “re-route power” by pressing buttons on a screen and not, you know, actually unhooking any wires!

High-voltage switches might be a bit complicated. One I’ve seen requires you to tighten a spring and then have it released extremely fast to prevent sparking. Still, there should be a way to do it safely, without having to go near or touch the wiring.

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Risa

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Star Trek memes and shitposts

Come on’n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don’t break the weather control network.

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