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Originally Posted by Penforhire
The "off switch" is a very persistent trope.
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And almost always badly used.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Penforhire
The Lost in Space robot's powerpack was my favorite. And how about the Star Trek command code for an entire ship? It does seem we'll always want overrides, even on manned operations. Think about today's nuclear missiles. Would you feel comfortable if there was no possible abort code? Not me.
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If I'd been on the Jupiter 2, the last thing I would touch would be a powerpack the size of a cassette tape off a robot that clearly had awareness and feelings, and could fire lightning bolts at an enemy. Forget it, Will...
you go pull it out.
The Trek "command code" thing is incredibly stupid; remember Kirk's line? "To prevent an enemy from doing... what we're about to do." Think about it: If an enemy captures one Federation ship, they've got the command codes for the fleet.
Brilliant.
It's one thing to have abort codes on simple (and especially deadly) machines. It's another thing to make those abort codes so simple that any idiot can disable them in a clinch (and usually does).
Another silly trope: Enemy ship is impossible to detect with sensors, so someone puts some generic scientific equipment/kid's science project on a projectile's nose/toy robot and it snifs the enemy out first try.