Entertainment
The Single Line Of Dialogue Star Trek Spent Over 50 Years Explaining
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The strength of Star Trek has never been its ambitious special effects or its bevy of exotic aliens. No, the strength of this franchise has always been in its dialogue. Many fans memorize lines like Kirk’s “risk is our business” and turn them into personal mantras, which is no surprise.
These episodes offer such unique insights into the human condition that even a simple line can inspire you to change your life. In the very first Star Trek episode, though, the show’s most popular character had a line of dialogue that has inspired nothing but arguments among fans.
In The Original Series broadcast premiere “The Man Trap,” Spock makes a straightforward statement about his home planet: “Vulcan has no moon.” On paper, it’s a pretty simple statement because nobody really expected a fictional alien planet to have the exact same features as our own.
Unfortunately, since Star Trek: The Animated Series, the franchise has often portrayed Spock’s home planet as having a huge moon that is very visible from the planet below. Audiences have been trying to resolve this discrepancy for over half a century, and an episode of Strange New Worlds quietly made the most popular fan theory into canon.
When Pillow Talk Goes Wrong
When Spock mentions his home planet in “The Man Trap,” he is effectively shutting down some flirtation from Uhura. She playfully tells him to “tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a lazy evening when the moon is full.” Without missing a beat or taking the bait, Spock tells his fellow officer that “Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.” There was no need to question his assertion until the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode “Yesteryear.” In that episode, a large moon was very obviously visible from the surface of the planet Vulcan in multiple shots.
After this, it became weirdly common for Star Trek films and TV shows to feature a moon and other celestial bodies near Vulcan. The theatrical cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for example, originally portrayed four oversized orbs in Vulcan’s sky. It wasn’t clear if these were meant to be moons or planets, but it eventually became a moot point. When the Director’s Edition of that movie came out on DVD, those objects had been removed, and the night sky (distracting since this was a daytime scene) was replaced with an orange one.
Fly Me To The Moon
The “does Vulcan have a moon?” debate calmed down until Star Trek: Discovery. The episodes “Lethe,” “If Memory Serves,” and “Such Sweet Sorrow” showed celestial bodies that were visible from the surface of the planet Vulcan.
Once again, it wasn’t clear if we were looking at moons, planets, or something else entirely. Moreover, fans once more had to wonder why Spock so confidently declared that Vulcan had no moon when so much cosmic crap is clearly visible from the surface of his planet.
However, veteran Star Trek writer D.C. Fontana provided a possible explanation for this conundrum, which was published in a fanzine way back in 1975. She proposed that Vulcan had a sister planet, T’Khut, that had a co-orbital relationship.
This elegantly justified Spock’s statement that Vulcan has no moon by explaining that what we saw in the sky in “Yesteryear” and later episodes wasn’t a lunar body. Instead, it was T’Khut, which was orbiting closely enough to be visible to the naked eye. While this remained only a fan theory for over half a century, it was eventually canonized by Strange New Worlds, which showed T’Khut orbiting Vulcan on a computer console.
There you have it, Trekkers: a simple throwaway line from Spock in the first episode of Star Trek to ever hit the airwaves ignited decades of fan debates. Everyone wanted to explain this seeming discrepancy, but nobody could top the one offered by franchise scribe D.C. Fontana. Paramount agreed, eventually making her popular theory official canon. As a side effect of all this, there’s now one line of dialogue Star Trek and Star Wars fans can quote for completely different reasons: “that’s no moon!”
Entertainment
The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore Bluetooth speaker is at the lowest price weve seen all year
SAVE $75: The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore Bluetooth speaker is on sale for $224 at Amazon, down from the standard price of $299. That’s a 25% discount.
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Packing up for an adventure means figuring out how to bring along a soundtrack. A trip to the cabin or a lakeside campground all deserve to be experienced with a great playlist. If you could use an upgrade before summer to get a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, check out this deal at Amazon.
As of April 22, the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore Bluetooth speaker is on sale for $224 at Amazon, marked down from the normal price of $299. That’s a 25% discount that takes $75 off the price. It’s also the lowest price we’ve seen at Amazon so far this year.
A compact speaker with a scratch-resistant aluminum shell is exactly what we should be packing on adventures. With an attached carabiner, the B&O Explore speaker is designed to clip onto your backpack when you hit the trail. Or you can utilize the rubber base to set it on a rock or even in the sand. It’s both waterproof and dustproof, adding to the durability.
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Before summer kicks into high gear, add the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore speaker to your pack. It’s ready for any adventure you have planned.
Entertainment
Get some new wrist candy with the CMF Watch Pro 2 at its lowest price ever
SAVE $39.01: As of April 22, get the CMF By Nothing Watch 2 Pro for $39.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $79. That’s a discount of 49% and the lowest price we’ve seen.
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There are tons of smartwatches on the market if you’re in need of one. But if you’re willing to look beyond the Apple Watches or Samsung devices out there, you’ll find an awesome alternative from the Nothing brand that’ll save you some serious cash. Not only is it more affordable than the competition, but it’s got everything you could want and then some. In fact, one of the models is on sale right now.
As of April 22, get the CMF By Nothing Watch 2 Pro for $39.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $79. That’s $39.01 off and a discount of 49%. It’s also the lowest price we’ve seen.
This affordable smartwatch not only comes in an attractive form factor, but it has just about everything you could ask for. It has your average comms tools like Bluetooth calling and gesture control, a built-in mic and speaker, contacts, message reminders, and music control. But from there, it offers a wide range of sensors and data to help you take control of your health.
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With interchangeable watch straps and an attractive face, this extremely reasonable smartwatch is definitely one to rival Apple and Samsung. You’ll want to grab yours while it’s still down to the lowest price we’ve seen.
Entertainment
Get Ankers 14-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 Dock for $60 less at Amazon
SAVE 15%: As of April 22, you can get the Anker Prime 14-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 Dock for $339.99, down from $399.99, at Amazon. That’s a 15% discount or $60 savings.
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Working off a laptop is great until you realize you only have two ports and need to plug something in. If you’re hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, you’re pretty much out of luck on the rest. Not only that, but your previously uncluttered desk will most likely look like a Best Buy exploded (a rat’s nest of cords isn’t cute or helpful for anyone getting work done).
If you literally hate mess and cords as much as I do, you need a docking station to hide all that chaos and protect your aesthetic. Right now, Anker’s Prime TB5 Docking Station is on sale for $339.99 at Amazon, down from $399.99. (That’s a $60 price cut.)
Mashable Deals
Are you going to use all 14 ports at the exact same time? Probably not, but you’ll never have to dig through your bag for a specific adapter again. You just plug a single cable into your laptop, and the dock handles the rest. It features a Thunderbolt 5 upstream port, two Thunderbolt 5 downstream ports, two USB-C ports, three USB-A ports, SD and TF card readers, a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, an audio jack, and your choice of HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 2.1. It’s also fast enough to transfer a 150GB file in 25 seconds.
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