"Chosen Realm" was really annoying, since they allowed those alien guys to erase all those files--with almost no backups! I won't even get started on the lousy security that allowed them the run of the ship in the first place.

In "Proving Ground", T'Pol said she and Hoshi had managed to retrieve something like 30% of the data from the "redundant memory core", with the implication that they could get more data given more time, and it was hard work.

Now, I'm not sure what that means exactly. Did they restore the backup (implied by "redundant memory core")? If so, it should be a pretty quick and easy process, and they'd maybe lose the last week's worth of work.

Or did they run an "unerase" utility on the main memory core and retrieve the files from where they had been deleted? (Quick computer science lesson: When you erase a file, the actual data remains on the drive, but the pointers to that data in the File Allocation Table are removed. So when the computer has a new file to make, it will overwrite the old, deleted file. If it hasn't overwritten the old data yet, it may be possible to scan the disk, recognize a sequence of data as a file, and restore it.) That, I could believe, would take longer. But it wouldn't require them to use the "redundant memory core".

My fanwank... I assume redundant memory core means a second memory core used as backup. Since it's backup storage and not frequently accessed directly, data might be converted to some kind of compressed format to economize on space -- like how today we might create zipped archives of files and write them to CD. It might then take Quantum & Co. some time to uncompress and restore the data.

Yeah, but that would make sense. Far too logical for Quantum & co. (that includes T'Pol).

Yeah it is a little confusing, but i think the idea was that picard would encounted the borg and become borg before first contact. Because in first contact starfleet comand don't want the enterprise to join the battle back at earth because of picards history with them, there afarid that picard could help the borg take of the earth. but as we all know the enterprise saves the day and they all live happily ever after.
Time is like a loop, but the difference is that you get of the loop anytime. But 1 disatvantage is that you don't where you will end up, even Q was unbelievable good at turning up the right or wrong moment, depending on who he was visiting.I think also Q seems to be the only character that has appear in TNG, DS9 and VOY, freacky as hell!!

"Divergence" had another silly physics moment.

So, the Trip-to-Ship transfer bit. I'll accept that Trip can climb a wire between two ships traveling at warp. Assumption: Within the warp field, basic Newtonian physics apply. Since Trip is traveling at the same speed as the ships, and there's no wind resistance, he can climb the wire without being pushed backward. Fine.

But then, when the Grappler assembly comes loose, it falls out of the ship. Now, it, like Trip, is moving at the same speed as both ships, and is contained in the same warp field and everything. But it falls out and falls behind the ships. No, sorry, that's not consistent with what they showed happening to Trip. It would float between the ships, moving at the same speed, until the warp field is changed. If things fall behind when they are ejected from the ship, then Trip should have had his legs dangling behind him while he moved up the rope.

That's because toilets are never, ever shown in Trek. That's starting with TOS and continuing right up to now. I think it started with low budgets and squeamish producers, but now it's more of an inside joke. SEE: IMDB Trivia for ST:TNG.

Hoshi threw up into the decon room's toilet a few episodes back.

Possibly silly question for the science types...
It seems to me that most Trek technology has at least a theoretical basis in known science. Like, warp drive doesn't seem possible, but at least conceivable, with an understandable foundation. But transporter and replicators, to me, seem like the kind of thing that will just never, ever be possible. Just not workable in our physical universe. And that makes me sad, so... is there hope?

I don't think we'll ever invent replicators. That involves creating something out of nothing, as far as I can tell. However, Teleportation!

And I love that it's in the travel section, as opposed to the science section.

Actually, based on The Physics of Star Trek, transporters and replicators seem much more likely than warp drive. Warp drive's energy requirements are unimaginably huge. The biggest obstacle to transporters, other than Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, is the data storage requirement. Replicators aren't too different from transporters. You're not making something from nothing, you're assembling molecules that you have lying around into known patterns.

Plus, warp drives violates a lot more of the principles of physics (as we know them, of course)- rules of the universe, in fact.