Beam Me Up Scotty with Chris West Currently of Lost Orb

Chris West

Check out this BANDCAMP link. Chris West has a new project. From the mind that brought you Crawling for Carrion and Trippy Wicked...just wait till you hear this one.

Chris West is one of those guys who's a modern day heavy metal renaissance man because he's always undergoing some sort of reawakening and reinvention.

Check out  his latest crazy idea at that link, but...

In the meantime, phasers set to stun.

1. Star Trek is the world's most perfect universe. In what show (era) would you be the happiest? 

Yes it is. It has to be TNG and mostly for the crew. 

Mainly I just want to hang out with Riker and go on adventures with him. Picard is the ultimate leader so it would be cool to be able learn from him. You've got your fitness and martial arts practice from Worf, good mental health from Counsellor Troi so all bases covered there. 

Data is great fun so he can tag along with me and Riker. I have to say that a few weeks on DS9 would be fun though, and there's something appealing about being flung to the Delta Quadrant for some adventuring there.

But the real strength of TNG is that it is a show about community. The crew is a community of individuals all striving to be the best they can and all fully supporting each other in whatever they're each trying to achieve. They have a shared higher purpose and they have personal interests. It's a utopian society worth pointing ourselves in the general direction of.

2. In the second season of The Next Generation, Commander William T, Riker had to prosecute Lt. Cmdr. Data on whether or not he was sentient and not property. Where do you stand on this issue and why?

This is simple for me. He's sentient. 

Our fleshy brains are just very complicated computers and nothing more. We have computers made of biological material running the show and Data has a computer made of non-bio material doing the same. 

If we're sentient then so is he.

3. The only time we ever got remotely heavy music was on the bus in Star Trek IV. Why do you think they've not pursued heavy music?

Well the boring answer is that it's just not appropriate for the style of the show. It's not really heavy but Zefram Cochrane played some cool rock n roll in First Contact. 

And the music Jono is listening to in the captains quarters in Suddenly Human is some INSANE prog-synth... music. It's kinda heavy. 

Data listening to several pieces of classical music simultaneously is pretty fucking metal.

4. In the Star Trek TNG Novel, worlds, universes, and centuries collided when Peter David posited that Trelane from The Squire of Gothos, was actually a member of the Q Continuum.

Do you think that's anything more than simple fanboyism?

I haven't read it but no, I think that's exactly what it is. 

It's a just recurring theme in the original series. They encounter a hugely powerful new life form that threatens them. They defeat it. 

Repeat.

5. What's the most metal alien in the Star Trek Multiverse?

Well if we're talking the most horrible, nasty, evil, vengeful and mean then Pulaski is kinda... oh wait she's human. 

I guess the parasites at the end of TNG Season 1 are kinda goregrind with the head explosion. The Breen are anonymous bedroom black metal. Borg = goths.Vulcans are prog metal. 

But the real answer is Klingons. It has to be Klingons. 

The first really big metal show I went to was Metallica at Milton Keynes Bowl in 1993 and it was like being on a Klingon ship with a crew of 50,000.