Friday, August 9, 2019

Beam Me Up Scotty with Dropout Media's Matt Bacon

Matt Bacon
Beam me up, Scotty. This planet sucks!

My mother wore a shirt emblazoned with the bastardization of the classic Star Trek: The Original Series phrase: Scotty, beam us up.

This was my personal introduction into the world of tomorrow: Star Trek. 

A Wagon Train To The Stars created by Gene Roddenberry handed off to Piller and Berman, and I don't know who's running the joint now.

Simon Pegg is doing some writing though, but maybe he's just a clerk. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time we ever thought of something as not just a universe, but a multiverse.

Even in The Original Series, they were headed into parallel universes. Now there's even two damned timelines and I can't keep up.

Now, we're going to talk to Metal's handsomest boy, Matt Bacon. He's so many things that it's really hard to figure out exactly what he is and what he does.

But he can help you. Be sure to check out his podcast, Dumb & Dumbest, but only if you're either in a band who's trying to make it, or if you like witty word play.

Now...set phasers to awesome.


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

I don’t think Star Trek is necessarily the world’s most perfect universe. I mean that’s a whole ontological argument I don’t really want to get into.

In terms of what era I would be happiest… probably when Voyager was happening. That was when they had the best technology, knew about the speed limit on warp and was mostly after the Dominion War.

While I certainly think I’d be happiest on a Deep Space 9 type of situation as a trader (Although who wants to hear Morn’s stories?

That guy will never shut up!) I don’t think the Dominion War would have been very fun to deal with. Also like… the risk of the Maquis goes down dramatically after the Dominion War so that’s a plus too.

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? 

 Ah yes, The Measure of a Man written by Melinda Snodgrass one of my favorite Trek writers (Not just because she accepted my Facebook friend request in 2015!)

I think it’s pretty obvious Data is a human. I find him to be one of the more relatable characters on the show and he has clear innate desires. For instance, in the season 3 episode The Offspring (Incidentally one of the best episodes of TNG and a relatively early Frakes director credit) Data actually creates a child who he clearly loves.

If the Doctor in Voyager can be viewed as sentient why can’t Data and his positronic brain?

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?

Because Star Trek was mostly written by fucking dweebs. Also I feel like the Klingon children in the Voyager episode Real Life listen to some pretty heavy weird music. Klingon opera in general was pretty 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? 

This is a tricky one. I think that anything revolving around the Q is sort of outside of how we comprehend reality.

Think about the offspring of Q we meet in Voyager – that kid was on a totally different plane from us. Trelane is a weird outlier too.

Honestly I’m more interested in the Q Continuum’s relationship with Guinan.

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

The obvious answer is probably the Klingons. However if you want a deep cut then I would say the Breen are the most metal inasmuch as they appear to be made of the stuff.

 In terms of like… beings that look like they could be on a death metal album cover then probably the Vidiians because they’re like melting and stuff. Species 8472 is also pretty goddamn scary.

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