They have to infiltrate as many orgs as they can to get around the separation of powers system. But yeah ICE seems particularly bad.

100%

What was ambiguous to you? Also I said that. You must swear or affirm. I personally chose to affirm when I took my oath of enlistment.

Thank you for sharing! Added it to my watch list.

The problem is that the UCMJ puts the onus on the “accuser” to prove that the order was unlawful. It’s an awful lot to ask of a public servant. The whole situation sucks.

Ahh, I was enlisted so I didn’t know that the officer’s oath excludes the “following orders” bit.

It does, however, require you to swear or affirm that you will follow the orders of the President, and the UCMJ puts the onus on the accusing service member to prove that an order is unlawful. It’s a lot to ask of service members that likely only joined because they needed college money.

I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."

Edit: Ya’ll are right, I didn’t realize the officer oath excluded the “following orders” bit.

I ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. (Title 5 U.S. Code 3331, an individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services)

It’s pretty fucked up that we’re at the point of relying on service members to decide that an order is unlawful. The Uniform Code of Military Justice doesn’t exactly side with the military members in this instance, but it also doesn’t explicitly prohibit it. Here are some crib notes from the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

United States v. Sterling, 75 M.J. 407 (a lawful order must relate to military duty, which includes all activities reasonably necessary to accomplish a military mission, or safeguard or promote the morale, discipline, and usefulness of members of a command and directly connected with the maintenance of good order in the service).

(the dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order).

(an order is presumed to be lawful, and the accused bears the burden of rebutting the presumption).

(to be lawful, an order must (1) have a valid military purpose, and (2) be clear, specific, and narrowly drawn; in addition, the order must not conflict with the statutory or constitutional rights of the person receiving the order).

Perhaps a nice stylish codpiece to make it more “realistic”!

Tax dollars well spent IMO. Sometimes its about the message you know?

Fantastic, that means we can have someone toss klingon devito for a gag

Oh cool, reading the memory alpha page about antimatter containment fields now!

He must hold back every day or he would constantly be crushing peoples hands. There was an episode where they mentioned that Data was the only one on-board capable of breaking Worf’s arm.

edit: wrist, not arm.

Not that I know of, but he did play Arik Soong for three episodes on Enterprise which was a pretty dark role for him.

I always assumed that ships would be outfitted with enough concentrated anti-matter to last the expected lifespan of the ship, or at very least the mission they’re on, then deuterium could be pumped in as needed to activate the warp core. I’m more curious how they store the antimatter. Do they keep it in a transporter buffer? Or some sort of magnetic/tractor containment system like holograms use? They couldn’t just keep tanks made of anti-matter or else the whole question starts again (how do you keep the anti-matter from touching the matter the ship is made of.)

Yeah, I don’t doubt their intelligence I’m just curious about the more practical problems of society/technology. For example, what do their technical manuals look like? How do you train a new Tamarian recruit on how do maintenance? Or for that matter, how do you pass along technical knowledge at all when all of your language seems to be in the form of specific cultural references? At least with the Pakleds and the Klingons we know the answer - they stole it.

I’ve got the moooooooves

“It’s Always Sunny in the Holodeck” is a crossover I didn’t know I needed until this very second. Bravo. Now I’m picturing Lore going off about being a golden god.

Pakleds are one of the goofier mono-cultures in Trek. Up there with the Tamarians on my list of “How the hell did this species learn to fly?”. The bottom of the list is the Klingons, only because we know they stole most of their ship tech from the Hur’q.

You’ve got an estimated 10 years or so before quantum computers can crack all current encryption by using Shor’s algorithm.

One of the most important quantum computing algorithms, known as Shor’s algorithm, would allow a large-scale quantum computer to quickly break essentially all of the encryption systems that are currently used to secure internet traffic against interception. Today’s quantum computers are nowhere near large enough to execute Shor’s algorithm in a practical setting, and the expert consensus is that these cryptanalytically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs) will not be developed until at least the 2030s.