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Daystrom Institute
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
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Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
My bet on the real reason was it's boring and solves too many problems. It also likely cost more than just having the actors do something instead.
There's probably lore reasons you can use, like the one mentioned here about trying to differentiate himself from his ancestors, but I'd bet the real reason is just for better storytelling opportunities.
The VFX almost certainly isn't cheap either.
I remember one scene where our heroes are fighting Jem Hadar in hand to hand combat and Odo is there (with his shapeshifting abilities, not during the arc where he's stuck as a solid). Odo is punching people in the face and stuff. I remember thinking, couldn't he just morph into a buzz saw and spin around? Or turn into an octopus with eight terminator-like hand swords? Or maybe a boa constrictor and wrap around them and squeeze 'em all to death? Or...