h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A little. But to fit the Writing-Guidelines I would have to re-write it so it isn't a list, but I'm not sure how it would work in that format.

No, you wouldn't... I don't think so anyhow.
If the content is best served with a list format, I don't think anyone will object. If they do, I'll object to their objecting

You really think that will be ok? I could put it in the Writing Workshop first, I suppose.

I do. There are plenty of entries with lists as their body that wouldn't work any other way. Recipes for instance. You might just say this is a recipe for a Star Trek episode, eh?

Interesting point. I'll have a think tomorrow, and probably stick in in Writing Workshop and see what people think. If I post the link here, can I count on you lot to come and support me?

Absolutely. This is the sort of thing the EG needs more of.

(I have a special fondness for creative instructional entries in the guide)

Here it is, then: F57153?thread=1521861

My own Star Trek "cliches", or maybe just bits I find hard to grasp.

I mean, if the Starfleet / Union of Planets thing happens four hundred years in our future, we've got an awful lot of work to do on getting to a point where Earth is united and at peace.

one thing about the "standard" Star Trek interpretation that I find far-fetched is that according to the orthodox gospel, baseball is going to be the world's number one sport.

Think again... even today, when the United States is the world's dominant cultural signal, the one thing about North America that very clearly hasn't travelled well is its sports. If baseball can't take root in the world by now where the conditions are favourable for it (ditto ice hockey, American Football, et c)then it never will.

Isn't it more likely in the Starfleet era that we'll still be playing football (note for Americans: that's eleven men a side and a round ball, as most of the world knows football) and those bits of the world tending towards cricket will still be playing cricket?

In fact, my daydream sees cricket taking root in a most unlikely place: the Klingons.

The logic is that this is a game calling for Zen-like meditative focus, punctuated with short explosive bursts of thwacking a VERY hard ball with a VERY heavy bat. Klingons will see similarities to the Bat'leth and view the game as a warrior's discipline, and will become a deadly cricketing nation.

(Cue the Interplanetary ashes at Lords: first test, Austalia versus the Klingon Homeworld. The ashes might be the incinerated remains of the Federation vessel USS Paul Hogan, whose Aussie crew refused Klingon surrender demands with cries of "Get stuffed, dunny-roof head!"

(This caused the Universal Translator some trouble, until the Klingon general understood his forehead corrugations were being likened to a corrugated iron roof over an outback toilet... surviving Aussies, taken into captivitiy, formed a cricket side while in a Klingon POW camp and taught the rudiment of the game to their captors)

Now there's another Star Trek problem - why, with the whole of earth to choose from, is the crew of a Starfleet vwessel usually 90% white and American?

I will have a look at those points soon, thanks!