On 100 things you have learned from Galaxy Quest...
34. When building a starship, it's not necessary for the self-destruct system to be powerful enough to destroy everything within a parsec radius. Multiple megatonnage is not necessary - just breach the hull. The final survivor(s) will thank you for not smearing them against the bulkheads with a titanic blast wave.
33. Self destruct mechanisms should have easy-to-operate Cancel buttons on every deck, spaced a maximum of 10 metres apart and clearly marked by glowing black-and-yellow stripes. And Braille. These should be designed to be operated by teeth, feet, forehead, nipples, nostrils. They should ideally be voice-activated by any crewman, though not, perhaps, by aliens.
32. The self-destruct activation mechanism, on the other hand, should be hideously difficult to operate, requiring voiceprint, fingerprint and semen samples to verify that the person concerned is qualified to do so. He (or preferably she) should be obliged to fill out a long form in triplicate, answer several $1,000,000 Who Wants to be a Millionaire questions, pass a sanity test to DSM-IV standard, solve a few differential equations and convince a HAL-class ship's computer of the necessity of the destruction of the ship.
31. After activation, the time to reach minimum safe distance should be at least a week, excluding public holidays, crew birthdays and Monday mornings. This interval may be extended at any time - including during the countdown itself - by any crewmember above the rank of latrine attendant.
30. The countdown should automatically abort if the ship detects that a registered crewmember is still aboard during the final ten minutes, unless they a) can furnish a damn good explanation for why they should be exploded; or b) have recently committed murder of at least one other registered crewmember; or c) have a titanium skeleton, extended teeth, extra limbs, glowing eyes or other mutations or modifications suggesting that they may no longer be fully compliance with all Ship's Directives.
29. In fact, are you absolutely sure you need a Self Destruct System at all? The monster/mutant/crazed robot/unstable n-dimensional matter/homicidal alien will almost certainly end up in the escape pod with you anyway, and you'll end up destroying a ship with a substantial dollar value (in adjusted credits) and still have to wrestle the bloody thing out the airlock. Why not just turn off the engines, put a large warning sticker on the windscreen, get into the pod and eject. It's where the action is, after all.
33. Self destruct mechanisms should have easy-to-operate Cancel buttons on every deck, spaced a maximum of 10 metres apart and clearly marked by glowing black-and-yellow stripes. And Braille. These should be designed to be operated by teeth, feet, forehead, nipples, nostrils. They should ideally be voice-activated by any crewman, though not, perhaps, by aliens.
32. The self-destruct activation mechanism, on the other hand, should be hideously difficult to operate, requiring voiceprint, fingerprint and semen samples to verify that the person concerned is qualified to do so. He (or preferably she) should be obliged to fill out a long form in triplicate, answer several $1,000,000 Who Wants to be a Millionaire questions, pass a sanity test to DSM-IV standard, solve a few differential equations and convince a HAL-class ship's computer of the necessity of the destruction of the ship.
31. After activation, the time to reach minimum safe distance should be at least a week, excluding public holidays, crew birthdays and Monday mornings. This interval may be extended at any time - including during the countdown itself - by any crewmember above the rank of latrine attendant.
30. The countdown should automatically abort if the ship detects that a registered crewmember is still aboard during the final ten minutes, unless they a) can furnish a damn good explanation for why they should be exploded; or b) have recently committed murder of at least one other registered crewmember; or c) have a titanium skeleton, extended teeth, extra limbs, glowing eyes or other mutations or modifications suggesting that they may no longer be fully compliance with all Ship's Directives.
29. In fact, are you absolutely sure you need a Self Destruct System at all? The monster/mutant/crazed robot/unstable n-dimensional matter/homicidal alien will almost certainly end up in the escape pod with you anyway, and you'll end up destroying a ship with a substantial dollar value (in adjusted credits) and still have to wrestle the bloody thing out the airlock. Why not just turn off the engines, put a large warning sticker on the windscreen, get into the pod and eject. It's where the action is, after all.
