Foster: Science Officer's Handbook

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Science Officer's Handbook is a reference book being compiled by Harold Foster. It is unlikely it will be completed anytime soon, so this page will be used to track the progress and to publish some excerpts from the book. It might even get some illustrations.

Excerpt from the Foreword:

You could call this “a reference book for absolute idiot.” And you’d be right. Any Starfleet officer reading this book from cover to cover would wonder at inclusion of such elementary things as phasers or intercoms. Science officers would be offended by rather unscientific definitions and many an unconfirmed speculation that appears on these pages. All these are left here intentionally. “The Science Officer’s Handbook” is actually a student’s notebook with marginal notes, rhetorical questions and wild guesses. It feels very natural for the author to leave the process of research and gradual knowledge acquisition visible and so he decided to publish the book in a shape it was born. And by the way - it serves quite well if the reader is recovering from total amnesia.

This is no encyclopedia. If you need an accurate answer go and talk to your ship’s computer. This book is a quick “rule of thumb” hack for those moments when the total human knowledge is unavailable or becomes nauseatingly oppressive. It is useful when you’d rather err on the side of fallacy. If you think there are no such moments in a career of a science officer, then you are the absolute idiot this book is written for. See - the author has got you one way or another.

So relax and stop studying from the books. Study from experience. Refer to this handy volume only when hopelessly stuck wondering what exactly a funky handle in an ancient turbo lift is for. Do not expect a schematic for it’s inner workings. Expect a note that it is well positioned to scratch one’s itchy back. After all this book has “science” on its cover.

Lt. H. Foster