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1. How come when people refer to "weeks", "months" and "years" in a sci-fi movie or show, it's always based on Earth's revolution around the sun even though those people or aliens are NOT from Earth?

2. If human civilization in the Star Trek universe really was a "moneyless" society then what provided incentive for people to work?

3. Are the "Aliens" (aka Xenomorphs) truly intelligent self-aware beings or are they strictly instinct-driven beasts?

1. The more complex sci-fi out there recognizes that time must be accounted for in a different manner and usually resort to zulu time as an appropriate substitute.

2. Picard answers this question in a TNG episode. In response to a 20th century business man who was chriogenically (SP) frozen, "The challenge is to enrich yourself." Apparently, the incentive is the idealistic notion of pursuing your genuine passions in life since you need not worry about fulfilling your more base needs. You're free to be an explorer, artist, engineer, author..etc.

3. Based on their behavior, I would say they are modeled after Raptors. They may very well be self-aware, but only in the basest sense. Most of their motivation is instinct driven, and primarily concerned with gathering food and procreation.

I've watched some old 50's B-SF films where they try and address the time thing by using a different standard and converting it with a "roughly equivalent to one of your Earth hours" or some such...and it always sounds retarded. It's just easier this way.

If you want puzzling, I just watched Superman II again last night...how come Zod and the other Kryptonians all speak English?? They don't understand the Russian guy on the Moon, but they can talk no problem to the Americans, even though according to Jor-El Krypton was several galaxies away!!

As for TNG, that whole thing doesn't really work because there are too many guest characters on the show that are NOT enlightened. Naturally this is because the story writers are all based in our time, but it really is best left unexplained because any explanation fails under examination.

I think the TNG explaination is feasible because the UFP is not the only form of government in the universe, not to mention that just because the UFP exists doesn't mean humans aren't going to be, well, human. The time thing does work IF you've got good writers working on your script; there is a big difference between today's sci-fi and that of the 1950s, and Superman is,well, Superman. Frankly, they didn't put a lot of thought into the details there; that's just a detail they chose not to address and figured that average auidence member would not notice; and in most cases they were right. So, I basically disagree with mostly everything Jedi just said, but of course his opinion is perfectly valid .