Star Trek General Thread II: Strange New Posts

[Lorcan Nagle]

Ortegas and Pike definitely use the same barber

[Ruger]

I just have to mention this: has anyone looked at the hair on STW?  It's weirdly fascinating in it's magnificence.

Having just watched the premier episode on YouTube (looks like Paramount made it free to see like they’ve done before with the other series), I agree.

Oh, and loved the episode.

Ruger

[BrianDavion]

Ortegas and Pike definitely use the same barber

this was before first contact with the Bolians and they needed to use lawnmowers to cut their hair, clearly

[Giovanni Blasini]

You know, with regard to the Gorn, has anyone considered that Laan Noonian-Singh may have been, y’now, lying?  And that maybe there’s a reason that genetically enhanced humans are so frowned upon by the 2370s, when it became an issue with Bashir?  And that maybe these aren’t unrelated questions?

[Ruger]

You know, with regard to the Gorn, has anyone considered that Laan Noonian-Singh may have been, y’now, lying?  And that maybe there’s a reason that genetically enhanced humans are so frowned upon by the 2370s, when it became an issue with Bashir?  And that maybe these aren’t unrelated questions?

Second question first:

No, because the Eugenics Wars and Khan are already explanation enough for the concern over genetic tinkering.

Personally, I like the idea that not every supposed contact with an alien form of life is taken at face value, especially if there is no way to confirm the story. 

Ruger

[glitterboy2098]

while it is possible she was incorrect about some details (after all, this was an event that occured to her as a child, and ended when she was a young teen, so she may have gotten a bunch of details wrong) but i don't think this is the plot hole that everyone else does. in trek, first contacts with nearby space faring species rarely occur without some sort of preexisting knowledge. usually this is only indicated by dialog mentioning rumors or sightings, or the crew going to their databases to find clues to resolve some cultural hangup that is driving the plot of the week.

kirk's unfamiliarity with the Gorn could just be that Laan's descriptions didn't match the one he saw. after all she probably described horrific monsters given the emotional trauma involved with her esperiances. plus we know that the gorn have a fair degree of variation given the TOS and ENT versions had a number of physical differences. (Beta canon actually has then with genetic castes, each with distinct appearance. the TOS one from arena being a warrior, the one from ENT being an engineer, etc. in fact their society comes across as almost eusocial.)

[BrianDavion]

Case in point the Ferangi.

Offical first contact with the Ferangi occured in 2364 (the events of the Last Outpost) However there had been incidents with the Ferangi well before hand.

even if we wanna be purists and ignore Enterprise, it was eistablished that the USS Stargazer had encountered the Ferangi in 2355 in an armed incident that resulted in the loss of Picards first command, the Stargazer.

[glitterboy2098]

we know that the borg were known by the federation prior to the official meeting in 2365 at J-25.even ignoring the First comtact and ENT incidents due to their time travel related nature, the federation took in El-Aurian refugees in 2265, who had lost their world to the borg. and the hansen's had recorded a fairly extensive set of rumors about the borg in the 2340's, details enough to have a fairly accurate borg scout cube model made even before they ever left to find a borg ship to study. (and the ship they found was in the alpha quadrant near the romulan nuetral zone, accordign to VOY: Dark frontier) if you add the FC and ENT events in, the federation has been aware of a cybernetic race of assimialtors for some time, and may even have put 2 and 2 together after the El-Aurian refugees told their story, but still didn't know enough to go public about it. though in the case of the borg they probably weren't in much of a hurry to make first contact.

in the case of the gorn we've seen a skeleton as part of Lorca's collection in DIS ("context is for kings") and now La'an's story. but the skeleton could have been obtained from a crash or other isolated source, and the story is a story told by a scared and half dead teenager. and the story indicates they are a hostile and aggressive species, so not one that the federation would be likely to seek out for contact intentionally.

[BirdofPrey]

Yeah I definitely think it's fine.  One traumatized person doesn't even qualify for a rumor, really.  I don't see why any officer that hadn't read La'an's file would have heard the name "Gorn" before, and that's contingent on them actually even taking any stock in the mention.

And again it takes more than one event to establish a pattern, but as much as it seems the Federation randomly loses ships all the time, they do all seem to be random

[gyedid]

Did anyone else here think there were callbacks to "The Corbomite Maneuver" in SNW ep. 2?  The bulbous-headed alien, the wavy visual screen effect, the tiny Enterprise vs. a much larger alien craft, even the bluff about the Enterprise being equipped with a system that would also take out the attacker...

Also, should the Enterprise be zipping around in combat like a Star Wars fighter craft?  This is by far the most maneuverable we've ever seen a Federation starship apart from the Defiant in DS9, which was purpose-built for that kind of combat.  I mean, I know inertial dampers are supposed to be awesome, but not THAT awesome--especially in 2258.

Cheers,

Gabe

[I am Belch II]

Did anyone else here think there were callbacks to "The Corbomite Maneuver" in SNW ep. 2?  The bulbous-headed alien, the wavy visual screen effect, the tiny Enterprise vs. a much larger alien craft, even the bluff about the Enterprise being equipped with a system that would also take out the attacker...

Also, should the Enterprise be zipping around in combat like a Star Wars fighter craft?  This is by far the most maneuverable we've ever seen a Federation starship apart from the Defiant in DS9, which was purpose-built for that kind of combat.  I mean, I know inertial dampers are supposed to be awesome, but not THAT awesome--especially in 2258.

Cheers,

Gabe

I noticed the "The Corbomite Maneuver" idea in that episode.  We do know the Enterprise would make some evasive maneuvers to try and dodge incoming fire. I just don't think they had the budget and the ability to make better shots of the Enterprise doing anything more  that going "casually to the left". I would say that the ship could do some maneuvers but it wasn't as much as the Defiant from DS9. Star Trek has always been 1 ship vs 1 ship and never really had anything more and defiantly not fighters. That seems to be a new thing in nuTrek. That season 2 ender of Discovery both the Enterprise and Discovery made hundreds of fighters to fight Section 31 and they had hundreds more. In that battle that the ships and the S31 ships just sat their didn't move and fired at each other.

[Garrand]

Nor did they in TNG. I recall watching episodes of the Klingon Civil War, & the space battle depicted in it was a pair of Klingon BoP shooting at a stationary Enterprise. We wouldn't get dynamic battle shots IIRC until DS9 at the minimum.

Damon.

[Kentares]

About callbacks in the latest SNW episode I bumped into this YT video with a "theory" about the alien race (and the story) that shows up. What do you guys think?

https://youtu.be/3jNDsTyUcO8

[Ruger]

Rewatch the scenes from the Battle of Wolfe 359 in the premier episode of DS9, they have an Ambassador-class and a Nebula-class ship (IIRC) making hard 90 degree turns to attack the Borg cube. It’s not the first time you see a StarFleet ship doing some impressive maneuvers.

In fact, watch the attack on the Borg ship in First Contact as well. IIRC, there were some fancy maneuvers in there too.

Ruger

[BirdofPrey]

Yeah, unfortunately I don't think we can make anything at all out of what the special effects they used.  Voyager seemed kinda zippy to me too.
Every time a ship has moved it's more or less been moving at the speed of budget/technical capabilities.

Holy crap, though the Enterprise did get short with a surprising number of torpedoes for "we can't take many more of those".  I'm not sure that even counts as dodging.

[glitterboy2098]

Rewatch the scenes from the Battle of Wolfe 359 in the premier episode of DS9, they have an Ambassador-class and a Nebula-class ship (IIRC) making hard 90 degree turns to attack the Borg cube. It’s not the first time you see a StarFleet ship doing some impressive maneuvers.

In fact, watch the attack on the Borg ship in First Contact as well. IIRC, there were some fancy maneuvers in there too.

Ruger

DS9 version of wolf 359:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgAlog2eTEg

and the enterprise does some pretty zippy maneuvers at times in TNG, usually just in brief scenes where they turn around to leave a meeting with another ship.
a good, though less noticable example is in "booby trap" where picard flies the Ent-D agilely through an asteroid field using only one thruster pack at a time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hycMgv8nSO0
given the sheer mass of the galaxy class, those have to be extremely powerful thrusters.

the main reason the Ent-D rarely seemed to maneuver much in fights was just the nature of the battles.. they were usually either things that started during negotiations where both side's ships were stationary when the shooting began, or were ambushes where picard/riker was trying for non-violent resolutions, and only resorted to weaponry as a last resort. (or in the case of yesterday's enterprise, was tied to a specific location and acting to shield another ship from harm, preventing complex maneuvering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igF62y6dlJk )

of course all of this was the development of the modelwork camera rigs and compositing technology over the course of TNG allowing for more impressive VFX.. and DS9 coming in at the end of that process for model work, and then pioneering the use of computer graphics in trek shows as an alternative to physical models. (that DS9 sopent the first several seasons with much smaller and more agile looking craft, the runabouts, probably helped.. no one expects a massive ship liek the galaxy class to pull hairpin turns, though it did sometimes. but a runabout is small and feels more like a fighter than a battleship. then they applied that style of the defiant.. a battleship that flies like a fighter. )

[dgorsman]

I will admit my first though of seeing the Enterprise do what it did after the order to conduct evasive maneuvers, was "Hey - actual maneuvering!".

[Elmoth]

Ok, binge-watched Picard. It is record from lodoss war: A RPG game turned TV series. Enjoyable without being top notch. It is a peg above Discovery though, since Picard is better than the main girl of Disco (can’t remember the name) and the aesthetic is more grounded in older star trek looks.

Now on the good and the bad with spoilers:

I LOVED the Rios character and his IA programs. That actor is great. If I were an actor I would love to be able to play such a multiplicity of characters in the same show.

Dahj/Soji was nice, as were the other 2 other female main characters (Raffi and Agnes Jurati). Picard OK-ish. Not a fan of the character. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the duo of Riker-Troi for the first time in my life. I could never stomach Troi in TNG (and hence could never really stomach much of TNG since she was a central character). Hugh, the ex-Borg director of the cube was a solid actor in the few scenes that he played. 7 of 9 meh.

However, the Romulans fell short. Too cartoony villains, even for Star Trek. Specially the Narissa actress overdid it, and it was not very believable to me. I was just waiting for her to cackle uncontrollably after telling the protagonists all the plot and secrets she had. Narek was better but was handled a losing script by the writers; his relationship with Soji is a “are you serious you are trying to make this crap fly?” situation to me. And the supersecret organization of Zat Vash (or whatever is its name) is the most voiced supersecret organization ever. I think they must even have a brand of toilet paper with that name. In a sense the Romulans were the red shirts of the show. Elnor also fell short since he is just a minmaxed RPG character. 

The last part with the synths and the… metal tentacles?... that came out of that hole downgraded the show. I loved the CGI on so many warbirds, though. I am a sucker for Klingon birds of prey and Romulan warbirds.

And the neutralization of the synths… well that is just plain stupid as a plot device. But then we have real world examples of people doing stupider things for less reason, so…

All in all it sounded like a Traveller or star wars RPG game. With combat in every gaming session. A true RPG. I will watch season 2. It is a good show to run while painting.

I like that the Romulans were right in their fears.

[guardiandashi]

I will say that in the federation in the shows and movies the starships generally don't seem too agile but from a practical point of view until or unless you have a form of inertial damping/stabilization ships that mass in the hundreds of thousands to millions of tons are going to be rather sluggish.

as to weather star trek ever had fighters there are fighters in various references.  the star fleet academy episodes with "wesley" and nova squadron.

there were also references to romulans using small sublight patrol craft, and larger warp capable carriers that took them to their patrol areas.

also there are references to fighters and other small craft in the novels, we just don't usually see them in the shows/movies

[ANS Kamas P81]

also there are references to fighters and other small craft in the novels, we just don't usually see them in the shows/movies

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Federation_attack_fighter

[BrianDavion]

I will say that in the federation in the shows and movies the starships generally don't seem too agile but from a practical point of view until or unless you have a form of inertial damping/stabilization ships that mass in the hundreds of thousands to millions of tons are going to be rather sluggish.

as to weather star trek ever had fighters there are fighters in various references.  the star fleet academy episodes with "wesley" and nova squadron.

there were also references to romulans using small sublight patrol craft, and larger warp capable carriers that took them to their patrol areas.

also there are references to fighters and other small craft in the novels, we just don't usually see them in the shows/movies

I mean unless  you have inertia dampening tech the crew are gonna be bloody smears on the ship everytime it accelerates to a decent fraction of lightspeed. o obviously they have inertia dampening

[guardiandashi]

I mean unless  you have inertia dampening tech the crew are gonna be bloody smears on the ship everytime it accelerates to a decent fraction of lightspeed. o obviously they have inertia dampening

if you ever read "how much for the planet" there was a scene in the beginning where the ships computer explains the maneuver it was going to cause a bunch of heat, and many g's which would turn the crew into "strawberry jam on toast"

the novels battlestations, and Dreadnaught they used small craft stowed on the ship, fighters and another small craft, they weren't actual shuttles (the 6-10 man vehicles) but 1-2 person small craft

I realize that novels are secondary canon (at best) but it makes sense that some kind of small craft would be used if they were at all feasible

[BrianDavion]

The Novels aren't even secondary canon. they're lisenced fan fiction and nothing more

[ANS Kamas P81]

The Novels aren't even secondary canon. they're lisenced fan fiction and nothing more

Spock Messiah!'s existence agrees with this.

[Garrand]

The Novels aren't even secondary canon. they're lisenced fan fiction and nothing more

Which is a shame, since at least some of them are written by scriptwriters for Trek (like D.C. Fontana). It would have been nice if they were B-canon, but alas no. I really liked their take on the Romulans in the Rihansu series.

Damon.

[glitterboy2098]

regarding "fighters".. Ds9 made extensive use of them. from their using the runabouts in such roles, to the maquis who used various warp capable shuttlecraft refit to carry guns, to the Dominion war where the Federation made use of attack fighters in the major battles, which proved fairly effective at taking down cardassian warships.

the maquis "armed shuttle fighters" show up in TNG as well, since they were doing a cross-series thing with them at the time. (where the cardassian warship Vetar under the command of Gul Evek was arecurring punching bag on both TNG and DS9, having partly instigated the whole maquis conflict and frequently being disabled by maquis attack.. the last of which was Chakotay's raider, which got both ships pulled into the delta quadrant, though the Cardassians got sent back quickly)

[gyedid]

Rewatch the scenes from the Battle of Wolfe 359 in the premier episode of DS9, they have an Ambassador-class and a Nebula-class ship (IIRC) making hard 90 degree turns to attack the Borg cube. It’s not the first time you see a StarFleet ship doing some impressive maneuvers.

In fact, watch the attack on the Borg ship in First Contact as well. IIRC, there were some fancy maneuvers in there too.

Ruger

Hmm, OK, and there's also the NX-01's shenanigans in ST:ENT, especially in S3 (the Xindi arc).  However, that was a smaller, effectively unibody ship, much like the Defiant.
It's the ones with short, thin "necks" connecting the saucer to the secondary hull where I question that kind of movement.

Basically, there are two ways of conceiving starship combat on screen, and I guess it depends a lot on who's in the director's chair.  The first is what we've seen on SNW and the aforementioned examples, where the ships can maneuver like giant starfighters.  The second is ship-of-the-line combat in three dimensions, such as the Enterprise vs. Reliant battle in WoK.  Definitely not as dynamic but emphasizes the grace and majesty of the ships.

Cheers,

Gabe

[ThePW]

I just watched Eps.3 and came away with this: The end events will come back to haunt them (presumably in a couple OOC years, if the series has legs than long) presumably. I look forward to that.

In terms of star dates, how long, TV seasons wise, can this show run before Kirk takes command (presumably during a Change of Command ceremony with Pike)? If that could be allowed to happen, does that mean we could possibly see TOS toons rotate to the Enterprise, eventually?

again, if this show was allowed to have those kinds of legs...

[glitterboy2098]

I just watched Eps.3 and came away with this: The end events will come back to haunt them (presumably in a couple OOC years, if the series has legs than long) presumably. I look forward to that.

In terms of star dates, how long, TV seasons wise, can this show run before Kirk takes command (presumably during a Change of Command ceremony with Pike)? If that could be allowed to happen, does that mean we could possibly see TOS toons rotate to the Enterprise, eventually?

again, if this show was allowed to have those kinds of legs...

iirc it is set 10 years prior to his taking command, so if it makes it that long, it'll have beat not only every other star trek series, but also be neck and neck with stargate sg1, the longest continuous scifi series.

ion checking memory alpha, it starts in 2259, 7 years before kirk takes over. which means if it reached that point, it would be about as long as Voyager and Deep space Nine. i suspect this was intentional, since it seems unlikely that the show would reach that point.

for reference: (generally one in universe year per season)
TOS: 3 seasons
TNG: 7 seasons
DS9: 7 seasons
VOY: 7 seasons
ENT: 4 seasons
DIS: 4 seasons, ongoing
LowerDecks: 2 seasons, ongoing (3rd season in the worls)
PIC: 2 seasons, ongoing (3rd season in the works, doesn't follow the "1 year per season" average)
SNW: 1 season, ongoing (2nd season already filmed, 3rd scheduled)
Prodigy: 1 season, ongoing (2nd to be released soon, doesn't follow the "1 year per season" average)

[gyedid]

I just watched Eps.3 and came away with this: The end events will come back to haunt them (presumably in a couple OOC years, if the series has legs than long) presumably. I look forward to that.

Indeed.  It seems like a number of these characters are being set up for big, tragic falls that either end or otherwise derail their Starfleet careers (aside from Pike, whose fate we already know). Case in point:  M’Benga is apparently still serving on the Enterprise during the TOS timeframe,  but he’s no longer the Chief Medical Officer.

Cheers,

Gabe