Star Trek (contains big spoilers for Discovery)

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

I think it's about the visual imagery and not the practicalities, as other have said. Mind you the verbal commands always made me think more of sub warfare than of 19th century naval engagements, but either way the Enterprise does not steer like a fucking X-Wing, Star Trek game makers.

Although it's a flagship, the Federation's touchy-feely nature mean it's primarily about exploration and diplomacy. Hence senior staff on away teams, etc. Where was the bridge of the Defiant?

Aside: I love the fact the Galactica has almost no windows at all.

metalangel · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:24

It's been referred to as a 'heavy cruiser' and 'dreadnought' at times, go figure. It was 'Trek Time Travel' weekend on Virgin One, I quite liked the look of the 'Soyuz Class' that Kelsey Grammer was commanding, it has a huge gun turret on the rear.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

There's a sci-fi series I own that I regularly re-read. The plot is absolute guff, but the space combat is the best I ever read. It's clearly been unbelievably well thought through. Combat takes place over thousands of kilometres, between ships that take hours to turn round, and is based primarily on firing missiles at where you think your opponent will be when they get there. Brilliant stuff for a massive military sci-fi nerd like me.

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:33

MetalAngel wrote:

Also, the ships are heavily dependent on their shields, moreso than any armour plating. This is why when the shields fail, they're fucked, and perhaps that's why the bridge is where it is.

But the shields are shit. Not only do they seem to do very little (seemingly every time the ship takes a hit some consoles explode, which would indicate massive damage) but in the new film when the Enterprise warped to the battlesite late for the party there were chunks of debris meandering calmly into the hull, ffs.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Quite. If the Enterprise isn't actually a military vessel, you'd think they'd have learned by now that the amount of fights it gets in means it could probably do with an escort.

KovacsC · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:37

Grim... wrote:

MetalAngel wrote:

Also, the ships are heavily dependent on their shields, moreso than any armour plating. This is why when the shields fail, they're fucked, and perhaps that's why the bridge is where it is.

But the shields are shit. Not only do they seem to do very little (seemingly every time the ship takes a hit some consoles explode, which would indicate massive damage) but in the new film when the Enterprise warped to the battlesite late for the party there were chunks of debris meandering calmly into the hull, ffs.

I thought you could not have your shilds up in warp.

KovacsC · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:39

Craster wrote:

Quite. If the Enterprise isn't actually a military vessel, you'd think they'd have learned by now that the amount of fights it gets in means it could probably do with an escort.

It is a military vessel, I thought the whole of the starfleet ships were, but they have different clasifications.
The lite Matel posted has most of them.

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:40

Kovacs Caprios wrote:

Grim... wrote:

MetalAngel wrote:

Also, the ships are heavily dependent on their shields, moreso than any armour plating. This is why when the shields fail, they're fucked, and perhaps that's why the bridge is where it is.

But the shields are shit. Not only do they seem to do very little (seemingly every time the ship takes a hit some consoles explode, which would indicate massive damage) but in the new film when the Enterprise warped to the battlesite late for the party there were chunks of debris meandering calmly into the hull, ffs.

I thought you could not have your shilds up in warp.

This was once it had arrived.

Rodafowa · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:42

Craster wrote:

There's a sci-fi series I own that I regularly re-read. The plot is absolute guff, but the space combat is the best I ever read. It's clearly been unbelievably well thought through. Combat takes place over thousands of kilometres, between ships that take hours to turn round, and is based primarily on firing missiles at where you think your opponent will be when they get there. Brilliant stuff for a massive military sci-fi nerd like me.

B5 was always pretty good for this. More so in the way it handled fighters than capital ships, though.

I :hug:

the Starfury.

metalangel · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:54

Star Trek always struck me as odd that it doesn't use fighters - unless you count a pathetic shuttlepod firing its phasers, which is essentially the same someone driving a transit van firing a spud gun out of the window.

It also means that most battles (especially in the TV series) are tedious as hell to watch. What should be an exciting battle as the Enterprise D frantically defends the Enterprise C as it returns to the time rift is instead five very large ships slowly drifting around each other, bouncing shots of each other's shields. It certain is incongrous when you regard the carnage on the inside, as Riker gets blown up, crewmembers go flying everywhere and Picard desperately takes to the tactical station as everything bursts into flames. Back outside, a Klingon ship slowly coasts past at walking pace while the Enterprise fires phasers at it with all the visceral impact of a dead cat being prodded with a stick.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

It is awful space combat - but then it's always been all about the people, which is why you see most of it from inside the bridge with only the few sweeping external shots for wow factor.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16558

Visually I quite like that sort of combat, big, majestic futurey space galleons getting close up. Having fighters with actual people inside them is probably every bit as unrealistic as anything in Star Trek anyway.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Not entirely sure why. If you can make a plane, you can make a spaceship. It'd be a bitch to learn how to control your momentum, but as long as you assumed it would be carrier launched - ie would never have to get out of a gravity well under its own steam or penetrate atmosphere, I'd say the engineering difficulties aren't insurmountable. We could probably make passable 'fighters' now, if we had a fabrication platform in upper orbit.

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 12:40

I think he's saying "you'd let computers fly it".

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16558

Yeah, I mean that with all the future technologies and whatnot that even if the things still needed pilots then they would probably stay where it's safe. The reason you see them in sci-fi films isn't because someone had a good hard think about the future and decided that it was something that was likely but that it was a great device for action sequences and just general drama. Same with all the Star Trek type stuff someone just thought wouldn't it be cool if we had all these people on a voyage of discovery, like the voyages of discovery on Earth in the olden days and they could go around in space "ships". And it works and it's great fun. That's why I never have much time for analysing it beyond noticing massive internal inconsistencies that stick out like a sore thumb.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Ah, gotcha.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

I overanalyse purely because I'm massively interested in all the different scifi 'takes' on the ways of getting around the technical challenges that space travel and colonisation provide. I'm pretty sure we're going to need to be able to do all that shit, and sooner than we think, because we're on an irreversible path to annihilation staying on this ball of rock.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16558

We're never getting off, we're going to die here.

metalangel · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 13:11

I liked the Known Space view of spaceflight - that you had to do lots of slingshots and other complex maneuvers to help your way along, and that FTL travel was a very rare and special thing indeed.

We were just saying in the office now how 'great' it is that the United Federation of America exists in Star Trek to spread the word of peace, tolerance and FREEDOM!!!! across the galaxy.

NervousPete · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 13:49

Craster wrote:

I've always been slightly annoyed by the silliness of design of the Enterprise and most sci-fi ships. Why would you put the bridge right up on top where a stray shot can take out the entire upper branch of the crew? Why wouldn't you bury it in the middle of the ship, and use screens and cameras to show them whatever they need to see?

Why would you have boarding parties consisting of the higher ranking shipboard officers? The marines were created for expressly that purpose - as a military force on board ship used for boarding parties and the repelling of enemy boarding parties, so why would you change that?

Also (although I can see why they do it), what's with the manual firing control on the captain's voice orders? When you're trying to hit a moving point in space, surely your computers can do a damned sight better job of tracking your target than doing it manually, and waiting for the captain to tell you when to fire? Explains why they miss so much, I guess.

There's one single reason for this, and it has nothing to do with logic. Basically, Gene Roddenberry was a massive fan of C.S Forrester Hornblower, in fact he always saw Kirk as a Hornblower figure - caring for his crew, wrestling with great responsibilities and solving problems - it's amusing how far Shatner took Kirk away from the internal struggle of Hornblower. Roddenberry pitched the show as 'Waggon Train in the stars' to reassure nervous executives, but he'd always been thinking of the 18th century period of British naval warfare and Forrester as the best structure for space stories.

That's why officers are the first to beam down and to board enemy ships, like in the Royal Navy. That's why there's one 'quaterdeck', highly visible and vunerable where all the command staff dwell, but visually bold and daring. It's why orders are relayed verbally down a chain of command, where the Captain gives the order to the 1st lieutenant (Number One) who passes it on to the officer. And it's why the combat owes so much to naval tropes, gauging the right moment, lining up the shot, human skill - etc. Though I always felt they should have highlighted that more, making the battles longer and tenser like in Khan as a result.

Top marks for Metal Angel's wonderful battles description by the way. I chuckled.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

That makes a lot of sense - but the 20th century navy had already abandoned all of that for two main reasons:

1) Naval ratings were no longer thugs dragged on ship while drunk in an alley, they were trained professionals. As there wasn't quite the requirement for officers to handle every little detail as if their crew were morons.

2) The technology has the ability to handle much of the work that your 18th Century officer would need to be doing. You don't need an officer gauging by eye what elevation to raise the cannons to overcome the wind shear - because your computers have already worked out the precise firing plan needed to achieve maximum effect (that and the fact there's no wind, natch).

I'm also pretty sure that even in the 18th Century, you wouldn't have had the ship's captain and senior crew leading the charge across the boarding ropes. In fact, not just leading the charge, being the sole boarding party (less the traditional nameless ill-fated redshirt). It's a totally untenable risk.

I understand it, and appreciate the romanticism - but it still niggles.

NervousPete · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:26

Craster wrote:

I'm also pretty sure that even in the 18th Century, you wouldn't have had the ship's captain and senior crew leading the charge across the boarding ropes. In fact, not just leading the charge, being the sole boarding party (less the traditional nameless ill-fated redshirt). It's a totally untenable risk.

Actually, apart from being the sole boarding party, you would, and they did. If a captain fell, his 1st lieutenant would take his place, and so on. The moral imperative was considered to far outweigh the loss of experience. It's why the French when entering a one on one fight expected to lose, and why the British expected to win - with that moral superiority we gradually became the maritime leader. (That and designing ships according to hard-wearing living practicalities, and not to theory that the French did, where their ships were awesome for two cruises and then began to fall apart.)

I never understood why Star Trek didn't do a full out battle episode, taking us through every variation of a ship on ship duel. Hammering away from long range, nebula hunts, short range firing, dead on deck, medical station overflow, and then a boarding party of a massive wave of transportation - using the cargo beamers and everything. It would have been the coolest thing ever.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Going across with a gang of ratings, I'd have no issue with. No different to an army lieutenant leading an infantry unit. First man across though? First man across in a boarding action is a dead man, 99 times out of 100. And absolutely, definitely not on their own.

Yes - a full ship-on-ship fight to the death would have been awesome.

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:34

I never understood why they didn't transport a big fuck-off nuke over.

KovacsC · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:35

Grim... wrote:

I never understood why they didn't transport a big fuck-off nuke over.

Prob had some directive about it.. and that would not be cricket

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:36

Here's another thing I've just thought of - remember when Kirk and Sulu were beamed onboard while they were falling, and they broke the floor?
Just think about the implications of that for a moment

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:36

Kovacs Caprios wrote:

Grim... wrote:

I never understood why they didn't transport a big fuck-off nuke over.

Prob had some directive about it.. and that would not be cricket

You had "transporter bombs" in one of the games.

That's another thing. Why hasn't there been a good Trek RTS?

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Not sure it's necessarily flawed. Momentum is a function of an object, so moving it instantly from one point in space to another needn't mean that it would lose its momentum.

Also, when a ship's shields are down, why do they always teleport over to it? Why not just carry on blowing it the fuck up? It's not like they ever actually plan to salvage the ship, loot it, or take any prisoners.

KovacsC · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:38

Grim... wrote:

Here's another thing I've just thought of - remember when Kirk and Sulu were beamed onboard while they were falling, and they broke the floor?
Just think about the implications of that for a moment

oh yes... not you mention it.

Also would you not have to take your sheilds down to transport, and not a good idea in battle.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16558

Grim... wrote:

Here's another thing I've just thought of - remember when Kirk and Sulu were beamed onboard while they were falling, and they broke the floor?
Just think about the implications of that for a moment

I kind of thought that they'd fallen from sort of head height to the floor of the transporter room. If they still had all their momentum then they'd have just splatted same as if they'd hit the planet.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Ah, yes. They probably would have been very dead.

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:42

Craster wrote:

Not sure it's necessarily flawed. Momentum is a function of an object, so moving it instantly from one point in space to another needn't mean that it would lose its momentum.

Indeed, but think of the implications.
In the situation above, Kirk and Sulu would die. People transported from ships with a different speed or heading would go flying across the room. Planet to ship transports would only be feasible if the ship was in geosynch. Plus they'd all get the bends

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16558

Inertial dampers and shit.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Travelling fast aboard a spaceship would indicate some sort of inertial compensator had somehow been invented, meaning that passengers on board a ship would effectively have zero momentum, so you could get around that.

NervousPete · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 14:45

Curiously enough, in practice in that time period being the first man across didn't mean death. The massive clouds of smoke obscured much aimed shot, and as long as you weren't cut down by grape or by sharpshooters cutting through wind-bourne gaps in the mist, and as long as you boarded on the heels of your own broadside whilst the enemy was still reeling, a captain would have an excellent 2/3rds* of a chance of getting out relatively uninjured.

A far more dangerous place in close ship or boarding actions is your own quarterdeck, which the enemy kept a heavy fire on. But yes, actions would always be with a gang of ratings, and frequently an all or nothing affair. If Trek were truly plausible in its copying of the old style, pretty much every able hand on the ship would beam over in two parties simultaneously to the two weakest points of the ship, the captain going with one team and the first lieutenant with the other, both with the aim of getting to the bridge and neutralising the ship deck by deck.

Again, this would be impossibly cool. I always loved the boarding action in Babylon 5's 'Severed Dreams', despite being a bit silly in its way, that was a top all out war episode.

Zio · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6093

All of this chatter is making me pine for a Star Trek: Birth Of The Federation 2. The original was a great idea, but horribly flawed (not to mention buggy). A properly done sequel could be the best Star Trek game EVAR!

Pundabaya · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5016

Of course, the Borg have the right idea for interstellar ship design... bugger all those curves and shit, and everything as redundant as possible.

metalangel · **Posted:** Tue May 19, 2009 7:32

Remember Interplay's old TOS adventure games? They presented an interesting interpretation (enough with the 'inter' words already) of Star Trek combat. No longer was it like watching the elephant and the moon hanging from the mobile over a baby's crib shakily turning to face each other on their respective wires... instead, it was a fast-paced Wing Commander-style shootfest. Amusingly, either by design or by the engine's restrictions, the Romulan and Klingon ships couldn't actually cloak. They just turned black, and a slightly different shade of black to space. The canny player (me) noticed this faint movement and the odd star being blacked out as they searched for a cloaked foe, and started turning the contrast on their monitor up to easily blast them. You can just picture the enraged Klingons as torpedo after torpedo slams into their ship.

"Klau kalash! How are they seeing us?"
"I do not know, commander!"
*Captain stabs the commander in the face*
"GACHHHHHHHH!"

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Huge bonus points for the Simpsons reference there.

metalangel · **Posted:** Tue May 19, 2009 12:04

Seeing this tonight, with any luck. Followed by a slap-up meatloaf at Frankie and Benny's.

metalangel · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 7:23

Saw it. No meatloaf on the menu any more!

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

Pretty darned good. Though I found it was a bit too modern action shake-o-cam, with a hint of ludicrously complex CGI for ludicrously complex CGI's sake, as opposed to it being possible to tell what's happening with all the lighting effects and moody darkness. See also: Transformers.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that, despite it being, y'know, the 23rd century and all, people have seemingly CHOSEN to live like it's still Dawson's Fucking Creek Of Angst out in Buttfuck, Iowa. Perhaps because if you're a Star Trek character, you have to have a 'thing' for 20th century culture?

Oh look, it's a Nokia. Oh look, it's the Beastie Boys. Oh, yes, two Budweiser Classics please. HORRRFFFF!

Where the hell did they fit 800 people on the USS Kelvin? And then into what appeared to be maybe a dozen shuttles?

The various 'engineer decks' didn't look like they were on a starship, but rather in an oil refinery (possibly in Iowa).

Uhura is a slag, yo.

Spock's awkward gawkiness in youth was perfectly captured.

How come when Kirk and Sulu were falling without parachutes the transporter energised so quickly but when Spock and his mother are escaping it seemed to spend five freakin' minutes swirling around them but not actually doing anything?

Smug Kirk defeating the Kobayashi Maru = fucking WIN

"Just because I am of Japanese ancestry, you assume I know karate?"
"Well, do you have combat training?"
"In fencing, yes."
"ROFFLE MAO!"

Freeze, cupcake.

Oh, and was I alone in hoping that, at the end, they were going to get dragged through the singularity and back into the 'proper' timeline?

NervousPete · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 9:35

MetalAngel wrote:

Oh, and was I alone in hoping that, at the end, they were going to get dragged through the singularity and back into the 'proper' timeline?[/spoiler]

Yes, you were. Get to fuck fiddly, bloated, stately, olde Trek. Let's have some more of this new stuff.

Also, yes you can fit that many - if there's around 60 a shuttle. Theirs might be bigger, and be able to fit more people than the classic Trek ones. Which I never understood - I mean, there's essentially no lifeboat system for starships in classic Trek. Chances are you won't have anywhere to beam to in a disaster or attack, so having mass shuttle evacs is logical.

Reckon the crew of a starship must be around 1,000 with all that. Cor.

Dimrill · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 9:44

There must be planets just full of lazy bastards with huge frickin replicators plugged into their mouths.

metalangel · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 10:07

nervouspete wrote:

Yes, you were. Get to fuck fiddly, bloated, stately, olde Trek. Let's have some more of this new stuff.

But it's still Trek. I doubt they'd be able to churn out stuff this entertaining for anything but movies, and apart from the somewhat shaking events of the movie I think things might settle back into more of a routine again and develop more or less as they did in the 'prime universe' anyway.

Quote:

Also, yes you can fit that many - if there's around 60 a shuttle. Theirs might be bigger, and be able to fit more people than the classic Trek ones. Which I never understood - I mean, there's essentially no lifeboat system for starships in classic Trek. Chances are you won't have anywhere to beam to in a disaster or attack, so having mass shuttle evacs is logical.

I don't buy that. The Kelvin was basically what, a Hermes/Saladin class scout or destroyer, right? Which has a smaller complement of crew, maybe 200 or so. And 60 to a shuttle? You'd struggle to cram that many into a runabout. If you were managing maybe 20 per shuttle that would fit with the crew size better, especially considering at least one was a medical shuttle... Weren't there escape pods in Enterprise?

Quote:

Reckon the crew of a starship must be around 1,000 with all that. Cor.

The Enterprise D's crew is over 1,000, because it's ridiculously huge.

NervousPete · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 10:12

Yes, but it's a story. Do they have to fit to a technical cannon? As long as things are consistent within its own stream, I don't think it matters and they can dream up things afresh. Yes, they're using the hardware that both timelines share, but new Trek can play with these things as far as I'm concerned.

I remember there being escape pods in Enterprise, they look less cool than shuttles though. And I reckon you could fit sixty in there, if they all squidged up. Personally, anything that allows higher battle death counts in Trek wins votes by me. Battleships slugging it out, yeah!

metalangel · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 10:16

I thought fitting into the 'canon' was important to Star Trek, yes. It's not really consistent within its own stream, as it's still the Star Trek universe as has always existsed, up until the villain arrives, so unless the Kelvin was built in five minutes to specifically go and see him, there's something wrong with it having 800 people on board.

PS: What was the explanation for building the Enterprise on the ground in Iowa, then? How did they get it up into space?

NervousPete · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 10:30

MetalAngel wrote:

I thought fitting into the 'canon' was important to Star Trek, yes. It's not really consistent within its own stream, as it's still the Star Trek universe as has always existsed, up until the villain arrives, so unless the Kelvin was built in five minutes to specifically go and see him, there's something wrong with it having 800 people on board.

PS: What was the explanation for building the Enterprise on the ground in Iowa, then? How did they get it up into space?

It looked cool. Anti-grav I guess, I dunno. To even build a structure like that you'd need repeller's or whatever they call 'em. I love the idea of Iowan plains filled with semi-built starships - though the orbital dockyards are far more sensible. (Even from the asteroid ore mining perspective.)

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 10:32

Did you see the live cast of the Hubble EVA repair job? It took the dude an hour to remove a bolt. That's why it was built on the ground.

Dimrill · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 10:35

Well I'm not surprised. Jeff Bridges is hardly astronaut material.

metalangel · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 10:36

I did dream about the space shuttle last night. We were watching a launch live on TV and the pilot pushed the wrong button so instead of detaching the SRBs he detached the shuttle from the tank AND SRBs... which means it immediately ran out of fuel, which means it started falling back to the ground and the astronauts were frantically bailing out. The shuttle crashed back onto the Norwegian fairground it had been launched from (yes, I know).

Would the Enterprise be able to support its own weight on the ground, though? Could you not just brace yourself against something before activating your screw tightener, to ensure that you spin the screw, as opposed to yourself?

Be Excellent To Each Other

Star Trek (contains big spoilers for Discovery)
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Be Excellent To Each Other

Star Trek (contains big spoilers for Discovery) Glows and yum like Ready Brek?

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Star Trek (contains big spoilers for Discovery)
Glows and yum like Ready Brek?