This is topic The Panthers of Enterprise in forum Starships & Technology at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.


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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
In "Carpenter Street"[ENT4] we see three police cars from the Detroit PD. They unrealistically nab the perp then zip away, leaving his car, et cetera.

See the end of this page and the beginning of the next:

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=115&page=23

Per this site, the paint jobs are era-appropriate:

http://www.policecarwebsite.net/westside/detroit.html

However, what struck me funny is two things.

First, this is set in 2004. Two of those police cars are Ford Crown Victorias from the 1992-1997 body style known as the "Aero" style among people who geek out over police cars and Crown Vics as bad or worse as we do over starships. I always thought of them as bubble-tops because, back then, their excessively rounded rear glass and roof lines looked funny compared to the boxy style of cars prevalent at the time.

Just one of them matches the 1998-2011 "Whale" style, so named because it looks fatter than the Aero, with larger headlights, a big grill (at the time), and the "stately" rear roofline previously only used on the largely identical Mercury Grand Marquis of the same vintage. There are also supposedly ways to discern a 1998-2002 versus a 2003-2011 but other than wheel offset I can't tell you what they are.

Seven years was kinda old for a patrolling police car back then. Nowadays you still see some departments hanging on to Crown Vics for dear life since they, and the other Panther-platform rear-wheel-drive luxobarge V-8s by Ford like the aforementioned Marq and the Lincoln Town Car, are no longer made, but were perfect in their role and virtually impossible to kill. (Thus, when you see a Crown Vic, you know it is probably at least six years old.)

The other thing that struck me is . . . wasn't there a Eugenics War and a nuclear exchange? How the devil do you end up with Panthers at a time like that? Those things weighed 4000 pounds and were hardly fuel-efficient, implying no oil crunch that one might otherwise expect. I'm sure 2004 looking normal has been discussed from other angles, perhaps even by me, but still, that's the angle that struck me this evening.
 
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
The original reaction thread: http://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/6/2326.html
 
Posted by Amasov Prime (Member # 742) on :
 
I thought that Voyager-episode where Captain Braxton from the 29th century crash-landed in the 60's and that Bill-Gates-dude found his 29th-century-spaceship and invented the internet or some shit, that's when we effecively switched to a timeline where the Eugenic Wars never happened?

Somebody should do an infographic to see how many times we, the viewers, have moved to alternate timelines without realizing it (like, someone goes back to the past, changes things - or prevents someone from changing things - and inevitably sets up a new timeline that we would follow from the next episode). Might explain all kinds of continuity issues... Kelvin timeline might be our 27th alternate timeline, it's just more obvious to us this time because the guy who would invent the classic 23rd century starship interior and exterior look accidentially got killed by Nero on the Kelvin. [Big Grin]

I should apply as a writer for Discovery.
 
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
Wasn't the DS9 episode where some admiral made a speech mentioning the Eugenics Wars after the VOY time-travel episode? And then, of course, it came up in ENT when granddaddy Soong showed up.

Then again, I think that DS9 episode got the timeline wrong by a century or so, so I guess you could argue that the time-travel changed things to make the EW still happen, but later. I don't recall if ENT mentioned when they happened or, if so, whether they got it right.
 
Posted by 137th Gebirg (Member # 2692) on :
 
Yep, that was when Bashir (or rather, Bashir's parents) were outed for genetically altering him after conception. The question came up about the efficacy and ethics of doing such a thing, recognizing that it ostensibly turned out "okay" for them, but could have just as easily gone sideways and produced another Khan.

Long and short of it, even by the 24th Century, the Federation universally frowns on the practice and I think Bashir's parents spent some time in a Fed prison for their troubles, IIRC. I'm guessing the Genesis incident with Khan was still fresh in the Admiralty's minds when all this went down.

The episode name was "Dr. Julian Bashir, I Presume?"
 
Posted by 137th Gebirg (Member # 2692) on :
 
Yep, that was when Bashir (or rather, Bashir's parents) were outed for genetically altering him after conception. The question came up about the efficacy and ethics of doing such a thing, recognizing that it ostensibly turned out "okay" for them, but could have just as easily gone sideways and produced another Khan.

Long and short of it, the Federation universally frowns on the practice and I think Bashir's parents spent some time in a Fed prison for their troubles, IIRC.
 


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