In "Storm Front, Part II" (sorry, I know), the Enterprise targeting scanners are supposedly so jacked up that the ship cannot hit a stationary surface target from orbital altitude. So, they must go drop off their CGI budget in the parking lot of the place to hit it with torpedoes.
Someone was inquiring about the re-entry given the damage and I responded that a ballistic re-entry wasn't necessary. On the other hand, they apparently did come in fast enough to generate ionization blackout, for some reason, and we even get a shot of the descent beginning.
For science, I've been trying to figure out where the devil they are, here. Looking at the reflective area, it looks like a small body of water with another larger body beyond a little peninsula, but it's hard to scale at the unknown altitude (which seems wrong given the atmospheric effects 'above' the ship already at that evident planetary curvature). Additionally, they seem to be coming down over a dark coastline with a city on the lower left and lights along the coast.
Timing-wise, the terminator is weird, too. By the time they get to New York the sun's come up or finished coming up at the target, and sun angles during the Stuka battle suggest it took a long time to get over the target.
That would suggest they are either coming down over the terminator in an easterly direction and overshoot maybe, or else they're starting on the other side of the planet for some reason and headed west.
Any ideas on this little puzzle?
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Boy, are you bored.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
This looks like they're over Mexico, approaching the Gulf of Mexico, with Florida in the background.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
The Florida thing is tempting, and I almost mentioned how it was my first thought, but it has problems and I didn't want to contaminate the thinking.
That said, I'll do some Google Earth overlays soon and compare.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Don't forget to account for two centuries of continental drift.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Setting aside the fact that continental drift over the course of a couple centuries is probably measured in inches or less, isn't this scene set in the 1940s?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
It’s a show made in a country whose population as a whole are renowned for their cluelessness when it comes to geography. So the answer is, and can be left at, “somewhere over the continental United States.”
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Setting aside the fact that continental drift over the course of a couple centuries is probably measured in inches or less, isn't this scene set in the 1940s?
Erp. Yes, my mistake. Well, that's still seventy years of continental drift then.