Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
Shinzon never reveals where he got the Scimitar, but obviously it's a ship built by Remans. Here's the question: Where did they get it from?
They're basically slaves, and I doubt the Romulans would alow them to build their own ships. But Shinzon reveals that he commanded the Remans in battle against the Jem'Hadar during the war (from the official size as well as from the script). If the Remans are the cannon-fodder of the Star Empire, wouldn't it be logical if they manage to capture a Jem'Hadar vessel and hide it somwhere from the Romulans? (Shinzon's on their side, and if he wants to use the common "plot-to-overthrow-the-universe(TM)", he needs a mighty vessel. The Jemmies had those ships, and the similarities are striking.
Not that I want to bash Eaves uninspired design but someone has to come up with a back-story.
- Comparison: Scimitar vs. Jem'Hadar Megabug (the Valiant-killer): Notice the forward spikes, chopped-off nose and main impulse (or whatever) drives. I've also compared it to the common Dominion cruiser (the smaller sized battleship), and the wings are curved exactly like you would expect. Only difference is the length. And since we only saw 2 (3 if you cout the V-type) large Dominion ships and I'm sure there are more within similar design parameters (concidering the size of the vessels as a major difference for example), don't you think there could be one that does look even more like the Scimitar?
Of course we have to seperate "real" and "trek"-explanations. "Real" means 'Eaves is a lazy bastard', but in terms of "trek", would it make sense?
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Registered: Nov 2001
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Not very likely. The Dominion seemed to be in the business of using only basic, tried-and-true designs -- y'know, small, medium, large (and gigantic if you treat the behemoths seen in WYLB as a seperate class) to match its old doctrines.
Probably a safe bet it never faced such strong opposition before, though, so I suppose the 'Scim could be a jury-rigged tin can, hastily put together but not completed in time to see action... but you try hiding a massive battleship like that in full view of your masters.
Registered: Nov 1999
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Of course, every ship Sternbach ever designed (with the exception of the Prommie) had some kind of notch cut out of the front, but nobody ever seemed to accuse him of retreading old ideas. That and up-down terracing along X axis booms.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Hmm, I see we have a bias towards the man who designed the Sovereign Class...
Anyway, I think that it would be hard for the Remans to hide that big thing from the Romulans, especially with the Tal Shiar still around. Perhaps it was Perhaps it was built out of what the Romulans captured from the Dominion in response to the Federation building the Enterprise-E. The Galaxy Class had the D'ederex Class while the Constitution Class had the Bird of Prey. Then the Remans just stole it.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov: Not that I want to bash Eaves uninspired design...
'Eaves is a lazy bastard'...
My god I'm sick of hearing this sort of shit. As far as I'm concerned, Eaves is one of the best illustrators that's ever worked on the Trek franchise. Do you think you could do better? I highly doubt it.
Anyhow, it certainly isn't all that implausible that the "Reman" ship borrows heavily from other sources. A confiscated Jemmie ship is definitely a possibility, but so is reverse-engineering of Jemmie tech and application thereof to a Romulan spaceframe. And the fancy new cloak could be what the Jem'Hadar had all along - one that doesn't have fatal flaws, so nobody ever learned the Dominion had it.
OTOH, it's not all that mysterious to me that a planetful of slaves could build a mighty warship. For all we know, they build the lion's share of *all* Romulan warships. It's just that they haven't had much chance to actually fly those things before, being slaves and all that.
Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
Why all this Eaves-praising here lately? Personally, I'd say I prefer other designers, but I thought the fact that Eaves designs are crap was the general consensus (at least for many people here).
Of course, it hasn't anything to do with the topic and I'd like to rreturn to it, but if you look at the Scimitar (or the Son'a, if you want to use another example), they all share more design similarities with "big bad winged and scary �ber-battleships" than truly original designs that really make sense.
It's neither up to me nor anyone else to judge whether Eaves is a stupid looser or a genius; if you like it, good, if you don't, good. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't have this old clichee in mind when I wrote the post. Or do you think it would have taken more than three posts before someone said "why don't you just say you hate the ship/Eaves/the movie/your life"?
And Mim, I think that's the best way I've ever seen to describe it. Thanks.
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
Member # 742
posted
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Weeell...
Anyhow, it certainly isn't all that implausible that the "Reman" ship borrows heavily from other sources. A confiscated Jemmie ship is definitely a possibility, but so is reverse-engineering of Jemmie tech and application thereof to a Romulan spaceframe. And the fancy new cloak could be what the Jem'Hadar had all along - one that doesn't have fatal flaws, so nobody ever learned the Dominion had it.
OTOH, it's not all that mysterious to me that a planetful of slaves could build a mighty warship. For all we know, they build the lion's share of *all* Romulan warships. It's just that they haven't had much chance to actually fly those things before, being slaves and all that.
Timo Saloniemi
Interesting you mention the Dominion possibly having cloaking tech. We know they had this tachyon-beam weapon that was able to detect cloaked ships (the last Kor-episode comes to my mind, at least that's what I remember). The Dominion never used cloaking devices, but I'm also quite sure they had them, too.
I think the primary chalange would be to find a place where you build the ship. Even if the Remans had the ability to do so, you can't put it together in your garage.
Furthermore I'm interested in seeing how they'll do the "partial cloaking" thing (Shinzon drops the cloaking in some sectors to make Picard think he damaged his ship, later the Scimitar has only parts of the cloak online). Does this mean the ship is equipped with more than one cloak? I always thought there's just the on/off-switch for the cloak, you cannot partially drop it. If that's the case, the ship has to have more than one. (Jackill's SRM comes to my mind; two or more cloaking devices on 23rd century ships were not uncommon before TNG established that there has been a treaty of Algeron, can't remember though if other fan manuals established this, too.).
-------------------- "This is great. Usually it's just cardboard walls in a garage."
Registered: Nov 2001
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posted
Everybody seems to be assuming the Remans built their ship in secrecy. But AFAIK, this is not really implied in the movie (or the leaked script thereof). It could have been something ordered by the previous Praetor, even something he paid a visit to during his last laugh-at-the-laboring-slaves monthly tour of the Reman shipyards. Shinzon just confiscated the ship to his own use (and installed this superduper secret weapon of Reman design aboard).
The ability to partially decloak is indeed a novelty. I wonder why we haven't seen it used before in Trek (scenes like Chang's BoP firing and partially ruining the cloaking effect, or Kirk peering out of the doorway that hangs in midair in ST4, notwithstanding).
posted
The Scimitar and the Jemmie Battleship really don't look simmlar from the front to me. I'm building the Dominion's biig gun right now in 2500th and from what i've seen, I'll need a whole diffrent skeletal structure for the Scimitar's "wings". ...The Dominion Battleship is waaaaay more massive in it's "wings" and has several additional nacelle-like structures underneath it's central body. I could see the scimitar being reverse-engineered: what major power would be so dumb as to ignore the technology windfall of salvaging your enemy's battleship?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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"Furthermore I'm interested in seeing how they'll do the 'partial cloaking' thing.... Does this mean the ship is equipped with more than one cloak? I always thought there's just the on/off-switch for the cloak, you cannot partially drop it."
In a recent ENT episode, we found out that the Suliban's cloaking devices are quite different from the ones we've seen before. They use some sort of radiation that makes things invisible. Some things in the episode are actually seen to get partially cloaked by accident. Probably, the Scimitar's cloak is based on this technology, or something similar.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: I could see the scimitar being reverse-engineered: what major power would be so dumb as to ignore the technology windfall of salvaging your enemy's battleship?
The Dominions. They let Sisko and gang take back a new and more advanced Jem'Hadar fighter, which Starfleet studied and studied, then used it as a Trojan horse to destroy a major Ketricel white storage facility during the Dominion War.
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Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by David Templar: They let Sisko and gang take back a new and more advanced Jem'Hadar fighter
Since when was it "new and more advanced"? It was just an ordinary bug. Anyway, I'd hardly compare capturing a pre-crashed bug with capturing a near indestructible and massive Jemmy Battleship.
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