Not gonna lie, this was an awesome season premiere. Then again, I thought last season's premiere was pretty awesome, and... well...
We seem to have had a time jump of several years, but couldn't quite nail down exactly how long.
Picard's back at the chateau.
Not only is Laris back, but she's been promoted to main cast! AWESOME!
Zhaban's dead?! BOO!
Picard and Laris seem to have developed feelings for each other following Zhaban's death, but Picard is holding back.
Elnor's now a Starfleet cadet, which gives him something to do (hopefully).
Seven of Nine has been given La Sirena for use in her Fenris Ranger-ing. She fighting some goons who are trying to steal her supplies... and one of them taunts her by calling her ugly. Dude. DUDE. It's Seven. She's hot, Borg implants included.
Soji and Jurati are at some function with a bunch of Deltans. Those who were saying Jurati got off too easy with killing Maddox will be pleased to hear that she her trial had just ended (not guilty by reason of having the Admonition shoved her brain by Oh). It also seems that Jurati and Rios have broken up.
Speaking of Rios, he's back in Starfleet and is now captain of the new USS Stargazer. An anomaly has been detected, and with Jurati back on board, goes to investigate.
Musiker's also back in Starfleet, posted to the Excelsior (I'm assuming a new one) to keep an eye on Elnor.
The Stargazer arrives at the anomaly at the same time as La Sirena. Rios is horrified at how beat-up his old ship is. Jurati determines that a signal coming from the anomaly is a bunch of voices saying "Help us, Picard."
Picard goes to visit Guinan. Guinan reveals that El-Aurians can age if they want to, since obviously Whoopi Goldberg isn't actually ageless.
Picard is enlisted by Starfleet to go to the anomaly. The full message sent also includes a wish to join the Federation. When Picard responds to the message aboard the Stargazer, a ship exits the anomaly. A Borg ship. Some weird Borg ship we've never seen before.
A fleet of ships arrives to face the Borg. And this is where things get kinda weird. On the one hand, we don't have a copy-and-paste fleet of Inquirys. YAY! On the other hand... We've got got some ships from Star Trek Online. Don't get me wrong, I love STO, but I feel like this is kinda lazy having to bring in ship classes from a video game.
The Borg Queen beams aboard the Stargazer... and this is not like any Borg Queen we've seen before. Not even in the trailers. She's got some helmet and cape on. Why do I get the feeling that this Borg Queen is NOT the one we're expecting? She easily starts taking control of the Stargazer because its been built using technology reverse-engineered from the Artifact cube.
Okay, so I lost track of how many times Rios ordered his crew to stop firing... and yet they kept firing. What the heck?
Picard initiates the auto-destruct, and when the timer reaches zero, everything goes to white.
Picard awakens back in Chateau Picard, except things are off. Laris is gone, and there's an android tending things instead.
And then Q makes his appearance. MinutiaeMan gets his wish as Q momentarily appears de-aged. It's not a terrible effect, but could be better. Fortunately, it doesn't last long, as Q notices Picard has aged, snaps his fingers, and is now present-day John de Lancie. So good to see Q again, no matter how bad this season might turn out.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I'm pretty sure everyone figured they'd do the de-aging thing at first. Guinan explaining her aging as something her species can choose to do felt like lazy writing.
I'm just glad they didn't use the Ctrl+P Fleet again.
New Stargazer looks pretty awesome, inside and out.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Very promising. Especially because the whole “road not travelled” theme will apparently take some very personal angles for Picard himself.
Based on the aside mention, it sounds like the Borg really *were* seriously crippled by the events of Voyager’s “Endgame.” Interesting, and kinda satisfying to at least have some extra meaning to that story with Future-Janeway. (“Admiral Janeway” isn’t specific enough anymore.)
Musiker isn’t on a new Excelsior, I’m 99% sure that was the NCC-2000 itself! We saw the Excelsior-class Excelsior join the fleet, and there was also the readable display at the Academy which showed the ship name and registry. That suggests to me that it’s kept in reserve as a training ship.
And if that’s true, then Picard’s old Stargazer is also in service as a training ship, because that was pretty clearly seen on a display.
But WTF, Starfleet, sending a 110-year-old cadet ship to fight the Borg?! I don’t care if it’s part of a fleet, that’s still crazy.
(While I’m nitpicking, why are they assigning first-semester cadets to immediately ship out? I shouldn’t they get some classroom training first before they learn in the field?)
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
The time jump was about 18 months. The crates said 2401 on them.
So, thoughts.
• PICARD, GET THAT ROMULUSSY. Seriously, I'd smash Laris.
• NICE HAT, KIDDIE PICARD. Also, Mom's too tall. No way she shrunk that much...unless she's got those Asian grandma powers.
• Picard having a shitty abusive childhood is not cool. In fact, the more I see, the more this is not Picard, it's just Patrick Stewart.
• New shield configurations. Saw it on that Akira. Also, all these ships are ugly as fuck, including Stargazer. I don't play STO, but everything I see there is an abomination. I hate how these shows just throw everything into a robocoupe & buzz it all up together. Also, they canonized the Luna design, so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
• Four pips, so he's a full admiral. "Chancellor" of the Academy? Not commandant?
• "Ugly Borg face"....dude, you look like Bane bought off Wish.com. I like Emmet still speaking Spanish & Seven understanding it. I liked how the therapeutic part came off like the Doctor a bit.
• So much for phasers looking like tools. I hate gun phasers, Disco's & these. Also, "phaser bullets" are stupid as fuck. Bring back the beams.
• Admiral Sally Whitley is played by April Grace...who was Transporter Chief Hubbell on TNG. After she was cast, they should've changed the name to Hubbell to get that Sonya Gomez effect. Also, an AGT-style commbadge!
• Guinan honestly serves no point to this. That whole scene could be cut with no loss.
• Loved the line about being late in the transporter age.
• Why is Soji courting Deltans? Why can't Agnes bonk one? Does she not know? Why are they attached to Rios' ship? More to the point, why is suddenly everyone back in Starfleet & seemingly all hunky-dory now? And why is Elnor being Romulan such a big deal? After Worf & Nog & presumably others, who cares? Also, Spock being "one of the first Vulcan cadets" is an idea I've had for ages, that he & others were the first to join the Academy rather than have been around since Starfleet's creation.
• Doc Ock Borg Queen? Why is there a need for one? Borg are unnecessary here.
• Auto-destructs start at 10 seconds now? Anyone can activate it? Also, 000 destruct 0 returns!
• That painting looked like Gurney Halleck, which was cool. That android looked like Jack McBrayer, which was not.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Musiker isn’t on a new Excelsior, I’m 99% sure that was the NCC-2000 itself! We saw the Excelsior-class Excelsior join the fleet, and there was also the readable display at the Academy which showed the ship name and registry. That suggests to me that it’s kept in reserve as a training ship.
And if that’s true, then Picard’s old Stargazer is also in service as a training ship, because that was pretty clearly seen on a display.
But WTF, Starfleet, sending a 110-year-old cadet ship to fight the Borg?! I don’t care if it’s part of a fleet, that’s still crazy.
(While I’m nitpicking, why are they assigning first-semester cadets to immediately ship out? I shouldn’t they get some classroom training first before they learn in the field?)
You sure that wasn't another weird-ass STO ship, or that Obena thing from Lower Decks?
But yeah, sending cadets out all the time is FUCKING STUPID & totally unnecessary.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
No, the bow, pylons and nacelles were all wrong for Obena-class. The nacelles were different for a standard Excelsior though. This was probably done so that Eaglemoss can sell another model.
Also, I don't think that the ships on display at the Academy were meant to be training ships. Other ships were Voyager, Enterprise-D, and Leondegrance.
I don't care much for the STO ships. They make sense for the game to give players more visual options, but from an in-universe point of view this concept doesn't work for me. I especially dislike the Ross-class (a weird mesh between Galaxy and Sovereign) and the Sutherland-class (which looks almost exactly like a Nebula).
quote: so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
It doesn't make sense, because 82893 is an easter egg. 2893 was the old Stargazer's registry. Which leads me to the 3 gold-plated models in the ship's ready room: Radiant-class from the TOS era Constellation-class Sagan-class
Starfleet has issued yet another uniform design. Why do they have to change uniforms every f* season/movie. Blow your budget on something else, please.
Overall, this worked better than Season 1 for me. If I watch Star Trek, I want to see Starfleet not same rag-tag group on an old freighter. I'm not on board with Picard's abusive father storyline though.
[ March 04, 2022, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: Spike ]
Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :
Thank you for updating the kobayashi maru training.
Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :
Non, rien de rien Non, je ne regrette rien Ni le bien, qu'on m'a fait Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal
Imagine if your an 80 year old academy admiral and you wake up to this song with Leonardo de caprio and Joseph Gordon-levette trying to implant an idea of staying in your French chateau with the healthy ex-Tal shiar romulan woman with an Irish accent, who runs the house and the vineyard operations?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
quote:Starfleet has issued yet another uniform design. Why do they have to change uniforms every f* season/movie. Blow your budget on something else, please.
... I don't know. I can see there being 3 types of uniforms. A "working uniform" like the original DS9 ones. A "duty uniform" like TNG. And of course a "dress uniform" for special occasions. I had 6 different uniforms once, all for different purposes. So Starfleet having multiple uniforms doesn't bother me, but I get what you're saying.
quote:Musiker isn’t on a new Excelsior, I’m 99% sure that was the NCC-2000 itself!
The fact that the original Excelsior is still in service is amazing. I mean, I guess if it's a matter of putting it spacedock to upgrade it's warp core, engines, weapons, and computers... I suppose it could remain in service for...well forever it seems. Which makes Starfleet wanting to decommission the Enterprise-A after only 7 years seem confusing. From what I remember the E-A was originally the Yorktown after getting the movie era refit but renamed Enterprise for Kirk.
quote:(While I’m nitpicking, why are they assigning first-semester cadets to immediately ship out? I shouldn’t they get some classroom training first before they learn in the field?)
Agreed. I get the idea of sending a 3rd or 4th year cadet for a 'semester at sea' to put their training to use. Like, "Ok, you're great on the holodeck where there's no real danger, but now we have to see how you perform when the shit is real and there are no safety protocols."
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
quote:Also, they canonized the Luna design, so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
Registries were considered "semi-chronological" at best according to Okuda during his TNG days. 2700 ships in 22 years sounds amazing. You know how long it takes to build a ship? I don't doubt after the Dominion War loses there was a huge push to rebuild the fleet. But you're not going to waste resources building 2700 ships without the crew to operate them. "We built 4,000 ships, now hurry up and graduate so we have crews to actually use them.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I mean, I've actually written a great deal about how & why you can build a starship is a very short amount of time, AND how to get them crewed, so...
Suffice it to say that you cannot apply present-day limitations to a replicator culture with trillions if not quadrillions of people. When I estimated a 46.8 million-person Starfleet for 2408 in my project, that was actually a fairly conservative number.
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shik: Also, they canonized the Luna design, so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
Assuming that registries are chronological and that there aren't a slew of registries with a letter suffix that we haven't seen, this isn't all that far fetched. It took the Federation 84 years to get to NCC-1701 and a further 38 years to get to NX-2000 after all. Admitedly the Federation was smaller then so you'd need fewer ships to patrol Federation space (and presumably fewer new officers graduating from the Academy to crew them), but 2700 ships in 22 years is still 123 new ships a year...which given what happened on Mars isn't all that unreasonable, as it would take time & resources to either rebuild or relocate the fleet yards from Utopia Planitia.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Here in the UK we built not one but TWO aircraft carriers without any planes to go on them, so…
It’s all a bit too… I don’t know if there’s a word for it. Things have happened not because they make any logical sense, but because they’re cool character moments or further the plot or something.
It’s like making a 3rd or 4th year cadet Captain of the Enterprise in the Kelvinverse. That.
So, yes, there’s a new Stargazer. But it has the same registry but with an extra 8 on the front because… of course it does. Suddenly it’s this legendary ship that deserves memorialisation. Never mind that in between 2355 and 2401 (granted it was recovered in… 2363/4?) no one bothered to do that. I suppose the salvaged original could have been pressed back into service given the Dominion and the Borg and everything…
And Rios is its captain. Because of course he is. I’m not going to quibble about him being back in Starfleet because the circumstances under which he left are so stupid, it’s potentially the most retarded plot point in the entire canon. And Kim Pine is on board because of course she is. And Musiker is back in Starfleet because… etc. Again not quibbling too much because she also got a raw deal. And Elnor joined Starfleet because… well, because that’s what people DO.I was never interested in Jake Sisko but at least his arc suggested that not every character joins.
I don’t think it’s the original Excelsior. I’m sure there were indications of at least one subsequent ship with the name. And is there anything in this episode to suggest this Excelsior is actually the ship seen in the fleet that looks like one - or, to a certain degree of error, an Obena? It may be that Starfleet is introducing increasing (mission-specific?) hybridisation - apparently there were not two but four distinct variants of the Inquiry-class seen in s1.
So. This season is going to be “Tapestry” and “Second Chances” and ST:FC and TVH and “Future’s End” and… Q is going to basically show that the universe is a better place because Picard couldn’t develop or maintain a steady relationship? Are they Mary Sue-ing Picard to be the most important person ever?
Posted by o2 (Member # 907) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan:
Musiker isn’t on a new Excelsior, I’m 99% sure that was the NCC-2000 itself!
the warp nacelle of that starship on the right side (I suppose that this is the ship we are talking about) does not look like the one of an Excelsior class starship to me.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
No, it’s emphatically not. So if that is the current ship named Excelsior, then it’s either a Excelsior class refit or is some sort of Obena variant.
I don't think its Obena class, since the pylon of the Obena is in straight line to the secondary hull while this one runs vertically. But it could be a variant, as you said.
Btw, the link you provided seems not to work...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Bill Krause said on his IG that it's a John Eaves design, so...
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I'm just going on my own impressions and assumptions here, but it seems quite reasonable that any 110-year-old ship would have gone through a few refits and could have different nacelles. The overall size and arrangement of the hull looks so similar that I have no problem assuming that it's the same ship.
I also have no problem believing it's a new ship. I just thought it'd be really cool if it was the same Excelsior that Sulu commanded.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:quote: so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO. It doesn't make sense, because 82893 is an easter egg. 2893 was the old Stargazer's registry. Which leads me to the 3 gold-plated models in the ship's ready room: Radiant-class from the TOS era Constellation-class Sagan-class
I watched a WWII documentary a few weeks ago that made an interesting point: most militaries, when producing items requiring a serial number -- particularly, say, tanks -- randomize the numbers.
The Germans didn't.
So if you captured a tank, and you saw it was stamped unit #650, you knew the Germans had produced at LEAST 650 tanks.
Couldn't an enemy force use the highly visible Starfleet registry number to a similar purpose? Certainly not exact, but if you had an intelligence service, and you knew Starfleet had an active duty of, say, NCC-26500, and then you knew that the highest number was NCC-80,000, you knew Starfleet had, potentially, as many as 53,500 starships in service.
But! If we don't want to accept that Starfleet might randomly shift registry numbers around (at least for a few more centuries, as we really shouldn't be seeing four-and-five digit registries in the current time frame of Discovery), another possible explanation:
For whatever reason, Starfleet assigned a range of numbers for a production of a specific class of starship. Perhaps the class was delayed, or there were significant design issues which resulted in the class being scrapped, or significantly reworked.
The new Stargazer, then, is either part of a class that was long delayed in entering service; or, Starfleet decided that the initial production run -- eventually -- wasn't going to happen, and reassigned those numbers to a new class (the new Stargazer type).
Or, the Stargazer is actually a bit older than we believe it to be, perhaps recently refitted (I've only seen the episode once and I can't recall if it's described as a brand new ship).
Regarding the displays featuring the movie-era Excelsior and Picard's Stargazer: I interpreted this as a bit of a museum piece -- look at the ships our new ships are named for.
If the Stargazer, Picard's, had been reactivated due to an extreme shortage of vessels, it is hard to imagine Starfleet would want two ships in service at the same time with the same names (just to minimize the risk of miscommunication, no matter how slight).
Anyway, looking forward to Eaglemoss's models of the Lower Decks and Picard versions of a re-imagined Excelsior. Gives weight to a long standing argument that the Akira-Class was designed in honor of the NX Class (in universe, as I do know the production reason is the reverse; similar to how Volkswagen and Jeep have made Beetles and Wranglers which look like modern version of classic vehicles).
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
The dedication plaque featured the new Starfleet delta. That would indicate a post-2390 launch.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Doug Drexler has stated that the Excelsior seen in PIC is a new design of a new Excelsior class, and is not the same ship as the NCC-2000. Which is all fine and great, but it’s a little annoying that in 2401 Starfleet makes a new class of ship with the same class name as a class from 2285, and the same basic external design, only updated. The Obena class was annoying enough with this nonsense, but now we have a new Excelsior class only 115 years after the old Excelsior class? I could understand them reusing class names in the 32nd century 900 years later, but this? Meh.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
So far some of his comments are ambiguous. Is it a new class or a refit of the original? We might get some clarification today.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Comments where?
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
On Facebook
quote:The Excelsior (R) is a brand new upgrade.
quote:It's a brand-new class of Excelsior style ship. A little sleeker, but 100% recognizable.
quote:It's a new generation of Excelsior class vessels. Very sleek.
quote:No. This is a second generation design. It's new. Sulu's ship is probably in a museum.
quote:This is a second generation design. It's new. Sulu's Excelsior was nearing the end of it's operational life in TNG.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
USS Eureka NCC-42023 Excelsior II class USS Excelsior NCC-42037 Excelsior II class USS Helios NCC-63284 Akira class USS Rabin NCC-63293 Akira class USS Thunderchild NCC-63549 Akira class USS Avalon NCC-63887 Akira class USS Okuda NCC-74107 Sovereign class USS Pachacuti NCC-74181 Sovereign class USS Gilgamesh NCC-74669 Sovereign class USS Valkyrie NCC-74877 Sovereign class USS Hutchinson NCC-74957 Sovereign class USS Hrothgar NCC-74975 Sovereign class USS Vanguard NCC-75148 Ross class USS Venture NCC-75306 Sovereign class USS Arsinoe NCC-75307 Sovereign class USS Yi Sun-Sin NCC-76545 Ross class USS Luna NCC-80101 Luna class USS Oberon NCC-80103 Luna class USS Europa NCC-80104 Luna class USS Stargazer NCC-82893 Sagan class USS Nathan Hale NCC-86501 Inquiry class USS Rustazh NCC-86503 Inquiry class USS Zheng He NCC-86505 Inquiry class USS Magellan NCC-86509 Inquiry class USS Shackleton NCC-86517 Inquiry class USS Reliant NCC-90200 Reliant class USS Clark NCC-90206 Reliant class USS Uhura NCC-90214 Reliant class USS Sutherland NCC-91800 Sutherland class USS Huygens NCC-91814 Sutherland class USS Almagest NCC-91870 Sutherland class USS ibn Al-Haytham NCC-91965 Sutherland class USS Gagarin NCC-97930 Gagarin class
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Reliant class 251,0 m Luna class 453,3 m Akira class 464,4 m Gagarin class 492,0 m Sagan class 540,7 m Excelsior II class 588,0 m Inquiry class 640,1 m Sutherland class 652,4 m Ross class 663,2 m Sovereign class 685,8 m
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Okay then! I’m mostly happy with the “new” Excelsior, aside from its ridiculously-low registry number that’s annoyingly similar to numerous mid-century original-gen Excelsiors seen in TNG. The ship looks like a post-Dominion War design, not a pre-TNG cruiser.
I’m also very glad they didn’t let John Eaves name all the ships this time around. Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Yeah, but Starfleet is still pretty much a Homo sapiens club.
I'm really not a fan of the new Excelsior. Almost everything looks like the original Excelsior, with the saucer and neck unfavorably stretched and anachronistic late 24th century nacelles slapped unto it. Basically a classic Eaves fail who couldn't design a pre2370 ship if his life depended on it.
Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :
quote:Originally posted by Spike: USS Eureka NCC-42023 Excelsior II class USS Excelsior NCC-42037 Excelsior II class USS Helios NCC-63284 Akira class USS Rabin NCC-63293 Akira class USS Thunderchild NCC-63549 Akira class USS Avalon NCC-63887 Akira class USS Okuda NCC-74107 Sovereign class USS Pachacuti NCC-74181 Sovereign class USS Gilgamesh NCC-74669 Sovereign class USS Valkyrie NCC-74877 Sovereign class USS Hutchinson NCC-74957 Sovereign class USS Hrothgar NCC-74975 Sovereign class USS Vanguard NCC-75148 Ross class USS Venture NCC-75306 Sovereign class USS Arsinoe NCC-75307 Sovereign class USS Yi Sun-Sin NCC-76545 Ross class USS Luna NCC-80101 Luna class USS Oberon NCC-80103 Luna class USS Europa NCC-80104 Luna class USS Stargazer NCC-82893 Sagan class USS Nathan Hale NCC-86501 Inquiry class USS Rustazh NCC-86503 Inquiry class USS Zheng He NCC-86505 Inquiry class USS Magellan NCC-86509 Inquiry class USS Shackleton NCC-86517 Inquiry class USS Reliant NCC-90200 Reliant class USS Clark NCC-90206 Reliant class USS Uhura NCC-90214 Reliant class USS Sutherland NCC-91800 Sutherland class USS Huygens NCC-91814 Sutherland class USS Almagest NCC-91870 Sutherland class USS ibn Al-Haytham NCC-91965 Sutherland class USS Gagarin NCC-97930 Gagarin class
Sad that STO got canonized. Happy that the fleet got expanded.
Ship porn for all to enjoy.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
No. I'm defintely not rejigging for this bullshit.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
STO isn’t canon. Only the four new ship designs they used are.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Seems like almost all Sovereigns are named after, well, sovereigns.
Okuda - the king of starships Pachacuti - Incan emperor Gilgamesh - Mythological Sumerian king Hutchinson - the king of small talk Hrothgar - Mythological Danish king Arsinoe - several Egyptian queens
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Ugh, themed names & sequential numbers. All of this is what happens when you let dipshits make decisions.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Video of the STO designer guy whose ships got used. It's a "hometown dork makes good" story (I say that with love), with ship 360s starting circa 10:30.
Hate to say, they're all super-derivative. It's a Diet Nebula, a Sovvied Miranda, an ungainly Diet Galaxy, and a Discofleet Redux, with little detail, if any, in common between them or the in-house designs.
EDIT: Oh, the "Diet" Nebula and Galaxy are actually longer than the originals, because of course they are. Starship design seems to follow the planned obsolescence schedules of the Honda Accord design team.
That said, they aren't immediately offensive, so that's improvement.
That stretch-limo Excelsior (hardly a slouch in stretchedness) is foul. It is bad and Doug should feel bad being part of this, though I am pleased he's getting paid.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Given the registries, the length (75-100m longer than the range of accepted lengths of the original) and the obvious elongation which can be used to account for it, the “Excelsior II” can only realistically be a refit. The most extensive one since the Constitution.
Of course if we were to ask them about it they’d say no. Because, on a fundamental level I’m not sure they really “get” it. Sure that sounds like me gatekeeping, but there are plenty of examples in nuTrek where little easily-avoidable mistakes have been made.
Do I care about the overly sequential registries? Not really. The idea of thematic naming hasn’t been overused, at least. The insistence of the STO class ships having VERY round numbers is stupid and just emblematic of the lack of getting-it on that regard.
They also seem to have abandoned the NX designation. Do I care about that? Not really. It always seemed a bit nonsensical. Of the… four? … classes we ever saw onscreen, two were later changed to normal NCCs (Excelsior & Galaxy; I always rationalised this as, once the class is tried & tested & in production, it’s no longer really experimental, is it?), one was at least a true one-of-its-kind prototype (Prometheus) and… well, the Defiant stayed a NX so they could re-use stock footage, and continued to do so even after the São Paulo was renamed. So THAT exception to the rule can fuck right off.
But what about the Stargazer being a brand new ship but called Sagan-class? It’s the Crossfield-class Discovery (and Glenn) all over again. Maybe the class ships in those examples were lost. Or retained as testbeds for further development. The new Stargazer - a new ship and a refit according to dialogue (FML), well, I reckon it’s a refit of a slight-older ship presumably with all that Borg tech added (which is a rant for another day!).
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Hate to say, they're all super-derivative. It's a Diet Nebula, a Sovvied Miranda, an ungainly Diet Galaxy, and a Discofleet Redux, with little detail, if any, in common between them or the in-house designs.
They were meant to be derivative. All four were meant to be 25th Century skins for the T6 versions of the originals.
Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :
Doug, Denise and michael were involved.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Given the registries, the length (75-100m longer than the range of accepted lengths of the original) and the obvious elongation which can be used to account for it, the “Excelsior II” can only realistically be a refit. The most extensive one since the Constitution.
Of course if we were to ask them about it they’d say no. Because, on a fundamental level I’m not sure they really “get” it. Sure that sounds like me gatekeeping, but there are plenty of examples in nuTrek where little easily-avoidable mistakes have been made.
That's just it, though: Doug Drexler does 'get it,' and this new Excelsior he designed would be marginally fine (even though I don't like this new trend of making new ships that resemble old ships), if he hadn't made the registries 420XX. That makes ZERO sense. That would mean either:
1. The ship was built at the same time as other older-style Excelsiors were being built, but for some reason is a newer design. So then why the hell would they continue making the older design along with the newer one?
2. The ship is new as of 2400 or thereabouts, but for some strange reason has a low 4XXXX registry.
3. The ship is a refit of the older Excelsior, which makes the most sense but that Drexler is seeming to imply is not the case.
Honestly though, I find these 'updates' to old designs to be dull and boring. The STO ships get a pass because they were just meant to be in the background. But this Excelsior and the Obena class from Lower Decks are just screaming with unoriginality.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
The 42XXX-range was where Starfleet experimented with the Excelsior-class. You have the Centaur, Curry, and Raging Queen in that era. I guess Starfleet wasn't entirely satisfied with the Ambassador and the next generation was still on the drawing board. So they built a couple of beefed up Excelsiors. The hull and neck are pretty much that of a Standard Excelsior. The saucer looks a bit sleeker and has phaser stripes. The nacelles must be part of a post-2370s refit. Probably wasn't a success either so they reverted back to building the originals.
Maybe I'm a bit too cynical, but the Excelsior is a fan favourite so the only reason for the Excelsior II and Obena seems to be so that EM can sell a truckload of new models.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
The ships from Starfleet Academy
Phoenix launched 5 Apr 2063 on display at the Smithsonian
USS Constellation NCC-1017 Constitution class in service 2245-2267 Commodore Matthew Decker
USS Reliant NCC-1864 Miranda class in service 2264-2285 Captain Clark Terrel
USS Excelsior NCC-2000 Excelsior class in service 2285-2320 Captain Hikaru Sulu
USS Leondegrance NCC-2176 Lancelot class in service 2288-2336 Captain Nyota Uhura 2301-2305 five-year mission to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud (sic). Became a training vessel in 2317. On display in the Fleet Museum
USS Stargazer NCC-2893 Constellation class in service 2326-2355 Captain Jean-Luc Picard on display in the Fleet Museum
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D Galaxy class in service 2363-2371 Capt. Jean-Luc Picard saucer section on display in the Fleet Museum
USS Voyager NCC-74656 Intrepid class in service 2371-2378 Capt. Kathryn Janeway
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
My beef with the STO ships is that not only are they just skins for older ships, they're also totally unnecessary in my opinion as we already had suitable late 24th century successors:
Nebula>Luna Galaxy>Sovereign Reliant>Parliament
The Gagarin is ok (but then again the Shepard already looked like a late 24th century design).
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Nitpick of the morning: While it’s awesome that Uhura became captain of a ship, the Lesser (Small) Magellanic Cloud is outside our galaxy. (Whoops!)
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
If only that was the only glaring discrepancy.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
The original USS Reliant must have been utterly awesome, this legendary ship of its time, to be so memorialised. Because “Had its captain and first and/or science officer brainwashed, allowed to be hijacked and then the crew marooned, then used to attack another ship causing dozens of deaths, many of the en very young, before being used as the delivery system for a WMD” doesn’t really scream “really notable ship,” not in a good way anyway.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I was thinking something similar. Don’t forget to include “couldn’t count the number of planets in a star system” in that list. Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Yes, that too!
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote: USS Leondegrance NCC-2176 Lancelot class in service 2288-2336 Captain Nyota Uhura 2301-2305 five-year mission to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud (sic). Became a training vessel in 2317. On display in the Fleet Museum
Pretty sure playing Leondegrance was Patrick Stewart's first film role, right? Boorman's Excalibur!
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Does anyone else think it was weird that Rios was smoking? Like, not just smoking on the bridge, but smoking on a Starfleet starship in the early days of the 25th century.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
It's GRITTY and DARK and people have FLAWS now!
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
It's one of the many abandonments of Roddenberry. Even assuming epic filtration of the air of the type seen in TNG (smoky bridge to clear in a single poorly-done special effect), and even if we assume some genetically engineered scentless smoke, it's bound to affect others on the bridge without some sort of odor privacy field.
That said, it isn't the addiction itself that is the problem. After all, they're all hooked on caffeine.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
