-Look for new shots of Enterprise and Columbia in drydock. Among repairs, it seems that they replace the entire deflector dish too - consistent with the beating it took in "Azati Prime" and last season's use in the finale. Will we get to see the new Captain's chair in this episode?
-Note that the drydock model is the same scaled-up version seen around Columbia back in "The Expanse", and not the original one that surrounded Enterprise in that episode and "Broken Bow". I wonder what happened to the original, the in-story one and the model.
-Phlox apparently has a different relationship between his skin and his skeleton than we do. Not only can he smile farther than his jawbone would normally suggest, but he can puff up like a blowfish!
-The changing political scene on Earth will doubtless deserve several comments. For example, we see the Vulcans on the board of inquiry, suggesting the annoying "Vulcan Interference Blabber" (or should that be the "Annoying Vulcan Interference Blabber"?) is still in force on Earth.
-During the inquiry, there are several pictures on the back wall. Some may be new - I think I see Cochrane's Phoenix and the ringship Enterprise in there.
-We'll see a lot of "regular" Earth tech in this episode, perhaps more than we ever did in some other episodes of the franchise (which usually restricted themselves to a single set: Joe's restaurant, the Picard farmhouse, etc.). Looks like we'll see stuff like bars, the Great Outdoors, etc.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Phlox looks like he got stung by a bee.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Also note that the CGI background in Archer's speech now makes much more sense as opposed to what the trailer showed us. This is the only time I've ever seen a trailer actually use such raw unfinished material..
Whoah.. wtf is going on with Phlox there.
It seems we get yet another United Earth emblem. And Starfleet seems to have grown a bit since last time. At least, I can't remember ever seeing so many flag officers..
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Doesn't Phlox own a single suit?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"It seems we get yet another United Earth emblem."
Wow. I didn't realize tectonic shift around the Atlantic would reverse direction and accelerate so much in the next couple hundred years.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
You're supposed - according to startrek.com - to be able to see the NX-02 insignia, but I can't see it in any of those caps.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
A nice understated episode, bloody well LOADED with tech, politics, and the background stuff we relish. Has Coto finally landed? I hope so. Let's get right to the on-the-fly notes!
-Apparently the "Welcome Home" thing at the beginning happens RIGHT AWAY as soon as the crew got everything squared away on the ship, and is apparently the first physical contact they have with the brass, including Admiral Forrest. They even take a shuttle in, which still has battle damage, and some of the crew are still displaying bruises and such.
-But how long is it after they return home that they're on their way to the ceremony? It's got to be at least a couple days - how else would you fill a stadium so quickly?
-27 people died during their mission in the Expanse. That's nearly a third of the crew.
-Captaincy is a boy's-only club, eh..?
-It seems that TV, or at least theatre films, have NOT gone out of style here. While they were gone, another WWIII epic came and went, and "swept all the awards".
-While everyone's been pretty freaked out because of worries about the Xindi coming back to finish the job, there have been a record number of marriages and childbirths. OTOH, there seems to have been no mention of a wholesale exodus from the planet...
-Ooh boy! We get to see NX-02 in all her mostly-finished glory (including the lettering on her hull. The bridge is covered in plastic sheeting and people are welding stuff, and the aft table and railing is missing. Same Captain's chair, though apparently without lumbar support - a modification made to Archer's chair, and a sort of continuation of the running gag with the chair. Among Columbia's improvements over Enterprise:
*Hull polarization improved by 12%
*Ventral AND dorsal torpedo launchers
*PULSED PHASE CANNONS (!!) - Archer's own recommendation
-One of the NX class designers was Captain Jeffries - and Archer once argued that his ship wouldn't need a whole load of weapons for an exploratory mission. Archer now agrees with Jeffries... They need 'em now, and more.
-I didn't see a clear view of the Columbia patch, but I'm sure we'll be due one in short order.
-Hernandez wants Archer to look through her candidates list for senior crew, some of whom he's served with.
-TOS hat tipping - there's a familiar tri-screened monitor in the briefing room!
-The Vulcans are at the debriefing to grill Archer over the Seleya incident. Soval is unconvinced that Archer did anything to save the crew, nor the effects of Trellium. Archer rightfully blows his top at Soval, and is ORDERED to take some time off. He goes climbing, and Erika tags along.
-Xindi attack = Xenophobia. An Andorian and a pair of Rigellians were attacked, and the Vulcans have been keeping to their compound.
-Andorian and Rigellian - species with whom Enterprise made first contact (or at least first visited their planet / outpost, probably). New arrivals, of whom humans are suspicious? Interesting choice of aliens here... And I wonder what the Vulcans think of Andorians being present on Earth.
-We see a Vulcan house, which has distinctly Oriental qualities to it. How often have we seen Vulcan houses before? TAS "Yesteryear", perhaps?
-At no point do we see a moon around Vulcan. -T'Pol's wardrobe in this episode is decidedly... Rose-hued.
-Archer has had dozens of schools renamed after him, including Erika's brother's school. The continuous hero-worship and public appearances have already sickened him.
-Archer would recommend a MACO as the Columbia Tactical Officer. Erika's a little wary of having military on board, but Archer recommends she talks to General Casey about getting a whole squad. I guess the MACOs are here to stay!
-Still, if the MACOs are being kept, what's to replace the people they supposedly lost to accomodate them. Will the have a permenantly reduced complement of regular security or science officers, as we have suggested before?
-Archer: "You'll spend a lot of time boldly going into battle". Only a few episodes ago he was telling his crew to go back to the exploration and contact thing. Guess he's had time enough to become more cynical about Gunboat Diplomacy.
-T'pol's been offered a commission in Starfleet... SPOCK!
-Instead of fridges, Vulcans use "stasis units" to keep things fresh. >.<;;
-Reed is wearing a field jacket over his civvies to attract attention in a bar. I think it's yet another variant - it looks shorter and thinner than what we've seen before.
-T'Pol's mom was dismissed from her job at the science academy because the Council blames T'Pol for what happened on P'Jem. Only the political marriage to Koss would save her at this point. T'Pol reluctantly agrees - she'll have to live on Vulcan for a time at some point, but is allowed to return to Enterprise for the time being - obstensibly in part to convalesce from her Trellium addiction.
-Archer is tortured by nightmares of Xindi tossing him off cliffs. I wonder if this will continue to bug him later.
-Trip says Vulcan is 16 light years away. Have any of our cartographers been keeping track?
-Erika once served under Archer, um, in more ways than one. They stopped fraternizing because of them serving together, but this is no longer the case. They won't be seeing each other regularly, but that doesn't stop them from making whoopee while on the mountain...
Mark
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Wow. I didn't realize tectonic shift around the Atlantic would reverse direction and accelerate so much in the next couple hundred years.
The dark secret of the Xindi is that they were working for Portugal, trying to soften the blow when Florida rammed Europe.
My comments, observations, and errata:
1. No comment about Nazis. Good.
2. The episode was jam-packed. They should've squeezed the "OMG we have to get rid of Braga's stupid alien Nazi shit" into one ep, and then made this a two-parter. I mean, they actually had characters in this one.
3. Vulcan is 16 light-years from Earth, as suggested by Trip. That suggests the 40 Eridani = Vulcan idea from the Trek non-canon, with the exception of the fact that 40 Eridani is part of a triple system. The B and C stars are together a good distance from the main star, though.
3a. In TMP, Scotty offered to have Spock back on Vulcan in four days. That's four light-years per day, or 1460c.
4. This episode was composed entirely of large-breasted women. But I'd still rather have me some Hoshi.
5. Pulsed phase cannons? Please don't tell me the Columbia is going to get all Defiant on somebody's butt. She's already got dorsal and ventral torpedo tubes, which is getting a little ridiculous. Kirk kicked plenty of ass with two tubes side-by-side . . . there's no need to get freaky with torpedoes flying from every port-hole. Besides, on NX-01, every port-hole has a phase cannon, so the port-holes are occupied.
6. We once again see a tricorder . . . or a scanner, in this case . . . being used as a Sherlock system. In this case, Archer scans a track and concludes that it is from a mountain lion, and a few days old. Whether he actually has some tracking skills or whether he'd loaded "Outdoorsmanship For Dummies" into his scanner is unclear.
7. Archer has high schools named after him, and is considered a hero of Earth. According to Daniels, he'll be at the Federation Charter signing ceremony. While apologists have stated their case as to how his ship and his exploits might end up never being mentioned, it still bothers me.
8. T'Pol was not at all low-key with her emotions. If anything, Blalock's portrayal was that of a twitchy former junkie . . . which is accurate, I guess, but still.
9. T'Pol's mother taught at the Vulcan Science Academy, but can't fix anything in the house. That's not a contradiction or anything, but it's amusing.
10. Vulcan just didn't seem all that alien, really, besides the idea that guests have to fix breakfast.
10a. T'Pol was eating with her hands.
11. Major update required for my San Francisco page.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
12. A star just to the left of Polaris was the star of the "Strange New World" star system. It was evening-time, in the northern hemisphere, in late February or March of 2154. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out which star he referred to, given the naked-eye visibility in a darkening-but-not-dark-yet evening sky.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Vulcan (orbiting 40 Eridani A) *is* 16 lightyears away. Or to be precise, 16.45. lightyears. That seems to be pretty solid evidence that 40 Eridani A is indeed Vulcan's sun.
quote:T'Pol's mother taught at the Vulcan Science Academy, but can't fix anything in the house. That's not a contradiction or anything, but it's amusing.
Scientists are not practical people. At all.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
So Coto can juggle. So far, so good... I'll wait until the first plot-driven episode till I pass judgement, though.
The weapon upgrades to NX-02 make sense to me. Kirk's ship in TOS had at least six tubes, so two pairs (?) here doesn't sound excessive to me at all. Indeed, there's a real-world trend of fewer and fewer weapon emplacements in warships. And pulse phasers are logical, too. So far, the phase cannon have been fired at constant "overcharge" mode, having originally been designed for a fraction of the power. Pulsed firing should markedly increase phase gun lifetime...
Incidentally, any indication so far whether this was the first attack on Earth ever? Or has Starfleet mounted defensive action before?
Nice to see that somebody is reading the Star Charts. Or some other source that has got the 40 Eri A distance right. I wonder if Coto has issued a general hunt for such semi-canon trivia...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
About the Vulcans:
- Kos wanted T'Pol to be happy? That doesn't sound very Vulcan...
- The speech of the Vulcan priest included an old English 'ye'. Which was a nice touch.
And I found it a bit odd that Phlox, ex-medic in the Denobulan infantry, freaked out because of some drunk Chandler lookalike..
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: -Apparently the "Welcome Home" thing at the beginning happens RIGHT AWAY as soon as the crew got everything squared away on the ship, and is apparently the first physical contact they have with the brass, including Admiral Forrest. They even take a shuttle in, which still has battle damage, and some of the crew are still displaying bruises and such.
The shuttlepod has a blue stripe, meaning it ought to be one of the Starfleet shuttles (as seen in "Regeneration") instead of one of the ones from Enterprise.
Also, the music during that scene . . . well . . . sucked. Sounded like music off of a computer game. It was done by the same guy who won an Emmy for his "Similitude" music, though.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Anybody get a good 'cap of the schematics of the Selaya?
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
It was a Starfleet shuttle. I registry on it read something like SC-04. Or not. I wasn't really readable.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yeah, I see the blue piping now. Whatever's on the side has to be something else. And, I guess it's consistent with the lack of working shuttles on the ship from the previous episode...
-Trip's got nowhere to go? What happened to spending a week on a different beach for the next two months? I think he just wanted to go to Vulcan.
-When Archer storms out of the briefing room, you can see an oversized chrome model of Enterprise through the door. I dunno - would they make something like that for a half-second appearance? It's not possibly from the Nemesis briefing room set, is it?
-Pulsed Phase Cannons (!!). I'd forgotten that they originally had to overpower the cannons on their first use to be vaguely effective. Yet, they could have easily made or effected upgrades without telling anyone. In any case, we do now have an excuse to see machine gun FX from Enterprise, continuing the cycle of pulse particle weapons going in and out of style.
Mark
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: 12. A star just to the left of Polaris was the star of the "Strange New World" star system. It was evening-time, in the northern hemisphere, in late February or March of 2154. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out which star he referred to, given the naked-eye visibility in a darkening-but-not-dark-yet evening sky.
There are two possibilities for this one.
The most likely is HR 285 (aka HD 5848), which will be almost perfectly to the very left of Polaris at just-about-dark on March 15, 2154 (which I chose as a rough estimate date).
However, I'm having a helluva time trying to get a distance for that star, and I'm afraid it might be too far. I haven't found mention of its distance in any of the "distances to stars within (a good number of) light-years" references online.
So, I'll have to get freakly on the parallax, I suppose.
The alternative is Alrai, aka Gamma Cepheus. It's about 50ly out, but is about three times as far to the left, a bit down, and so on.
Both stars are about the same type, though Alrai is much brighter in the night sky and hence more easily visible. The idea that Archer could see HR 285 at dusk would be odd.
Remarkably, the starfield they used in the shot actually does resemble the real thing, though the brightnesses aren't quite right based on the cap I've seen.
Posted by Joshua Bell (Member # 327) on :
C/o the star catalog in Celestia, HD 5848 is 313ly from Sol, and a K2 II star.
Incidentally, from orbit around HD 5848, both Polaris and HD 6319 are an extremely bright pair of stars (about 10 degrees apart). Celestia is way cool. Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"3a. In TMP, Scotty offered to have Spock back on Vulcan in four days. That's four light-years per day, or 1460c."
So, the E-nil was capable of going over warp 11 for four days running. Hm...
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Of course, that could be Scotty exaggerating, the crew could have had a running joke about how fast the ship can go. But that's a stretch.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Thanks Joshua! I wish I'd found your message sooner to remind me of Celestia, but I didn't . . . thus, I did the distances by hand. It's not tough, though . . . one over parallax (in arc-seconds) gives you parsecs.
As for the "warp 11" comment, where do you get that velocity from?
(Of course, such a question brings up all sorts of possible issues, from 'warp highways' to canon vs. non-canon.
Suffice it to say that the TMP speed is similar to that given for Enterprise in "Cease Fire" and required by numerous other examples, implying that the TMP Enterprise could've delivered Spock to Vulcan even more quickly. The speed works pretty well against a number of other examples, though of course I'd be lying if I said that speed was a consistent thing in Trek.)
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"As for the 'warp 11' comment, where do you get that velocity from?"
The cube root of 1460 is 11.3....
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
...And I think somebody has done that calculation before, since the fan specs for the refitted ship give a top speed of warp 12 - a surprisingly reasonable figure representing a moderate increase over the TOS top speed and matching the TMP reference.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
YES! They fixed the dish! That was the only feature of the NX that really bugged me was that extremely squashed ellipse. I'm going to assume that they're going to retrofit that dish onto the Enterprise as well.
B.J.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Fixed? I thought they were just replacing it or hadn't installed it yet... Wait, it IS a squarer dish on Columbia. Though I doubt for purposes of stock footage reusal they'll upgrade the Enterprise saucer as well, even though it is seen missing.
And as for the HDTV caps - also note that both Enterprise and Columbia are in the same type of drydock. This suggests that there are at least three docks big enough to house the NX-class... I believe that there were four more NXs on the drawing boards in the first season. Hm.
As I recall from looking at the Columbia, It really looks as if the dish had not been installed yet, not that it has a newly designed deflector dish.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Dat - you might be thinking of the shot of Enterprise with its dish removed. The one of Columbia definitely had a dish that extended above and below the notch in the saucer.
In related news, I have just been floored by VFX consistency. Thesepictures from the Guardian of Forever's website show the Columbia under construction in a earlier episode (I can't remember which one). You can see the newly-shaped dish being assembled here, with part of it being towed along in the foreground.
B.J.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Crimony,m you're right - looks like Columbia was meant to be that way from the beginning!
But it doesn't necessarily mean that the Enterprise deflector is a older or inferior design. Since I largely suspect they'll be keeping the ellipsoid deisgn (beyond stock footage, it helps tell the two ships apart if they're ever seen together), I'd figure that Columbia's deflector is meant to serve a slightly different set of purposes.
Mark
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Is anyone else able to access that screenshot of the Columbia on the Fotopic site? Its not showing up for me Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Me neither.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I can, but I can't explain why. So I'll just chuckle.
Hrm.. We aren't given any sort of conclusion to the crew's R&R on Earth (nor any real resolution to what's going to happen with the Xindi, for that matter, but I digress). So, what will we be seeing in the next episode? Will Enterprise launch from Earth with orders to pick up Soong? Or will we rejoin the ship en route, with at most a log mention that they're all fixed up and better now? Dunno if I'd be comfortable with that sort of reset button applied...
And in terms of crew changes, this may be the first modern Trek series NOT to have a major cast change in the early fourth season! In TNG, DS9 and VOY we had the departure of Wesley, or the additions of Worf or Seven.
Mark
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Did anyone notice the cool TOS-triangular computer screen at the debriefing? And sadly, Fotopic doesn't have a cap of closeup on the Seleya's MSD. Can anyone here do that?
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Seleya MSD:
And Columbia in the dock, for those who can't see the Fotopic pic... Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
I've never understood the compulsion to totally wreck a vehicle's lines by having little whatzits in the front stick out above where they ought to. They did it to the Jaguar XK headlights in the late 1960's and I'm still pissed off about that. And now, you're telling me that in the 2150's it will still be going on.
So much for theories of progress.
On the good side, this explains the genesis of the secondary hull. Once they start installing enormous round deflector dishes on the NX Class, someone finally realizes that the ships look f---ing stupid and you can't even tell them apart because of the enormous dish blocking the name.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Is this about those Mickey Mouse ears next to the bridge?
Do we know what they are supposed to be? Just temporarily open access hatches? (Not the dorsal torpedo launchers, I hope...)
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
They are open hatches - they're on the Enterprise model too. I can't find those hi-rez images, but the Polar Lights model they made from it show 'em:
[Editted when I found the hi-rez pics. Download 'em before we lose 'em again!]
[ October 26, 2004, 07:47 AM: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
It just occured to me - the lack of on-ship action allows for the show's set decorators to make the necessary upgrades to the bridge. So, they cleverly hid those parts of the set that are probably being re-done. You can see for example that all the railings are missing from Columbia (they're silver, but being painted blue for the next episode), and the doors are either open or covered with plastic sheeting (same thing - they'll be more Smurfy the next time we'll see them). The aft situation table is also absent... Will we be getting a new one, or a modified prop?
Of course the seat hasn't changed (yet), but it seems to be a plot point that kept it there for a couple lines of dialogue.
ADDITIONAL: Look at the position of the Columbia's CO chair in the screencap, compared to the overhead diagram. The chair has been moved back to the upper deck.
Granted the chair may not have been installed yet and was simply sitting on the upper deck before someone put it in its place, though it was likely just placed there as a directorial choice, hoping that we wouldn't notice. Haw! As if!
Mark
[ October 27, 2004, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: [QUOTE] Also, the music during that scene . . . well . . . sucked. Sounded like music off of a computer game. It was done by the same guy who won an Emmy for his "Similitude" music, though.
OMG! YES! The music in that scene SO sucked. I also thought 'computer game' - it matched the digitised sets.
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
We've seen different phasor effects from TOS to the Movies, relating to improved technology. maybe 'pulsed phase cannons' will be more like the Refit Enterprise's phasors. I expect that over the space of hundreds of years, there will be lots of weapons changes. Ditto with torpedo launchers.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
PhasErs, man.
Anyway, it's pretty much a given that these upgraded pulse phase cannons are only another step towards "real" phasers. Supposedly, if the timeline holds, at some point they're going to switch back to some form of laser for weaponry, at least temporarily or in terminology.
They shoulda just stuck with the damn plasma guns... Seriously, who needs a stun setting?
Mark
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
I wanna see Stun Torpedoes! Why not? they have stun grenades.. can you say RPSG?
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Or some other source that has got the 40 Eri A distance right. I wonder if Coto has issued a general hunt for such semi-canon trivia...![[Frown]](frown.gif)
