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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
I just realized we let this anniversary sorta slide by... Blame it on the end of continuous TNG-era material on TV four years ago, I guess.

But it was fifteen years ago this past September, when we saw Starfleet get handed its first collective kick in the balls on TV. Prior to "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II", we in the TV audience had learned to accept the Trekkian standards of Brinkmanship: huge fleet battles just didn't happen, or were always avoided at the last minute for some reason. Never had we seen more than a handful of starships go at it at any given time... We had grown to accept not only the relative lack of large-scale action in the franchise, but also the relative invulnerability of Starfleet.

Then along comes BOBW II. After a summer on the edges of our seats wondering how the hell the crew would get out of THIS one (what with no real internet gossip at the time, nor real leaks from the studio), or even IF we'd get Picard back from the Borg, we all settled in for a multiple whammy of an episode. One of the highlights of which, of course, being the Battle of Wolf 359 - not directly seen of course (early TNG TV budgets talking here), but whose aftermath floored everyone I've ever talked to about it, who saw it in September 1990.

Holy shit! Here was our nigh-impregnable Starfleet, who loses a whopping FORTY mighty starships to a single enemy vessel, in a battle that could not have lasted more than minutes - an hour perhaps, at the outset. Like me, many fans were wordless upon watching the powerful "graveyard" scene, where we were treated to a plethora of new starship designs - that had been thoroughly destroyed. Talk about pleasure and pain for us! Talk about having a long-held desire to see other ships in the fleet, only to see them AFTER being trashed!

And in terms of powerful Trek moments in visual effects, this ranks at the top, among such other candidates as the uber Enterprise-D appearing in the future segments of "All Good Things...", or the Defiant opening up with pulse phasers blazing for the first time in "The Search, Part I". Memorable moments such as these are defined by newness and visual impact - Wolf 359 had both, AND a significant story impact to boot.

Since that battle, no other single battle in Stafleet history has been referenced to, scrutinized, analyzed, nitpicked, written about, or re-created as this one. Who talks as much about the duel of Constitution and Warbird in TOS? Or the invasion of Chin'Toka? Or the Enterprise-A's tactics at Khitomer? Or even the subsequent Borg incursion in "First Contact", which was arguably a bigger blow to Starfleet in terms of losses? Not as much as Wolf 359. It's referred to countless times in TNG and VOY, and its aftereffects have been felt as far ahead/back as the most recent series in "Regeneration".

We even get to see parts of the actual battle at the top of the DS9 premiere, and the impact is no less dramatic. We KNEW that Starfleet would be trounced, that thousands of people would die; and it gave a Starfleet CO one heck of a character starting point that has perhaps never been matched elsewhere. And he wasn't the only one - through various contrived means in VOY, we learn that other survivors have been just as affected, or worse. And not just people - Federation policy changed irrevocably as a result of this focal battle, affecting storylines and motivations for countless episodes afterwards.

I'm done rambling for now. However, I invite everyone to reminisce about their experiences as Trek fans, Treknoligists, RPG players, fanfic writers, and so on, and how YOU were affected by this historic FICTIONAL battle. It's hardly too odd a question for us - most of us remember where we were on 9/11, or when the Challenger or Columbia was lost, or our first Trek episode... And how our lives changed as a result. The above are some of my recollections. You?

Mark
 
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
Well I began watching Trek in '92/'93 - so I didn't have to wait all year (who KNOWS how long I would have had to have waited in Australia)...

I had seen some of the movies and had caught a few eps of TNG on late night television. I borrowed Emissary out from the video store (it was the only DS9 release) and I LOVED it - I mentioned Trek in passing to a friend at school and he said "Oh me and my brother are big fans and get a whole lot of eps from our family in the States" the next day he brought me a 'video that would make me a fan'.

QWho, Yesterday's Enterprise, Best of Both Worlds 1 and Best of Both Worlds 2.

I've been a fan ever since.
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
TNG started on BBC2 in 1990. I watched a couple of episodes but wasn't that impressed. Plus it clashed with the weekly scuba-diving club meet at Uni. The fact that there was Star Trek on telly seemed irrelevant to my life at the time; if I happened to be free at 6pm on a Wednesday I'd watch but it was a rare occurence.

Until I happened to wander into a crowded TV room in 1992, and found them showing BoBW2. By ignoring the summer hiatuses (hiati?) the Beeb had managed to almost catch up. They showed the standard "Previously on. . ." recap (even though BoBW1 had only been on the week before); I think I'd even managed to see "Q Who?" so knew who the Borg were. But what I saw that evening blew me away. Many people claim that part 1 is better than part 2, but I don't agree. You had Wolf 359, the rescue mission, and best of all Riker's smug expression when said mission worked.

And then - diaster! "That was the last we'll be seeing of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the time being. But tune in next week and see how it all started as we begin a complete run of the classic Star Trek series."

"WHAT?!" I roared. It was true. TNG didn't come back on until 1994, after they'd shown all 70+ eps of TOS. Their one concession was showing BoBW2 to round off the cliffhanger, rather then leaving the British audience hanging (unless they had Sky, or bought the videos) for a year and a half.

But it's because of BoBW2 I'm here today. Things would be a lot different if I'd not popped down to a University Hall of Residence TV room just to see what was on. Which is quite a profound thought which will probably haunt me for the rest of the day!
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
To switch gears a little, I call into question the notion that a perception of Starfleet's invulnerability had anything to do with the episode's success. Just two years earlier the whole organization had been infiltrated from top to bottom by intelligent cockroaches. And how often have Star Trek stories, or for that matter almost any story, in or out of science fiction, been resolved by large organizations working as designed?

Consider that the original series, as far as I can recall without doing any research, never mentioned another Federation ship that wasn't destroyed, missing, or otherwise in distress, and if you actually saw one it was a sure sign that everyone aboard had died unpleasantly, or was about to. (The sole exception that I can think of being the commodore's ship in "The Ultimate Computer," but he made up for it by losing half of his taskforce.)
 
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
 
Season three was the first season of TNG I watched with lots of interest. I spent the summer between seasons three and four on pins and needles. I don't know why, but I didn't really feel like someone punched me in the goat when the Wolf 359 wreckage appeared. I mean, I thought it was cool and pretty powerful, but I just didn't feel it like others did. Maybe it was because I was still so new to Trek?
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
I had watched TNG since it's start, but i was really floored by BOBW- mostly because I never thought we'd see the Borg again at all: Trek had not exactly followed up on storylines prior to that (and totally dropped the ball with the parasites).
At most, we got annoying characters like Lursa and Betor popping up on occasion.

I love BOBW pt. II, but it's a bit hard to watch the two parts together- Shelby was either lobotomized or suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder in the second part.
She's a total cunt in pt 1 and all for heroics and fighting the good fight in pt 2.

Riker's smug look from the battle bridge is priceless though- if only we'd seen more of that.

Hmmm...I wonder how the later TNG stories ould have played out if Patrick Stewart had not reprisee his role...
Stuff like Darmok and The Inner Light would be cool to see with Riker in Picard's place.
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
If by cool you mean, you know, not as good.
 
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
 
I think Frakes would be a good Captain, Riker just was never written consistently.
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
I like Shelby for the meringue pastry she wore as a hat for work. Chilled to perfection.
Goes great with that glib "slightly-better-commander-than-thou" smile.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Toadkiller:
I think Frakes would be a good Captain, Riker just was never written consistently.

Exactly- sometimes he's a great lead character, ready to be a captain and others he....just there.
If they had made him captain after BOBW II, it would have worked out nicely (assuming they wrote him as he appeared in that episode- or even as he was in The Pegasus).
 
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
Funly enough, TV1 - a cable station here in Australia just finished airing a season 3 marathon. They usually play the first episode of the next season if it is a cliff hanger too.

It was an interactive marathon too - so you could press the 'red' button if you have digital and watch interviews and behind the scenes on four different channels! [Smile]

Anyway - of course they just finished up with Best of Both Worlds.

Gotta love the music. The first time the Borg Cube appears and the end the cliff hanger after Ricker says "Mr Worf... Fire!" BAM BAM BAM! BAM BAM BAM! BAM! Awesome.

So many other things too.

Season 3 is one of the best seasons - consistant all the way through with fantastic episodes.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
It always bothered me that (due to encapsulating stories foe syndication) no real follow-up from Picard's Borgification was done between "Family" and "The Drumhead" (where it seems that his role in so many deaths has preyed on him somewhat.
 
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
 
Wow Jason.. you sure just put the last 15 years into perspective.

Don't forget to add a comparison to the battle in FIRST CONTACT.. where it was more even, after a few years of Federation science and what was probably a crash-shipbuilding program.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Y'know...W359 would have been a mostly moral defeat for the Federation.
No "crash-shipbuilding program" would have been required to recover from a loss of 39 starships.

Consider: during DS9, we saw that Starfleet has at least 2000 operational starships ( a low number, but for the sake of argument, we'll leave it there). This makes sense to me (indeed, a much larher number would make more sense- though comprised of mostly smaller vessels) considering the immense volume the Federation covers.

It does, however make the 'ol "only ship in range" more annoying than ever- it should be common to see four or five starships within populated systems- they'd never have to be remotely near each other- not even within visual sensor range- but to think that systems like Vulcan, Sol, Andor, Betazed dont have constant inter-system commerce is assinine.

At the very least, there should be hundreds of starships still in service from the MIranda era forward- many downgraded to civilian or "home fleet" service.
 
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
Maybe when using those lines they should have said... "no starships in the area... up to the job".
 
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
There's often some lack of judgement on Starfleet's part, too. If the brass had just taken Kirk and company and transplanted them onto a fully-crewed and functional ship and THEN sent them to Nimbus III, you can bet that they would not have been taken over by a laughing Vulcan and his dogs.

[rimshot]

My dream in fandom is to complete a CGI movie depicting my interpretation of the COMPLETE battle of Wolf 359, beginning to end. From the opening salvoes of the Saratoga and Melbourne (which I consider to have been an unmanned bomb, and there was indeed another one there), through the destruction of whatever ship Hanson was sitting on, to the final shot of escape pods warping away from a Borg cube that was happily munching on half-assimilated starships. Beauty.

Mark

[ January 09, 2006, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
I hope you'll use the old-style red photons as well, right?
Hm, we never saw any ship fire torpedoes in "Emissary", did we? How stupid of them.
Enterprise did in BoBW, were those red?
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Kind of orange-ish.
I figure what we saw in "Emissary" was just the very start of a running battle threough the system- only about 15(?) ships of 39 are clumped closely when Enterprise finds the debris field....
and a solar system (assuming it really is one) is a very large place.

As for the CGI wet-dream, I'd want a scene depicting the Cube branching off a vehicle (like a Sphere) and dispatching it back to the Collective (after it's loaded up with assiminlated starfleeters, of course).
Mabye even assimilating a large ship (like a Nebula) and it zipping off all borg-ified.

I'd also want to see someone ram the cube at warp- it's a pretty obvious tactic when all else fails, and I'd like to know how the Borg had prepared for it.
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I'm not so sure warp speed ramming is an obvious tactic. I mean, you're already breaking several natural laws at warp speed; why assume that F=MA comes through unscathed?
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
We have never seen anything run into something else during warp, maybe the weightless ship, in its warp bubble, would just stop against the object in question (as a speck of dust would) and then disintegrate.

Although if the warp bubble breaks 10 meters in front of the ship when crashing in warp, technically the ship should regain its weight while traveling those last ten meters to target.
I'm gonna need a better stop watch, but it could work.
 
Posted by Shakaar (Member # 1782) on :
 
The Enterprise D hit a quantum filament at warp- they are said to have almost no mass, yet it caused a great deal of damage.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
If you could time the ship's massive self-destruct to coincide with a kamakazie run at warp, it's be a very impressive weapon.
No really ramming the target, but exiting a nanosecond prior to collision while the ship's antimatter detonates and whatever extra mass is translated as concussive physical force moving with insane velocity.
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Huh?
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Assuming you can retain some of the momentum from warp (or at least the same you entered warp with initially) the computer could detonate the ship just before impact- making a kind of shaped blast toward the target with all the ship's debris acting like shrapnel.

Near lightspeed (or at least full-impulse speed) shrapnel.
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Yeah, but it's not proper momentum, is it? We've seen what happens when a warp field collapses - the ship slows down to a 'normal' velocity. That can only happen if the ship's speed isn't really real. So there's no point in ramming at warp - indeed, the warp field might hinder such an action.

The most you could hope for by ramming is the effect of impulse speed x ship's mass + antimatter explosion (following containment breach as ship is destroyed by collision).
 
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
 
I think Lee's right.

What we have seen on screen supports the idea that the warp field alters the ship's relationship with normal space, and any velocity is gained through use of conventional, non physics busting engines.

On the other hand, it has been hinted that the propulsive forces are created by having the warpfield in a state of flux, and moving a sort of warp current allon the field (I never realy like physics, but I hope you get the idea).

So, in order to guess what would happen when a ship whacks into something at warp, we need to know the exact mechanisim of the warp drive.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
TOS "Obsession" makes it sound like you can warp around when your impulse engines are under maintenance, so apparently the warp engine itself provides the speed and acceleration somehow.

And while the warp engine doesn't create anything as permanent as momentum, it still allows the ship to hit the target very, very fast. While such a projectile would deliver negligible destructive energies onto the Cube as such, it would probably still deliver a nasty tankful of antimatter deep within the Cube: the sheer speed would make it seep through the walls, there being no time for the matter and the antimatter to interact.

Or the matter and the matter, for that matter. Things at high realspace speeds become deadly bullets. But things at even higher speeds ought to become essentially transparent to each other.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
One thing we have seen, however, is ships going to warp during high impulse speed and then continuing in that speed and momentum as they exit warp, as if the warp bubble "saved" the acting momentum and let go of it when disappearing.

And another thing; ships seemingly can't ram eachother with warp bubbles in realspace, but they can ram eachother in warp, as the Borg Cube responsible for Voyager's survival did against the 8472-vessel. It seemed to carry all its weight and momentum in there.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
I agree that momentum carried into warp is retained (the Odyssey exits warp with a full head of steam for example, but obviouls slows from FTL) and it explains whay we usually see ships zoom into warp from relativly stationary positions.

All that being said, a collision a full impulse is a wildlly destructive force (dominion war anyone?) so popping out of warp while retaining the momentum of full impulse (however fast that is- 25% of c?) would make for a very fast flying bomb with no real way to prepare or deflect it.

Unless the Borg's (long-forgotten) Subspace Field somehow keeps the cube slightly out of phase with our dimension (slightly phased into subspace mabye?).
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
Have we ever seen a ship go into warp from a standstill?

Also, for some reason, certain Trekships have slowed down momentarily before entering warp, for example the Defiant fleeing the Vor'cha in WOTW and of course the Voyager title sequence.

In both these cases I suspect cinematography overruled logic. The creators deemed that the viewers need to see a moving ship entering warp, otherwise they would think it just vanished if it disappeared while standing still. Unless the nonmoving ship stretches away for warp, ZAP!-like.
By the same logic, it would look cool if the ship halted slightly before entering warp sometimes, as if it was an athlete getting ready to jump.

I think Star Wars ships can enter hyperspace from a standstill. I seem to remember the SD Solo had attached himself to was standing still before zapping away, leaving the Falcon and Slave I in the garbage flow.
 
Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :
 
The Enterprise went to warp from a standstill right after the shuttle crash-landed in ST5...

"Varp speed NOW..."
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
But they weren't at a standstill really, were they? Standard orbit - controlled freefall around a planet's gravity well.
 
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
If we're going to get technical, there's really no such thing as a standstill, anyway.
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
Well with impulse and thrusters at 0% then, mom.
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
But what difference does that make?
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
Because cinematography-FX in Trek always has supplied the illusion that if you shut off your engines in Trek you stand still, like Kirk and Kruge did.
Many ships also turn and bank in spite of momentum, turning on the 2d plane, like a bumper car.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
But they dont slow down with their engines powered off- not impulse anyway.
Possesed Picard even lectures Riker on it in season one (something about conserving power by coasting).
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
So the point is, trying to determine whether ships lose or retain momentum when dropping out of warp isn't gonna be solved by looking at whether ships gain momentum (or not) when entering it!

Warp speed /= normal speed, because there are no relativistic effects. There isn't even any time dilation from internal or external POVs when entering normal space, it's always appeared pretty instantaneous. But given the sheer speeds involved at warp, if even a fraction of these velocities can be carried over to normal space then relativistic effects would apply.
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
One FX shot that's alwats bothered me - the Excelsior chasing the Enterprise out of spacedock in ST3. When the Transwarp computer fails because of Scotty's sabotage, the ship visibly slows down to a near-standstil (realtive to Spacedock). But the ship obviously wasn't at warp; was it at Transwarp? If at impulse it'd have retained the motion, and I'm sure Scotty specifically says he removed components from the transwarp computer. . .
 
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
 
Maybe the ship lost all locomotive power at that moment and he proximity to Earth's gravity well stopped it... If we had seen more, it probably would have started moving backwards.
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Back into Spacedock? Or down? Because the Excelsior is already travelling at an orbital velocity and I see no reason why losing transwarp drive would change that.

My problem, originally, was simply this: You can't say that ramming at warp is a perfectly logical tactic because nobody knows enough about how warp drive "really" works to say what would happen.
 
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
 
Yay Sol!

So in conclusion -

1: we don't know what would happen if you rammed a ship (or anything) at warp speed.

2: the guys who do the SFX shots in trek don't remember to take physics into account when they go for the money shot.
 
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
 
On seccond thoughts though - when you think about it, the amount of fuel required to move the ship using what is essentialty a fusion reactor is quite high.

(anybody know how to work out how much you'd need to move, say, the excelcior to full impulse from being docked?)

I'm guessing that it's plausable that the impulse drive uses another device to alter the laws of physics (such as the subspace device on the Ambasadors impusle drive), which went off line with the warp/transwarp drive, reducing the speed of the excelcior. Perhaps.

Or refer to point 2 in my previous post.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lee:
One FX shot that's alwats bothered me - the Excelsior chasing the Enterprise out of spacedock in ST3. When the Transwarp computer fails because of Scotty's sabotage, the ship visibly slows down to a near-standstil (realtive to Spacedock). But the ship obviously wasn't at warp; was it at Transwarp? If at impulse it'd have retained the motion, and I'm sure Scotty specifically says he removed components from the transwarp computer. . .

It slowed down because Scotty had temporarily transferred his own huge mass to the Excelsior via pre-arranged transporter beaming.
The Excelsior's impulse engines were suddenly overloaded and the ship stalled- it comes to a stop as Spacedock's automatic tractor beams held the disabled ship in position (installed after some engineer saw an aincent movie called "RTOJ" and decided that a collision could be embarassing).

Later, (STV) Scotty cleary had regained all his Neutronium-level mass and the Excelsior is a speedy ship (as it should be without STIII's awful slapstick moment and engine-knock sound effects).
 
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
Ginger's pretty close to what I think is the mark. I think this was hammered out pretty well in the Treknology section some time ago. The Ambassador was the first class to incorporate separate subspace driver coils into the impulse engine assembly. Prior to that, ships used the mass-reducing effects of low-powered subspace fields from the warp engines. So when the Excelsior's warp drive conked out, her apparant mass returned to normal, and her momentum wasn't sufficient yet to shift that bulk at more than a few metres per second. That may have been what inspired them to do what they did with the Ambassador...

As for other matters, in TNG times "full impulse" is limited to .25c for preactical reasons. This is not the functional top sublight speed of starships. If you pull out all the stops, you can run up to .99c if you feel like it, but will later have to compensate for relativistic effects. And a ship moving at nearly 300,000 kilometres per second is gonna do a lot of damage to whatever it runs into. Think cosmic rays, but about several billion times more massive.

At warp, things become even more interesting. If simple impact is what happens, then the ship essentially becomes a giant tachyon. If the subspace bubble somehow prevents physical interaction with sublight objects (which I can't imagine it would), then drop out of warp inside the target. Ick. Alternately, one could use the outlawed phasing cloak to similar effect.Or just pummel a Borg ship until its subspace field collapses (or at least becomes compromised) and have everybody start beaming antimatter inside.

Getting back to realistic tactics, photon (and presumably quantum) torpedoes have warp sustainer engines. Do a warp 9.975 run-up in an Intrepid, drop a passel of torps, veer off, and watch them plow into the Cube at several thousand times light-speed. Hell, even some warp-capable probes would do nicely, due just to velocity and the antimatter they carry to power their microwarp engines.

--Jonah
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Combining the Excelsior stalling thing with the ENT backstage technobabble, I'd say that ships from the pre-Ambassador era manipulated their inertia with a combo of the warp engines and the blue glowing "field stabilizer" thingamabob that appears on basically all pre-ENT, ENT and TFS designs (although not on the TOS era ones).

Post-Ambassador designs would move the blue doohickey into the impulse engines themselves, and make it independent of externally created warp fields. This would come at an extra cost: why install dedicated subspace coils for the impulse drive if warp coils already exist for the trick? Thus, only the biggest of the modern ships would rely on this tech, while something like the Defiant shuttlecraft would still use the cheaper alternative.

TOS era ships might have tried another expensive alternate method, which was abandoned by the time of TMP.

Whether the different types of starship would have different ramming properties... It probably depends on whether "integrated" and "warp field tapping" inertia manipulation effects collapse differently when the ship flattens itself against the Cube.

As for maximum impulse speed and related ramming energy, I don't think either 0.25c or 0.99c would be a relevant figure when a starship rams a Cube from a relative standstill across a range of just a few hundred or at most thousand klicks. Even at ten thousand gees, ten times the supposed Ambassador performance, it'd take about an hour to accelerate to 0.99c if Einstein was asleep, and the better part of a working day if General Relativity was vigilant. Assuming my math isn't too badly affected by my lack of sleep and concentration.

Still, something must be negating the inertia of starships or torpedoes if they can't dent the Cube with kinetic energy alone. We can always argue that shields deflect/absorb/turn-into-sperm-whales-and-petunias kinetic energy better than they do phaser energy or photon torpedo explosive energy, though. Perhaps even the fastest and most massive bullet can't deliver the correct type of joules to the target, and thus won't make the desired dent.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
It's interesting that there's a discussion of warp-ramming in a thread started by BOBW part 2 and no-one has mentioned that Riker apparently plans to do just that at the end of said episode.

(Okay, you could technically argue that he wanted warp "power", rather than warp "speed". But that seems to be stretching things.)
 
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
I thought he just said "ramming speed", later repeated by Worf in FC...
 
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Regardless, they were at a dead stop relative to the cube AND being held by a tractor beam. They may have tried warp acceleration to ram it and shake off the beam, but I think that Riker would have been just as happy trying to explode that close and cause some damage.

Mark
 
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
He ordered The Boy to set a collision course and to prepare to go to warp on his order. I don't think they were being held by a tractor beam at the time either. The cube was in Earth orbit and the Enterprise was in pursuit... but I don't remember tham being in a tractor beam at that point.

I think Worf on the Defiant just said, "Prepare for ramming speed!!!" After which he was informed dat his ship be aw broke. Shortly afterwards, the Borg cube tried to lock a tractor beam on the ship, but was denied the opportunity by the Enterprise E
 
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Nope, a tractor beam was most certainly on the E-D at the time. When Data sent over the "sleep" command, I quite clearly rembember the VFX shot of the tractor and cutting beams disengaging at different times.

As for the Defiant, Work just barely utters his command before Helm Boy reports another starship coming in. It's the Enterprise! Cut to the exterior VFX of the Borg tractor starting to lock on before photon torpedoes from the E-E destroy the emission point, followed by the new ship sailing by.

Mark <-- good memory of cool VFX shots
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
The Borg were trying to lock on a tractor beam at that point, but I don't know if they had succeeded. There was a definite countdown of some kind going on though (possibly the shields beginning to fail) that caused Riker to tell Data that they couldn't hold on any longer.
 
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Right... I think the Borg were *trying* to lock on... but hadn't yet. And, yes, thinking back, the reason they had to hurry was because they were under attack, not because Earth was about to be attacked.
 
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
Was just on Spike TV today. The Borg had them in a tractor beam, and their cutting beam was about to reach Main Engineering. That was the countdown. Riker ordered Wes to set a collision course, and called down to Engineering to tell Geordi to stand by to go to warp power.

Got to dig the graveyard scene all over again...

--Jonah
 
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
Here's some info and thoughts on warp ramming that I composed back in July '05:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWwarpram.html

Might provide more fodder for the discussion.
 
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
 
A bit of necrothread casting but (AND I KNOW i asked about this long ago, just don't recall when) where are the filming miniatures for BOBW now? who has them? Is the Kyushu still hanging from threads in a office somewhere?

is it even possible to find out?
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
With the exceptions of the Ambassador and Nebula, none of the BOBW ships were sold at auction- none of the kitbashes went.
None of the DS9 bashes either except the Yeager.

I was hoping hor good reference shots for some of those ships but they're probably in storage- awaiting Mike Okuda's retierment aution. [Wink]
 
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Vorlon:
The Enterprise went to warp from a standstill right after the shuttle crash-landed in ST5...

"Varp speed NOW..."

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier... it was all a dream sequence. A collective dream of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, brought about due to Spock's imbibment of McCoy's "special ingredient" in the beans and possibly the eating of "Marshmelons", Spock cast a mild telepathic field across the three of them and they shared a collective dream.

I don't know which of them were responsible for the naked Uhura fan-dance, though.
 
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
With the exceptions of the Ambassador and Nebula, none of the BOBW ships were sold at auction- none of the kitbashes went.
None of the DS9 bashes either except the Yeager.

The Nebula wasn't sold, all the new photos of it are from the touring exhibition.

You could say the Saratoga was sold, though, since the Reliant model went.
 
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
 

I don't know which of them were responsible for the naked Uhura fan-dance, though.


First, was, not were, and second Kirk. Has to have been Kirk.
 
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
 
Indeed, it must have been Kirk. Everyone knows Kirk had a grandma fetish. Indeed his encounter with the Ferengi and the so-called Moogiegate are required reading at the Academy...
 
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
 
Star Trek Online's take on the ships present at Wolf 359
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12eo88lcqbj0ew3lFyv4bpdXTYmAJuswX/view

Not going to bother to point out the inconsistencies.
 
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 
 -
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
It’s fucking moronic, is what it is. Given we - still? - only know the names of about a dozen ships that were there, and can infer a few more I think, any exercise in naming them all becomes very subjective. But this particular example is just stupid. The Akira-class prototype USS Kaneda? Was the artist dropped on his head as a child?
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
(Also quite amusing to read back through this thread nearly twenty years after its initiation! I wonder what us then would think of everything we’ve seen since, the warp effects in nuTrek with ships slamming out of warp to a complete stop, seemingly appearing from nowhere. Or the Holdo Manoeuvre…)
 
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
I'm no fan of the Niagara or Freedom classes, finding them less than properly consistent with other designs . . . but then I see the Discoverse design inclusions in this and suddenly the Niagara is frickin' beautiful.

The Vesper class toward the upper right doesn't look wholly implausible, from a top view, but the Parliament and Shikahr are pretty goofy. If you start including non-round saucers too early, and then have zero consistency in regards to angle, then the whole concept behind ellipsoid saucers becomes mere fashion choice.

If starship design is purely a function of fashion, with new designs coming out each season emerging from starbase as if strutting down a runway with a blank expression, then there's nothing interesting about starships anymore.
 
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
Honestly, I don't mind the ShiKahr. It looks like a later take on a Miranda, though maybe a little more like VOY-era, rather than mid-TNG.

I'm not a huge fan of the Parliament, but I can definitely imagine it showing up in one of the later TNG films.

The Vesper looks way too Discovery for my tastes.

The Georgiou looks like someone said "what if Centaur, but more".

And the Narendra looks like an attempt at an Ambassador refit, to which I say : if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
If anything, the Narendra looks like they’re trying to canonise the Probert-C design.

Speaking of which - recently on Twitter a user turned up claiming to be Probert (used the handle @the_probert I think)… and proceeded to express the most horrifically repellent views. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, you name it. The account immediately came in for a universally hostile response before either going private or getting deleted. Very odd.
 
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 
Sadly, that would be in line with what I've heard come from Andy Probert's conservatism.

Also, I use the Probert E-C as the Renaissance class. It fit well.
 
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
"If anything, the Narendra looks like they’re trying to canonise the Probert-C design."


Oh, good point. I think you're probably right.

That's too bad about Probert apparently being a piece of shit, but what can you do, I guess?
 
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
 
Probert left the territory of conservatism a long time ago.

https://www.instagram.com/probert_designs/
He's all about chemtrails, conspiracy theories and Trump nowadays.
 
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TSN:

The Georgiou looks like someone said "what if Centaur, but more".

Perfectly put.

As for Probert, I commented on him seven years ago here, but the simple fact is that I wouldn't trust anyone else to design the future.

http://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/11/1665.html
 
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
Ah, that explains why I had this extremely vague feeling that I'd heard about it before.
 
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Don’t remember that at all. But as I get older, it’s incredible how little I do remember. I recently saw a picture of myself from a year or two before that - it’s before I had the beard I’ve had ever since shortlyafter that! - and I’m wearing a top that looks vaguely familiar but which I don’t remember owning but obviously discarded years ago. But it’s the way I feel only a vague sense of recognition but no associate no memories with that strikes me, in a troubling way.
 
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Shik:
 -

Just quoting this because I love Letterkenny and Shoresy. Almost every Colorado Avalanche home game I go to someone is wearing a Shoresy jersey.
 
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hobbes:
quote:
Originally posted by Shik:
 -

Just quoting this because I love Letterkenny and Shoresy. Almost every Colorado Avalanche home game I go to someone is wearing a Shoresy jersey.
I am totally asportsual, but goddamn if I don't have all the feels for this fictional senior Triple-A whaleshit hockey team.

Also, a couple years ago before the spin-off, someone said Keeso should show up at the All-Star Game as Shoresy & EVERY YEAR SINCE I BEEN HOPING....!
 


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