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15 Years Ago - Wolf 359
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: [QB] 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 [/QB][/QUOTE]
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