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[QUOTE]Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Nim: [qb] I like the original Constitution design, don't get me wrong. But when I look at a ship, I also take in what I've seen it do so far. TOS phasers and torpedoes, when used, are more often than not met with the response "no effect, captain". Sure, a lot of the time the target is an omnipotent or indestructible object, but it still makes the ship feel toothless in the current scenario. It's usually a narrative setup for a peaceful or tricky resolution, but there you go.[/qb][/QUOTE]I disagree completely. For one thing, you're talking about on-screen visual and audio effects, which were determined by production technology of the time and the writers' concepts of what made sense in space. Their idea of what looked cool was vastly different from today. In TOS, operations were designed to mimic the real world; the CO gives a command, the bridge officer relays it, the officer in the weapons room receives it, and the gun crew fires. This was much slower than modern Trek's "Mister Worf, fire." (beep, boom!) But that's the point. Warships (and starships) can only be judged directly by the foes they were designed to conceivably face (that is, Klingons, Romulans, Tholians, etc...) And even then, there was less space combat than you imply, and a lot less of the "no effect" results than you think: Season 1: "Balance of Terror," "Arena," and "Errand of Mercy." In BoT they couldn't get a clear shot because of the cloak, in Arena the enemy was merely harrying from a distance trading hits, and in EoM the Enterprise wiped the floor with the Klingons despite being caught off guard. Season 2: "The Doomsday Machine" doesn't count; any Federation ship we've seen up through Voyager would've had the same effect. In "Journey to Babel" they again couldn't get a clear shot because the Orion ship was so fast. (Imagine a PT boat versus a battleship. CIWS hadn't been imagined as such yet.) In "The Deadly Years" the Enterprise didn't fire back once, first because of the incompetent commodore, second because Kirk just wanted to escape. And "The Ultimate Computer" mixed training and real weapons so it wouldn't be a reliable comparison. The only real combat in season 3 was "The Tholian Web," but again, the Enterprise was trying to avoid a direct fight. When the gloves came off, the Enterprise blew the crap out of the Tholian ship. After that, they stayed out of range while the Enterprise was forced to remain stationary to recover Kirk. In pretty much every case, there's various explanations for why the Enterprise didn't make solid hits at first. But when they did, they were clearly superior. Not every battle has to be to the death. (After all, even the Monitor-Virginia battle was a draw that ended at sunset.) There are all sorts of circumstances unique to each battle that make things different. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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