quote:As far as agreeing with varley's decision, it's pretty easy to armchair quarterback situations that went in favor of your side.
And it's important to note that when faced with similar circumstances, both Picard and Sisko made decisions which seem to support Varley's - if you need to go to war to keep it out of the hands of the Romulans/Dominion, that's what you do. You might argue that one Starfleet captain making this decision was a "reckless moron", I don't see how you can make the arguement against three of 'em.
It's easy to armchair quarterback AGAINST Varley, too.
posted
About all I could add to this, is that if Varley had attempted to off load his people to the Enterprise,it would have placed the Enterprise close to the Yamato with shields down trying to transport as many as possible when the Warp breech let go.At the very least Enterprise would have been heavily damaged if not destroyed.Few if any of the Yamato crew would have been saved.Any shuttle craft or ecape pods would have been destroyed.
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posted
However, the Enterprise was already quite close to the Yamato when she exploded and her shields were down. Transporter range is pretty far (at least as far as they already were), they very easily could have been beaming during the "whats a nice guy like you doing out here" conversation and just upped the shields after the ship exploded, just like they did, as seen on TV.
For that matter, when the Odyssey exploded, Bashirs/Kiras runabout was pretty durn close to Odyssey when she went up and they came out unscathed.
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Mountain Man
Ex-Member
posted
I must have missed the part about the Enterprise shields being down.Doesn't seem like they would have gotten off that light with a Galaxy Class Starships Warp core going off that close.So I guess I'll vote that Varley was a fool after all.Going into the Zone might have been defensible but not letting his crew perish with a rescue ship that close.Of course it's doubtful that there would have been time enough for anyone to have escaped,but the order should still have been given.
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posted
Yeah, the shields were down and we see the white flash and Picards orders shields up then we see crap bouncing off Enterprise (on the viewscreen) they shake a few times and thats it. I agree, you would think if a Galaxy class saucer bounces off the shields of another Galaxy class saucer you would get a little more effect out of it as far as damage to the Enterprise. (And based on all the visual evidence it would appear the the Yamato saucer DID bounce off the Enterprise on the viewscreen).
Also, I'm still not convinced that Varley was a fool, he just didn't make the right decision about beaming his crew off while he ship was little more than a floating live-gernade. He certainly wouldn't have forseen the core breach, because frankly, he didn't even know the MSBlast virus had infected his computer yet and the one minute warning was all he got before his ship decided to reboot or go kaput.
Perhaps after that incident STarfleet decided to persue some sort of rule of offloading nonessential personell in potentially life threatening situations, as was mentioned with the Odyssey.
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quote:As far as agreeing with varley's decision, it's pretty easy to armchair quarterback situations that went in favor of your side.
And it's important to note that when faced with similar circumstances, both Picard and Sisko made decisions which seem to support Varley's - if you need to go to war to keep it out of the hands of the Romulans/Dominion, that's what you do. You might argue that one Starfleet captain making this decision was a "reckless moron", I don't see how you can make the arguement against three of 'em.
It's easy to armchair quarterback AGAINST Varley, too.
Sisko and Picard only took action after the Iconian technology was first revealed: by VARLEY. There is NO mention of the Romulans investigating or even being the least bit curious about any Iconian anything or in the planets in the Zone. The Romulans investigated after a bright shiney Galaxy class battleship violated the Zone and they were right to investigate too. My whole point about Varley being a moron is that if he'd just left the issue alone, the Romulans would have never gotten involved. Even after the episode ended, the Romulans would have had their curiosity peaked and doubtlessly searched every planet in the Zone and in their own territory for Iconian tech (thus Varley GREATLY increased the chances of Romulans getting Iconian tech any way you look at it).
Picard and Sisko were forced into their actions by what Varley did so comapring the three captains is pointless. Picard has shown many times that he'd not risk war on even a good hunch. Remember Picard wouldnt expose the cardassian freighter chock full o' weapons because it could have caused a war. (in The Wounded)
In fact, if Picard did not personally know Varley, he would have given him almost the exact same speach he gave Captain Maxwell.
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
"they very easily could have been beaming..."
Unless the transporters were already FUBAR at that point.
Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:My whole point about Varley being a moron is that if he'd just left the issue alone, the Romulans would have never gotten involved.
You don't know that. Varley may have had reason to believe that the Romulans were close to locating Iconia. It's not unlikely to assume that both sides probe the Neutral Zone on a regular basis - meaning that the non-discovery of Iconia up to that point had been a fluke. Perhaps the archeological dig that Varley saw was being monitored by the Romulans as part of their intelligence network (it makes sense that the Romulans would monitor worlds in the Federation that border the Zone ) - meaning it would've been very possible for Romulan Tal'Shiar to work out what Varley worked out and realize "Oh Crap!" Hell, for all we know, there were Starfleet standing orders to the effect of "We think the Iconians are just myth, but if they're not, drop everything..."
As I said before, if Varley was able to figure out where Iconia was how he did, it is really quite plausible to believe that similar artifacts are located on worlds within Romulan territory, worlds which might have archeological expeditions in progress too. You say "The Romulans would NEVER have found out", but how do you know? You don't. You assume that the clues which led Varley to Iconia are the only clues that exist.
If the Romulans had located Iconia, it would have meant war - a war waged with Iconian technology that the Federation would have lost. Varley made the right decision - better to lose everyone on the Yamato, better even to risk conventional war with the Romulans, then to allow them access to Iconia.
quote: The Romulans investigated after a bright shiney Galaxy class battleship violated the Zone and they were right to investigate too.
Actually, I think there's more to the story than that. The Federation's most powerful class of ship enters the Zone - and the Romulans send ONE warship? A second of the same class enters the zone, and the Romulans send - the same warship, without backup? No, that warbird was already in the Zone for whatever reason - even possibly looking for Iconia.
quote: And based on all the visual evidence it would appear the the Yamato saucer DID bounce off the Enterprise on the viewscreen
Oh? This was not my impression.
Could you be any more accusatory about that?
(I wish I had my DVD set on hand here...but from memory:)
We see Yamato explode, we see saucer (and possible nacelle or other large item) come at Enterprise, we see Enterprise shudder, we see the saucer suddenly fly away from Enterprise. In space it would need to 'bounce off' something to change directions...the Enterprises shields were the only thing to account for that.
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Mountain Man
Ex-Member
posted
This reminds me of a real life incident from WW2.A cruiser in the early days of the war in the pacific war,had been heavily damaged.She was in tow with damage control parties working to put out fires.The decision had to be made whether to heave to and allow most of the crew to board an escort vessel.There was a big posibility of Jap subs still in the area.The crew stayed aboard.A couple of hours later the Magazine blew.Only a handful of the crew survived.Who's to say that the decision to stay was wrong?If they had hove to, that would have put the cruiser towing them dead in the water in an area infested with jap subs.The escort destroyer would likely have been damaged by the blast(the forward turret flew three miles,actually passing over the other cruiser and striking the water ahead of her).Hard to say.
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posted
As I recall, the Yamato's engineering hull exploded, the saucer was cast free and DISINTEGRATED as it approached the Enterprise. I think you're confusing the momentum caused by the explosion with bouncing off Enterprise's shields.
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I think inertia has a lot to do with bad command decisions under the pressure of a ship board emergency.Not being willing to admit that the situation has gotten out of hand.Fatigue and just plain lack of the ability to deal with something that your training can not have prepared you for.Brain lock,thats the term.Something Starfleet academy should have found a way to deal with in command training.
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