posted
I suppose as we get more used to the Enterprise universe, things like this will become less necessary. But in the meantime:
-The Pre-E has a crew of 82, though in the context of the story I don't know if that includes T'Pol.
-We see crewmen rank insignia for the first time here, as they were absent in "Broken Bow" (were we see people walking around without insignia of any kind). I didn't get to see a very clear picture, but the crewman pips seem to include a roundish, dark pip, with a set of tiny, slanted metallic bars to the crewman's right (in the same area where the officer's pips are). Keep an eye out for those.
-Name dropping in this epsiode is limited to a reference to a "Y-500" earth ship, obviously a misread of "DY-500". Anyway, they were retired "decades ago".
-It's also mentioned that Travis had known flights through an ion storm at warp two were pretty rough. Sounds like ships prior to the Pre-E can go that fast - or that Travis recently flew the Enterprise through an ion storm at warp two.
-I can't remember a log date for this one, but Trip mentions they were six weeks out. The end of May, I suppose.
-The transporter is used here to rescue a crewman trappen in a storm. The matter stream is contaminated however, and he's brought back with twigs, leaves and stone stuck in him. He lives, but it's not pretty. Ew...
-I'm still trying to figure out how the Pre-E corridor set works. It seems that like previous series, the set is attached to most of the other standing sets. Just where they are is more than a little confusing, however, as the corridor segments are relatively short and they turn only at right angles.
-The episode centres around the Pre-E crew finding an idyllic-looking planet and spending the night there. In the process of exploration, the crew seemed pretty nonchalant abuot the probabilities of contamination and stuff, foregoing a week's worth of scans so they can get down there. This forms the core of the episode, but it still seems wierd that a ship full of explorers would skip over a bunch of sensor scans so they can do stuff up close.
-And when they do land, guess who's first out of the hatch? Porthos! And what does he do? Find the nearest tree and mark it for all puppy kind! Odd, that.
-Equipment nits: look at those flashlights. They're extremely bright, but not very diffuse - they don't light an area at all. Mind you, this may be intentional to preserve the "scary darkness" important to this episode's plot. But it's still funny when you see the actors deliberately shining their flashlights in each other's faces so the cameras can see.
This wasn't a tech-heavy epsiode, but there always seems to be a little bit of stuff to whet tech fans like us. I like.
posted
The Enterprise apparently went through an Ion Storm at the end of "Broken Bow". When Archer said "We can't be afraid of the wind, ensign", Mayweather had just mentioned that an Ion Storm layed in their path.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
The earlier Warp 2 limitation is mentioned in the Bormanis article from the last ST:Magazine, and also in the "Enterprise" bible excerpt. The writer probably meant the same as these sources.
Cochrane's "hundred times faster than we can today" line suggests that 32 years before, humanity traveled at either 2.14c or 1.25c (roughly), depending on which scale is used. The increase from this to Warp 2 shows that the warp five-engine developers made the intermediate engines faster in the meantime.
Though I still wonder how the Valiant could reach the edge of the galaxy at Warp 1...
posted
Anyone else think that this "George Webb" guy Mayweather mentioned is related to the namesake of the restaurant chain? Just an unrelated note...
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I don't know about that. The Vulcans might have started with their homeworld as the basis for developing their Minshara class, but it surely would have been expanded to cover other environments different in ecosystem, atmosphere, and temperature than Vulcan once they established relations with other planets.
The Vulcans have no problem living on Earth which has more vegetation, a higher oxygen rate, and a lower average temperature than planet. We also they've had diplomatic relations with Qonos which is an environment similar to Earth. They surely by now would have elaborated their Minshara definition to include those environments in which a typical (oxygen-breathing, warm-blooded, land-based) humanoid would be able to function adequately.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
posted
Have we ever even heard that Vulcan is definitively Class-M? Maybe Vulcan is a "Class-T" planet, derived from "T'Khasi" (borrowing the native name for Vulcan from the novels, just as an example). Minshara might be the first Earth-type planet they came across in their travels. Hell, it might even be Earth, depending on how far away their star system is!
posted
My thinking is that Minshara is one of the first people to create the planetary classification system, and therefore they decided to name the Earth-like planets after him (shortened to just M-Class). This is similar to how the guy who invented the Periodic Table now has an Element named after him.
Now, since they decided M-Class would be Earth, they probably just went in variations in either direction alphabetically. L-Class would be similar to M-Class, but slightly different. N-Class would also be similar but different, yet would have a seperate difference. A-Class would an extremely unusual planet, just like Z-Class. We already know how weird Y-Class planets are, so this makes sense.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
posted
You have a point, The359. If I remember correctly, an L-class atmosphere is one that has a different inert gas as the most common element in the atmosphere (I want to say Argon, but I'm not for certain) and an N-class atmosphere is essentially a planet with almost 100% water coverage.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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