quote:Originally posted by Masao: Wraith: I was debating about how much intra-atmospheric capability to give the ships. But, I finally decided that having warp-drive ships swimming around in the thick soup of the atmosphere would be wasteful of their capabilities. Also a big reactor powerful enough for warp and the large nacelle would be sort of heavy to be lugging around. So, one of these days I'll have to design a specialized dropship/ground attack ship to use in the air. I based the size on that of modern-day fighters, like the F-15. Anything much larger and the crewman looked like ants standing next to the ship.
Ok; good arguements there; also i just had a thought; I wonder what'd happen with a warp core breach in an atmosphere? ouch!! Look forward to the dropship/ground attack vessel.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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Only, and I have not read every page of the Starfleet Museum, but; The Romulan War (as described there) does not seem to have involved much ground combat at all, if any.
Being able to fly around in the air and in space strikes me as being nothing but a liability, to be avoided if possible. To create a craft that can do both you have to compromise on both ends. Consider the space shuttle, which is fine (if expensive) for getting things into orbit, but which is not all the spacecraft it could be, nor is the most manuverable airplane ever constructed. This may not be a problem once you've got antigravs and super-forcefields, but neither of those things seem to be much beyond the concept stage in Masao's universe.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I avoided ground combat in the Romulan war because Humans supposedly had never seen a Romulan before 2260s. To have ground combat, but still maintain that Humans had no idea who Romulans were until the 2260s requires Braga-like contortions ("They were wearing helmets!" "We forgot to ask!") and a huge suspension of disbelief. Even little bits of tissue remaining after orbital bomardment would give Earth scientists some clue to the identity of the Romulans.
I've tried not to fall back to much on "exotic" technologies like antigrav. While they undoubtedly exist in pre-TOS, they sometimes make ship design too easy by allowing any sort of ship to be used in any way (like having half million ton spaceships land on a planet). Too much like magic.
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Registered: Oct 1999
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Actually, that idea about a fighter that's designed for both atmosphere and space is a pretty good idea. A non-Trek example would be B5 -- those Starfuries were obviously made to be space-only with those amazing multi-vector thrusters, while the pirate groups that abounded in the first season all used those old delta-winged design that were supposed to be an air-space fighter. When the two ships met, the Starfuries had the advantage because of their much better in-space maneuverability and the weakness of the raiders' wings (which were basically useless in space, and basically hull projections that were just asking to be fragged).
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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"They were wearing helmets!"
"We forgot to ask!"
LOL...
happened with the Ferengi too...
yeah, there probably can't be any ground combat in the Romulan wars.. i see it as a space territorial problem only anyway, and humans probably didnt have any colonies or outposts at that point anyway.. the whole premise is that, in ENTERPRISE time there was nothing out there from Earth yet, we were stil lcharting. so obviously we would have no planet surfaces to fight for. and the Roms probably didnt either, to make an assumption that simplifies the situation. just ships bouncing off each other and creating the boundary where the neutral zone ends up.
Registered: Sep 2001
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Oh we definately had colonies at that point in time... Whether we had colonies that were attacked is a matter of debate.
What more than likely happened is that the Romulans were attempting to expand their empire and all they found was Earth colonized worlds. Which means that the entire war was Romulans blowing up Earth populations and moving in until. Earth ships move into the area and bomb the Romulans back off while pushing back their military forces to the Neutral Zone.
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
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still, its easier to satisfy the 'we never saw them' requirement if the war was entirely fought in space.
waitaminnit! didnt balance of terror use the phrase 'entirely fought in space'? check your scripts and tapes, people.. the answer is there!
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