posted
In the preview for next weeks episode, did anyone else see what I saw? The Romulan bird-of-prey cloaked. Ladies and gentlemen (okay, fine, just gentlemen), I present the first true continuity gaffe of Enterprise. "Acquisition" was just a warm-up. I can't imagine a way to get out of this one...
Just to clarify, "Balance of Terror" made is abundantly clear that the cloaking device was brand-spanking new in 2266. It's what gave the Romulans the balls to cross the Neutral Zone. I suspect that in their tremendous effort to figure out ways not to ever see the Romulans, they completely forgot about the cloak timeline.
posted
Only one phrase comes to mind at the moment: son of a bitch.
And upon finding an actual picture of the new Romulan ship over at TrekWeb, I have to say that I like it, although I know its going to cause problems for some.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
So much for the little training cruise... Um, I mean -- So much for paying attention to continuity...
The little Xyrillian trick back in "Unexpected" was sort of excusable because they were a nobody race. But the Romulans? Son of a bitch.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Hey look at Enterprise as not a trek Show but an Alternate Relality of Trek LOL
Maybe Enterprise Takes Place in 2153 (considering the show will last for 7 years and that UFP is made the last year) but thats about 113 years from balance of terror so how can the Romies have a cloak back than unless it was the prototype that was destroyed and they did not retry untill 2266 because of hell i dont know.
[ September 25, 2002, 20:23: Message edited by: Akira ]
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Registered: Jun 2002
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Anyway, do not get me wrong. I'm happy there's a new Romulan ship. I'm happy that it looks similar to the TOS bird of prey instead of being a modified D'Deridex class (although there's little excuse for the ship being the exact same color...). I'm happy it looks more like a Romulan ship than the Valdore does. No, I'm not happy that it can cloak. Nor am I happy that this shows that the Romulans, like the Klingons, are way more technologically advanced than humans, which contradicts previous info. But what really irks me is that apparently, the penchant for using nacelles which look staggeringly similar to Dominion ships' nacelles on a Romulan ship seems to be the norm in these new designs, both 22nd and 24th century-wise.
All that said, I still like the ship.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Dukhat: those are my sentiments about the Romulan ship as well. The nacelles bug me, and the cloaking ability has me smacking my head. As long as she doesn't have a plasma ball weapon, I'll be okay. I wonder if there's a big bird drawn on the underside?
The only way this cloaking device will work with continuity is if it's a prototype that works like crap for short periods of time. A horrible disaster results from the tests and the entire project is mothballed. Even then, that's stretching belief a little. And I don't remember the dialog from "Balance of Terror," so I may have broken believability.
-------------------- 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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posted
Okay, dialogue analysis time. Who has the goodies?
I guess the cloak could be an old invention in "Balance of Terror", and the Romulans simply were smart enough not to be caught using it until "BoT". After all, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence when we're talking about invisibility devices - one could even say it's exactly the opposite!
If the Romulans themselves in "BoT" actually mention that this is a new invention, then we can blame the Romulan tradition of secrecy and backstabbing: the crew was simply fed disinformation about their mission.
posted
My mother as she watched the preview said, "God Damn It!"
Anyway, let's examine the evidence for the ships of this era. The "Balance of Terror" and "A Piece of the Action" gives us a few data points. If I wrong in any of these points, please feel free to correct me.
From "Balance of Terror" *Ships of this era were primitive by the standards of 2260's Starfleet. *Ships of this era employed nuclear weapons. *Romulan ships didn't have cloaking devices. The ship, given the name Gal Gaththong in the Decipher Card Games, seen in "Balance of Terror" was a prototype ship for the cloaking device. This was the flagship of the Romulan Fleet. *Ships of this era didn't have subspace radio. They had normal radio.
From "A Piece of the Action" *Ships didn't have transporters. Crews had to land on planets. Captain Kirk had a difficult time explaining this fact to the leader of the Northern District on Sigma Iotia 4.
These facts have been contradicted by "Enterprise".
However, we are given an escape clause. In the episode "Shockwave", Daniels says in his timeline the colonists of the mining colony weren't dead. In the conclusion to the story, the colonists were still dead. This is an alternate timeline.
Registered: Sep 2002
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1) "Atomic" instead of "nuclear" weapons. Asimov's atomic weapons in Foundation weren't fission bombs - they were handheld or ship-mounted energy weapons which he later described as microwave guns. Heck, an A-bomb is supposed to be the easiest way to power an energy weapon in much of sci-fi. Perhaps the phase cannon is an atomic weapon!
2) Exact dialogue in "BoT" would be needed to confirm that the ship was a prototype for the cloak. She was "the Praetor's finest", but probably not a flagship of any sort (think USN Sea Shadow, a tech testbed that certainly could be called "the finest" yet certainly wouldn't be a centrally important combatant for the USN). For all we know, she was sent out to die in a move of political chess - somebody somewhere deemed the time right for revealing to the Feds that the Romulans possessed this frightening cloaking device, a fact that had been kept hidden for the past 100 (or 3000?) years.
3) A subspace radio was in fact CONFIRMED to exist in "Balance of Terror", as this was the means by which the old treaty was negotiated. No mention was made whether this system was deployed aboard starships. ENT has now shown that it was.
posted
Bear in mind that everything we know about Romulan history from BoT is limited to what the crew of the Enterprise knew. It's entirely possible that the Feds' information was inaccurat/incomplete. The Romulans could have other stuff in 2152, as long as no-one on the ENT sees it. We already know they can't see the Romulans themselves.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by newark: My mother as she watched the preview said, "God Damn It!"
Now, I'm tempted to fake Lee's accent and go on some sort of slithery attack about it being too late, and she having defied the odds and bred, and so on and so forth. But that's just plain mean, and even the Ferengi wouldn't insult someone else's mother.
I am curious, however. If after thirty seconds of footage your mother was infuriated to that degree, how angry would she be if she knew that during the thirty seconds you guys sat on your butts complaining about a TV show that 15 children died of hunger?
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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