posted
Seemed to me like just an excuse to use Borg stuff because B&B love it so. So many self referential bits I felt I was watching Monty Python's "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink" sketch.
As to the tech; okay, so what's the Borg drone's power source? Do drones tap into subspace? Two aliens get Borgified and now that can materialize complex matter out of thin air? What's the power source? This stuff gets too close to "magic" for my taste. I can sorta buy drones from a Borg ship having that kind of power, as they charge up in those cubbys, but the guys on the Enterprise? Woulda been nice if we saw these new drones tapping into the ship's power or something to charge up.
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posted
Good question. Perhaps goes to explain why the Drones went down so easily? Their shielding might have been of superb late 24th century standard, but it was running on minimal power...
Random comments:
I think Futurama Guy got it exactly right by calling the Enterprise a scout. That's what fast ships ought to do - check out the obvious targets and decide whether to send a research team there at warp 1.8 or not. Using the scout to do the research would be just as stupid as sneing the research team out there for a three-year journey when it wasn't certain whether there would be anything interesting there...
As for the E-E not spotting the debris, dialogue indicates the sensors were down. To assess damage to the launch site of the Phoenix, they had to send an away team. Later on, they had priorities other than sensor repairs... Probably the Sphere fragments were simply buried in ice for a century.
It's still very odd that an arctic research team would have a starship. It's much like Cousteau operating from an aircraft carrier - not merely overkill, but also profoundly pointless. What good would warp drive do them?
Perhaps the team had the ship standing by in order to spirit the findings off Earth ASAP, to hide them from somebody. The Vulcans, perhaps?
It didn't sound as if the Arctic base was a permanent Starfleet or commercial starport, right?
quote:Originally posted by Timo: As for the E-E not spotting the debris, dialogue indicates the sensors were down. To assess damage to the launch site of the Phoenix, they had to send an away team. Later on, they had priorities other than sensor repairs... Probably the Sphere fragments were simply buried in ice for a century.
It's still very odd that an arctic research team would have a starship. It's much like Cousteau operating from an aircraft carrier - not merely overkill, but also profoundly pointless. What good would warp drive do them?
Perhaps the team had the ship standing by in order to spirit the findings off Earth ASAP, to hide them from somebody. The Vulcans, perhaps?
It didn't sound as if the Arctic base was a permanent Starfleet or commercial starport, right?
IIRC in FC, the sensors being down was also mentioned as the reason why or how or when the Borg got on board the E-E...
As far as the warp ship...it was classified as a 'transport' and it did appear to have 'skis', so perhaps it may be overkill, or to answer your other question, the base (camp) was temporary and did contain some elaborate elements (i.e. a tracked snow plow, and many tents and equiptment) and it may have been enlisted to transport the components (both thiers and what was recovered) from the arctic to, say, San Fran or even to Vulcan...so there is a plausable explaination for the need of such a ship. Warp drive may have been overkill...but maybe SF is just 'warp happy' once they got it...
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posted
Warp 1.4 is somewhere between 2 and 8 times the speed of light. Given its size and landing equipment, I'm guessing that it probably isn't meant for true interstellar transportation. It's reasonable that low-warp ships could be used for jaunts out to places like the Oort cloud, possible extrasolar planets/bodies, long-range comets, and other anomalies not too far away from Earth. Who knows? Maybe low-warp engines are advanced to the point that they can be equipped on smaller vessels with relative ease - anything above warp 2 may be the problem.
posted
Some people may disagree, but "low warp" is also useful for interplanetary travel...
I've also had a few theories about the speed of assimilation and the reactions of the drones:
-- Perhaps those two original drones were "running low" on nanoprobes, and only injected a few compared to a huge dose that was given in FC, where there were a lot more available.
-- Anyone notice that after the drones that boarded the NX-01 during the last fight adapted their shields, Archer and Reed still managed to shoot down a few? I speculate that the drones that boarded the ship were either "tactical"-based drones, with different implants, or possibly they were the first victims assimilated, and thus had the most time for the implants (including shield generator) to take hold.
Overall, although there were a few holes, I do think that they can still be explained, considering that the two original drones started with literally nothing but the armor on their backs, so to speak. They were probably debilitated from the long sleep... not to mention that they had no Collective to link to other than the one they formed by assimilating others.
At any rate, I definitely agree with Michael T.... I got the feeling that the Borg were a real, true threat here, like they were in TNG. Of course, these were drones from the movie, and so they were Next Generation Borg, not Voyager Borg.
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I'm sure warp has uses within solar systems. I'm less sure the arctic survey team had any business moving about within solar systems, though... And I'd still hesitate calling warp 1.4 "slower than 8c", given how nicely warp 2 moves ships between stars in TOS and VOY.
posted
Well, it's probably a good bet that the survey ship wasn't intended specifically for the Arctic... it's possible it was just requisitioned for that mission, and is used by the United Earth Science Council for any kind of operation in the Sol System.
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...Indeed, the whole Borg incident will probably be covered up because the team leader misused his authority and connections in requisitioning a warpship for a dirtbound mission, with the intention of taking his girlfriend for a quick spin around Venus. Other influential members of the FTL Club will make sure that no record of the incident survives.
posted
After due consideration, I came up with this observation. These wern't the Borg. WHAT? you say? Simple, the Borg are a civilazation. These Cybernetic hybreds had come from the Borg, but they only had their own 20-30 group mind, had no real history or plan, and still had 22nd century technology to use. They didn't have access to the technical information of the 24th century.
In Voyager's time, if a borg is hit by a fasor, they say "oh look, a fasor hit us this way, this adaptation is called for" and poof, effective shields.
In NX-01's time, those junior borg said "that's some sort of energy weapon, lets try this defense.... okay, that didn't work.... lets try this defense... okay, two more down.... try THIS... and poof, effective shields.
Ditto with the borg technology that modified Voyager, compaired to the borg technology that modified the NX-01. Tripp probobly knew all the parts, he had just never seen them re-connected in that way.
Oh and, I got the impression that Phlox's cure was a heavy dose of radiation, which had then had to cure... and may have been physiologically uniquely adapted for. On the Enterprise-E, they probobly had the nanoprobes specifically set to change humans.
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quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Well, it's probably a good bet that the survey ship wasn't intended specifically for the Arctic... it's possible it was just requisitioned for that mission, and is used by the United Earth Science Council for any kind of operation in the Sol System.
For that matter, maybe these guys were the crack reserach team in known space, working out of Vega Colony. When some arctic earthquake exposed Borg stuff, they were called back to Earth for the investigation aboard their warp transport.
quote:Originally posted by TheWoozle: After due consideration, I came up with this observation. These wern't the Borg. WHAT? you say? Simple, the Borg are a civilazation. These Cybernetic hybreds had come from the Borg, but they only had their own 20-30 group mind, had no real history or plan, and still had 22nd century technology to use. They didn't have access to the technical information of the 24th century.
In Voyager's time, if a borg is hit by a fasor, they say "oh look, a fasor hit us this way, this adaptation is called for" and poof, effective shields.
...or they were linked into the Uni-Mind from NX-01's time and the Colective was just 200 years less advanced so adaptation was slower.
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quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Anyone notice that after the drones that boarded the NX-01 during the last fight adapted their shields, Archer and Reed still managed to shoot down a few? I speculate that the drones that boarded the ship were either "tactical"-based drones, with different implants, or possibly they were the first victims assimilated, and thus had the most time for the implants (including shield generator) to take hold.
I thought it was because Reed's and Archer's pistols had been modified to up their power, while the guys back on the ship still had standard-output weapons.
To my very great and delighted astonishment, this was an AWESOME episode! I didn't expect it to come off anywhere near as well as it did. The "look," (very X-Files at the beginning and then so grim and frantic towards the end) the acting, the pace, and the story (which I consider to be quite a clever one and a fitting conclusion to the "Borg arc") were in near-perfect balance. This is the best one since "Future Tense" and "Cease Fire."
posted
^ I agree, however, if this Enterprise actually happened before TOS as it kind of is intended to be, the Borg would have been a whole lot more "Q Who?"-ish and well, X-Files kind of scary. However, watching the show, and the guy standing over the Borg watching the display with nil lifesigns, you just knew what was going to happen...so in watching it you wouldn't have been as 'jumpy' as if this really was the first Borg episode as this is half-intended to be...
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I agree. I liked this episode. Good pacing (althought the resolution at the end was a bit quick), good music, and scary Borg.
But that 'transport' is a bit of a mystery. Judging by their uniforms, the scientists were not with Starfleet. It seems as if Starfleet took control of whatever original mission these Arctic scientists were on after the debris was spotted. That might also explain how the scientists got their hands on a brand new phase rifle. But that doesn't explain why they need a warpship.
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posted
Well, if they're the kind of scientists that regularly whizz back and forth across the solar system, a warp-capable transport would cut their average ETE down from Grand Expedition to Field Trip.
[ May 09, 2003, 06:57 AM: Message edited by: Cartmaniac ]
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