posted
I dont agree that the FC ships have ever been done like the Galaxy- all of them match the busy look of the Soverign and Defiant- lots of contrasting hull panels and dark grey tones lit by the nacelles, with very occasional windows peeking out.
Nothing like anything shown prior to that... I'd love to see a Norway rendered with the subtle grey tones and muted hull paneling...not that we ever got a detailed Norway model, but what we have is tans and browns. An odd palate choice for a Feddie ship.
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Yeah but they were never meant to be scrutinized in FC, to the untrained eye they passed for old grey "galaxy era" ships zipping past, contrasting with the splendor of the Sovereign, and not having the standard starship layout so as not to be confused with the Enterprise.
To me a jump from Sovereign to Galaxy isn't that big of a jump, it's like 4 years in Trek. I'd like to see a Saber donned out in 1701-refit shiny ivory rather than the matte non-reflective battleship grey.
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Hmmm...I'd love to see both. Maybe a TOS era Saber (and such designs do sorta exist already, thanks to Masaso).
You know...I'd think such design leaps would be more the norm than the exception once you consider that the Federation only accpts members with warp capibilities. All those worlds have to be bringing their own design ethic and technology to the mix of possibilities Starfleet ship designers have to choose from.
It could be that the FC designs represent the best blending of design ethic from new member species. Or that those designs were in serveice for quite a while but serve in regions of the Federation dominated by species to which the ships are familliar, said ships having been re-assigned to fill the gaps in defense wrought by the Borg and again during the massive losses to the Dominion.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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According to Jaeger the reason for the FC designs was the one I mentioned, but I would absolutely think that the Federation Bureau of Ships would be open for all member planets, and the melting pot principle would guarantee against stagnation and tunnel vision (Defiant and Prometheus being good examples).
Personally I have a hard time with TOSifications, not just because of the lawbound aesthetic limitations, but because of the underpowered, frail impression onscreen Fed ships of TOS gave me. To me, the Galaxy class feels like a Nimitz carrier, and the Excelsior and Miranda able battleships (because of onscreen action), which makes the TOS Connie and Daedalus the Monitor and Merrimack. I love the show but the ship felt like it was made of eggshells.
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quote:Originally posted by Nim: To me, the Galaxy class feels like a Nimitz carrier, and the Excelsior and Miranda able battleships (because of onscreen action), which makes the TOS Connie and Daedalus the Monitor and Merrimack. I love the show but the ship felt like it was made of eggshells.
Ah, but you're forgetting that the Monitor and the Virginia were two of the most influential warships of their day. They weren't the most powerful, and they looked damn clunky, but they instantly made all wooden warships obsolete. Looks are less important than effectiveness.
And it's also a matter of opinion as to how those ships look. The Daedalus is as simplistic as possible. But the Constitution.... just because it doesn't have angled nacelle pylons doesn't mean it doesn't look sleek and powerful.
-------------------- “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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I like the original Constitution design, don't get me wrong. But when I look at a ship, I also take in what I've seen it do so far. TOS phasers and torpedoes, when used, are more often than not met with the response "no effect, captain". Sure, a lot of the time the target is an omnipotent or indestructible object, but it still makes the ship feel toothless in the current scenario. It's usually a narrative setup for a peaceful or tricky resolution, but there you go.
Every time you use a weapon in a story, whether it's a novel, a series/movie or a computer game, there is a currency to it, a balance. It can be a punch, a sword/lightsaber swing, a gun, a ship's laser or missile, but there are factors you take in: sound (discharge and/or impact) speed (to target) speed/rate of follow-up shots effect on target/surroundings average accuracy
For example, a loud weapon that is slow to reload and has no real effect on the enemy (klingon attacks on V'Ger, 1701-D barrage on Q) appears cumbersome or underpowered. A weapon that is really fast but has no effect on the enemy (SMGs against Robocop) seems weak on a "per shot" basis.
A weapon accurately used, quick on follow-up shots and that visually affects the target (USS Excelsior on Chang, 1701-E on Borg Cube) seems effective.
A weapon that fires quickly and accurately, makes a confident sound and decimates the enemy (Defiant v First Jem'Hadar, Obi-Wan in Mos Eisley Cantina) appears awesome.
Loud noise, high rate of follow-up attacks but no effect or consequence on enemy (Obi-Wan/Anakin endless fight in ROTS, ALL Kung Fu movies after Bruce Lee and before Tony Jaa, Jango Fett's chittering lasers in AOTC) feel boring, underpowered and annoying.
Low noise, slow follow-up attacks but great effect on surroundings and target (Vader in Cloud City, Macross SDF-1 main gun) looks awesome.
Also, ammo availability affects things. A lone person with one weapon, scarce ammo and good aim makes every shot like a precious gem (latter half of Die Hard, Sniper, No Country for Old Men), but with abundant or unlimited ammo and bad aim (Matrix 2&3, Ultraviolet, Clone Troopers everywhere) the impact is deflated fast.
Tempo is another thing. Movies/shows that have fights which go into auto-mode and can continue while the opponents are talking (all swordfights in Pirates of Caribbean, Insurrection-Son'a ship battle) throws the martial currency out the window. Wake me up when it's over.
That's also why I to this day defend the final confrontation in Nemesis. For all the movie's faults, the battle had intensity, goal-oriented attacks and maneuvers, game-changes with addition of new players, and consequences (oxygen trails, damage). Also, Daniel Craig's bar fight in "Cowboys and Aliens". Clean, neat and sublimely edited.
Anyway, we were talking about TOS ships. Because of the limited FX and drawn-out encounters, all Trek battles felt bumbling to me, up until TWOK. The TOS-movies were great, then TNG got bumbling and slow again, up until "Q Who", IIRC.
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quote:Originally posted by Nim: I like the original Constitution design, don't get me wrong. But when I look at a ship, I also take in what I've seen it do so far. TOS phasers and torpedoes, when used, are more often than not met with the response "no effect, captain". Sure, a lot of the time the target is an omnipotent or indestructible object, but it still makes the ship feel toothless in the current scenario. It's usually a narrative setup for a peaceful or tricky resolution, but there you go.
I disagree completely. For one thing, you're talking about on-screen visual and audio effects, which were determined by production technology of the time and the writers' concepts of what made sense in space. Their idea of what looked cool was vastly different from today.
In TOS, operations were designed to mimic the real world; the CO gives a command, the bridge officer relays it, the officer in the weapons room receives it, and the gun crew fires. This was much slower than modern Trek's "Mister Worf, fire." (beep, boom!) But that's the point.
Warships (and starships) can only be judged directly by the foes they were designed to conceivably face (that is, Klingons, Romulans, Tholians, etc...) And even then, there was less space combat than you imply, and a lot less of the "no effect" results than you think:
Season 1: "Balance of Terror," "Arena," and "Errand of Mercy." In BoT they couldn't get a clear shot because of the cloak, in Arena the enemy was merely harrying from a distance trading hits, and in EoM the Enterprise wiped the floor with the Klingons despite being caught off guard.
Season 2: "The Doomsday Machine" doesn't count; any Federation ship we've seen up through Voyager would've had the same effect. In "Journey to Babel" they again couldn't get a clear shot because the Orion ship was so fast. (Imagine a PT boat versus a battleship. CIWS hadn't been imagined as such yet.) In "The Deadly Years" the Enterprise didn't fire back once, first because of the incompetent commodore, second because Kirk just wanted to escape. And "The Ultimate Computer" mixed training and real weapons so it wouldn't be a reliable comparison.
The only real combat in season 3 was "The Tholian Web," but again, the Enterprise was trying to avoid a direct fight. When the gloves came off, the Enterprise blew the crap out of the Tholian ship. After that, they stayed out of range while the Enterprise was forced to remain stationary to recover Kirk.
In pretty much every case, there's various explanations for why the Enterprise didn't make solid hits at first. But when they did, they were clearly superior. Not every battle has to be to the death. (After all, even the Monitor-Virginia battle was a draw that ended at sunset.) There are all sorts of circumstances unique to each battle that make things different.
-------------------- “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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From a general cinematic POV, I'm in comlpere agreement with Nim. I'll add to his examples the asteroid chase scene in attack Of tthe clones as being the best part of that movie for it's sound effects to destruction ratio- even if the objective was not achieved, the way Slave one's weaponry was presented as casually imprerssive really worked on the big screen (less so on DVD though). As to trek specificly though, it can still be awesome if handled right- back in Balance of Terror we saw ow starship combat would parallell submarine movies beacuse your target would never really be close enough to visually see- not when everyone has weaponry with ranges in the 20,000 km league.
Hell, at such distances, you'd really never be certain that the ship on sensors was ever really where you think it is, as data arriving at lightspeed would not accurately depict an enemy vessel moving at high speeds at such distances- only their heading- and the firing ship would use that to aproximate the enemy's position.
Maybe (dramatic purposes aside) that's why Trek ships still manage to miss so often.
Add to this, the real possibility of FTL torpedos, and you'd have a nightmare of unseen (and undetectable) ordiance zipping into ships during massive fleet engagments... You'd need a Data on every ship's Helm, Tactical and Con to survive. And not just tapping away super fast either- I mean fully plugged in.
Hmmm...a smart post-Nemesis era Klingon or Romulan ship might employ holographic wreckage to appear destroyed (some sort of sensor fooling bouy that projects wereckage) while the ship itself re-positions or retreats. Their enemies would be trusting to preliminary visual data (viewscreen) and sensors for long enough to be suckered.
Aaaaaa...this is why Flare endures.
quote:The only real combat in season 3 was "The Tholian Web," but again, the Enterprise was trying to avoid a direct fight. When the gloves came off, the Enterprise blew the crap out of the Tholian ship. After that, they stayed out of range while the Enterprise was forced to remain stationary to recover Kirk.
This to me points to a much tougher Tholian ship design than is generally given credence. The mighty Enterprise raelly really has to hose a Tholian ship to knock it flipping ass over teakettle....and Tholian ships are ot exactly huge warships either. It's likely they did not send their A-Listers to investigate some assinine "ghost ship". This likely accounts for why no one ever conquored them- cloaks would mean dick once they web in an area -though for practical puposes we'll go with what's shown on Enterprise and not the mind-numblingly long process shown in TOS.
My reasoning for the Tholian's slow web was that it was geared to grab the Intrepid and was something new they were trying (hey, if was Starfleet they'd hose it with the deflector for the same results, taking hours to prepare).
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Minutiaeman: When I watch the individual TOS episodes of course I see the variables and details dictating specific Enterprise encounters and standoffs, and when she gets into a fair fight the she usually performs. The reason I started this "perceived ship might" discussion was not to prove the TOS Enterprise is "bad", but to discuss overall impressions, when talking about what goes into an aesthetic ship look to me.
I associate TOS ship designs with simplicity (crude no 9 grey paint), frailty and long response times in maneuvers, a la sub battles. That doesn't mean I dislike the era, that's neither here nor there.
The 1701-Refit, Miranda and Excelsior is seen taken a shitload of damage without stopping in their tracks or exploding on the spot, and that gives me a feeling of quality, tenacity and potency. The 80's ships (Galaxy, Nebula etc) are good, but I don't feel they stand out as much. Of course the 1701-D is mighty, but the ship is too big and has too many people, responsibilities and functions for me to want to "take it out for a spin". It's a city-ship, Babylon 5-like, not a tight, strapped cruiser like the USS Excelsior, with a manageable crew size and whom I'd love to follow patrolling the neutral zone and getting into scraps with pirates/smugglers and using the ship for all its worth.
An old former colleague of mine served on a mine sweeper in the 1970's, during Sweden's highest level of readiness against the soviets. He had a really cool captain and good memories. I once asked him if he hadn't wanted to have served on a cruiser or larger vessel (I was into warships at the time), but he said "Blech, then you'd probably have an admiral or other higher-up going in and out and keeping tabs on everything, driving everyone nuts". The entire, longer conversation had a great impact on me at the time because up until then I'd only been looking at armament, performance and martial capability in ships, not atmosphere, crew interaction and job descriptions. It made me appreciate and get a taste for the smaller ships that don't get to be in the headlines just as often. That went for Trek too.
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WizArtist II
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posted
I always felt the "D" was flawed in the concept of being the "Family Ship". To me it was the equivalent of having a Nimitz with a rock climbing wall on the island and an elevator that doubled as a pool. Starfleet is a military organization and throughout the Trek history, starships had BAD things happen to them. Why would ANYONE want to bring their spouse and children along when there are a billion horrible ways you might end up watching them die? I understand they were trying to make them seem more advanced than TOS days, but it just was NOT a feasible scenario in my eyes.
The Connies to me were the equivalent of a Nimitz class in today's naval context with their main threats being the D-9 (Kirov equivalent) and the Warbird (Alpha equivalent). Vessels capable of doing in a Nimitz but not in the same caliber. The Galaxy class just never really seemed to be as formidable in comparison to the NeghVar or Super Warbirds. The Sovereign goes back to what I think a Federation starship should be, sleek made to fight and armed to the gills.
The size of the ship doesn't determine the interaction and feel of the crew, the Captain and top officers do. If the Captain is a "By the Book" type, the ship will be uptight and if he's less formal, the crew will be as well.
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quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: I always felt the "D" was flawed in the concept of being the "Family Ship". To me it was the equivalent of having a Nimitz with a rock climbing wall on the island and an elevator that doubled as a pool. Starfleet is a military organization and throughout the Trek history, starships had BAD things happen to them. Why would ANYONE want to bring their spouse and children along when there are a billion horrible ways you might end up watching them die?
From what I've gathered, watching episodes that actually show families as more than extras running to and fro, the point of serving on an exploration vessel is that a career reputation can be made discovering new things and between 150 member worlds and all the knowledge gained from federation allies, everything that can be discovered within the vast Federation has already been done to death.
So, if you're a botanist for example, anything you might hope to contribute has to be by being the very first at something new and undiscovered. Monetary desires are all a moot point so what else are they gonna do to fulfill themselves?
The Federation is always shown as being this noble and upright (if a bit uptight) society where people shun thrillseeking or addictions, and to me, that only leaves exploration as a viable means of escaping mind-crushing boredom.
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I've said this before in a post somewhere ages ago. The mission from Farpoint probably to the end of season 1 was about going where no one has gone before - they were on the edge of the federation and heading out. So bringing along families made sense, especially if they were going to have a 10 year mission etc. What seemed to happen though, was from around "Conspiracy" The Big E was brought quite right back to Earth, which was - as mentioned, quite unusual. From then on the Enterprise seemed to do a lot more 'Federation-based' work, only sometimes getting out to the edges and never really anything WAY out.
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posted
Aah, "Conspiracy". Can't go wrong with civil servant facemelt. Wish they'd saved that set of director balls and taken them out again from time to time. It never got as Twilight-Zony as that again.
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quote:Originally posted by Nim: Aah, "Conspiracy". Can't go wrong with civil servant facemelt. Wish they'd saved that set of director balls and taken them out again from time to time. It never got as Twilight-Zony as that again.
Funny you sould mention that- I checked out babylon 5's third season from my local library and there's an episode with alien parasyie things EXACTLY like the bluegill" thingies only larger...and good (somehow). It really brough how how much better some TNG could be with even marginally better effects.
As to the Gakaxy's missions, they did still get "oyt there" occasionally to places like tthe Typon Expanse but I think that, sometime around season three the Enterprise gets her "Flagship" designation bestowed on her and the "show the flag" missions become more minstay over exploration.
The "done in one" formula of TOS was slowly giving way to more complex story arcs over several episodes, leading to DS9. And sadly, they went back to the sindication friendly formula for Voyager, making it atruly bad show.
If ever there needed to be an ongoing story, with no reset button, it was there.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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