Star Trek: Questions you always wanted answers to
- Thread starter Riceball
- Start date
Riceball
Master Member
Because all a cloak does is make you ship almost completely invisible, you'd still need weapons to actually hurt anybody or anything unless you want to ram everything you want to damage. The problem with that is ramming things generally isn't very good for your ship and I don't think that either hull or shield tech in the Trekverse is good enough for anybody to repeatedly ram things and still come out completely unscathed.
jarroth
Sr Member
Yes you still need weapons, but not as strong as an offensive ship. You sneak up cloaked to a un shielded ship, decloak and fire.
On other hand, i always thought cloaking a ship doesnt fit into the klingon way. As proud warriors it is kinda lame of sneaking up, uncloak, shoot, cloak and hide isnt it?
On other hand, i always thought cloaking a ship doesnt fit into the klingon way. As proud warriors it is kinda lame of sneaking up, uncloak, shoot, cloak and hide isnt it?
SmilingOtter
Master Member
Agreed - it all sprang from ST III, when Kruge & co. were supposed to have been using a stolen Romulan ship. The BOP still has the feather-like panels on it, linking it back to the original Romulan ship in TOS.
That was a big misstep IMO.
That was a big misstep IMO.
Three kettles of fish/cans of worms to address here...
Regarding Romulans: Gawd, I wish these guys had been able to remain the prominent baddies in TOS. I adore "Balance of Terror" and Mark Lenard's Romulan Commander. As many times as I've seen it, I still mist up. But the uniforms and prosthetics were expensive, and someone dropped the Bird-of-Prey model after that episode. I still liked "The Enterprise Incident", and their explanation that Klingons and Romulans had formed an alliance against the Federation to explain using the (repainted) Klingon ship model for the Romulans. I also adhere to the deleted scene from TWOK that established Saavik is half-Romulan (and will always be Kirstie Alley in my headcanon). I liked seeing where their relationship with the Federation was going through the latter movies (coziness between Caithlin Dar and Saint John Talbot, the Romulan ambassador being part of the conspiracy with Admiral Cartwright and General Chang...). I decidedly did not like the novels' explanation of "what went wrong" and led to the Tomed Incident referenced in TNG -- including that version of what the Tomed Incident even was. Weak.
So yeah, I have no explanation as to why over the next half century they developed bumpy-forehead syndrome, fired their tailors, and forgot to take the hangers out of their coats. Got some sweet new ships, though. Although I also fill in their fleet with some help from FASA. Repainted, I love their Winged Defender, Bright One, Whitewind, Gallant Wing, and Nova designs.
The former couple represent some nice stablemates to the later Bird-of-Prey, the Gallant Wing makes a good TMP-era evolution of the TOS Bird-of-Prey into more of a cruiser direction, and the Nova makes a brilliant predecessor to the D'Deridex of TNG.
*****
Regarding Klingons: They were brought in to be a cheaper enemy alien race for TOS. Bronze face paint, bubble wrap belt buckles, and some leftover upholstery fabric were all it took. What confuses me is how the Organian enforced peace was handled. "Errand of Mercy" introduced the Klingons, but every subsequent episode with them showed them as adversarial with the Enterprise -- yet no weapons/gunnery consoles going red-hot. And certainly by the mid-2280s, where Starfleet officer cadets were being taught how to go up against Klingon vessels in combat... Yeah, that ceasefire seems to have vanished at the end of that first episode.
Also, when they finally got a budget with TMP, they developed bumpy-forehead symdrome. I can accept Gene saying that's how he'd always wanted to depict them, but I wish The Powers That Be had gone with his only half joking notion that the Klingons we saw in TOS were the "Southern" Klingons, and these guys were the "Northern" Klingons. Indeed, some of the materials coming out in the late '80s to early '90s involved a power struggle on the Klingon homeworld where the bumpy-foreheads came into ascendency over the smooth-foreheads. I loved seeing Chang in TUC, as that would have been a brilliant way to depict the smooth-foreheads and still have them obviously the same species. I was hoping they'd go with something like that for Kang, Kor, and Koloth on DS9. *sigh* Instead we got the genetic-manipulation/mutation storyline and "we don't discuss it with outsiders". Weak.
*****
Regarding Romulans and Klingons: I find it fascinating how in TOS Romulans were the never-surrender, honor-and-duty types while the Klingons were sneaky opportunists (cloaking devices notwithstanding)... and then that utterly flopped for TNG-plus. There's a lot implicit in TSFS and TVH. Kruge stole a Romulan Bird-of-Prey (bridge layout is more Romulan than Klingon). But in the next film, the Vulcans had retrofitted it with a Klingon bridge. One can take from this that the technology exchange gave Klingons the small scoutship design, but not the cloak. Also, that the Federation had captured and dismantled enough of the Klingon versions to have a bridge handy, while the Romulan stuff was parted out for study. Then, a bit later, Klaa's Bird-of-Prey also had a cloak, and was definitely a Klingon ship. Posibility of the Romulan Ambassador's back-door dealing even then? As he almost certainly was the source of the improved cloaking tech used for Chang's Bird-of-Prey...
*****
Regarding Enterprise: You'll notice I've barely mentioned that show. It suffered from the same sort of identiy problems as Voyager, only worse. It either needed to be a show about the early days of the Federation or about the first Enterprise in Starfleet, but not both. The tech level shown and aliens they were running into... it should have been Robert April on the maiden voyage of NCC-1701 in 2245. Plus, contradictory canon. The Enterprise has demonstrated a suffixed registry is attached to a particular name. Voyager gave us an NX-01-A named Dauntless. Thus, the original NX-01 would have had the same name. Yes, it turned out to be a decoy/trap, but given none of our Academy-trained Starfleet crew said "hey, waitaminit -- NX-01 was the Enterprise! I call shenanigans!", we can presume that Arturis got that detail right. So, given the anachronistic tech and the altered name, I treat Enterprise as a prequel to the JJ-Trek timeline, rather than the Prime Trek timeline. Yes, the finale doesn't work with that supposition, but that's the minority report -- one bit of data versus the entire body of the show to that point. Plus the finale is awful in general, so I ignore it.
*****
tl;dr -- "Bad writing. Next question?"
--Jonah
Regarding Romulans: Gawd, I wish these guys had been able to remain the prominent baddies in TOS. I adore "Balance of Terror" and Mark Lenard's Romulan Commander. As many times as I've seen it, I still mist up. But the uniforms and prosthetics were expensive, and someone dropped the Bird-of-Prey model after that episode. I still liked "The Enterprise Incident", and their explanation that Klingons and Romulans had formed an alliance against the Federation to explain using the (repainted) Klingon ship model for the Romulans. I also adhere to the deleted scene from TWOK that established Saavik is half-Romulan (and will always be Kirstie Alley in my headcanon). I liked seeing where their relationship with the Federation was going through the latter movies (coziness between Caithlin Dar and Saint John Talbot, the Romulan ambassador being part of the conspiracy with Admiral Cartwright and General Chang...). I decidedly did not like the novels' explanation of "what went wrong" and led to the Tomed Incident referenced in TNG -- including that version of what the Tomed Incident even was. Weak.
So yeah, I have no explanation as to why over the next half century they developed bumpy-forehead syndrome, fired their tailors, and forgot to take the hangers out of their coats. Got some sweet new ships, though. Although I also fill in their fleet with some help from FASA. Repainted, I love their Winged Defender, Bright One, Whitewind, Gallant Wing, and Nova designs.
The former couple represent some nice stablemates to the later Bird-of-Prey, the Gallant Wing makes a good TMP-era evolution of the TOS Bird-of-Prey into more of a cruiser direction, and the Nova makes a brilliant predecessor to the D'Deridex of TNG.
*****
Regarding Klingons: They were brought in to be a cheaper enemy alien race for TOS. Bronze face paint, bubble wrap belt buckles, and some leftover upholstery fabric were all it took. What confuses me is how the Organian enforced peace was handled. "Errand of Mercy" introduced the Klingons, but every subsequent episode with them showed them as adversarial with the Enterprise -- yet no weapons/gunnery consoles going red-hot. And certainly by the mid-2280s, where Starfleet officer cadets were being taught how to go up against Klingon vessels in combat... Yeah, that ceasefire seems to have vanished at the end of that first episode.
Also, when they finally got a budget with TMP, they developed bumpy-forehead symdrome. I can accept Gene saying that's how he'd always wanted to depict them, but I wish The Powers That Be had gone with his only half joking notion that the Klingons we saw in TOS were the "Southern" Klingons, and these guys were the "Northern" Klingons. Indeed, some of the materials coming out in the late '80s to early '90s involved a power struggle on the Klingon homeworld where the bumpy-foreheads came into ascendency over the smooth-foreheads. I loved seeing Chang in TUC, as that would have been a brilliant way to depict the smooth-foreheads and still have them obviously the same species. I was hoping they'd go with something like that for Kang, Kor, and Koloth on DS9. *sigh* Instead we got the genetic-manipulation/mutation storyline and "we don't discuss it with outsiders". Weak.
*****
Regarding Romulans and Klingons: I find it fascinating how in TOS Romulans were the never-surrender, honor-and-duty types while the Klingons were sneaky opportunists (cloaking devices notwithstanding)... and then that utterly flopped for TNG-plus. There's a lot implicit in TSFS and TVH. Kruge stole a Romulan Bird-of-Prey (bridge layout is more Romulan than Klingon). But in the next film, the Vulcans had retrofitted it with a Klingon bridge. One can take from this that the technology exchange gave Klingons the small scoutship design, but not the cloak. Also, that the Federation had captured and dismantled enough of the Klingon versions to have a bridge handy, while the Romulan stuff was parted out for study. Then, a bit later, Klaa's Bird-of-Prey also had a cloak, and was definitely a Klingon ship. Posibility of the Romulan Ambassador's back-door dealing even then? As he almost certainly was the source of the improved cloaking tech used for Chang's Bird-of-Prey...
*****
Regarding Enterprise: You'll notice I've barely mentioned that show. It suffered from the same sort of identiy problems as Voyager, only worse. It either needed to be a show about the early days of the Federation or about the first Enterprise in Starfleet, but not both. The tech level shown and aliens they were running into... it should have been Robert April on the maiden voyage of NCC-1701 in 2245. Plus, contradictory canon. The Enterprise has demonstrated a suffixed registry is attached to a particular name. Voyager gave us an NX-01-A named Dauntless. Thus, the original NX-01 would have had the same name. Yes, it turned out to be a decoy/trap, but given none of our Academy-trained Starfleet crew said "hey, waitaminit -- NX-01 was the Enterprise! I call shenanigans!", we can presume that Arturis got that detail right. So, given the anachronistic tech and the altered name, I treat Enterprise as a prequel to the JJ-Trek timeline, rather than the Prime Trek timeline. Yes, the finale doesn't work with that supposition, but that's the minority report -- one bit of data versus the entire body of the show to that point. Plus the finale is awful in general, so I ignore it.
*****
tl;dr -- "Bad writing. Next question?"
--Jonah
Follow on thought: None of the Romulans prior to TNG had bowl cuts. More like Roman haircuts for the men, since they had the whole Roman Empire/Legion theme going...
They didn't have those awful "hair-don'ts" until TNG. Ugh.
--Jonah
Riceball
Master Member
This one falls more on the FX team than anything but it's still worth asking, why is is that we never see any ship in Star Trek ever fire from more than one phaser emitter at a time? In TOS they always seemed to rely solely on their forward emitters even though the Enterprise(-A) has been shown to have a port and starboard emitter on the primary hull with some sources saying there were also emitters on the secondary hull as well. However, to be fair to TOS, they seldomly, if ever, engaged more than one opponent at a time so there was no real need to show other emitters in action, esp. when the opponent was always conveniently in front of the Enterprise.
TNG, though, doesn't have the excuse of single opponent that's always in front of them yet, for some reason, the Enterprise, and the Voyager only ever seem to use just one emitter at a time and only on the primary hull, never on the ones shown (by various sources) to be scattered all over the secondary hull as well. They have an opponent to both port and starboard what do they do, do they fire from the emitters on both sides at the same time? No, they fire from emitter at one opponent and then switch to, often using the same emitter, to the other opponent, alternating their attacks. For that matter, when going up against a foe with superior firepower and/or shields, why not fire more than one forward firing phaser at a time, why just the one? You'd think, if one phaser isn't quite cutting it, why not fire more than one thus doing more damage?
On the subject of shields, has anyone else noticed that Federation shields seem to increase in strength as they're damaged? I've noticed that they'll start taking hits which reduce the shields down by 20% or so a hit until they're below 50% at which time subsequent hits only reduce the shield strength by 10% or less.
TNG, though, doesn't have the excuse of single opponent that's always in front of them yet, for some reason, the Enterprise, and the Voyager only ever seem to use just one emitter at a time and only on the primary hull, never on the ones shown (by various sources) to be scattered all over the secondary hull as well. They have an opponent to both port and starboard what do they do, do they fire from the emitters on both sides at the same time? No, they fire from emitter at one opponent and then switch to, often using the same emitter, to the other opponent, alternating their attacks. For that matter, when going up against a foe with superior firepower and/or shields, why not fire more than one forward firing phaser at a time, why just the one? You'd think, if one phaser isn't quite cutting it, why not fire more than one thus doing more damage?
On the subject of shields, has anyone else noticed that Federation shields seem to increase in strength as they're damaged? I've noticed that they'll start taking hits which reduce the shields down by 20% or so a hit until they're below 50% at which time subsequent hits only reduce the shield strength by 10% or less.
SmilingOtter
Master Member
If only they'd used Barclay's method for increasing shield strength what, 300%?
Riceball
Master Member
I take back what I said about Trek, particularly TNG era Trek, never showing Starfleet ships firing from more than one phaser bank at a time and/or from any phaser bank but the one(s) on the primary hull. I just recently watched an episode of Voyager where they showed the Voyager actually firing two simultaneous phaser shots, and of all things from (I think) rear facing emitters and at a pursuing Kazon of all things, not a ship that's directly in front of them or off to the side but actually behind them.
TNG "The Best of Both Worlds" -- trying to break free from the Borg tractor beam (time index 20:36); TNG "Conundrum" -- going through the Lysian perimeter (time index 39:35); DS9 "Sacrifice of Angels" -- as the fleets move in to mix it up (time index 13:01). All Galaxy class, all firing phasers like wow. All on Netflix. You have your homework.
--Jonah
--Jonah
glunark
Sr Member
I was watching wrath of Khan against yesterday, and I noticed in the nebula Kirk gives the order Z miuns 10,000 meters.
Now I know he wants to get below the reliant so the can attack, but that is the diameter of the earth!
Then after going down that far he still manages to get the enterprise up behind the reliant, all with no sensors.
Pretty good hunch knowing where that ship would be, after a blind maneouver of two planet lengths.
Now I know he wants to get below the reliant so the can attack, but that is the diameter of the earth!
Then after going down that far he still manages to get the enterprise up behind the reliant, all with no sensors.
Pretty good hunch knowing where that ship would be, after a blind maneouver of two planet lengths.
Correction. Earth's Diameter is 12.7 million meters. I believe you're thinking in kilometers, which in terms of the diameter of Earth is 12,742 km. Much closer to your original number. 10,000 meters is about 6.2 miles. Far less than 7917.5 miles if it were in Kilometers.
The orders Kirk gave to Sulu was in meters for that bit.
Kirk: Z-Minus 10,000 meters. Stand by photon torpedoes.
Kilometers comes in later during the V'Ger countdown.
Kirk: Distance from Reliant.
Chekov: 4,000 kilometers.
Chekov: 4,000 kilometers.
The movie certainly agrees with you.
YenChih Lin
Master Member
Do I look like a Klingon? I guess their metrics, for example 1 Kelicam = 10 000 km. It's never been stated
Lightning
Master Member
Photon torpedoes make their first appearance in "Arena" 18th episode aired. "Balance of Terror" (14th aired) had phasers that worked like torpedoes, being rigged for proximity blasts like depth charges. They would have been torpedoes if they had come up with the term yet. From "Arena" on, they had their choice of the two.
