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Star Trek: Alpha to Delta Quadrants & Everything In Between

Mousse

Mousse

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Flea Bottom, King's Landing
Blue Quark said:
Now, since the subject of Star Trek II is suddenly thrust upon us, I have a fair few criticisms of that movie. Bear in mind, I grew up with Star Trek II and still think it's the best of the ST movies thus far produced. I was so obsessed with that movie as a kid that I learned the dialog verbatim. I can still quote it 30 years later. But anyhow, I digress.

First Criticism: The People In Charge Are To A Fault Small-Minded

Star Fleet is established as being a massive, multi-species, multi-system organization which is a part of the United Federation of Planets. For such a truly massive entity, they have so very very very few ships, and they're not well deployed. Realistically, Star Fleet ought to be portrayed as having tens- or even hundreds of thousands of ships. No, not all of them would be Constitution Class or Constitution-Refit Class, but without a doubt there should be a lot of those, too.
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Star Fleet, though multi-species, is a human organization. It became the militant arm of the Federation because the rest of aliens understood how warmongering Humans are so left most of the fighting to them. It's like how most of the free world leave the fighting to America.
By Picard's time, Star Fleet probably did have hundred of thousands of ships and at least several thousand combat vessel. They sure lost enough of them fighting the Dominion and Borg.😒
Blue Quark said:
To say that Enterprise "is the only ship in the quadrant" is completely idiotic. The writers obviously have no concept of what a "quadrant" actually is, or what the term clearly should imply.
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The fault lies with the meaning of quadrant in this context. They're talking about a quarter of a sector. The galaxy is divided into hundred of thousands of sectors, each containing 6 to 8 star systems. A quadrant has 1 to 3 star system. Since the Federation was mostly at peace at the time, having only one ship in a relatively quiet quadrant of a relatively quiet sector is not far fetched.
Blue Quark said:
Second Criticism: The Under-Realized Potential of Opportunism *and* Geography

In the run-up to what would have been Reliant's original mission, Star Fleet composed a list of potential candidate systems for the Genesis Phase 3 test, one of which included the Ceti Alpha system. In any organization of the type and nature of Star Fleet (for example, the U.S. Navy, or the British Royal Navy, etc.) activities of any significance get seen by, and often probably have to be approved by, security and/or intelligence-related departments. If we go based solely on what's shown in the movie and what's in the accompanying novel, Khan's re-discovery 15 years earlier and his sentence to Ceti Alpha V are not public knowledge. Likely, they are classified. That means, when the Ceti Alpha system would have been floated as a candidate for the Genesis test, one of two things should have happened. Either it should have been pulled from the list with some or possibly no reason given (in which case Reliant would never have gone there) or someone with a devious bent of mind should have green-lighted it, knowing full well that likely the test would have had the potential of wiping out other occupants in the system. After all, if Genesis was super safe, why not trial it in the Sol or Eridani or Betazed (etc., etc.) systems?
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I agree with this. I blame Kirk for being a swashbuckling man of action who did not file the proper paperwork.😏 By Picard's/Sisko's time, Star Fleet officers spend most of their day recording logs and filing reports.😝

Edit: I'm basing this on Kasidy Yate's complaint to Sisko about the massive number of reports she had to file with Star Fleet. (DS9: The Sound of Her Voice)

KASIDY: Well, my first and hopefully last, mission report for Starfleet Command. You know, when I first agreed to be convoy liaison officer, I thought sure, why not? I know most of the freighter captains in the convoy, should be a piece of cake. I didn't know I'd be making twenty log entries a day and filling out formal reports every night.
Blue Quark said:
Third Criticism: Just How Incompetent Are We To Believe Reliant's Crew Is?

There were star charts of that system. Moreover, it would take a heck of a lot more than one planet exploding to cause Ceti Alpha V to change its orbit *at all*, much less to a significant degree. Moreover, planets don't just explode. That's not a thing. And if somehow CA VI *did* explode, dedicated science vessel U.S.S. Reliant wouldn't have detected anything? Again, we're talking (per Khan's account) 14 years and six months ago. That's not a lot of time for planetary-scale debris to travel. And nobody ever thought to ask "Hey, where's planet six of this system?"? Really? Sorry, but I don't buy it.
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Miranda-class in Kirk's time were destroyer class warships, not science vessels. It's scanners, designed to detect other ships, are not as accurate as an Oberth-class.
In universe, I would say it's because Star Fleet didn't keep meticulous records during Kirk's time. This explains the reason for the massive amount of paper Star Fleet officers have to deal with everyday in Picard's time.😁
Blue Quark said:
Fourth Criticism: Why Don't Ships Have Their Shields Up All The Time?

This is really not a criticism of ST:II so much as it is a criticism of the franchise as a whole. There's a LOT of crap floating around in "empty" space. Everything from stray subatomic particles to asteroids hurtles through space at speeds of at least 15,000 - 30,000 miles per hour. Many things travel significantly faster than that. Beyond that, when you're traveling using warp drive, you're potentially making the situation much worse. There's videos on YouTube which model what happens when you slam something into Earth at near the speed of light. And at super-high velocities, the tiniest of things can cause well beyond catastrophic harm. TL;DR: If you have shields, you d**n-well use them.
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Main shields consumer a lot--A LOT--of power. They do have lower powered, navigational shielding that's always on.
 
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Mousse

Mousse

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Rafterman said:
The curse of 846 episodes written over 50 years by hundreds of different writers.
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Yarp. The biggest inconsistency travel time. In ST:V The Final Frontier, they travel from Earth to the galactic core--the center of the Milky Way--in a week. It would Voyager--one of the fastest ship in Star Fleet a century later--70 years to travel across the galaxy. Enterprise-A would have made the trip in 2 weeks.🙃 It's madden. I understand that it's necessary story telling. Our hero needs to arrive in the nick of time to save the day.😁
Rafterman said:
But to be simpler - it's a TV writing thing. if shields were up all the time, then the captain couldn't dramatically call for raising them. :)
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There is always the old standby: Red Alert! I could never get enough of Riker shouting, "Red Alert!" and proceeding to bark out orders. I also loved it in BSG (1970's series) when they went to battlestations--red light, klaxons, stock footage of warriors rushing around in orderly chaos.😉 It was glorious.😊
 
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Rafterman

Rafterman

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Mousse said:
Yarp. The biggest inconsistency travel time. In ST:V The Final Frontier, they travel from Earth to the galactic core--the center of the Milky Way--in a week. It would Voyager--one of the fastest ship in Star Fleet a century later--70 years to travel across the galaxy. Enterprise-A would have made the trip in 2 weeks.🙃 It's madden. I understand that it's necessary story telling. Our hero needs to arrive in the nick of time to save the day.😁
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How fast is the Enterprise? It travels at the speed of plot.

Old Star Trek joke.
 
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Mousse

Mousse

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Cave Man said:
Well, just watched episodes 1 and 2 of Enterprise last night. I haven't seen them since it was still on air so I have forgotten most of the plot lines. I recall it being a bit less than the other shows, but nonetheless good enough.
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Ah yes. Another episode where Enterprise travels at the speed of plot (shout out to Rafterman). It took NX-01 (215x speed of light max) about a week or two to travel from Earth to Q'onos. That would mean Qo'nos is within 5-9 lightyears of Earth. Both worlds should be on or near the border of the Klingon-Federation neutral zone.😁
latest

According to Star Trek star charts, Earth is at least 80 light years from Qo'nos. It should have taken NX-01 the half the season to transport Klaang back to Qo'nos.😅

According to Picard, first contact with the Klingons was a disaster.
PICARD: Chancellor, there is no starship mission more dangerous than that of first contact. We never know what we will face when we open the door on a new world, how we will be greeted, what exactly the dangers will be. Centuries ago, a disastrous contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war. (TNG: First Contact)

In order to keep to canon: The Klingons should have been upset at Archer and crew for depriving Klaang of an honorable death. To regain his honor, they riturallistically murder😱 Klaang which upsets Archer and crew. They fight. The Klingons have our heroes on the ropes until the Vulcans intervene, negociate the release of NX-01.
 
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Rafterman

Rafterman

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Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks will be crossing over in SNW's 2023 season. LD's Mariner and Boimler (Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid) will reprise live action versions of themselves on Strange New Worlds Season 2.
 
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sjsharksfan12

sjsharksfan12

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After Star Trek Day, my enthusiasm ranks of the series are as follows:

Lower Decks - Talking to Tawny Newsome and seeing the first three episodes of season 3 has made me absolutely love this show

Prodigy - Enjoyed the clip they showed even though I didn't recognize Okona.

Picard - I didn't like Season 2, but I talked with some folks at the convention who had more insider information than I do (twitter mostly) and I just saw the trailer and my mood is slowly becoming positive

Strange New Worlds - Carol Kane is joining the cast. Also nice to see Ortegas have more to do. I liked her character in Season 1 and it seems like, unlike Discovery, the writers are actually embracing the characters they have rather than everything going around a single or 3 characters.

Discovery - Honestly, I miss the first two seasons of the show and if they are close to ending it, I probably wouldn't shed any tears. I don't think being in the 32nd century has worked as well as I hoped.

Movies - News about the movies seems to change monthly and I don't know how much I care. I just got back from seeing Wrath of Khan in the theaters and found out Cinemark is showing Voyage Home next week. I guess I just don't know anything about the Kelvin new movie to make any judgement other than just get it done already.
 
Rafterman

Rafterman

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sjsharksfan12 said:
After Star Trek Day, my enthusiasm ranks of the series are as follows:

Lower Decks - Talking to Tawny Newsome and seeing the first three episodes of season 3 has made me absolutely love this show

Prodigy - Enjoyed the clip they showed even though I didn't recognize Okona.

Picard - I didn't like Season 2, but I talked with some folks at the convention who had more insider information than I do (twitter mostly) and I just saw the trailer and my mood is slowly becoming positive

Strange New Worlds - Carol Kane is joining the cast. Also nice to see Ortegas have more to do. I liked her character in Season 1 and it seems like, unlike Discovery, the writers are actually embracing the characters they have rather than everything going around a single or 3 characters.

Discovery - Honestly, I miss the first two seasons of the show and if they are close to ending it, I probably wouldn't shed any tears. I don't think being in the 32nd century has worked as well as I hoped.

Movies - News about the movies seems to change monthly and I don't know how much I care. I just got back from seeing Wrath of Khan in the theaters and found out Cinemark is showing Voyage Home next week. I guess I just don't know anything about the Kelvin new movie to make any judgement other than just get it done already.
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Lower. Decks and SNW have become my favorites. Though DS9 always has a special place :)
 
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bradl

bradl

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And still nothing on the biggest unclosed chapter in the history of Star Trek...

What the hell happened to Wesley. :p

BL.
 
Rafterman

Rafterman

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sjsharksfan12 said:
Nothing will beat TNG or DS9 for me. I'm just talking about new trek.
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Lower Decks had Quark and Kira on DS9 for shenanigans. There was this quiet scene where Kira walks into her office and watches sadly out the window as the wormhole opens, probably thinking of Sisko. Nice touch, Lower Decks.
 
Rafterman

Rafterman

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STLD has a nice holodeck adventure episode, with a great new plot twist at the end. Plus...
Sulu!
 
M

Mainsail

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I am really enjoying re-watching STE and then listening to Warp 5 podcast with a discussion about each episode. Lots of fun.
 
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