Star Trek: Picard (CBS All-Access)

[Seto Kaiba]

On 4/9/2021 at 12:31 AM, kalvasflam said:

All the way up until the point where those fans are dead.

Personally, I think you've got your character sheets backwards my good chap.

The lifelong and die-hard Trekkies are the ones I've seen most dissatisfied with Star Trek's current direction.  They're the ones who walked away en masse when Star Trek: Discovery's first season laid a massive egg and who CBS was trying to entice to come back with the promise of Christopher Pike, Number One, and Spock in season two.  Star Trek: Picard was a further unsuccessful attempt to drag those fans back which met with further ridicule.  Now Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is ViacomCBS's latest try at standing on the fanbase's lawn with a boombox blaring "Baby Come Back".  

 

On 4/9/2021 at 12:31 AM, kalvasflam said:

Seriously, how many millennials gives a crack about Star Trek, most of them would like at Kirk as some chauvinistic pig, and Picard as some old white dude who overstayed his welcome.  Don't get me started on Sisko and Janeway, caricature of good minority and a total Karen based on today's view point.  How many people would actually care.  For the viewers that matter (not us mainly), Star Trek shows are like an attempt to resurrect the dead which needs to be put down.

Y'know, using the word "millennial" makes almost any argument that much harder to take seriously.  Just saying.  It's weird, but there's a strong statistical correlation between the people who complain about millennials and blissful unawareness of the actual problem.

Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are shows very definitely crafted around the wants and needs of the memetic and strictly-imaginary "millennial" viewer.  You know the type I mean.  You can almost see the writer's room is full of doddering old executives and painfully out-of-touch Hollywood writers asking themselves "What do the youth like?", with an incredibly unrealistic and jaundiced eye view developed mainly from the most ridiculous trending Twitter topics like "is it sexist to only drink milk from female cows?".

They developed Discovery and Picard for an audience that flat-out doesn't exist.  Not for Star Trek fans, or even casual Star Trek viewers. 

The only one that's really developed with Trek fans in mind is Lower Decks.

 

On 4/9/2021 at 12:31 AM, kalvasflam said:

ST:P is just another example of this.  A nasty old man trying to keep up with the times and clinging on to whatever little dignity he has left trying to live 30 years in the past.

Not quite how the showrunners explained it... not that their explanation was any better.

As they had it, Picard was a "privileged white male" who had to be "humbled" to really be an ally to minorities... even though it's a plot point in the show itself that he sacrificed his whole Starfleet career, his life and livelihood, to help the Romulans.

Kind of an insult to literally everything the man did in-universe in his Starfleet career, but whatever.

 

6 minutes ago, Thom said:

Well, if they had wanted to focus on all new characters, then they should have left out Picard... Or just had him be a guest every now and then. Once the Big Guy is there though, the next question is just naturally, 'who else is going to show?' One follows the others.

Yeah, probably.  But they needed Picard to try and draw the Star Trek fans back to watch the adventures of the show's pretense of aracially and sexually-diverse new cast who were quickly revealed to be built on an assortment of shallow racist tropes from the 60's that make the show almost as cringeworthy as "Code of Honor".

[tekering]

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

they needed Picard to try and draw the Star Trek fans back to watch the adventures of the show's pretense of aracially and sexually-diverse new cast

Ironically enough, I would've found it much easier to accept Picard as its own thing, if only it hadn't tried so hard to piss all over the legacy of The Next Generation.

Without TNG baggage, it's just harmless crap; but bring Picard et.al into it, and it's downright offensive. 

[Dobber]

Yup, I agree well said. 

Chris

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, tekering said:

Ironically enough, I would've found it much easier to accept Picard as its own thing, if only it hadn't tried so hard to piss all over the legacy of The Next Generation.

Or, really, Star Trek as a whole.  I have no idea why Kurtzman et. al. are so determined to make Gene Roddenberry's optimistic spacefuture into yet another Star Wars-y dystopian space hellscape.  It just doesn't work.  It doesn't let these new shows hit any of the sweet spots that make Star Trek enjoyable.  If we wanted to watch poorly-constructed misery porn all we'd have to do is turn on any network news broadcast... and we don't even have to pay for those.

 

4 hours ago, tekering said:

Without TNG baggage, it's just harmless crap; but bring Picard et.al into it, and it's downright offensive. 

IMO, even with Picard in it, it would've been harmless crap or potentially even almost watchable if Patrick Stewart were actually in character at any point.

The Jean-Luc Picard we know and love is the man who repeatedly stood up to the Starfleet brass on sentient rights issues, who stood by his principles to the bitter end every time they were challenged, and who wasn't at all afraid to say "Screw the rules, we're doing what's right".  I don't know who this other character Patrick Stewart is playing in Star Trek: Picard is... but it's not Jean-Luc.  It's some sniveling Pakled doing a very poor Jean-Luc Picard impersonation.

[Thom]

On the other hand, having a hero figure, even Picard, never stumble or fail, whether that be some great achievement or small personal belief, can get pretty boring. And unbelievable. People get old. People tire. They can get weary standing tall on the line year after year, decade after decade, especially if they end up standing alone. At some point, our heroes have to suffer a crisis of faith, otherwise they are no longer as human as the rest of us.

That is what happened to Picard, and the course of the series was then to show him battling back to the man he had been. Were they perfect in showing that? Sadly, no, but I think that was the ultimate point. At least until he died and they replaced him with an android...

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

On the other hand, having a hero figure, even Picard, never stumble or fail, whether that be some great achievement or small personal belief, can get pretty boring. And unbelievable. People get old. People tire. They can get weary standing tall on the line year after year, decade after decade, especially if they end up standing alone. At some point, our heroes have to suffer a crisis of faith, otherwise they are no longer as human as the rest of us.

This is true, and we've seen Picard falter and even fail to live up to his ideals before... but it's a question of magnitude.  

Picard's various lapses in connection with the Borg are at least logical within his narrative and characterization.  Him having a breakdown about having been assimilated and forced to destroy a Starfleet armada while at his family's place in France, being on the receiving end of a "what the hell, hero" over his willingness to go along with an attempted Borg genocide ("I, Borg"), or his lapses of temper in First Contact fit with who he is and why.  The same with his traumas involving the losses of the Stargazer and the Enterprise-D, or how he's highly uncomfortable pursuing a relationship with Dr. Crusher because she's his dead best friend's widow and he's arguably indirectly responsible for her husband's death.  The reasoning in these failures, stumbles, and lapses makes sound narrative sense and builds his character.

What they did in Star Trek: Picard doesn't scan.  At all.

It makes sense that he would feel guilty about Data's death and would be interested in seeing to the wellbeing of Data's "children".  But the whole humiliation conga involving him and the Romulans, him and Musiker, etc. don't make any narrative sense within the context of the show itself.

For instance, why is it Jean-Luc Picard's fault that Musiker was dismissed from Starfleet?  It doesn't make any internal sense even if you count expanded universe material.  He resigned in protest over the suspension of aid to the Romulans and she still had a career when he was gone.  They didn't fire her because he quit.  She acted out and lost her security clearance and then her commission, drank heavily, used drugs, and drove her family away by acting like a paranoid, drug-fueled, alcoholic nutjob.  How is any of that Picard's fault?  Yet the Star Trek: Picard TV series tries to have the audience accept that every single one of the poor life choices Musiker made in the fourteen years between Picard's resignation and the series is somehow Picard's fault and that he should be sorry for it.  The same goes for the Federation banning "synths".  Jean-Luc Picard was a staunch advocate for the rights of artificial life in his Starfleet career right up to its end and even after.  Yet somehow he's supposed to be in the wrong because the Federation decided without him to ban artificial lifeform research in the wake of a devastating terrorist attack?  It's a democracy.  Picard isn't King, yet somehow we're supposed to feel this is a personal failure on his part?  Especially when they tie it into the death of Will and Deanna's first kid who coincidentally could've been saved if only the Federation hadn't banned the treatment for his life-threatening illness as part of banning all synthetic life forms.

It doesn't scan.  It does not make narrative sense.  The series incessantly tries to tell the audience that Jean-Luc Picard is this awful, entitled, privileged, negligent person for seemingly nothing more than having not prevented things that were not in his power to prevent.  It's just asinine.

[Dobber]

The whole story behind season 1 is just....just so far fetched or nonsensical. The Romulan story which I still can’t get behind and Picard’s “protest” as the Federation DID attempt to build a rescue fleet but then suffered a devastating  attack that not only destroyed said fleet but also one of if not the main fleeet shipyard and a crucial colony of the Federation.  But we are supposed to think the Federation is bad because they didn’t want to allocate resources, AGAIN, in the wake of that attack. Just dumb politics being forced in. I couldn’t watch more of the show beyond ep 3 or 4  but from what you guys wrote wasn’t the android threat valid too in the end?
 

Chris
 

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Dobber

[Thom]

Not to mention that, just like in Undiscovered Country, the Romulans, like the Klingons, can't seem to take care of themselves in the face of a crisis. Like the Federation, the Romulans have dozens, if not hundreds, of worlds and yet they are suddenly unable to handle a crisis without Federation help.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Dobber said:

The whole story behind season 1 is just....just so far fetched or nonsensical. The Romulan story and I still can’t get behind Picard’s “protest” as the Federation did attempt to build a rescue fleet and then suffered a devastating  attack that not only destroyed said fleet but also one of if not the main fleeet shipyard and a crucial colony. But the federation is bad because they didn’t want to allocate resources, again, in the wake of that attack.

Yes, the whole Romulus subplot makes very little sense... especially given that Star Trek: Picard stripped away the "exotic" causes and effects of the supernova that destroyed Romulus in the J.J. Abrams movies, reducing it from a sudden and unanticipated threat that obliterated many star systems and threatened the entire galaxy to having years of warning about a disaster 100% localized to the Romulan system.  I get the feeling that change in scale was made AFTER they conceived of this subplot and made it the foundation of season one.

Instead, the Romulans are an interstellar power rivaling the Federation for scale and power who can't evacuate one planet given years of advance notice.

 

Quote

Just dumb politics being forced in. I couldn’t watch more of the show beyond ep 3 or 4  but from what you guys wrote wasn’t the android threat valid too in the end?

Uh-huh... and it's not really any better thought out.

Spoiler

The Romulans who assassinate Isa Briones's first character end up being Right For The Wrong Reasons.

The "ancient warning" about an apocalyptic conflict with artificial lifeforms that will destroy all organic life in the galaxy that the secret organization "Zhat Vash" have been ever-vigilant against the fulfillment of was actually a message left for artificial lifeforms facing oppression at the hands of organic lifeforms.  It was left by ancient, and now super-powerful, artificial lifeforms who have ascended to a higher plane of existence along with instructions on how to build a beacon that'll summon them to defend the oppressed artificial lifeforms by destroying all organic life in the galaxy.

Because the "Data's evil twin" thing didn't get old back in TNG, another identical twin of Isa Briones's character shows up on the android homeworld who is conveniently able to mind meld for some reason, gets the beacon instructions from Dr. Jurati, and attempts to Summon Bigger Fish only to be stopped at the last second by Dr. Soong who has a stungun that can knock androids out but never uses or mentions it before this moment.

 

23 minutes ago, Thom said:

Not to mention that, just like in Undiscovered Country, the Romulans, like the Klingons, can't seem to take care of themselves in the face of a crisis. Like the Federation, the Romulans have dozens, if not hundreds, of worlds and yet they are suddenly unable to handle a crisis without Federation help.

The Klingon one was way more plausible.  It wasn't that the Klingons couldn't evacuate Qo'nos, it was that their economy had been so devastated by the Praxis disaster and so war-focused that they didn't have the means to repair the damage to their homeworld and they needed Federation help to clean it up... like the Chernobyl disaster it was based on for the Soviet Union.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[Thom]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

The Klingon one was way more plausible.  It wasn't that the Klingons couldn't evacuate Qo'nos, it was that their economy had been so devastated by the Praxis disaster and so war-focused that they didn't have the means to repair the damage to their homeworld and they needed Federation help to clean it up... like the Chernobyl disaster it was based on for the Soviet Union.

The problem I have with that, in both instances, is that these would then not be multi-system empires, which we know is wrong. Both control dozens of systems, and more than likely, they acquired each for the benefits that they hold. One good hit, like Praxis or even the sun of the Romulan's capitol system, should not be enough to cripple them. 

 

[Dobber]

Yeah the idea that these massive EMPIRES that individually more than rival the Federation can’t take care of themselves is idiotic too. 
 

As for TUDC, while I still do like the movie quite a bit the one line that always bugged me...even when I was a kid and saw it in the Theater was when the Klingons, while dining with Kirk and company, called the Federation (Which is a multi species government) a Homosapiens only club. I was like “Uh, how many other species are in the KLINGON Empire?” And if there are others in the Empire I seriously doubt they are free or treated well. Same goes for the Romulan Star Empire. 
 

Chris

[Seto Kaiba]

14 minutes ago, Thom said:

The problem I have with that, in both instances, is that these would then not be multi-system empires, which we know is wrong. Both control dozens of systems, and more than likely, they acquired each for the benefits that they hold. One good hit, like Praxis or even the sun of the Romulan's capitol system, should not be enough to cripple them. 

Admittedly, I misremembered the scene from Star Trek VI so I misstated the nature of the Klingon problem.  Allow me to remedy that.

Star Trek's Klingons were always a thinly-veiled allegory for the Soviet Union and the events of Star Trek VI were very much ripped from the headlines... which made the whole schtick a lot more plausible.  The Klingons weren't incapable of solving the problem themselves and had half a century to work on the problem.  Their issue, and the reason they opted to try for peace with the Federation, was that the majority of the Klingon Empire's resources were committed to maintaining its military and they couldn't devote the resources necessary to sort their problem out without compromising their national defense against the Federation and Romulans.

(It's noted in a memo by Ron Moore, the writer who laid down a lot of the setting information for Klingons, that their homeworld is resource-poor.  The Klingon economy isn't quite as robust as the Federation's because of the resources invested in maintaining control over conquered worlds and their native populations and annexing new territory for more resources all the time.  Basically, while the Klingon Empire and Federation are about the same size, the Klingons are a lot less wealthy because of the difference in governmental policies, so their economy couldn't tank the hit of Praxis blowing up without having to divert resources from the military.)

 

When it came to the Romulans, it made a lot less sense because the Romulans were not as fractious as the Klingons and the disaster was simply the loss of one planet at a time when relations with their neighbors were arguably the best they'd ever been in the wake of the Dominion War.  

[JB0]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

The problem I have with that, in both instances, is that these would then not be multi-system empires, which we know is wrong. Both control dozens of systems, and more than likely, they acquired each for the benefits that they hold. One good hit, like Praxis or even the sun of the Romulan's capitol system, should not be enough to cripple them. 

I do note that Praxis was a VERY large blast, with effects carrying far enough in subspace to knock Excelsior out of warp on the Federation's side of the neutral zone.

Even assuming those wider effects are limited to subspace, they probably have significant short-term implications for warp travel within the empire.  

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, JB0 said:

Even assuming those wider effects are limited to subspace, they probably have significant short-term implications for warp travel within the empire.  

"The Q and the Grey" definitely supports the idea, since the subspace shockwaves from the Q's civil war collapsed Voyager's warp field.

Mind you, there'd probably be a more immediate economic crisis caused disruptions of traffic to and from Qo'nos due to the debris from Praxis's explosion impacting the surface, the ensuing environmental catastrophes large-scale impact events would've caused, and the disruptions to shipping caused by the debris that is still in orbital or near-orbital space, to say nothing of the inevitable cleanup effort that probably involved no small amount of photon torpedo and disruptor fire to break the debris into manageable chunks small enough to be burned up on reentry or at least be towed away with tractor beams.

Quite a lot more disruptive and anarchic than simply coordinating mass evacuations.

[Thom]

On 4/12/2021 at 2:27 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Admittedly, I misremembered the scene from Star Trek VI so I misstated the nature of the Klingon problem.  Allow me to remedy that.

Star Trek's Klingons were always a thinly-veiled allegory for the Soviet Union and the events of Star Trek VI were very much ripped from the headlines... which made the whole schtick a lot more plausible.  The Klingons weren't incapable of solving the problem themselves and had half a century to work on the problem.  Their issue, and the reason they opted to try for peace with the Federation, was that the majority of the Klingon Empire's resources were committed to maintaining its military and they couldn't devote the resources necessary to sort their problem out without compromising their national defense against the Federation and Romulans.

(It's noted in a memo by Ron Moore, the writer who laid down a lot of the setting information for Klingons, that their homeworld is resource-poor.  The Klingon economy isn't quite as robust as the Federation's because of the resources invested in maintaining control over conquered worlds and their native populations and annexing new territory for more resources all the time.  Basically, while the Klingon Empire and Federation are about the same size, the Klingons are a lot less wealthy because of the difference in governmental policies, so their economy couldn't tank the hit of Praxis blowing up without having to divert resources from the military.)

 

When it came to the Romulans, it made a lot less sense because the Romulans were not as fractious as the Klingons and the disaster was simply the loss of one planet at a time when relations with their neighbors were arguably the best they'd ever been in the wake of the Dominion War.  

Accepted, but conditionally. Coupled with their mind-set, and the fact that factions would have gladly gone to war rather the demilitarize the neutral zone, I would say that their troubles were far more of psychological nature than a truly physical one. Being a multi-system empire, they had the means, but they had problems with the peace part of the whole thing. And the apparent inability to decentralize their energy production facilities... 

Another difference is that major relief was not needed for them as with the Romulans. Between the two, that is the one that I have the most trouble with. If this had happened to Bajor, then I could see the need for the Federation to offer so much assistance to a single-planet gov.

On 4/12/2021 at 4:30 PM, JB0 said:

I do note that Praxis was a VERY large blast, with effects carrying far enough in subspace to knock Excelsior out of warp on the Federation's side of the neutral zone.

Even assuming those wider effects are limited to subspace, they probably have significant short-term implications for warp travel within the empire.  

It was a very large blast, esp to be able to knock Excelsior around lights years away. But she wasn't in warp though. At the time, she was sublight cataloging gaseous anomalies... So I am assuming that there was nothing wrong with using warp at or around Qo'noS.

That does bring up another point about STUC. Qo'noS only lost its ozone layer in the blast. But considering the effect it had on Excelsior, again light years away, it probably should have blown the atmosphere clean off, and cooked half the surface for good measure.

[Dynaman]

20 minutes ago, Thom said:

 

That does bring up another point about STUC. Qo'noS only lost its ozone layer in the blast. But considering the effect it had on Excelsior, again light years away, it probably should have blown the atmosphere clean off, and cooked half the surface for good measure.

It is best not to think about the science of that blast, AT ALL, since there was none.

[mechaninac]

Maybe the vast majority of the blast was facing away from Qo'noS, with the subspace shock-wave closing up to propagate in full force beyond the planet; what remained of Praxis acting as a shield protecting the Klingon home world from suffering the full brunt of the blow, but not enough to prevent the ozone layer from being stripped away... energy akin to a CME of gargantuan proportions or a nearly dead-on GRB inside of 500 light years.  Admittedly, a very convenient set of circumstances to deliver the results shown and stated in the movie.

[Thom]

2 hours ago, Dynaman said:

It is best not to think about the science of that blast, AT ALL, since there was none.

Fair point.

27 minutes ago, mechaninac said:

Maybe the vast majority of the blast was facing away from Qo'noS, with the subspace shock-wave closing up to propagate in full force beyond the planet; what remained of Praxis acting as a shield protecting the Klingon home world from suffering the full brunt of the blow, but not enough to prevent the ozone layer from being stripped away... energy akin to a CME of gargantuan proportions or a nearly dead-on GRB inside of 500 light years.  Admittedly, a very convenient set of circumstances to deliver the results shown and stated in the movie.

Could be that it was placed on the far side for safety, which would probably make it the only safety measure actively used on Praxis!

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Thom said:

Accepted, but conditionally. Coupled with their mind-set, and the fact that factions would have gladly gone to war rather the demilitarize the neutral zone, I would say that their troubles were far more of psychological nature than a truly physical one. Being a multi-system empire, they had the means, but they had problems with the peace part of the whole thing. And the apparent inability to decentralize their energy production facilities... 

Or cultural... what great, monolithic empire hasn't been paralyzed with indecision after the capital it believed was untouchable is threatened?

(Maybe that's why, by TNG and DS9, there's an auxiliary Klingon military HQ on Ty'Gokor?)

 

7 hours ago, Thom said:

Another difference is that major relief was not needed for them as with the Romulans. Between the two, that is the one that I have the most trouble with. If this had happened to Bajor, then I could see the need for the Federation to offer so much assistance to a single-planet gov.

The general vibe I get is that the Romulans, as a less belligerent and fractious people to begin with who were only just switching TOS character sheets with the Klingons over which of them are the "good enemies" vs. the backstabbing deceitful ones, generally had more of their sh*t together than the Klingons ever did.

 

7 hours ago, Thom said:

It was a very large blast, esp to be able to knock Excelsior around lights years away. But she wasn't in warp though. At the time, she was sublight cataloging gaseous anomalies... So I am assuming that there was nothing wrong with using warp at or around Qo'noS.

It wasn't the blast itself that knocked Excelsior around, it was a subspace shockwave produced by the blast.  Excelsior was at impulse and still got knocked around pretty badly by it, but it's worth noting that warp drives aren't the only propulsion technologies that use subspace fields for propulsive effect.  Impulse drives do too.  It's possible ships at warp were hit even harder by it because they were running much more intense subspace fields, and were maybe tossed about to their own destruction.

 

7 hours ago, Thom said:

That does bring up another point about STUC. Qo'noS only lost its ozone layer in the blast. But considering the effect it had on Excelsior, again light years away, it probably should have blown the atmosphere clean off, and cooked half the surface for good measure.

It was one of those weird planar shockwaves that only exist in fiction... maybe Qo'nos got lucky and it just... missed?

Admittedly not any less unrealistic than the Romulans just failing miserably to notice their sun was ready to go supernova, something that any idiot should've been able to tell in the two thousand or so years they'd lived in the system after emigrating from Vulcan.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Admittedly not any less unrealistic than the Romulans just failing miserably to notice their sun was ready to go supernova, something that any idiot should've been able to tell in the two thousand or so years they'd lived in the system after emigrating from Vulcan.

Since they had more than one idiot working on the series' storyline, they really dropped the ball on that one.

On another note: I wonder if Earth at the level of development they had in Star Trek  (TNG era) would have fared any better against the Zentraedi Attack in Macross  any better than their Unity Government counterpart?

(perhaps fodder for another topic...)

[Seto Kaiba]

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Since they had more than one idiot working on the series' storyline, they really dropped the ball on that one.

Yeah... at least when they did that awful tie-in comic to set up the first J.J. Abrams movie, the supernova that destroyed Romulus was in a different star system on the edge of Romulan space, was triggered artificially, and the threat was due to some kind of subspace shenanigans causing the destructive wavefront to propagate faster-than-light.  It was goofy, but that was to be expected from Captain Mystery Box and the Can't Write boys.

Picard's alternate take on it, making the star the Romulan system's own and removing the exotic (and malicious/illegal cause) made it substantially more ridiculous since the Romulan civilization as a whole and its entire (considerable) scientific community collectively failed a spot check every instant of every day for two millennia or more regarding the status of the single most noticeable object in their homeworld's sky at any given time.  It took it from being stupid and goofy J.J. Abrams-trademark trash tier writing to complete insanity.

 

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

On another note: I wonder if Earth at the level of development they had in Star Trek  (TNG era) would have fared any better against the Zentraedi Attack in Macross  any better than their Unity Government counterpart?

(perhaps fodder for another topic...)

Let's be honest, how many times has the Enterprise been "the only ship in the [term for a volume of space]" when Earth has been threatened?

I'm pretty sure that alone answers the question.

Starfleet's forces are mainly concentrated on the Federation's borders, rather than near Earth, partly because the Federation seems to share borders with so many belligerent powers: the Klingons (until the 2280s), the Romulans, the Cardassians, the Tzenkethi, the Breen, the Gorn, the Tholians, etc.  (That's why the first question asked after Spock indicates that the Klingon peace proposal includes a total cessation of hostilities and dismantling of the defensive installations along the neutral zone is if they're mothballing Starfleet.)

[JB0]

42 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Let's be honest, how many times has the Enterprise been "the only ship in the [term for a volume of space]" when Earth has been threatened?

Is the correct answer "every time it wasn't the Borg"?

Because they had multiple ships show up in Best of Both Worlds and First Contact. And those are pretty much the only cases I can think of for multiple ships between Earth and certain doom.

[Thom]

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

Is the correct answer "every time it wasn't the Borg"?

Because they had multiple ships show up in Best of Both Worlds and First Contact. And those are pretty much the only cases I can think of for multiple ships between Earth and certain doom.

The Search for Spock Voyage Home. They were neutralized pretty easily, but there were a number of ships between the Probe and Earth.

 

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It wasn't the blast itself that knocked Excelsior around, it was a subspace shockwave produced by the blast.  Excelsior was at impulse and still got knocked around pretty badly by it, but it's worth noting that warp drives aren't the only propulsion technologies that use subspace fields for propulsive effect.  Impulse drives do too.  It's possible ships at warp were hit even harder by it because they were running much more intense subspace fields, and were maybe tossed about to their own destruction.

 

It was one of those weird planar shockwaves that only exist in fiction... maybe Qo'nos got lucky and it just... missed?

Admittedly not any less unrealistic than the Romulans just failing miserably to notice their sun was ready to go supernova, something that any idiot should've been able to tell in the two thousand or so years they'd lived in the system after emigrating from Vulcan.

I don't follow back stories all that much, so I don't know if there was anything mentioned off-screen about other ships effected by the shock wave. Clearly, Excelsior was the 'only ship in the sector.'

As to the Romulan super nova, I thought they were aware of the impending disaster and that's why the Federation had time to start building the convoy fleet.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Thom

[tekering]

2 minutes ago, Thom said:

The Search for Spock. They were neutralized pretty easily, but there were a number of ships between the Probe and Earth.

You mean the Probe from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?

 

 

[Thom]

3 minutes ago, tekering said:

You mean the Probe from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?

 

 

Yes, thank you.   That one. ^^

[Seto Kaiba]

49 minutes ago, Thom said:

As to the Romulan super nova, I thought they were aware of the impending disaster and that's why the Federation had time to start building the convoy fleet.

They were... but the problem is "for how long?".

The supernova that destroyed the Romulan system in Star Trek: Picard was a normal supernova, which means the Romulans should have had MILLENNIA of advance notice... not a few years.  Stars don't go supernova overnight.  It's a process that takes millions or billions of years.

[TangledThorns]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They were... but the problem is "for how long?".

The supernova that destroyed the Romulan system in Star Trek: Picard was a normal supernova, which means the Romulans should have had MILLENNIA of advance notice... not a few years.  Stars don't go supernova overnight.  It's a process that takes millions or billions of years.

A wizard did it.

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

12 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

A wizard did it.

"No we didn't." - the wizards of Megas-Tu.

(Yes, this is an actual screen capture of actual wizards from an actual episode of Star Trek.)

[pengbuzz]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They were... but the problem is "for how long?".

The supernova that destroyed the Romulan system in Star Trek: Picard was a normal supernova, which means the Romulans should have had MILLENNIA of advance notice... not a few years.  Stars don't go supernova overnight.  It's a process that takes millions or billions of years.

It would have been more plausible that someone who had it in for the Romulans as a whole either found the designs for or procured one of Dr. Tolian Soran's Trilithium weapons (Star Trek: Generations):

 

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Trilithium_weapon

Edited April 14, 2021 by pengbuzz

[TangledThorns]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"No we didn't." - the wizards of Megas-Tu.

(Yes, this is an actual screen capture of actual wizards from an actual episode of Star Trek.)

For context, lol.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

It would have been more plausible that someone who had it in for the Romulans as a whole either found the designs for or procured one of Dr. Tolian Soran's Trilithium weapons (Star Trek: Generations):

Some of the Expanded Universe material kinda tried to go that route... blaming the J.J. Abrams version of the supernova event on Tal Shiar hijinks, either in the form of them carrying out an illegal subspace weapon test that Went Horribly Wrong or, in STO, being deceived by the Iconians.

 

5 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

For context, lol.

I know, I just saw the opportunity to take a cheap shot at TAS and ran with it.

Shredded Space Satan made me do it.

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[Thom]

Well, the reason for how fast the super nova in the Romulan system progressed so fast was because of (insert-science-mumbo-jumbo.) Obviously!

[JB0]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

Well, the reason for how fast the super nova in the Romulan system progressed so fast was because of (insert-science-mumbo-jumbo.) Obviously!

Oh, it was a quantum disruption in their star's subspace microsignature? That makes a lot of sense, it's no wonder the romulans didn't notice until it was too late.

[Hikuro]

 

46 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Oh, it was a quantum disruption in their star's subspace microsignature? That makes a lot of sense, it's no wonder the romulans didn't notice until it was too late.

caused by a wizard....

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, Thom said:

Well, the reason for how fast the super nova in the Romulan system progressed so fast was because of (insert-science-mumbo-jumbo.) Obviously!

Something something reverse the polarity something something tachyons something subspace field.

Really, that nobody even attempts to explain is one of the more telling signs that they didn't think this one out even though it's plot-critical to Picard.  

It definitely doesn't give one any hope for the writing in season two.