Star Trek: Picard (CBS All-Access)

[Roy Focker]

Indeed. Look at Barclay he had psychological and behavioral issues until he got help the system just transfered him from ship to ship but he wasn't promoted. I guess Star Fleet now acts like our world. They make the biggest asshole your boss. Somewhere at Star Fleet HR is bunch of ignored complaints.

[Thom]

Keep in mind, Seven, as well as all the other Borg, are just as much victims as the dead at Wolf 359.  Sure, there probably are a few species who said, 'yeah, sign me up!' But nearly all that we have seen have battled repeatedly against the Borg and against being assimilated. The Federation, and Star Fleet by extension, should be enlightened to this. And, seeing that several ex-Borg are officers in Star Fleet, they are. That doesn't mean that there aren't officer like Shaw or Sisko who need to finally get past resenting/blaming another person who is just a victim like they are.

As for Seven, again, she is now a merging of her two selves, the first being the child Annika and the other being the drone Seven of Nine. She has spent more of her life being that adult drone rather than that lost child, so it's understandable from where she molds more of her identity. And if she chooses to be called Seven rather than Annika, then that is simply what she prefers.

And Shaw, is more of a by-the-book officer, esp since he considers Picard and Riker's past adventures as "wildly exciting and equally irresponsible adventures." So basically anything that made TNG exciting, he would avoid. Makes me think that the five years he has been in command of Titan have been pretty boring.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by Thom

[Seto Kaiba]

On 3/11/2023 at 6:19 PM, Thom said:

Or perhaps the writers of those episodes were not the writers of these episodes..? (shrug)

Expecting consistency from the characters in Discovery and Picard seems to be setting the bar far too high.

 

 

20 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Now, as far as her being in Starfleet at a command-level rank; you would think that she would have at some training for her regarding interpersonal relations in a command role before being promoted/ assigned to ehr current posting.

That, of course, is another major problem with the whole Star Trek: Picard S3 setting introduced by the writers desperately trying to keep the fan-favorite characters they're ruining relevant to what we'll charitably call "the story".

Both the season two closer "Farewell" and season three opener "The Next Generation" are set in 2401.  Less than a year, and more likely just a few months, have passed between the encounter with Borg Queen Jurati that bookends season two and the distress signal that kicks off season three.  

Somehow, in that incredibly short span of time, [Seven of Nine/Annika Hansen] went from being a burned out vigilante operating on her own outside of Federation space to being not just a Starfleet officer but a Commander in the Command Division and First Officer of the USS Titan-A.  It's doubtful she had ANY training, especially if she's been serving as XO aboard Shaw's ship long enough for them to have established an acrimonious-but-professional working relationship.  Even if we assume her rise up the ranks would have been as meteoric as those of Starfleet's very finest, she's missing a solid decade of training and relevant experience that anyone else in her position would have.  More realistically, we we took exemplary-but-not-flagship-command-exemplary officers like Kathryn Janeway as an example, she's missing more like 15-20 years of experience.  Even if we assume that her time aboard Voyager counted as post-commission Starfleet service, she should still be an Ensign or at best a Lieutenant Junior Grade based on length of service.  Command of a starship isn't a job you just show up for one day.  It's the culmination of a decades-long career.

(It's also rather odd that she's in the Command Division.  "Borg people skills" being an oxymoron, she was a disastrously poor leader of any organized activity except when it came to managing the Borg children under her care.  Her interests, and the knowledge she retained from her time as a Borg drone, would've made her a much better fit for the Science Division or Operations Division.  She was always much more "at home" on Voyager in her astrometrics lab or main engineering.)

Nepotism, it seems, is another little Human evil that is alive and well in the 25th century.

 

20 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Knowing that the Borg had caused as much damage as they did and the tool they took on the Federation and her allies/ enemies, I don't think actively seeking to promote a nomenclature for herself that could potentially trigger PTSD and other sorts of pain amongst crew who may have been at either Wolf 359 or the Battle of Sector 001 (ST: FC) would be a move that Starfleet or the Federation would appreciate. At the very least, the Ship's Counselor would have something to say about the deleterious effect that calling her "Seven" would have on crew members.

Thinking more on it, it's probably excusable that Starfleet Command itself didn't consider that might happen.

Seven is seemingly unique in that she doesn't regard her time as a Borg drone as the most horrific violation of the self imaginable.  Any other ex-Borg except perhaps the now very dead Icheb would likely find being referred to by their former Borg designation horrendously offensive given that it is, for all intents and purposes, a "slave name" given to them by their tyrannical oppressor.  Jean-Luc Picard and several ex-Borg seen on Voyager were very much of the opinion that assimilation was such a violation that it was better to be dead than a drone.  

Seven likewise probably wouldn't think much of using her Borg designation, since she was assimilated at such a young age, even though her insistence on using a Borg designation and occasional remarks about how the Borg way of doing things is better would potentially come off as offensive to people who'd suffered at the hands of the Borg.

Where the ship's counselor is in all this... between Shaw and Seven, probably drinking heavily in the ship's bar.  Can you imagine getting those two into a counseling session at the same time?  Bickering beyond the wildest dreams of marriage counselors.

 

 

15 hours ago, camk4evr said:

While this was probably the best episode of Star Trek: Picard s to date it does bring up (yet again) the question 'How the hell did Shaw get command of a Starship?'

The career path, naturally.

Liam Shaw has been a Starfleet officer for at least 34 years given that he was a veteran of the Battle of Wolf 359.

Given what he himself says about his service history, he's apparently a solid performer in the center seat.  Someone who gets the job done without exposing his crew to unnecessary risk.  He's not doing flagship work, flying into danger every alternate tuesday, but that's true for most of the fleet.  Somebody's got to be doing the actual scientific research, disaster relief efforts, colony setup, and all the thousands of other comparatively more mundane tasks to keep the Federation going while the Enterprise is off getting shot at.

 

 

10 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Indeed. Look at Barclay he had psychological and behavioral issues until he got help the system just transfered him from ship to ship but he wasn't promoted.

Reg Barclay was already a Lieutenant Junior Grade when he joined the crew of the Enterprise-D, meaning he'd already been promoted once.

Picard reads his service record in the episode he's introduced in ("Hollow Pursuits") and notes that Barclay had achieved satisfactory ratings from his previous commanding officers and his previous captain had spoken quite highly of him.

That says more that Barclay's previous crews simply made allowances for his social anxiety so that he could perform his duties comfortably and it apparently worked well enough that it only became a problem when he was measured against the higher standards of the Federation flagship and the additional stress caused him to pursue escapist remedies.

 

 

9 hours ago, Thom said:

Keep in mind, Seven, as well as all the other Borg, are just as much victims as the dead at Wolf 359.  Sure, there probably are a few species who said, 'yeah, sign me up!' But nearly all that we have seen have battled repeatedly against the Borg and against being assimilated. The Federation, and Star Fleet by extension, should be enlightened to this. And, seeing that several ex-Borg are officers in Star Fleet, they are. That doesn't mean that there aren't officer like Shaw or Sisko who need to finally get past resenting/blaming another person who is just a victim like they are.

That, as I mention above, is likely a big part of their problem.

Seven doesn't see herself as a victim of the Borg.  Every other ex-Borg does, and the Federation as a whole views ex-Borg and Borg drones as victims, so Seven's insistence on using her Borg identity in public is bound to be upsetting to ex-Borg and other victims of the Borg.  The Borg are mortal enemies to basically everybody.  It's like flaunting a prison tattoo declaring membership in a hate group.

 

9 hours ago, Thom said:

And Shaw, is more of a by-the-book officer, esp since he considers Picard and Riker's past adventures as "wildly exciting and equally irresponsible adventures." So basically anything that made TNG exciting, he would avoid. Makes me think that the five years he has been in command of Titan have been pretty boring.

To be fair, a lot of the stuff Picard and Riker got up to could fairly be described by that even by Picard and Riker themselves.

They joke about it at Riker's wedding in Nemesis, with Picard referring to Data as a "tyrannical martinet" who will insist on following all those operational safety regulations that they spent the last decade-plus flouting.

Shaw may be intended to be an arsehole... but he's an arsehole with a very sound, very logical point that the people he's scorning have themselves acknowledged in the past. 

Edited March 13, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[Dobber]

So a question for you all. After watching the “Indianapolis” speech by Shaw several times…..great performance btw….I was a little confused by the crew’s expressions afterward. TO ME they kind of looked discussed with Shaw rather than sympathetic, or were they even supposed to be. Am I reading it wrong or were the extra’s performances just off? It just stuck out to me and was curious what your reads were on their reactions. It just seems like the scene is intended to bring some much needed context and humanism to Shaw and it appeared to be completely lost on the people around him. Like these are people haven’t really endured as much hardship that more senior officers like him have (2 Borg incursions, Klingon War, Dominion War) and rather they just pass judgment on him.

Chris

Edited March 13, 2023 by Dobber

[Thom]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...That, as I mention above, is likely a big part of their problem.

Seven doesn't see herself as a victim of the Borg.  Every other ex-Borg does, and the Federation as a whole views ex-Borg and Borg drones as victims, so Seven's insistence on using her Borg identity in public is bound to be upsetting to ex-Borg and other victims of the Borg.  The Borg are mortal enemies to basically everybody.  It's like flaunting a prison tattoo declaring membership in a hate group...

If someone is upset that she is going by Seven rather than Annika, because she was assimilated so young, I would say that is their problem and not hers. They should be seeking out that absent guidance counselor to talk through their issues. (see Shaw.)  And no, her calling herself Seven is nothing akin to a prison tattoo of a hate group. It is just her name.

17 minutes ago, Dobber said:

So a question for you all. After watching the “Indianapolis” speech by Shaw several times…..great performance btw….I was a little confused by the crew’s expressions afterward. TO ME they kind of looked discussed with Shaw rather than sympathetic, or were they even supposed to be. Am I reading it wrong or were the extra’s performances just off? It just stuck out to me and was curious what your reads were on their reactions. It just seems like the scene is intended to bring some much needed context and humanism to Shaw and it appeared to be completely lost on the people around him. Like these are people haven’t really endured as much hardship that more senior officers like him have (2 Borg incursions, Klingon War, Dominion War) and rather just pass judgment on him.

 

I read their expressions as not disgusted but extremely uncomfortable. They were listening to Picard as well and the switch in emotions when Shaw flipped it was more than a little unsettlingly aggressive.

[sh9000]

 

 

[sh9000]

 

 

 

 

 

[Dobber]

So the Intrepid looks….interesting. It looks like it has a rear facing deflector like the old Franz Joseph Dreadnought did with a sort of Bill Krause Wasp underslung engineering hull vibe. Bill is definitely pulling inspiration from his bullpen and that is not a bad thing IMO.

Intrepid:

 

Wasp:

 

Chris

Edited March 14, 2023 by Dobber

[Seto Kaiba]

10 minutes ago, Dobber said:

So the Intrepid looks….interesting. It looks like it has a rear facing deflector like the old Franz Joseph Dreadnought did with a sort of Bill Krause Wasp underslung engineering hull vibe. Bill is definitely pulling inspiration from his bullpen and that is not a bad thing IMO.

So... the Picard season three school of design is just copying old fanmade kitbashes?

I guess it's better than season two's borrowing from Star Trek Online or season one's "fifty of the same minimum effort CG model" approach.

[Thom]

I'm loving these ships! I do like the modern looking ones too, but I prefer less of the swoopy/curvy lines and more of these hard edged/angular designs.

[mechaninac]

They also look backwardly anachronistic... as though the shipwrights and engineers had suddenly adopted a nostalgic late 23rd century design ethos.  It just does not jive with the aesthetic progression one would expect or that makes sense.

Edited March 15, 2023 by mechaninac

[Seto Kaiba]

16 minutes ago, mechaninac said:

They also look backwardly anachronistic... as though the shipwrights and engineers had suddenly adopted a nostalgic late 23rd century design ethos.  It just does not jive with the aesthetic progression one would expect or that makes sense.

Yeah, that was my problem with the Titan-A when it was first unveiled too... these new designs look about a century older than they allegedly are.

It would not have been quite so glaring had Picard's second season not shown us a number of new Starfleet ship classes that are far more aesthetically in line with the late 24th century designs seen in the TNG movies and classic TNG-era Starfleet designs.  Coming after those just makes them look even more out of place.

At the very least, they're not hideous like the Discovery or forgettable and generic looking like the La Sirena.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[sh9000]

 

[pengbuzz]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, that was my problem with the Titan-A when it was first unveiled too... these new designs look about a century older than they allegedly are.

It would not have been quite so glaring had Picard's second season not shown us a number of new Starfleet ship classes that are far more aesthetically in line with the late 24th century designs seen in the TNG movies and classic TNG-era Starfleet designs.  Coming after those just makes them look even more out of place.

At the very least, they're not hideous like the Discovery or forgettable and generic looking like the La Sirena.

There's that at least.

One of my big issues with the Titan-A is the ridiculous number of Impulse engines. I mean, even the E-D only had 3 engines (two for the saucer, one for the battle section). Titan has something like six engines (yeah, I know they're probably grouped or something), which doesn't make much sense to me. Exactly why would a ship need that strong of an impulse drive to begin with? Most exploratory vessels we have seen in cannon did not require that amount of impulse engines, given that full impulse is 1/4 light speed, providing more engines would only seem to be trying to get it near warp speed (which to me would seem impractical; you may as well just go to warp at that rate).

The other issue is scale here: the thickness of the primary hull and its' windows says refit, but the designer for S2 and 3 of Picard Dave Blass stated that the length of the ship is 1839 feet (https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/uss-titan-explained-star-trek-picard-season-3). With the Refit E coming in at 990 feet, Titan-A is twice the length and considerably larger...

... but the saucer and windows are the same size as a Refit's?

I might be off on all of this (wouldn't be the first time and heaven knows it wouldn't be the last! ), but something doesn't add up here. JMO.

Edited March 15, 2023 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

One of my big issues with the Titan-A is the ridiculous number of Impulse engines. I mean, even the E-D only had 3 engines (two for the saucer, one for the battle section). Titan has something like six engines (yeah, I know they're probably grouped or something), which doesn't make much sense to me. Exactly why would a ship need that strong of an impulse drive to begin with? Most exploratory vessels we have seen in cannon did not require that amount of impulse engines, given that full impulse is 1/4 light speed, providing more engines would only seem to be trying to get it near warp speed (which to me would seem impractical; you may as well just go to warp at that rate).

Now, if this Constitution III-class USS Titan-A were a late 23rd century design as its fan-made USS Shangri-La it was based on it would make a lot more sense.

At some point between TOS and TNG, the way impulse engines produce their propulsive effect changed.

In the TOS era, impulse engines were fusion rocket systems running off the same fusion reactors that also provided secondary power to the entire starship.  Plasma from the fusion reactors was expelled as reaction mass to produce thrust and also provided power to a subspace field generator that reduced the ship's inertial mass to the point that the thrust the rockets provided could accelerate the ship to relativistic speeds and shielded the ship from relativistic effects while doing so.

In the TNG era, according to Doug Drexler and Rich Sternbach, modern impulse engines are borderline reactionless drives that are essentially just sublight warp drives powered by the ship's fusion reactors and that the thrust provided by exhausting plasma from the reactors was negligible.  The actual visible impulse engine is more like a tailpipe for venting plasma waste from the drive than a proper engine nozzle.

Spoiler

I've got a hypothesis that this change occurred in the gap between TOS and Star Trek: the Motion Picture.  It's indicated in TMP that the Enterprise-A can run its impulse engines off the warp core, which possibly accounts for why the warp core on that model extends both vertically and horizontally, allowing the ship to run the impulse drive off of either a network of fusion reactors or the warp core depending on the situation to provide enough power for the TNG-style impulse drive.

The Titan-A's design looks like it hearkens back to the TOS-era design where impulse engines were producing thrust via reaction mass and needed to be relatively big.

 

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

The other issue is scale here: the thickness of the primary hull and its' windows says refit, but the designer for S2 and 3 of Picard Dave Blass stated that the length of the ship is 1839 feet (https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/uss-titan-explained-star-trek-picard-season-3). With the Refit E coming in at 990 feet, Titan-A is twice the length and considerably larger...

... but the saucer and windows are the same size as a Refit's?

... yeah, that didn't translate well from the original Shangri-La design, a Constitution-class derivative, to this new model that's supposedly several times the size.  Each of those windows must be several decks high if that length is correct.

[Tking22]

I finished TNG last weekend and am excited to start on some new Trek, will probably do DS9 but I'm pretty interested jumping into season 1 of this because I'm still high on Picard lol.

[sh9000]

 

 

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Now, if this Constitution III-class USS Titan-A were a late 23rd century design as its fan-made USS Shangri-La it was based on it would make a lot more sense.

At some point between TOS and TNG, the way impulse engines produce their propulsive effect changed.

In the TOS era, impulse engines were fusion rocket systems running off the same fusion reactors that also provided secondary power to the entire starship.  Plasma from the fusion reactors was expelled as reaction mass to produce thrust and also provided power to a subspace field generator that reduced the ship's inertial mass to the point that the thrust the rockets provided could accelerate the ship to relativistic speeds and shielded the ship from relativistic effects while doing so.

In the TNG era, according to Doug Drexler and Rich Sternbach, modern impulse engines are borderline reactionless drives that are essentially just sublight warp drives powered by the ship's fusion reactors and that the thrust provided by exhausting plasma from the reactors was negligible.  The actual visible impulse engine is more like a tailpipe for venting plasma waste from the drive than a proper engine nozzle.

  Hide contents

I've got a hypothesis that this change occurred in the gap between TOS and Star Trek: the Motion Picture.  It's indicated in TMP that the Enterprise-A can run its impulse engines off the warp core, which possibly accounts for why the warp core on that model extends both vertically and horizontally, allowing the ship to run the impulse drive off of either a network of fusion reactors or the warp core depending on the situation to provide enough power for the TNG-style impulse drive.

The Titan-A's design looks like it hearkens back to the TOS-era design where impulse engines were producing thrust via reaction mass and needed to be relatively big.

I still don't recall other ships needing that many impulse engines, but you make a valid point about 23rd century designs ( I recall reading about the change in Impulse; I should have remembered that!). But I think you agree that for a supposedly 25th century vessel, it looks like they went backwards. If the Impulse works the way TNG does, why so many then?

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... yeah, that didn't translate well from the original Shangri-La design, a Constitution-class derivative, to this new model that's supposedly several times the size.  Each of those windows must be several decks high if that length is correct.

Same issue the JJprise suffers from; either the crew are giants or the windows take up more than one deck.

[Dobber]

While I agree that the Neo-Constitution III class would look better in the post TMP era alongside the Excelsior class (late 23rd early 24th centuries) the window thing isn’t that drastic nor the saucer thickness. The standard Connie/Shangri-La class saucer is only 2 decks thick. The Neo-Connie looks to be only about 3 decks thick. The windows look like they could be about the night of a deck. Like the ones Ben and Jake Sisko looked out of when they saw DS9 for the first time. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I still don't recall other ships needing that many impulse engines, but you make a valid point about 23rd century designs ( I recall reading about the change in Impulse; I should have remembered that!). But I think you agree that for a supposedly 25th century vessel, it looks like they went backwards. If the Impulse works the way TNG does, why so many then?

After some research, it seems that a rather vague explanation was provided in Star Trek: Picard's social media accounts.

Quote

"The Constitution III was designed to cater to a close support envelope at sub-light speeds, namely in and around densely populated solar systems, as witnessed by its overpowered impulse engines. To date, the new Titan has the largest sub-light-power-to-geometry ratio in the fleet."

So... based on that, it seems the reason for the Titan-A's outsized impulse drive cluster is that the class is designed to be a sublight speed demon that's quick off the line because that is somehow advantageous for operating in high traffic regions of space.  

As with so much in Star Trek: Picard, the writers can't quite seem to make up their minds about the Titan-A.  The brief piece that the above quote was taken from starts off by claiming the Constitution III-class ships were intended for long-duration deep space exploration like the original Constitution-class, then reverses course almost immediately and describes it as designed for support roles within Federation space.  The end result is the Titan-A sounds less like a successor to Will Riker's USS Titan and more like a patrol ship or logistics ship one level above ships like the Cerritos or Vancouver from Star Trek: Lower Decks.  The latter would definitely fit with Shaw's by-the-book attitude and the way the ship was chilling out near Earth instead of being out on the frontier for five years at a time.

EDIT: Just realized I forgot to include my hypothesis as to why this is advantageous.  I assume it has something to do with Star Trek's off-again on-again stance that using warp drive inside of a solar system is dangerous (for reasons unstated).  Populous systems presumably have quite a bit of traffic, so I could see there being a case for a fast sublight starship for patrol, security, etc. purposes in systems where the traffic pattern may be too dense to safely use warp drive to go to a ship in distress or intercept a criminal safely.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[mechaninac]

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

I finished TNG last weekend and am excited to start on some new Trek, will probably do DS9 but I'm pretty interested jumping into season 1 of this because I'm still high on Picard lol.

You don't want to corrupt the favorable memory of what TNG became by the end with NewTrek... leave that stuff for dead last.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Tking22 said:

I finished TNG last weekend and am excited to start on some new Trek, will probably do DS9 but I'm pretty interested jumping into season 1 of this because I'm still high on Picard lol.

Go in production order on the Trek shows... esp. when it comes to the TNG-DS9-VOY era, since Picard makes a fair amount of references to events from the TNG movies, and now the events of DS9's final few seasons.

[Tking22]

1 hour ago, mechaninac said:

You don't want to corrupt the favorable memory of what TNG became by the end with NewTrek... leave that stuff for dead last.

I heard the first two seasons were really rough but this newest one is pretty good right? Either way, I'll probably take the suggestions and stick to DS9 for now, Picard much later. 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Go in production order on the Trek shows... esp. when it comes to the TNG-DS9-VOY era, since Picard makes a fair amount of references to events from the TNG movies, and now the events of DS9's final few seasons.

Yeah I guess I might not rock the boat and just move onto DS9. TNG was fantastic though, Picard is awesome, I loved the cast and crew, I'm just all up on Picard, but I'll probably stick to aired order and get around to Picard eventually. DS9 it is, I've heard mixed things about Voyager but I'll probably move onto that next. 

[Seto Kaiba]

5 minutes ago, Tking22 said:

I heard the first two seasons were really rough but this newest one is pretty good right?

Eh... it can fairly be said that the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard does compare favorably to the previous two.*

The reason that statement has a rather damning asterisk hanging over it is that Star Trek: Picard's first two seasons were such an absolute goddamn train wreck that the frankly basic level of competence on display in the show's final season comes off as a substantial improvement.  It's visually impressive but otherwise utterly mediocre television compared to the pre-Kurtzman state of Star Trek, but compared to the previous two seasons it's actually borderline watchable even if the writing is frequently nonsense.

 

5 minutes ago, Tking22 said:

Yeah I guess I might not rock the boat and just move onto DS9. TNG was fantastic though, Picard is awesome, I loved the cast and crew, I'm just all up on Picard, but I'll probably stick to aired order and get around to Picard eventually. DS9 it is, I've heard mixed things about Voyager but I'll probably move onto that next. 

If you love the character of Jean-Luc Picard as he appears in Star Trek: the Next Generation then you are pretty much guaranteed to HATE Star Trek: Picard.

It goes way beyond character derailment to full-on character assassination.  Its writers are deeply, depressingly committed to depicting the surviving TNG characters twenty years after the end of their adventures in Star Trek: Nemesis as deeply depressed senior citizens living sad and lonely lives with their repressed traumas in a dark and depressing future that hasn't just forgotten them and moved on but become dark and miserable itself.  

Deep Space Nine alternates between episodic and serialized storytelling, but was probably the best Star Trek has ever done in terms of an ensemble cast.  Voyager suffered a lot from executive meddling because the network wanted another Star Trek: the Next Generation and struggled a bit towards the end due to audiences being burned out on what was then a solid decade of Trek on TV but if you liked TNG you'll probably like VOY.

[sh9000]

5 hours ago, Dobber said:

 

This is cool.

[sh9000]

 

[Thom]

As to the Titans impulse engines, I haven't look too closely at any diagrams, but I wonder where the saucer split is? I'm assuming this can do a saucer separation like most ST ships, so maybe what we are seeing in the stacked arrangement, is the smaller ones on top belonging to the saucer, with the larger on the bottom for the warp drive section.

[Dobber]

Damn, I really liked this weeks episode. Best of the season thus far for me. 
 

Chris

[Seto Kaiba]

19 minutes ago, Thom said:

As to the Titans impulse engines, I haven't look too closely at any diagrams, but I wonder where the saucer split is? I'm assuming this can do a saucer separation like most ST ships, so maybe what we are seeing in the stacked arrangement, is the smaller ones on top belonging to the saucer, with the larger on the bottom for the warp drive section.

A Battle Bridge is mentioned on the MSD and several displays, so one would assume it can.

[azrael]

21 minutes ago, Thom said:

As to the Titans impulse engines, I haven't look too closely at any diagrams, but I wonder where the saucer split is? I'm assuming this can do a saucer separation like most ST ships, so maybe what we are seeing in the stacked arrangement, is the smaller ones on top belonging to the saucer, with the larger on the bottom for the warp drive section.

It might not split. Not every Starfleet ship can has a saucer split. Or it has an emergency one-time split that the old-23rd century designs had. If it does, I doubt we'll see it anyways.

[Thom]

25 minutes ago, Dobber said:

Damn, I really liked this weeks episode. Best of the season thus far for me. 
 

Chris

Be checking this one out tonight. If it's even better than last week's, that's awesome!

As for size/dimensional discrepancies, as  @pengbuzz mentioned, all they do is blow up the size and the ship and not worry about fitting dimensions into it. Might be a good thing though, as I don't like these ships being super big, esp when they look like more classic(smaller) designs. One reason why I am glad the Horner Shipyard's Titan is 1/1400, is that it'll make it smaller than it's supposed to be when set next to the 1/1000 ships.

[Dobber]

1 minute ago, Thom said:

Be checking this one out tonight. If it's even better than last week's, that's awesome!

As for size/dimensional discrepancies, as  @pengbuzz mentioned, all they do is blow up the size and the ship and not worry about fitting dimensions into it. Might be a good thing though, as I don't like these ships being super big, esp when they look like more classic(smaller) designs. One reason why I am glad the Horner Shipyard's Titan is 1/1400, is that it'll make it smaller than it's supposed to be when set next to the 1/1000 ships.

A lot of tension built in this one!

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm really unhappy with this episode.

Once again, the writers are so caught up in throwing in as many references to TNG as possible that they're not bothering to stop and make sure the references make sense in context.  They have Shaw deliver three faulty premises in a single rant, when he:

Spoiler

1. Blames Picard and Riker for the Enterprise-D's saucer section crashing on Veridian III, even though crashing was unavoidable due to damage sustained in the warp core breach that destroyed the ship's drive section, they followed emergency protocols, and even crashed on the system's uninhabited planet.
2. Cites Picard's relationship with the Ba'ku leader Anji as a prime directive violation even though Star Trek: Insurrection specifically and explicitly notes it isn't because the Ba'ku were/are a warp-capable civilization who've simply renounced the use of the technology but fully remember how it works.
3. Mentions an event that literally never happened, the anti-time anomaly from "All Good Things" that un-happened and was erased from the timeline due to Picard's own actions.  

There was a similar gaffe in the previous episode involving the search for the...

Spoiler

... changeling infiltrator.  

They forgot that the Founders didn't need to revert to a liquid state every 16 hours.  That problem was unique to Odo in Deep Space Nine.

The whole idea of the rogue...

Spoiler

... changelings doesn't really track either.

Their whole schtick in Deep Space Nine was that, by their very nature, the changelings of the Great Link existed in an expanded/shared consciousness that largely meant they took action based on species-wide consensus.  

That these rogue changelings are determined to destroy the Federation in revenge for their defeat in the Dominion War also doesn't track with their statements in Deep Space Nine, where the "female" founder expressed that she would consider the war a wash or even a win if they lost the Alpha Quadrant completely but brought Odo home.

Even moreso, it feels odd and out of place because they were always a problem in Sisko's wheelhouse.  Jean-Luc Picard never had to deal with them and none of them had any real issue with him personally.  I guess after they ruined the Borg and the Romulans, Picard was out of antagonists since the last surviving member of the Duras family is a disgraced mook with no influence whose grudge is mainly just against Worf and Sela's likely just dead since the showrunners have said Denise Crosby's not in the show.

 

And the writers are back on their old bullsh*t bringing back another minor recurring character that Picard has history with just to kill them off.  Given the teasers, that body count is likely to increase.

Spoiler

In season one it was Hugh, then it was Q in season two, now it's Ro Laren.

How she ended up back in Starfleet, and as a senior officer no less, is pretty stupid.  She ended up back in a Federation prison, then was recruited out of it again by Starfleet Intelligence.  It's just her arc in "Ensign Ro" again, but she dies this time.

I'm sure they'll kill off Moriarty and probably Lore too.

 

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm really unhappy with this episode.

Once again, the writers are so caught up in throwing in as many references to TNG as possible that they're not bothering to stop and make sure the references make sense in context.  They have Shaw deliver three faulty premises in a single rant, when he:

  Hide contents

1. Blames Picard and Riker for the Enterprise-D's saucer section crashing on Veridian III, even though crashing was unavoidable due to damage sustained in the warp core breach that destroyed the ship's drive section, they followed emergency protocols, and even crashed on the system's uninhabited planet.
2. Cites Picard's relationship with the Ba'ku leader Anji as a prime directive violation even though Star Trek: Insurrection specifically and explicitly notes it isn't because the Ba'ku were/are a warp-capable civilization who've simply renounced the use of the technology but fully remember how it works.
3. Mentions an event that literally never happened, the anti-time anomaly from "All Good Things" that un-happened and was erased from the timeline due to Picard's own actions.  

I noted that too;

Spoiler

Shaw really humped the bunk on that one.  I would thing that if he knew of the first two situations, he would have at least known some of the circumstances concerning them. As it stands: that Picard was given command of the E-E shows that Starfleet did not hold the first against Picard or his crew. In the second, Starfleet/ Federationdidn't see it as a "Prime Directive" violation; seeing as he retained command during Nemesis.

The third: as you said: he shouldn't know (unless he's Q's jerky little brother!)

 

  

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Even moreso, it feels odd and out of place because they were always a problem in Sisko's wheelhouse.  Jean-Luc Picard never had to deal with them and none of them had any real issue with him personally.  I guess after they ruined the Borg and the Romulans, Picard was out of antagonists since the last surviving member of the Duras family is a disgraced mook with no influence whose grudge is mainly just against Worf and Sela's likely just dead since the showrunners have said Denise Crosby's not in the show.

Well...there's always the Ferengi.

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, pengbuzz said:

I noted that too;

  Hide contents

Shaw really humped the bunk on that one.  I would thing that if he knew of the first two situations, he would have at least known some of the circumstances concerning them. As it stands: that Picard was given command of the E-E shows that Starfleet did not hold the first against Picard or his crew. In the second, Starfleet/ Federationdidn't see it as a "Prime Directive" violation; seeing as he retained command during Nemesis.

THe third: as you said: he shouldn't know (unless he's Q's jerky little brother!)

 

Spoiler

The only one where he could really stick it to Picard is Generations, since the Enterprise-D was lost due to negligent shipboard security failing to check out Geordi's visor after he'd been captured.  That's not strictly on Picard or Riker either, it's really more Worf's problem and kind of an inexcusible lapse given that that isn't even the first time someone'd used Geordi's visor to compromise shipboard security like that.  (The Romulans used Geordi's visor to manipulate him after capturing him in "The Mind's Eye".)

The ONLY way that Shaw could know about what happened in "All Good Things" is by reading Picard's own report because the entire thing un-happened.

That means either Picard's report was so outrageous it's become common knowledge throughout the fleet or Captain Shaw specifically dug through Picard's logs to find any and every thing he could throw at the man... which is Odo levels of pettiness and would actually make me like him more.