OT: Star Trek Nemesis

[disabled]

Gary seven was supposed to be the first trek spinoff.

The networks felt a series like that wouldn't work - even with an xfiles twist...

[gregebowman]

Originally posted by Hadrian Tyrael S. Aventine:
Just to jump back to the Star Trek two lot whole of chekov, how do we know chekov wasn't on the ship when Kahn was around (maybe a scene that we didn't see). Sulu started as a science office on the ship before becoming the helmsman, same with other cast members that came on after the first episodes were made.

That reminds me of a joke Walter Koenig (Chekov) told about this situation. I don't remember exactly how it went, but it was something to the effect that Kahn was waiting to go to the head (that's the bathroom to you who don't speak navy) and apparantly had to wait awhile. when the door opened, Chekov comes out and Kahn says "I'll remember you".

[Magnum357]

?????????????

Sorry, but I don't get it.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Director, regarding Janeway, haven't you ever heard that it's woman's perogative to change her mind?

Good point. But Janeway really took it to extremes... then again, maybe warp travel wreaks havoc on certain biological cycles and Janeway was in a permanent state of PMS (Oops - I meant UMS, or Ugly Mood Swings )...

As for large fleet actions in DS9, what about the fight at Wolf 359 in TNG? Granted, the battle itself wasn't really shown, but the aftermath certainly was. So TNG really set up the concept, DS9 just ran with it...

[Major Tom]

The battle at Wolf 359 had about 40 federation ships engage the Borg, and it was hinted at that this loss of vessels was a major blow to Starfleet. However, DS9 had hundreds of starships lost per engagement but starfleet did not collapse (plus making the borg threat look silly). I could believe that there were hundreds of vessels in Starfleet, as the universe is large, but wouldn't the stability of the Federation suffer with virtually every ship at one part of their territory? The attrition rate of the Federation, Klingons, Cardassians and Romulans was enourmous. It turned into a battle of numbers (i.e., "we lost 400 ships, but destroyed 1000 of theirs" as in DS9) instead of a battle of wits (i.e., "we were heavily damaged but their ship was crippled" as of TOS and TNG).

Wolf 359 was thought of as a major battle in Starfleet history, as all other battles hinted at in the series also revolved around only a handful of ships (the Cardassian war mentioned a few individual ship battles, Klingon/Romulan battles like Khitomer were between less then a dozen total vessels, even in the alternate future with the Enterprise C there was a battle between 5 ships at the end). During the Klingon Civil war, the task force set up under the command of Picard was of around 20-25 ships, all that could be spared to guard this very important region of space. TNG kept ship numbers at reasonable rates and still kept battles interesting, especially when it was down to the attrition of 1 vs. 1.

Even B5 had limits on fleet size, as when the Alliance went to liberate Earth, the Earth Defense force had about 30 or so Destroyers guarding Mars, which is a pretty strong force in that 'universe'. DS9 would have been a lot better had they copied more of the good aspects of B5 instead of just the premise and go on weird and detracting tangents.

[ September 10, 2002, 05:00: Message edited by: Major Tom ]

[Ragnarok]

Not to get too OT with what's being talked about right now. But I used to hate B5. I would watch 5 minutes of the show and be bored to death so I'd turn it. But tonight for first time I watched B5 Third Space. It was on sci-fi channel. I actually enjoyed it. It was an interesting plot and storyline. The battle towards the end was great too. I still prefer ST over B5 anyday but I opened up a little bit to B5 just from watching that 2 hour movie.

[Magnum357]

Hey Ragnarok, ya Third Space was a pretty good movie. And it kinda hinted at Ancient B5 history too. Great Battle scences aswell. Glad to hear you liked the movie.

To Major Tom,

Ok, you do have a point about the Fleet sizes in DS9. From my understanding, Federation Territory (not to confuse explored territory which is about 10% of the Galaxy) only about 5% is Fed right? Even at 5% is a vast amount of Space. I suppose DS9 assumed that with such vast territory, Starfleets actual number of ships could range in the Thousands. But I do agree with you too that Wolf359 was stated that 40+ ships was a large chunk of Starfleets forces. It would have been better (and maybe graphically easier) if DS9 dealt with fleets of about 1/5 to 1/10 was stated. Like for example, in the DS9 episode "The Sacrifice of Angels", it was stated that the Federation fleet numbered in at 600 and the Dominions Fleet was about 1200 or 1300. Instead of these large numbers, they probably should have made it 60 Fed ships and and about 125 Dominion Vessels in the episode. That would at least keep it in Wolf359 perspective. Also, since the Federation is such a vast amount of space, and since during wars individual ships seem to cling together during wars, its very plausable that their could be a lot of fleets spread out along the front lines (say maybe 6+ fleets of 50 to 75 ships).

On the other hand, when we hear 40 ships at Wolf359, maybe most of these ships where very advanced starships (like Ent-D era vessels) while in the episode "Sacrifice of Angels" the vast majority of ships where old vessels like tons of Miranda class vessels. After all, I recall reading that Starfleet had a huge number of Mirandas (and some other similar vessels) left over from the 23rd century. They may have even recommishened old, worn out vessels that where etheir in mothballs or obsolete. Hey, they had to do something, the Dominions capability to mass produce ships (even though they were not the most sturdies vessels out their), worried the Feds and had to get as many ships on the front lines as possible.

But I do agree, it would have worked just as well if the writers just made the Fleets etheir 1/5th or 1/10th the number.

[geoschmo]

I read some interesting stuff onetime on this. It wasn't "canon" information but it sounded plausible. Some of it was from the Trek books that come out every month. They produce like 3 or four books every month by different authors. Some are good, some not so good. A lot of Trekkies don't even acknowledge them, but they can be a good source of "semi-canon" information.

Anyway, the stuff I read was on a website and I don't know if the guy made it up or read it somewhere what but he had this explanation that the Federation started a massive construction buildup after the first meeting between the Borg and the Enterprise. He said that while a lot of ships got bLasted at Wolf 359, a lot more were in the pipeline, and that that disaster caused an even bigger buildup. That basically the Federation was already producing ships at a wartime rate because of the constant threat of Borg invasion and that this all just happened to coincide with the war against the Dominion.

Geoschmo

[disabled]

Originally posted by Hadrian Tyrael S. Aventine:
Remember, the US fleet went from like 13 carriers at the start of WW2 to over 100 by the middle of WW2.

I suspect it was cheaper for the Federation to crank out smaller ships faster that have already been designed.

Larger ships like the Galaxy class became massive troopships with extra transporters isntalled and the crew levels left wide open.

Meanwhile, ships like the Ambassadors and the era of ships between Ambassador and Galaxy were either cut down in the opening wave of the war or have been exiled to maintain Federation borders.

Hey, don't be surprised if the dominion managed to push right up to earth's orbit that the Federation would start attacking with old ICBM's and maybe the NX-01. But if that happened, I would stop watching trek.

Very true, I recall seeing an interview that explained why more and more insane shis appearing too. A lot of ships were cobbled together from other ships to save time or something like that.

[ June 16, 2003, 05:14: Message edited by: General Talashar ]

[Magnum357]

Hadrian does bring up a point that at the beginning of WWII their where very few Carriers in the US arsnenal. By the End of the war, we had like over a hundred, but most of them where small "jeep carriers" (converted Freighters to launch fighters from) and were not exactly as capable as the larger Feet carriers.

I think sense the Founders don't really care how many of their Gem hedar soldiers die, I would think then that most of their small ships (maybe even their large ones too) where probaby pretty simple vessels to produce and my not be much of a match one on one. Like for example, its probably a good bet that a Galaxy Class starship could defeat a Dominion Crusier, but possible that the Dominion could produce 2 or 3 Crusiers much easier then the Feds could.