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I'm not sure a principal series with the Federation as villains would have worked (love me the occasional mirror universe plots though, even the Enterprise one (evil T'pol in crop top... hrrrrnnn).

But a series about a special ops force, a force 'that does not exist', of men and women of exceptional skills and 'patriotic' views from the federation, who will do what is necessary to accomplish a better world for the citizenry, would be great. They know they exist so that the rest of the federation can continue to hold it's moral fiber, be a wonderful place full of paradises like Riza and Betazed and hold to high morals like prime directives and star fleet regulations, they themselves absolutely trample those codes every day because they love them and want them to exist 'for everyone else'.

I'm thinking about Garrak in the DS9 episode 'In the Pale Moonlight', also the frankly brilliant character of The Operative in Serenity. Remember this:

The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?
The Operative: [i]I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster.What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

Scary SOBs, taking familiar comforting things from the Federation and turning them loose on the Tal'Shia or the Obsidian Order or the Jem Hadar remnant cells, or launching preemptive strikes on borg harvesting a civilization or new and rising threats so that the federation just never finds out about them or that their society is crippled from developing warp tech, assassinating dangerous individuals and waging secret wars. Using cloaking devices, metagenic weapons, isolytic subspace weapons, intrusive vulcan mind meld interrogations, betazoid mind wiper 'cleaners', binar codebreakers etc.

It could have been sweet, ah well. History proved otherwise and once again, we were treated to why suits with no love of scifi should not be allowed to steer it.

MGS is on a roll today. Thumbs up!

DS9 seemed almost prophetic if you look at the Federation/Starfleet as the United States pre 9/11 and post 9/11. They saw themselves as paragons of virtue and goodness fighting against the evil Dominion. As the war unfolds, the dark seedy underside of the Federation begins to show itself. Lying/deceiving others (Romulans) to get them to join the war on their side (*cough* Iraq *cough*), Section 31 coming to light, and the casualty lists being posted that reminded me so much of the news cycle's obsession with the casualty lists of the early Iraq/Afghan war.

If I were to relaunch the Star Trek series post DS9/Voyager I think it would almost be worthwhile to launch two different series. One would focus on the Federation picking itself up from multiple wars and threats, grappling with its identity and wavering in its sense of destiny. The other could be a more traditional TNG/TOS/VOY like show with a single crew trying to stay true to the original mission of exploration/diplomacy. I think it would aptly show the crossroads at which the Federation finds itself.

It'll never happen but a guy can dream.

 Frazzled wrote:
TOS uber alles. No one can take the Shat!

NOTE: I did like DS9 above all other non TOS shows though. After you watch DS9, going back and watching a TNG episode is like a high school rendition of Mary Poppins, played a bunch of B string actors with corn cobs shoved up their well you get the idea. Seriously, it has the devilish combination of being stuffy, preachy, and boring in one exquisite enchilada of bland.

Man, that post was full of win. I thought I was the only one who thought that way about TNG.


But am I the only one who remembers the dreadnought-class ship (with three nacelles) from the Star Trek Technical manual?

 gorgon wrote:
But am I the only one who remembers the dreadnought-class ship (with three nacelles) from the Star Trek Technical manual?

Remember it? I still have a mini of it.

Cant wait to see it

 gorgon wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
TOS uber alles. No one can take the Shat!

NOTE: I did like DS9 above all other non TOS shows though. After you watch DS9, going back and watching a TNG episode is like a high school rendition of Mary Poppins, played a bunch of B string actors with corn cobs shoved up their well you get the idea. Seriously, it has the devilish combination of being stuffy, preachy, and boring in one exquisite enchilada of bland.

Man, that post was full of win. I thought I was the only one who thought that way about TNG.

No, you are not alone. For me it was the birth of Babylon 5 that made me see very clearly how gak TNG mostly was...mostly...

It was incredible, when Babylon 5 finally happened, to see how scifi should be. A B5 'filler' episode might be an entire species dying out of a plague or gangster using a brain eating alien to control the slums of the station, whilst it's actual, glorious story arc gained it's momentum. TNG was almost all 'filler', endless episodes about Deanna Troi getting a funny headache for various reasons, Worf being endlessly beaten up by everything (oh look at the klingons and their foolish violent ways and obsession with honor, lets skip merrily over the part of the fluff where they've had a vast space empire for hundreds of years prior to us getting anywhere near space...), Geordi being a sad blind loser in love and the relentless 'Data's a bit like Pinocchio, awww' stories, all to a backdrop of Riker doing that strange lopsided lurching around looking for women or things to try and hump, like an overly amorous sasquatch.

I'd like to see a series based on the Red Shirts

 Ahtman wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
But am I the only one who remembers the dreadnought-class ship (with three nacelles) from the Star Trek Technical manual?

Remember it? I still have a mini of it.

Yay! I'm not the weird old guy who "remembers" things that the young folks half-think never actually happened.


@MGS: Saying most of TNG episodes were filler is a good way of putting it

 gorgon wrote:


But am I the only one who remembers the dreadnought-class ship (with three nacelles) from the Star Trek Technical manual?

They had those in the game Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. It was ok, I guess. I preferred Masters of Orion II, which is similar in many ways. Once you could start cranking the higher technology ships out, you were golden.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
TOS uber alles. No one can take the Shat!

NOTE: I did like DS9 above all other non TOS shows though. After you watch DS9, going back and watching a TNG episode is like a high school rendition of Mary Poppins, played a bunch of B string actors with corn cobs shoved up their well you get the idea. Seriously, it has the devilish combination of being stuffy, preachy, and boring in one exquisite enchilada of bland.

Man, that post was full of win. I thought I was the only one who thought that way about TNG.

No, you are not alone. For me it was the birth of Babylon 5 that made me see very clearly how gak TNG mostly was...mostly...

It was incredible, when Babylon 5 finally happened, to see how scifi should be. A B5 'filler' episode might be an entire species dying out of a plague or gangster using a brain eating alien to control the slums of the station, whilst it's actual, glorious story arc gained it's momentum. TNG was almost all 'filler', endless episodes about Deanna Troi getting a funny headache for various reasons, Worf being endlessly beaten up by everything (oh look at the klingons and their foolish violent ways and obsession with honor, lets skip merrily over the part of the fluff where they've had a vast space empire for hundreds of years prior to us getting anywhere near space...), Geordi being a sad blind loser in love and the relentless 'Data's a bit like Pinocchio, awww' stories, all to a backdrop of Riker doing that strange lopsided lurching around looking for women or things to try and hump, like an overly amorous sasquatch.

MGS has the way of it. While TNG was blabbing about how goody good the Federation was and humans had become, B5 was spanning galaxy wide wars asking simple questions.

So you have to ask yourself, what do you want?

It appeared in All Good Things, as the future Enterprise.

I thought this was the vehicle originally referred to:



Birth of the Federation is small time; Starfleet Command is big time.

Never played that one. BotF was among the last of the computer games I picked up.

 kronk wrote:

 gorgon wrote:


But am I the only one who remembers the dreadnought-class ship (with three nacelles) from the Star Trek Technical manual?

They had those in the game Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. It was ok, I guess. I preferred Masters of Orion II, which is similar in many ways. Once you could start cranking the higher technology ships out, you were golden.

MOO2 was boss!

Have you tried Endless Space? Addiciting in the same way as MOO2.

 gorgon wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
TOS uber alles. No one can take the Shat!

NOTE: I did like DS9 above all other non TOS shows though. After you watch DS9, going back and watching a TNG episode is like a high school rendition of Mary Poppins, played a bunch of B string actors with corn cobs shoved up their well you get the idea. Seriously, it has the devilish combination of being stuffy, preachy, and boring in one exquisite enchilada of bland.

Man, that post was full of win. I thought I was the only one who thought that way about TNG.


But am I the only one who remembers the dreadnought-class ship (with three nacelles) from the Star Trek Technical manual?

I remember a book that featured it:

Same one - or just yet another three nacelle super ship?

I am at a loss to understand why a third engine makes a ship that much scarier.

I played a lot of Birth of the Federation, usually as Romulans and spammed Birds of Prey like a madman. Nothing quite like taking down borg cubes for breakfast.

Remember kids;

If knowledge is power then to be unknown is to be unconquerable

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I am at a loss to understand why a third engine makes a ship that much scarier.

I played a lot of Birth of the Federation, usually as Romulans and spammed Birds of Prey like a madman. Nothing quite like taking down borg cubes for breakfast.

Remember kids;

If knowledge is power then to be unknown is to be unconquerable

Interestingly the real life HMS Dreadnought owed much to having a cutting edge engine - it would have been to slow to get into battle otherwise. I doubt that relates to Federation dreadnoughts however, more likely it's viewed as a way to make the ship look 'more' while retaining the classic saucer and engineering hull appearance.

Adding an extra engine in an awkward place was all the rage back in the pre-film days. Extra nacelle on the neck? Sure, why not.

 RossDas wrote:

Interestingly the real life HMS Dreadnought owed much to having a cutting edge engine - it would have been to slow to get into battle otherwise. I doubt that relates to Federation dreadnoughts however, more likely it's viewed as a way to make the ship look 'more' while retaining the classic saucer and engineering hull appearance.

I much preferred the 'beefed up' Voyager with ablative armor and additional weaponry to give it a more formidable profile. Remember what a single cube did at Wolf 359

MGS what was that? How do two torpedoes take down a Borg cube and one Enterprise sized ship fight off three without much effort.

Info please? I didn't watch Voyager after a few episodes past when the Hrogin took over the ship for an episode.

 Frazzled wrote:
MGS what was that? How do two torpedoes take down a Borg cube and one Enterprise sized ship fight off three without much effort.

Info please? I didn't watch Voyager after a few episodes past when the Hrogin took over the ship for an episode.

Final story, Future Jayneway breaks temporal prime directives and goes back in time, gives Voyager what it needs to really really really screw up the borg and give the borg queen a very bad day whilst hijacking their 'webway' to get back to the alpha quadrant.

Also, Voyager is a lot smaller than either galaxy or sovereign class enterprises, about the same size as the constitution class if I recall.

Awesome. So evidently the Federation technology advances in 20 make it royally badass. Now is the time for them to strike! The galaxy is theirs!

 Frazzled wrote:
Awesome. So evidently the Federation technology advances in 20 make it royally badass. Now is the time for them to strike! The galaxy is theirs!

Well, while it's never explicitly stated, they flat out crippled the Borg in that episode. They collapsed a portion of their webway, blew up their main hub, and wrecked a ton of cubes. The Borg took a massive hit, though I did have a bit of a beef with that episode.

The warp conduit opened up right in Sector 001. Close enough to earth to see it with the naked eye. So why the hell hadn't the Borg just rushed them before then?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I am at a loss to understand why a third engine makes a ship that much scarier.

The Nacels give the ship more power, so having three would give you more power for shields, thrust, and ship-to-ship phasors, presumably.

 kronk wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I am at a loss to understand why a third engine makes a ship that much scarier.

The Nacels give the ship more power, so having three would give you more power for shields, thrust, and ship-to-ship phasors, presumably.

I thought that all stemmed from the warp core?

They should just shoot warp cores at people.

 Frazzled wrote:
They should just shoot warp cores at people.

Hot damn now we're talking!

That Voyager video didn't seem all that badass to me, and if anything seemed a reminder of the sadness of the Berman years.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I am at a loss to understand why a third engine makes a ship that much scarier.

The Nacels give the ship more power, so having three would give you more power for shields, thrust, and ship-to-ship phasors, presumably.

I thought that all stemmed from the warp core?

I dunno.

From this place.

A nacelle was an outboard engine housing structure on spacecraft. The nacelles in warp-capable shuttles and starships housed the warp coils of the vessels warp drive. Warp nacelles were also sometimes known as power nacelles, antimatter nacelles, warp drive pods, or space/warp propulsion units during the 23rd century. (TOS: "The Doomsday Machine", "Bread and Circuses"; TNG: "Datalore") Impulse nacelles of a sublight shuttlecraft housed the ships impulse driver engines. (TNG: "In Theory", "Descent" display graphic)

The warp coils in warp nacelles created a subspace displacement field, which "warped" the space around the vessel allowing it to "ride" on a spatial distortion, and travel faster than the speed of light. (ENT: "Cold Front") While not always present on starships, warp nacelles were the most common component of warp flight, dating as far back as Zefram Cochrane's original warp ship, the Phoenix, circa 2063. (Star Trek: First Contact)

According to the Spaceflight Chronology (page 139), a three-nacelle configuration gives a third more power to the warp drive, greater acceleration and faster engagement

So...a third nacelle would give you greater speed and acceleration, then. And since the Dreadnoughts have more armament and stuff, they'd need it?

 kronk wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I am at a loss to understand why a third engine makes a ship that much scarier.

The Nacels give the ship more power, so having three would give you more power for shields, thrust, and ship-to-ship phasors, presumably.

I thought that all stemmed from the warp core?

I dunno.

From this place.

A nacelle was an outboard engine housing structure on spacecraft. The nacelles in warp-capable shuttles and starships housed the warp coils of the vessels warp drive. Warp nacelles were also sometimes known as power nacelles, antimatter nacelles, warp drive pods, or space/warp propulsion units during the 23rd century. (TOS: "The Doomsday Machine", "Bread and Circuses"; TNG: "Datalore") Impulse nacelles of a sublight shuttlecraft housed the ships impulse driver engines. (TNG: "In Theory", "Descent" display graphic)

The warp coils in warp nacelles created a subspace displacement field, which "warped" the space around the vessel allowing it to "ride" on a spatial distortion, and travel faster than the speed of light. (ENT: "Cold Front") While not always present on starships, warp nacelles were the most common component of warp flight, dating as far back as Zefram Cochrane's original warp ship, the Phoenix, circa 2063. (Star Trek: First Contact)

According to the Spaceflight Chronology (page 139), a three-nacelle configuration gives a third more power to the warp drive, greater acceleration and faster engagement

So...a third nacelle would give you greater speed and acceleration, then. And since the Dreadnoughts have more armament and stuff, they'd need it?

It's interesting because I went to that same link and had read this bit:

The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (pages 63, 65, and 66) states that the experiments with single and more than two nacelle designs, conducted in 2269, proved that having two nacelles was the optimal configuration for vessel control and power generation.

And the quote about third nacelles being compared to third wheels.

Also, just a minor grumble from me, but phasers are powered separately to the rest of the ship, so an incapacitated vessel can potentially still fight and a disarmed vessel can still run. So I don't think the nacelle affects the armaments on a ship (I don't think they'd have any influence on torps either), of course, that may well be different with disruptor weaponry on foreign power's ships.

 Ahtman wrote:
I thought this was the vehicle originally referred to:

Spoiler:

Birth of the Federation is small time; Starfleet Command is big time.

Oh your in trouble there captain, the aft shields are gone and your not making much of a dent on that Kingon