Star Trek: general discussion-Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks (and Orville)

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**insaniak**

Well, Oh did want to nuke the entire planet. Even then, given the power of capital ships in that era, a dozen or two at most should have been sufficient, and that would have let them be much more spread out on the screen, while still being more than impressive enough as a fleet spectacle.

Although it seems showing the distance between ships was something the animators just had some difficulty with... when Narek is following them, they mention him being right at the edge of sensor range, while the external shot showed him practically knocking up against their rear bumper.

**warboss**

She did say she wanted to "sterilize" the whole planet but... you know... I think 200 photon torpedoes (just one per romulan ship iirc) fired immediately upon coming out of warp onto the only settlement on the planet or at least the only one we were shown probably would have been a pretty sensible thing to do. Instead, we get the dramatic death star laser powerup for planetary sterilization pattern 5 (because as trekkies we all know that 1-4 just simply won't do!).

**insaniak**

That was something that stuck out from the start of the series - They seemed to be aiming for something really dark and gritty for Picard - which they seemed to achieve, and I really liked where they took his character, with it seeming a natural progression from First Contact and Nemesis - the Romulans were still such comic-booky, mustache-twirly villains.

I really enjoyed the series overall, and particularly liked that despite the earlier vibe of the series, it still finished with a very 'Star Trek' resolution to the whole mess... but it just feels like they didn't quite nail the overall tone.

**BobtheInquisitor**

insaniak wrote:
Well, Oh did want to nuke the entire planet. Even then, given the power of capital ships in that era, a dozen or two at most should have been sufficient, and that would have let them be much more spread out on the screen, while still being more than impressive enough as a fleet spectacle.

Although it seems showing the distance between ships was something the animators just had some difficulty with... when Narek is following them, they mention him being right at the edge of sensor range, while the external shot showed him practically knocking up against their rear bumper.

That’s just a visual distortion caused by subspace lensing. If you kick a warp field up past 20 billion kilocochranes, it looks like the shops are hugging.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

warboss wrote:
She did say she wanted to "sterilize" the whole planet but... you know... I think 200 photon torpedoes (just one per romulan ship iirc) fired immediately upon coming out of warp onto the only settlement on the planet or at least the only one we were shown probably would have been a pretty sensible thing to do. Instead, we get the dramatic death star laser powerup for planetary sterilization pattern 5 (because as trekkies we all know that 1-4 just simply won't do!).

Whatever happened to good, old mutagenic weapons?

**AduroT**

To be fair they didn’t know they were simply going up against a small resort town. They simply knew it as the Android home planet. The home base of the things that are supposed to annihilate all life in the galaxy. Better safe than sorry, y’know?

**Chillreaper**

warboss wrote:
She did say she wanted to "sterilize" the whole planet but... you know... I think 200 photon torpedoes (just one per romulan ship iirc) fired immediately upon coming out of warp onto the only settlement on the planet or at least the only one we were shown probably would have been a pretty sensible thing to do. Instead, we get the dramatic death star laser powerup for planetary sterilization pattern 5 (because as trekkies we all know that 1-4 just simply won't do!).

Yep, it's a static target on a ball of rock moving around a predictable orbit. How they couldn't have calculated a targeting solution before they even decided to travel to the planet, I don't know...

But Star Trek doesn't do the old "lob a bunch of rocks from the edge of the system" thing.

**warboss**

Just replace drop cloak with drop out of warp. That supernova really lowered the Tal Shiar standards of practice for exterminatus to borrow a phrase from 40k. And, yes, the character shown is a Cardassian (head of the Obsidian Order) but he is leading, as shown, a combined fleet with the Tal Shiar.

**Vaktathi**

Haha, I love that comparison, they definitely managed to portray the Romulans and Cardassians as being significantly more competent and ruthless even when being fooled in DS9 than the Romulans appeard in that last episode of Picard.

**Frazzled**

Overread wrote:
Given the fleet we see at the end of Picard has two elements

1) The ships are clearly much more warlike - even Riker is admitting that the ship he is on is at the top of the battlefleet.

2) The ship are uniform constructions. Now we can argue this was to make it quicker for a TV crew to make a whole fleet cheaper for high definition modern TV. However at the same time I think its a reflection that Starfleet has bulked up its fleet considerably in a very short span of time. So the ships were assembly line built to the same/similar specifications. Rather than ad-hock ships built to different specifications for different core roles.

In the past many of their ships were mult-role - science, research, study, first contacts, battle, exploratory etc... The Enterprise D even had children and families on board. The ships of Original Series to DS9 first half (or so) were all ships made with multiple roles in mind and battle was only one of many. The result is that they were not warships and the crews, whilst having battle training, were not warriors in the same sense.

During the Dominion War the Federation starts the Defiant Program - making an actual warship (several in the end) and also starting to train crews who were specifically warriors first.

We see some hints of this continuation with the Enterprise E, though its still a multi-role flagship. We then get a seriously stark reminder of how its not a warship when the Romulans then actually go and build a full capital ship sized warship - 3 warp cores, more guns than most fleets etc...

So in Picard I think what we are seeing is the culmination of a Cold War Arms Race. The Federation had its "WWII" in the Dominion War - it then had its odd cold war with the Romulans escalate to an actual full armed conflict (even if it was only two ships involved).
I think the Federation has armed up significantly. The continued Borg threat and the shockwaves of the Dominion War (which lets again remember is one of the biggest actual wars the Federation has ever had); has likely bred a need in the Federation to have its own army. To not rely on allied races who might fall from grace or even debate and argue (lets not forget Klingons were not joining in easily and even when they did they often wanted to do their own thing in the Dominion Wars - they looked for glory in battle not tactical strikes all the time).

The Federation has a warfleet now. A top end warfleet built by the faction in its sector which arguably has the most resources and is affluent enough that they can make that costly investment. Indeed we get no hint that the Federation is economically harmed even after the events on Mars - which was again another massive event close to home that has likely also spurred the desire within the Federation to be able to police its own systems.

One would argue the Curiosity Class is just a new iteration of the Constitution Class. It was made for exploration, but also to fight Da Klingons. INdeed, thats the big plot of Undiscovered Country - what happens to all the military of Star Fleet.*

*Also Constitutions were also "mass produced" to see TV budget dollars.

**warboss**

Vaktathi wrote:
Haha, I love that comparison, they definitely managed to portray the Romulans and Cardassians as being significantly more competent and ruthless even when being fooled in DS9 than the Romulans appeard in that last episode of Picard.

I suppose we're lucky that she didn't instead decide to launch space sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads to destroy the settlement as per planetary sterilization pattern 12.

**Don Qui Hotep**

Any fans of TOS? I'm doing my first watch-through and so far there having about a 90% hit rate for me. A lot of really creative ideas. A week ago I watched The Squire of Gothos - anyone else think that he might have been a member of the Q continuum?

**BobtheInquisitor**

Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Any fans of TOS? I'm doing my first watch-through and so far there having about a 90% hit rate for me. A lot of really creative ideas. A week ago I watched The Squire of Gothos - anyone else think that he might have been a member of the Q continuum?

1. It.’s a great show. Watch out for that third season, though.
2. Yes. Many fans had that thought. According to every bit of B canon, Trelane is a member of the Q continuum (or an adjacent continuum of such beings). Check out the Peter David novel about him if you’re interested.

**Turnip Jedi**

warboss wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Haha, I love that comparison, they definitely managed to portray the Romulans and Cardassians as being significantly more competent and ruthless even when being fooled in DS9 than the Romulans appeard in that last episode of Picard.

I suppose we're lucky that she didn't instead decide to launch space sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads to destroy the settlement as per planetary sterilization pattern 12.

dont talk bobbins 12 is the drown planet in Tribbles one, Sharks is 14

**Don Qui Hotep**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Any fans of TOS? I'm doing my first watch-through and so far there having about a 90% hit rate for me. A lot of really creative ideas. A week ago I watched The Squire of Gothos - anyone else think that he might have been a member of the Q continuum?

1. It.’s a great show. Watch out for that third season, though.
2. Yes. Many fans had that thought. According to every bit of B canon, Trelane is a member of the Q continuum (or an adjacent continuum of such beings). Check out the Peter David novel about him if you’re interested.

Oh fun, thanks for letting me know. Glad to know I'm not alone. I've seen all of TNG and DS9 and most of Voyager, so I'm working my way back to the original series before sitting down to do a marathon rewatch of the films.

Any suggestions on what some of the better authors/series are for novels? I imagine like any IP, there are fan favorites. I'll look up the novel you recommend, thanks!

One thing that I'm really loving about TOS is how Star Fleet consistently makes really strong, moral decisions. In Next Gen and DS9 it was often people on the ground making the best decisions possible despite the out-of-touch administration of Star Fleet officials (the Maquis, anyone?). It made for great storytelling, and Ira Behr's has said many times that he wanted a darker take on the Federation in general. But watching TOS there are so many moments where I'm just blown away at the idea of a government that actually cares about people. I love how at the end of "The Menagerie" Star Fleet just says, "oh, that makes sense Spock; you did a nice thing for a nice person so we'll accept that you had the moral high ground."

I was not a big fan of STP for that reason, because of how hostile and angry Star Fleet had become. It grew on me towards the end and the arc of the show seemed to be that Star Fleet went through this dark period and then saw reason and emerged once again valuing all life, everywhere ~ but it just didn't feel very Star Treky. It felt realistic, and we see many civilizations in history go through these periods of moral and ideological change. Maybe the message is even more optimistic, the idea that we can deescelate from fear and hatred. But DS9 handled a similar moral arc over a much longer period of time and with what is in my opinion greater success.

**warboss**

I should probably do the same. I'm more familiar with literally everything else in trek more so than with the original series (and even rewatched alot of TAS in the past few years). I haven't watched the original literally in decades in any concerted way (maybe since the early 90s?) back when TNG was still in production.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Don Qui Hotep, I agree with you about DS9 handling that arc better. For the novels, what era do you prefer? Do you want books that fit into the show or that explore the edges of the setting?

For TNG, Peter David wrote quite a few good ones (although some were later contradicted by the show). His New Frontier series starts off strong, too, but kind of lost its way as David experienced medical issues in real life.

If you like the idea of what happens next, there is a post-Nemesis continuity often called the Relaunch timeline. I’m a pretty big fan of it. They start by removing the Borg to stop the previous trend of authors using them for stupid fanservice...a controversial move, but one I felt allowed for more focus with the Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers. The Titan series starring Captain and later Admiral Riker we’re mostly fun with a couple duds early on. The Section 31 books by David Mack are tense and dark. The main TNG line have some great story arcs sometimes, but mostly aim for the episodic Star Trek feeling. Then there are some smaller series, such as Prometheus, Prey, Destiny (the one where they killed the Borg) and some side stories like Articles of the Federation (West Wing meets Star Trek) and the Department or Temporal Investigations (my absolute favorite).

If you like “continuity porn” stories that tie together and explain lots of background lore from random episodes, Christopher Bennet is your writer. If you want emotional Cardassian stuff, Una McCormick. Action or grit, David Mack. Klingons or politics, Keith RA DeCandido. High concept, big stakes stories, James Swallow.

I’m not as familiar with TOS novels, but I remember liking AC Crispin’s work.

**Just Tony**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Action or grit, David Mack.

After the SCE story Wildfire I'll never touch one of his books again.

**odinsgrandson**

insaniak wrote:
Well, Oh did want to nuke the entire planet. Even then, given the power of capital ships in that era, a dozen or two at most should have been sufficient, and that would have let them be much more spread out on the screen, while still being more than impressive enough as a fleet spectacle.

Although it seems showing the distance between ships was something the animators just had some difficulty with... when Narek is following them, they mention him being right at the edge of sensor range, while the external shot showed him practically knocking up against their rear bumper.

The depictions of space combat in Star Trek are just as absurd and unrealistic as other depictions.

There are a few things to remember about space:

1- There is a LOT of nothing in space. Like, a mind bogglingly massive amount of nothing. We constantly get the wrong impression from the solar system maps that we make, but in reality, there's so much space between planets that the next closest planet is only a speck in the sky. If you're fighting around one planet, the other planets in the solar system will be unseeable. Looking out the window to see another ship is simply not going to happen, and likewise, a camera taking a picture of a space combat will only be able to see one ship at a time.

BUT we can see all of those with the right equipment. With some better sensors that know what to look for, we would be able to detect another ship a crazy distance away (remember, there's a whole lot of 'nothing' out there, so finding a small something isn't all that hard).

So when two ships are doing combat in space, they should look like the intro to Mass Effect 2- a ship that is too far away for us to see out the window has just started shooting, and all we really know is that it hit us really hard.

- Things move really fast in space. "Stopping" in space isn't really a thing. It wastes a lot of energy to bring your ship to a stand still, and there's no reason to stop because there is so much nothing to run into. Plus, if you're close to a planet (close enough for it to make a nice looking picture) you're going to be pulled into its gravity unless you keep moving in a constant orbit around it, and orbiting objects move at crazy fast speeds).

So space combat would really look like two ships firing projectiles at one another from impossible distances away,"

So the "lock on" mechanic in Star Trek does make sense, because there would be no other way to actually hit anything, but the depictions of ships in space are silly. Even the Romulan and Klingon cloaking devices are silly (since you really need to fool the sensors- that's different from making an invisible ship- especially when Kirk can spot a cloaked ship based on how it distorts the stars behind it.

But, like most of the science fiction in Star Trek, the depictions always favor what makes life easier for making a television show. It is a lot easier to depict space combat with a couple of models hovering in front of a planet backdrop, so that's the direction they go with it.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Just Tony wrote:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Action or grit, David Mack.

After the SCE story Wildfire I'll never touch one of his books again.

Why? Is that the one where Kieran Duffy died?

**Don Qui Hotep**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Don Qui Hotep, I agree with you about DS9 handling that arc better. For the novels, what era do you prefer? Do you want books that fit into the show or that explore the edges of the setting?

For TNG, Peter David wrote quite a few good ones (although some were later contradicted by the show). His New Frontier series starts off strong, too, but kind of lost its way as David experienced medical issues in real life.

If you like the idea of what happens next, there is a post-Nemesis continuity often called the Relaunch timeline. I’m a pretty big fan of it. They start by removing the Borg to stop the previous trend of authors using them for stupid fanservice...a controversial move, but one I felt allowed for more focus with the Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers. The Titan series starring Captain and later Admiral Riker we’re mostly fun with a couple duds early on. The Section 31 books by David Mack are tense and dark. The main TNG line have some great story arcs sometimes, but mostly aim for the episodic Star Trek feeling. Then there are some smaller series, such as Prometheus, Prey, Destiny (the one where they killed the Borg) and some side stories like Articles of the Federation (West Wing meets Star Trek) and the Department or Temporal Investigations (my absolute favorite).

If you like “continuity porn” stories that tie together and explain lots of background lore from random episodes, Christopher Bennet is your writer. If you want emotional Cardassian stuff, Una McCormick. Action or grit, David Mack. Klingons or politics, Keith RA DeCandido. High concept, big stakes stories, James Swallow.

I’m not as familiar with TOS novels, but I remember liking AC Crispin’s work.

Thanks for the recommendations! I'm open to any time but I realize that I'd really like a bit more DS9. I'm very interested in a post-Nemesis timeline (by which I mean a post Deep Space Nine timeline, because there's so much cool stuff that they could do). I think I'll check out Una McCormick, I really like Cardassian stories (by which I mean Bajoran stories). Are there any novels that take place in a post-Dominion War Cardassia?

**Mr Morden**

Managed to watch final epsiode with mother

Hmm not very good imo - shame as enjoyed it up till this epsiode

The "death is great" thing is getting really old in shows at the moment - and complete nonsense.

Oh look we are all mourning but hey five mins later and all good.

Very bity and lots of people doing nothing or simply disapearing for long sections.

Only two of the Synths seemed capable of doing anything and one gets turned off by Sung - is she dead, deactivated - what?

Sexy Dodgy half sister does....nothing and then dies off screen so we know she is not dead.
The not-Borg do....nothing....well apart from Seven but she gets nothing to do apart from look sexy and have a fight

Romulans apaprently don't cloak anymore

And entire Romulan fleets have this problem ....

Super powerful aliens are turned off - probably looked in and saw all the other super powerful aliens and went - yeah no lets not go there.

**BobtheInquisitor**

A Stitch in Time (co-written by the actor who played Garrak) is supposed to be very good, but I was never able to find the paperback. Looks like it’s available on Kindle now, though.

The Never Ending Sacrifice covers the run of Events in DS9 from a Cardassian point of view. Enigma Tales was a good Cardassian Reconstruction/Garrak novel, but it has massive spoilers for the relaunch series (especially Bashir’s part) as it takes place near the end of that continuity. There are Crdsssian characters on Titan and the Enterprise, so a lot of the Cardassia stuff is visited in drips and drabs in those series.

**Turnip Jedi**

@ Mr M

yeah i kind of got the feeling they got cold feet regarding the not end, legends need an ending to be legends

also seeing Riker warping in and melting Oh with an underslung BFG was the TNG callback i was most hoping for sadly not to be

**Mr Morden**

Turnip Jedi wrote:
@ Mr M

yeah i kind of got the feeling they got cold feet regarding the not end, legends need an ending to be legends

also seeing Riker warping in and melting Oh with an underslung BFG was the TNG callback i was most hoping for sadly not to be

They could have done alot of different things - Picard voicing a younger person for instance.

**Just Tony**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Just Tony wrote:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Action or grit, David Mack.

After the SCE story Wildfire I'll never touch one of his books again.

Why? Is that the one where Kieran Duffy died?

Him and like 90% of the crew. Corsi paralyzed, Gold crippled, it was like he looked at the most edgelord grimderp Trek fanfic around and said "Hold my beer..."

**BobtheInquisitor**

Yeah, I have to admit that story hit me in the gut. Until STD and STP came out, Mack probably was the closest thing Trek had to an Edge lord.

**insaniak**

odinsgrandson wrote:
... Even the Romulan and Klingon cloaking devices are silly (since you really need to fool the sensors- that's different from making an invisible ship- especially when Kirk can spot a cloaked ship based on how it distorts the stars behind it.

They do fool the sensors. The point of the cloaking device is that it bends both light and energy waves, rendering it effectively invisible to most sensors. The one that Kirk spotted from the visual distortion was a comparatively early version - they got better over time, and Starfleet (or, rather, the Enterprise crew) subsequently found other ways to spot them with sensors.

**warboss**

For those who haven't seen it and are interested, the DS9 documentary that was crowdfunded a few years back and came out last year is available to watch free with ads on IMDB.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6332276/

It's good.. pretentious at times... but a good watch nonetheless. Surprisingly for me as a "ship guy", my least favorite parts were the newly done ship battle scenes as they looked too crisp and videogamey.

**Don Qui Hotep**

Ah dang, I just bought it a few weeks ago. Ah well. I did enjoy it, although I felt the jazz number at the end was pretty unnecessary (and I'm happy to go on the record as saying I think bringing in Vic Fontane was one of the more baffling choices that Ira Behr made).

One thing I really liked was the framing device of making the first episode of Season 8. It was interesting to hear where they thought the characters would end up after so long, and input from each of the actors. It's a little bittersweet though because it was released only a few months before Aron Eisenberg and Rene Auberjonois died.

The only complaint I have with the film is the complaint I have with all of DS9, which is: more Nana Visitor, please.

**warboss**

Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Ah dang, I just bought it a few weeks ago. Ah well. I did enjoy it, although I felt the jazz number at the end was pretty unnecessary (and I'm happy to go on the record as saying I think bringing in Vic Fontane was one of the more baffling choices that Ira Behr made).

One thing I really liked was the framing device of making the first episode of Season 8. It was interesting to hear where they thought the characters would end up after so long, and input from each of the actors. It's a little bittersweet though because it was released only a few months before Aron Eisenberg and Rene Auberjonois died.

The only complaint I have with the film is the complaint I have with all of DS9, which is: more Nana Visitor, please.

The one thing I didn't like about the plot they described was the the spoilered part below but I fully admit that the more recent experiences with nuTrek have soured me on the now waaaaay overused idea.

Spoiler: