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Huh… I never picked up on the abbreviation STD until now. I blame the orkmoticons for usually censoring it.

I still want a proper follow up to the Dominion War.

No Lower Decks doesn’t count on behalf it’s bloody awful, poorly aminated with a crappy voice cast who have to overact because the amination is so……..crap……they can’t even manage to scrawl, with a crayon, on the wall, with their tongue sticking out the corner of their mouth, anything which might resemble an actual facial expression.

Sorry, despite my verbosity right here I’ve got my arse in my hands.

If you enjoy Lower Decks? Good on you and completely ignore this post. I’m not the ultimate arbitrator of taste.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I still want a proper follow up to the Dominion War.

The issue here is that we kinda know what the follow-up was: A group of Changelings bided their time, hooked up with the Borg Queen who suffering the ill-effects of whatever Janeway did to her 20+ years ago, and hatched a plan to usurp the UFP from within.

But yes, overall, I'd like a proper Trek series set post-Dominion war.

I liked that finale. Cliffhangers are fun and this is the first Trek series where I actually have to wait for the next series to get a resolution.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m not the ultimate arbitrator of taste.

We know that because I am. *smokes bubble pipe*

Aw yeah, Lower Decks! Some great Voyager callbacks in the first one, and Moopsy was great in the second.

Oh. Is S4 live?

I've been waiting for my T'lyn since S2

I even messaged my friend about this a few days ago and I've forgotten about it already. I blame reading Dune.

Episode 1; Funny idea of Voyager becoming a museum ship and all the throwbacks to the series. The throwback to Tuvix was a surprise. Bold strategy.

But I also hate the stupid fandom attitudes on that episode so I was anticipating something eye rolling and I guess it kind of went there but whatever.

Episode was still fun. Liked Boimler's arc and how it ended for Mariner. And oh my god Ma'ah?! Yey!



Episode 2;

Much better episode imo. Mariner and Ransom are still hilarious together. Love Rutherford's whole deal with Livik.

The gag with Boimler's room is way funnier to me than it probably should be and the most important device in the universe gag is low key brilliant XD

I hope a future episode deals with Mariner and Jennifer. Come on. Give me some closure damnit!

Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

The dilemma with the Tuvix situation: I always had a solution to it that I'm surprised never got used.

In a ST:TNG episode it was shown that a transporter could duplicate a person (Will Riker) and have them be EXACTLY the same (Tom Riker).

Step 1. Fill Tuvix in on the plan. Step 2. sedate him so he can't change his mind half-way through. Step 3. Transporter clone him. Step 4. Take one of the Tuvix's and split them. Step 5. Enjoy that you have all three entities living.

Yeeeaaaahhhh… The problem there is the transporter clones are still their each own person, so you’re still killing dude, you’re just doing it while he’s asleep so he can’t beg for his life.

Also wasn't riker's case accident? Can they intentionally repeat it?

tneva82 wrote:
Also wasn't riker's case accident? Can they intentionally repeat it?

They at least accidentally repeated it on a previous season of Lower Decks and made a second Boimler.

It has to do with transporter signals getting interrupted and I'm not sure it's something that can be freely replicated.

With Tuvix proper, it's one of the few Voyager episodes where the writers actually remembered that Voyager wasn't in the Federation and had to make tough decisions like that to keep everyone alive.

 AduroT wrote:
Yeeeaaaahhhh… The problem there is the transporter clones are still their each own person, so you’re still killing dude, you’re just doing it while he’s asleep so he can’t beg for his life.

Yeah, kind of the point. The real problem with Tuvix being split was that it was against his will. If you get his consent first, and then make sure he can't back out once there are two of him, it makes it much less ethically questionable.

Although, I wonder if you could somehow link the process? Split him in the transporter AND double him at the same time? That way, technically, there was never a second Tuvix, but you still get Nelix and Tuvok back.

Lower Decks is out!? I'm so behind. Just finished Strange New Worlds. I thought it was quite good. My favorite part was Spock's future Mother-in-law. Just like the first season that Spock is comedy gold!

Why The Defiant Am Best Ship Evar

By Mad Doc Grotsnik, aged 43 and a bit, IQ probably.

The Defiant is the ultimate expression of just how mental hoomans am.

Leave us alone, and yes we’ll arm our ships for defence, but will mostly focus on our largely benign poking and prodding about the Universe.

If we poke and prod too far, we’ll be Super Polite and apologise and back off, whilst politely negotiating terms and that.

But. If your insist on being a dick? Then get ready, brace, bend over and think of your home world, because The Defiant class is what happens when we turn all our knowledge to kicking all your teeth square down your throat.

It’s ridiculously overpowered. Always on the verge of tearing itself apart. But we’re up for that. Indeed, that’s part of the fun. Can we manage this stupid and turn it into stupidly offensive because nobody ever expects the nerd out the corner with a breeze block nailed to a cricket bat, being swung with mathematical precision .

The Sovereign Class outperformed the Reliant Class, though, AND is dead sexier to look at.

The Sovereign was in the same vein as a Galaxy though, a capital class vessel rather than an upgunned escort.
The Sovereign is primarily an exploratory vessel with science in mind that is also just has the Federations up to date tech making it a powerful combat vessel.
The Defiant on the other had is all warfare. No families, no science labs, barebones as possible to allow for maximum combat efficiency.

The Sovereign likely gets seen more as a warship because we only ever see it in films in moments of battle. Unlike the Galaxy class where we've several seasons of it exploring and doing other stuff outside of combat.

That said the Defiant also highlighted how most factions don't actually build warships in the setting. The Enterprise in each of its iterations was basically able to go head ot head against most of the other races top warships.

The whole Dominion War and the Romulan warship in that one film - both highlighted how most of the Alpha Quadrant aren't on the warpath - even the Klingon warships are not all that heavily armed when you consider how many weapons the Defiant has on it for its tiny size.

I disagree with that notion. The reason the Federation was able to stay ahead of the Cardassians and Klingons in most areas of technology was entirely because those empires were so dedicated to conflict and militarism.

The Klingon political system encouraged conflict between the Houses of the empire and promoted the warrior lifestyle over all else which led to its technology largely stagnating and the KDF fleet consisting largely of outdated ships that were kept in service out of necessity. For example, the K't'inga was introduced all the way back in the 2250s and served all the way to the end of the Dominion War. Vessels like the Vor'cha and Negh'Var were recent additions to help reduce the KDF's reliance on older ship classes.

The Cardassians had many of the same problems. With a culture dominated by the military, their scientific community was small and underfunded leaving their ships outgunned by pretty much everyone. But they were fanatic soldiers and a sort of natural xenophobia made them formidable foes in battle.
The few advances they did make had to be for military purposes.

The Romulans on the other hand were very much on par with the Federation in terms of power. Their Warbirds were strong and had the benefit of cloaking technology which the Romulans pioneered before any other race. Even with their losses in the Dominion War, it took the destruction of Romulus itself to take them down from their position as a major power.

That isn't to say the warships the Federation did make weren't good but that they were so good because of Starfleet's main goal as a scientific and exploratory organisation rather than a military one.

Thing is the Federation didn't build warships until the Defiant and the focus of their designs wasn't on battle but on exploration and multiple roles. And yet their ships could stand up to the dedicated warships of other nations.

When your Romulan Warbird is on-par with a Galaxy Class starship and one is built purely as a weapon and the other is built as a catch-all science vessel with defences - then something has gone wrong with the warship.


Again this comes back to look at ships like the Defiant and the Romulan Scimitar. Both were built for war and nothing else and both focus on the concept of having multiple weapons banks.

Many other ships have only one or two torpedo bays (fore and aft) as well as one or two primary phasers. Again most of the factions focus on this idea of one super big super powerful phaser bank. Or perhaps a pair of disruptors.


Age of the ships nor their relative technology levels isn't really what I'm looking at. What I'm comparing is the design philosophy and armament itself.

We just don't see any faction really building warships as well as they could. Even Klingons don't actually sport all that many weapons. The Bird of Prey is considered pretty fearsome and for its size (and with its cloak) it is well armed; but as they scale up their ships they don't really add many more weapon systems.

Honestly its mostly because Startrek was never a military series and in many series their budgets were sorely limited in terms of how many effects they could have. So they went with designs that focused on that. Few powerful weapons.






I'd argue that the Federations technological gain isn't because they are peaceful and focusing on science whilst other factions are not. I'd argue its more that they've a much bigger population overall and a much greater diversity of thinkers and species. As a result they can gain technological advances by leveraging their collective understanding. Most other factions are very mono-cultured and often regard many other races as "lesser" or not worthy or such. So they basically limit what their sciences can do. Plus several are quite isolationist. So again they aren't really tapping into the wealth of cultures and backgrounds that the Federation has access too.

The Galaxy-class was the equal of a D'deridex Warbird but how many Galaxy's did Starfleet have compared to the Romulan's entire fleet of Warbirds?
The Romulans made a ship the equal of the Federation flagship and made hundreds of them.
In a one-on-one fight the two ships are evenly matched but even disregarding the fact that the Romulans are dirty cheats, Starfleet had every right to fear the D'deridex when it outnumbered their most powerful class of ships by the hundreds.

With regard to the Federation being advanced because it's peaceful, how does cooperation between races and cultures not feed into that? The Klingons and Cardassians subjugated other species and forces them into servitude while the Federation uses peaceful diplomacy and cooperation to build alliances.

My headcannon has always been that technologically, the Federation's multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary society has probably produced the most advanced civilization of its immediate neighbors. In terms of tech, at least.

As observed, a peaceful ship of exploration in the Federation's eyes is capable of going toe-to-toe with Romulan, Klingon, and Cardassian capital ships. The only forces that could match or exceed the Federation were the hyper-militaristic Dominion and the Borg (who share the Federation's advantage by other means).

If the Federation were to build out and out warships as a matter of course, they could probably blow their rivals out of the water (figuratively). Just look at the Defiant and her ability to fight much larger ships in her tiny 'guns strapped to an engine' frame. Or the Prometheus and it's, admittedly silly but on-screen powerful, Multi-Vector Assault Mode.

That's just not how the Federation normally thinks. The Federation, and Starfleet by extension, prefer nonviolent conflict resolution. They fight only when attacked or lose faith that a conflict can be headed off diplomatically.

For Klingons, it’s also worth keeping in mind many ships are privately owned by the houses.

So compared to privately own Federation ships, even the K’tinga is heavily armed.

Also it's not like the other powers have science ships distinct from the military, the few times we see ships from the Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians engaged in something that could be seen as research, it's their warships. A lot of the tools needed for exploration, conveniantly also are going to be useful on a warship (high quality scanners, good cargo bays etc)

A Galaxy may have more labs then a D'deridex but I'd not be suprised if even a Klingon Vorcha had some scentific labs aboard.

To be fair I think part of that is simply budget limits, but also that we never really explore into the other factions territories all that often. It's always in the Neutral Zone or on the boarders so always in a "war" region that we encounter them.

I'm sure within they will have science ships and the like. Perhaps even on boundaries that don't run alongside the Federation since most factions bumping up against it have a boundary that can't be expanded into

BrianDavion wrote:
Also it's not like the other powers have science ships distinct from the military, the few times we see ships from the Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians engaged in something that could be seen as research, it's their warships. A lot of the tools needed for exploration, conveniantly also are going to be useful on a warship (high quality scanners, good cargo bays etc)

A Galaxy may have more labs then a D'deridex but I'd not be suprised if even a Klingon Vorcha had some scentific labs aboard.

We have seen Romulan Scout Ships, and a Klingon transport ship (allegedly full of refugees, but all of which had rather carelessly all died prior to boarding).

You could even argue that the Federation is highly reckless in sending their best and brightest off to the farthest edges of known space and risking their lives every day in exploration on a science vessel with some guns.

Meanwhile other factions send military ships, ensure that the region is protected and safe and then bring in their scientists.


Do science in the Federation and who knows what might happen to you!
Do science for the Romulans and you are kept safe! You don't see Romulans having to battle wits with a god-child every other month