Star Trek references

[Paragon]

I just found an excellent site I didn't know was around before, which has a lot of really good info on sharships, especially including size (for those of you building a 1:1700 scale fleet).

Star Trek Starship Handbooks - Home (http://trek.escape-committee.co.uk/index.html)

The 22nd century handbook looks especially good, and hopefully with that kind of reference someone might take up designing the 22nd century Klingon D5, D4 and BoP.

[THE DC]

"someone might take up designing the 22nd century Klingon D5, D4 and BoP"


Hmmmm......?


Wonder who'd be the most qualified to do that.....:eek:

The DC

[Paragon]

Haha, well, I'm definitely considering it, but I didn't want to rule out the possibility someone else might do it too.

I'm also considering the Borg Probe, which would end up slightly larger than the Intrepid class. Maybe even the Borg Queen's ship?

[bf109]

great find paragon , how about the species ship in book 4

[Sidewinder81777]

Sorry Paragon thought you already knew about that. Thats where i got the thing on the intrepid type from Enterprise I sent you.

[Paragon]

great find paragon , how about the species ship in book 4

There was one on Missouri1981's webshots actually. I could have sworn I downloaded it, but now I can't find it. Anyone else have a copy? I could try cleaning it up.

[Sidewinder81777]

Id like to see the New Orleans Class from Missouri1981's webshots album cleaned up.

[Paragon]

Yeah, I've been considering the New Orleans class myself. I think that version is beyond repair though, I'd try to use some existing models to do it.

[Sidewinder81777]

I believe the original studio model was a kitbash (mostly) OF Enterprise-D's in 2 different scales

[Paragon]

Most of the parts are from the same scale. The bridge was a larger scale, and the rest were custom parts and highlighters.

For a model, the neck needs adjusting, and the nacelles need to be extended. Then its basically just erasing all the details and making new large ones. The Springfield class would be another good one to do at the same time.

[Paragon]

On second look, the secondary hull needs extending too.

[D-WHALE]

Here are some meshes, which i found in the net! Looks not to bad, but many overlappin parts!!!

[Sidewinder81777]

well how does one go about cleaning up such a mesh? (I sense an educational 3d learning project coming on :D)

[nothing]

its easy! fixen the textures afterward...that the tricky bit.

[Sidewinder81777]

I have absolutely no experience with 3d programs but since I dropped the money on meta I certainly need to learn (apologies to Paragon for semi-hijacking your thread lol)

[D-WHALE]

The magic words are: Boolean operation!!! If you do this, you can clean the meshes! BUT: you lost the UV-Texture!!!!!
there is one way to get the right parts: you copy the wrong part, do the boolean ops with the copy and unfold both parts (the wrong and the new right part)!
after that go to Photoshop and you can copy the texture from the wrong to the right parts! erase what is to much and you got the result!
You can see it here at my rework on Clevers ENT-B! on the left side you can see the right parts, but the most textur is lost! on the right side you can see the wrong parts with the UV-texture! second pic is the result!

[Paragon]

So DWhale, you've made three other Wolf 359 ships, interested in adding another three?

[cdwheatley]

Great find Paragon, thanks!

[D-WHALE]

So DWhale, you've made three other Wolf 359 ships, interested in adding another three?
at the moment not really! because we have so many Federation ships, but only a few alien ships! But my favorit of the 3 ships is the Challenger class!

[Paragon]

Really? I always thought the Challenger was kind of ugly...

[D-WHALE]

of course, the Challenger is a "mutant" starship class! but this class looks not like the others! it is not a "main stream" ship (a right and a left nacelle, a primary and secondary hull, a deflector, etc.)! The Springfield and the New orleans looks like the Galaxy! the most is the same!
The Challanger looks different! Okay the parts are allmost the same, but the configuration is an other! That the reason why i also love the Freedom and the Niagara!

C U
Marko

[Paragon]

Well I've never really liked any one-nacelle ships until the Kelvin, and I prefer a lot of symmetry in my starships, which is the reason I don't like the Challenger very much. Suit yourself though I guess.

[lancer525]

Sorry for jumping in here, but does anyone know of a Miranda Class cruiser available?

[D-WHALE]

I guess you mean that ship:

SF PaperCraftGallery (http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~sf-papercraft/Gallery/reliant/reliant.html)

the reliant is a miranda class ship! there is also another ship from diego cortes, but i don´t know where you can find it:confused:

Greetings
Marko

[THE DC]

Paragon;"Well I've never really liked any one-nacelle ships until the Kelvin, and I prefer a lot of symmetry in my starships, which is the reason I don't like the Challenger very much."

Well, you are in good company!


The Great Bird himself sated in continuity meetings that no vessels could be presented without paired nacelles. The reason involved the dynamics of warp drive, which I'd better not bore you all with. This mandate was held the whole time he was an active producer!


The DC

[Millenniumfalsehood]

No, the reason was Gene had a big falling-out with Matt Jeffries and made up a bunch of rules about starship design so he could exclude a bunch of Jeffries' designs just to tick him off royally. ;) The Excelsior doesn't follow those rules, btw, and Gene was involved with ST3 IIRC.

Look up the book "Inside Star Trek". It's a great book with a bunch of stories in there about Gene Roddenberry when the original Trek was in production.

As an aside, I like the Destroyer/Scout design. Simple, yet elegant in its simplicity. But I digress. . .

Anyway, there was a Saratoga by Diego Cortez if the other Miranda design is too big.

[D-WHALE]

...

Anyway, there was a Saratoga by Diego Cortez if the other Miranda design is too big.

No, it is the USS Lantree! the Saratoga looks a little bit different!;)

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Oh yeah, the Lantree! There were a lot of Miranda-class variants in TNG and DS9; I keep getting them mixed up. :o

[Paragon]

No, the reason was Gene had a big falling-out with Matt Jeffries and made up a bunch of rules about starship design so he could exclude a bunch of Jeffries' designs just to tick him off royally. ;) The Excelsior doesn't follow those rules, btw, and Gene was involved with ST3 IIRC.

Look up the book "Inside Star Trek". It's a great book with a bunch of stories in there about Gene Roddenberry when the original Trek was in production.

As an aside, I like the Destroyer/Scout design. Simple, yet elegant in its simplicity. But I digress. . .

Anyway, there was a Saratoga by Diego Cortez if the other Miranda design is too big.

The only two rules I recall were that the nacelles come in pairs and have clear line of site forward, unobstructed by the saucer, both of which the Excelsior meets.

[cdwheatley]

No, the reason was Gene had a big falling-out with Matt Jeffries and made up a bunch of rules about starship design...The Excelsior doesn't follow those rules...
Well I don't know exactly what rules it doesn't fit, but it looks like a pretty standard Federation set-up to me - two warp nacelles etc just like Paragon said.

[D-WHALE]

here are two sites abuot the rules:

Ex Astris Scientia - Starship Design Guidelines (http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/design.htm)

www.trekplace.com (http://www.trekplace.com/article15.html)

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Well I don't know exactly what rules it doesn't fit, but it looks like a pretty standard Federation set-up to me - two warp nacelles etc just like Paragon said.

Excelsior's warp engines' forward view are partially obstructed by the primary hull.

Besides which, apparently *most* canon starships violate the 'rules' of starship design, as pointed out by trekplace:

Niagra-class starship: 3 warp nacelles
Klingon Bird of Prey: Warp engines internalized (have no forward visibility)
Freedom-class Starship: 1 warp nacelle
Nebula-class starship: Warp nacelles have no line-of-sight to each other because of secondary hull
Oberth-class starship: Warp engines largely obscured from each other by primary hull
Defiant-class starship: Warp engines completely obscured from each other by main hull and main bridge internalized
Federation Scout Ship from Insurrection: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
Intrepid-class starship: Warp engines obscured by secondary hull when at impulse and by primary hull when at warp.
Ambassador-class starship: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
New Orleans-class starship: Warp nacelles obscured by primary hull
Romulan Scout Ship: Warp nacelles obscured by primary hull

Others which are not noted by Trakplace:

Springfield-class starship: Warp engines obscured by secondary hull
Raven-class starship: Warp engines completely obscured by secondary hull
Steamrunner-class starship: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
Sydney-class starship: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
Saber-class starship: Warp engines obscured by secondary hull
Peregrine-class starfighter: Warp engines internalized
Norway-class starship: Warp engines blocked from front by primary hull
Curry-type starship: Warp engines are obscured by secondary hull
Danube-class Runabout: Warp engines are partially obscured by main hull

There are probably other examples and violations, but its pretty clear the rules are just mere guidelines, so I wouldn't use them to exclude Franz Joseph's designs(I erroneously called them Matt Jeffries' designs). There's absolutely no reason whatsoever that the Technical Manual's three designs wouldn't work 'for real'

[THE DC]

The only two rules I recall were that the nacelles come in pairs and have clear line of site forward, unobstructed by the saucer, both of which the Excelsior meets.


That is correct; if you want to stay with "canon," whatever that is anymore. Roddenberry wanted the engines to have devises in the front to gather energy, though he'd not defined the bussards and he wanted the engines to have flux chillers to face each other to create the warp field. There was not suppose to be anything between them that exposed organic tissues as they would be destroyed by the radiations emitted.

The engines were also supposed to have intercooling mechanisms, similar to the B-17 look, though I can not remember why he was emphatic about that...only his statement. The rear of the engines did not have to have any exhaust and he was more included away from that direction. All components should be as enclosed as possible. The Excelsior did conform to these standards and he mandated, with what limited influence he had with the directors,as I recall, that transwarp was going to fail during the production of that movie. The Grissom caused a lot of stir due to its engine design but there was a compromise reached[as a low yield system]. Understand, R’s influence was waning heavily in the movie productions and almost non-existent by 5. R’s Trek was largely over after ST1…maybe after II, so ‘canon’ becomes a matter of debate.

In so far as a fight between him and MJ causing changes...well I have not read the book so I can't speak to its content, but I do not remember the events happening that way. R was pretty general in a lot of ways but was strong on consistency of design, even to the point of how Romulan and Klingon engines, and other components for that matter, showed similar looks in parallel design. He wrote many notes on proposed designs prior to them being put to wood and metal fabrication.

BTW; Gene Roddenberry was not the only one who argued for symmetry of the technology theories. Gene Coon was also concerned and made some pretty solid arguments for the relationship between continuity and attracting a more thinking audience. The other Gene deserves a lot of credit for the quality of TOS.

Unfortunately, as time and production teams changed, the continuity suffered.

The DC

[Millenniumfalsehood]

I had to retcon my previous statement. It wasn't Matt Jeffries, it was Franz Joseph that Gene disliked.

In any case, the Excelsior most definitely does not comply with all the rules:

http://www.strekschematics.utvinternet.com/bprintlinks/fed/entb/entbschemfore.jpg

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/sexton/excelsior-class.jpg

The warp engines on both variants fail to clear the primary hull, though the refit is obviously *far* worse off, if you believe the bussard collectors are dangerous(shouldn't a system which can distinguish between hydrogen and helium when collecting fuel be able to distinguish between space and the spaceship?).

All it really boils down to is whether you like or dislike the FJ designs. I fail to see why anyone would use the (in)famous Gene Roddenberry's Rules of Ship Design to back up their claims, though. Its a patently ridiculous idea to accept the design rules established by a guy who flew planes and wrote stories for a living, and had nothing resembling actual engineering training.

[Paragon]

Excelsior's warp engines' forward view are partially obstructed by the primary hull.

Besides which, apparently *most* canon starships violate the 'rules' of starship design, as pointed out by trekplace:

Niagra-class starship: 3 warp nacelles
Klingon Bird of Prey: Warp engines internalized (have no forward visibility)
Freedom-class Starship: 1 warp nacelle
Nebula-class starship: Warp nacelles have no line-of-sight to each other because of secondary hull
Oberth-class starship: Warp engines largely obscured from each other by primary hull
Defiant-class starship: Warp engines completely obscured from each other by main hull and main bridge internalized
Federation Scout Ship from Insurrection: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
Intrepid-class starship: Warp engines obscured by secondary hull when at impulse and by primary hull when at warp.
Ambassador-class starship: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
New Orleans-class starship: Warp nacelles obscured by primary hull
Romulan Scout Ship: Warp nacelles obscured by primary hull

Others which are not noted by Trakplace:

Springfield-class starship: Warp engines obscured by secondary hull
Raven-class starship: Warp engines completely obscured by secondary hull
Steamrunner-class starship: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
Sydney-class starship: Warp engines obscured by primary hull
Saber-class starship: Warp engines obscured by secondary hull
Peregrine-class starfighter: Warp engines internalized
Norway-class starship: Warp engines blocked from front by primary hull
Curry-type starship: Warp engines are obscured by secondary hull
Danube-class Runabout: Warp engines are partially obscured by main hull

There are probably other examples and violations, but its pretty clear the rules are just mere guidelines, so I wouldn't use them to exclude Franz Joseph's designs(I erroneously called them Matt Jeffries' designs). There's absolutely no reason whatsoever that the Technical Manual's three designs wouldn't work 'for real'

Just wanted to point out that the nacelles only need a 50% line of sight to each other, not complete. That makes ships like the Oberth, Steamrunner, Saber, and possibly the Defiant and Federation Scout (depending on where the warp coils are) and Nebula accepted.

The Defiant's bridge IS on the top center of the primary hull. It may be sunken in a little, but its quite visible from the top.

I'd also argue that the entire warp nacelle doesn't need to be visible from the front, just the bussard collectors, which would also exempt a lot of those ships.

I'd also be willing to accept advances in warp technology that allow some changes in design. The idea that a single nacelle contains two warp coils, allowing for odd numbers of nacelles sounds fine to me.

I still don't like most single-nacelle ships, they look too unbalanced.

All it really boils down to is whether you like or dislike the FJ designs. I fail to see why anyone would use the (in)famous Gene Roddenberry's Rules of Ship Design to back up their claims, though. Its a patently ridiculous idea to accept the design rules established by a guy who flew planes and wrote stories for a living, and had nothing resembling actual engineering training.

I don't see why it would be patently ridiculous do accept rules that made sense, regardless of the author. With the exception of the bridge rule, all of them seem easy to explain (for a fictional show).

When it comes to fictional physics, no one person is more credible than the creator.

[THE DC]

Paragon;"When it comes to fictional physics, no one person is more credible than the creator."

Agreed. I always respected R's turf, even when I did not always agree with him. I figured if I didn’t agree, I should go write my own!

BTW: It isn't ever discussed as necessary for the bussards to be clear to gather R's 'particles' [remember, these were clarified by other producers, much later in the second series].

Also, it was suppose to be the intermix flux chillers that required alignment and away from living tissue [though this was certainly repeatedly ignored by later writiers].

One more bit of trivia for you, if you are interested; FJ had reconciled with MJ, as I recall, which is how he was introduced to deflector grid lining [something unknown to those who’d not seen a close up of the original model]. R was not put in the loop in the Tech manual material. He was very protective of his work, even though he was VERY collaborative in making the final product with a team employed to make that product. One thing R was very ahead of all of us on, was his concern that if ST physics & lore were to be decided by just anyone writing a book or making a comic, it would limit suspension of disbelief, since each new, unschooled contributor would add their own interpretation. I respected and learned that he was largely correct in this matter. It was, as I recall with my graying cells, the Blish novel that really alerted him to the potential problems of inconsistent continuity and the trap the series writers would face if the 'canon' became up for grabs.

One more bit of trivia, if your are interested: The intermix flux chillers wrapped completely around the Excelsior's nacelles as a [never determined specifically, to my memory] artifact of transwarp, part of the functional aspects of which was incorporated into the "D" 's drive system. There was some discussion of mon-axal nacelle interface systems to make those two drives [Excelsior & Ent D] work [as the internal blueprints of D illustrate later], but like the warp drive engines implanted into "D" 's saucer, the idea kinda faded away!


Welcome to collaborative mythmaking! :cool:


The DC

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Paragon:

I agree the scout is a bit unbalanced, but its a subjective thing.

So the whole circle-thingy is the bridge? It must be my own faulty memory; I thought the okudagram showed it in the center of the ship. I'm probably just thinking of the Enterprise-D's backup bridge. :o

I didn't say the entire nacelle needed to be visible, though I admit I should have clarified when I wrote that.

Glad you don't argue against single-nacelle designs in general. I respect your opinion regarding the unbalanced look of the ship.

The rules, except for the ones regarding the bussard collectors (why build a collector onto a ship and then hide it behind the hull, right?), are not really well-thought-out.

Take the idea that the nacelles need line-of-sight. These things are like giant magnets, if you pardon the crude example. They produce a field which bends, not magnetic forces, but space-time. Proximity *is* needed to increase field strength, like when you stack multiple neodymium magnets to get a big strong one, but line-of-sight is not. Fields, such as they are, do not work that way. Put a piece of material between two magnets and see if it affects the field strength in any way. If anything, a metal body between the two fields will *increase* the strength of said field, because putting it between the magnets will cause a magnetic field to be generated in the metal itself. NASA's ideas behind warp flight are based on magnetics, and warp engines do use humongous metal coils, and when you coil metal and pass energy through it it generates magnetism, so I believe magnetic coils will do the job. The trick is generating enough *negative* energy to create the space/time warp.

Perhaps the warp engine generates a field not just around the ship, but throughout it, so that the ship will . . . warp along with space/time.

DC:

Look, I know as well as the next guy Trek doesn't exist. But if we are going to pretend it does, I'd rather it obey some shred of engineering logic, especially since it masquerades as a science-based show. It was rather insulting to me that B&B tried to make it more 'realistic' by throwing around various terms like focus, frequency, and harmonics like they are catch-phrases.

I can't really respect those rules of ship design, however. I respect the great work GR did in bringing us an awesome story with incredible characters and awesome adventures, but when it comes to the limits of what Trek ships and technology can do, I prefer to trust people like Bernd Schnieder and Alfred Wong. People who know science and engineering enough to make an educated guess as to how those ships do what they do and why. If it were in a different universe, where different laws of physics apply (like the Star Wars universe, where spacecraft obey non-Newtonian physics without RCS drives), then I wouldn't give it a second thought. Or a first one, for that matter. But Star Trek is based on our universe, centering around our planet, so it must be obeying our laws of physics.

Heh, yup: collaborative myth-making indeed! :D

[starship builder]

Hey Can i just say about the intrepid calss (ie. Voyager) when the ship goes to warp and the nacelles move up they are in line of sight withh each other above the secondary hull. and i belive it wouldnt matter when at impulse as the field generated by the warp coild would be changing force to turn the ship (ie. to turn right power to the left nacell would be increased to create a force to turn the ship that direction) ao the fields would be diffrent meaning it is uneccasary for the nacells to be in line of sight when moving also voyage use RCS thrusters aswell attaches to the primary hull. thats just my two cents about voyager. also when the nacells move up they are also just peeking above the primary hull. as well as like i said befor the move up above the secondary hull. But again after all this speculation we have to rember star trek was based alot on thecnobabel.

[Millenniumfalsehood]

The bussard collectors need to point forward at warp so that they can encounter the maximum amount of hydrogen in the shortest time, so if they are behind the main hull it would defeat the purpose of having them.

[THE DC]

Millenniumfalsehood;

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these things. Its been a while!

"The rules, except for the ones regarding the bussard collectors (why build a collector onto a ship and then hide it behind the hull, right?), are not really well-thought-out."

Please keep in mind that much of what was printed wasn’t a Roddenberry/Jefferies concept, but later interpretations. We just assume they ‘have always been that way’ quite often.

The bussards were not 'line of sight,' any more than the deflector, despite some more recent suggestions otherwise. The bussard arrays were suppose to project energy nets [possibly magnetic fields, though I don’t remember that specifically said] to catch and raw in particles; the 'globes' being permeable surfaces to absorb the material, as needed.

"Take the idea that the nacelles need line-of-sight."

Not sure where that came from. The Warp coils were supposed to produce reactive radiation which the intermix flux chillers concentrated to make a 'stable' enough warp bubble. Living tissue would be destroyed in it. I honestly do not remeber any discussion regarding metal between them, but nothing where beings would crawl about.

But remember, ships not conforming to R's approach were appearing after his influence by the kitten load! R supported the big E, E-A, the Reliant, the Vulcan Shuttle, The Romulan BoP, the D-7 [though it wasn’t called that at the time], the E-D, the Constellation class, and to a lesser degree, the Excelsior, the Oberth, & a few others I've probably forgotten. There was no bloody-B or C, Defiant, Akira, & company. New visions of 'neat' took over for continuity.

"Perhaps the warp engine generates a field not just around the ship, but throughout it, so that the ship will . . . warp along with space/time."

Cant say what is being written today, long gave up on the frustration of tracking differing rules, but the ship was described to me as floating in a bubble that warped space around it. Interior structural integrity fields and protective defelctor field protected inhabitants of any alteration during warp effects.


"Look, I know as well as the next guy Trek doesn't exist."

I doesn't??!?? Does that mean I have to return the checks?

Seriously, your right. But this was an advancement R brought to TV. An attempt to make a thinking man's sci-fi/modern morality fable, when the most heralded efforts prior were 'Lost in Space.' Even after TOS, 'Space 1999' was the best TV had to offer for a long while. And I know you are not one of these people, so please don't interpret my comments to include you, but many argued strongly Trek was too cerebral and technical and needed more explosions and less efforts toward technical accuracy. I kid you not.

R & company, and there were many excellent minds involved, tried to marry enough humor and emotional provocation with what technical detail they could. Not easy today, let alone 40 years ago. They had a goal to inspire people to try to make these things by making them accessible without getting the engineering degrees to be told they couldn’t be ever built!

"But if we are going to pretend it does, I'd rather it obey some shred of engineering logic, especially since it masquerades as a science-based show. It was rather insulting to me that B&B tried to make it more 'realistic' by throwing around various terms like focus, frequency, and harmonics like they are catch-phrases."

Fair enough, I respect the demand for a higher quality product. I really do. I share that demand with you. Please consider my previous comments as to what they were fighting to meet your reasonable needs for an effective suspension of disbelief [which was a goal R & company shared].

They also had an idea to deliberately not explain everything per today's engineering concepts. Now this was not a cop out, though it may appear such, but R had one amazing ability to see beyond what we were presently, and what we could be, and could eventually produce. He saw flip- operational communication devices, earpiece receiver/transmitters, hand held computing devices, directed energy weapons, molecular rearrangement, non-needle driven hypos, & much more. He would argue that sometimes the function of the device could not be explained because we simply don't have the material or ability to comprehend designing with said materials yet. Now, this sounds like a cop out, but look how quickly some of his ideas have already come to pass given only 4 decades of technical evolution.

That's what's tough about writing for the future!

"I respect the great work GR did in bringing us an awesome story"

I do too. He was a teller of social tales first; a sci-fi writer a far second. I disagreed with several of his ideas, specifically the bi-axal drive systems working only and mon-axal & tri-axals of FJ failing. But it was his baby. I respected his chair

"People who know science and engineering enough to make an educated guess as to how those ships do what they do and why...But Star Trek is based on our universe, centering around our planet, so it must be obeying our laws of physics."

As we understand it. At the time of TOS, sub-quantum mechanics was only 40 years old, a relative time frame since TOS to us today. During TOS, the ability to store data in a device the size of a 'cart' was deemed impossible and warp drive complete fantasy. I remember my advanced physics professor berating me over the plausibility of warp drive and wasting my time on dreams and fantasies, instead of crunching more polymer equations. We have learned an amazing deal in a slice of time.

Newtonian physics have been modified by Eisteinian, which are currently under assault by new discoveries, not the least responsive matter or the locality principle. Our understanding of Trek tech has to have some holes, or...well we;d already have built it! Remember also, despite our ‘advanced’ understanding of the universe, and our revolutionary reduction of the 4 forces of the universe to one [during my lifetime], we still can only describe gravity, but struggle in explaining it!

Now I am not arguing 'red matter' explanations! I would not insult your intelligence that way. I agree with you in having as believable fiction as possible. I'm just a bit more forgiving given both the historic context within which they operated and the recognition that much of what is assumed today...R never approved, considered, or even had a hand in.

"Heh, yup: collaborative myth-making indeed! "

Yea, but I share Paragon's ethic; if the author wrote it, I'll criticize like you, but I’ll not revise. A work, and the author, should be given the respect to stand the test of time. I resent ‘revisionism;’ it smacks of disrespect and post-modern- egocentric rationalization for failed efforts to start you own boat building project. But then, that’s my beef!

And as for standing the test of time; besides 2001, Star Trek has held up pretty well when compared to its peers....I tip my hat to my betters…


The DC

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Hey, no problem. I think we better agree to disagree here. I'm inclined as an engineering student to analyze Treknology from an purely engineering POV, and you obviously prefer the aesthetic approach mixed with science. I respect your opinion on this, and hey, Trek is still one of the best Sci-Fi shows ever written! You haven't destroyed my childhood, so I won't have to form a picket line outside your house. :D

By the by, I loved the new Trek movie for the profound lack of technobabble(yes, even the scientific cringe moment when they introduced Red Matter). They deliberately tried to emulate the TOS feel, which is to let the audience's imagination make up the technical BS. And since I am a real technophile I have this tendency to try to make sense of the Trek world technically(not that I don't enjoy Spock and McCoy verbally sparring), so when something comes along that doesn't make sense to me, I'll try to set it straight. Its no slieght on the author, just the idea bothers me. I understand its no cop-out.

Thats also why I like Star Wars' technical authors; they're real scientists and engineers who apply real scientific knowledge to their writings, such as Dr. Curtis Saxton, who has a Ph. D. in engineering IIRC. When I read his work, such as the ICS, nothing really stands out as a blatant error.

Now, take the TNG Tech Manual. Tell me how you can get a 6m hollow sphere for the impulse engine reactors when the walls are 685 cm thick. :rolleyes: I know Rick Sternbach, and I know he's not a technical so much as an art guy, so I'm willing to forgive that grievance.

There, I said my peace. You want the soap box back? ;)

[THE DC]

Millenniumfalsehood;"There, I said my peace. You want the soap box back? "

There's another area we'd have to agree to disagree. Its too easy for me to prop up my soap box, when the newest movie is mentioned. It represents the mirror of everything I've pointed out I value.

I'll have to leave it there or risk a bad case of finger-strain. I could really go on!

My loathing for that abortive doppleganger promotes a rant to rival Dennis Miller!!!!!

The DC

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Dennis Miller, eh? Okay then, I'll leave it alone! :)