Is anyone here a Trekkie?
Anyone here watching Discovery and think Cadet Tilly is one of us?
StephenHarris said:The TOS Klingon appearance was partly, IIRC, because the make-up technology didn't really exist to make them look the Klingons we now know about that.
The trailer looks visually great, although I must admit I enjoyed the trailer for The Orville more.
Very much agree with you there about The Oville - the gloomy and moody retro future-tech stuff has its place, and I would not be satisfied without it - and all that: but the cheerfull brightness and spectral range colours - along with sleek lines of modernised conceptual future tech (more associated with Generations, Deep Space 9 and Voyager) is just so much more refreshing - and so much more appealing really.
The TOS Klingon appearance was partly, IIRC, because the make-up technology didn't really exist to make them look the Klingons we now know about that.
The trailer looks visually great, although I must admit I enjoyed the trailer for The Orville more.
[quote user="Anonymous"]
I was informed the other night that the 'wrinkly' skinned Klingons were genetic ehancements made by the 'smooth' skinned Klingons - who wanted a particularly styled elite military force in the galaxy. This makes alot of sense to me in the sense of not being a natural evolution, and has resolved decades of inadequate thought there-upon - and helped me to recognise yet again just how blind to and ignorant of things I really can be.
So although I cannot as yet relate with the new-old clingons in Discovery, as I find them a bit too overwoked in appearance - the new information (or at least new to me information) allows a better appreciation of what could be going on presently in terms of appearances, and story development.
Aside though from not myself liking some things particularly,* Discovery does look very good indeed as a new sci-fi offerring, it is just a case now of seeing how immersive the character performances are, and how well woven the story lines will be. It certainly looks like it has the potential though.
*The angles of the bridge's ceiling are definitely a head injury risk - especially for anyone that is tall. And it so does not follow that the number of photon torpedoes on board - are displayed by projectile 'bullets' on the viewscreen!
Joy - no unpalatable appearance of the Starship Discovery in the latest Trek trailer - it 'hope-of-all-hopes' may have been dropped completely. Anyway - if you have not seen the new trailer yet, try as follows:
" - any insights on the construction of Culture ships? (Ian Banks fan)"
I have not myself had that much acces to so much starship eye-candy until getting an internet viable laptop last November. Learning to use it has been a right stress, and discovering all the stuff that we have discussed is all rather new to me, but none the less, or actually more so - with it all just being so drool factor ten.
To begin with I never really liked any of the early Enterprises that much, although I really did appreciate them as being the stages for Gene Roddenberry's vision. When the Enterpise of Generations came along though that was incredibly inspiring for me. When Vovager came along then I was absolutely stoked with it, and then with the blend of Enterprise and Voyager blueprints coming along as the 107-F hull design - I am in just so much agreement with you and everyone else about it being the flagship of a therefore much needed new series.
One of the problems I am having with the internal archetecture of the 1701-F so far - is that it is too large and open-spaced currently. The operational arenas of starships need to be compact and beju more or less - which the Enterprise D design achieved exceptionaly well, but the F is just too large between the operational sectors. Transporter failures, hull breaches and deck depressurisations are going to cause massive problems, and heavily armed well trained raiding parties are going to have a field day with the crew in such open spaced shooting galleries.
When it comes to raiding parties or villians of any sort in Star Trek, most noticably with the Jem'hader and especially the Borg - none of them are firearms experts!?! I know this has been the standard format for series and films, but this really gives people the deluded impression that wars or battles are relatively safe states of affairs.
So, digression aside there, the 1071-F Bridge really is rather excellent with a slight exception concerning the ships monitor - in that its shape conflicts with the lines of the cieling. I know that this would not bother most people, but irregularieties in the visual arena - are not helpful in any working environment. Just Inverting the monitor though sorts it out completely.
I am so with you on the streching the bounderies of accepted norms of spacecraft design. I mean considering what Voyger got up to with transwarp, hull transformation and all that - the 1701-F should be rather interesting. One of my designs for a series of vessels involves having seven hulls in the space of one ship. So for example there is engineering hull, a habitation hull, a cargo hull and so on. The bridge or entirety of the command hull like all the others can be transparent, and its molecular lattice structure enables it to polarise, depolarise, or change mettalurgical state or states depending on the need. Another aspect of these vessels is that each hull has seven further sub-hulls. So taking thousands of people and tonnes of cargo from location to location is really easy.
Oh - one thing about the Bridge of the Enterprise F, is that I had it in my mind that the ceiling and walls would be the ships monitor - not unlike just described above. I thought that the Dominion monicle would have set a president there, and so many people over the years have thought so too. The Atlantian spacecraft in Stargate really worked in this respect. I know in years past special effect costs were huge, but perhaps not small enough just yet to be seeing the stars and galaxies passing by on the bridge every time.
I agree with you absolutely, infinitely, completely and utterly about the Enterprise (or any other vessels in any other sci-fi series or film) being the setting or depature point for the stories. Sociological and techological developments irrifutably go hand in hand with the character and plot developments. I just have a need for the ships or anything else in the stories to be as well thought out as any of the other characters in the series. The Borg for instance really were a brilliant parody of society at large, and when I first saw them and heard the:
"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to that of our own. Your culture will be adapted to service us. Resistence is futile."
Please excuse the additional text, but the Borg were Borg and not sloppy grammatarians - and the your culture will adapt to service us implied you could resist to some extent. Anyway - I was really pleased as the Cybermen of Doctor Who were a presentation of the same issue, but so much more pleasing was that the Borg analogy was in no way subtle and really made the socio-ill-logical point - par excellence. I actually burst out laughing and several times over praised Gene Roddenberry, and carried on laughing about it here and there for months. So many people were influenced by it and so many people discussed it and pondered its ramifications.
Your fears about Discovery are I think all too valid, and personally I am not passionate about it which is a first for Star Trek. I am really concerned about the Klingons having had their appearance changed. I mean they look really really good as an alien species - but they look nothing like Klingons at all, and in terms of evolutional genetics - I am not sure they ever could. When Wharf was asked why the previous generation of Klingons did not look like the modern Klingons in the Deep Space 9 episode - 'The Trouble with Tribbles', and he responded with annoyance saying that was something that did not get talked about - it seems as such (given the new Klingons in discovery) that the new Treck is divorcing itself from the old.
I do see the point in covering all aspects involving the history of Trek, much as building a house on a solid foundation is essential. Discovery though seems more like a house that is being built on both sides of a cliff edge, and completely unlike the 107-F - the Discovery is not a balanced design and thereby contradicts itself. This interplay of irregularities has so far been a right proper muck up. I really hope at least that the postponements of Discovery's release date have involved some major improvements.
Another thing with having to wait for the next venture, is that as such it is going to have to involve a combination of Generations, Deep Space Nine and Voyager story-structures. Which, considering that there are only so many types of stories to tell, there is going to have to be some quite innovative angles and curves thrown in - plus each new starship goes further and gets farther quicker than the preceeding ones. New species, new cultures and new stories structures therefore. This is a major undertaking, so being patient for years may well be a necessity. At very worst if Discovery lasts for as long as the other series that could be depressing, but given that spin-off series can run alongside their forebears as conterparts - this is encouraging.
I really wish the Discovery team all the best, alot of jobs are involved, and I generally enjoy sci-fi of any sort really - as long as the characters are good and the stories work. My hope though like others is that the Star Trek franchise owners get as stoked by the fanbase productions as so many other people are, and recognise instead how productive and advantagious getting collarborative actually is.
P.S. Your ideas for the 1701-F story line, and actually seeing the ship, have really gotten me thinking about what could be what. I am not sure if this commentary has been way too long, and therefore more off putting than not which is not unusual at all - but I could put a few ideas across so we (and anybody else) could come up with something together, possibly?
P.P.S. Janeway and then the Borg, and Sisko and then the Dominon - to start with perhaps?
HungryCaterpillar said:"... CAN YOU HEAR ME BACK THERE?!... I SAID... FIRE PHASERS!... NO, NO... NOT TYRE-RAISERS... FIRE PHASERS DAMMIT!!..."
Communications and site to site transporters have broken down, the Captain says, "Number One - send an ensign to get a report on the transporters please!" and Number One says, "Captain - the last two haven't even got back yet!"
I have not read any of Ian Banks books - but I did have a discussion some years back (on the subject of sociology-psychology) with someone who mentioned Banks and that I might like reading his stuff.
I had a look on wikipedia to see what the ghist was - but I could not find anything on construction methodologies, it seemed more socio-political and esponage related - which may or may not be more the commentators way of seeing things . . .
What did really click with me was the ships' Atificial Intelligences and how their' chosen names reflected their character of function and the function of their Mind - really insightfull that one and really amusing too. I liked - Prosphetic Conscience, Ethics Gradient, Fate Amenable To Change - and 'You Call This Clean! - presuming that their names are their first take on things after being activated?
HungryCaterpillar said:Ooooh, I really like your well-thought-out ideas as to multiple / individualised hulls, and "... transparent, ... molecular latticed structures enabling it to polarise, depolarise, or change mettalurgical state or states depending on the need..." I've gone full-on geek in response!
With you liking some of the basic formational bits so far, there are also the dimensional and trans-dimensional stuff involving the ships varient of the wormhole entities from Deep Space 9 going on in Hull 4:4, where characters like Sisko, Guinan, Q and Kess get and go all metaphysical and know thy self, and the higher vibrational Hulls 4;5 and above cannot be understood untill a fuller comprehension of Hull 4;4 has been achieved.
Your post was very interesting, and making good points. If anyone complains it was "too long" - then what the hell did they expect by prompting Trekkies?! < winky face >
Just checking sort of thing, Geekian and Techian together usually results in the PTSD version of complex catatonia and facial mimicry of goldfish.
I like the idea of there being no dedicated bridge monitor. Instead, what if the very walls and ceiling - as you indicate - were a holographic grid, and the whole bridge had a manifest external viewpoint... so it kinda looked like the bridge was on the exterior hull, with no walls or ceiling, and surrounded by a beautiful 360 degree panoramic viewpoint of space (think the stellar cartography lab from the Generations film)? Of course, it'd make production and costings that much more difficult.
From the health and safety viewpoint, the bridge should be up front and crew quarters centralised within the hull rather than its periphery. Also if the sensor arrays go off line - there are only two windows to the rear of the briidge; which is good for a major puzzle for the team in terms of navigation, but a third point of perspective where say the captain can easily keep an eye on the road sort of thing - seems oddly perculiar to exclude that but such things are not in general unusual.
I get what you mean about the interior design of the 1701-F making things difficult (from a story telling point of view). I thought the transporter was particularly misplaced. Maybe the design of the 1701-F is a little more optimistic than me or you... in that they don't anticipate boarding parties or hull breaches?! Maybe in the 24th century - post Dominion war - the biggest concerns are appeasing Starfleet Human Resources, and cautioning crew health and safety matters?!
I think the 1701-F bridge has a strong likeness with a certain bridge of a particular Cardasian space-station orbiting a planet with a name sounding like Bajor perhaps? It does seem though very much that unlike Deep Space 9 - the Captain of the 1701-F is going to have do some throwing and projecting of their voice - so to be heard by the bridge crew. Or maybe life has really calmed right right down and the 1701-F has become more like the first Enterprise starship in terms of being a luxury intersteller liner - more sizeable fashion than reasonalble function and all that.
I have so not got superior knowledge about Star Trek - you have just as much knowledge as I have with your strengths involving more character developments and story plots, just as much as I have my strengths more involving the functions and designs of starships. We both have our creative strengths to differing extents involing the vessels, characters and story lines that make up the Star Trek universe.
Now with you stating that you would like to see in the NCC 1701 F Enterprise in the new franchise, and that you have not mentioned anything about what it looks like or given any links to see it - I assume you have as not yet found the official schematics, some potential renderings and videos.
I personally think the 1701-f is definitely the most amazing enterprise so far. The designer has put a nicely strange hint of irregulaity into the hull design, which is intriguingly captivating - and the more I looked the more I enjoyed wanting to look more.
So in a suggested viewing order and dyslexia permitting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=tZnoW-OH4TM
or
Trekyards EP112 - Odyssey Class (1701-F) (STO) - TouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HRKEhU4wvw
or
Odyssey Class Tour (Exterior and Bridge) - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9-_Uf8ThBM
or
Fresh Out Of Spacedock - T6 Odyssey - Federation Flagships - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4QYS1lxwAM
or
Odyssey Tactical Cruiser Tour - Star Trek Online - YouTube
The stage is very very well set me thinks. What are your thoughts about it?
HungryCaterpillar said:Thanks Deepthought. I never knew. But, I've just had a look on YouTube.
How is it that Axanar looks like it had better production than Discovery?! Whilst the design of the 'Discovery' ship was... ahem... questionable... it was more the cheapness of the graphics that bothered me more.
The 'Discovery' ship . . . was just so so so far out of character in the sense of going angular rather than involving the eliptical curvature of federation vessels, and I did not personally like it as ship design anyway. I mean it was not all bad, but it just did not balance out.
The 'cheapness' of the graphics thing was but hopefully is not now rather "B-movie." Might of worked years ago as an A movie, and although B movies have great value - not so when it comes to a full on Star Trek venture.
Many of the seriously devoted Star Trek fan base are calling for a boycote of Discovery - in terms of not watching it or buying merchandise from it.
The thing is now the Axanar team are linking up with one of the most talented graphic modelling artists I have ever had the rapture of seeing so far - ALLVISION100. Their work is utterly captivating and beautiful - in my opinion. Take a look via:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=cuXt2AAn1kw
or else via Google:
Chasing The Infinite Sky (20016 Star Trek fan film SHORT) - YouTube
But, is the new ship / series set on-board the Enterprise, as opposed to the 'NX Discovery'? The ship designation didn't seem to be the Enterprise (am I going full geek there?).
Given my previous comments above; going geek about this is generally an expected or accepted pass time when it comes to sci-fi - part of the territory, do as the natives do and all that. Unfortunately in one sense the Discovery has the place of the Enterprise in this series, and its just a case of seeing how it turns out really.
And, what's with the obsession with pre-Kirk era?
Lots of people like to know the histories that influenced and led to the development of the characters themselves and their species, cultures, technologies - scientific and spiritual - and all that. Some people prefer more to have the history along with the futuristic present and the far future, and others prefer as you do with the more futuristic emphasis being involved - which is all good either way as far I am concerned.
What's wrong with the 24th century?
Well that is because we are in the 21st century, and the 20st century stuff does look a bit dated now. The basic idea comercially is to reboot and revamp everything - from start until who knows when or in what way.
Doesn't anyone want to know Sisko's fate?
If (or when) the reworking of Trek actually gets organised it might perhaps be a question of which actor gets to play Sisko, which actors get the supporting parts, who the writers will be, and everything else.
What does the NCC-1701-F look like?
That is the question. We have Enterprise E and J - so something inbetween obviously. I have only just found my way to the Star Treck computor modelllor fanbase in the last week. There is everything from Enterprise A to E at:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=W66nXoKEL5U
or Google:
To Boldly Go. . . Star Trek Starships of the Federation Remake - A Timm Humphreys Film - YouTube
It maybe that its just a case of seeing if someone has done Enterprise F yet, or may be even looking for one you like. If I find out anything more I will let you know. If you are inclined to go for the search yourself - let me know if you find one possibly?
How has Picard dealt with the fact that that jumped-up Janeway reappears from her jaunt in the delta quadrant only to be promoted above him to Admiral - despite everything's he's done?!
Well being that Picard is as a character the epitiome of what a member of the Federation is supposed to be; I imagine they would get on admirably as equals - having full respect for one another on account of their experiences and heat of the moment innovations in terms of being and having been starship captains. Who knows?
Did the transfer to B4 leave Data as a simpleton?
I think the implication on that one was perhaps not - but it may take some time, in evolutional and or technological terms, or in whatever way that is yet to be known. Resurections and rebirths are after all a rather a common and pertinent arena of character development in human history anyway, I mean it featured a bit in the original Star Trek films, here and there in Generations, Deep Space 9, Voger and so many other sci-fi offerings, to name but a few.
Gene Rodenberry was well into it especially after getting in touch with some actual spiritual entities in the seventies who referred to themselves as being the Council of 9 - as who heavily influenced Gene to share the revelations he had with them, and produce a means to introduce them - through the Star Trek Films, Generations and eventually Deep Space 9.
If you wish to find out about what Roddenberry discussed with the Council of 9, the commentaries are in a book called the 'The Only Planet of Choice.' I read in the late eighties when Generations was aired on BBC2, so when Deep Space 9 was announced - respect due to Gene Roddenberry, I was elated, and more so with each following episode. So gutted when it got canned though.
What are the long-term consequences for Janeway bringing technology from the future back to the federation?
Enterprise J as featured in ENTERPRISE, and whatever that may or may not involve.
What of the Dominion?
Well with all series that are canned, things may well of gotten covered later - cliff-hanging what next future funding issue perhaps?
Oh - P.S. When you stated that warp travel is impossible - it is not. The current problem at the moment is how to stablise and maintain a coherent enough diamagnetic-magnetic tube-torus warp field. The mathematics of warp fields are not yet fully understood - but the general process is.
The current mathematic formulas for warp field technology - are equivalent to knowing only the vowel sounds of a spoken language, whereas assessing the equiivalent consonates of this language - is only just starting to happen. Smelling the coffee but not as yet drinking it - as the expression goes.
The biggest problem for most scientists in this field of research is thjat they are still trying to work on how to get from here to somewhere else at a particualr speed, but what confuses them is that here is everywhere else and everywhere else is here. This is referred as the holographic principle, as has been proven and in so doing demonstrated that the Big-Bang is not relevant as theory - only as a speculative hypothesis.
Educating the masses on this began a few years back with the University of Warwick publishing on the fact that E=MC2 is not a law (or not a fixed constant but a fludic variable according to thermodynamics) in that the speed of light depends upon the plasmic origin or power source (such as the sun) and the partical densities through which the light travels - quicker through air and slower through water and so on and so fourth. We know that faster than light travel happens and is happening in terms of experimental research in real terms - such as at CERN in Europe, and others institutions in America, Canada, Japan, China and Russia as far as I know of at least.
Trying to achieve warp one, two, three and so on is only really usefull in terms of learning that it is not productively usefull to start with, whereas achieving warp ten - as in instantaneous transport; will allow us then to achieve progressive transport or warp speeds. So its been one of those putting the carriage infront of the horse states of affairs, along with not even realising that there hasn't even been a platic carrot on the end of the stick either . . .
Big big oops - I think I may have achieved too high a geek factor with this post script?
Apologies if so.
D.
It is called 'Discovery', it is set ten years before the Kirk era, and it is now on its third release date of autumn sometime.
There are a couple of trailers on Youtube.
'Discovery' has so far recieved quite a negative response from hardcore Treckers about the Enterprise design, the new-look Kinglons and other issues.
There was to be an independent fan-made film version of Star Trek called 'Axanar' - the trailor looked absolutely first class in just about every detail, but the Copyright owners of Star Trek stopped it.
Check them out perhaps - and let us know what you think about either or both?
I have wobbled a bit with the latest three films as the credibility factor of being as close to reality as possible took a major slide for dramatic effect - which grated at me immensely.
The most horrendous insult against physics was the one where the battle knackered and damn near written off Enterprise fell in a role to the earth - whilst Kirk and other ran down the rotating corridor - which was visually amazing; but impossible - in that the Enterprise was not deep enough into the Earths gravitional field!!! Complete nonsense. Credibility factor a complete one hundred percent zero. Really irritating.
Otherwise I am very much a Trecky and very much appreciate and respect what Gene Rodenberry attempted to do and actually did. The idea of a society where the majority of people live equally for the common good of all living things - even artificial and crystalline etc too. This sort of thing gets me every time and chucking hefty doses of metaphysics, quatum physics and amazing individuals, gadgets, architectures, space craft, galaxies and all that. Yay!
