I was watching Generations today and I noticed there was a new transporter effect - I wonder why DS9 didn't introduce it for the Defiant and the Danube-class roundabouts?
Why not introduce the ST Generations transporter effect?
- Thread starter DS9forever
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Because TPTB wanted the movie stuff to be in the movies and the TV stuff to be in the TV shows.
I think the only cross over was the uniforms, because it would've been too confusing to have three differing sets of uniforms in 3 concurrent series.
In universe explanation: the effect was only for Galaxy/Sovereign class transporter systems.
The Enterprise-E transporter effect was different again. The Generations effect was specific to that film. I liked it, and thought it was a shame it was never used again.
For the tech side, if upgrades were easily available (say, mere software patches), we'd lose the bit where Kasidy Yates runs her ship on manual labor because her transporters aren't up to specs. It's plausible for her to be unable to "afford" a time-consuming tear-down and rebuild by skilled professionals even in the moneyless economy of the UFP (which she can default to even if her foreign masters and customers are stingy with cash), but less plausible that she couldn't "afford" a patch she can order delivered via subspace and automatically installed as she waits...
Such patches would be quite analogous to virus filters today, there being heavy incentives to make them free and available to all so that transporters would be as safe as possible to use.
Timo Saloniemi
Such patches would be quite analogous to virus filters today, there being heavy incentives to make them free and available to all so that transporters would be as safe as possible to use.
Timo Saloniemi
I always thought the Generations transporter effect was just too expensive for TV.
Having three simultaneous uniforms was never going to be on the cards - they always had exactly two. (TNG and DS9; DS9 and Generations, until they dropped it in favor of a TNG/DS9 mixture; then DS9 and FC.)
Probably the actual reason.
Or it could be that it was only in use for a few months due to some problem popping up after it was installed that required a complete redesign of the upgrade (either hardware or software). As I recall, we never saw more than 6 people using the transporter in Generations, maybe when the transporter reached its max, maybe it was mixing up the patterns for the clothing people were wearing.
Sometimes it mixed up the clothing, sometimes it mixed up the organs. Once the death count ran too high, they had to return to the old transporter technology.
Thats one of the Trek logics thats always bothered me. On one hand I quite liked the movies of TNG connecting with DS9 - and it fit the looks of both casts nicely - but.... why not more uniforms?
Take a peek over at Stargate and they have the comfy BDU's, the flight suit, a few different colour variations, then there's Hammond's formals, the mission jackets.... then over there on Star Trek it's one look, one uniform which results in a firefight in a two piece suit on Next Gen or a formal mission in a onesie on DS9
Budget.
On one hand, yeah. But on the other hand... if they can get enough money together to make Jonathon Frakes wear this, they can squeeze out a few pennies for an away team jacket
On one hand, yeah. But on the other hand... if they can get enough money together to make Jonathon Frakes wear this, they can squeeze out a few pennies for an away team jacket
I'll have you know it's very cheap to have Frakes bring his own grandmother's shower curtain in to wear.
I think they kept the TNG style transporter because our heroes used two transporter effects on a regular basis. The Starfleet TNG style and the Cardassian style. Add to that the blueish tint to the Dominion transporter effect. The TNG style remaining was distinctive and separate from those effects.
That being said, they could have used the Voyager style, but we all know that never happened.
That being said, they could have used the Voyager style, but we all know that never happened.
Maybe it's like a ringtone, or desktop wallpaper. O'Brien left to go to Ds9 and set all the transporters on the runabouts to his favourite effect. The new transporter chief on the enterprise fancied something different and changed it there too...
The effect isn't available in the Cardassian OS's 'app store' so O'Brien chalks it up to one of those bad things that always happens to him
The effect isn't available in the Cardassian OS's 'app store' so O'Brien chalks it up to one of those bad things that always happens to him
Perhaps the Generations transporter effect is just how the usual TNG effect looks on the big screen.
The thing is, a contemporary military show can accessorize on the cheap, as the USAF uniforms actually exist and can be found in stock and supposedly rented at acceptable costs. Trek-specific designs wouldn't be accessible that way, so it would be best to steer clear of diversity...
TNG "Devil's Due" claims that choosing "null" for the ringtone is fairly simple - a "cheap parlor trick". This might mean that modifying the ringtone in other ways could be simple, too. But it might require a separate effort to project a holographic image along with the transporter beam, and I can't see O'Brien going to that sort of trouble.
Timo Saloniemi
TNG "Devil's Due" claims that choosing "null" for the ringtone is fairly simple - a "cheap parlor trick". This might mean that modifying the ringtone in other ways could be simple, too. But it might require a separate effort to project a holographic image along with the transporter beam, and I can't see O'Brien going to that sort of trouble.
Timo Saloniemi
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