In all the years I've talked about Star Trek, what is on screen has always trumped everything else.
How was USS Grissom destroyed so easily?
- Thread starter PhaserLightShow
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In all the years I've talked about Star Trek, what is on screen has always trumped everything else.
And yet film is ultimately a visual medium. If the script calls for Redshirt Ricky to die a horrible death at the hands of a horny mutagu, but the director decides he likes the actor's performance and decides to keep him alive for the rest of the film, does "writer's intent" nonsense mean Ricky's a zombie after Scene 23?
And have you seen what happened to other Oberth-class starships on TNG? Seriously, those things were Starfleet's version of the Ford Pinto. Lucky shot, indeed.
And have you seen what happened to other Oberth-class starships on TNG? Seriously, those things were Starfleet's version of the Ford Pinto. Lucky shot, indeed.
1.) Yes
2.) Yes I have seen what happens to them. When their shields are down. Except in "Hero Worship" except even a Prometheus class Warship would be cut up by the gravity wave fronts if it channeled Warp Power to shields like Enterprise was about to do and Vico did.
But in TNG they were aged/old with outdated weapons/defenses. In TOS movies, they were new.
We have no clue how old the Oberth class is in The Search for Spock. 'NCC-638' could indicate it is part of an older class of ship.
Miranda's were destroyed easily as well. And due to the fact of its high registry and the fact that it fought like a beast, I think Reliant (and Miranda's a whole) was new by TWoK.
The way the shields deployed in TWoK may offer a clue to this question of how the fired photon got through Grissom's shields. The graphic does not show the shields simply "turn on." They take at least a full second, as all of the lights encircle the outline of both Enterprise and Reliant. And movie time is very hard to gage or go by. Kruge tells Kirk he's got 2 minutes to surrender in the story, but onscreen, Kirk's takes a good deal more than 2 minutes, farting around with Destruct Codes and beating feet through the corridors, until he gets to the transporter. But that's just an example. It's very hard to tell in movies what amount of time is truly being represented.
So ... between that and the Shield Activation graphic, the BoP had ample time to sneak in a photon, before the Window of Opportunity closed, completely. Besides which, as "by the book" as J.T. Esteban was, his crew was probably no less so. If there was a checklist that the handbook recommended before employing the shields, it's a good bet that the appropriate officer used it. Who knows when the last time he had to, anyway? It probably took him a moment to remember where the switch for it even was, in fact ...
So ... between that and the Shield Activation graphic, the BoP had ample time to sneak in a photon, before the Window of Opportunity closed, completely. Besides which, as "by the book" as J.T. Esteban was, his crew was probably no less so. If there was a checklist that the handbook recommended before employing the shields, it's a good bet that the appropriate officer used it. Who knows when the last time he had to, anyway? It probably took him a moment to remember where the switch for it even was, in fact ...
There's this little thing called "canon."
Writers intent is meaningless, movie scripts go through easily hundreds of major and minor changes over the course of (sometimes) years. And writers don't have the final say, they can be over-ridden by producers, directors, the studio, sometimes the actors come up with ideas of their own on the best way to do a scene.
Tropes are vastly over rated.
†
Maybe the Grissom was still trying to raise its shields, maybe their shields were at full strength but they just suck. It is a science vessel after all. A bird of prey is a warship. When Esteban saw the Bird of Prey right on his ass he was like OMG. He knew he was fucked.
But the Grissom was definitely armed. Kirk was worried that she might open fire on the Enterprise. Although I'm sure the Grisson would be no match for a fully manned and operation Constitution class starship.
But the Grissom was definitely armed. Kirk was worried that she might open fire on the Enterprise. Although I'm sure the Grisson would be no match for a fully manned and operation Constitution class starship.
I know there's disagreement on this, but I still think it looks like Reliant's registry appears in the chart in Commodore Stone's office in "Court Martial"!
Well, if you want to follow the original script and not what was shown on-screen, then the attackers should not have been Klingons but rather Romulans led by Spock's old friend the un-named female Commander.
As to the shields, at full strength the Grissom's shields are probably 15-20 percent of the Enterprise's shields, so the torpedo simply blasted right thru.
As to the shields, at full strength the Grissom's shields are probably 15-20 percent of the Enterprise's shields, so the torpedo simply blasted right thru.
I wonder if the Grissom may have taken a hit or two during the cutaway to Saavik and the gang on Genesis. That "lucky shot" may have been the final hit, not the first, but still one that brought down a Federation starship easily.
A
Amaris
Guest
Essentially this. In Star Trek VI, during the final attack by the BoP, Scotty calls out "shields weakening!" not dropped, weakening, at which point we see a torpedo rip right through the shields into the ventral and out the dorsal section of the saucer. So even at full power, Grissom's shields were likely no match for a fully armed and powered up Bird of Prey.
Precisely, shields have never afforded invulnerability at any point in Star Trek. We see sheidled ships take damage in virtually every Trek battle scene, but they generally absorb the worst of the damage until exhausted. Grissom's shields were likely intended to provide just enough protection to survive a couple of shots, giving enough time for the ship to escape at warp. Unfortunately for them, the Klingons got their lucky shot. Boom.
I feel sorry for whichever admiral had to write the letters to the families of the Grissom's crew. Mama Esteban must have been distraught.
Regardless of how old Grissom was* it certainly was a small and badly armed science vessel. And as pointed out, it takes a while for shields to fully charge, even on more powerful ships. Certainly the main purposes of cloaking device is to get a surprise first strike? This is what happened here, Grissom was caught pants down. In retrospect, Esteban probably should have ordered the shields the moment he heard that they were being jammed, but cloaking devices were pretty new and rare at that point**, so it is reasonable that he wouldn't realise what's going on.
(*SF registry is not sequential, so low registry does not necessarily indicate an old ship)
(** If we go by TOS.)
(*SF registry is not sequential, so low registry does not necessarily indicate an old ship)
(** If we go by TOS.)
As for Red Alert automatically meaning shields are raised, this isn't really the case in any of the shows. TNG has plenty of instances where Red Alert is sounded, after which Riker micromanages the situation by calling for the raising of shields; TOS has these automatically raising shields that don't trigger Red Alert when they go up.
TImo Saloniemi
TImo Saloniemi
IIRC, the shot through the hull occurs after Scotty announces that the shields are collapsing (but haven't entirely collapsed?), but it has been awhile.
But agreed on all other counts, and I believe it's well-established that shielding even at 100% didn't make a ship entirely invulnerable to weapons fire.
That is not based in any kind of reality, at least as far as Star Trek is concerned. What is shown on screen is the only canon. Writer intent is meaningless unless it's in the finished product.
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