How was USS Grissom destroyed so easily?

[Maurice]

A good rule of thumb is that TV and movies are not like books. A book can be the singular vision of an author (filtered by editors) but in film the process is typically much more team-driven.

There's an old axiom in Hollywood (actual provenance unknown, but often attributed to Kubrick or Hitchcock) which goes "Every movie is written three times: on the page, on the stage, and in editing." Each is an act of adaptation, so there's rarely an original "vision" which survives the process. So really, the script (and which draft you have) is just a departure point... what the writer wanted/or was instructed to do at a given point in the process.

Thus, the Grissom was destroyed so easily because the final decision was just to go with "Lucky shot, sir," without any reference to shields or what have you, and we are left to draw our own conclusions, regardless of what the scripts said.

 

[Shat Happens]

I'll offer Grissom was diverted to Genesis from another mission (because it was the only ship available in the quadrant - see standard starfleet procedure) and that mission was to ferry a boatful of explosives.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Looking at it closely, it actually looks more like '1884' to me.

See, no concensus! I think I see a gap there on the third digit, but it is certainly difficult to tell for sure.

For all practical purposes, we could treat every 8, 6, 9, 5 and 2 as interchangeable, as they really are almost indistinguishable here and subject to interpretation.

Really? On the HD image, all the digits except for 6 and 8 appear to be fairly easily distinguishable, to me anyway. I will agree, though, that it was a lot more difficult to tell from the standard definition DVD.

What we do have to accept, though, is that every registry there begins with an 1. There are no three-digit registries in evidence.

Not only that, but every ship on the chart is either 16xx, 17xx, or 18xx. That's a fairly limited range, but I'm guessing they did it that way to have Enterprise sort of fall in the middle of the pack. Of course, next season we found out that Starfleet was still using ships in the 10xx range.

 

[Tomalak]

That backs up the "seventeenth design" thinking of Jeffries. The only ships listed on the chart are the three most recent designs, or at least of ships assigned to that area. Presumably design fifteen had been removed from active service by that point, or relocated to other areas.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

On screen or it didn't happen. The Grissom was an unarmed scoutship, and the Klingon gunner accidentally scored a direct hit on the warp core. Shit happens.

^ That's the point--and to continue building the SFS Klingons as a deadly threat.

 

[PhaserLightShow]

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.

Abandon the idea of sequential registries.

 

[PhaserLightShow]

^ That's the point--and to continue building the SFS Klingons as a deadly threat.

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.)

New? The technology was about as old as the Enterprise (as it was is "Balance of Terror" and that would mean 20 years).

 

[BillJ]

Abandon the idea of sequential registries.

Feel free to interpret the universe however you like, and leave me to interpret it in a way that I want. Thanks.

 

[PhaserLightShow]

Feel free to interpret the universe however you like, and leave me to interpret it in a way that I want. Thanks.

I respect the way you think (and would prefer if more evidence went that way; I like that idea), but the evidence (such as the Constellation being Constitution-class but NCC-1017 which contradicts the 17th design) disagreed with you.
;(

 

[BillJ]

I respect the way you think (and would prefer if more evidence went that way; I like that idea), but the evidence (such as the Constellation being Constitution-class but NCC-1017 which contradicts the 17th design) disagreed with you.
;(

Lots of things disagree with me. But I think that is part of the magic of TOS. It was very vague onscreen about the universe and allows our imaginations to run wild.

 

[PhaserLightShow]

Occam's Razor. Grissom was destroyed so easily because the shields were unable to withstand the attack. Whether that's because they were inactive, not entirely active, or simply under-powered is irrelevant. The result speaks for itself.

I don't care about the result. I care about the cause.

 

[PhaserLightShow]

For all practical purposes, we could treat every 8, 6, 9, 5 and 2 as interchangeable, as they really are almost indistinguishable here and subject to interpretation. If it helps, we could decide to see 1224 there to support the idea that the low 1700 series was the hottest new thing at the time - or to see 1800 series where Jein and Okuda saw 1600 series, to support the idea that the hero ship was venerable at the time of the show. To argue otherwise would come perilously close to seeing the seams in Spock's ears...

What we do have to accept, though, is that every registry there begins with an 1. There are no three-digit registries in evidence. Don't such ships warrant star ship status? Have they all been retired? Do they exist two pages down on that chart?

Timo Saloniemi

Yes 3 digit ships warrent star ship status.
Look at Grissom (NCC-638) and USS Antares (Charlie X, TOS, NCC-512). Both Star Ships.

 

[Tomalak]

Yes 3 digit ships warrent star ship status.
Look at Grissom (NCC-638) and USS Antares (Charlie X, TOS, NCC-512). Both Star Ships.

Are they? I don't recall if Antares was specifically referred to as a Starship, but Chekov identifies a "scout class vessel" which Kirk immediately identifies with Grissom.

 

[BillJ]

...and USS Antares (Charlie X, TOS, NCC-512). Both Star Ships.

Newp. Identified as a cargo ship...

Captain's Log, star date 1533.6. Now maneuvring to come alongside cargo vessel Antares. Its Captain and First officer are beaming over to us with an unusual passenger.

Only a crew of twenty...

RAMART: No, we've a tight schedule to make, Captain. Just twenty of us, we're making out fine.

 

[jaime]

The Klingon bird of prey used an alpha strike from cloak, and Grissom was a squishy sci ship...and as it was pre nerf, Kruge had used viral matrix and got lucky shutting off its shield subsystem. If only the Grissom had an engineer for a Captain, maybe he could have miracle workered somehow, but once the hargh peng radiation took the crew number down it was goodnight.

Tldr: working as intended.

 

[CorporalClegg]

But Sci ships have epic shields. Any STO player knows that.

 

[DonIago]

I don't care about the result. I care about the cause.

And I provided one. The shields were unable to withstand the attack. 'Nuff said.

 

[jaime]

But Sci ships have epic shields. Any STO player knows that.

But when they go....

 

[Kor]

Grissom was a piece of junk.

Kor

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And it didn't help much that its captain was a milquetoast who probably didn't know the first thing about being in combat.