The age of the antihero

[Prax]

I guarantee it's SF policy that if a ship can't be salvaged, towed back to base, etc, then it has to be destroyed if the ability to destroy it exists. This would likely involved setting a self destruct that would destroy anything critical. Allowing the enemy open access to all the advanced technology on board would be incomprehensible.

Also, any battlefield with floating derelict ships would be scavenged by...scavengers. The advanced components of the ship could be disastrous to a species unfamiliar with them. That would be another reason to destroy it.

Did anyone collect the dead? They may have gone back for them, and got the telescope then. It could also just be a telescope sent from Georgieu's home on Earth, and not the same one. After all, Saru didn't know about it, neither did Burnham, and one of the 2 was in command of the evacuation.

 

[zar]

...After all, Saru didn't know about it, neither did Burnham...

I don't understand this point. Is it that they reacted to seeing it, and therefore must have thought it was destroyed? Implying that they would not be surprised if one of them had been the one to save it. How does that work? If you save your friend's family heirloom and send it back to the family, do you just expect it to be given back to you?

 

[fireproof78]

I guarantee it's SF policy that if a ship can't be salvaged, towed back to base, etc, then it has to be destroyed if the ability to destroy it exists.

You can "guarantee" it? We, unfortunately, do not have every Starfleet regulations, and this is a fictional organization which means things get inconsistent (such as the death penalty). The idea that there is a standing policy when we see various situations when a starship isn't destroyed is hard for me to state with any certainty. I understand the appeal of the idea, but it isn't consistently presented on screen. Or, in legal speak, assumes facts not in evidence.

My observations, in general are these:
One-the Shenzou was not like the Glenn or the Buran as it did not possess advanced technology or the crew faced immediate capture.

Two-there were no other Starfeet vessels available to scuttle the Shenzou.

Three-I may be misremebering, but did the Shenzou crew have reason to believe Klingons were still alive?

 

[zar]

I may be misremebering, but did the Shenzou crew have reason to believe Klingons were still alive?

I think it would have been reasonable to assume that some other than T'Kuvma were still alive on the sarcophagus, but they'd probably expect any remaining Klingons to abandon the scene in escape pods similar to them... or, you know, stab themselves into Stovokor.

 

[AlanC9]

You can "guarantee" it? We, unfortunately, do not have every Starfleet regulations, and this is a fictional organization which means things get inconsistent (such as the death penalty). The idea that there is a standing policy when we see various situations when a starship isn't destroyed is hard for me to state with any certainty. I understand the appeal of the idea, but it isn't consistently presented on screen. Or, in legal speak, assumes facts not in evidence.

Concur. What's missing here is some argument for why such a regulation must exist. It's easy enough to get to "should exist," but "should exist" doesn't cut it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Really man? Why do you feel the need to go there? Every... single... frakking... time...

Because the same thing keeps happening, every frakking time. I'll stop pointing it out when the butthurt stops flowing.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

By "disabled," I mean unusable. The Klingons recovered and used it.

No they didn't. They took a PIECE of it and used it to repair THEIR OWN power core. It was -- and remained -- completely unusable.

What are the reasons for Stafleet "not [sharing] that reasoning," i.e., it is SOP to disable or destroy devices that can be used by the enemy?

We can only speculate. You'd have to ask Starfleet for a comprehensive, but it's overwhelmingly clear from past precedent that this is not SOP for them.

I can't remember that. What was the component?

You're kidding me, right?

My understanding is that the power core is not a spark plug.

A power core is not a dilithium processor either, but whatever.

According to this review, it was a fully-functioning power core

It wasn't. But the fact that you don't seem aware of this is the least surprising thing about this thread.

That means it was functioning!

It wasn't. The whole warp core was shut down and in an advanced state of decay, hence the dilithium residue.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

In all the decades of Trek there has been no blow up the ship? What about the Buran and Glenn?

Who cares? The question is "Are they SUPPOSED to blow up the ship?"

To quote Gul Dukat, "Anyone can blow up a ship." The question is "Are we SUPPOSED to blow up their own ships, or is that optional?"

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Because the same thing keeps happening, every frakking time. I'll stop pointing it out when the butthurt stops flowing.

I thought as much. Every time you lose an argument your only comeback is these "butthurt" insults, every frakking time.

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[Crazy Eddie]

Why not fire a salvo and blow it up for good measure? Like they did with the Glenn.

Fire a salvo.
From what? Their escape pods?

the enemy managed to scavenge [Shenzhou] for useful parts that allowed them to bring their flagship with revolutionary cloaking technology back into operation.

"flag ship?" The Klingons abandoned them for six months and only showed up later when one of their generals got the idea that maybe the cloaking device wasn't the crapshoot that literally everyone else in the galaxy thought it was. Kol was going to get the device one way or the other; if the ship hadn't been operable, he would have just taken the DEVICE and left it there.

On the other hand, if Kol had left the ship of the dead behind, Discovery would have found it much harder to infiltrate his original flagship and plant the beacons to read through the cloak. It is ironic, in this thread, that the failure to scuttle the Shenzhou laid the groundwork for the Klingon's eventual defeat.

Seems like blowing up some old ship might be worth the energy required to fire the phasers at its antimatter core.

The phasers... on their escape pods?

They found a telescope but forgot about dilethium thingamajig which is a far more important and a sensitive star fleet technology.

How is it "sensitive" technology when the Klingons already know enough about the technology to scavenge it AND adapt it to their own engine systems? For all we know, Starfleet bought the thing from Radio Shack.

 

[Prax]

It's a figure of speech, like "I guarantee that guy's wearing the wrong size shoes"

Is it not logical? I guess an even more logical option would be to go through the wrecked fleet, tow any salvageable ships back to base, and scuttle anything too impractical to save, as well as retrieve all of their dead.

They(Starfleet) still has a fleet of ships there. The two giant fleets faced off for a minute or two, then stopped. There were about equal losses on both sides. The Admiral's ship goes down, then the entire remaining Klingon fleet bails, leaving only the coffin ship, which is nearly destroyed immediately after.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's a figure of speech, like "I guarantee that guy's wearing the wrong size shoes"

Is it not logical? I guess an even more logical option would be to go through the wrecked fleet, tow any salvageable ships back to base, and scuttle anything too impractical to save, as well as retrieve all of their dead.

Same question that has been asked a hundred times in this thread: what makes you think that has EVER been official policy? The times when this DOESN'T happen far outweigh the times when it does. "Constellation" is probably the best known here; Kirk grabs Decker by the shoulders and shouts "There's no ship to leave! It's a dead hulk!" And you better believe that Kirk would have left Constellation adrift if they hadn't figured out how to use it as a bomb.

I'm realizing more and more that the only times Starfleet ever uses its self destruct mechanisms, it's in some sort of Kamikaze-like desperation tactic, intended to use their ship as a weapon against the enemy. You don't detonate your ship to KEEP it from the enemy, you detonate your ship to KILL them. The only exceptions, from what we can tell, are the Glenn, the Lantree and the Enterprise-E, though in the latter case it's really an example of both.

They(Starfleet) still has a fleet of ships there. The two giant fleets faced off for a minute or two, then stopped. There were about equal losses on both sides. The Admiral's ship goes down, then the entire remaining Klingon fleet bails, leaving only the coffin ship, which is nearly destroyed immediately after.

So call it four or five ships still intact at the scene of battle, most of them warp disabled, limping around under impulse power and trying to stay out of sight. The least damaged of them would have picked up survivors from most of the others and taken them to a starbase. Failing to tow Shenzhou itself back to starbase probably suggests that whoever recovered them was either in too much of a hurry to stop or was itself too badly damaged to attempt it.

 

[Refuge]

This is your funniest post yet. As if you would accept someone picking up the telescope if only it was explicitly shown. You just said above (for the 50th time) that it would be "dumb". Why would that change if it were acted out and filmed? Obviously, demanding to be "pointed to" the scene, that we all know doesn't exist, is nothing but stalling to yet again evade explaining why it was dumb.

The reason MMoM told you to rewatch it wasn't because there was a scene you missed, but because you were basing your criticism on things that were not shown. You said they must have returned to the ship after the fact to salvage items - didn't happen. You said the evacuation was rushed - didn't happen. You said Michael's whereabouts were hidden - didn't happen. When we strip away all the nonsense that only happened in your mind during a knee-jerk reaction of "oh shit really" and "like are you kidding me" (as you recount it), all we're left with is your mantra of "dumb" and "bad" while you dodge any real honest analysis.




At least one person is literally saying that there is a policy to blow up ships after they're left behind with any possibility of enemies finding it, no exceptions. But it gets worse. @Holly Day cites Lorca's murdering of his crew to avoid being taken prisoner as evidence of the policy. Which would mean he was actually just following orders there.



Well, make up your mind, dude. Do they trash their resources or save them? And this neglects the fact that there were no functional ships left. Both fleets were wiped out, and any survivors left in escape pods. To keep the ship from rotting, or even to change their mind and blow it up, would require another mission and another starship just to do so. There is no suggestion that that ever happened, or even a reason to think it would have been plausible given that they're still fighting 6 months later.

Really it isn't a demand but if there was a scene or a reference in dialogue to the scene of how the telescope was retrieved it would clear everything up. Just a simple bit of help AND I would happily accept it.

 

[Refuge]

I guarantee it's SF policy that if a ship can't be salvaged, towed back to base, etc, then it has to be destroyed if the ability to destroy it exists. This would likely involved setting a self destruct that would destroy anything critical. Allowing the enemy open access to all the advanced technology on board would be incomprehensible.

Also, any battlefield with floating derelict ships would be scavenged by...scavengers. The advanced components of the ship could be disastrous to a species unfamiliar with them. That would be another reason to destroy it.

Did anyone collect the dead? They may have gone back for them, and got the telescope then. It could also just be a telescope sent from Georgieu's home on Earth, and not the same one. After all, Saru didn't know about it, neither did Burnham, and one of the 2 was in command of the evacuation.

Gosh that's a good point, sad but realistic - did they collect the dead? Thus far having such open questions screams plot holes.

 

[fireproof78]

It's a figure of speech, like "I guarantee that guy's wearing the wrong size shoes"

Is it not logical? I guess an even more logical option would be to go through the wrecked fleet, tow any salvageable ships back to base, and scuttle anything too impractical to save, as well as retrieve all of their dead.

They(Starfleet) still has a fleet of ships there. The two giant fleets faced off for a minute or two, then stopped. There were about equal losses on both sides. The Admiral's ship goes down, then the entire remaining Klingon fleet bails, leaving only the coffin ship, which is nearly destroyed immediately after.

Yes, and as a figure of speech it still sounds ridiculous, whether regarding shoes or TV shows.

Regardless, the system that the salvage was it was in dispute and the Federation didn't seem in the mood to provoke the Klingons after the losses they took.

Gosh that's a good point, sad but realistic - did they collect the dead? Thus far having such open questions screams plot holes.

Given how Gene expected future humans to handle death, probably not.

 

[Refuge]

Yes, and as a figure of speech it still sounds ridiculous, whether regarding shoes or TV shows.

Regardless, the system that the salvage was it was in dispute and the Federation didn't seem in the mood to provoke the Klingons after the losses they took.


Given how Gene expected future humans to handle death, probably not.

The Klingons collect their dead ;(

 

[Prax]

Same question that has been asked a hundred times in this thread: what makes you think that has EVER been official policy? The times when this DOESN'T happen far outweigh the times when it does. "Constellation" is probably the best known here; Kirk grabs Decker by the shoulders and shouts "There's no ship to leave! It's a dead hulk!" And you better believe that Kirk would have left Constellation adrift if they hadn't figured out how to use it as a bomb.

I'm realizing more and more that the only times Starfleet ever uses its self destruct mechanisms, it's in some sort of Kamikaze-like desperation tactic, intended to use their ship as a weapon against the enemy. You don't detonate your ship to KEEP it from the enemy, you detonate your ship to KILL them. The only exceptions, from what we can tell, are the Glenn, the Lantree and the Enterprise-E, though in the latter case it's really an example of both.


So call it four or five ships still intact at the scene of battle, most of them warp disabled, limping around under impulse power and trying to stay out of sight. The least damaged of them would have picked up survivors from most of the others and taken them to a starbase. Failing to tow Shenzhou itself back to starbase probably suggests that whoever recovered them was either in too much of a hurry to stop or was itself too badly damaged to attempt it.

If the Klingons and Starfleet had fleets of equal sizes, and took relatively equal losses, and the Klingons had a mighty number of vessels left to vamoose out of there, what happened to all the Starfleet ships?

Gosh that's a good point, sad but realistic - did they collect the dead? Thus far having such open questions screams plot holes.

I have a feeling it was filmed and rendered for a particular version of events, then rewritten, and edited to its current form, leaving it very confusing. It's not a big deal.

 

[Refuge]

I have a feeling it was filmed and rendered for a particular version of events, then rewritten, and edited to its current form, leaving it very confusing. It's not a big deal.

I wonder if some Klingons got on board and salvaged the human dead for snacks?

 

[Prax]

I wonder if some Klingons got on board and salvaged the human dead for snacks?

That's a good point. Why should they be starving? They have fresh meat all around them. He said they checked every vessel, right? Did he disallow them from eating SF personnel, and their ration packs?

Actually, I don't think they normally eat people. I think it was some sort of ceremony to defile Georgieu's body.

 

[fireproof78]

The Klingons collect their dead ;(

Only a certain section.