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Discovery starship discussion [SPOILERS]

She pretty clearly said "nearly 100 years ago", so if it were OVER a century that dialogue wouldn't track. I'm perfectly happy thinking Archer and co. made a return trip after "Broken Bow"... But what worries me is what the heck they screwed up to make the Klingons enter INTO this period of isolation, if they were indeed the last crew to set foot on Qo'noS in that long..!

Mark
 
Klingons were a bit under the wind in ENT to begin with, not conquering much. In "Judgment", Kolos draws attention to the rise of the warrior class and their all-engulfing propaganda - is that the cause or the effect of the Klingon rut of the day?

A lot of things changed for the Klingons during ENT, some of them because of Archer. There was the Augment virus. There was the dissipating of the Delphic Expanse, opening up new hunting grounds and exposing new threats. There was the emergence of the Romulans. Any of these could make the Klingons turn their attention away from Earth for a century, even without evoking the idea that Earth wouldn't really know anything about what was happening on the big backside of the Empire.

Again, "setting foot" is different from "interacting with", so the century of silence need not involve failure to have starship-sized adventures...

Timo Saloniemi
 
Archer's adventures involved a lot of mucking about with the timeline, so maybe the dating gets a little muddy? Could be Trek's version of the "UNIT dating" problem in Doctor Who, which is now cheekily addressed in the show by having characters refer to event taking place "in the 70s... or was it the 80s?".
 
If we instead want to be anal-retentively canon-accurate about it, we do have nice anchor points that present no problems whatsoever.

The parts of Archer's bio we can actually read in "In a Mirror, Darkly" (now given extra weight by this very adventure having become central to modern Trek lore) tell he became the UFP Ambassador to Andoria in 2169, probably but not necessarily marking the end of his days as a Starfleet Captain. His connection to NX-01 was lost no sooner than in 2161, which is still less than a century from DSC S1 - but his connection with the "NX-01 crew" may extend beyond that, and it's the crew rather than the ship that gets associated with him traipsing on Qo'noS.

(I guess he'd have even more excuses to visit the Klingons as Ambassador than he did as Captain, but he probably wouldn't drag his former crew with him on such occasions, and history wouldn't record his retinue in those terms anyway.)

Timo Saloniemi
 
She pretty clearly said "nearly 100 years ago", so if it were OVER a century that dialogue wouldn't track. I'm perfectly happy thinking Archer and co. made a return trip after "Broken Bow"... But what worries me is what the heck they screwed up to make the Klingons enter INTO this period of isolation, if they were indeed the last crew to set foot on Qo'noS in that long..!

Mark

They got tired of turning off all the lights and pretending they weren't home whenever the Enterprise showed up.
 
Here are some pics for you: https://imgur.com/a/LhalY

Some more observations:
- the map of Quo'nos probably warrants its own thread. Did they reuse the map from Into Darkness? Or was it from one of the reference books, much like the war map makes extensive use of Geoff Mandel's star charts? Anyway, it has a lot of interesting details on it. Also, large lava caves below the surface. I like how we learn a lot about that planet. It's always been kind of a letdown that all we ever saw was that one recycled matte paining for 20 years.
- Starbase 1: was the FJ thing in the reboots referred to SB1 on screen?
- Position of Starbase 1: Cornwall asks Stamets if he can jump there. It makes sense that he tells her that it's more than a light year from their current position, but why would he bring up the distance to earth at all?
- Also, it was a raid, not an attempt to conquer earth. I suppose no Klingon house alone would be able to invade earth. SB1 seems to be more of a trophy than an actual asset for them. Still, I wonder why the admiral was surprised that SB1 was destroyed. Surely someone must have noticed (unless the raid happened minutes ago). At least there should have been a distress signal or something. Especially since there were at least three starships and almost their entire leadership at that base. Also also, why did the Klingons leave their assault team behind? Or was it implied that there were still cloaked ships in the area?
- One thing if found irritating is the notion that few children survived the assaults on those research outposts.
- Where exactly did they drop of Sarek? Or was he beaming over to whatever vessel brought Cornwall to Discovery?
- Besides that Sheperd class, there's also a Cardenas-class docked at the station. They look like they are almost the same size. There's a third ship that could be a Hoover. Also, floating saucer piece in the foreground.
- First mention of the class name Crossfield on screen
- the hologram of that unnamed moon in the Veda system is a map of Mercury. At least going by the names of the locations.
 
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- the map of Quo'nos probably warrants its own thread. Did they reuse the map from Into Darkness? Or was it from one of the reference books, much like the war map makes extensive use of Geoff Mandel's star charts?

Might be random lines created for the occasion, too - some people say they see South America there, and while I don't, it would be simple enough to overlay preexisting (geo)graphical elements at odd angles and atop each other to the result witnessed.

Anyway, it has a lot of interesting details on it. Also, large lava caves below the surface. I like how we learn a lot about that planet. It's always been kind of a letdown that all we ever saw was that one recycled matte paining for 20 years.

We also learn in a bit of accidental continuity that cloud coverage hampers mapping from a distance. The place did appear rather heavily overcast every time we went there, with oddly greenish clouds as seen from above (but not from below). I wonder how Kahless ever found a star to point at?

- Starbase 1: was the FJ thing in the reboots referred to SB1 on screen?

Nope. The word "starbase" wasn't used in Abrams dialogue until they called Yorktown such.

- Position of Starbase 1: Cornwall asks Stamets if he can jump there. It makes sense that he tells her that it's more than a light year from their current position, but why would he bring up the distance to Earth at all?

Indeed. Perhaps jumping close to Sol is a bad idea for the same reason as warping close to Sol is a bad idea, on those days when it is (bad subspace weather or whatnot)?

- Still, I wonder why the admiral was surprised that SB1 was destroyed. Surely someone must have noticed (unless the raid happened minutes ago).

But comms silence seems to be a thing at the time, and not just general quietness but strange things such as turning off an automated signal of some sort that is supposed to be on at all times, including wartime. Perhaps this had nothing to do with the Discovery appearing out of nowhere and making hails, but was necessitated by the new developments of the war (Klingon suicide runs under cloak might depend on listening to Starfleet signals).

Also, why did the Klingons leave their assault team behind? Or was it implied that there were still cloaked ships in the area?

But the heroes can see cloaks now. Not just through cloaks when targeting, but the very presence of cloaks, supposedly. The Klingon ships involved may have been lost, or forced to withdraw.

Mere 274 people can't have been the assault team - it's more like a bunch of survivors, or perhaps a fanatical group of memento collectors. Clearly they have little tactical value, as they failed to do anything about the Discovery...

- One thing if found irritating is the notion that few children survived the assaults on those research outposts.

It's a nice way to differentiate these attacks from the total sterilization performed on the first target - Burnham can now see the Klingons are not running a logical and coordinated campaign.

- Where exactly did they drop of Sarek? Or was he beaming over to whatever vessel brought Cornwall to Discovery?

He specifically said the new developments or "evolving details" meant he had to "return to Vulcan". No real reason to think he didn't do exactly that, and beam down to the planet when the ship stopped there on her way to Veda.

- Besides that Sheperd class, there's also a Cardenas-class docked at the station. They look like they are almost the same size. There's a third ship that could be a Hoover. Also, floating saucer piece in the foreground.

Yup. Fancy how we fail to see most of the Binaries ship designs twice - but they now have a good thing going with Shepard and Cardenas both, even though they aren't necessarily any more detailed than the others. A purely aesthetical choice?

- First mention of the class name Crossfield on screen

Ah, true. Also, the first DSC class name other than Constitution to be used in dialogue? Assorted Klingon designations notwithstanding.

- the hologram of that unnamed moon in the Veda system is a map of Mercury. At least going by the names of the locations.

Good catch! The camouflaging clouds work nicely enough, though. Just as with the "Earth" they have next to SB1. Also, the atmosphere of the moon extends to considerable heights, as per the friction glow of the carriers vs. the curvature of the horizon - fitting for a small body.

(Where are those gases coming from? Volcanic venting? Is that the reason Stamets thinks this moon is uniquely suited for his mushrooms? Or did somebody try terraforming there and failed, but the failure is Goldilocks for the mushrooms?)

Timo Saloniemi
 
While we're on the subjects of planet maps in "War Without," here are some pictures.

Here's the best shot of Earth (or "Earth") below Starbase One. The Florida peninsula, Cuba, and Lake Michigan are very visible.
SB1Planet.jpg


A marked-up view of the Qo'noS hologram, showing Klingon South America.
KlingonGlobe.jpg

KlingonSouthAmerica.jpg


And, while the Spore Moon's points of interest were taken from Mercury, the actual texture map is a modified version of a Pluto map. Looks to me like this one, specifically, since they were kind enough to put the raw texture on-screen and the lack of photography makes all the Pluto maps on-line pretty idiosyncratic (it's the exact positioning of the left edge and the lack of cloned in-detail on the sections that were out-of-view of New Horizons that gave it away.
SporeMoon.jpg
 
I don't think they referred to any prior Klingon Homeworld map here. Not the FASA map for Klinzhai, nor the LUC/Decipher map for Qo'noS.
 
....So they basically establish the canon baseline here. Although of course inserting those location names already established in canon. Is there anything new on that map?

We could always say SB1 has propulsive capabilities and was commandeered by the Klingons for an attack run towards Earth, thwarted at the last minute by those more-than-three starships we see. If the place still has power to run scans, though, it might be unwise to leave 274 Klingons in there.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I wonder if the Kronos map is based on the one from Star Trek Into Darkness, which appears on the main screen when Sulu is delivering his badass speech?
 
There is precedence for this, actually. We've seen several instances in TOS where the Enterprise inexplicably discovered planets that precisely resemble Earth. Why not Qo'nos? Canon preserved! :lol:
 
While we're on the subjects of planet maps in "War Without," here are some pictures.

Here's the best shot of Earth (or "Earth") below Starbase One. The Florida peninsula, Cuba, and Lake Michigan are very visible.
SB1Planet.jpg


A marked-up view of the Qo'noS hologram, showing Klingon South America.
KlingonGlobe.jpg

KlingonSouthAmerica.jpg


And, while the Spore Moon's points of interest were taken from Mercury, the actual texture map is a modified version of a Pluto map. Looks to me like this one, specifically, since they were kind enough to put the raw texture on-screen and the lack of photography makes all the Pluto maps on-line pretty idiosyncratic (it's the exact positioning of the left edge and the lack of cloned in-detail on the sections that were out-of-view of New Horizons that gave it away.
SporeMoon.jpg
Why use solar system planets for Alien planets? Cost savings?They should know we can freeze and analyze images on frames?
 
But freeze-framing is cheating, and will also reveal the seams on Sarek's ears...

In-universe, people naming two-bit moons let alone their surface features may simply not be all that inspired. (Heck, the mushroom moon had no name - why does it have any names for its surface features, Mercurial or not?) Perhaps Starfleet computers just callously add random texture to data that lacks texture, which is why Qo'noS appears to have Earth continents in holodisplay when it in fact does not have those in plain view.

And perhaps they also randomly generate names when applicable - the same way an invading army decides to call the time-honored O'Muggins' Sheepslope either "Hill # 234" or then "Abattoir Ridge" for convenience.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Why use solar system planets for Alien planets? Cost savings?They should know we can freeze and analyze images on frames?

DSC has been pretty bad about it (in this episode alone, at least). Most shows will try to paint more-or-less original planets, but sometimes there's a time crunch or something. For instance, in an early episode of BSG, there's a moon that's clearly JHT's old recolored-Ganymede Pluto, before we knew what Pluto looked like, and in the Babylon 5 movie "The Lost Tales," the planet the station orbited used a texture map of Mars as a base, but it was recolored a sandy yellow and had a lot of large canyons added to it to match what had been seen in the series.

Honestly, it's kind of tricky to do realistic planets, so if you think you can get away with cheating by using an obscure moon, or recoloring Jupiter to be blue and turning it around so you can't see the Great Red Spot, it's very temping. On the other hand, if you're just going to download an image straight off of DeviantArt and not even recolor it, and only disguise it by adding some cloud cover, for the love of God, don't put the raw map up on screen. There has to be some kind of wild time-crunch finishing these episodes, because there are a lot of areas where the VFX is just sloppy. Like, things are going to slip through in a weekly television show, but there are major issues in many episodes, over and above the surreal and overprossessed look of the show in general.
 
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