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What happened to the saucer section of the Ent-D on Veridian III?

The Rock

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
Did Starfleet just leave it there, or did they somehow take it off the planet?

Surely they couldn't have just left it there to be discovered by the inhabitants of that planet?
 
The movie adaptation novel (iirc) said the wreakage would be removed

Oh cool.

I wonder how it would be taken off the planet. Would dismantle it piece by piece and beam out pieces? Or would they just get a number of ships to use their tractor beams on it to haul it out into space?
 
The follow up novels explained that the wreckage was removed from Veridian III; as Veridian IV had a pre-warp civilization and they didn't want to contaminate their technological development.
I imagine getting destroyed in a supernova isn't quite as bad as getting "contaminated".
 
Nobody lives on Veridian 3 so it wasn't an urgent job, probably subcontracted out to someone.
 
Short answer: It's probably still there, growing moss on it and stuff.

Long answer: I'd like to think some random collection of civilian colonists made it their home. Think about it: if you just patched up the holes and damaged areas, replaced the broken windows, and cleaned and tidied up a bit, then bam! Instant planetside starbase or small city. It could be like the Ba'ku village from "Insurrection", where the people essentially were farmers and agriculturally-minded folk, and therefore didn't need much attention from Starfleet in general. Send a supply ship every year or so, and it would be a fine community.
 
Short answer: It's probably still there, growing moss on it and stuff.

Long answer: I'd like to think some random collection of civilian colonists made it their home. Think about it: if you just patched up the holes and damaged areas, replaced the broken windows, and cleaned and tidied up a bit, then bam! Instant planetside starbase or small city. It could be like the Ba'ku village from "Insurrection", where the people essentially were farmers and agriculturally-minded folk, and therefore didn't need much attention from Starfleet in general. Send a supply ship every year or so, and it would be a fine community.

Yep, definitely condos. Maybe a shopping mall.
 
Should have been completely removed,and repaired the damage done to the area by reentry.

By the time the Veridians develop space travel, erosion, rain, and plant life will have likely taken care of that themselves. Lucky them, having a second M class world in their system that is uninhabited. I imagine if Mars was like Veridian III we'd have colonised it by now!
 
Yep, definitely condos. Maybe a shopping mall.

This is especially funny to me because a few years back, my mom lived in a condo in San Diego whose floorplan was essentially a donut shape. The condos were built in a ring surrounding a little courtyard, where a pool and some green recreational space was located. It always reminded me of a couple of Constitution-class saucers stacked on top of each other, then hollowed out in the center. I'm still kicking myself for not shooting a fan film then that utilized the hallways there, because they could easily be stand-ins for the corridors of a classic TOS Enterprise saucer.
 
I always assumed that Starfleet mounted a salvage mission and covertly removed the wreckage of the saucer without anyone ever knowing it was there.

(This would include cleaning up the area to remove all evidence of the crash.)
 
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Would they go to the length of recapping that mountain top? That flat top would raise questions as soon as the locals send their first probe.
 
Would they go to the length of recapping that mountain top? That flat top would raise questions as soon as the locals send their first probe.

We have flat top mountains on Earth but we don't attribute them to alien spaceship crashes.

But anyway, it depends how far away they are from build space probes. They were described as 'pre-industrial' but that could mean very pre-industrial, it could be a thousand years before they reach that level of technology. Earth's human population reached 230 million (the figure Data quoted) around the year 700 AD.

So, you'd expect rain, snow, ice and tree roots to soften out the flat top a bit over that time, so there may be no need to intervene. When they do finally notice it, their scientists could easily attribute it to an asteroid or something.

Having said that, a bit of precise phaser work from orbit to soften out the sides wouldn't be much effort for a Starship.
 
We have flat top mountains on Earth but we don't attribute them to alien spaceship crashes.

But anyway, it depends how far away they are from build space probes. They were described as 'pre-industrial' but that could mean very pre-industrial, it could be a thousand years before they reach that level of technology. Earth's human population reached 230 million (the figure Data quoted) around the year 700 AD.

So, you'd expect rain, snow, ice and tree roots to soften out the flat top a bit over that time, so there may be no need to intervene. When they do finally notice it, their scientists could easily attribute it to an asteroid or something.

Having said that, a bit of precise phaser work from orbit to soften out the sides wouldn't be much effort for a Starship.

Thanks for link, now I fancy mashed potato :)

Centuries of weathering would soften the top, certainly, but there would still be evidence incongruous with the geography. Striations in the rock would record the impact for millennia.
 
Thanks for link, now I fancy mashed potato :)

Centuries of weathering would soften the top, certainly, but there would still be evidence incongruous with the geography. Striations in the rock would record the impact for millennia.

Someone knows some geology... it's all coming back to me :lol:
Guess they still might assume it was an asteroid though!
 
Heck, we today have tens of thousands of scientists agreeing that humans are the product of natural evolution and the first to evolve sapience on Earth, even though the truth as revealed in the late 24th century is the exact opposite...

It suffices for accepted truth to fit the facts. And there are plenty of truths that will fit the facts of flat mountaintops, with "a flying saucer planed it smooth" being less probable than most, so smart Veridian scientists would not pay that explanation much attention.

How much alien stuff sits there on Earth today, with us misinterpreting it or failing to spot it? Data's head in that mine shaft, the genetic machinery of the Ancients inside us all, a few dinosaur cities at the bottom of the Pacific, and nothing else? Are tardigrades actually cosmopolitan eetees? Did aliens in fact build Stonehenge and the Shard after all?

Timo Saloniemi
 
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