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

[Tim Thomason]

I want to know what happens when they find Kirk's remains. Oh, wait, no he was buried under two inches of rock. That problem should sort itself out within a couple years.

What happens when they find Kirk's badge?

 

[Timo]

I doubt Kirk was buried on that planet at all.

1) Picard can't have buried him on that mountaintop - it would be physically impossible for him to carry the body up there. The pile of stones was for the badge only, a personal memorial that might or might not be dismantled afterwards and would mean nothing to anybody.
2) The remains of Soran's encampment would be even more likely to be dealt with than the remains of the saucer section - they contain technologies even the UFP cannot yet reproduce, after all. And Kirk's body under the wreck of Soran's bridge is part of those remains.
3) Kirk's body was still more or less intact, though. Odds are that some sort of a conventional burial would be conducted, then - whether that be firing the corpse into space in a torpedo tube or digging a hole for it. Either of those would make it impossible for the Veridianiteians to find Kirk's remains - space coffins have no transponders, and digging the hole would involve picking a site for it and nobody would pick Veridian III.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SPCTRE]

Nobody lives on Veridian 3 so it wasn't an urgent job, probably subcontracted out to someone.

but how did they pay for it

 

[Timo]

In promotions, the standard currency for the 24th century (and a bit of 23rd, too).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

Odds are that some sort of a conventional burial would be conducted, then

Ship him back to Earth?

 

[Kronos]

but how did they pay for it

They get scrap value.

 

[Timo]

Ship him back to Earth?

In a flag-covered torpedo casing to boot, just like they did to Muniz' body, or how they treated the "unearthed" remains of John Kelly.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[PureCrimson]

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.)

Why would they have to keep it secret though? Star Fleet is public knowledge.

If the natives were *that* primitive, they wouldn't grasp the concept of what it was to begin with.

Either way, keeping it secret makes little sense to me. Removing it, I get it. But being covert about it?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If the natives were *that* primitive, they wouldn't grasp the concept of what it was to begin with.

Perhaps, but if they saw it at all - no matter what they thought it was - it's still interference in their society, and thus a violation of the Prime Directive.

And even so, it's just better nature management. When you go camping, you're supposed to clean up after yourself, amirite? Well this is just that, writ large.

 

[The Wormhole]

As there are no inhabitants on Veridian III and no logical reason to expect the inhabitants of Veridian IV to be aware of what happens on III, there's no need for anyone to be "covert" about the removal of the saucer.

Also, the saucer being dismantled on Veridian III's surface is a picture in this year's Ships of the Line calendar.

 

[Timo]

As regards "covert", the Feds better remain on the sunny side of Veridian III lest they become visible to the telescopes of the assorted Galileos of Veridian IV.

Which is exactly what they do in the scene where the three starships depart Veridian III, incidentally.

(That is, Data's earlier chart showed that Veridian IV would be on the same side of the sun as Veridian III during the events, so the sunny side of the latter would be the safe side. At other times, the dark side would of course beckon.)

Bright oddly moving dots on the sky have swayed world history before, here on Earth...

As regards removing the saucer by simply lifting it to space, the Defiant could more or less trivially lift the whole crashed Jem'Hadar bugship off a standard-gravity planet in "The Ship". Lifting the crashed E-D saucer should then be a breeze for the Nebula we saw, supposedly.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

no logical reason to expect the inhabitants of Veridian IV to be aware of what happens on III

Eventually they will find it. May take awhile, but unless Starfleet removes the saucer, it will happen.

 

[Timo]

If the Veridianiteians are as clever as us humans, they'll discover warp, subspace radio or a type of booze exotic enough to draw in the Ferengi before they find the saucer, and the Prime Directive aspect will be moot. I mean, Cochrane discovered warp half a century before mankind had a permanent colony on Mars...

If OTOH the Veridiani are even a tad slower, only the great-grandkids of Picard's generation will have to worry about the saucer.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Samuel]

Maybe Starfleet tractored it off the surface, repaired it, then mated it to a Galaxy class engineering hull, perhaps one that had the three warp engines mounted on it.
Yeah, Picard said it was unsalvageable but what does he know.

 

[Qonundrum]

In my headcanon, the giants from Taurus II developed space travel, found Veridian III being a more hospitable planet, went there, found the saucer, and had frisbee tournaments.

Then the big frisbee broke and they went back to whatever they did to while away the time beforehand.

 

[Vger23]

Starfleet should bury a big black rectangle on Veridian 3 to be unearthed later.

 

[Kamdan]

With the appearance of the Nebula class starship at the end of Generations, they made it appear that the saucer section was lifted off the planet.

 

[jaime]

I always thought a Galaxy class primary hull crashed on a planet is a good starting point for a star base personally.

 

[Lance Warren Baylis]

I like to think Future!Riker went back there and had her forcibly extracted and refitted, hence why he's still flying around on a three nacelle D as his flagship in the "All Good Things..." future "D

 

[Lance Warren Baylis]

^ See, the D's destruction *and* appearance in Q's future can both be canon