Starship design history in light of Discovery

It's not. I just disagree and see it as a very limited, exclusionary, definition.

That's all. A simple observation.

 

Ok, then we’ll agree to disagree, since I can’t explain any clearer why I don’t feel that the NX-01 was in any way as primitive as my definition of ‘primitive’ in the context of TOS goes. I didn’t see any technology in ENT that was in any way substantially different from the technology in TOS and TNG.

 

Fair enough.

 

I always assumed that some things had clearly not been developed enough or invented yet whereas other systems were just an earlier less refined version of what we know from TOS, in the way they were designed, built and deployed.

Some technologies were outright absent from the NX01 at the start of the show like shields and others were in the early stage of development such as torpedoes and phasers, the show did give us a couple of episodes where we saw them testing out these new systems.

The NX01 was very much a development platform and not just for the Warp 5 engine.

 

That is certainly my read as well, which is why I don't think the technologies they had would be deployed consistently to all ships available during a full Earth-Romulan war.

 

I imagine that the sudden outbreak of the war in 2156 would push a lot of older Earth ships into emergency service and they would go onto the frontlines without the kind of technology that the NX-class and perhaps the new Daedalus-class starships would have.

 

Why is it OK for TOS to actualy contradict itself a multitude of times within its three seasons, but it's not OK for a followup show made about thirty years later to reinterpret the vagaries that TOS often left on the table?

Personally, I have no problem with 99% of the things ENTERPRISE established as being the actual historical occurrences.

(that 1% being the craptastic "Valentine" given to us in the final episode)

 

"But Romulans didn't have cloaking devices before TOS!"

No. TOS never said they didn't. They simply said that the Bird-of-Prey attacking the Neutral Zone outposts had a new invisibilty screen technology that required a vessel to become visible in order to fire its main weapon. Not to get too pedantic but it was never called a cloaking device in "Balance of Terror."

Besides which, the Earth-Romulan War ended 106 years before this episode even takes place. People forget things were ever used, some technologies are classified or just rumors or the passage of time makes people drop their guard. Think of some of the crazy and advanced technologies that Nazi Germany was developing towards the end of World War II and how few people probably know enough about them in 2020 to carry on a detailed conversation about them.

 

The problem remains that "Balance of Terror" is the only piece of Star Trek to consider invisibility as a thing "theoretical" and therefore never before, uh, seen.

In half a dozen other TOS episodes, the heroes take invisibility on the stride, or think nothing of the adversary appearing without arriving. Which is good and well: failing to encounter invisibility would be as weird for space adventurers as failing to install a proper vidiphone. All the ENT cases of visual tomfoolery dovetail nicely into this.

But as regards the possibility of people forgetting after a century, Nazi Germany is probably inappropriate. The Nazis were big baddies who were involved in a worldwide conflict; they were famed for their U-Boats, a tactically centrally relevant issue best matching the Romulan cloaks, and will be remembered for those in 2040 still, even if their early SAMs and magnetic mines and acoustic torps and jet fighters get forgotten. The affair with the Romulans may well have been small scale, more comparable to two South American nations slugging it out in a series of indecisive naval encounters and border skirmishes in the 19th century. Just adjust the geography so that there are no borders to skirmish across, and you have the faceless enemy thing more or less covered, too: the Nuevo Ricoans might be facing American or German or Martian sailors for all they know, aboard those San Theodoros ironclads that never come quite close enough...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I think it's better to compare the Earth/Romulan War to World War I rather than WWII and the Nazis.

Both were a time of great confusion, a lot of 'chest thumping' and many mistaken assumptions on both sides which cost dearly in lives.

Both also involve an attempt to form a Coalition of Member States/Worlds that didn't blossom and grow till after the War was over. (League of Nations/United Federation of Planets)

They both also involve the rapid development and growth of military assets on a very grand scale first on the European battlefields and then in the space between Earth and Romulus.

 

Same here. I will never understand the tendency to assume what is seen on one ship must be applied equally to all ships, especially when the NX class was so new.

 

Because Spock’s statements implied that all ships, both Earth ships and Romulan ships, were that primitive, no exceptions. He didn’t qualify his statement that Earth had some more advanced ships that just didn’t get used, or that the Romulans actually possessed ship-to-ship viewscreens but didn’t use them, etc., etc.

 

Implied doesn't mean fact. Eisegesis vs. exegesis.

 

The potent red death rays of "Silent Enemy" were readily available to two other, presumably older UESF ship types in "The Expanse". Perhaps those ships had in fact received them earlier than the explorer that her captain felt didn't even need the things?

If all of UESF has these death rays as of 2153, then "downgrading from ENT to the RW" doesn't really seem likely. The NX-01 and NX-02 only stand out as regards their speed, and perhaps their photonic torpedoes. But installing those didn't seem to be all that big a deal.

Apparently the 2150s phasers and/or photonic torpedoes count as "primitive atomic" weapons. Perhaps as opposed to Kirk's "advanced atomic" phasers and torpedoes?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Even Spock could generalize.

"I am a Vulcan. I am incapable of lying."

Except for all the ones who do. Or exaggerate or tell half-truths. Like himself from time to time.

 

If NX-01 is Starfleet's silver bullet, then the war is as good as lost - she didn't stand much chance against prewar Romulan ships when facing those, so a Starfleet otherwise consisting of even more inferior vessels could just as well sail out to surrender en masse.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Thank you, I know that implied doesn’t mean fact. Which is why I said implied. But Spock is not one to mince words and no one else contradicted or corrected him. So in the context of TOS, I go with Spock knowing what he was talking about.

 

...Which is that the ships of the 22nd century were inferior to Kirk's. ENT doesn't contradict that in any fashion. But neither show gives any absolutes about the level of armament involved, either. Might have been ENT level, with ships running out of photorp ammo and resorting to atomics on Fighting Day Thirteen. Might have been better than ENT but still inferior to TOS, and atomics are the new thing that comes after photonics.

That all the ships would be equal down to the minutest detail is nonsense, and Spock would not deign to delve in that detail. Are atomics a detail? Basically impossible to tell, when we never see atomics in action, or at least can't tell which of the weapons we do see are or aren't atomics.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Of course Spock knows what he is talking about.

I just don't see the contradiction. I just see interpretation. It's neither good nor bad. Just is.

 

There's no way in Hell that the Humans could have WON a war with the Romulans, if all the Earth Star Fleet ships only had "Atomic Weapons'.
As it was the Romulan starships were far superior to anything Earth had to put into battle at that time.
Even the Vulcans of that time period acknowledged that the little bit of info (they were willing to admit to) about the Romulans was that they were a known Warrior Race intent on Empire building.

This also negates the premise that the Romulan BOP only had Impulse Engines in "Balance of Terror", again there's no way in Hell that the Romulans could have gotten to within striking range of Earth and its colonies without WARP Drives in their ships, it would have taken many decades for them to even get close enough to fire at something.

Spock obviously was 'generalizing' A LOT in his statements.