This makes me wonder what protocol would be if an attack was on the building that room was in.
How difficult SHOULD it be to steal a starship?
- Thread starter Angry Fanboy
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This makes me wonder what protocol would be if an attack was on the building that room was in.
I see a lot of people claiming it should be impossible, but I strongly disagree. Firstly, technology will expand just as much for the thieves as it does for the owners. Back in the day if you wanted to "steal" a movie, the easiest way was to rent a copy on VHS and dub it (later changed to ripping DVDs). Now it's as simple as downloading a torrent. Or just take the PC in front of you. Firewalls and anti-virus software are still required for anyone using Windows (even if you are using the build in software) and scammers still make millions every year by tricking users into installing TeamViewer and giving them full access.
Which brings me to my final point. No matter how much tech advances, humans will always be the weakest link in the security chain. Passwords written on a sticky note attached to a monitor, leaving USB ports accessible to anyone around, or just forgetting to log out of a terminal. Just someone looking over your shoulder to find your login. Remember Demolition Man, where a retinal scanner was overrode by ripping the authorized eye from the socket. No matter how much tech advances, these issues will always exist.
Which brings me to my final point. No matter how much tech advances, humans will always be the weakest link in the security chain. Passwords written on a sticky note attached to a monitor, leaving USB ports accessible to anyone around, or just forgetting to log out of a terminal. Just someone looking over your shoulder to find your login. Remember Demolition Man, where a retinal scanner was overrode by ripping the authorized eye from the socket. No matter how much tech advances, these issues will always exist.
It's Starfleet. Secondary back up mode would engage.
Right. I gather there's more to it than that, though: specifics on the type of attack, obviously and necessarily (Klingon Warbirds barging in would warrant a different response), but also on the selection of said "senior commands". It's just a (pretty damn demanding) exercise for the viewer to work out the latter part...
But nobody unwanted gets through the door. And there's no shortage of basic armed response once Harrison starts firing; these folks packing Type 2 or 3, even if discreetly out of sight originally, would surely be enough to stop intruders who might wish to use the door.
But SF HQ being defended is implicit, and Harrison having ways to bypass it is implicit as well. Furthermore, those ways being a rude surprise to the good guys is implicit, too: it's an inside job, regardless of whether it's all just Khan-as-Harriman, or rather Khan-as-Harriman-at-Marcus'-bidding.
It's just a balancing act on how much of a surprise is allowed before suspicion falls on Marcus. Again in both scenarios: Khan might want to frame Marcus even if the admiral weren't behind it all, but the bottom line is that despite this, nobody thinks Marcus arranged for the massacre. So what "really" happened must have been subtle things, involving codes and bypasses that "Agent Harrison" might plausibly have had access to. (No, not things he could have had legitimate access to - SF Intel would have to have annulled those. But Harrison was already guilty of blackmailing legit SFI people, and the breach could be blamed on that.)
And this is the venue of fan speculation that might work the best. Pike is in there, with flag braid, but in the previous movie he was a starship CO despite immediately thereafter being seen in high flag braid. The people summoned might all be "secretly" bigwigs with specific security or Earth Defense roles, even if some are additionally starship COs. The word "starship" is not mentioned by Spock, after all...
The other venue would be to lean on "Paradise Lost": starships there are a big part of Earth's response to a domestic threat. Possibly it's a good idea to do a "drop everything else and start a coordinated response" skipper kowtow in person at such times, to enforce the "drop everything else" bit.
The logic of a Godfather III massacre would be twofold, naturally: to take out of the picture every sensible officer capable of commanding an immediate mission of vengeance (and therefore also capable of immediately saying no to such idiocy), and to motivate the gullible Kirk into doing that very thing. It is for that reason that some starship COs just plain have to die in the movie, even if the way it's accomplished is a bit convoluted.
Timo Saloniemi
My initial read of the situation was that the senior officers summoned would be officers capable of responding to the attack, either through a proactive scanning and pursuit effort, apprehension of the bad actor, and determining what other response would be warranted.
Yeah but you can't upscale everything and use it as an analogy can you? Stealing a starship just doesn't compare with copying a DVD, just like you can't upscale the ecomonics of a lemonade stand to use as an analogy of a national economy.
This is a bit TNG: withdrawing to a study to properly contemplate a chase. But the odd thing here is that "captains and first officers" specifically would be the beat cops who'd have to take the action, not the contemplating bosses...
Timo Saloniemi
Well, upscaling it a bit, car theft is still a major issue. Airliner theft not so much, but hijackings do occur.
Cops still have briefings.
We can do this all day. The only real-world comparison worth anything is to compare stealing Navy ship to stealing a Starfleet vessel.
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Gonna have to agree to disagree with your real-world comparison. The entirety of the US Navy only consists of around 490 ships, including reserves. Starfleet seems to have a LOT more. Add in civilian starships (such as the ship Rios owns in Picard) and I would equate starship theft more in common with a car theft of today.
Okay. But just to check I'm understanding your argument correctly here - because Starfleet has more starships than the United States Navy, that means that stealing or boarding and taking control of a crewed Starfleet vessel and all the wonderous computer, forcefield and transporter that entails, is more akin to a person stealing a car?
That's your position?
Not difficult at all! Take Enterprise, for example, each time some aliens got on board they had no problem hacking into Archer's personal database... One would think that after the first time it happened, Archer would have said to himself, "Hey, maybe I had better tighten the security there." But Noooooo! Archer is like an insect, he doesn't learn from experience... I mean even religious nutcakes with outdated starships who can't count to ten without mnemonic tricks have no problem spying on everything that's in the computer and deleting it!! You'd think the computer would keep a copy of all sensitive documents aside unless given a fifty digit code or something like that, but NOOOOO! Just type delete all, and it'll do it without question...
The thieves have that same wonderous tech. And yes, the more of something there is, the easier it is to steal. Not all ships are the flagship or hero ship. Not all ships even have that wonderous tech or trained crew. You telling me a small force couldn't jack a Pakled ship?
Hell, historically much of the US Navy during the revolutionary war were former British boats.
'SHOULD' engage... but since this is Discovery, everything we know about SF technology and science simply doesn't work for the sake of .... THE DRAMA.
That's all Star Trek, not just Discovery. Back ups never work, manual overrides don't work, etc, etc. I ain't blaming Discovery for something Trek has done for years.
Discovery writers do so in spades without batting an eye. Previous Trek's at least made an effort to explain away why something doesn't work most of the time.
Not enough to satisfy my liking. So it's just part of the texture of Trek for me.
I would prefer a more "24"-esque take on Star Trek, where both sides attempt to infiltrate, break-in, invade and sometimes "Succeeds/Fail" based on Logic then on the needs of the plot.
Having everything work because the plot needs it sucks IMO.
If your writer can't think of competent bad guys, without relying on Deus Ex Machina or Incompetent / Convenient Forgetful-ness of the good guys; it becomes a writing issue.
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