Spoilers I really would like to read a novel set during the PIC Season 3 finale

[Christopher]

It seemed like Geordi may have upgraded the weapon systems and probably the shields.

Why in the world would he have done that? He had no expectation that the ship would have to go into battle. He was restoring it as a museum exhibit, so presumably he would've striven to make its systems period-accurate, not anachronistically advanced.

Also think she could still be of use for some diplomatic missions and logistics during that time.

As I've already said, I think it's probable that the E-D was far more badly damaged in the battle than most of the rest of the fleet. Not only were most of the ships in the Frontier Day fleet the attackers rather than the attacked, but as established, the claims that it was the entire fleet were inaccurate; it was just as much of the fleet as could practically be assembled. So it stands to reason that the majority of the fleet was still in good shape after the battle. Not only was the D probably in no condition to resume service, but it wouldn't have been needed to do so.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Need to or not, there will undoubtedly be talks about maintaining a fleet of working condition reserve lower tech ships for other emergencies/situations, such as traveling under certain species' radars, masquerading as another power, time travel to past eras, etc.

 

[Greg Cox]

I think there's definitely room for a novel or novels to flesh out that year, but I'm not sure we necessarily need the Enterprise-D out there having adventures.

 

[vess]

My immediate thought after the finale was for a 'trilogy' of novels. There's plenty of story potential there. I'd love to see it.

 

[Christopher]

No story ideas in Trek Lit, please.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Enterprise D was obviously involved in the immediate aftermath of the Frontier Day incident, but I doubt its role in that lasted much longer than a few days, a week at the most. After that? I dunno, maybe it toured the Federation for publicity stuff for a year before returning to the Museum.

 

[Sci]

The Enterprise D was obviously involved in the immediate aftermath of the Frontier Day incident, but I doubt its role in that lasted much longer than a few days, a week at the most. After that? I dunno, maybe it toured the Federation for publicity stuff for a year before returning to the Museum.

That makes sense to me. I imagine a lot of people would have wanted to see the ship that saved the Federation when all hope seemed lost visit their homeworld.

 

[Sci]

Why? As I recall, most of those ships were the ones doing the firing, not the ones being fired upon. I believe the only fire they took was from Spacedock and the Titan, whose weapons are presumably far less powerful than the Supercube's.

The impression I got from the large amount of debris the Enterprise-D and Titan flew through in the epilogue was that Spacedock had managed to destroy or damage a large number of starships while they were under Borg control.

As for the Supercube -- I got the impression that its weapons were less powerful than you might normally expect as a result of it having such a small compliment of functional drones, operating at only 36% capacity, and dedicating most of its resources to transmitting the control signal. So I think there's a built-in plot device for the Supercube's weapons to have been much less damaging than they would normally have been, if the writers want to establish that. But your interpretation also fits the available evidence.

There's also the difference in their starting positions. Those other ships were functional, active, and fully equipped to start with. The E-D was a literal museum piece that was hastily and incompletely brought up to minimally functional standards, using technology nearly 40 years out of date. The other ships presumably had significantly more advanced shields and auto-repair systems, having been designed and built in the wake of an era of wars and invasions, while the E-D was a product of peacetime design philosophy. So even if they'd taken an equivalent amount of damage, I'd expect the newer ships to be far less compromised by it.

Completely agreed. I'm sure the Enterprise-D/Syracuse was pretty badly damaged towards the end there. In fact, since really the only parts of the ship that can know canonically must have had life support are the bridge, the transporter room, and the corridor they used to get to the turbolift, I think it's entirely possible that large portions of the ship might have lost life support or been exposed to space due to hull damage.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I thought the D was a total loss at the end of Generations.

 

[Christopher]

The impression I got from the large amount of debris the Enterprise-D and Titan flew through in the epilogue was that Spacedock had managed to destroy or damage a large number of starships while they were under Borg control.

Perhaps... but Spacedock lost that battle. (When it keeled over, I was terribly afraid they'd do the stupid thing of having it "fall out of orbit" in a complete misunderstanding of how orbit works.)

As for the Supercube -- I got the impression that its weapons were less powerful than you might normally expect as a result of it having such a small compliment of functional drones, operating at only 36% capacity, and dedicating most of its resources to transmitting the control signal.

How would the number of drones have an impact on the power of the weapons? The Matrix notwithstanding, there's no way humanoid bodies' metabolic energy could be a useful power source for a technological system. If anything, the lack of drones to maintain and control probably freed up more energy for other stuff like weapons.

I was tempted to ask why the hell a Borg cube would have so many weapon emplacements inside itself, but I saw a photo on Twitter pointing out that the Supercube was assembled from many smaller cubes, so a lot of their surface weapon emplacements would be in its interior. That also helps account for why there's so much open space inside it.

Completely agreed. I'm sure the Enterprise-D/Syracuse was pretty badly damaged towards the end there. In fact, since really the only parts of the ship that can know canonically must have had life support are the bridge, the transporter room, and the corridor they used to get to the turbolift, I think it's entirely possible that large portions of the ship might have lost life support or been exposed to space due to hull damage.

On the contrary -- being vented to space would reduce the damage. In Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, which was initially a hard science fiction show with a JPL engineer as its science consultant, it was standard combat procedure to concentrate the crew in a few small areas and vent the rest of the ship to vacuum. That way, when relativistic projectile weapons penetrated the hull (since there are no deflector shields in a hard-SF universe), there was no internal atmosphere to propagate and amplify the heat and shock of their impact, so much less damage was done.

So really, if only the bridge and a few other decks were pressurized, the E-D would've been less susceptible to damage than if it had been pressurized throughout.

I thought the D was a total loss at the end of Generations.

It was. The saucer was largely intact, but its frame was surely damaged too much by the crash to make it practical to put it back into service. But Geordi was the director of the Fleet Museum and was able to devote years of effort to restoring the saucer and mating it with the battle hull of the USS Syracuse.

 

[Sci]

Perhaps... but Spacedock lost that battle.

Yep. But it took out a decent number of ships before it lost.

How would the number of drones have an impact on the power of the weapons? The Matrix notwithstanding, there's no way humanoid bodies' metabolic energy could be a useful power source for a technological system.

I just assume that a decades-old supercube that's virtually empty would have significant maintenance issues that the surviving drones would be largely unable to address.

On the contrary -- being vented to space would reduce the damage. In Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, which was initially a hard science fiction show with a JPL engineer as its science consultant, it was standard combat procedure to concentrate the crew in a few small areas and vent the rest of the ship to vacuum. That way, when relativistic projectile weapons penetrated the hull (since there are no deflector shields in a hard-SF universe), there was no internal atmosphere to propagate and amplify the heat and shock of their impact, so much less damage was done.

So really, if only the bridge and a few other decks were pressurized, the E-D would've been less susceptible to damage than if it had been pressurized throughout.

Ah, good point then! I bet Geordi would have pre-emptively vented as much of the ship as he deemed prudent then, knowing they were going were going in with such a small crew.

It was. The saucer was largely intact, but its frame was surely damaged too much by the crash to make it practical to put it back into service. But Geordi was the director of the Fleet Museum and was able to devote years of effort to restoring the saucer and mating it with the battle hull of the USS Syracuse.

Yep. In fact, it's interesting to note that at the time of the 2401 crisis, the Enterprise-D had been out of service more than four times as long as she had been in service.

 

[David cgc]

Ah, good point then! I bet Geordi would have pre-emptively vented as much of the ship as he deemed prudent then, knowing they were going were going in with such a small crew.

I thought it was a little silly that when they fired up the ship, the familiar pattern of lit and unlit windows came on; were the lights in people's quarters always connected to the bridge, they go to sleep with Ops says they can go to sleep? Bit of the difference from the JJ movies where you can see when the ship is at red alert through the windows.

 

[Sci]

I thought it was a little silly that when they fired up the ship, the familiar pattern of lit and unlit windows came on; were the lights in people's quarters always connected to the bridge, they go to sleep with Ops says they can go to sleep? Bit of the difference from the JJ movies where you can see when the ship is at red alert through the windows.

I think this is something we should just suspend our disbelief for, so that we can have that wonderful image of the Enterprise-D coming back to life again with modern visual effects.

 

[Christopher]

Yep. But it took out a decent number of ships before it lost.

My point is that I would assume the majority of ships survived. Putting the E-D back into service would only make sense if Starfleet was really desperately hard up for ships, and I think I've already refuted that and we can move on.

 

[Sci]

My point is that I would assume the majority of ships survived. Putting the E-D back into service would only make sense if Starfleet was really desperately hard up for ships, and I think I've already refuted that and we can move on.

Gotcha. Agreed on that point.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I can certainly see room to play with the aftermath of the Borg's attack, plus further "where they are now" stuff - y'know, the various bits of 'what comes next' for the TNG crew that I don't want to speculate on too much to keep this from seeming like a story idea pitch.

But I'd imagine that, with the discussions happening right now surrounding branching into a potential Star Trek Legacy followup series, something set in the wake of Star Trek Picard overall, it's probably also something that isn't likely to manifest one way or another until a final decision is made there, so probably not in the near future, or there's risk of stepping on canon's toes, in the same way that a lot of us thought that a Seven of Nine and the Fenris Rangers novel was inevitable during and after Picard's first season, but has yet to materialize because of the possibility of canon overwriting anything in it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There's tons of potential for books set around the fleet museum.

They could even do a series of books, where a different ship is stolen each time

 

[Sci]

There's tons of potential for books set around the fleet museum.

They could even do a series of books, where a different ship is stolen each time

Is there, though? I mean, the basic story you can do with the Fleet Museum -- "Our Heroes steal a ship from the museum" -- was just done!

 

[Elias Vaughn]

Spoiler

Fleet Ship wargames. Let's finally see if the E-D can beat Voyager in a firefight.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Is there, though? I mean, the basic story you can do with the Fleet Museum -- "Our Heroes steal a ship from the museum" -- was just done!

What about someone sabotaging exhibits? Stealing parts? Holograms from various ship's files running amok? A murder? A hostage taking? ("Get this ship running and get me out of here or I will kill your engineering team.")