Why not use the Stargazer?

[Deks]

That and the Cube hit the Enterprise around..5 or 6 solid times in that weakened state and was able to take the shields down to 68%. Geordi made it clear that something had to be done otherwise they'd be toast.

It was clear that even in its weakened, minimal state, that Cube was still more than capable of destroying the Enterprise in its condition

This too.
But my point was that because of the severely diminished operational capcity of the cube, and a relatively small collective (with none of the drones on the Cube itself sans Jack - the last 2 were killed by Riker and Worf), the cube had no local collective will power to regenerate or adapt... that's why the ENT-D could damage it as it did.
Most the assimilated were the young SF personnell on other ships in Earth's orbit and were focused on attacking spacedock.

 

[Scionz]

Because Season 3 is the Enterprise-G origin story. That is the story creatively that Matalas and co wanted to tell.

 

[Scionz]

It was 16 years old when it was retired.

Wrote about it at length elsewhere (maybe you read it), but if the direction of Starfleet in the 25th century is to do a version of the late 23rd century "common parts in different configurations" ship building that was so successful with Connie-refit/Miranda/Excelsior via the Connie-III-class, Sagan-class, Duderstandt-class, Echelon-class and a few others, then early retirement and a short production run of the Odyssey-class makes perfect sense.

Odyssey-class is the biggest ship starfleet built in canon by far. And it wasn't big ships and tightly integrated designs like the Galaxy that won the Dominion War. It was mid-sized and small ships like the Battle of Sector 001 ships (that were tightly integrated and not at all modularly built) and easy to build ships like that Excelsiors and Mirandas and their variants. It was mid-sized combat mass vs massive hulks. It's really no surprise that Galaxy-class ships are all gone by 2401 while Starfleet seemingly cranked out the significantly lighter weight Sovereign-class (that's longer, but much less massive) in the 2370s. That makes going to the Odyssey-class in the 2380s almost a mistake. Maybe they tried it and they didn't like it.

Whatever the case, Sovereign tech filtered down into a few other ship classes, but those are mostly gone, and some Battle of Sector 001 ship classes still service, but the bulk of Starfleet's 2401 fleet mass is these 2400s "shared parts" designs that the Constitution-III is but one configuration of, and some Star Trek Online classes that share a similar modular approach. If you're integrating new widely technology across a fleet, you'd want to get the ships where that's a pain to integrate out of service.

"But the Federation is a post scarcity society" Well yes and no. Yes in it's ability to create things, but it still takes work forces and man-hours of labor to build and upgrade things (as we've seen on every Trek show) and it still takes finite personnel resources to crew ships. What's better: spending huge amount of manhours to upgrade a handful of technological dead end ships, just to stuff 1600 crew members on them? Or crank out 3 mid-sized cruisers per Odyssey, which have newer technology, and break up the 1600 crew members between the three ships.

This is more or less what the US Navy has gone through a few times in the past 30 years. I'm describing a real process.

So yeah, Odyssey's should go. And frankly, by 2410, Starfleet should work real hard to get every Sovereign, every Battle of Sector 001 ship out of service, and any of the older "Star Trek Online" designs, and build entirely around this "Neo-23rd century" model in every configuration they can think of. They'll have a bigger, more capable and much more broadly sustainable fleet than holding onto oversized ships like the Odyssey.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Fans wanted to see the Titan, and Matalas wanted a TOS-like ship for the TUC style sendoff for the TNG crew.

 

[The Wormhole]

Really, I think the more apt question isn't so much "why didn't they use the Stargazer in S3" but rather "why didn't they use the Titan in S2?"

 

[Lord Garth]

Terry Matalas didn't use the Stargazer because he wanted the ship they were going to use to become the next Enterprise. He probably always wondered what a "TNG" Constitution Class Starship would look like. One plus one equals Terry Matalas wanted the next Enterprise to be a Constitution Class Starship.

With all of that in mind, he lined up the dominoes so they'd fall into place by the end.

Enterprise-D --> Recovered. "Fuck Generations!"
Enterprise-E --> Destroyed off-screen. "Blame Worf!" "That was NOT my fault!!!"
Enterprise-F --> Placeholder. "Hey Star Trek Online Fans! Here's your ship! It's been the Enterprise the whole time! See it? See it?! Goodbye! I'm whacking it off!"
Enterprise-G --> "Enterprise-Gangster in the house! Constitution Class represent!"

 

[Dukhat]

Because Season 3 is the Enterprise-G origin story. That is the story creatively that Matalas and co wanted to tell.

And they did tell the Enterprise-G origin story. In the most convoluted and contrived way possible.

 

[XCV330]

Really, I think the more apt question isn't so much "why didn't they use the Stargazer in S3" but rather "why didn't they use the Titan in S2?"

or the Zheng He, supposedly the most advanced and dangerous ship in Starfleet, along with its endless clones. DId it even show up in Season 3 at all?

 

[Scionz]

And they did tell the Enterprise-G origin story. In the most convoluted and contrived way possible.

I have been asking since the show aired in at least 3 different locations, and - and this is absolutely goddamn amazing - have failed to see one compelling argument as to how a Star Trek IV style end-of-episode cameo by a new ship of a new class that we don't know is in any way a better story than the reveal that the Titan was the Enterprise all along, so the prior 9 episodes can be enjoyed in a new context.

I mean hell, the only way the Star Trek IV ending wasn't absolute crap was because they intentionally made the 1701-A (and its bridge) the same as the destroyed 1701 (with new lighting and paint) to emphasise the familiarity and finally making it home, 3 movies later. It wasn't a new ship... it was the old ship.

Some of ya'll just really hung up on "the rules of Star Trek" that you'd go with a new mystery ship we know fuck-all about, just to observe them? Because what they did really wasn't complicated. They decided to rename an existing ship to honor the 1701-D (and all 1701s) that just saved the Earth, again.

Boy they only did that in the TOS movies and DS9.............

 

[Scionz]

or the Zheng He, supposedly the most advanced and dangerous ship in Starfleet, along with its endless clones. DId it even show up in Season 3 at all?

It did in the fleet scenes. It was there.

The Inquiry class in season 1's garbage model was made by another VFX house at the last minute. WHen the ship was made for Star Trek Online, they fixed a lot of the problems with the ship's shape, textures and shaders, and in the end the game ship ended up being higher quality than the season 1 CGI. When they needed fleet ships for Season 2, not only did they pull in those Star Trek Online ships, but they also used its version of the Inquiry model (not the original), and the new VFX house took that model and made significant changes. THey adjusted the pylons and nacelles, the texturing, and most significantly god rid of the grille on the deflector and changed the deflector's shape. It produced a much better looking starship (this revised version is not yet in Star Trek Online).

It is this "Inquiry 3.0" also showed up in Season 3"

These practice of using video game assets for fleet scenes has an interesting production parallel of sorts. The "Battle of Sector 001" ships made by ILM were of such low quality because of their purpose built "distance viewing" for fleet scenes, that when given to Foundation Imaging (I think) for DS9, they had to be entirely rebuilt in higher resolution for DS9 so closer-ups (not necessarily close ups, just closer than First Contact) looked good. The Norway-class wasn't used on DS9 for this reason. It wasn't upgraded.

Later on, when Eaglemoss was making the art for the books and the source model for the Starship collection, they got those meshes from Foundation's archive, long thought lost, but found on a former artists' server. Their artists redid them up to modern "hero ship" CGI standards for the first time, that added a lot of essential star trek ship detail. These "real versions" of the Battle of Sector 001 ships eventually made it to Star Trek Online over the last few years to replace the lower resolution legacy models (which were often replacements of an even older version). In turn, for Season 2 (mostly) and Season 3 (less so), it is these "Version 3.0" Star Trek Online models, the direct descendants of the ILM ships from First Contact, that had jumped from film, to TV, to book/diecast model to video game, that were used.

In 2022/2023, unless you're getting up real close to a ship for a long period of time, a modern video game model with some shader improvements and good lighting is perfectly sufficient for a 4k TV show.
We've come a long way since Star Trek Armada.

 

[DarKush]

Fans wanted to see the Titan, and Matalas wanted a TOS-like ship for the TUC style sendoff for the TNG crew.

Speaking for myself, but as a fan, I did want to see the Titan, the Luna-class one in live-action. I had no real desire to see a brand-new Titan. I hadn't considered them keeping the Stargazer around, but now that the question was raised, I think it as much sense as bringing in a new Titan. Granted, Matalas wanted a Constitution-class vessel and that was his call, but the new Stargazer wouldn't have been a bad option, and Seven had already been an acting captain on that vessel. That little backstory could've added another dimension to her tensions with Shaw.

 

[Lord Garth]

Terry Matalas is an interesting case. I've never seen before a Showrunner inherit a Star Trek series and not only change it so completely but also reverse a lot of what the previous people did, to leave his own mark on it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Terry Matalas is an interesting case. I've never seen before a Showrunner inherit a Star Trek series and not only change it so completely but also reverse a lot of what the previous people did, to leave his own mark on it.

Season 2 Terry must be very sad.

 

[Lord Garth]

Season 2 Terry must be very sad.

No. I'm comparing the show now to PIC S1 and the TNG Movies.

 

[The Wormhole]

or the Zheng He, supposedly the most advanced and dangerous ship in Starfleet, along with its endless clones. DId it even show up in Season 3 at all?

Well, I can understand that if they're building a new set anyway, might as well have a new ship to go along with that. And given the Zheng He's bridge in season 1 was a redress of Disco's bridge, trying to coordinate that while under COVID protocols would probably have been too much of a pain in the ass.

 

[Dukhat]

I have been asking since the show aired in at least 3 different locations, and - and this is absolutely goddamn amazing - have failed to see one compelling argument as to how a Star Trek IV style end-of-episode cameo by a new ship of a new class that we don't know is in any way a better story than the reveal that the Titan was the Enterprise all along, so the prior 9 episodes can be enjoyed in a new context.

I mean hell, the only way the Star Trek IV ending wasn't absolute crap was because they intentionally made the 1701-A (and its bridge) the same as the destroyed 1701 (with new lighting and paint) to emphasise the familiarity and finally making it home, 3 movies later. It wasn't a new ship... it was the old ship.

Some of ya'll just really hung up on "the rules of Star Trek" that you'd go with a new mystery ship we know fuck-all about, just to observe them? Because what they did really wasn't complicated. They decided to rename an existing ship to honor the 1701-D (and all 1701s) that just saved the Earth, again.

Boy they only did that in the TOS movies and DS9.............

Convoluted naming is convoluted. Point still stands.

 

[James Cole]

Speaking for myself, but as a fan, I did want to see the Titan, the Luna-class one in live-action. I had no real desire to see a brand-new Titan. I hadn't considered them keeping the Stargazer around, but now that the question was raised, I think it as much sense as bringing in a new Titan. Granted, Matalas wanted a Constitution-class vessel and that was his call, but the new Stargazer wouldn't have been a bad option, and Seven had already been an acting captain on that vessel. That little backstory could've added another dimension to her tensions with Shaw.

It's interesting to consider how they would have approached it if the Luna-class Titan had never appeared in STLD. Most likely a far more conventional refit.

At the same time, for the beginning of season 3's plot to work, Riker had to be familiar with Shaw, realize Shaw would be a foil they needed to navigate, with another structural waypoint being that Picard had never met him.

Terry Matalas is an interesting case. I've never seen before a Showrunner inherit a Star Trek series and not only change it so completely but also reverse a lot of what the previous people did, to leave his own mark on it.

I almost think of it as succeeding films in a series, where the writers/directors involved are likely to be very different creatives. I'm really not into horror, so I saw the Alien films in reverse order very gradually from Prometheus. But the swings in that franchise is the only comparable genre example I can think of for PICARD. Just cross it with a bit of Star Wars sequel trilogy.

 

[XCV330]

Terry Matalas is an interesting case. I've never seen before a Showrunner inherit a Star Trek series and not only change it so completely but also reverse a lot of what the previous people did, to leave his own mark on it.

been thinking the same thing.
when you have to jump high to pull the rug out from under the other people standing on it

 

[Saul]

And they did tell the Enterprise-G origin story. In the most convoluted and contrived way possible.

You didn't like Picard season 3?
Knowing now that the ship will become Enterprise makes me want to rewatch the season again.

 

[Scionz]

Convoluted naming is convoluted. Point still stands.

It's not convoluted. They renamed a relatively recently commissioned ship to honor one of the most famous and important ships in Starfleet history.

This is only a problem because some folks don't like the Enterprise-G. It's that simple.