Starship Museums: why?

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

They create giant gates to warp huge ships. They have stations that can travel as well.

It's really ok to have a variety of technology. Not sure why it is stupid or ridiculous.

Been a long time since I watched the Ori saga. You're talking about the Supergates? It's not the same thing. There's no warping. The stargate wormholes can transmit matter almost instantly across the galaxy. On Atlantis, Puddle Jumpers can fly through stargates. In SG-1's Ori saga, the supergates are just the same concept, but bigger. This isn't comparable to warping a space station the size of a large city.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Ah, so it's a "you thing" and irrelevant to a wider discussion.

No, it's an American southeast thing.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I took the train just the other week, and I live in a rural community. I needed to be in Toronto, and like a great many other people, I drove to a station in a smaller community, jumped on a GO Train, and used that to get into town. Why? Because no one in their right mind wants to drive in Toronto right now.

Are trains common in Canada? Genuinely asking as I've never been there.

 

[HotRod]

Are trains common in Canada? Genuinely asking as I've never been there.

I know more than a few people who have taken VIA Rail trip across Canada. I hear it's a wonderful way to see the country, tho it's pricey. Beyond that, the major cities are pretty train friendly, with stops going pretty far outside the cities and servicing smaller communities in their area. Toronto is very pro train, with both surface rail and subway. Vancouver also has a popular "SkyTrain." At least it was popular when I was last there. There's also significant rail traffic in the Quebec City - Windsor corridor, the most heavily populated part of the country. So yeah, we're a fairly train friendly country. Still nothing compared to Europe.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I know more than a few people who have taken VIA Rail trip across Canada. I hear it's a wonderful way to see the country, tho it's pricey. Beyond that, the major cities are pretty train friendly, with stops going pretty far outside the cities and servicing smaller communities in their area. Toronto is very pro train, with both surface rail and subway. Vancouver also has a popular "SkyTrain." At least it was popular when I was last there. There's also significant rail traffic in the Quebec City - Windsor corridor, the most heavily populated part of the country. So yeah, we're a fairly train friendly country. Still nothing compared to Europe.

Out where I live, generally speaking, it's easy to drive an hour through nothing but farmland, trees, and the odd house. When visiting friends about an hour away, I'm driving through half an hour of nothing, passing the odd house and business. Zero public transportation. It's not like that in all directions. Depends on the county.

 

[at Quark's]

I live in a region where trains are anything but obsolete. Many here take the train even though they could drive their car as well - mostly to avoid parking problems in the cities.

Trains clearly still have a function in many places around the world, for short to mid-distance so they're not what I'd call obsolete. Horse-drawn carts are, perhaps, and not even those everywhere.

I would imagine starships as a means of (people) transport would mostly become 'obsolete' by the time transporters or portals are developed to Iconian levels. Why bother with a starship when you can directly transport people from planet A to planet B in a different solar system? However, even then you might still need ships for exploration, (bulk cargo) transport, and defense.

 

[BillJ]

People stopped riding trains once they could drive or take the bus.

*cough*Amtrak*cough*

 

[fireproof78]

Been a long time since I watched the Ori saga. You're talking about the Supergates? It's not the same thing. There's no warping. The stargate wormholes can transmit matter almost instantly across the galaxy. On Atlantis, Puddle Jumpers can fly through stargates. In SG-1's Ori saga, the supergates are just the same concept, but bigger. This isn't comparable to warping a space station the size of a large city.

It really is. Just a matter of scale.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

It really is. Just a matter of scale.

Warp drive and stargates, not the same thing.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I think it'd be easier to imagine Spacedock moving if ships didn't seem so tiny next to it. I mean if the Death Star turned up and carried it in its cargo bay, no one would think twice about it.

 

[BK613]

Bottom line, Trek is replete with on-screen examples of super-sized objects that can move FTL. Heck, right out of the gate, the first produced series episode featured an alien vessel that was touted as "more than a mile in diameter." The Doomsday Machine was "miles long with a maw that could swallow a dozen starships." And of course, there's Vejur.
So moving Spacedock is feasible based on what we been shown is possible so it comes down to resources and will. The Fed obviously has the resources and as for the will, well have you met Geordi LaForge?

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Bottom line, Trek is replete with on-screen examples of super-sized objects that can move FTL. Heck, right out of the gate, the first produced series episode featured an alien vessel that was touted as "more than a mile in diameter." The Doomsday Machine was "miles long with a maw that could swallow a dozen starships." And of course, there's Vejur.
So moving Spacedock is feasible based on what we been shown is possible so it comes down to resources and will. The Fed obviously has the resources and as for the will, well have you met Geordi LaForge?

I just do not like reducing science-fiction to "slap warp engines on it."
I remember Geordi LaForge as an engineer who often told the captain no, can't do it that fast, doesn't work that way, can't be done, we have to do something else, and so on. It made him more realistic and more interesting.

 

[Dukhat]

Because it's all fake, nobody's opinion about how they move things are any more or less valid than the next guy's. 'Personal preference' really has no place in the discussion, because it's irrelevant to whatever sci-fi element that they can come up with to justify how things are done.

 

[Dukhat]

There is something about those particular types of vessels that made them particularly suitable for long-term service.

That still doesn't answer the question of why the Excelsiors, Mirandas, Oberths, Constellations, Sydneys, etc. all remained in service through the TNG era, and the Constitution didn't.

I have my own theories on that... I attribute it to the Khitomer Accords. Those vessels are all pre-Accords designs. I believe there me something inherent in their designs, how they were built, etc. that is desirable but no longer available post-Accords. Exactly what that it is, I don't know. But those vessels were basically all grandfathered in while they couldn't make new vessels "like them".

All the ships mentioned above were pre-Accord designs. Yet most of them were still operating decades after.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Because it's all fake, nobody's opinion about how they move things are any more or less valid than the next guy's. 'Personal preference' really has no place in the discussion, because it's irrelevant to whatever sci-fi element that they can come up with to justify how things are done.

Personal preference has no place in a discussion on a TV show message board? Really?

 

[BK613]

I just do not like reducing science-fiction to "slap warp engines on it."
I remember Geordi LaForge as an engineer who often told the captain no, can't do it that fast, doesn't work that way, can't be done, we have to do something else, and so on. It made him more realistic and more interesting.

I doubt it would be that simple. He was also the guy who built a neutrino detector out of his visor and hacked the warp coils of his ship to push a moon back into a stable orbit (which was working but Q was Q so it wasn't needed at the end.)

 

[Dukhat]

Personal preference has no place in a discussion on a TV show message board? Really?

Really. You can say what you like or dislike about how a fake futuristic society moves things around in space, but how they do it is how they do it.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

Really. You can say what you like or dislike about how a fake futuristic society moves things around in space, but how they do it is how they do it.

How they do it can be realistic or not realistic, and people are allowed to express themselves.

 

[Dukhat]

How they do it can be realistic or not realistic, and people are allowed to express themselves.

I just said that.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I doubt it would be that simple. He was also the guy who built a neutrino detector out of his visor and hacked the warp coils of his ship to push a moon back into a stable orbit (which was working but Q was Q so it wasn't needed at the end.)

I don't object to visor BS science, because plot. I don't object to moving a space rock with warp fields. A massive space station being flown at warp, something it was not designed, engineered, nor built to handle - I do object.