The LINE of battle.

[SFRabid]

Ever notice how many episodes dealing with battles or blockades in space adhere to a line? I first noticed this in TNG when the Federation set up a blockade to detect cloaked Romulan ships entering Klingon space. It was basically a line, fat in the middle, stretched out horizontally. Romulans tried to find a weakness to get through the line instead of going under or over. In DS9 when the Federation and Klingons went to take back control of the space station, they had to break through a LINE of ships. The opposing fleet was spread out like an army on the horizon of a planet.

This happens a lot in Star Trek and I'm not sure why. Very few battles are really 3D. Three I can think of; the battle between the Federation and the Borg in TNG, a big attack in Cardassian space in DS9, and the big Xindi fight at the end of season 3 in Ent. In those battles ships are coming from everywhere.

 

[docrice]

Ah yes, that's a Trek trademark. It's the invisible "water plane" that all ships float on when engaged in warp or impulse because of the undetectable electromagnetic emissions caused by inverse tachyon radiation that spill over from the mirror universe which in turn are due to the intersection with other parallel dimensions. Or something.

 

[Michael]

Ever notice how many episodes dealing with battles or blockades in space adhere to a line? I first noticed this in TNG when the Federation set up a blockade to detect cloaked Romulan ships entering Klingon space. It was basically a line, fat in the middle, stretched out horizontally. Romulans tried to find a weakness to get through the line instead of going under or over.

Wait a minute, you are talking about Redemption, Part II here, aren't you? Because the arrangement of ships in that episode did actually look nothing like a 'horizontal line'. In fact, this graphic suggests that they are spread in several directions.

 

[SFRabid]

You are right about Redemption. On that one I was thinking, "What a small net. Why not go around it?" When the group of ships arrived at the meeting point they spread out to create a net so why did the Romulan ships go just a bit further out to go around?

There was something else in TNG that involved a few ships that created a line of detection. I need to go back and figure out which episode that was. Since I watched it have have gone through all my DS9 and TOS DVD's and have started on Voyager. Things are getting foggy.

Those flat clouds of gas they sometimes have to go around also bother me.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

The net probably cover the entire sector, by the time Romulan go around, the Duras would be defeated.

As for the battles, it makes sense. If you try to go up or under in a flanking maneuver, the enemy will do the same. It's like saying why did ancient cavalry go head to head instead of going around left or right, well, they did when they could, but to an untrained eye, it looks like they are going straight at each other without thinking that they could go around.

 

[Admiral2]

Ever notice how many episodes dealing with battles or blockades in space adhere to a line? I first noticed this in TNG when the Federation set up a blockade to detect cloaked Romulan ships entering Klingon space. It was basically a line, fat in the middle, stretched out horizontally. Romulans tried to find a weakness to get through the line instead of going under or over. In DS9 when the Federation and Klingons went to take back control of the space station, they had to break through a LINE of ships. The opposing fleet was spread out like an army on the horizon of a planet.

This happens a lot in Star Trek and I'm not sure why. Very few battles are really 3D. Three I can think of; the battle between the Federation and the Borg in TNG, a big attack in Cardassian space in DS9, and the big Xindi fight at the end of season 3 in Ent. In those battles ships are coming from everywhere.

It's because trek writers know jack shit about warfare, and this stunning lack of knowledge is omnipresent in the battle scenes they write.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

^ Indeed.

Don't forget the battle at the end of TWOK... First '3-D' one that came to mind.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Caliburn24]

^It isn't necessarily the writers.

Trek just doesn't have very solid rules governing the use of technology and ship based weaponry.

So since we the audience have never been told the rules, the writers cannot make any cool advanced tactics for us to watch.

Heck, the only time tactics were really present and reasonably well explained was back in Wrath of Khan, and the only way that worked was by taking Warp Drive out of the equation.

 

[The Wormhole]

This problem is hardly unique to Trek. Just take a look at Star Wars, Episode 3 in particular. Two dimensional to the extent that General Grievous's flagship even "sinks" when it's taken out.

 

[SFRabid]

This problem is hardly unique to Trek. Just take a look at Star Wars, Episode 3 in particular. Two dimensional to the extent that General Grievous's flagship even "sinks" when it's taken out.

I forgot about that. In both ST and SW I seem to remember that most of the formations the fighter craft fly in space still resemble the triangle that earth fighter pilots and even geese fly instead of evolving the formation into a cone for use in the demonsions of space.