You're right, for some reason I had it in my mind that the Adversary was at the end of the fourth season. They still built the Defiant set piecemeal instead of all at once, though, so my point still holds. The Adversary actually had several new sets introduced, including Engineering, the Mess hall, and they had to build additional corridors. The original set for the Defiant was basically the Bridge and crew quarters. I can't seem to find when they built Sickbay or the Ready Room.
Why a Defiant Class?
- Thread starter Lighthammer
- Start date
You're right, for some reason I had it in my mind that the Adversary was at the end of the fourth season. They still built the Defiant set piecemeal instead of all at once, though, so my point still holds. The Adversary actually had several new sets introduced, including Engineering, the Mess hall, and they had to build additional corridors. The original set for the Defiant was basically the Bridge and crew quarters. I can't seem to find when they built Sickbay or the Ready Room.
The ready room at least was first seen in the third season, in the episode Destiny. Sickbay, scratching my head. Earliest I can think of is Broken Link. Anyone know if it appeared earlier?
Isn't the Defiant sickbay just a redress of the mess hall?
Canon status can be granted to sources like "reference books", for the times when they give the details for ship systems, why-the-character-did-that-seemingly-inexplicable-thing and such, since these are rarely covered in detail on the show, but if the details are covered, then on-screen material ALWAYS takes priority. SfDebris highlighted this in his review of Generations. I don't remember precisely what he said and I have insufficient connection strength to watch it again, but his point was that we can't rely on things said by the writers outside of the crew because THEY DIDN'T PUT IT IN THE FILM!! Viewers shouldn't have to dig through spin-off novels, encyclopedias, and crew notes to finally understand what happened in the movie. The actual TV series is the only "real" part of the franchise, all of the other elements are made mostly to get a little extra money out of the brand, and often don't conform to canon, or they do technically, but the plot goes in directions that would NEVER be incorporated into the TV series. Like in an exam (probably Sf's basis, since he's a teacher), you don't get any marks for stuff that you say to the examiner after the test has finished. If it isn't written on the answer sheet, it doesn't get counted.
This is especially noteworthy in Doctor Who books, which often feature classic characters being killed off, or taken on a
new set of adventures. Now, that's all well and good for the purpose of an NOVEL, but if those characters were referenced or reintroduced in the New Series then we would NOT want them skewed by the events of the spin-off media.
One especially shocking example is a book called, I think, "War Of The Daleks" in which it is stated that the planet destroyed in Remembrance Of The Daleks was not Skaro, but an unrelated planet called Antillin (check spelling), as well as the Movellans being created by the Daleks for a fake war. To be fair, the novel is carefully designed to fit into established WHO canon, and even fixes a few plot holes, but even so, if Steven Moffat writes a new story arc set in the time war (let's face it, he has a habit of these things), I don't expect him to be picking his way through bits of old novels to make way for his own plot. As the controller of the actual show, he has the right of way (for better or for worse) over other media, but does not have right of way over the writers of the older episodes, because they got there first -though Moffat normally gets around this with the timey wimey twaddle.
My point is that most viewers will not be seeing various media in the franchise beside the actual TV program (even in a show like Trek or Who), so that is what really matters.
I got to the second page of this thread, which had promise to be interesting. But instead after reading three of four pissing contest type messages essentially saying "are you really that stupid that you can't see my argument" and then seeing it degenerate into another discussion about the definition of canon, yeah, not worth my time...
What you mean is, you choose to accept the non-canon bits and pieces that suit you or fill certain gaps you want filled in a way you agree with. They're not canon, though.
Elements of non-canon works, mostly novels, have worked their way into canon Trek over the years: George and Winona Kirk, Uhura and Sulu's first names, McCoy's divorce, Uhura's linguistic skills, the Vanguard-type station in TOS-R's "The Ultimate Computer" etc etc. Does it make the novels canon? No. Does their non-canonness make them any less awesome? No.
For most of the novels, I firmly disagree.
I assume you're mentally filtering out the many crappy episodes of each series in that assessment?
I'd say the hit/miss ratio is about the same between the TV shows and novels.
Nope. The series have one thing the novels never can and never will have: the actors. They are what bring Trek alive.
I disagree. Characters bring stories to life. Whether it's great writing in a book or a great performance on screen they can be equally gripping.
I'm sorry to hear that characters don't come alive for you when you read a novel, but I firmly disagree with the idea that one artistic medium is superior to another.
I haven't read many Trek novels so my sample might not be representative but among the stuff I read the average quality was pretty bad. I liked it because I am a fan and not because it was objectively good.
About characters, novels always assume that you know the characters, they are built on the foundation laid by the shows. Naturally such derivative work can hardly aspire to become great literature. Give a Trek novel to somebody who has never seen the respective show (obviously not the target audience but just for argument's sake) and he or she would claim that the characters are pretty flat.
About characters, novels always assume that you know the characters, they are built on the foundation laid by the shows. Naturally such derivative work can hardly aspire to become great literature. Give a Trek novel to somebody who has never seen the respective show (obviously not the target audience but just for argument's sake) and he or she would claim that the characters are pretty flat.
Characters do. Trek characters? Not so much anymore. I'd have to agree with horatio83, lately they've come across as flat when compared to characters from novels that aren't tie-ins to a live-action universe.
I really don't see that and don't know what you're referring to.
ETA:
Except for Michael A. Martin's books. His characters are flat as a board.
I think that Starfleet command should have assigned more ships to ds9 as soon as the wormhole was discovered. But the reason why it never happend was most likely dew to budget constraints.
Budget, I'm sure, played a major role. But I'd imagine there were also story considerations. The writers want our heroes to be at the center of the action. If there's a fleet of ships stationed to defend the wormhole, then Sisko and Company aren't thrown into the middle of whatever crisis occurs. Y'know, if there are 12 starships nearby and something important is going on in the next sector, why pull your command crew from DS9 to the Defiant to go investigate when you could send a different ship?
