Is the USS Vengeance more powerful than the Enterprise E?
- Thread starter The Rock
- Start date
- Status
Oh come on. It's on-screen (albeit requiring HD and zooming-in) so it's canon, whether you like it or not.
Vengeance also has transporters that can move 72+ targets at once, something we haven't seen outside of the alt-future of "All Good Things". It's obvious technology has evolved differently to Trek-Prime's 2260's.
Apparently Nero's appearance also did away with reasoning skills like... not putting a cadet in command of a starship.
And also, apparently, not having a meeting in a room with big glass windows and not much security, and having it actually be standard procedure to always meet in that room under a given set of circumstances regardless of whether your enemy would know your protocol to do exactly that. But the common sense of Starfleet isn't at issue in this debate.
See it's problems like Abramsverse tech specs and Abramsverse size specs (urgh) and the whole design aesthetic really that help put me off the Abramsverse products. It's just too inconsistent, from start to finish, with everything done before, without any rhyme or reason. And before anyone points out the alternate reality explanation, I mean aesthetically Trek always had a certain style. It evolved, but it was always that style. Now it's changed to a drastically different aesthetic (with a hardon for gigantic ships for some reason), and for no good reason story wise (I'm aware they don't need one and I'm a sad old fart of a 22 year old for caring). At the very least, before doing the crap new aesthetic, they could have had the Kelvin be a consistent part of the Enterprise-TOS progression, instead of a part of this bloody crazy - sorry, different but valid - new aesthetic.
Apparently Nero's appearance also did away with reasoning skills like... not putting a cadet in command of a starship.
A lieutenant, as most people keep forgetting. He was a few weeks away from graduating the full command course of the Academy after the administrative hearing on the KM test. Which McCoy said would go in his favour as it did in the Prime universe.
And Pike granted him the field promotion, and I trust Pike's judgement in the movies even if Kirk's seems shakey at times. Starfleet obviously saw the virtue in formalising that promotion.
And am I wrong but did this "cadet" not save the ship, the planet and the day twice? yeah I think a lot of those "seasoned captains" being charred bodies in space speaks volumes for letting them age and become too settled.
Then that's even more stupid. No military in the world is going to make a 3rd year cadet a lieutenant(army equivalent of Captain) if they haven't even graduated, much less didn't have any field experience whatsoever.
He got lucky and bumbled through the situation... that's it.
He got lucky and bumbled through the situation... that's it.
Apparently Nero's appearance also did away with reasoning skills like... not putting a cadet in command of a starship.
A lieutenant, as most people keep forgetting. He was a few weeks away from graduating the full command course of the Academy after the administrative hearing on the KM test. Which McCoy said would go in his favour as it did in the Prime universe.
And Pike granted him the field promotion, and I trust Pike's judgement in the movies even if Kirk's seems shakey at times. Starfleet obviously saw the virtue in formalising that promotion.
And am I wrong but did this "cadet" not save the ship, the planet and the day twice? yeah I think a lot of those "seasoned captains" being charred bodies in space speaks volumes for letting them age and become too settled.
The only reason Nero didn't blow up Enterprise with as much ease as the others is that Spock was on it and he knew that from reading up on him. We have no idea if, had any "seasoned Captains" been present on Enterprise, they wouldn't have succeeded as well as him on that occasion. And one success - as much based on luck and a good team as anything - does not a suitable Captain make. Prime Kirk was a seasoned, experienced officer with at least some discipline to temper that rebelliousness.
In Into Darkness, he only stops Marcus through Scotty sabotaging Vengeance and dying, and only Khan saves his rear - not only with super blood, but with the Klingons as well. This only after a reckless stunt on Nibiru getting him busted back to Cadet.
When I feel uncharitable, I really don't think the writers really understand rank, or they don't care. When I feel charitable, I just think they have an odd story to tell and really use rank demotion/promotion too cavalierly.
I think the Kelvin looks very much like a pre-TOS ship - from the consoles to the captain's chair - take a look HERE
That be the same Starfleet that had a crazy warmonger Admiral, a room with no security as a consistent, well known meeting point to discuss a Starfleet traitor who would know that, and the same Starfleet that clearly has no Earth defence, or any ships anywhere sane or close by?
Yeah, I trust that Starfleet about as far as I could throw the Enterprise. So, 0.0000000 mm.
Last edited:
I'm sorry, but it has a pure Abramsverse aesthetic and no one can argue otherwise to me. It's supposed size specs on various comparison charts match the Abramsverse obsession with huge ships. It has the window Viewscreen. It's the same colour as the "older" ships seen later with the Enterprise in that movie, not the silver of NX-01 or the grey/white of TOS. It has weapons installed that fire little bolts of firepower, not beams - a uniquely Abramsverse quality. It has an Abramsverse interior, big ass warehouse/factory engineering and all.
Any nods to TOS - and I accept, there are nods to TOS in that design, as there are throughout Abramsverse, mainly in the TOS uniforms, some sound effects, the Connie-esque saucer shape on Kelvin and the vaguest details on the bridge - are buried under pure Abramsverse that might be some logical extension of Enterprise's future at a pinch but doesn't, to me, mesh with the aesthetic that would, a scant 12 years later let us not forget, produce the Constitution-class USS Enterprise of The Cage (or some similar, slightly altered variant that would be refit into that).
At best, Kelvin looks like it might be a halfway house ship but was then redesigned into an Abramsverse ship, with all the uniquely Abramsverse quirks included. Those quirks are not found in later ships in the Prime timeline, but should be if this is already part of the aesthetic. Those quirks should be some result of the timeline changing. I accept those quirks on, say, the new Enterprise, because this is an altered timeline and things have clearly changed. Those changes - fanboy timeline waggling to try and fit inconsistencies in notwithstanding - have not happened when we first meet the Kelvin, and so it should look like a prime universe ship, halfway between NX-01 and TOS.
To summarise - looking at all evidence both screen and otherwise that I have possession of and access to, I judge that in my opinion, the Kelvin does not look like a vessel halfway through the design evolution that would become TOS's style from Enterprise NX-01. That is only my opinion on the matter, of course.
But of course, the designers don't care about that. Clearly, they don't care about that, because if these people cared they have the talent and ability to make it look like it "should" from my fanboy perspective. It doesn't matter to them. Yay for them.
Last edited:
Take a look at this, the Baton Rouge class from the 1980 Star Trek Spaceflight Chonology book (and appearing in several comics and novels of the era - in one case the USS Saladin of that class was James Kirk's command prior to the Enterprise). That is why the Kelvin looks 100% like a pre-TOS ship to me - they could be sister ships, easy.
There's too little to compare here. Without knowing what the interior of that ship is like, or what her phaser fire is like, or the engine room, I can't say whether I think Kelvin fits with her in any way. That ship, though, has a TOS "skin" on the hull and TOS design elements, not Abramsverse (my iPad has adopted that word!) skin and elements (obviously, since it predates the Abramsverse), and I'd be willing to bet it's size-comparative as well (I.E, it's not over-huge).
Here's a diagram a fan must have done (found it online, uncertain of exact providence before I stored it on my photobucket): it shows Kelvin and other Abrams ships alongside "Prime" 23rd Century designs.
You can see quite clearly that although the silhouette is sort of similar to, say, the Hermes, Ptolemy or Saladin, Kelvin clearly has far more in common with the other Abrams ships than the TOS models. Now this:
Might have been an intriguing halfway point - clearly TOS design features on a new design, but it obviously wasn't to be.
It's not like I don't understand why they wouldn't make the Kelvin like the other Abramsverse vessels - it's inner film consistency, they look like part of the same fleet that way. It's only a fanboy problem that I have. But still, there it is - Kelvin doesn't really "fit" with other TOS ships.
Unless of course the gigantic sizes that the bloody Abramsverse insists upon are bollocks, but that's another matter.
There are examples of young people taking leadership roles throughout history, just look at Alexander The Great. If you would prefer an in universe example, T'pau was only 32 when she became leader of the Syrrannites. In human terms, she was a 16 year old kid!
Who says that the Vulcans, or the Andorians, or the Tellarites, or the 23rd century Humans have the same ideas about how old and experienced you have to be to run a Star Ship, as we 21st century Humans do?
Kirk saved the entire planet, had a vote of confidence from Christopher Pike, one of Starfleet's most respected officers, and was most likely top of his class at the academy. Why not put Kirk in command? Especially when Star Fleet had already lost so many experienced officers.
Not to mention that Kirk is established as being a genius, as per Pike in the bar scene. Isn't the importance of intellect and the prioritization of thought over 20th/21st century values a big aspect of Trek?
Ancient times? YOu mean back when most people couldn't even spell their name nonetheless read or know anything beyond their menial job to keep themselves fed? Yeah an educated guy like Alexander will stand out. Are you really saying that everyone in the future is so dumb, three years at school makes one stand out?
^Not to mention that Alexander, as king, was the military leader by birthright.
There's too little to compare here. Without knowing what the interior of that ship is like, or what her phaser fire is like, or the engine room, I can't say whether I think Kelvin fits with her in any way. That ship, though, has a TOS "skin" on the hull and TOS design elements, not Abramsverse (my iPad has adopted that word!) skin and elements (obviously, since it predates the Abramsverse), and I'd be willing to bet it's size-comparative as well (I.E, it's not over-huge).
Here's a diagram a fan must have done (found it online, uncertain of exact providence before I stored it on my photobucket): it shows Kelvin and other Abrams ships alongside "Prime" 23rd Century designs.
You can see quite clearly that although the silhouette is sort of similar to, say, the Hermes, Ptolemy or Saladin, Kelvin clearly has far more in common with the other Abrams ships than the TOS models. Now this:
Might have been an intriguing halfway point - clearly TOS design features on a new design, but it obviously wasn't to be.
It's not like I don't understand why they wouldn't make the Kelvin like the other Abramsverse vessels - it's inner film consistency, they look like part of the same fleet that way. It's only a fanboy problem that I have. But still, there it is - Kelvin doesn't really "fit" with other TOS ships.
Unless of course the gigantic sizes that the bloody Abramsverse insists upon are bollocks, but that's another matter.
I see the Kelvin and her sisters as being no further removed from the TOS designs, inside and out, as the classic movie-era designs are. And if Starfleet underwent a complete change like that in 7 and a half years, I don't see why the Kelvin and co. couldn't be part of that same universe 34 years pre-TOS (and the new Enterprise and USS Vengeance be a divergent evolution from that point)
Big ships in the Trekverse aren't unprecedented, even if they're not shown on that chart. Some old novels featured the Defender-class ships, each a mile long (The Wounded Sky, My Enemy, My Ally etc.), there was the 70+ deck medical supership Recovery and looming in the background of spacedock in The Search For Spock was the Planet of the Titans Enterprise, which was easily as big as Excelsior (and was called the Arial-class shuttlecarrier in many fandom technical publications of the time). The Constellation-class has a saucer double the thickness of the TMP Enterprise, so why can't another ship, like the Kelvin, have a saucer that's twice as wide?
To your point about various ships from books I've never heard of: oh really? Can't say I've heard of those examples. But they aren't screen examples. The only screen example you list is the barely seen POTT Enterprise, and frankly I only knew that was there when I did research, and I'm fairly certain no matter what "fandom technical publications" say, it isn't that big. Screen examples are the examples in the chart (ish in some cases).
The Kelvin does not fit with those screen examples, to me - nor does it fit with the general upward trend in the size of "lead" ships (assuming she's a pre Connie "lead" ship and not some smaller class) in Starfleet - which to me is the upward trend of NX-Constitution-Excelsior-Ambassador-Galaxy-Sovereign with a very minor increase on the Sovereign end. Kelvin's design just does not fit with these prime designs. I doubt it was ever meant to, since clearly from comparing it to all those other JJVerse ships, it's a part of that design lineage and design history and was always meant to be, most likely to better create a sense of progression in JJ's film (another example - giving the Kelvin crew Enterprise's delta instead of their own assignment patch: that's a recognition thing I'll wager, ignoring existing canon, arguably very justifiably, in order to say "this is a Starfleet crew - look, Starfleet symbols!).
To you, however, the Kelvin clearly does fit in, and that I don't see how it does is testament to our different perspectives on this matter, therefore I fear we're going to have to agree to disagree when it comes to how the design of the NX-01 correlates to the TOS Enterprise and subsequent designs, and where Kelvin fits in (which is to say, not at all in my opinion and quite well in yours).
I'll add in a caveat of sorts - the design might just fit in, in my head, one way, and one way only: if one reads up on Ex Astris Scientia, it's pointed out that the CGI Abramsverse Enterprise is only upscaled to the size it is, and that actually it's only a little longer than the TMP Enterprise. If one then takes the comparative scales of the other ships (including Kelvin) from that into account, then Kelvin's a tiny bit smaller than the old TOS Connie, which - when coupled with the slightly dirtier aesthetic - might make her fit in as a precursor (though she still has a bunch of pure Abramsverse quirks like the turrets, bolt weapons, window Viewscreen etc). But that's only if you call bullshit on the JJPrise and co's gigantic sizes, which I'd be happy to do were it not for the repeated use of the over-sized specs in non-canon materials.
- Status
Similar threads
