Worst Starship Disasters?
- Thread starter Mojochi
- Start date
That's assuming they actually had anything they could have used to transmit a distress signal, and that their spacesuits (if they had any) weren't in the part of the ship fused into the rock. Not to mention the risks of transmitting a distress signal right on the doorstep of the Romulans...
That Which Survives, as I understood one scene, all tricorders can send out a distress signal, for a unknown distance. And that was 23rd century tech.
EVERY tricorder, regardless of where it was on the ship, was fused into rock? What about padds and such?
Maybe everyone left aboard after Pressman and a few others left were killed in the ongoing mutany. With the last mutaneer and the last loyalist killing each other at the same time.
I don't know, man. These peeps look like they died in the cold quiet of exposed space. The section that housed the cloaking device looks completely undamaged. The running fire fight, that Will describes, likely took place between the bridge crew, on route from the bridge to the escape pod.
When the plasma relays blew, it probably wiped out some folks in engineering, but everybody else drifted helplessly until the cloak failed, halfway through an asteroid. That could've taken days or weeks, while all their systems failed slowly, & they couldn't send an SOS, because they were phased. Then when the phase cloak failed, if any of them were still alive, the transition to being exposed to space might've been immediate, because whatever power they had to those sections was probably cut off right then.
Whatever O2 they had in that compartment Riker & Pressman are in was all there was. Assuming they had it that long to begin with. If there were any space suits on hand, why wouldn't these people already have them on? If the ship was intact after the relays blew, & drifted in to the asteroid, there must've been a reason why they didn't abandon ship to escape pods during that time, some science reason having to do with being phased, maybe
Hell, Pressman might have blocked outgoing transmissions, that could get used for an SOS, from the get go, because? They're running illegal tests. If something goes wrong, just like it did here, maybe you don't want any of it to be found out. Everybody aboard is expendable
These sorry SoBs just look like they laid back in their chairs or curled up on the floor & died.
...But Pressman specifies "engineering" as the undamaged location shown in the above pictures.
As the plasma relay damage created external fireworks that fooled the escaping Riker and Pressman, it might never have resulted in internal casualties of note.
I find it difficult to think there wouldn't have been means of egress, lightweight spacesuits or TAS style life support belts stashed in basically every corner. After all, the DSC shuttles have survival aids for every seat (probably those belts!), and every wall panel in TNG appears to be a vanity cover for interesting stuff beneath.
Even if such things would be less useful for space survivors than plastic bottles are for shipwrecked sailors, they would see use: I just can't see these folks sitting on their hands when there's the possibility of crawling out of the cave, if not for anything else, then for seeing the stars for one last time.
(Also, being wary of getting spotted by Romulans would not be an issue unless somebody did crawl out and discover they were close to Romulans in the first place!)
Timo Saloniemi
Except Riker confesses to Picard that there was an explosion in Engineering, & heavy casualties, that spurred the mutiny to begin with. I'm willing to concede that this might be a lie that's part of their long used cover story, but that seems unlikely to me.
Why would anyone say lives had been lost, or heavy injuries sustained, prior to the mutiny, if they were trying to look innocent in it, especially since the others are presumed dead? I have to think Riker is being honest with Picard there. He witnessed the officers mutiny over reckless endangerment that caused harm to crew in engineering
That we don't see the damage zone while they're back onboard, could be because that area is encapsulated in the rock behind them. I can't even spot the warp core in that room. Some real damage had to have happened in Engineering, or they wouldn't have been completely helpless
There very well may have been, but maybe they just couldn't do it while the ship was phased, for some science reason. Maybe leaving the ship while phased might kill them or something
And maybe that wasn't an option by then. They could've been without power & died already, or they had power right until the cloak faltered, & materializing in the rock finished them off, nearly immediately, exposing them to space right then
I like to think the final outcome all happened rather quickly. They drifted, in a phased state, after the engine failure, that the cloak caused, (maybe even a good long while) without being able to shut it down, & no way to escape while it was functioning. Then, maybe during repair efforts, it failed, presumably unexpectedly & without warning, (Or they'd have already had space suits on) killing many of them instantly when they fused with the rock, & the rest almost instantly, once they'd been exposed to space, giving them no time to escape by then
I would also put the Exeter from "THE OMEGA GLORY" in this category. Literally having all the water in your body sucked out while alive, that has to be a gruesome death.
Plus, they couldn't risk trying to salvage the ship due to the disease still being aboard her.
Plus, they couldn't risk trying to salvage the ship due to the disease still being aboard her.
Really? Maybe they decontaminated the ship and then sent in brave volunteers to see if it was safe.
Or may be Section 31 leaked information that an abandoned starship - with technological secrets just waiting to be salvaged - was orbiting Omega IV to the Klingons and/or the Romulans.
Picard had the Lantree destroyed to prevent further contamination. I can see this being the most plausible scenario for the Exeter, too.
I think Pressman and Riker would have been highly motivated to tell lies about severe trouble aboard the ship before the mutiny, including the alleged fatalities. After all, they would aim at plausibility, whereas mutiny supposedly basically never happens aboard Starfleet ships - something extraordinary would have to be fabricated as the reason for the extraordinary event.
Being deprived of means to do X isn't a common Star Trek feature, either, regardless of X. If the ship were stuck in a cave and powerless, somebody would MacGyver a spacesuit out of plastic bags and walk all the way home, or at least attempt to. Unless the transition back to our regular phase more or less instantly killed everybody, that is.
The cloak didn't kill Picard and his crew. But it might have had the potential to do so, if operated by somebody other than the skilled Pressman, or mishandled in panic/hurry. Or then phasing into solid rock resulted in some sort of an instantly fatal event, such as loss of all air (something the onboard automatics soon compensated for, but at that point everybody was already dead and the restored air just helped mummify them).
Timo Saloniemi
Being deprived of means to do X isn't a common Star Trek feature, either, regardless of X. If the ship were stuck in a cave and powerless, somebody would MacGyver a spacesuit out of plastic bags and walk all the way home, or at least attempt to. Unless the transition back to our regular phase more or less instantly killed everybody, that is.
The cloak didn't kill Picard and his crew. But it might have had the potential to do so, if operated by somebody other than the skilled Pressman, or mishandled in panic/hurry. Or then phasing into solid rock resulted in some sort of an instantly fatal event, such as loss of all air (something the onboard automatics soon compensated for, but at that point everybody was already dead and the restored air just helped mummify them).
Timo Saloniemi
Voyager.
In some timelines it arrives home late, in another it smashes into the ice killing all it's crew when they were so close to home, in another timeline they are ass kicked by the Krenim for the better part of the year. An alternate version of the ship is destroyed taking out Vidiians, another when they discover they are copies that are coming apart. Another they are accidentally responsible for the destruction of their own ship and the 29th Century.
In some timelines it arrives home late, in another it smashes into the ice killing all it's crew when they were so close to home, in another timeline they are ass kicked by the Krenim for the better part of the year. An alternate version of the ship is destroyed taking out Vidiians, another when they discover they are copies that are coming apart. Another they are accidentally responsible for the destruction of their own ship and the 29th Century.
U.S.S. Archon - Heat rays from Landru.
U.S.S. Valiant - Destroyed because of a computer war.
U.S.S. Constellation - Planet killer.
U.S.S. Exeter - Water sucking disease.
U.S.S. Defiant - Crew goes bonkers, murders each other.
U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky - Drunk disease, life support shut off.
U.S.S. Drake - Destroyed by Echo Poppa 607.
U.S.S. Horatio - Destroyed by infiltraton.
U.S.S. Lantree - Premature aging disease.
U.S.S. Yamato - Iconian probe scan.
39 ships at Wolf 359, with people assimilated.
U.S.S. Brattain - No sleep, crew murders each other.
U.S.S. Vico - Nebula feeding off shield energy.
U.S.S. Essex - Crashed into planet.
U.S.S. Yosemite - Crew killed or stuck in transporter buffer.
U.S.S. Jenolen - Crash lands on Dyson Sphere, life support lost.
U.S.S. Hera - Lost.
U.S.S. Pegasus - Materialized inside asteroid.
U.S.S. Odyssey - Suicide run by Jem'Hadar.
U.S.S. Proxima, U.S.S. Maryland, U.S.S. Sarajevo - Lost in Gamma Quadrant, likely destroyed by the Dominion.
7th Fleet from "A TIME TO STAND", 98 out of 112 ships destroyed.
Second Battle of Chin'toka
Starfleet starship duty is definitely not the safest job. I added Wolf 359 because even though it was a battle, it was a disastrous defeat for Starfleet. And the 7th Fleet and the Second Battle of Chin'toka, more costly defeats.
Personally, I put Wolf 359 as one of the worst because you not only are fighting an already lost battle, you have a 50/50 shot at being assimilated. Not sure I can think of a worst hell than that. Sisko, Jake, and the rest of the Saratoga survivors are damned lucky.
U.S.S. Valiant - Destroyed because of a computer war.
U.S.S. Constellation - Planet killer.
U.S.S. Exeter - Water sucking disease.
U.S.S. Defiant - Crew goes bonkers, murders each other.
U.S.S. Tsiolkovsky - Drunk disease, life support shut off.
U.S.S. Drake - Destroyed by Echo Poppa 607.
U.S.S. Horatio - Destroyed by infiltraton.
U.S.S. Lantree - Premature aging disease.
U.S.S. Yamato - Iconian probe scan.
39 ships at Wolf 359, with people assimilated.
U.S.S. Brattain - No sleep, crew murders each other.
U.S.S. Vico - Nebula feeding off shield energy.
U.S.S. Essex - Crashed into planet.
U.S.S. Yosemite - Crew killed or stuck in transporter buffer.
U.S.S. Jenolen - Crash lands on Dyson Sphere, life support lost.
U.S.S. Hera - Lost.
U.S.S. Pegasus - Materialized inside asteroid.
U.S.S. Odyssey - Suicide run by Jem'Hadar.
U.S.S. Proxima, U.S.S. Maryland, U.S.S. Sarajevo - Lost in Gamma Quadrant, likely destroyed by the Dominion.
7th Fleet from "A TIME TO STAND", 98 out of 112 ships destroyed.
Second Battle of Chin'toka
Starfleet starship duty is definitely not the safest job. I added Wolf 359 because even though it was a battle, it was a disastrous defeat for Starfleet. And the 7th Fleet and the Second Battle of Chin'toka, more costly defeats.
Personally, I put Wolf 359 as one of the worst because you not only are fighting an already lost battle, you have a 50/50 shot at being assimilated. Not sure I can think of a worst hell than that. Sisko, Jake, and the rest of the Saratoga survivors are damned lucky.
Yeah, if you're thinking worst as in most tragic, that's got to be near the top. I was thinking worst, as in worst way to get done in
Well, if we're looking at alternate timelines, Crazy Beard Riker's Borg plague Enterprise from Parallels' sounds pretty awful, & then just plain unfair, to survive that long in a Borg plague, on the run, people getting assimilated etc... only to end up getting destroyed by another dimension's version of yourself. That's just cruel lol
The Romulan Drone ship was a disaster, instead of destabilising the region it actually had the opposite effect and started to bring former powers who where distrustful of each other closer together eventually leading to the UFP, which wasn't good for the Romulans.
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Speaking of ships other than Starfleet, that alien from VOYAGER's "THE SWARM"... from everything The Doctor and Kes said, they all died a painful death.
And anyone unfortunate enough to encounter a Vidiian ship... being harvested has got to be among the most gruesome on the list.
And anyone unfortunate enough to encounter a Vidiian ship... being harvested has got to be among the most gruesome on the list.
The Drake was not destroyed. From the episode:
RICE: Our top speed is warp three. What's yours?
RIKER: Is? Then the Drake has not been destroyed.
RICE: The Drake?
RIKER: Yes, your ship.
RICE: Of course, my ship is the Drake.
RIKER: Where is it?
RICE: Classified.
RIKER: Classified?
RICE: Our top speed is warp three. What's yours?
RIKER: Is? Then the Drake has not been destroyed.
RICE: The Drake?
RIKER: Yes, your ship.
RICE: Of course, my ship is the Drake.
RIKER: Where is it?
RICE: Classified.
RIKER: Classified?
