Spoilers ST Prodigy - StarShips & Technology Season 1 Discussion

In the opening episodes Zero suggests the Protostar would need a crew of at least twenty to run properly - we don't know if they mean 20 total, or per shift. We also seem to have the Captain's quarters as the ONLY officer's quarters we've seen, as most of the others bunk down in a room with beds for at least sixteen. OTOH, the mess hall is HUGE with two halves and tables for maybe two dozen per half; so a total crew of 60 (in three shifts?) would seem possible IMO, given how much automation there is.

As it stands, despite being a training hologram, Janeway was in active and advisory use when the Protostar was taken - she didn't just snap on for funsies. What remains to be seen is if the ship had some cadets aboard needing her services, or if Chakotay just wanted a sounding board around, with a familiar user interface...

Mark

 

The way Chakotay and Janeway talked about the hologram in the launch flashback, it sure seemed like she was intended to be more than just a training tool for cadets, and more of a live library interface to the records of Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant (and Janeway's experience and judgement, specifically).

If anything, between that and the log-fragment of holo-Janeway being active when the ship was captured, the weird part is her introducing herself as a training aid in the first episode. Maybe holo-Janeway is a standard training program (the Academy and starships with trainees on board could have a whole library of Starfleet Legends holograms to advise and assist students, probably the same ones we saw when Dal took the Kobayashi Maru), but Chakotay had the program adapted to use as a consultant on an active-duty mission. After the ship was captured and her memories wiped, she was rebooted and fell back to her original programming as a teaching tool, though still with the same special integration into the ship's systems.

 

This week's episode was mostly filler and tech-lite, but it shows a few things regardless:

- At least in simulation, one torpedo from the Dauntless can take the Protostar's shields from full to 23%. The second one finishes the job on the shields, and third seals the deal.

- The gang does indeed try morse code, which some of us have been thinking would be a good idea. And really, why not? But OTOH, how'd they come up with it in the first place? Did they dig through the database of old codes that only plot-enabled characters would know, like Paris in "The 37s"?

- The assorted Tellarites in the holodeck are all apparently voiced by Jason Alexander. But are they physically Dr. Noum? And if so, did Jankom program them that way? It's certainly possible his likeness is in the ship's databanks, as it can dial up officers from decades ago.

- Gwyn's doodad has a pull-up bar mode. But we don't know if the Protostar has a gym or not.

Mark

 

Dr. Noum's image being already in the Protostar memory seems to be implied, unless our fugitives took scans of their pursuers, or Jankom verbally described his nemesis down to the last hair in his muttonchops?

If Odo's image is in there, it might contain not just a likeness of all Starfleet officers past and present but potentially an unfathomable number of real people living or dead, in and out of the Federation. Which is wild.

If "Delta Heart Hospital" is a holoprogram named for the Delta Quadrant, would it have to have been written quite recently based on Voyager's planetary survey scans, or are Rok’s Not-Pokémon all figments- probably imaginary- in the category of Flotter T. Water?

 

you technically need only 1 crew to run the ship, a helm officer. But thats if you just want to point the ship at something and go there. You'd need people for the other stations, and engineers, and medical if you want to keep going.

In 0001 1000 Picard took the helm and took them back to the starbase. So just 1 person. Now to go into battle, repair stuff, etc. you'd need more crew. surprised there isn't any type of Holo Crew, like Rio's ship. Be a way for BeLanna, and Tuvok, and Paris to make an apperance as holograms for different ship functions.

Kind of surprised the Doctor didn't pop up with his standard Please state the nature of the medical emergency line when they used sick bay.

 

Dr. Crusher could arguably command the Enterprise purely by voice control in "Remember Me", though the universe was literally acting up at the time. Similarly though, Jake and Nog figured they could ask a runabout to head back to DS9 in "The Jem'Hadar" without any fuss, until the autopilot decided to be fussy.

I think there's a lot of leeway for the ship to pilot itself through open or charted space without any issue. The fun starts when the ship is compromised in any way, or needs its regular maintenance.

Mark

 

If you don’t want them to overheat, somebody has to rotate the EPS capacitors while singing a rotation song.

 

UFP ships have been said to be able to have automation capabilities which would include self-repair and maintenance.
I would imagine that the presence of the crew is there in case those systems broke down and cannot operate without manual assistance to bring them back up to working conditions.

This would explain why VOY looked pristine after taking damage from one week to the other.
24th century would have greater automation and self-repair and maintenance capabilities than 23rd century counterparts (even though we have seen the presence of DOT's in the 23rd centur which are small robots in charge of external hull repairs).

I would imagine that because of transporters and replicators, with refinement of technology, the use of DOT's may have reduced in the 24th century somewhat... and the computer can do a lot of stuff in the background anyway... problem is VOY series downplayed automation a lot in later seasons compared to when it started (but then again, most other shows ignored certain starship capabilities that were part of the ship functions when series began compared to when the show ended - this is usually due to having changing writers all the time and less adherence to internal continuity).

But, even dating back to ST: III (the search for Spock), the 1701 was automated to the point where only a handful of people could run the ship.

So, its not that heavy automation isn't possible or doable in Trek... in fact, in the 24th century its more present than ever before via voice commands, my guess is that SF might not like emphasizing automation too much in order to justify some work for the crew (to keep them occupied)... but in fairness, they are limiting themselves from using it to vastly improve on existing capabilities of a starship.

You can still train the crew on a regular basis even with automation (using principles of gamification) so they know what to do in case of emergencies, and they can be tasked to mainly improve upon what is already there and do other things in their spare time - there are plenty of things to do to prevent 'boredom'... I just don't think anyone showcased this properly.

That way, even a single starship could eventually create a mega structure by starting from say a simple replicator and just scale the process up heavily... and the crew could do R&D without almost any limits during 'quiet times'.

 

To add to this discussion, there is this snippet of dialog from the episode "Contagion" (the one where the USS Yamato weas destroyed by an alien program):

LAFORGE: Captain, the Enterprise computer system is a lot like our own bodies with voluntary and involuntary system. Now, probably ninety percent of what happens on this ship is done automatically. Completely out of our control. We're sitting on a bomb that could go off any second, or maybe never.

 

1x18. Wow!

- Sovereign, Akira, Defiant. LOTS of the first two, and only two Defiants..?

- And very surprisingly, a LOT of Centaur-type starships! We called them "Baracus-class" back on DS9, on account of all the gold-colored greeblies on the model. A welcome return of the class though - and no, I'm pretty sure they this is not the model of the USS Resolute from the upcoming :Star Trek: Resurgence" game. I call this on account of the dorsal shuttlebay being a bulge here where the Resolute has a recessed landing deck (the Centaur uses the Excelsior model's aft shuttlebay flipped forward). Furthermore, the nacelles are not tipped red as they use the Excelsior nacelles while the Resolute has bussard collectors. I expect we'll have slightly better views next week!

- I'm guessing the Centaur model was cribbed from the Eaglemoss repository. One hopes this trove will keep on giving in this era of Trek. If only it could have given a smidge more - you know, those other FC-era ships BESIDES the Akira that everyone misses so much!

- Ascensia's quarters have two beds. We don't see her roommate, but I suspect she has a solo quarters assigned on a ship this size, unless we're halfway between bunking in corridors and single rooms as senior officer Ensigns tend to have.

- The Voyager model in Janeway's quarters seems to have shrunk down since the first time we saw it - it occupied much of a credenza or something prior to this and it's more handleable now.

- The Dauntless team devises a way to merge warp bubbles as a means to prevent the Protostar from using their proto warp drive. This is apparently really dangerous - but less so than a tractor beam? They use exactly that later on, so why not use the tractor beam to begin with, unless they needed to have merged bubbles first? The Borg tractored Voyager at warp before, and there are other examples or mentions of warp speed towing, so it's not exactly new.

Mark

 

"Baracus Class"? Never heard of that - love it! A shame this never made it into "official" channels. Anyone ever lobby the Okudas to include that in one of the Encyclopedias?

 

I think "Baracus" came from discussion at the Flare Forums

It's definitely the inaccurate EM model. And as for the FC ships? I REALLY would rather see the EM Norway class again rather than the Akira. But apparently too many people in charge have a hardon for that ship.

Unfortunately the latest (and probably last) edition of the Encyclopedia decided to leave the Centaur's class unnamed.

 

That model actually far predates the Eaglemoss model, but with an associated pedigree. I believe the up-scaled version of the Centaur first appeared in the Star Trek Official Fact Files and later in the Official Star Trek Magazine. They just kept the inaccuracies intact once Eaglemoss did their model #52 and re-rendered the original model as true orthos, as opposed to the perspective-distorted versions that were done for the STFF & STM.

A shame they didn't at least go with Buckner class, after the model's builder and actual name printed on the hull.

 

Is it likely there will be any updates to the Encyclopedia in the future?

 

I doubt it, unfortunately.

 

The Baracus-class did indeed come from Flare. It was so-coined at around the same time as we named the OTHER Excelsior kitbash from "A Time to Stand", the "Shelley-class",(as in Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein). We didn't see the actual model of the Centaur until some time later, but the gold bling impresses all the same.

 

Which was also where the term ‘Frankenstein fleet’ originated

 

I think it was a reference to the ENT episode, where the Enterprise and Columbia had to merge warp fields so Trip could climb from one ship to the other in a spacesuit. I remembered the episode at the beginning when I noticed the VFX for the merging bubbles was more complex, but it didn't occur to me they might be calling back to that trick to set up the spacewalk later until it happened.

 

Yep, you're right. And I recall that even Buckner himself stated that he wished they would have consulted him first before making the erroneous model, as there were specific reasons why he chose the greebles he did for the kitbash.

So here are the differences between the two models:

1. EM model is scaled to the normal Excelsior size; AB model is scaled relative to the Miranda class.
2. The EM model doesn't have the green TNG-style saucer windows; it only has the normal Excelsior windows on the saucer edge.
3. EM model has a regular Excelsior bridge dome; AB model has the Miranda/Connie bridge dome.
4. EM model has none of the greebles from other military model kits such as the tank treads, jet landing gear parts, or any greebles on the underside of the saucer (the EM model replaces these with random greebles.)
5. The Excelsior tractor beam parts present on both the top and underside of the saucer on the AB model are gone on the EM model.
6. The four Reliant phaser emitter cones and the Maquis raider grilles on top of the saucer on the AB model are smaller and more understated on the EM model.
7. The nacelles are thinner on the EM model.
8. The Reliant weapons pod sits further down on the EM model than the AB model (but the zigzag greebles from the Klingon Battlecruiser kit have been retained.)
9. The front shuttlebay on the AB model doesn't seem to be a shuttlebay on the EM model; it's a solid gold-colored piece that doesn't seem to open.
10. There are two large light blue triangles painted on the rear of the EM model's saucer that the AB model didn't have.

As was stated earlier, I would have no problem accepting that there are two different classes of ship that have similarities, only that one is scaled larger to the other (like the BoP), if it weren't for the fact that both models have the same registry.