Cause and Effect
- Thread starter Tribble Threat
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Matt Jefferies designed the original ship to have everything dangerous in the nacelles, which is why they were away from the inhabited parts of the ship. It wasn’t until Phase II prep that Mike Minor put a warp core concept in to make the set more interesting I guess. It is certainly a design by artists, not engineers.
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I'm watching "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" again and it struck me, "Cause and Effect" is unique because in the other time-loop variations I've seen, someone is fully aware that they are in a loop. In "Cause and Effect" none of the characters knows, for sure, until they figure it out and even then, they don't have full knowledge of the other iterations, as we've seen in other versions of the time loop story.
The thing about the warp core is that you could just phaser it and that's it. It should've been depicted behind a permanent force field or something.
Or just not have it in the ship. Force fields are a technical cop out that also often fail. Physically making something secure is always better than a solution that needs power to work.
I like the general concept of the warp core -- it's a good catalyst for drama.
LaForge yelling "warp core breach imminent" - you knew stuff was going down.
LaForge yelling "warp core breach imminent" - you knew stuff was going down.
Something else to consider regarding the nacelles of past and TNG era ships.
It seems things of TOS and movie era are more physical and hardened than TNG era. TNG era has more efficiency and power, but seem to have more reliance on force fields and power distribution than physical barriers for layers of protection.
This may give TNG era ships more optiobs for powe use and amount if power and speed, but a bit more unsafe fir things like nacelle hits.
Miranda and Constitution refits and the like are more sturdy, but may not have a great deal of power to spread around, at least not in comparison to Galaxy or even perhaps as far back as Ambassador class ships.
I've got the perfect real life example to illustrate this... the NES and 21st century game consoles.
My original NES that I own and have had since 1986 or 1987 STILL works perfectly, and it has been used frequently. Ven the controller is still in great shape, despite being the recipient of... many monents of angered frustration.
Current consoles have a much shorter lifespan... 3 or 4 years of use, and they just stop working. Their controllers are also not as sturdy, AND with less abuse.
My point is that while later designs have more options, power, and abilities, they are not as sturdy or resilient as their predecessors.
It seems things of TOS and movie era are more physical and hardened than TNG era. TNG era has more efficiency and power, but seem to have more reliance on force fields and power distribution than physical barriers for layers of protection.
This may give TNG era ships more optiobs for powe use and amount if power and speed, but a bit more unsafe fir things like nacelle hits.
Miranda and Constitution refits and the like are more sturdy, but may not have a great deal of power to spread around, at least not in comparison to Galaxy or even perhaps as far back as Ambassador class ships.
I've got the perfect real life example to illustrate this... the NES and 21st century game consoles.
My original NES that I own and have had since 1986 or 1987 STILL works perfectly, and it has been used frequently. Ven the controller is still in great shape, despite being the recipient of... many monents of angered frustration.
Current consoles have a much shorter lifespan... 3 or 4 years of use, and they just stop working. Their controllers are also not as sturdy, AND with less abuse.
My point is that while later designs have more options, power, and abilities, they are not as sturdy or resilient as their predecessors.
This is such a bad comparison. Large scale military vehicles that carry thousands of people, including children, are not low end consumer electronics. They are like aircraft carriers which are built better now than decades ago. Cars are better at impacts and have more safety measures. Buildings and bridges are built more seismically sound. We are much safer than previous generations. Why would a star ship built to go 20 years into the unknown without maintenance be any different? You're right, TNG ships are built more fragile with power intensive fields to backup their weak foundations. But that's crappy writing at fault, not a logical progression of technology.
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Cause & Effect is one of my favorite episodes for so many reasons.
The shock of the opening destruction of the Enterprise... The first time I watched this episode the opening immediately pulled me into the episode, and then the post-credits reveal that everthing is fine was a huge WTF? at the time.
The unconventional use of time travel as a way to frame the narrative of the story by repeating the same Act over and over again but with subtle differences..... amazing!
The suprise cameo at the end by self-proclaimed trekkie Kelsey Grammar? It could have only been better if he appeared dressed as Sideshow Bob.
I loved this episode very much. I did show this to my college roommate a few years ago, and I was suprised by his reaction to it. He was kind of annoyed to be watching the same scenes over and over again. (He was more of a sports fan then Trek, but it is what it is.) I tried to explain what was going on but I think it just kind of went over his head.
I remember too I think Brannon Braga or Ronald D. Moore mentioned on one of the blu-rays that when the episode aired, a lot of viewers were calling TV stations telling them that their broastcast was bugged and repeating over and over again.
The shock of the opening destruction of the Enterprise... The first time I watched this episode the opening immediately pulled me into the episode, and then the post-credits reveal that everthing is fine was a huge WTF? at the time.
The unconventional use of time travel as a way to frame the narrative of the story by repeating the same Act over and over again but with subtle differences..... amazing!
The suprise cameo at the end by self-proclaimed trekkie Kelsey Grammar? It could have only been better if he appeared dressed as Sideshow Bob.
I loved this episode very much. I did show this to my college roommate a few years ago, and I was suprised by his reaction to it. He was kind of annoyed to be watching the same scenes over and over again. (He was more of a sports fan then Trek, but it is what it is.) I tried to explain what was going on but I think it just kind of went over his head.
I remember too I think Brannon Braga or Ronald D. Moore mentioned on one of the blu-rays that when the episode aired, a lot of viewers were calling TV stations telling them that their broastcast was bugged and repeating over and over again.
The scenes weren't that similar. And sports get really repetitive too.
Every time it's like:
"Eject the warp core!"
"Sir, ejection systems are offline!"
I get why it's like that, if they solved every imminent warp core explosion by just ejecting the warp core, there wouldn't be an ingenious plan with Picard saying "Make it so!" and they stop it at the last second.
"Eject the warp core!"
"Sir, ejection systems are offline!"
I get why it's like that, if they solved every imminent warp core explosion by just ejecting the warp core, there wouldn't be an ingenious plan with Picard saying "Make it so!" and they stop it at the last second.
Insurrection had a great scene, with Riker ordering Geordi to eject the core and Geordi responding, "I just did."
Agreed. I could not have said it better myself. I was totally surprised by his reaction to the episode as it is one of my favorites and very well written.
To put things into perspective, I did once watch "Parallels" with my roommate, and he seemed to enjoy that episode more than "Cause & Effect" He was also exposed to the idea of parallel universes/the multiverse from Family Guy before watching this episode, so I think Seth MacFarlane helped lol.
Now I'm curious what kind of life your friend lived, where Family Guy was his first exposure to Family Guy.
The trope became overused but it was a good trope to introduce a sense of urgency with, which is why it ended up being overused.
But it did create the impression these Galaxy class ships are a lot more fragile... 
TMP-TUC had the best look, with the blue glow on only when warp engines were in use. TNG kept them on 24/7, maybe the development of "always on tech" led to the issue in "Cause and Effect".
^^this.
GREAT points!
There does seem to be a trade-off.
Nice. It might need a recap if you start seeing wavy lines going through the screen. Replacing the 9VAC adapter with a 9VDC adapter will help if the 1000uf (or was it 2200uf) is the cause of the lines. Replacing them all will extend the lifespan of the microchips, which are probably 100nm and are why they could probably last for 30+ years of 8 hour day constant use whereas today's 10nm fabricated chips might fail within 5 (like some DDR3 RAM I'd bought a few years ago though it was probably 17nm... the more narrow the thinness just means greater chance of electromigratrion, but I digress from a digression -- The NES uniquely has a built in AC to DC converter and allows for either AC or DC PSUs to be attached. Just use 850ma or 1A modules...
Oops. I just explained a possible reason for that above, adding that more heat hastens entropy and other heat-accelerated degredation. These newer systems may not have the best designed and/or implemented cooling mechanisms installed either. (Or any at all, which just makes them cheap no matter how much it costs.) That's why my 2009 iMac died early; the temperature monitor showed (what was not uncommon across the line, I discovered) 50C idle and 102C under load, of which neither is acceptable on any CPU discussion board where the iMac and PC both use the same CPU. So guess which side I'd rely on, and it's not the one that says "Macs are designed like that" - erm, no, not when the CPU is the same and shared across multiuple platforms. Apple designs the case and the aluminium does not double as a heatsink and, indeed, it can do more to insulate heat if used as an enclosure with no heatsink attached directly to it... It's a horrible engineering design and it's repeated among many of their systems but most of such users don't do 3D rendering, video encoding, or anything truly CPU intensive unless it's on a Mac Pro (any except the horrifically bad compact "trashcan" model (I didn't coin that term but after reading reviews understand why many use it), and even then I'd probably retrofit proper heatsink compound for CPU and northbridge (if not southbridge too, why not) and a better fan, if not watercooling...)
Which is a great one, told in sci-fi in a way I certainly wasn't expecting much less thinking about until now. Despite Scotty joked about it in TSFS as well about more complex plumbing making the drains easier to clog and I'd seen that in 1984!
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